My 2¢ Worth

ere's something which burns my butt! By now you've all heard of the Michigan and Utah laws recently passed under the guise of protecting children. But they're really just laws against spam.

hese new laws will do little to protect children and unfortunately not stop spam either. But that's not the part that burns me.

pparently the State of Michigan has found a way to make a little money off their spam law. Actually a lot of money. I'd call it a tax. Since the Michigan and Utah laws are similar, I would imagine Utah will be collecting some money as well.

ere's how it works in Michigan. The Michigan act sets up a state "Do Not Contact" registry. Anyone may add E-mail addresses, instant messaging addresses, and telephone numbers to the registry. Under the act, people who send certain otherwise-legitimate E-mail messages are guilty of a felony if they send even a single message to an address that's in the registry.

nyone who sends E-mail is required to pay fees every 30 days to check their E-mail list against the state registry. The fees required to check the registry are nothing but a tax on legitimate E-mailers as far as I'm concerned.

his shouldn't affect Michigan's private citizens. Yet...

 wonder how long it will be before the other States adopt similar legislation?

Feature Article

Making More With Existing Clients

by: Charlie Cook charliecook.net

Have you ever put on a jacket you haven't worn in a while and found a twenty-dollar bill in one of the pockets? You'd forgotten all about it, so discovering it is like getting a gift. If you've been in business for a year or longer, you may have gifts in forgotten pockets - sources of additional revenue waiting to be discovered and tapped.

There are four ways to increase your net profits: reduce costs, increase prices, attract more clients or sell more to existing clients. When you consider that it costs you at least 60% and as much as 600% more to sell to a new client than to an existing one, it's clear that your best prospects are existing clients.

Are you selling as many of your services or products as you could to your existing client base? Could you increase your revenue by doing a better job of marketing to your existing clients?

You've established your credibility and the value of at least one of your services with existing clients. They made a commitment to work with you at least once. How can you leverage this trust and client satisfaction into additional sales?

Tony called me from Washington D.C. with just this problem. He is an image consultant to politicians and corporate executives and struggling to increase his revenue. His new clients are happy with his services, but the engagements rarely extend beyond the initial contracted project. He is having a tough time getting repeat business. Tony knows his existing and past clients represent additional revenue but he doesn't know how to mine it.

Once you have a client, what's the best way to sell them more of your products or services?

The biggest mistake that most small business owners make is to think that after they've competed the initial s.ale, their marketing job is completed. The opposite is true. Once you've made your first s.ale to a client and secured a commitment from them with a payment, you should begin your marketing effort to get them to buy again.

Of course, you don't want to constantly be "selling" to clients. That would get tedious for you and your customers and they'd be unlikely to want to maintain the relationship. Instead, continue to educate them about their areas of need and how you help clients. Use your products and services to provide value and to educate clients so they can discover what they need and want, even if they've n.ever thought about it before.

For example, I've been working with a sports trainer to complete my recovery from shoulder surgery. In our first session he showed me which muscles needed to be reprogrammed with exercise to return to normal functioning. The obvious conclusion of his explanation was that I needed to work with him again to achieve my goals. Just by sharing a little knowledge he successfully extended the project.

This approach isn't clever or devious; it is based on the notion that an informed buyer - an educated consumer - is your best client. Here's how it works in practice:

1. Help Prospects Become Clients by Focusing on their Problems

People buy solutions to problems or needs that they know exist. Get your prospects' attention by focusing your marketing message on the problem(s) you solve in order to get them to visit your web site or contact you. Then use your conversation or your marketing copy to help prospects further define their problems or concerns. Do this well and they'll clearly see the need for your products and services.

2. Continue to Educate Prospects and Clients

Clients buy from you when they know how you can help them. That's why they initially contracted with you or bought your products and services. Once you've signed on a new client, don't assume that they understand the range of services or products you market. They may not even fully understand what they've bought. Use each contact to continue to educate your clients and help them understand the issues, problems and solutions relative to your area of expertise.

For example if you're a financial advisor and you've been hired to help a client with their investments, you might ask them a q.uestion about their estate planning, tax situation, insur.ance policies or retirement plan and provide them with an idea they can use. Each time you do this your client will learn how limited their own knowledge is and understand more about why they need your assistance in additional areas.

Instead of selling clients on additional services, educate them. You'll create a perception of need and increase sales.

3. Transform Client Satisfaction into Additional Sales

Do you have clients and customers that appreciate your products and services? Don't wait until your contract is complete to tap the goodwill you've generated by helping them. Regularly ask them q.uestions designed to get responses like, "I couldn't have done it without you", "Worth every penny", etc. Just after your clients have provided positive feedback is the perfect time to ask them a couple of questions to identify needs and to mention the solutions you provide.

Once you've gone to all the effort to attract a new client don't walk away from the rest of their needs just because they haven't identified or clarified them yet. Educate your prospects and clients at every step of the way about the problems you solve and they'll understand why they need more of your products and services. You'll discover pockets of opportunity to help your clients and increase your revenue.

**************

The author, Charlie Cook, helps service professionals, small business owners and marketing professionals attract more clients and be more successful. Sign up to receive the Free Marketing Plan eBook, '7 Steps to get more clients and grow your business' at www.marketingforsuccess.com

Indenting Text

The <blockquote> tag enables you to indent your text from the left and right margins within your web page. however, it won't enable you to indent your text from just one side.

If you would like to indent your text from the left margin only, you can use the <ul> tag (the same tag you would use to create a bulleted list). the only difference is that you won't use the <li> tags with it. your text will be indented just as a bulleted list is, but there won't be any bullets.

Here is an example using the <ul> tag without the <li> tags. I have created a border to signify a web page. Notice how the text is indented from the left margin only. Perhaps the best part is that this technique displays well on all major browsers and validates too!

* Get these syndicated tip feeds for yourweb site, free. *

Second Article

Importance of Integrated Marketing

by: Scott F. Geld Marketing Blaster, Inc.

In today's world when there is a trend towards old wine in a new bottle thinking many a people don~t take integrated marketing seriously. They simply consider it to bet yet another fad, here today gone tomorrow. However, this is not the case. In fact, integrated marketing is an amalgamation of all the marketing roles, resources and responsibilities catering to all kinds of customers. These customers could be present or future, internal or external. The function of integrated marketing is to attract the customers through marketing, promotional and customer service activities. It is due to the far-reaching approach of integrated marketing that many companies consider it to be the smart option.

The key driver for implementing integrated marketing is that when everything works together, you have a higher chance of delivering successful outcomes on your marketing and business goals. Having several different departments who don't talk to each other does not send a unified message to your audience and can wreak havoc with your branding. You are also wasting resources by not pooling ideas or having a cohesive unit that is strong and manageable. Unfocused marketing efforts are ineffective and wasteful.

Integrating all aspects of marketing into one department ensures that your company's strategic marketing plan is being followed because it can be led, driven, monitored and championed by one or two individuals. If each department does their own marketing, it's difficult to measure and evaluate the results effectively. Also, why leave the marketing up to accountants, assistants, and IT people? Marketing should be done by marketers. Accounting should be done by accountants. It just makes sense to get certain professionals to do the jobs they are trained for.

This new strategy of having integrated marketing set up, where all aspects of marketing are clubbed under one department ensures that there is one common strategic marketing plan which is being followed. Since there is one marketing department for all the divisions, the marketing plan will be driven, led, monitored and the responsibility of few select professionals. In a scenario where each division of the company has its own marketing plan and activities, it is difficult to measure and evaluate the results and effectiveness of each divisions plans. At times in these kind of scenarios, it is difficult to hire marketing professionals, specially if the amount of marketing activity for that division does not permit the hiring of an extra professional. In these situations say for an accounts division, an accountant will be given the additional responsibility of handling the marketing activities for that division. There is no point in getting marketing activities handled by the accounts people and vice-versa. Marketing should be done by marketing professionals and Accounting should be done by accountants, period. It makes good business sense to get certain professionals to do the jobs they are trained for.

For good and an effective marketing program it is important that all your marketing resources should work together each complementing the other. This is important to keep your brand identity strong. Don~t make the mistake of scattering your resources and saying one thing to the press and another in the print ad. All your messages to the people should say the same thing. Otherwise, you will end up with a weak, unproductive marketing program with thinning resources.

**************

Scott F. Geld is the Director of Marketing for MarketingBlaster.com, a company specializing in affordable traffic (5 cents/visitor) and direct links for $5/link. For more information please visit: www.MarketingBlaster.com

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