Situational Marketing

Catching Up With Chris Torbit

I'm sitting here with Chris Torbit, the president of Blast Companies, at a St Louis Bread Company (that's Panera to most of you folks).  We're strategizing about the use of the blog and the launch of the new store.

Our goal is simple.  We think there are lots of marketing people and small business owners who want to run e-mail campaigns and voice broadcast campaigns, but aren't sure how to do it or what the cost is.  If you are an experienced campaign, you hire an agency to do the work for you. 

But what happens when you're a small business, or you're someone who doesn't normally use e-mail to connect with customers?  Where do you turn if you have 250 on your list, and don't want to pay big bucks and sign-up fees every time you send out an e-mail?

That's what Chris built the store for.  It allows small businesses, marketing professionals, and firms that don't have their own solution the ability to manage marketing campaigns for a low monthly fee.  Try $35 to send 1000 e-mails.  And track them.

So my job is now to reach out to small business consultants, bloggers, and marketers, and let them know about the Blast Marketing Self-Service store.  Any help would be appreciated, both by me, and by your client, boss, or accountant.

Self-Service E-Mail Marketing For Recruiters

The new store has launched, and one of the things we'll be doing is showcasing the different ways you can use the store to run your business.  Our target is audience is simple - any small business that currently markets using e-mail, text or voice, or wants to.

Think of us as the prepaid cellular for e-mail marketing.  If you are sending out e-mails to a group of people from 500-5000, we're the cheapest and most effective option.

Today, we're going to make an impassioned plea to recruiters.  Recruiters speak with dozens of candidates a day, and connect with hundreds of candidates a week through e-mail.  Once a candidate has been interviewed, and found acceptable, the recruiter will keep the candidate in a file for open requirements.  Contacting the candidates can be difficult, especially for purposes of referrals, to announce new positions, or to check in on a candidate's availability. 

Until now. If you are a recruiter, I want you to try something.  Assemble an e-mail list of 1000 candidates in your field.  If you place accountants, get 1000 accountants.  If you place java programmers, get 1000 java programmers.  You already have the names and the e-mail addresses in your database, you just have to pull them out.

Sit down and write a three paragraph reminder to these people.  Tell them you're checking in with them on their availability, and creating a list of people to e-mail open jobs to once a month.  If they respond, you'll put them in an opt-in list, and once a month, you'll send them your top jobs to look at or refer people to.

Now go to the Blast Marketing Self-Service Store. Click on the E-mail marketing campaign button.  You can send that e-mail out to 1000 people for $35.  It will allow you to import the list you built, create the e-mail, send it, track the responses, make it html friendly, and even keep you current on spam regulation.

$35.  It's a single serving cost.  And next month, when you want to do it again, this time with jobs?  $35 for e-mail marketing list management, creation, tracking and response.  If you've been wondering how to go about contacting your prospect list, but are worried about agency fees, this is your solution.

And when you do it, we'll write about it on the situational marketing blog.

Blast Companies Launches A Small Business Marketing Store

The big differentiator we feel Blast Companies brings to the table is the notion of self-service.  Small businesses want access to e-mail marketing, IVR and SMS messaging, and other online services, but they don't want to have to pay agency fees every time they send out a newsletter.

Our product consumerdecoder was designed to allow the public to manage how they wished to be contacted.  The idea was self-service for your messaging list.

We've taken this a step further with the Blast Companies E-commerce Marketing Store.  You as the marketing manager or small business owner can now run e-mail marketing campaigns, voice broadcasting,  mobile campaigns, mobile surveys, business voice continuity services.

This is a big deal for small businesses, and for consultants who work with them.  With the help of the Blast Marketing Store, you're now a full-fledged communication firm.

If this story interests you, and you'd like to learn more, e-mail blogger@blastcompanies.com and we'll set up an interview or answer your questions.  If you link the story, please send me an e-mail so I can give you a link back.

Blast Marketing In Campaigns And Elections Magazine

I visited the Blog World Media Expo last year in Las Vegas, and while there, met some of the fine staff from Campaigns and Election Magazine. In fact, I'm looking at the October issue right now on my desk.

But it's the January issue we're interested in, as this month's issue has TechBytes column referencing Chris Torbit and Blast Companies on page 62. Chris discusses the use of texting during political rallies, and the Blast Software that makes it possible to connect real time with your audience.

It's mob messaging, instead of mobile messaging.  Political Campaigns and Events can utilize services like Voterblast for get out and the vote messages, or they can utilize Consumer Decoder to allow campaign supporters to manage how they are contacted.  An engaged membership means less hassle for them and more buy-in for you.

MobileMarketer.com Reports On Rehabcare

It's always nice to get press attention.  Our project with Rehabcare got picked up by Giselle Abramovich of the MobileMarketer.com.  The money quote.

“[We are trying] to build a database of qualified individuals who are not only interested in a position with RehabCare, but also meet RehabCare’s requirements for employment,” he said.

The text messaging application allows RehabCare to gather information from candidates that includes their mobile phone number, email address, name, graduation date and specialty.

It's always nice to be noticed.  Thank you, Giselle.  And thank you, Rehabacare.

New Hires For Blast Companies

We've added two more people to the Blast Companies Team, and while the press release already went out, we thought we'd add a welcome and a congratulations to Lisa and Gayle here on the blog.

Blast Companies in O’Fallon, MO has welcomed Lisa Golden and Gayle Shaw to its team. The firm hired Golden to focus on the company’s new broadcast messaging solutions in government-regulated industries, as well as concentrate on the company’s VoterBlast brand, a political tool used to contact constituents across multiple mediums through broadcast messaging. Gayle Shaw will manage the company’s growing voice broadcasting, e-mail marketing and sms text messaging clientele.

We're very excited that the two of you are onboard, and look forward to making great announcements about your successes.

Situational Marketing

The title of this blog is Situational Marketing.  It is titled it this way because our company focuses on communications, and increasingly we have come to see that there is no "one right way" to market to a population.

Some people watch television, and others listen to the radio.  Some read the newspaper regularly, and others get their information from blogs.  Some people love coupons in the mail, and some love the idea of coupons showing up on their cell phones.

And for one person that loves one of those channels, at least two people hate it.  Try sending text coupons to a retired couple who only bought phones  in case a tire goes flat on the highway.  Try interesting a teenager in newspaper ads for the clothing they're spending their allowance on.

And try marketing your website to bloggers through the local news affiliate.

So Situational Marketing is here to talk about situational marketing.  Our company is developing products that allow consumers to choose how they are contacted, and we believe that the self-selection model is one of the best ways to make sure you're serving customer's needs without breaking your marketing budget.