Know-How News by MarketingProfs.com

Issue 7 | February 16, 2007

Dear Small Business Marketers,

In this week's top story, senior contributor Jill Griffin uses a case study example to walk us through the process of identifying which customers deserve which types of loyalty programs.

From our next two articles learn 1) how you can improve the quality of your customer referrals and 2) tips for improving your standing with the major search engines.

Then check out a few small business highlights from the discussion forum. Browse this week's 10 most popular questions. Read advice from several experts about building a newsletter subscriber list. And play back a seminar about direct marketing (at no charge).

Happy Friday!

Best wishes,

:: Valerie Frazee
:: Know-How News Editor
:: MarketingProfs.com
:: An online community of 242,400 marketers

P.S. Ads allow us to deliver Know-How News to you at no charge. So if you are interested in lead generation, please do check out the ad in the right column.

Are You Building the Right Kind of Loyalty?

Knowing Your Client's Connections Can Increase Your Referrals

Marketing Challenge: Three Ways to Score With Search Engines

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Are You Building the Right Kind of Loyalty?

By Jill Griffin

Conventional wisdom teaches us that customer acquisition is typically far more costly than customer retention, and, therefore, we must strive to make customers loyal. But not all customers are actually beneficial to the business.

We marketers must learn to identify and retain the most profitable type of loyal customers. We must learn to recognize and produce customers who have the most beneficial type of loyalty.

In other words: Sure, you want more loyal customers. But are you building the right *kind* of loyalty?

Get the full story.

Note: This article is available to our Premium Members only.

Knowing Your Client's Connections Can Increase Your Referrals

By Paul McCord

One of the critical aspects of generating a large number of quality referrals is, of course, qualifying the referrals -- as opposed to just collecting names and phone numbers. This is easy to do if you take the time to learn who your client knows, or likely knows.

Get the full story.

Marketing Challenge: Three Ways to Score With Search Engines

By Meryl K. Evans and Hank Stroll

Small businesses don't often have the resources for the amount of effort needed to succeed with the likes of Google, Yahoo and MSN Search out there. Luckily, the Internet offers lots of free tools to maximize marketing and search engine efforts. Readers offer three ways to take advantage.

Get the full story.

Here are this week's hottest topics. These have been the most active discussions in KHE over the last seven days.

These are this week’s superstars! The Most Stimulating started the hottest discussions. The Most Active contributed the most posts (questions + answers). And the Most Expert earned the most points.

Most Stimulating	Most Active	Most Expert
W.M.M.A. ed organizetoorder rav.jaiya kollipnick brian hintravia down under jdcordray vincedog	W.M.M.A. proeditor Jeremy Shearer peanutpeanut Phoenix ONE telemoxie CarolBlaha Vevolution msumner1 Tracey	Phoenix ONE proeditor CarolBlaha kathysmithcasting sshm BARQ shghosh Jeremy Shearer harzkek peanutpeanut

When you're building a list of newsletter subscribers for a new publication, you have to start somewhere. Getting from 50 names to your first 1000 can be a tricky hurdle. Here peanutpeanut receives feedback about the pros and cons of offering a prize.

Discussion: Prize Giveaways for Newsletter Subscribers?

Have something to add? The Asker will be alerted when you post.

Today's perk for KHN subscribers is our seminar: The Wide World of Direct Marketing on the Web. Click to read the description. Then use the link below to replay the seminar before next Friday. (The time limit is just for non-Premium Plus members. Premium Plus members may replay the seminar any time.)

Here's what one attendee told us about this seminar: "If you are a BtoC marketer, this is a must-see." Don't miss the chance to replay it. (Normally $99.)

Resource: Direct Marketing on the Web

Or browse 402 resources posted in our Resource Library.

MarketingProfs member joekwanusc asked for help naming a coffee bar. As ASVP/ChrisB points out, this kind of question is bound to spark some fun: "Coffee bars are right up there with hairdressers for having huge scope for creative naming."

Skim the thread to find your favorites. We especially liked Cheetah Cafe ("We devour the competition!") and Queequeg's Cafe (quite a story behind that one).

Discussion: Hip + Cool Name for Coffee/Expresso Bar

Have something to add? The Asker will be alerted when you post.

Want to share the news? Invite your colleagues to participate in our online discussion forum, Know-How Exchange.

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