Getting your message across to your clients past and present and communicating with prospective customers, email is still a relatively inexpensive and effective marketing tool. Requests for information can be answered swiftly, keeping all customers well informed about your products or services. Invitations to visit your website, advertise seminars, webinars, product launch and special events can all be sent via email.

You are not the only one using this form of communication and people’s Inboxes are full of emails all trying to do the same thing, gain your attention,make you open it, read it and take action. (Surveys show low open rates with a general decrease in the market but B2B rates being 10-20% higher)

To start a conversation,create brand awareness, educate or sell your business via your emails they first have to be opened. If your open rate is nil, your emails are not read then you are never going to be able to inform customers of how good your product/service is. Monitoring your email campaigns can give you useful feedback on open rates, so if there are problems they are highlighted and you can take action to rectify them. The various email / newsletter programs use differing ways to obtain these percentages, so it’s maybe a good idea to stay with one to get a clear picture.

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Price is key in your client/customers perception of your product.

When you are trying to decide how much your product is worth, how your client/customer perceives your product goes a long way towards whether they make the decision to invest.

Under price and your prospective clients/ customers may think that your product is inferior in some way to it’s competitors. Overprice and you could appear to be too expensive with no extras to warrant the cost.

Many may equate low prices with a poor and inferior item or service. A little research into your market may gain you insight into what your clients/customers are willing to pay or expect to pay for a similar product.

Your customers will regard your product as valuable if it solves a problem for them. Rarity and scarcity of a product and 100% no quibble guarantee can improve your sales and let you price your product at a higher level.

If your pricing is too low you will find yourself working for very little revenue with no time or money to use to improve and develop your business. Get your pricing too high and you could lose out to your competitors when your prospective customers/clients deem that your product does not contain enough value for them to invest in.

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I’ve recently stopped telling people I’m a virtual assistant when they ask me what I do. This could happen at business networking events or at a local playgroup.

Why? Because it’s a title (like an accountant or a coach) and doesn’treally tell them anything about what I do and how I add value to my clients’ businesses.

So what would I tell them instead?

My answer is that I’m a business problem solver (or a productivity expert specialising in online marketing depending on who I’m talking to). Because that’s exactly what I do. Let’s look at a few examples of problems that you could have and how we here at TJConsulting can provide you with a solution.

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Guest post by Karen Haller

“People make a subconscious judgement about a person, environment or product within 90 seconds of viewing it.  Between 62% and 90% of that assessment is based on colour alone” – The CCICOLOR-Institute

Beyond the Words, why colour is important for business branding

We are constantly processing information, looking for meaning to what we see.   Before we had the spoken language, our primary signaling system, our language was colour. In nature, red, black and yellow signal danger, warning to stay away and not safe to eat.  For example: red back spider and wasps.

When it comes to marketing, it’s not just the words and logo that convey your brand message.  Did you know the language of colour is communicated quicker to the brain than words or shapes as they work directly on our feelings and emotions?  That’s the power of colour psychology.

You will feel peace and calm when you look at the black and yellow example?  More likely it has the effect of making you feel ‘on alert’, perhaps tightening of breathe.  Now look at the blue example.  Notice how you instantly feel more relaxed and breathing easier.  That’s because light blue is the colour of calm and green represents peace.

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Are you a small business owner? Do you want to grow you business in 2011? And by that I mean increase the turnover and profitability (you do know your vital stats, right?). Generally speaking there are 3 ways to grow any business:

1. Increase the number of clients
2. Increase the average purchase value
3. Increase the frequency of the purchase

Many business owners focus their time and energy on the first strategy – attracting more leads and converting them into sales. They embark on costly PPC campaigns, network like mad at all possible events, send 1000s of leaflets or direct mail letters.

But the easy money in your business rests in the other 2 strategies. You are simply asking people who have previously bought from you to buy more or to buy again.

Getting that elusive first purchase is the hardest deal to close for any business, whether you are B2B or B2C.  Your prospects are terrified of making a mistake, of picking the wrong product and wasting money. Fear of getting it wrong is the main reason that stops them trying something new – you.

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