Relationship Marketing | Build Your Online Business

woman reading a gift card

How many times you've been out shopping and as you walk back through your door you recall that you should have bought some greeting cards?  Have you ever suddenly remembered that it's your best friend's Anniversary in a week's time and you have not mailed her a greeting card, or even purchased it yet?  How many times have you thought of sending your clients a “thank you” card but the thought of writing 20, 30 or 50 cards is so daunting you never get started?

I know this happens because it used to happen to me.  I've also had people tell me in March that they have unwritten cards they should have sent out in November or December of the previous year but it was such an overwhelming task that it got started but was not completed.

Send Out Cards is a unique greeting card system with a complete online service (more…)

A bumble bee…Is she asking me about my shape, you may be wondering? And, no, this has nothing to do with the brand of tuna. Let’s take a closer look at the bumble bee for a few minutes.

The bumble bee’s body is large and is supported in the air by two pairs of very thin wings connected together so that they look like just one pair.  A statement attributed to scientists around the mid-19^th century and again in the early 20^th century concerning the ability of the bumble bee to fly has proven to be a myth.  The view was held  for many years that aerodynamically the bumble bee should not be able to fly, but it flies anyway.  Although the original calculations proved to be faulty and we recognize that the bumblebee was created with the ability to fly, people still continue to quote the thought.

Ivars Peterson goes further to confirm that “on average, a bumblebee travels at a rate of 3 meters (almost 10 feet) per second, beating its wings 130 times per second. That's quite respectable for the insect world.”

The bumblebee CAN fly: Women, more often than men, are told that that they cannot possibly achieve a particular goal.  One that bothered me over the years was when a woman saw the flexibility and opportunity to start her own (more…)

Relationship Marketing is defined on cecausa.com as a “marketing methodology by which a business establishes a relationship with their customers and stakeholders in order to foster customer loyalty and purchases over time.”

This simple, but straightforward definition captures the essence of why relationship marketing has to be an integral part of the strategies implemented by small and micro-businesses owned by soloentrepreneurs.  The goal should be to develop long-term relationships as it is over time that business owners will be able to continue to provide value, and as they provide value the often repeated factor – the know,like, and trust factor – will develop.

One of the essential aspects of relationship marketing is the retention of existing customers.  When you consider that it takes (more…)