Fuelnet.com

In a recent article, the New York Times described how the chief executive of Kraft generated a high response to a survey by attaching a $1 bill. The tactic is based on the principle of reciprocity: I do something for you, you do something for me. Direct marketers have used it for decades — and it continues to work today.

Learn the secrets for engaging emotionally with your customers and prospects to ensure long-lasting and profitable relationships in FuelNet Monthly. Get entertaining, provocative insights into today’s
best business ideas — and idea makers — that are shaping marketing, generating sales, and producing profits.

But are there other incentives for getting a positive response to your brand-building efforts? Offering genuinely valuable information is one of the best ways to strengthen bonds with existing customers and reach out to new ones.

Here are five strategic ways to do it:

1. White papers. Instead of an overt, aggressive sales pitch, a white paper is a low-key marketing piece that educates and informs your target audience. Companies use them for a variety of purposes, such as explaining new regulations, demonstrating a better way to accomplish something, describing new applications, products, and services, and so on. The tone is engaging and journalistic, with no hype. White papers can contain useful tips and how-to information that benefits and educates your audience. No industry standard exists for their length.

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By Ken Beaulieu, Fuelnet.com, October 26th 2009