Welcome back.  If you missed Part I of this article, I highly suggest you go check it out to find
out what Rule #1 is all about.  You can check it out here: READ PART 1 HERE

Today I want to cover Rule #2, which is a very important rule of effective “Next Generation”
email marketing.

Rule #2 RELEVANCE

Let me tell you a quick story about an experience I recently had.  I purchased a service from
someone online.  I was in his follow up sequence which was fine.  The problem was that
the follow up sequence kept promoting me to purchase the service I just purchased.  This was very
annoying because I had already purchased what he was promoting yet the email messages
continued to come.

The dumbest thing you can do (sorry for the harsh language) is send emails to people
that are not relevant to them.  This will certainly not work in your favor.  If you just
purchased a product or service do you want to keep receiving emails promoting that
product or service that you already purchased yesterday?  How about if you are promoting
a gender specific product or service?  Do you want to send it out to the wrong gender?

Make sure that you are sending relevant emails to people, this will certainly increase your
email marketing success.  This is a key component.  You need to realize that in order
to get your email messages across, you need to make sure the emails you send are
relevant to the reader.

How about this example.  Imagine that you just purchased a nice suit or dress either online or in a
store and a day later you get an email telling you that you can save money on that
product.  Would that bother you?  Maybe you would go back the store and demand a refund
of the extra money you spent or maybe you would just be mad about it. Either way, as the
email sender or business, this would not be very beneficial to your business.

Again, this comes back to relevance of emails.  When using your email to communicate with
your prospects or existing customers, make sure that what you send is relevant to them.  This
is a major benefit of “Next Generation” email marketing.

Stay tuned for Rule #3 because this rule is one of the most important aspects to email
marketing success.

If you have any questions, please leave your comments below or if you would like to find out how Automatic Profit Solutions can manage your email marketing campaigns for you using
“Next Generation” email marketing solutions, please call us at 888-931-4609 for more information.

Chances are that you have received some type of email promotion from a business
in the last day or so right?  And hopefully by now as a business owner, marketing director
for your company, or even a sales or service professional you have been taking advantage
of email marketing to grow your prospect list, your business and your sales.

Or perhaps you believe email marketing won’t work for your industry or profession or
that it is a complete waste of time because when you get those marketing email promotions,
you just delete them right away. Whatever you may believe or have been doing, here is
the brutally honest truth.

EMAIL MARKETING IS NOT DEAD

In fact, email marketing is no more dead than letter writing, talking on the telephone,
or texting for that matter.  But it is pretty safe to say that that email marketing is no longer
cutting edge technology anymore or that the old ways of email marketing are becoming extinct.

When email first became a popular mode of communication, it virtually changed the
way communication worked in a way that can only be compared to the invention of the
telephone. Email combined the quickness of a telephone conversation with the ability to
document what was said of a letter writing exchange.

At the time to be able to send an email that reached the recipient’s email box in a moments
time even if they were on the other side of the world was mind blowing.  I can remember
the first time I got email, I was in college at the time and I thought it was the coolest thing ever.

Email quickly became a tool used by many companies large and small to promote their
products and services.  The benefits that email marketing provided was tremendous. Things
like speed to market, cost, and return on investment (ROI) were the main reasons.

So in the last decade marketing your products and services using email as the primary
mode of communication with your customers, clients, or prospects has grown in two parallel
lines. The legitimate side of email marketing and customer support has grown and
become more sophisticated and useful.

Many local and national businesses were able to build impressive online business
empires supported by email marketing and ongoing email communications with a growing
customer and prospect base.

But it was the other parallel line that grew like a cancer to the point that it ruined email
communications and has interfered with email deliverability for the many legitimate email
based internet merchants working in cyberspace. The spam merchants working with
sophisticated mass mailing services and software have flooded email boxes of every citizen
of cyberspace to such an extent that without spam control software both at the server level
and at the desk top level, it is virtually impossible to use email for routine purposes any more.

But enough about the doom and gloom.  The fact is, email marketing is alive and well and
can still be an effective tool to grow your sales, profits, and business.  But, the old way of
email marketing is dead and already out dated.  In fact, the “Next Generation” of email
marketing has already began.

The fact is the majority of businesses and companies today either don’t know how to use email marketing effectively or they have not adapted to the “Next Generation” of email marketing yet.

You see the enemy is not “spam filters”.  Yes, it’s true that not 100% of your emails will
get through to your customers, or prospects, but that is not the real problem.  There is no
perfect system or solution out there BUT, there are 4 simple rules to follow to create the most
effective email marketing campaigns out there today that will turn prospects into buyers,
buyers into customers, and customers into repeat customers.

So over the next several days, you will discover the 4 simple rules to follow that can
create a massive influx of sales, revenues, and profits using email marketing.

Here is your first rule.

Rule #1  BUILD BETTER RELATIONSHIPS

Whoever is in charge of marketing your products or services in your company or
business needs to build a loyal relationship with your customers, clients, patients or
whatever your call a person that does business with your company.  You need to create
value for these people and you also need to show them your appreciation.

When you do this effectively, you will have a much greater chance that when you email
these people that they will read what you are saying or better yet, buy what you are offering.
You see, business is about people and when you build a community of followers, they will
actually look forward to hearing from you.

Also, when we are talking about email it is not just about sending email marketing promotions.
That’s right, email marketing is about communicating with your prospects, customers, clients,
patients, members, etc.  This is where you create the value.  I can assure you that if all you do
is send email promotions for sales, you will quickly be ignored and forgotten.

Bottom line is YOU NEED TO BUILD A STRONG RELATIONSHIP with your prospects and
your existing customers in order for your email marketing to be effective.

Follow Rule #1 and you will see a massive change in your email marketing results.

Stay tuned for Rule #2, you won’t want to miss this one!

If you have any questions, please leave your comments below or if you would like to find out how Automatic Profit Solutions can manage your email marketing campaigns for you using “Next Generation” email marketing solutions, please call us at 888-931-4609 for more information.

I was working with the sales person recently at a car dealership and he seemed very
professional and knowledgeable at the time.  In fact, I did buy a vehicle from him that
day.  We spoke about lots of things as I was waiting for paperwork and such to be finalized.
It turns out we even knew some people in common.

Well, let me tell you what happened from there. Before I left he said he would call me
in a few days to clear up a few things and check in with me.  I had such a positive
experience so I told him that I was going to write a card to the CEO of the car dealership
about my experience and how he was such an asset to the organization.

So I go home that day and write a card just like I said I was going to.  I also sent him a
thank you card with a $10 dollar gift certificate for Starbucks coffee because in our
conversations he said he liked coffee.

Before I bore you to death, let me just explain what happened in the past few days
and weeks after the sale that will make sure he will never have a repeat customer again.

A few days go by after my car purchase and no call.  A few more weeks go by and
still no call. In fact, he was suppose to call when my new license plates come in.
A month goes by and still no call.  To make things worse, my temporary license
plate tag had expired.

So I decided to take matters into my own hands.  I stopped by the dealership to
ask if my tags were in.  They were of course but I never got a call.  The sales manager
who was at the front who helped me find out if my tags were in said “Didn’t your
salesperson call you about this?”  My response was NO.  Well he was clearly upset
about it and apologized for that.

So lets recap this transaction:

• I sent him a Thank You card with a $10 gift card

• I sent a card to the CEO of the dealership on his behalf, and in return he completely dropped the ball.

• I didn’t even get a thank you card from him.  After all, I bought the car from him, not the other way around.

This sales person sure did promise a lot and then completely deliver not a little,
but NOTHING.  I am sure that the CEO would love to know how many times this
is happening in his organization each day.

Repeat buyers of your products or services is literally the most profitable aspect
of any business.  If you make the sale, you need to cultivate that sale and turn that
sale into repeat business.

**You can check out another blog post that will show you exactly what I am talking about
Click Here to read that article.**

Make sure that if you do anything in your business that you under promise and
OVER DELIVER!  Make sure you value and appreciate your customers, clients,
and patients because without them, you won’t have a business very long! This is
exactly why I created my VAP Factor marketing and business model.

If you want to find out what the VAP Factor is and how it is the
“The Most Effective and Profitable Marketing Secret On The Planet”  you
can get your free copy by going to my website at www.AutomaticProfitSolutions.com

or simply click on the graphic below to take you there right now.

If you are CEO, business owner, or service professional, you have probably been
confronted with the problem of having to choose which types of marketing strategies
to use to generate more visibility, leads and sales for your organization. These
strategies could be either offline or online.  Maybe you are using your website effectively
to do this, or maybe you don’t fully understand how effective and profitable your website
can be to market your products or services.

Perhaps you have been one of those businesses that continuously leap from one
marketing idea to the next in the hope of finding the Holy Grail. But the measure of
real success depends really on the how you have created your marketing tool not
merely on your choice of strategy. Surely, using posters can be better than flyers
depending on your type of business. But your choices of words and content will still
be the determining factor whether your target customers will patronize your products
or services.

Increasing visibility, leads, sales, and new customers from your website can be quite
easy and profitable if you know what to do. There are a few things you need to
consider when driving traffic to your website.

The first one is that the more website visitors you have, the greater the chance that
you can convert those visitors into actual buyers.  (More on conversions in another post)

Hence, to increase traffic to your site, you need the right strategies to get more people
to your website.

One very effective way to do this is by your Blog.  Blogs have been used by many
companies and businesses for the past few years quite extensively. It has been one
of the most loved marketing strategies of people and search engines because they
offer readers new information in an easy-to-read layout and in an entertaining manner.

You can blog about all sorts of things like handy tips, mistakes to avoid, funny stories
about the use of your products or services, and more.  You can even have video and
other great things to enhance your blog post.

Certainly, this is not a “How To Blog” course, but merely a strategy that you can
implement to help you gain more website traffic to your website.

Just having a website alone will do nothing for your company unless you know how to
effectively use it as a marketing and advertising machine that works for you 24 hours
a day 7 days a week!

How would you feel if you could send out all the information that your potential
clients, customers, or patients have requested without lifting a finger?

While this may seem impossible, it is becoming more and more popular among the most
successful businesses and companies in order to create an automated follow up and
marketing system.

So how can you do this? Simple:  It’s called an Autoresponder system!

An autoresponder system is an automatic method of responding to emails
sent by existing or potential customers and is a must for any business or
organization. Time is money and answering e-mails personally takes far too
much of your already valuable time for you and your customers. Auto responders
allow you to spend more time on other important aspects of your business whilst
the customer receives the information required almost immediately and automatically!

Because of the versatility of autoresponders they can be used by practically any type
of business. Answering questions about products and services, creating sales, providing
information on pricing and delivery including being used to welcome new customers to
your website and thanking them for visiting.

So, why use an autoresponder system when you can list the information on your
website?

I was just doing a speaking event last week and someone from the audience asked me the
exact same question.

Here is the answer (or at least a few of them).  For one, you only have about 5 to 7
seconds to catch the attention of your website visitor.  While you many have this
information somewhere on your website, there is a huge chance that no one will ever read it.

Second reason, the correct autoresponder system can capture leads for you.  It can also
follow up with your potential prospects on autopilot.  It can also organize a segmented
database for you…WITHOUT YOU DOING ANYTHING!

There are certainly even more benefits than these but hey, this is just a blog post,
not a book!

It is crucial for you to choose the right one. Buying an autoresponder is the the easy part.
Choosing the right one for you that does everything you want it and need it to do is another,
and knowing how to effectively use it in your marketing is even more important.

Who can tell you which one is best for you? Good question.  The answer is not so simple.

First, you need to determine the purpose of your autoresponder system.  What is it
that you want it to do for your company?  Do you want it to simply emaila list of people
or do you want to create an entire marketing system for your business?

You can find some that are free or low cost and you can find ones that
can do everything except cook you dinner.  Which one is the right one? The
simple answer is it depends on your needs.

Autoresponders are one of the most important marketing tools you can use today
in your business if you know how to use them effectively.

Finally the automatic responses of the autoresponder will give you freedom and
flexibility to save you time while increasing your market reach and follow up.
It can bring you an increase in leads, sales, and repeat buyers on total autopilot.

Can it work for your business?  I’d say it most likely can!

Want to know the fastest way to double your business income?
The proof is in the charts.

But consider what the significance would be if you were to increase each category
by only 10 percent?

The cumulative increase would be 46.4 percent! Not a bad increase in anyone’s book!

Think about your own business. How difficult would it be for you to increase the number
of customers you have by 10 percent? How about getting just 10 percent more from each
purchase?

And, with a little extra effort, do you think it would be difficult to get your customers… people
who are already doing business with you, who know you, like you, and trust you… to buy
more often or stay with you just 10 percent longer?

If you think about it, it probably wouldn’t take much to accomplish any of those goals.
But the resultant increase in income would be incredible.

Now take a look at your own business. In the table below, put in the number of current
customers (clients, patients, etc.) you have, how much they spend with you on average,
how many times they buy from you in a years’ time, and how long they do business with
you before they no longer need the products or services you sell, or they move to another
supplier or vendor.

Then, run some quick calculations on what would happen if you were to increase each of
the categories by whatever percentages you think would be realistic and doable for your
particular business in the current economy.

**Side Note:  If you don’t know all of those four things in your business, that is the first
indication that you are not maximizing your revenue and profit generating potential.
This needs to be fixed IMMEDIATELY.**

So I hope that you can see that if you just strive to increase a little bit each each of
these four areas that your income and revenues will skyrocket just with a few little tweaks.

Don’t make things more difficult than they really are.

Time and time again, you always hear terms like “my business is different” or “that won’t work for my business”.  I am talking about marketing your business, products, or services.  When you get right down to it, marketing does work if it is done correctly.

Here is a formula to use when marketing any business, service, or product.  It’s called the 3 P’s of Marketing.

P #1- Passion.  Whatever you are doing, what ever business you are running, whatever product or service you are selling, you better be passionate about it or else you are in big trouble. If you don’t love what you are doing, if you don’t believe in what you are selling it is very difficult to get others to buy into it too.  Whether you are training a staff member or directly selling to potential buyer, if you are not behind what you are doing, the results will be bleak.  Think to yourself why are you doing what you do?  If you are a business owner, go back to why you wanted to be a business owner in the first place?   What was the passion behind you starting your own business.  If you represent a product, you better be passionate about it or maybe you are selling the wrong thing.

P #2- Purpose.  Before you doing anything in your business, whether it be creating an advertisement, website, or marketing materials you first have to answer one major questions…”What is the purpose of ___________?”  If you are building a website for example, what is the purpose of your website?  Is it to give away information?  How about collect leads?  Is it to sell something?  Or is to have them pick up the phone and call you?  If you don’t have a purpose, it is difficult to create something.

It amazes me how often I speak to business owners and sales professionals about various marketing strategies and when I look at their materials, it is not very clear what you want them to do.  Websites are notoriously bad at this.  People say well I have a website.  That is great to have a website but what is your websites purpose?  Many times this question can not be answered.  Make sure that for all your advertising and marketing that you can answer this simple question.  Once you answer it, make sure your marketing piece clearly matches your purpose.

P #3- Profitability.  The reason for being in business is to make a profit.  Even non-profits need to make money (profits) so they can give those profits to their cause. If your company makes 1 million dollars in revenue but your operating costs are 1 million dollars, there is no profit.  Same for if your company makes 100 million dollars and your operating costs are 100 million dollars.

The same holds true for any of your marketing.  The purpose of marketing anything is to get a return on your investment.  If your marketing is not being profitable, it is not being effective.  There are many reasons this can happen that we won’t get into here but the bottom line is whatever you are doing in your marketing efforts it needs to be profitable for you in the long run.

So there is the 3 P marketing formula.  If you have all 3 of these, you will have a business that will be around for a long time.

Marketing your products and services is critical to your business growth and long term success.  Make sure that you are doing the right things in your marketing efforts to make that happen.

In case you haven’t noticed, I have not made a post in quite a while.  Well life sometimes throws you a change up that you will never be ready for.

As of this posting my Mom passed away a little over 2 weeks ago.  She was perfectly healthy until about 6 months ago when it was discovered that she had a tumor growing in her abdomen.  It turns out that it was a very rare and aggressive cancer, only several hundred people are diagnosed each year in the United States with this.

To make a fairly short story even shorter, she became very ill and I along with other family members were there by her side over the last month.

I spoke at her service and in that service I spoke about relationships because in the end, that is really all that you have.  And it reminded me that life is not much different in business either.

You see in business, the most overlooked opportunity that I see occuring daily is that people don’t build lasting relationships with the people that do business with them anymore.  Sure there are a few out there doing it and doing it well but they are the minority.  I am willing to say that over 90% are not doing it.  I know it happens to you to because it is happening to everyone.

All over the United States (and I am sure the world) you are becoming a victim of businesses that just seem to forget about you.  A place that you really like that never does anything to let you know how they appreciate you and that they want you to come back in again.  I know it happens because it happens to me on a regular basis and I know it happens to others too…guaranteed.  The business you are really in should be the relationship business with the people that do business with you!

When it comes down to life and business it’s about building relationships.  The only real difference is that the business relationship needs to be profitable for a business or company.  Marketing your products or services should be focused on building relationships with people that do business with you so they continue to do business with you.  This is the most profitable marketing strategy out there.  You don’t need a fancy degree or title to figure this stuff out.

Ask any business owner or company what they need more of and they almost always say more customers or more clients or patients.  The reality is, if they have been in business for any length chances are they do have enough but they just don’t realize how to make the ones they already have buy from them again and again.

Acquiring new “business” is very expensive and most businesses put a lot of money into advertising to attract those new people.  Then once they get someone to buy something, they completely move on to finding more people.

THAT IS A TERRIBLE MISTAKE!

What happened to the relationship there?  You cared enough about them to get them in but you don’t care enough about them to build a relationship that is profitable in the long term.  You can’t do that in today’s challenging and competitive business world.

During my Mom’s illness one thing that was clear was that she had built a wonderful relationship with people in her life.  The outpouring of support and visitors was evidence that she did something right in her life.

I tell you this story because like all stories there is a valuable lesson to be learned.  Although at the time, I was not thinking about business, after the fact, it was clear that you can make a strong case that with life and business you should focus on one thing and that is relationships.  When it comes to marketing your products and services, you should focus on one thing and that is building relationships.

In closing, I would like to say to my Mom that we had a great relationship and that you will be missed.  I love you.

Most businesses either don’t attract a sufficient number of new customers, new clients, new patients, or they let their existing ones slip away. And, in most cases, it isn’t always because the owners, managers or operators of those businesses didn’t try.

Quite often, it’s a result of not understanding and implementing effective “customer-getting” and “customer-keeping” strategies.  Well, it doesn’t matter what you call people that do business with you (customers, clients, patients, members)…

The bottom line is…

If you really want your business to see maximum profitability and growth, you’ve got to make keeping your customers, clients, or  patients your number one priority.

Let me put it another way. When was the last time you heard of a company going out of business because they had too many happy, satisfied customers buying from them? My guess is, never.

On the other hand, you can probably name quite a few businesses that are no longer around because they didn’t have enough people buying from them, coming back for more and referring others to them.

Sounds simple right?  Well it is, yet this is overlooked or seen as a secondary focus by many businessess and companies today. This is by far the easiest way to generate more sales and more profits!

Take a look at your business and company and ask yourself this “Am I doing everything possible to get my existing clients or customers to buy from me more often?”  If your answer is NO, then it is time to look at how you can take better care of those people!  Take care of them and they will never use another company or business again.

For more information please visit out website at www.AutomaticProfitSolutions.com

So, Why Should Your Customers And Prospects Do Business With You, Rather Than

Your Competition?

If you really want your business to be as successful as it can be, to thrive and not just survive, and to maximize the investment you’ve made in it, you’ve got to continually find ways to offer your customers unique advantages they can’t get anywhere else.  When you do, you’ll gain your customers’ loyalty, motivate them to do more business with you more often, keep them as customers for a long time, and inspire them to tell their other business associates, friends and family members about you.

In other words, if you can give your customers unique, compelling and profitable reasons to do business with you over and over again, they’ll not only keep you in business, they’ll make you incredibly wealthy and successful in the process. Your existing or past clients or customers have already had at least one buying experience with you, so they are familiar with you, your products, or your services. If you’ve done your job well, and made them feel special, valued, and appreciated the likelihood of them doing business with you again is greatly enhanced. Trust and credibility have already been established. Now all you need to do is make them an enticing offer.

On the other hand, new prospects… those who haven’t had the same buying experience with you, require much more time, effort and money to bring them to the same point of trust as your current clients. You first have to get your new prospect’s attention. You do that with ads, sales letters, newsletters, postcards, telemarketing campaigns and a variety of other types of media. Then, you nurture them, hold their hand, and walk them step-by-step through the trust-building phase just to get them up to the beginning level of trust that your current customers were at when they began doing business with you.

You have to lead them up the Loyalty Ladder, from Suspect to Prospect, then on to Shopper, and eventually to Customer, Client, Advocate and finally, to Raging Fan.

When you have masted this one technique alone, you will virtually guarantee your business success.

For more great tips and strategies, visit us at www.automaticprofitsolutions.com