• Intro
  
• Featured Article - Martha Retallick: Postcarding
  
• The Office Corner
  
• Fr`e Stuff
  
• Grammar Question of the Month: Hyphenated Last Names
  
• Tech Tips: Claudia Slate - Quatloos!
  
• Tech Corner
  
• Writing Corner
  
• Trivia
  
• Word of the Month: Irregardless
  
• Recommendations
  
• Judy's Corner
  

* This month, subscriber, client, colleague, and neighbor to the south (Tucson) Martha Retallick gives tips for creating a postcard marketing system. She knows her stuff.

* I just discovered a marvelous article by our own Merle, "The Absolute Best and Brightest Ezines Online Today." Do not miss this if you enjoy reading valuable ezines! http://www.sitepronews.com/archives/2002/nov/1.html

* THE WINNER of our monthly book drawing is Anna Matsukevich, owner of Consider It Done! providing professional business support, virtually anywhere. Congratulations, Anna! Want a chance to win a book? Go to http://www.ossweb.com/freebook.html.

Creating a Postcard Marketing System

by Martha Retallick

No doubt about it, creating nice postcards and sending them out to an appreciative audience is fun. But treating your postcard marketing efforts that way probably won't help grow your business. Your cards will grow your business when you think of them as strategic tools in a marketing system. A powerful postcard marketing system consists of the following six steps:

Step #1: Idea Generation
Step #2: Card Creation
Step #3: Printing
Step #4: Mailing
Step #5: Follow-up with Prospects and Clients
Step #6: Cost-Tracking and Evaluation of Results

Use this system by starting with Step #1. Proceed through the next five steps, then repeat the process over and over again. Why the repetition? Four reasons:

1. Marketing expert Jeffrey Lant is a big proponent of what he calls the "Rule of Seven." This means that people need to be exposed to your message at least seven times in 18 months before they're ready to buy from you. Now, you're probably wondering why I say something like this after I just said some not-so-nice things about display advertising and listings in the Yellow Pages. I say it because it will cost you a lot less than it will for an advertisement or a listing.

2. Think for a moment. How many businesses do you hear from on a regular basis? Not many, right? And inattention to customers can prove costly. How costly? According to research conducted by the accounting firm, Price Waterhouse, 70% of the people who leave a supplier do so because of lack of contact, follow-up, or individual attention. That's not good. But think of how easy it would be to make your business stand out from the crowd if you sent your customers a regular postcard...

3. Another idea to ponder, and this one has actually been proven through numerous studies: It costs six times more to win a new customer than it does to make a sale to an existing customer. This means that if you have a customer list, and if you send regular postcards to the people on that list, you'll build repeat sales for your business and become more profitable in the process. This leads right to our fourth and final Reason for Repetition...

4. A business that customers hear from is one that they'll keep in mind - and keep on patronizing.

About the author:

Martha Retallick, also known as "The Passionate Postcarder," hails from Tucson, Arizona, USA. She is the author of Postcard Marketing Secrets, a downloadable PDF manual will show you how to put postcards to work for your business - profitably. Learn more about it at: http://www.postcardmarketingsecrets.com/

You can also subscribe to her free Postcard Marketing Secrets e-zine at: http://www.postcardmarketingsecrets.com/newsletter.html

Examples of Martha's postcards are online at: http://www.Lrpdesigns.com/cardshow.html

1. WHEN A NUMBER IS THE FIRST WORD IN A SENTENCE: Our source says that regardless of any inconsistency this may create, always spell out any number that would generally be set in numerals.

Examples:
• One hundred fifty men and 103 women signed up.
• Thirty-eight percent of the city voted
• Nineteen seventy-six was America's bicentennial celebration.

If spelling out a number is cumbersome or impractical, re-cast the sentence, e.g., "The nation celebrated its bicentennial in 1976."

Source: Chicago Manual of Style, 14th Edition

2. MARKETING PRESENTATIONS: Do you hand out--or mail out-- presentation folders to prospective clients or customers? Here's an alternative: find colorful, goodlooking file folders with reinforced tabs.

Type/print your company name on a label and place it on the tab. Fill folder with samples and information, insert in a 10x13 envelope, and present or mail it. If you have many small items, use a pocket folder.

Hopefully, the next time you contact a company that has your folder, someone will say, "Hold on while I pull your file."

3. INDIVIDUAL SHIPPING LABELS: Do you ever need to address just one large shipping label? Paper Direct offers Laser One-ups. The entire sheet (which has additional sticky labels: Rush, Fragile, Handle with Care, and First Class) is the same size as a #10 envelope. Format it in your word processing program as a template. Dimensions 4.122" x 9.5" - To set up the template, make the left margin 3.5" and the top margin 0.5". http://www.paperdirect.com

FR~E BOOK! Subscribers are eligible to sign up to win a fr~e copy of "The Home Office and Small Business Answer Book: Solutions to the Most Frequently Asked Questions About Starting and Running Home Offices and Small Businesses" by Janet Attard or Allan Wyatt's book, Word 2002 Beginner's Guidebook. Everything the novice needs to learn to use Word 2002. http://www.vitalnews.com/wordtips/ Sign up once a month at http://www.ossweb.com/freebook.html - Winners announced here!

FR~E DICTIONARY! Webgrammar offers all site visitors the chance to win a fr~e Webster's dictionary, monthly. Sign up! www.webgrammar.com/contest.html

Q. When writing the names of a couple where the wife uses a hyphenated last name, should they be listed as: Judy & Jack Vorfeld, or Judy Crook- Vorfeld?

A. Ms. Judy Crook-Vorfeld
    Mr. Jack Vorfeld

And the letter would read:

Dear Ms. Crook-Vorfeld and Mr. Vorfeld

Source: The Gregg Reference Manual, Seventh Edition, William A. Sabin

Financial & Tax Fraud Education Associates, Inc., a non-profit corporation fighting spam and scams is another site for locating info on email scams. Also some fun reading innovative responses to scams like the Nigerian letters. http://www.quatloos.com/brad_christensen.htm

Claudia Slate, Dakota Technics
http://www.dakotatechnics.com

1. LOOK 'N' STOP:
This page has links to five different sites with programs to test the capabilities of your firewall. How well are you really protected? Recommended by Claudia Slate.
http://www.looknstop.com/En/leaktests.htm

2. UNDERSTANDING GRAPHIC FORMATS:
Ever wonder how the formats of graphics on the Web differ from those in documents, presentations, or spreadsheets? With names like TIFF, GIF, BMP, and PNG flying around, it can be hard to know which format to use, and which program to use it with. Knowing what formats are out there and learning their relative advantages can help you create lively documents, Web pages, and presentations.
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/magazine/technical/graphicfileformats.html

1. THE PENCIL PAGES:
The World's Most Comprehensive On-line Resource for Pencil-Related Information.
http://www.pencilpages.com/

2. HYPHENATED AND OPEN COUMPOUNDS:
Such words become plural by adding the plural inflection to the element subject to the change in NUMBER: fathers-in-law; sergeants-at-arms; courts-martial.

3. VALUABLE WRITING RESOURCE LINKS:
Try the following for a list of links:
http://www.westwords.com/guffey/writing.html.

1. HOW LASERS WORK:
Lasers are used in CD players, dental drills, eye surgery, and even tattoo removal. View this site to learn about the various types of lasers how they generate such concentrated light.
http://www.howstuffworks.com/laser.htm

2. ORIGIN OF MURPHY'S LAW:
Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
http://www.edwards.af.mil/history/docs_html/tidbits/murphy's_law.html

3. USELESS KNOWLEDGE:
http://www.coolquiz.com/trivia/?id=uk

Use "regardless." Yes, irregardless is in the dictionary, but http://www.m-w.com says it's used in a non-standard or humorous manner.

1. JIM COLLINS:
An entrepreneur, writer, and teacher with solid ideas on building and maintaining successful businesses.
http://www.jimcollins.com/

2. BEFORE AND AFTER MAGAZINE:
This magazine for graphic designers disappeared for a while, and now it's back. I just received mine (I had a subscription that hadn't run out when they stopped publica- tion). Crammed with ideas for creating logos, understanding color, balance, fonts, and much more. It is truly the magazine for how to design cool stuff.
http://bamagazine.com/

Recently talked with my mother (who had a stroke that affected her left side). She is doing very well. Mom has played piano since she was a girl (she's almost 92), and has been involved with her church and community. She was also a music teacher for many years.

She told me that even though her left hand doesn't have much strength, she played several hymns for a religious service at her former adult living facility. That's my mom. What a heritage. She's taught her four children to never, never, never give up, and continues to live it herself.

Take time to let your loved ones know they are loved. Say it. It may be uncomfortable in some cases, but the benefits will be incredible. Have a wonderful November.

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Questions, comments, recommendations?
Contact Judy Vorfeld at www.ossweb.com.contact.html

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