If you've tuned into my recent webinars, you've heard my analogy of drip marketing being the best employee a company could have. Yes, it is a tongue-in-cheek statement. However, when I explain the analogy to new drip marketing clients, they begin to view the initial drip marketing efforts involved in a whole new light. Let me explain... A drip marketing campaign is a highly-effective tool for automating your marketing messages - and for freeing up your time to pursue other business activities (attending baseball season-openers, for example). To create a successful drip campaign, there is some initial pre-planning and email template creation involved, and it does take considerable time to set-up. So people often ask me, "Well then, how does this actually save me time and money?"

And here is where my analogy comes into play. I simply ask you to consider Drip Marketing (DM) a new employee for just a moment and let's look at how it can successfully contribute to your business.

As you know, with any new hire, you need to invest some initial time training and over-seeing that person. He/she needs to become familiar with the basics, such as how to clock-in, where the office supplies are located, how to use the phone/computer/other systems; then, you move into the meatier elements that help them perform their core job responsibilities. When you think about it, a lot of initial effort goes into training that person to work independently. Then what happens? They quit a year later - and the process starts again. (Insert very large sigh.) With DM, you never have to worry about that! Hence, why I call it the best employee you'll ever have. Look at the other benefits:

• It's cost-effective: With a subscription rate as little as $30/month or at most $150/month, it will likely be the cheapest "salary" you pay. DM has no benefit requirements, it won't call in sick or take vacations - in fact, it works 24/7 and 365 days/year. It won't lie or steal your trademarked secrets or coveted office supplies. DM saves you money, while it makes you money! 
• It's efficient: You spend some initial time developing a thorough, well thought-out campaign, and once it's launched, it will automatically send what you want, to who you want and when you want it sent. You can rest easy while on that much-needed tropical vacation knowing your customers are still receiving your important messages. In fact, unless you tell them, they'll never know you were gone. Can someone say, "Pass me my 9 iron, and another fruity umbrella drink, please?!" 
• It will save you time long-term: It eliminates the time spent scrambling to send out another thrown-together marketing piece; the time spent before each email questioning who to send it to and when; the time on the tropical golf course talking your assistant through how to send that email blast you forgot needed to go out. Also, Swiftpage allows you to easily duplicate your campaigns and simply tweak the templates with new or updated info, eliminating future upfront time. 
• You can easily view and analyze your campaign results: The Swiftpage reporting tools track the results of your email blasts and allow you to export the results into excel or, for ACT! users, you can upload that data directly into each contact's record. Then, upon your tanned and well-rested return from said tropical get-away, you can follow-up with them without missing a beat.
• It helps you to build better business relationships: By continually and consistently reaching out to your leads and clients, you are nurturing that relationship and building their trust and loyalty. People buy from people they know, like and trust. You want that to be you!

An automated marketing system, like DM, can not only help you save time and money, but best of all, it can lead to increased sales and referrals. And an "employee" doesn't get much better than that.

By the way, anyone seen my sand wedge??

Let's face it, given today's economy, it's a buyers market - and us buyers know it. As a frequent buyer myself, I admit that I have gotten more selective about what I buy and who I buy from. I also unabashedly admit to having increased expectations about the products and services I am purchasing. To capture my loyalty, you must do more than send out the occasional, random sale offer, or on the opposite end, overload my mailbox with daily sales offers that don't really pertain to my buying needs or patterns. You must deliver consistent, long-term meaningful messages or offers that show you understand and value me (or my business, for all you BTB companies). 

You NEED to implement a comprehensive, automated marketing system to achieve maximum marketing success. You NEED to follow one of my favorite business mottos in 2010 to succeed - Go BIG or Go Home! With automated marketing, you can:

B... Build professional, long-term, targeted marketing campaigns designed to...
I... Increase brand awareness; Increase consistent client and prospect follow-ups;
       Increase customer relationships and loyalties; Increase savings of time 
       and money; all so you can...
G... Grow your business!
Don't let your competitors beat you to it. Start automating your marketing initiatives. Go BIG - don't Go Home!

Feel free to attend our upcoming public webinar, Maximize Your Marketing with ACT!, during which we will demonstrate how to easily create and send automated marketing campaigns.

In today's competitive business world, the key to business success revolves widely around the relationships you build with your customers. And it's more than simply providing fast, on-time deliveries of high-quality products and services; or follow-up satisfaction calls. Don't get me wrong, fulfilling these customer expectations are important. But let's face it, nowadays we all have competitors nipping at our heels that are offering the same things. So if we aren't careful, if we don't set ourselves apart from the competition, if we aren't diligent about building better business relationships with our customers, our competitors just might steal them away - shriek!!

To outshine your competition you need (and I stress, need) to take your customer relationships to the next level! They all have lives outside of the business world. Each contact has a favorite past-time, a birthday, life celebrations and upsets, etc. Wouldn't it be great if you knew?! Imagine the WOW factor your client would experience when you remember to ask how his kids, Tom, Sue and John, are doing; and how John did in his baseball game last Saturday. Imagine how impressed and surprised he would be when a gift basket arrives because baby Sally has finally arrived. It is the attention to details and the personal touch that is going to keep you clients coming back to you. They trust you and they like you; after all, you remember their birthday every year.

Are you aware that statistically, it costs 5 times more to attract a new customer than it does to satisfy and retain an existing one! Start using ACT! today to track all the important details in your customers' lives. Get organized, build strong business relationships and increase your sales success and profitability. WOW them and keep them coming back.