You'll remember that I've defined marketing as delivering the right message to the right people with the right presentation and there is no better way to do that than direct marketing. There's no doubt in my mind that any conventional business - restaurant, retail store, service station, etc. can easily and inexpensively double it's business within thirty days with direct marketing.

In fact, I want to give you one very simple, cheap strategy that you can use for any such business. It's a little labor intensive but very inexpensive and very effective. It's based on the simple idea of credibility coming from the fact that someone you know patronizes a particular business. Here's what you do:

#1: Get a list of all the names and home addresses of your best customers

#2: Get your local criss-cross street directory available at your main library. This directory allows you to take a customer's address and look up the people who live on either side of that address or across the street from that address.

#3: Compile a prospect list from that directory by name and address of the neighbors of your best customers

#4: Design a form letter to send to all those prospects that lets you insert the names of the neighbors.

For example, your letter might say, "Dear Mr. & Mrs. Jones, Did you know that Herb and Barbara Gratitude, your next door neighbors, have been our customers for over a year. It just occurred to me that you might be looking for the same kind of (insert whatever your service or product is) that Herb and Barbara come to us for. So I've enclosed six special coupons made out in your name only for your use."

This strategy will get you business. In fact for every four letters you mail with a really strong offer you should get at least one customer. Each of your customer's has four eligible neighbors, one on either side, two across the street, so you could double your customer count with just this idea.

The strategy I just gave is a simple example of just how powerful direct marketing can be in increasing a business. There are four very basic fundamentals to remember that give direct marketing its power. It's those four items I want to cover with you in the next Success Marketing Strategys that will be arriving to you in the next couple of days.