“It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it” makes no sense right now.

By Julian Aston / March 25, 2020 / 0 Comments

“It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it” is a statement that makes no sense right now. While “how you say it” will always be important, it is absolutely imperative that “what you say” is relevant, important and non frivolous at this time. Otherwise, you risk the recipient of your messaging ignoring and […]

Read More

The Road to Untold Riches: Niche marketing

By Julian Aston / February 19, 2020 / 0 Comments

“Niche marketing,” aka “Vertical Marketing,” aka “Program Marketing”. The strategy may be known by a number of names, but it’s really just “smart marketing” when you choose to market into a particular niche. Why? Unless you have a large budget and have the operational power of a large company, marketing your product or service to […]

Read More

Amazon wishes upon a (marketing) star

By Julian Aston / January 2, 2020 / 0 Comments

Do you remember the last time you committed to making a purchase of something without ensuring it had a decent quantity of firmly positive reviews, plus four or more stars denoting further approval? I was going to write a story about the importance of reviews and associated stars in terms of the online shopping experience, […]

Read More
email marketing

What’s old is new again…

By Julian Aston / October 22, 2019 / 0 Comments

A spirited discussion during a networking session this morning helped me realize, once again, the importance of email…and yes, the ‘front-end’ emails like eNewsletters, promotional messaging, welcome and referral emails are all key, but today, more than ever, ‘back-end’ emails are equally as important.  What are ‘back-end’ emails? They could be considered follow up emails, […]

Read More

Nefarious Marketing: The profession has never looked so bad

By Julian Aston / October 9, 2019 / 0 Comments

I believe marketing to be an honorable profession, reaching out to the consumer or to businesses with messages that, however contrived they may be, minimally deliver some value along the way. Not so with what I think of as “nefarious marketing” techniques. Ones that take advantage of or attempt to change behavior. One doesn’t have […]

Read More
Marketing Team

The Importance of Management Teams

By Julian Aston / August 21, 2019 / 0 Comments

For some forty years, I have been involved in strategic planning both for my clients, and my own successful companies. It has been extremely exciting to see the results of my approach – some clients have doubled, even tripled their businesses, within as short a time frame as one year! Not only that, they have […]

Read More

The 5th “P” of marketing – and the most important?

By Julian Aston / July 24, 2019 / 0 Comments

Everyone who took ‘Marketing 101’ learned about the 4 “P’s” of marketing: Product Price Physical distribution Promotion But since you attended college, a fifth “P” has been added signifying “Positioning”…and it should take a leading place when developing your marketing strategy prior to working through price, physical distribution and promotion. After all, how can you […]

Read More

Marketing: Why You Should “Pull” Rather Than “Push” (and Skyrocket Your Results)

By Julian Aston / April 29, 2019 / 0 Comments

Adopt an attitude of deference and demonstrate much greater patience…  Visual licensed from adobe stock. The days are gone when you can push your sales message out to your target audience in a manner and using verbiage and visuals that would, in today’s marketing environment, be deemed “pushy” at best. In addition, using follow-up approaches […]

Read More

The Importance of Mentorship: Giving is even better than getting

By Julian Aston / April 15, 2019 / 0 Comments

According to a survey by the American Society for Training and Development, seventy-five per cent of executives say mentoring has been critical to their career development. We all need mentors. Guiding lights who push us to think or act in different, more aspirational ways. I was no different. I needed a mentor to accelerate my […]

Read More

After Conversion

By Julian Aston / April 1, 2019 / 0 Comments

And then later, after conversion… A Welcome Series Send a series of welcome messages to new customers and you’ll see measurable sales increases when they up-sell and cross-sell themselves. eNewsletters and Holiday eCards An email newsletter is used to inform your audience about the latest news, tips, or updates about your product or company. They […]

Read More

Utilizing Email As The Primary Tool To Help Automate Conversion

By Julian Aston / April 1, 2019 / 0 Comments

Naturally, conversion will require the involvement of your salesforce and a combination of marketing and sales techniques. This article focuses on how making email your primary marketing tool will help you automate this task. Here are two examples: Inquiry Responders When you receive an online inquiry all you know is that it’s someone shopping for […]

Read More

Map Out A Well-Segmented, Dynamic Email Strategy

By Julian Aston / April 1, 2019 / 1 Comment

So your marketing campaign was successful and leads have been generated. If you thought that was hard enough, now comes the really hard work entailed in converting your leads into customers. But here’s some good news…mapping out a well-segmented, dynamic email strategy with a focus on analyzing data to find patterns and insights that indicate […]

Read More

Marketing Priorities & Challenges For The Year Ahead

By Julian Aston / February 28, 2019 / 0 Comments

Implementation of your plan is typically a marathon not a sprint HubSpot recently issued their “State of Inbound 2018” Report. This annual report asks respondents what their company’s top marketing priorities will be over the next 12 months. 6200 respondents in 99 countries from a mix of industries, company sizes and levels of seniority weighed […]

Read More

How will you acquire these new, primary customers?

By Julian Aston / February 28, 2019 / 0 Comments

This is key to understanding the best marketing tactics you need to employ. When you look at your present customer profiles, where are your customers originating? As an example, are they coming from referral sources, is it an Adwords lead, are you using email lists to reach out, (of course, it is probably all of […]

Read More

How many leads will it take?

By Julian Aston / February 28, 2019 / 0 Comments

In order to formulate your budget requirements, and to understand the extent of your marketing campaign, you need to calculate the amount of leads required to be placed in the customer conversion process. This understanding comes from an extrapolation of how many leads it takes to convert one customer. If you’re looking to acquire 100 […]

Read More

What is your target audience and who are your primary customers?

By Julian Aston / February 28, 2019 / 0 Comments

It’s imperative that you identify the target audience for your product or service in order that your message reaches those most qualified. Naturally, you need to reach them with the right message and/or offer in order to drive demand, but that’s another subject altogether.  Assuming you either have customer data to analyze, or have performed […]

Read More

Marketing Priorities

By Julian Aston / February 28, 2019 / 0 Comments

When it comes to marketing challenges, 61% of the respondents said generating traffic and leads was their #1 challenge. Clearly, at 69%, converting leads to customers is a major priority, and at 61%, generating those very leads is the key challenge.

Read More
integrated marketing communication intouch business

Integrated Marketing Communication – Marrying the Old and the New

By Julian Aston / April 9, 2018 / 0 Comments

Integrated Marketing Communication (IMP) popped up recently as one of the ‘new’ marketing techniques web marketers are using to drive business. What’s amusing is that intouch Business has been using IMP to generate leads for our clients for a LONG time now. So, why all of a sudden is there this hype about IMP?  Because […]

Read More
brand recognition intouch Business Burbank CA

How to Develop Brand Recognition for Your Insurance Agency

By Julian Aston / March 19, 2018 / 0 Comments

According to an industry study by Deloitte, in the United States, the world’s biggest insurance market, the property and casualty (P&C) sector is building upon a strong 2018 in which the industry saw net income soar 66 percent to US$60 billion, thanks to a 10.8 percent boost in net premiums written and nearly breaking even […]

Read More

The Research Numbers Prove That Customer Engagement Pays

By Julian Aston / March 12, 2018 / 0 Comments

The numbers prove it out…customer engagement is the key to edging out the competition in the insurance industry. It can also increase customer retention, and the amount of business established clients do with your company. Price Doesn’t Have To Be The Answer Traditionally, companies have felt they needed to undercut the competition in order to secure […]

Read More