Author: Patrick Griffin

Patrick Griffin has been marketing online for 15 years. He's a serial entrepreneur and an avid email and content marketing enthusiast with a background in publishing and journalism, including a UK Press Award.

Why The Feelgood Factor Is Absolutely Critical

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 keep your customers happy

The chances are that in business you will want to keep your customers happy.

After all happy customers are good because they:

  • don’t complain about you
  • don’t cause any problems
  • buy more from you and
  • encourage their friends to buy from you

One of the reasons you use a service like RocketResponder to communicate with your customers is to help ensure they feel valued by you.

You want to keep them happy and one way of doing that is in the communications you have with them via email.

It makes sense that another way you keep them happy is by ensuring that the goods or services you provide are of real value to them and constantly exceed their expectations.

The concept of value here is a very interesting one. Consider the following question:

What is more important, the actual value provided by the goods ore services you offer or the perceived value that the customer has of it?”

If you think it is the absolute, actual value then studies have shown that you are wrong.

Your customers will be more influenced by the value that they perceive their purchase to have – irrespective of its actual value to them.

This means:

  • your customers will be satisfied if the perceived value is better than the actual value
  • your customers will not be happy – and thus unlikely to make further purchases from you – if the actual performance of what they bought is quite good but they perceive it to be bad.

Basically they want to feel good about the purchase and feel good that the purchase is right for them and for their lives.

Think about what you offer and think how you consider your customers would perceive the value to be.

Next time we will look at what influences this perceived value.

The Danger of Discounting Prices Too Often

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Discounting Prices Too Often

You will already know about the importance of communicating with your subscribers and customers. Now we discuss the danger of discounting prices too often.

RocketResponder is a tool which allows you to ensure that important messages are always sent out regularly and on time.

This post deals with another important message which you may be inadvertently sending out if you are in a position where you set your own prices.

Obviously if you are an affiliate marketer then you don’t control the price but this information is still important to you if you offer bonuses or other extras to tempt in customers to buy from you.

Your customer will tend to have a price in their head which they consider a “fair price” for whatever it is they are buying.

This applies to everything from a can of soft drink to a new car or a luxury holiday.

If you sell goods which are at or below the “fair price” level then it is far more likely that someone will buy from you than a higher priced competitor.

Often marketers will try to give themselves an edge over their competition by lowering their prices – maybe for a holiday-themed special offer, a special sale or some other reason to discount on the normal higher price.

Similarly affiliate marketers will often include an exclusive package of bonuses to customers who buy the goods or services being promoted through their affiliate link. Bonuses could include a cash-back payment, free bonus products, free reports or free training on how to use the item being purchased.

As one off tactics – such as during an initial product launch or over a Black Friday weekend – these can be very lucrative indeed.

The danger comes if, in order to continue gaining a competitive advantage, you offer the discounted deal over and over again.

Now the discounted deal or the deal with all the added bonuses is so generally expected that this becomes the new “fair price” in the buyer’s mind.

So if you try to raise it to the old “normal” price again your customers will be less likely to buy from you and will tend to wait until you offer the discount again.

The lesson is that it is always a good marketing tactic to offer discounts – especially seasonal discounts – but don’t discount so often that the lower prices become regarded as normal in the mind of the consumer.

 

 

Branding Is More Important Now Than Ever It Was

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Email communication tips

Email communication tips: In the last post we discussed how branding has been compared to a religious experience for many.

Today I heard a new way of describing branding…and it certainly helps demonstrate how important it is in today’s marketplace.

Marketing expert Liz Papagni said this:

“Marketing without branding is like fishing without a hook.”

Think about that for a moment.

What Liz is saying here is that without branding, then marketing is futile.

Maybe her message is a little extreme because marketing will certainly get your message out to people but it is a laborious process which needs to repeated well..for ever or for as long as you want to remain in business.

But branding is the opposite. Branding is a tool which will pull customers in to you. Use marketing to push your message out there and use branding to pull customers in to you.

Liz goes on to say in her post:

“In an ideal world, a solid brand should precede your marketing. However, that’s not to say it’s ever too late to begin developing a branding plan for the future. No matter when you start, it’s sure to offer immense benefit to your marketing program and outcomes.”

Branding, done properly will also help you to better communicate with your customers and RocketResponder is one of the best tools you could use to ensure your email communication is done effortlessly and efficiently.

If you have never really thought about branding before then check out Liz’s post as it sets out some very important points about why branding is such a powerful too.

After all you wouldn’t go fishing without a hook on the end of the line.

 

Use Branding To Gain Passionate and Loyal Customers

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gain passionate and loyal customers

If you have had any dealings with the owners and staff of RocketResponder, you will know one thing…use branding to gain passionate and loyal customers.

The passion comes from wanting to design new products which are useful, simple to use and which make the lives of their customers easier or more profitable.

It makes sense that if you own a business that you should be passionate about it…if you are not then it will be a constant struggle to make that business work.

So let’s look at things from a different perspective.

How passionate are your customers about your business? Because it also must surely follow that if your customers are not really passionate about what you do then it will also be a constant struggle to make your business work.

Research has shown that one of the best ways to get passionate customers is to build a strong brand. In fact if you can do this right then you will build a powerful army of evangelistic customers who will want to go out and spread the word about how good your brand is.

I use the word “evangelistic” on purpose because I recently read one branding expert refer to brand loyalty as being a “religious experience” for many people these days.

So pay attention to branding. Maybe you should build your brand around you because that will be one constant in your business?

Maybe you could build it around something else entirely – after all it might not be so helpful to build a brand around you if your ultimate goal is to sell the business on to someone else sometime down the line.

The main message here is to think about branding if you have not already done so.

Do some research of your own if you feel you are weak in this area…it will certainly be time well spent.

 

Why “W” Is Your Best Friend

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Marketing email writing tips

Marketing email writing tips: Sometimes when you have written an email for your RocketResponder subscribers, you may have a nagging feeling that you have left something out.

I know I have done this and I know many other people who have done the same.

It can happen when really important information gets left off such as the links you want your subscribers to click or the date or time that a particular event is taking place.

In these situations having some sort of template or guide can prove very useful and answering the five “W” questions may be a good place to start.

The questions are:

  • Who? – Who will benefit from this email? Who are you looking to target?
  • What? – What are the main points you want to get across? Make sure you cover tham all. What action would you like your subscribers to take after they have read your email.
  • Where? – Where is the action taking place? Is there a physical venue you need to mention or a specific URL you want to direct people to?
  • When? – Is the material time sensitive or is there a deadline or a specific date you must mention in the email?
  • Why? – Why are you writing this now? Why is your offer so good right now or why should your subscriber take the action you want them to take?

Obviously you don’t have to stick to this formula or always cover all the points mentioned but remembering the five “W” questions can act as a good starting point to ensure that the main points get covered each and every time.