1. creating awareness
2. building traffic
3. generating leads
4. qualifying leads
5. selling directly
6. providing service
7. customer dialogue
8. building loyalty.

Keep marketing simple: Think of the four P's. Although marketing seems to be mostly about promotion, you have to know your product, understand what is behind the price, and work with all the sales channels, or the places where the product is sold. So, the four are:

• Product. What is your product? How does it compare?
• Price. What is your price? What are your costs? What are your projected campaign costs!
• Place. From where is the product being sold?
• Promotion. What's your offer? What is the pending event?

If you have these four things, you have a marketing plan. Now what you need to make sure of in the marketing plan: that your price adds value to your product; that the place you sell it is convenient; and your promotion tells the people what the value is. You don't have to make it complicated; but if you don't do a marketing plan, you aren't going to succeed unless it's pure luck. And if it's pure luck, you won't be able to repeat it because you don't know what you did.

You have to know whether you're winning or losing.

• Product:
  • Put a sample of your product in the hands of prospects.

• Price:
  ( What is your price? What are your costs of goods/services? What are your projected campaign costs! )
  • Set aside a percentage of gross sales for marketing.
  • Save money by seeking advice.
  • Develop an annual communications plan.
  • Digital imaging technology makes customer printing affordable.

• Place:
  • The catalog is for every company that has more than one product.
  • Geographical targeting is cost effective.

• Promotion:
  • Strategy:
    • Reward your customers when they refer you to new business.
    • Turn prospects into customers.
    • Consciously work to build your brand.
  • Database:
    • Build a customer database.
    • Find a list broker to help you build your database.
    • Your database can lead to new business opportunities.
    • Lease the customer list of other companies.
  • Design:
    • Attractive design increases the life and read rate of a mail piece.
    • Postcards have a high read rate.
    • Put a call to action in the PS of every direct mail letter.
    • Use special stamps and handwritten notes to personalize messages.
  • Implementation:
    • Multistage mail can build excitement.
    • Let a video do the selling for you.
    • Use priority mail to impress customers.
    • A newsletter can build customer loyalty.
    • Shared Mail