Get your touchPRO Express customized Mobile App and you'll get a great feature to help your business grow.  GeoFencing is included in your App and will allow you to create some cool marketing and advertising strategies.

Here are just a few thoughts on the benefits of GeoFencing and how it can work best for you:

1. GeoFencing can help you engage local shoppers. It is a location-based service that sends messages to smartphone users who enter a defined geographic area. Some companies send promotions to customers' smartphones when they enter a store, mall or neighborhood.

2. Deals can be hyper-local. Knowing that customers are nearby lets businesses tailor offers based on local events or holidays.

3. It leverages your location. By sending a targeted offer to a customer in a parking lot, you may be able to steer them away from competitors.  Companies can also work with businesses that offer complementary products.

4. Collect customer data that you can really use and offer rewards accordingly. When you know where customers are and how they behave, you can not only customize offers but also give them rewards and a personalized experience. Neiman Marcus is piloting GeoFencing in its stores so salespeople can see when VIP customers are in store, look at their purchase history and provide more personalized service.

Thanks to http://www.cio.com/

1. Fish where the fish are. Build GeoFences where you believe your customers are, not necessarily where you want them to be. If you business is located near a highway or thoroughfare, alerts may not reach them in time to take an exit ramp! 


2. Big fences do not work. By definition, a GeoFence can be any size or shape. But want to attract them when they are near by your retail store.  Construct GeoFences that are small and thus more relevant. Use this rule of thumb: the distance should equate to approximately four minutes travel time to your doorstep. 
If your store is in a mall, that is a four-minute walk. If along the road, that is a few blocks. Anything larger and you are reducing relevancy in your “local messaging.”

3. Bland messages do not work. If your message is an ad versus an action, you will not drive the customer behavior you desire. You are not alone in your GeoFence aspirations. Today more than half of U.S. mobile ad spending is local. Your message must be brief, be locally-relevant and prompt action.  And money always drives action: do not be cheap.

4. Make it important. The Starbucks latte coupon message magically appearing on your iPhone has been cited as the Holy Grail of location-based services for a decade. Technically, the capability is beginning to emerge with some – albeit spotty – location sources, but persistent handset location on the handset is too costly in terms of its toll on battery life.  Besides, which customers want to receive dozens of coupon texts as they stroll through the mall? If you build a GeoFence, have it trigger an important action.

Saving a quarter on a cup of coffee is not important, but redirecting a high roller away from a competitor’s casino is important.  Choose your GeoFence purpose wisely.   

5. Watch the clock. A GeoFence is not just a place on a map, it is also a place in time. When you take action on a trigger and when you notify a customer to do something is just as important as where. 

6. Measure everything. Even if you are unsure of how certain metrics directly impact your campaign ROI, record them anyway.  A GeoFence combines the physical world with the data world, which adds up to a brave new world for marketing analytics. Insight from the data comes from surprising places.   Do you know what time of day marks the highest propensity for spending among your customer segments? You should.

Thanks to: Rip Gerber is CEO of Locaid Technologies, San Francisco.

Struggling with understanding the “what, how and why” rules of data capture? If so, you’re not alone. Many marketers view data capture as a one-time only event — asking for too much or the wrong type of information.

Traditionally, marketers use data capture forms to collect as much information as possible to help build complete customer profiles. It’s no secret, however, that there's a direct correlation between the number of questions asked and abandonment rates on data capture forms. Not only is this approach counterproductive, it’s fundamentally wrong. The bottom line is customer data isn't an entitlement; it’s something you earn. 

To gain consumers' trust, marketers need to shift their thought processes and view data capture as a continuum — a multiphase process that unfolds over time with the exchange of value between you and consumers. Unfortunately, the value exchange is the most overlooked aspect of a well-designed data capture strategy.

As such, prospects or customers won’t divulge personal information unless they receive information in return. Remember, your objective in the data capture stage is to move the needle from an anonymous visitor on your website to a fully qualified prospect.

Here are four tactics smart marketers employ during their data capture processes to move prospects from anonymous visitors to named visitors that sales can engage with:

1. Serve up valuable content opportunities. Begin by analyzing your customers' behaviors on your site (e.g., how long they visit certain pages) to determine their areas of interest. In doing so, you then can build in opportunities to ask them for additional data in subsequent interactions as trust deepens and more value is provided. Admittedly, this approach requires a bit more lifting, but the end result likely will be full customer profiles.

2. Never ask for more information than you need. Remember, each request for data represents a test of your trust/value relationship with your customers. So don’t test it unnecessarily. Similarly, don't ask about preferences unless you're at a point at which you can act and fulfill those preferences. Design your questions to be both relevant and actionable.

3. Be transparent about data usage. Be honest and up-front about whether this customer data will be shared with others. And if so, how? Consider providing customers with a link to your privacy policy, which should be in close proximity to your data request. Remember, if you institute a change in your privacy policy, you need to request permission from your customers to implement those changes.

4. Fulfill your judiciary responsibility. Ensure that the data entrusted to you is used in the way you’ve stated. After all, the onus rests on you to reassure your customers that you won't do anything inappropriate with the data entrusted to you. Make sure the data is protected so other parties don't have access to it.

Remember, successful data capture requires a well-thought-out and carefully executed plan. If you’re smart with your data capture strategy, you’ll maximize your chances of converting a prospect’s initial interest into a long-term, brand-loyal relationship.

Thanks to Dave Lewis Chief Marketing Officer of Message Systems, and contributor to EM&C  for this insightful article.

Video is no joke.  I can be a game changer, but you should not think that you need a Hollywood production to be effective.   Here's my recommendation;…"create a great message and wrap it around the best quality video you can produce…and then go for it!" Here are some reasons to consider adding video to your Web site

Having Contacts on your business contact list who don’t want to receive communications from you, is like having unwanted calories on your waist-line....It's okay to let 'em go!

This week's question is from Linda in Washington DC…. her business category is "Accounting" and she is actively growing her client list. Her question is: "What can I do to stop people from unsubscribing or opting-out of my database list?"

Well Linda….first of all I’d like to congratulate you on having a professional email system that gives your contacts the opportunity to opt-out of your email, and I totally understand that an unsubscribe from your list can carry the sting of rejection. But I’ve got good news and more news for you…the good news is that you don’t want people on your business contact list who don’t want to receive communications from you. So if they don't appreciate the useful and beneficial information you work so hard to share with them ...it's OKAY to say farewell and it's actually good for you, because it leaves an opening in your database for another contact who's waiting to connect with you and will totally appreciate your gift.

The other good news is that opportunity is knocking ....So, if you are really bothered by the fact that a contact has unsubscribed, or opted-out of your email list …then that’s the perfect opportunity to give them a phone call them and ask why they dropped out.   Believe it or not, I have found that someone left my list because they hit the "unsubscribe" button by accident.  So go ahead and reach out ....you may rekindle the business flame and start what might become a meaningful and long lasting relationship. I mean just think about it….if you'd had a great relationship with them all along, they probably would not have unsubscribe in the first place!

Of course you’ll do better with a system to attract new contacts, retain existing contacts and keep bridges maintained with previous contacts.  For that, you’ll do well to have a system, so I invite you to take a look at officePRO. It's a database management system that helps you grow and grows with you.

At the heart of our system is a very robust Contact Management System. You'll get the most used and effective features of more expensive and complicated CRM systems placed right at the center of your service. Build a full contact record for every added or imported lead. Every form of communication from email campaigns and even personal text messages are easily accessible from the contact record.

How exactly does this benefit your business?

• By helping you build a better relationship with prospective clients ...even those you may meet on a chance encounter. 
• By getting to KNOW your prospective clients, allowing you to record and understand better what they NEED....and consistently communicating to them ways that you can help them meet their needs.
• By staying in contact with those who may not be ready to do business at the moment, but when the timing is right, may become your largest contributor

That's the sort of action it takes to reduce your unsubscribes and opt-outs; at the same time you are building a clean, lean, marketing machine!

officePRO has dozens of features to help you save time, money and effort and there's one more thing, you'll get the personal input from my DonPaul Database Fitness Program. 

Starting or enhancing your database is an important and necessary action for the success of your business. But it doesn't have to be overwhelming. By planning carefully, using the right tools and establishing consistency, you can build successful business relationships to last a lifetime.  

You’ve learned about the previous 4 basic steps: Week 1. Commitment,  Week 2. Assessing your level of fitness,  Week 3. Designing your database fitness program, Week 4.  Assembling your equipment and now in  Week 5, you are ready for action…Actually putting clients into your database and monitoring your success . As you begin to build your database, these tips are worth keeping in mind:

1. Build on a daily basis. Not everyone will be your client, however if you target the right prospects, with the right product or service, at the right time….there’s no doubt that you will meet people who are worthy of a place in your database.  Building relationships is not selling, but most people only buy and buy again due to the relationship you've built with them, or with some else that they trust.
2. Not every day will be the same. Not every day will a great day…but every day will be wonderful. Say that again?  Don’t try too hard to figure it out…right now, but as you grow you will understand it. At the end of a great day you’ll know it’s been great, maybe because you made some sales…  At the end of everyday you’ll know it’s been wonderful, why? Because you are a business owner with the freedom to shape your destiny! How wonderful is that?  You are committed to success. You determined that in Week 1.  So just focus on your goals and do the math to generate the activity you need.
   
3. Be creative. You can bet, (just as with physical fitness) your database growth can hit a plateau.  For database fitness, you can find creative ways to inspire yourself and your target market.We can help you.
   
4. Get help if you need it. The first 90-days are the most critical.  Connect with Us: solutions@donpaul.com and we’ll help inspire you! We’ll help you take your business or organization to an entirely new level.
5. Don’t give up. No matter what…believe in yourself and your business.  Start building your relationships and keep on building ….don’t stop, never give up.

When we began, 4 weeks ago, I admitted to you that I'd be mirroring and applying some of the Mayo Clinic's practices for physical fitness to my database fitness program ....and I am sticking to that promise.

So here we are at ASSEMBLING  OUR EQUIPMENT; step 4 of the 5 foundational steps for database fitness.

Let's take a look back at: Week 1. We determined our commitment,  Week 2. We assessed our level of fitness and Week 3. We designed our fitness program.  Now in Week 4., we are ready to assemble the equipment that we'll need to manage our plan.  In this case, the "equipment" I'm referring to are the tools or the system we need to help us keep our well made plan in order. 

For database fitness, I have  found the perfect system to help keep you on target and on budget....it’s called officePRO.  

Just as there are many different treadmills and other exercise  stuff on the market, so it is for database management. In the seven years I've used officePRO, I have found that it gives a small to midsized business the most “bang for their buck”, with everything you need to market and promote your business, conveniently located on one dashboard.

Package prices are based on the size of your database, storage and bandwidth. All customers large and small operate at FULL POWER!

Here are some of “Must Have” features I recommend for any database management system and officePRO has them all.....at a price that fits your budget:

·         Easily Create and Manage Contact Lists
·         Create or Upload Your Own HTML Templates
·         Lead Capture Form Creation
·         Robust Analytics
·         Email Campaigns
·         Automated Triggers
·         CRM Type Notations
·         Web Based Sharing
·         Hundreds of pre-configured templates
·         Industry leading anti-spam and anti-virus
·         Campaign Scheduler
·         Autoresponders
·         No Duplicate Emails Ever
·         Calendars
·         Document Storage
·         Audio and Video Integration

Here's something you can depend on....I'm not going to just give you a list of tools and leave you to figure it out!

Over the coming weeks, I am going to explain to you, in deep detail how each of these features can fit into your goals, help you hold your plan together and ultimately benefit you and your business and/or organization.

I won't bore you with technical jargon or freak you out with long intricate scenarios. I will share with you stories of success that are being proclaimed by thousands of businesses just like yours.  So stay tuned...or get a head start by connecting with me for a complementary consultation today!