Technology is exploding in the Electronic Market!

Cura can keep you up to date with the latest advances and package a set of tools that meets your needs and does not electrocute your budget!

Marketing is a numbers game. Not only are the number of prospects you contact important but also how and how frequently you contact them. More than 7 touches of a prospect are required to achieve a lasting recall of a company name, a product or a tag line! Well designed E-Mail campaigns can deliver both the frequency and variety of touches to any or all of the prospects in your target markets at a fraction of the cost of classic marketing tools such as direct mail, magazine ads, trade shows or face to face visits. While they should still remain a part of your overall marketing strategy, E-mail campaigns can carry much of the front end load in identifying and qualifying new prospects.

A successful E-mail campaign is composed of 3 critical components:

• Design and content of the messages - the story line for multiple contacts
• Software tool used to launch and manage the e-mails
• Feedback from the prospects that will drive targeted follow up

The messaging

If you intend to contact your prospects 7 or more times your messaging must create interest and recall through consistent formatting, variety of content, educational opportunities and unique calls to action. While your ultimate goal is to make a sale, building a relationship and growing confidence with your company are critical first steps.

Cura can help you design an effective "Dimensional E-Mail" campaign and incorporate unique features such as "talking story lines", one minute videos, educational tools such as white papers, book summaries and more - all designed to build a relationship at the same time that you are presenting your capabilities and subtly increasing your calls to action.

E-Mail Software

Cura can help you select the right E-mail Software to meet your needs and your budget! Some of the considerations we explore to help you zero in on a software package include

1. Does the software integrate with your CRM?
2. Is the software on-demand or out of the box?
3. Does the software provide e-mail template design support?
4. How robust is the performance tracking and reporting?
5. Does the service provide for design and hosting of landing pages?
6. Does the software incorporate CAN-SPAM compliance?

In addition to the technical features of the package the commercial arrangements are also considered. Methods of payment vary widely from annual license fees; monthly fixed charge for e-mails sent; purchase of a block of e-mails; or pay based on number contacts managed. Cura can help you sort through the commercial terms and select a package that best fits your intended use and the expected volume of e-mails to be sent.

Feedback from the market

Because all the contacts are electronic, well designed software packages can monitor a prospects reaction to your messaging. Was it opened? Did they click on any specific offerings in your message? Did they click through to your website? Each of these bits of data provides valuable insights to help identify and qualify prospects that have a real interest in your products and services, so that follow up contacts are targeted where they have the best probability for success.

If the software package is integrated with your CRM, all of the prospects response data can be automatically stored at the individual contact level by campaign so you can maintain a history on each contact's reaction to your marketing efforts. More importantly, you can also organize your follow up plans and track the responses to them as well - dramatically streamlining the process and maximizing the productivity of your valuable appointment setting resources.

Cura can help you with the data integration challenges and also assist in the design of follow up work flow processes to insure that your appointment setting process is delivering the qualified appointments you need to grow sales with new accounts

Other tools in the electronic market

Maximizing your visibility on the internet will increase the number of leads generated as prospects search for solutions to their current problems. Consider some of the options:

• Search Engine Optimization - Equipping your website with SEO concepts will dramatically increase the probability that prospects will preferentially find your website when searching on the internet. SEO requires 2 steps:
  • Modify the initial design of the website to focus on emphasizing certain key words that best describe your company and its products and services. This is done through addition of meta tags, text modification, navigational structure that conforms to search engine methodology for "reading" your website, links with other sites, etc.
  • Ongoing monitoring of the placement of the site during key word searches on key search engines such as Google, MSN, Yahoo, etc. and fine tuning of site structure and content to improve performance over time.

• Ad Words - In addition to optimizing your site's visibility through SEO, you can also purchase space on the search engine for specific key words to promote your company, a specific product or a specific campaign. The object is to place your company's ad on the 1st page of a search engine's response to a specific key word search. Space is bid for on a competitive basis, and the cost and results vary daily depending on the market's interest in the specific key word, quality of the ad text, etc. Although a very effective way of increasing internet exposure, Ad Words require constant attention to remain effective.

Cura can work with you to help define the opportunity and fit for these and other electronic marketing tools for your specific marketing program and budget. We can also recommend proven external specialists that can cost effectively help you to design and implement programs that meet your requirements.

Electronic marketing tools are an integral part of the New Account Acquisition program and they are constantly changing as new technology is introduced. Let Cura keep you up to date in this rapidly changing world and help you to develop and maintain a custom designed electronic marketing strategy that best meets your needs and your budget!

The Cura Group
"We leverage the best practices in electronic marketing to build SalesForces with our clients."