Every business large or small is looking for creative ways to build brand recognition and generate new business opportunities. It is the number one challenge for many companies. Smaller businesses really struggle with this and often feel that regardless of their efforts no one knows who they are and as a result, they feel like they are unable to compete with larger players in their vertical market.

Marketing professionals will tell you that the key to building brand recognition and generating new business requires the design and execution of a marketing mix and they are right. What is a marketing mix? Well, it is a series of marketing components that when working together present your value proposition to a broad audience. A marketing mix often consists of things like publishing content to a website blog, listing services that present your product or services to a specific audience, Facebook advertising, pay-per-click advertisements on Google or Yahoo, attending trade shows, being active on social sites like Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn and executing a consistent e-mail marketing program. What they do not tell you is that creating a marketing mix is hard work and can be very expensive, often requiring professional marketing expertise that many companies simply don’t have.

While I absolutely agree with the above there are things you can do to improve your visibility and generate new business. One of these components when executed properly can provide an exceptional return on investment and at a reasonable cost. That component is e-mail marketing.

Did You Know?

• 212 billion Business E-Mails are Exchanged Every Day
• 91% of People Check E-Mail Daily
• 50% of People Check E-Mail While on Vacation
• 42% Check E-Mail While Using the Bathroom
• Most Importantly, 66% of People Made a Purchase Due to an E-Mail. E-Mail Marketing Works!

Why does E-Mail marketing work? Well, you have heard the term SEO or “Search Engine Optimization” right? It is a large component of the marketing mix discussed above, but SEO and many of the other components within the marketing mix are passive in nature which means someone must “Google” your company or product, visit your trade show booth, be an active member of Facebook to see your advertisement, frequent social sites to see your posts, or visit your blog.  E-mail is direct. It places your company name, logo, and value proposition directly in front of thousands, even tens of thousands, of people quickly and cost effectively and if done on a consistent basis builds brand recognition leading to new inquiries and more sales.

How Can You Build an Effective Bulk E-Mail Campaign

Creating an effective e-mail marketing program is hard work and requires marketing tools and expertise to execute on a consistent basis.  Here are some things you will need to consider.

1. Where can I acquire a list of prospects in my industry?
2. Who can assist me with fine tuning our value proposition?
3. What tools or expertise do I need to design my campaigns?
4. How will I be able to distribute several thousand e-mails on a consistent basis?
5. How can I measure the effectiveness of my campaigns?
6. What tools are required to capture and follow-up on new inquiries?

Wow! There is a lot to consider and there are vendors that offer assistance in each one of the areas. Some sell prospect lists, some will assist with template creation, some will distribute the e-mails for you and offer reporting on opens and clicks, and of course you can acquire a CRM system to manage new leads, but here lies the problem. Putting this all together required multiple vendors, until now.

One of the companies that has mastered the E-Mail marketing process is CRM solution provider Commence.  Commence has coupled their CRM Marketing software with a staff of experienced marketing professionals that work directly for you. It is an “All-In-One Service” that starts with generating a prospect list culled from a database of several million contacts. This list can be filtered by numerous criteria such as company size, industry, SIC code, region, title, revenue, and more.

Once the list is created the Commence team goes to work creating a series of professionally designed e-mail marketing templates each with a call to action. The templates are then distributed by Commence every other week to the prospect list. Commence will report on all opens, deletes and clicks on a call to action such as, who downloaded a specific report or white paper, who ask for a free sample, or who wants to schedule a meeting for a further discussion.

The secret sauce for Commence is that the program scores the leads based on behavior. For example, those that opened the e-mail campaign get one point, those that requested a white paper or call to action get two points and those that have asked to schedule a call get five points. The leads that scored points are then automatically imported into the Commence CRM system for follow-up or they can be imported into your CRM if you have one.

Notice the Lead Score — last column on the right. These are qualified prospects that have opened several e-mail campaigns and or clicked on a call to action and should be contacted by your sales team. This ensures that your sales representatives are laser focused on the most promising new opportunities based on their lead score. In addition, the CRM system provides them with a database to capture, manage and share information about these new leads.

Commence starts with a 90-day road map that includes the prospect list, fine tuning your message, creating a series of e-mail templates, distribution of the templates, reporting on all opens and click throughs, use of the company’s CRM system and automatic import of all new inquiries into the system.  The entire process is managed by a team of marketing professionals.

Customers using Commence’s E-Mail Marketing Service have reported a significant improvement in brand recognition and they are generating new business opportunities. If you are looking for a cost-effective way to generate new leads and get the brand recognition you deserve call   Commence Sales at 877-266-6362 or via e-mail sales@commence.com.