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If email marketing is so inexpensive and easy to use, why is it that convenience stores don’t use it to advertise?
As a convenience store owner, you don’t have the time or money to give for expensive print ads, and definitely not enough of a profit margin to even consider using ads in other forms of media like TV. But that doesn’t mean you can’t advertise to maximize sales. Email marketing is a cost effective way to bring your customers back to your store and have them there more often. In comparison to other forms of advertising, email marketing costs but a fraction. Print ads can run you anywhere from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands. This isn’t an option for your store. Email marketing can cost as little as $10 for a thousand emails.
But who has the time for this? Your store is open early in the mornings and late at night to accommodate your customers. Plus, you need your free time to spend with the family.
Email marketing is anything but time consuming.
Email marketing only requires only a few minutes of your time, and what you get are professionally designed advertising templates sent directly to your customers.
So here’s how you start. First, you have to collect a list of emails. There are a number of ways to do this, but one effective way is to collect business cards: At the cash register, you can place a fish bowl (or some other receptacle) with a sign telling customers to drop off their business cards so that they can receive discounts by email. What customers will do is put their business cards in the bowl with an email to contact them. Now you have the first few contacts for you email campaign.
The next step is to sign up for an email marketing account, create your first email marketing campaign and send it out to the people on your list. Signing up is easy, as most email marketing solutions are user-friendly.
Creating your campaign is an easy process also. Email marketing provides you with easy-to-use templates. All you have to do is type your text in (or copy and paste it), and add your own images.
Once your email marketing campaign is finished and sent out, you can track which of your customers were interested in your promotions. Plus, by adding a ‘forward to friend’ button, you can also extend your mailing list, and maximize your potential to gain more customers.
Things to keep in mind when filling in your email marketing templates: Do not use too much bolding, italics, and capital lettering in the body or the subject line of your email. Also, try not to put too many product images without adding content to support the images. Bolding, italics, capitalization, and a high image to text ratio, are all criteria that the spam filters detect. If you overuse them, your email will not land into your subscribers’ inbox, but rather into their spam/junk box.
By using email marketing, your convenience store will have a greater customer return rate, which will drive up your sales. Email marketing can provide you with this added business in a very reasonable and time-sensitive manner. It can maximize your store’s potential, save your money, and give you the opportunity to spend quality time with your family. Now that sounds like a sweet deal!

TORONTO, ONTARIO–(Marketwire – Feb. 10, 2010) –

Editors Note: A photo and video are included with this Press Release.

Today Syncapse Corp., a global leader in social technology, announced the availability of SocialTALK, a software-based solution that improves workflow, enhances productivity and measures results for companies with social media programs that require posting materials on multiple online spaces.

According to a recent survey* of professionals from various industries, 86 per cent have adopted some form of social media presence. At the same time, 84 per cent do not currently measure the return on investment of their social media programs.

SocialTALK helps companies control their online presence, reduce marketing and operational costs, and streamline the approval process among all departments. SocialTALK measures social media’s return on investment by providing real-time results that enable marketers to gain valuable insights into how conversations are shaping their brands.

SocialTALK currently operates on Facebook, Twitter, MoveableType.org and WordPress, with plans to expand platform offerings in the near future. Demonstrations of SocialTALK are available at http://www.socialtalk.com

For more information, download the fact sheet.

QUOTES

“More and more companies are using social media to promote their businesses. Often, managing social media strategy can be a fragmented, all-consuming experience,” said Michael Scissons, President and CEO, Syncapse Corp. “SocialTALK simplifies the process of managing business presence on multiple social media platforms while keeping senior stakeholders informed. The measurement features turn social media presence into tangible results.”

“Global brands are finding it increasingly hard to maintain knowledge of, let alone any control over, their social presence on multiple platforms, and in multiple languages worldwide,” said Rick Murray, President, Edelman Digital. “SocialTalk offers them a light at the end of that tunnel.”

“Labatt’s marketing strategy increasingly relies on social media to build relationships with our most important brand advocates,” said Matt Ramella, Senior Manager, Media, Sponsorship and Digital Marketing, Labatt Breweries of Canada. “For Labatt, this means focusing ongoing engagement with hundreds of thousands of fans across multiple Facebook brand communities. SocialTALK streamlines this process and aggregates results into one convenient place, allowing Labatt to see return on investment in real time.”

About Syncapse Corp.

Syncapse Corp. is a global leader in the practice areas of community building, technology solutions, and digital measurement. Founded by entrepreneur Michael Scissons in 2007, Syncapse Corp. has offices in Toronto, New York and London. Syncapse works with Fortune 500 companies and global media agencies to reinvent how organizations use social media to their competitive advantage. To learn more visit http://www.syncapse.com

About Labatt Breweries of Canada Ltd.

Labatt is one of the nation’s longest-established and most successful brewing companies. Today, the company is a proud member of Anheuser-Busch InBev, producing over 60 quality beers, employing 3,000 Canadians, and operating seven breweries from coast to coast. For more information about Labatt visit: http://www.labatt.com

*Source: Mzinga and Babson Executive Education, “Social Software in Business,” September 8, 2009

To view the photo associated with this release, please visit the following link: http://www.marketwire.com/library/20100209-syn800.jpg

To view the video associated with this release, please visit the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mX0bTmrehw4

For more information, please contact

For more information or to request an interview contact:Syncapse Corp., Meg SinclairManager, Corporate Communications(O) +1.416.847.0392 / (M) +1.647.278.3807m.sinclair@syncapse.com

BatchMaster Software, Inc. has provided process manufacturing software solutions for over two decades with more than one thousand five hundred installations worldwide. BatchMaster’s customers can be found in every formula and recipe based industry segment, including food, beverage, cosmetic, personal care, paint, coating, nutraceutical, pharmaceutical, and specialty chemical. Some of the key benefits of using BatchMaster software include keeping accurate inventory, lot traceability and lot recall, regulatory compliance and just-in-time manufacturing resulting in lower production costs and improved customer service. Flexible, easy to learn and use, and scalable to grow with a process manufacturing business, BatchMaster is the definitive solution for the challenges facing small to midsize process manufacturers. BatchMaster team consists of over a hundred professionals, bringing on-going innovation to product offerings and serving customers as trusted advisors for all process manufacturing and supply-chain challenges.

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The combination of BatchMaster Software, for superior operational efficiencies, and Microsoft Dynamics GP for mission-critical financial management and reporting tools, will realistically address the challenges Traditions Foods seem to be facing and eliminate current barriers to their growth by diminishing incurred losses in efficiency and profits, especially as Tradition Foods enters the contract manufacturing arena, where they may need to manage potential customer supplied inventory.

Inventory Control

• BatchMaster customers have reduced out-of-stocks by understanding demand. As a result, customer satisfaction is improved and sales increased, leading to an improved margin per year.

• On the other hand, other customers were over-stocking. In such cases, customers were able to run more lean by reducing inventory levels, allowing for better cash flow.

• Inventory Turns – After implementing BatchMaster ERP, the increase averaged to 7.9 with projections of 11.2 turns per year. On-time delivery averaged to 94.6% versus the 73.9% pre ERP.

• Once a wireless warehouse system is in place, data accuracy, efficiency, and tight inventory control is simplified even further by utilizing hand held devices to scan barcodes upon receipt of goods, for bin transfers, and for shipping. When shipping multi-media data formats are also supported in the case where you may want to include a picture of a palate on the shipping documents to decrease the number of lost packages that Traditions Foods occassionally encounters.

Nutritional Information

BatchMaster is a unique ERP system; as an industry specific solution it includes a very mature lab, recipe, and nutritional analysis toolset that other ERP systems do not supply. Traditions Foods already has a standalone system in place for nutritional management, however, Tradition Foods finds great value having such features available as part of an integrated system.

Regulatory Compliance

The BatchMaster product will support Bio-Terrorism Act, FDA, HACCP, and 21 CFR Part 11 requirements to the full extent of the regulations in place.

Integrated Environment

In an integrated solution, all major departments (recipe management, production, sales, purchasing, shipping, accounting) are integrated and share a common database. This allows for management reporting and analysis for decision support and determining key performance indicators. There is also one version of the truth.

BatchMaster’s vice-president, Ingrid Leon noted, “To understand why the Traditions Foods’ management team selected BatchMaster ERP requires looking the choices available. The evaluation was very structured and objective; they wanted a system built for food and beverage manufacturing as well as a supplier who understood their industry and was vested in their success. Since this was a long-term investment, they wanted the ERP system selected to be built on leading not bleeding edge technology. Traditions Foods was one of the few management teams who talked about a Return-on-Investment Analysis for the project…clearly world-class thinking.”

You can easily create all of your reservations using dining reservation software. You can even insert important details about your customers and their reservations, too. For example, if you have a party of twelve coming to your restaurant to celebrate the engagement of a prospective bride and groom, you can be ready to provide them with your best champagne for a congratulatory toast. If you have a customer that catches cold easily, you’ll be able to know before they arrive that their party should sit in the middle of your establishment away from windows, doors, and potential cross breezes.You can also edit the information you place in dining reservation software instantaneously and within a matter of moments. Perhaps one of your customers called needing to increase his reservations to seat twenty six instead of sixteen. Maybe another customer requested a specific dish to be served to her entire party. Some customers have specific instructions on how they prefer their food to be prepared or even specific servers that have given them excellent service in the past. These are all details that are important for you to know and track in order to provide your customer with the best experience possible while they visit your establishment. This will help your business remain steady and even continue to grow in an unpredictable economy such as this.Another benefit of dining reservation software is your ability to communicate effectively with your customers. Sometimes the telephone isn’t the most reliable source of communication, especially on the busiest nights at your restaurant when you’re likely receiving multiple calls at once. With dining reservation software, though, your customer can contact you easily and quickly via email and other online resources. This means that you can have all of your customer’s last minute details and preferences to refer to right on your computer, so you won’t forget anything when the moment comes to prepare for their reservation. You can also email your customer confirmation notices that will ensure that you and your staff are all clear on the specifics of the upcoming event.With the online marketing tools available in dining reservation software, you can keep track of all your customer referrals in one simple program. Nothing is better for a restaurant than positive word of mouth advertising, and incentives for referrals to either your customers, concierge services, or both can significantly help your establishment flourish. In addition to simply tracking these referrals, however, you can also create those important incentive programs using reservation software. Email and traditional marketing campaign tools are available on the software as well, so you’ll have everything you need right at your fingertips to advertise your establishment and services successfully.