Why Use Direct Mail as a promotional tool?

Remember those days when we used to wait for postman to deliver our mail? Things have changed; we now receive most of our bills, invoices and notices via email. Marketing and promotional material that used to flood our post box, now being sent to us in our spam box!

I recently conducted a random survey asking people about their preferences on receiving promotional material. Whereas most respondents expressed their preference to receive promotions via email, there was an alarming commonality, “It was easier to delete the email”.

Obviously when marketing and promotion is one of the major costs in any business, such a finding is scary. A major challenge for email marketing companies is to increase the “Open Rate”. There are various estimates and researches. But most experts agree that a 10-15% open rate is good. More important stuff is the action that the reader takes after reading the email. Logically speaking, a reader could delete, forward, respond or take no action.

Click here for complete article:


JOIN me on Facebook and Twitter


I was reading a report done by Constant Contact (one of the top email marketing companies in the US) based on a survey done in Fall 2011 that shows that 81% small business prefer face-to-face contact with the potential customers. Hence the importance of human contact is undeniable, particularly in case of small businesses.

Laughter Therapy Can Change Your Mental and Emotional State

We all are stuck in the whirlpool of happenings around us. Most of us remain in the “struggle mode” throughout our life! Fame, fortune, and family – we all need these three things and these either link us to happiness or depression.

Looking around, we now see people walking like emotionless zombies. Worried and depressed! People have generally stopped laughing. Unhappiness surrounds us on a daily basis. Our physiologies have now attuned to like depression. We like to listen to worrisome news. Discussions with friends and family are often circle around bad news!

Socialization is now done virtually. No more regular meetings with people you know, but interactions with people you are friends with on social media such as Facebook or Twitter. Sleepless nights texting or chatting, does that help in keeping us fresh and healthy?

No need to remember seven digit land-line phone numbers anymore. Historically, our minds were intelligent enough to remember telephone numbers such as home, office, in-laws and couple of friends. Not anymore though! I remember telephone companies replacing old printed directories every year. I am sure most of younger generation does not know what a telephone director looked like!

Grow with Assertive Behavior

A lot of people mix-up the meanings of being assertive and being aggressive. These are two distinctive behaviors. In simple words, assertiveness is related to open dialogue, exchange of views and situational analysis to come-up with a win-win conclusion, a truly positive action. Whereas being aggressive is a negative behavior.

Observe communication style of the most successful people around you and make a note of their assertiveness. In most cases you will see that assertive people do not try to impose their thoughts, but are tactfully able to make the other party agree upon certain things.

In today’s highly competitive business and work environment, if you are not assertive enough, you will not grow! Let’s analyze how assertive you are by answering the following questions on a scale of 1-10 (1 being the least times, and 10 being the most times):

Click here to read the complet post.

JOIN me on Facebook and Twitter