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In this issue:
Marketing Article: High Response Marketing With Low-Cost Postcards
Marketing Article: How to Make Your Cold Calling Effective

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Postcards can drive a huge amount of traffic to your web site, generate a flood of new sales leads or produce a surge in any business activity you want. And you don't have to spend a lot of time or money on them ...if you apply these four little-known postcard marketing secrets.

Postcard Marketing Secret #1: Keep Your Message Very Brief

Don't try to close sales with postcards. You don't have enough space to provide all the information needed to close sales.

Instead, briefly state the major benefit(s) you offer to attract the reader's attention. Then focus on motivating them to get more detailed information from a source where you can close sales. For example, send them to your web site or give them a phone number to call.

Postcard Marketing Secret #2: Design Your Postcard To Look Like A Message From A Friend.

Most postcards I see look like an ad in a magazine. But when a postcard looks like advertising, people react to it as advertising. They don't pay much attention to it.

Instead, set up your postcard to look like a brief personal message from a friend. This attracts attention and lures prospects into reading your postcard ...even though they realize it is advertising. It generates a lot more replies than postcards that look like an ad.

Postcard Marketing Secret #3: Don't Spend a Lot on Printing

Postcards that look like a personal message can be very inexpensive to print. For example, here are 2 ways you can do the job on any computer with a printer:

* Print postcards on plain (no printed lines) 4 x 6 inch index cards. Cost: about 1.5 cents per card.

* Print 4 postcards at a time on 8 1/2 x 11 inch sheets of standard index card stock. Then cut the sheets into quarters. Each postcard will be 4 1/4 inches high by 5 1/2 inches wide. Cost: about 1 cent per card.

Tip: In the US you can send postcards by First Class Mail for 24 cents if you make them at least 3 1/2 inches high by 5 inches wide but not over 4 1/4 inches high by 6 inches wide.

Postcard Marketing Secret #4: Don't Underestimate the Importance of Your Mailing List

You can generate a high percentage of replies by sending your postcards to prospects likely to be interested in your offer AND who have a proven record of taking action on offers that interest them.

This is why postcards produce a big response when you send them to your existing customers. But how can you find new prospects with these same 2 characteristics? Here are 2 ways:

1. Rent the customer lists of companies that are not your competitors, but who sell their products or services to the same targeted market.

2. Rent the paid subscriber lists of magazines and newsletters read by prospects in your targeted market.

You can get both lists through most mailing list brokers.

The next time you want to generate a flood of traffic to your web site or a flood of new sales leads ...send postcards. Apply these four little-known postcard marketing secrets and you'll produce a big response without spending a lot of time or money.

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Bob Leduc spent 20 years helping businesses like yours find new customers and increase sales. He just released a New Edition of his manual, How To Build Your Small Business Fast With Simple Postcards ...and launched *BizTips from Bob*, a newsletter to help small businesses grow and prosper. You'll find his low-cost marketing methods at: http://BobLeduc.com or call: 702-658-1707 After 10 AM Pacific Time/Las Vegas, NV

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4 examples of effective dialogue in cold calling How can we make cold calls “work” when we’re talking to someone we haven’t met, about something they may not need? Well, it’s really simple. First we look at how to relate to them rather than hoping they’ll relate to us and our solution.

When we approach cold calling with a question about what their needs are, potential clients respond much more readily to the idea of talking with us.

To help you with this, here are a few examples of dialogues within four very different industries.

Example: Staffing
In the staffing or recruiting industry, the goal is to call a company and identify whether they need help finding new staff.
The old cold calling approach is, “Hi. My name is… I’m with XYZ Staffing Company, and we offer these services. I’m just calling to…” And by that time, the person pretty much says, “We’re not interested,” right?
With this new cold calling approach, the idea is to think about the problem you’re solving. The problem you’re solving is helping them find good people.

So I would start the conversation with, “Maybe you can help me out for a second?” And they usually say, “How can I help you?”
I reply, “I’m just calling to see if your company is still looking at finding good, quality employees to hire?”
The response to that is likely to be, “Well sure. Who’s this?” This is a normal response which we want to be ready for. I would simply say, “My name is Ari and I’m with XYZ Staffing Company and we help companies identify and find good people. I’m just calling to see if your company is in a situation now where you’re looking to hire and find new people.”

Example: Software
Let’s say you’re in the software industry, and that you sell software to improve the productivity of an organization. What you want to do is focus on the problem that you solve specifically.
What most software salespeople do in cold calling is say, “Hi, we sell software to help improve productivity.” But that doesn’t really identify the problem it solves. You have to focus specifically on an issue.

So, for instance, the software might solve a problem with lost paper-based documents. That’s a very specific issue.
In this case, I might call and say, “I’m just calling to see if your company is having issues with lost paperwork because of manual paper-based filing systems.”

See how specific that is? It’s very directed to the problem in their world. This is in contrast to, “I want to see if your company is looking to buy some software or looking to improve productivity,” or something similar.

Example: Advertising
Advertising is a very good example. Typically, what most advertising sales folks start with is an introduction. They talk about their advertising product or services that they offer.
But with our problem solving approach, the question becomes, “What does advertising solve for people?” The first thought usually is that it gets people leads. It gets more branding.

Let’s go deeper than that. What do leads do for companies? Leads provide sales, right? So if I sell advertising, I might call and say, “Maybe you can help me out for a second. I’m just calling to see if your company is open to new ideas of generating leads for your business.”

From this place, the discussion unfolds around their world, and not your advertising. That’s the real shift in making cold calling relevant to their world.

Example: Collections
Another example is the collections industry. Typically, collection agencies call companies to see if they can be hired to collect invoices that are unpaid. They usually talk about their services as opposed to making their cold calling focus on the problem.
The client is looking to bring in more revenue from invoices that aren’t paid. So an approach might be, “Maybe you can help me out for a second?” The reply is once again, “Sure, how can I help you?”
“I’m just calling to see if your company is still having issues with unpaid invoices.” And the response probably will be, “Well, yeah, we are. Who’s this?”

You can then respond in a very relaxed tone, “This is John. I’m with XYZ Collection Agency. I’m just calling to see if you’d be open to some new ideas on how to better solve that problem.”

These are some examples of how to make your cold calling relevant to the other person and his or her needs. Practice this, and you’ll find that your cold calling conversations become more relaxed. You’ll no longer have to shift into an artificial “salesperson” role.

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Ari Galper, founder of Unlock The Cold Calling Game, makes cold calling painless and simple. Learn his cold calling secrets even the sales gurus don't know. To receive your 10 free audio mini-lessons visit http://www.Unlock-The-Cold-Calling-Game.com