As GOOD as G.O.L.D.

St. Patrick's Day tradition holds that if you find the end of a rainbow, see a leprechaun or come upon a 4-leaf cover, you'll have a better chance of discovering your pot of gold. While you're searching, we suggest you try a four-step G.O.L.D. method for proactively creating opportunity:

Grow Your Email List
Offer Something Valuable
Leverage Current Relationships
Develop a Plan

Grow Your Email List
The eight most important words in the marketing lexicon are: "Let Me Put You On Our Mailing List." Although it may seem obvious, I'm never ceased to be amazed at how few companies leverage their contacts. You simply can't have any form of regular communication with clients, prospects and referral sources without the list. Specifically, the list you want to have is the one with the "@" sign after each name as in "e-mail." It's both cheaper and more flexible than traditional direct mail and you can more easily tailor your message, test and track responses and provide valuable information through links.

Most people already have a database of names and emails in their contact lists, client files and other data bases. Because many of those names are not people who are relevant or would appreciate unsolicited email, it's important to sort through any list before putting them all in a general outbound list. Then, it's time to grow your list. How? Here are some tips:

• Get a Data Base. If you don't have one, you'll need one. Whether it's Excel, a contact management platform like Act 1, or one that comes with a newsletter platform like Constant Contact, you'll need a way to organize and segment your list. You can create fields (friends, clients, referral sources, prospects, etc.) that allow you to tailor your outbound lists, since you may not want to send everything to everyone all the time.
• Auto Complete List. Your most valuable list may be sitting in your email server. Most email servers provide an auto complete function that fills in the email as you type. When you enter the letter "A" in your 'send to" line, a list of all the names you've sent to or received from is listed. By sorting and copying these names into a data base, you've got a start.
• Web sites. Many Web sites provide the email addresses. These are helpful when you know someone (or you feel they might appreciate hearing from you), but you're not in regular contact so as to have their email address in your contacts or auto complete list. Although this can take some time, it's well worth it.
• Business Cards. That stack business cards on your desk is full of emails. Sort through them and add them to your list.

Offer Something Valuable
An email list without valuable content is a well without water. Some typical forms of valuable content includes:

• Offers. An offer is usually a time-sensitive call-to-action that provides an incentive for acting promptly. It can also be something previously unavailable, such as a report, guide or whitepaper.
• News. The traditional form of newsletter, that provides product updates, firm news and new knowledge can be valuable so long as it stays relevant.
• Reference. If you're able to provide information about where to find things or how to do things, you can be a valuable reference.

Leverage Current Relationships
There's gold in your current relationships. We're previously written about methods for leveraging clients and referral sources. Some additional tips:

• Blogs. Blogs are both a way to create and distribute content as wells as a way to link your site or blog to others. Many of your clients and friends have blogs with valuable content. Link to them, or with an RSS feed, create an ongoing update of your own content by leveraging the content of others.
• Social Networks. Facebook used to be for college students. Now, it's an established method for communicating with business associates. Start 'Friending' and enlarge your network.
• Do Lunch. Or at least breakfast. Nothing beats face-to-face contact. And you've got to eat.

Develop a Plan
Whether it's a full-blown marketing plan, or an outline for a sales appointment or presentation, a bit of forethought and preparation can help assess opportunity and improve results, even if it's just a sales presentation. Here are some pointers for plans, big and small:

• Goals. Define what you might accomplish, whether qualitative or quantitative. Sometimes the best thing to come out of a sales meeting is another meeting. Simply be realizing this as a goal gives you something to shoot for.
• Obstacles. No project, appointment or marketing initiative goes as smoothly as you hope. Try to anticipate what can go wrong and consider options.
• Resource Allocation. Budgets and schedules help you define the trade-offs and priorities in a project or engagement. Just thinking about resources can help, but preparing a formal budget or schedule is best.
• Focus. You can't do everything in a project, or say everything in a sales meeting or presentation. Define a core set of issues, tasks or tactics that are important. It makes a project easier to manage and implement well.

Good luck finding your clover, leprechaun or rainbow. But, if this St. Patrick's Day goes by without such luck, good luck with finding the G.O.L.D. in your own backyard. For more information on growing email lists, offers, leverage or plans, visit the DrozZone for lots of free advice, or contact us: ddroz@droz.com or 412-338-1818.




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