A recent report from the Direct Marketing Association predicts that business spending on direct mail spending is going to increase by one billion dollars in 2010. This may come as a surprise to those who thought that email was the advertising media of the future. Because many customers have no problem deleting anything in their inbox that comes from an unrecognized source, direct mail remains one of the best ways to actually get your message into your customers’ hands… if you follow a few simple rules. Here are five tips for getting the most out of every single mailing.

Direct mail should be branded. Everything that leaves your office should be part of your brand, from the color scheme to the presence of your unique logo design. Any deviation from this will confuse your customers and weaken your company immensely. If you don’t have a brand and a logo design, invest in that area before even considering direct mail as a marketing option.

Direct mail should be targeted. That is, only send mail to relevant customers, such as people in your geographical area or people who earn incomes in your target range. While many business owners have a marketing policy that more is better, sending direct mail to people who cannot afford your product or reach one of your locations in a short drive is both expensive and annoying. It only gives your logo design and brand negative connotations in the public eye. Spending time to thin out your direct mail list is not only a cheaper choice, but a more eco-friendly one as well.

Direct mail should have quality content. Modern customers are more sensitive than ever to advertising, but not in the way that advertisers would like. In a world filled with marketing, Americans are becoming more and more likely to disregard blatant advertising. This means that offering good content is the key to keeping your direct mail out of the recycling bin. Offer a few tips that are relevant to your product allows you to position your brand in a very different way.

Direct mail should be visually attractive. This doesn’t necessarily entail having a splashy, expensive, full color mailing. Make sure your mailing is well balanced, with key messages highlighted and easy to read. A few images can help, but the most important image to include is that of your professional logo design.

Direct mail should be trackable. The post office now offers an ‘Intelligent Mail’ barcode that allows bulk mailers to get information on when their mail is delivered and how customers respond. If this is not available in your area, include a coupon or another special offer on the mailing. This will allow you to see what areas and which types of customers are best responding to your direct mail, which will allow you to further refine any future marketing. It will also give you a heads-up on changes in your target audience and the relevance of your current marketing.

Even if your company doesn’t do business directly over its website, there are good reasons to use email marketing to brand your company and spread the word about your products and services. First, it’s inexpensive and makes it to the target with lightning speed. Second, many people check their email with much more regularity than they check their snail mail. Clearly this can be a great way of marketing your small business, but these few suggestions may help make this more successful.

Be targeted. Don’t send email to anyone who has not voluntarily opted in to your mailing list. This is not only rude, but in some cases illegal. Either way, it will do nothing for your small business brand. Send email only to people who have agreed to receive it and who are in your target audience.

Offer content. This doesn’t have to be long and drawn out; simply offer a few tips that are relevant both to the time of the year and to your business. Even a few lines may be enough to keep your message out of the trash, especially if you combine them with a catchy title. This content will reinforce your image as an expert in your field.

Offer news. Whether there is a new product line that you are particularly proud of or a special sale to celebrate some occasion, use every email as a method of offering new information that is relevant to your brand and your small business. Often, this will be even more effective than hard sell tactics, which brings me to the next suggestion…

Avoid hard sell tactics. People are flooded with these in almost every aspect of modern life, which has significantly cut the chances of response. More gentle, organics sales tactics work best with the modern customer. Simply tell them what you are offering and why they need it—no more, no less. Anything more will turn them off.

Offer a way to contact you. Better, offer several. Not only should the email be sent from your return address (so contacting you is a matter of pressing reply), you also should also give complete contact information including address and telephone number. This will not only improve your sales, but make you look more legitimate as well.

Be branded. Make sure your email communications, like all other communications, are harmonious with the brand image that you have worked so hard to cultivate. Include your logo design and all visual aspects of your brand in the logo. This will ensure that even if the customer doesn’t buy anything from you today, you are still building your brand.

Be considerate. Allow customers to opt off your list at any time. Also, avoid emailing more than once a month. Don’t flood your customers with marketing messages—it will only cheapen your message.

Email marketing can be very effective if you keep the actual marketing to a minimum and follow these few basic rules. This will give you a huge advantage in your market and allow you to communicate with your customer in a way that would otherwise be impossible.

2010 has brought new trends, both in marketing and among your customer base. Here are five ways that you can find marketing success for your small business in 2010.

Plan ahead. Take the time to evaluate the success of your marketing last year. What types of marketing were most successful? Which fell flat? Are you dealing with the same target audience that you planned for a year ago? Does your logo design and branding strategy still feel relevant? Now is the time to look at every aspect of your marketing. Some types of marketing may need less investment, others may need more, while some may need an entire change of perspective. Looking at this matter objectively before spending money or time in areas where it doesn’t matter. Remember the old adage: Failing to plan is planning to fail.

Be social. Social networking is more than a way for your teenage daughter to pass the weekend; it is a way that grownups and decision makers communicate and learn about the world. If you have a solid presence on one or two of the major social networking sites, your prospective customers will be exposed to your brand, your logo design, and your message on a regular basis in a natural way that is more credible than other forms of marketing.

Be more personal. Don’t be afraid to blog or post videos on YouTube. The more customers see and hear from you as a person with a voice and a name, the more they will want to buy from you. Make sure all communications are congruent with your brand and be sure to refer almost constantly to your business and prominently display your logo design. However, if you follow these simple rules there is virtually no way to go wrong when letting your customers get to know you and your small business.

Get in their phone. That is, have an application for cell phones that users can download onto their telephone. This gets your name and logo design into the customer’s life every time they make a phone call. It is getting easier and easier to find someone to write applications for the iPhone and/or other 3G telephones as the technology becomes commonplace. There is a considerable market in this skill, which means that there is no reason not to hire an expert if you decide that this is the way to go.

Hire an expert. Marketing professionals bring something to the table that few small business owners can match: years and even decades of seeing firsthand what works. Even a few short sessions with a marketing or branding professional are well within the smallest business budget, and in most cases you will get the money back many times over. You wouldn’t fix your own plumbing; why attempt a do-it-yourself job on something as important as your business’s success?

Marketing to the affluent is different from marketing to any other group. These discriminating customers have been raised with different social values as well as exposure to some of the highest quality products the nation has to offer. This makes for a unique group of potential consumers, one that small business owners ignore at their own risk. Luckily, you can successfully market yourself to the wealthy in your community if you keep the following five tips in mind.

1. Be involved. Many wealthy people have pet causes that they contribute a significant amount of time and money to. They identify with people and brands that also concentrate on giving back to the community. If you share their values, especially this key one, they are very likely to patronize your business and recommend you to their peers, who most likely are affluent as well.

2. Offer opportunities to grow. Another key value of the affluent is a respect for education, including self education opportunities. Businesses that offer literature or classes on their subject that are presented as enriching and empowering will often find that their classes are full of wealthy people, who often will then feel a loyalty to the company and go out of their way to shop there.

3. Make the effort to establish yourself. Most affluent people prefer to deal with established businesses with a proven track record. While it can be difficult for a small business to produce this, especially early on, getting your name in publications and on the local media is one way of creating an aura of expertise. Another way to create this general feeling is by getting involved in local business organizations and even volunteering your time to local charities.

4. Market directly to them. The wealthy are less likely to choose businesses based on traditional marketing methods such as advertisements and flyers. Instead, they make their consumer decisions based on referrals from people they trust. Getting the word out about your business can be as simple as joining business associations or clubs in affluent areas where you can ‘casually’ mention your line of work to a variety of people who are likely to have influence in wealthier spheres. Another option is offering to give talks in your area of expertise to these organizations.

5. Offer quality. As stated above, the wealthy usually have spent their lives with access to high quality products. They known cheap or shoddy work when they see it, and certainly are not interested in these products. Adding the extra effort it takes to offer products that will meet their higher, more discerning standards is an essential part of marketing to the affluent. One way of doing this while still maintaining an attractive price point for other shoppers is by offering a premium line with added features and benefits.

As you can see, the affluent are not really much different from other consumers; they are merely more discerning and more likely to consider their peers’ opinions over traditional marketing messages. Armed with this knowledge, you can successfully reach out to a new market that can afford your services and products more than any other group.

For small businesses struggling to keep their marketing budget to an absolute minimum, Google AdWords can seem like an attractive option. After all, this program offers an inexpensive way to drive relevant traffic to your site, which is a powerful way of building public awareness and sales. Unlike other advertising options, AdWords only charges for results. However, as with all forms of marketing and advertising, there are definite benefits and drawbacks to Google advertising. Here is a short guide to using it efficiently and effectively.

1. Make sure Google AdWords is the right marketing option for your company. Are people looking for a product like yours? Are they searching for it on the internet? If the answer is no, you need to work on awareness and market through other channels for the time being.

2. Set a budget. Not all of your traffic will result in sales, especially not at first, so set a reasonable marketing budget and stick with it. This will keep you from being slammed at the end of the month by a huge bill and not enough sales to compensate for it.

3. Begin small. With Google Adwords, you can choose to advertise in your local area. This is a good place to begin with because it allows you to work with the people most likely to purchase from you, people who are already likely familiar with your business. If and when this is successful, you can decide whether to branch out into other markets.

4. Choose keywords that are not used by your competition. You will get a very low benefit to cost ratio if you are going up against a competitor every time. Choose keywords that are currently being overlooked to make sure your name is at the top of the page. It will also help to keep your costs low.

5. Be specific. If you choose keywords that are uniquely related to your business, your clicks will be more likely to turn into sales. On the other hand, more general keywords might drive more traffic to your site—but it will be more expensive per click, and less relevant to your actual offerings.

6. Use negative keywords. One of Google’s strengths is that you can block people who are searching for certain terms. These terms, known as ‘negative keywords’, can be used to your advantage because they help you to narrow your market to the people that really matter.

7. Constantly adjust your campaign. One of the benefits of AdWords is that it allows you to constantly evaluate and modify your campaigns. You can constantly use new terms, put more money into the ones that work, and drop any that aren’t bringing in income.

8. Target your landing page. This allows you to have people who type in different words landing on different pages that are uniquely targeted to their needs.

As you can see, Google AdWords is a lucrative tool that offers endless opportunities for personalization. You can get a huge marketing boost from this program if you learn to use it to your own advantage. This guide should get you started on your way to success.

Many people think of text messaging as the sole domain of teenagers, but it has some very useful applications for small business owners. Text messages can be an affordable and very efficient way of communicating with your target audience. Even presidential campaigns are using this media for announcements and marketing messages. Here are a few simple rules for using this media to its best advantage.

1. Be considerate. This form of communication is relatively low on spam, which results in the great majority of messages being read by the receiver. However, spammers do exist, and many companies consider using one of these services to blanket the masses with marketing messages. However attractive this may sound, there are harsh penalties if you are caught and most customers will consider it a total turnoff.

2. Support your texts with other marketing. Text messages should be part of your brand, not a contradiction to it. Your customers should read your texts and have ways of getting further information, either at your website or at one of your locations. You can even use your website to support your text campaign, allowing customers to sign up on your website for special text offers.

3. Hire a professional. If you are unsure about handling your own texting campaign, there are many companies willing to do it for you for just a nominal fee. For instance, there are several service providers that allow customers to opt in for promotional mailings; these tend to have innovative features that are more appropriate and interesting than their spamming counterparts. For instance, there are services that send customers coupons when they are in the general area of a given company. Others simply offer the coupons and allow customers to go to their site and download them to their phone. These are both excellent options because they require no wasted paper and target people actually near you and interested in your product. This can cost as little as a few dollars every day.

4. Avoid text-slang. Even if you are using a youth-dominated media, don’t resort to standard text messages. People see corporations that do this as disingenuous, and it certainly demeans your professional image. Always use adult, abbreviation free language that can be understood and respected by the public.

5. Focus on building long term relationships. As in all aspects of branding, it’s important to look out for your long tern interests. Don’t send too many texts (even five per month is too many) or begin replacing valued coupons with simple marketing messages. Simply offer clients things that they need—namely information and discounts—and let them decide how it is best used. Your goal is to become one of your customer’s contacts, not some annoying stalker.

With daily texting worldwide reaching 3.5 billion text messages and 97 percent of these messages read, this clearly has become a mainstream method of communication. By following these rules, this enormous audience can be at your disposal twenty four hours a day in just about any location.

With millions of followers and more every day, social networking and microblogging sites such as Twitter are a promising and completely free way for small businesses to market themselves and get the word out about their brand. However, many small business owners sign up for an account only to feel lost as to what to Tweet about. Here are five things to Twitter about that will help your small business grow.

New products. If you have a new product that will excite people, use Twitter to get the word out. Don’t use ad copy in this ultra-casual forum; instead, write a message about how excited you are about the new product and how you look forward to using it yourself. This feels more natural and will make many people curious.

Sales and discounts. Have you ever had a sale and been disappointed to find that no one showed up? Tweeting about your sales and any special discounts may pique the interest of many. Be descriptive; instead of ‘caramel drinks half off’, think ‘get your gooey caramel fix for just two dollars’. People who know exactly what you are offering will be more likely to show up and less likely to be disappointed once they get there.

Branding. Twitter is one of few chances to market your brand without paying by the word. This is a good time to think about who your brand is as a person. What kind of music does he or she listen to? What do they do for fun? Make sure your tweets are congruent with your brand; it will help customer understand and ultimately love you.

Public awareness. Why not use Twitter to talk a little about your favorite charities and their latest work? This ties closely into branding, because you are giving customers insight as to what causes you support. Not only will this rally support from others for your personal favorite charities, it will make you seem like a more caring person, someone who customers will want to support. Note: this is more appropriate for the occasional for the occasional tweet than for a daily practice.

Contacts with the rest of the business world. It’s ironic that people just opening a business often don’t have time for various clubs and service organizations that more established business owners often use for contacts and fun. If you are having a problem, Twitter is a great place to turn for guidance and support. You are not the only small business to have encountered stumbling blocks along the path to success. Find other small business owners and use them for commiseration and even advice. You’ll probably find several mentors and you will be able to help someone else as well.

These are just five of the many things you can tweet about to build brand awareness and sales at the same time. Once you have a professional brand and a professional logo design, getting it out there is the next step to success. Twitter makes this easy and cheap, a win-win situation that no one can afford to pass up.

When it comes to branding, having a great logo is essential. However, many owners and managers think that image marketing stops there. A tagline is one brand aspect that many small businesses ignore at their peril. This one short phrase can define your company and set you apart from the competition. However, creating a tagline is easier said than done. Here are a few famous taglines along with what the small business owner can learn from them.

Just Do It. I likely don’t have to tell you who this tagline belongs to, because it is widely recognized all over the world as belonging to sports giant Nike. However, many people don’t think about the true meaning of these three words or their effect on the company’s success. Nike tries to portray an active image, as seen in their iconic Swoosh logo. ‘Just Do it’ not only compliments the existing branding, it adds a sense of urgency that many customers have been unable to resist.

Fair and Balanced. Regardless of whether you personally agree that Fox News embodies these characteristics, they nonetheless are congruent with the brand image that the cable news station is trying to portray. Not only does this tagline give Fox News a boost in credibility, it implies that the competition is lacking these traits. Being different from the crowd has kept this company alive for decades, and this tagline alone can take them into the future.

Eat Fresh. When evaluating this tagline, it’s important to keep in mind what Subway is trying to offer: a healthier, fresher alternative to conventional fast food. This tagline says it all in two short and memorable words, making it a successful and appropriate part of the Subway brand.

What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas. Many people don’t realize that this well known and often copied tagline was created by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. When the city had poor luck promoting itself as a family friendly vacation destination, the board decided to play on Sin City’s appeal as a place to shed your everyday values. The message is clear: that visitors can discretely partake of the many vices available in Las Vegas without repercussion.

Buyer Be Happy. This is the new tagline of Best Buy, but how effective will it be? It relates very little to the store’s branding of being a superstore for the technologically savvy. Nor does it relate to the big screen televisions and five dollar movies that make up the products. Further, this tagline sounds suspiciously like the old caveat ‘buyer beware’. While this twist on words was almost certainly deliberate, it may conjure up an unpleasant image for the customer. However, Best Buy has a history of focusing on consumer happiness with their tagline, as this new one replaced the former ‘You Happier’ that was inappropriate. This store has seen amazing success, but it truly could do better.

What do all successful taglines have in common? They are short, catchy, and representative of the company they portray. The same advantages that multi-national corporations get from tag-lines can be bestowed on any small business that chooses to use this brand aspect to further define themselves in the eyes of the customer.

Most modern businesses have websites, but few of these websites generate a significant amount of income. This leads many business owners to questions whether their website is worth the effort. Luckily, there are ways to turn hits into sales. Here are five simple guidelines for increasing the profitability of your online presence.

Let the professionals design your website. There is no bigger turn off than a website that is amateur in design. People who encounter these sites immediately begin to question the quality of the products and services being sold. Meet with a web design consultant to make sure your website is both professional in appearance and function, and congruent with the brand image you are trying to project.

Interact with website visitors. The most effective way of doing this is with live chat. Customers who have questions about your product can then ask questions and determine whether it meets their needs. While this means that you will need to have a staff member manning the chat at all times, there are so many free chat programs out there that this will be your only cost. It also gives customers a way of connecting emotionally with your company and builds the image that you are user friendly and consumer oriented.

Ask for contact information. Offer a place for customers to input their telephone number, address, or email. This will put the ball in your court, so to speak, and allow you to follow up with contact such as additional product information and money-saving offers. Some websites even feature a ‘click to call’ function, where a window pops up asking for a telephone number and the customer immediately receives a call for the business.

Reduce risk. Many customers are worried that they will buy a product and then be unhappy with it. Offering money back guarantees is cliché, but nonetheless can be a very effective tool. Some businesses, such as Competitive Cyclist, actually allow people to order their product with a small down payment and then decide whether to return the bicycle or keep it and complete the payment transaction. This is a particularly good strategy for businesses offering an upscale product that offers a better experience than the more conventional competition.

Link to positive reviews. There are many review websites on the internet, and these can be a valuable tool for your business. Customers are more likely to trust them than a simple listing of customer raves on your own site. People familiar with these sites know that the reviews are largely unsolicited and that your business doesn’t have the opportunity to screen them. Seeing that your customers are overwhelmingly pleased with your product will appease consumer fears while encouraging others to give your small business a try.

Websites are great marketing tools, but they can be so much more if you follow these five rules. Increasing the profitability and customer friendliness of your website will increase your local sales while opening your business up to a whole new, international market.

Most business owners know that websites such as Twitter and Facebook can give them a marketing boost. However, there is a new type of website that small business owners should attend to: the business review website.

Citizen review websites offer the public a huge opportunity. They can share their experience, good or bad, with others via the world wide web. This not only allows customers to vent, it allows them to influence other people’s decisions.

Studies have found that forty percent of people research consumer decisions online, even for offline purchases. While many are looking for basic information such as when a store is open and where it is located, they certainly are likely to read the reviews.

These review websites, which include Yahoo Local, CitySearch, and Yelp, are a powerful way of reaching out to the public and generating buzz about your establishment. However, because they are consumer-driven, the small business owner may feel that they are not in control of this powerful tool. Nonetheless, there are a few ways that you can have an influence on customer reviews.

1. Offer an excellent customer experience. If you drop the ball on services or products, even occasionally, there is a good chance that millions of people will have the opportunity to hear about it from the perspective of your unhappy customer. Similarly, one happy customer can singlehandedly reach the same huge audience. This means that you must give the best possible experience to every single customer.

2. Visit review sites and respond personally to reviews. Many sites will allow business owners to post as well. This means that you can post a short but polite rebuttal to bad reviews, or thank customers who have left a good review. Some businesses go the extra mile and personally contact people who have left reviews, apologizing to the disgruntled and offering small discounts for a second try.

3. Ask for feedback. A good way to do this is by posting a notice asking customers to give you a review on one of these websites. Another option is to offer an anonymous review either in your premises through a comment box or on your website through a feedback page. Many people only want to be heard; if you give them that opportunity, they are less likely to publicly trash your business.

4. Use good feedback as a marketing tool. If you have overwhelmingly good reviews, why not post a few key quotes in your locations? At the very least, you can link to a review website that has positive feedback about your business. Potential customers know that these reviews are not influenced or solicited by the business owner, making them all the more powerful.

If you think that these review sites won’t affect your business and your brand, think again. Yelp alone had more than 29 million unique visitors this September, and the number is only growing. Many offline media sources such as the New York Times are noticing the success of these sites and adding business review to their own online repertoire. Review websites can make or break your business, so learn to use them to your best advantage.