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This is a newsletter from Creative Intuition that will address issues on design and marketing that we feel is useful to any business owner. We hope you find these tid bits helpful. If you’d like to opt out click here.

E-mail Marketing: A Cost-Effective Way to Boost Sales

The fact that ups and downs in the economy are completely normal occurrences doesn't make the downs any easier to endure. A thoughtful business owner knows that things are never as bad--or good--as the present moment appears, and therefore prepares accordingly.

But, when times are tough, what more can a small business owner do to cope with sagging sales?

Historically, a company's best source of sales is the existing customer base. Marketing studies have shown that it is up to seven times more costly to replace a customer than it is to keep one. Previous customers have already "qualified" your business and deemed you worthy to do business with. It should not be as hard to get them to become repeat customers because you've already impressed them with your operation the first time (haven't you?).

And this management of customer relationships--which in the past was difficult and expensive--has been transformed into a science with the advances of the digital age. And the Internet has made it cost-effective as well. It's as easy as sending e-mail. E-mail marketing is a very affordable marketing tool for a small business.

In fact, if your small business is not using a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) program, it is falling behind, because so many small businesses now use e-mail marketing as a normal part of business operations. E-mail marketing keeps you in contact with your best customers--so you know what they need, and they know you're out there and ready to help.

You only need two things to get started: a valid e-mail contact list of your customers and a reputable e-mail marketing company to help execute a plan to suit your needs.

As for building a valid e-mail list, put some care into that as well. For a free white paper on how to build your list CLICK HERE. Remember even a mailing list of lets say 40 people can be a ‘huge’ gold mine. If you build up a terrific relationship with your prospects, this list can make you more sales then a list of 500. And it will grow continually anyway.

But, when collecting contacts' names and e-mails addresses, be up-front about what you are doing. It's not a secret, and you shouldn't act like it. Give people the opportunity to opt-in or opt-out of future communications. If you are providing something of value in your communications, they will not want to opt-out anyway, so the risk is minimal. Develop a regular e-mail newsletter and publish helpful information. If you solve a problem for a customer, you become known as a problem-solver, not just a seller.

Buyers are becoming accustomed to the new rules established by Internet marketing. It is flattering to be catered to. It feels good to have merchants who seem to know so much about what buyers want and need, providing just the right solutions. And the proof is in the sales figures.

E-mail marketing is an inexpensive way to deepen relationships with customers and drive up sales, no matter the economic conditions.

Creative Intuition offers an easy to use e-mail marketing system that can get you up and running in no time. You can pick from several generic templates or have us create a custom branded template to give your e-mail more bang for the buck.

Latest & Greatest
Each month Creative Intuition will highlight recently completed projects with samples of the project and comments from our clients.
National Merchant Resources, logo, business system and web site.
Who owns the Copyright?

A lot of clients ask me about copyright. It can be confusing and some designers treat copyright differently than others.

So let me walk you through a very simple scenario. You have a logo designed and you pay for it, so you own it, right? Well, not exactly. What you paid for was the right to use the artwork as your logo, but not for the copyright. Copyright law states that the creator of artwork, in this case, a logo, owns the copyright in it unless and until they transfer it in writing. To obtain those rights, you have to have a document which makes it either work for hire or which transfers all rights, title and interest in the work.

OK, OK I know this doesn't sound right but that is the way the law is written. However, a designer can easily transfer the copyright to their client, and they should, with a simple "copyright transfer agreement." This is something you should talk about with your designer if you don't have one. If you are a client of Creative Intuition we include in our terms and conditions an automatic copyright transfer to our clients. So no need to worry if you are a client of ours, you own the copyright on work we've done for you.

However, fonts and photos are copyrighted and not to the designer but to the company that created them. These are not transferable. So if you have a corporate font in your logo that you want to use in other documents just go to MyFonts.com and purchase the one you need. For photographs, make sure that the designer has licensed the usage properly so that you can use the photo in a brochure as well as on your website or other marketing material. The photo will have to be licensed for each use separately.

This is just a simple example of copyright for a logo, if you want to learn more visit the US Copyright Office website. Speaking of web sites the copyright for a website is different. Click Here for a helpful article pertaining to web site copyright.
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