Marketing Machinery

If we figure that Rightsite, my new industrial property project, started from the first of the year, then this is officially Week 15. So where the H-E-doublehockeysticks are we?

A quick review:

• Trademarks Registration — done
• WFOE Registration — underway (done next month)
• Office — searching now
• Website construction — starts today (hooray)
• Build user base — oops! Knew I was forgetting something

So now it’s time to build up a user base. That means building lists. That means marketing. For us, the Industrial Development Association of Asia (IDAA )is a valuable marketing vehicle. That’s why we built the www.idaaworld.org site. And that’s why its now time to start putting together an IDAA newsletter.

I already have a small list of folks who would be interested in receiving an IDAA newsletter. But now I have to build one and manage to get it sent out without being crucified for being a spammer.

Direct Mail Marketing Tools

Back at my former company we sent out weekly newsletters which we created, managed and delivered mostly by ourselves. But back at my former company I had a staff of 30 folks. Now it’s me and Winni the WonderAssistant. So it was time to find some outsourced solutions.

A quick search of the web uncovered dozens of companies that will help you manage your direct marketing online. Typical services include:

• Creation of templated newsletters
• Managing of mailing lists (including that oh-so-important unsubscribe feature)
• Sending of email marketing messages
• Sending of snail mail marketing messages
• Reporting statistics on user reception of your email messages

Vertical Response

Out of the many direct mail marketing outfits to choose from, www.verticalresponse.com won a Webby Award last year for the quality of its software. Pricing was good, site looks good, so it looks like we are going with this one. So priority one task for this week is the IDAA newsletter. Just a few things to take care of:

• Design the newsletter template (am looking for some good designs to copy, ssssh)
• Write up some news to put in the newsletter (Hello, Google Reader)
• Lay out the first newsletter
• Figure out how to send this thing with Vertical Response
• Check out the reports and see if anyone actually read the newsletter

Should be a busy week, but I will keep you posted right here and let you know how it goes. Have fun and see you right here soon.