Ben Franklin wasn’t exactly a marketer; but he was many other things.
He was one of America’s founding fathers, and the dude sure was pithy with his business advice. So here we have some bits of his wisdom, passed down from his Poor Richard’s Almanacs and showing you how they can help you grow your business.
Here are our favorite Poor Richard-isms. Don’t market without them.
What you think folks want and the reasons you offer to attract paying customers are often incorrect and unfortunately fail in its objective because of those assumptions you have made.
Missing this mark is preventable as is getting it right very probable with a little up front homework. You can, with a few easy steps and ways of thinking get your messaging right so it does connect with and gain customers.
If you have not done the in depth homework to see how a target audience thinks, what it cares about and how to link what you want to what they want so joining in makes sense, you probably will be disappointed in your results.
That's because your Belief in your direction is so strong in you that you think that everyone will agree and want to join in. You get blinded by that belief and it prevents you from being objective about how best to get followers and participants.
Even hearing the communication "experts" saying things like "folks just do not care about that" referring to your pet project, being so caught up in the value of your idea, you resist their expert advice.
Its just too hard on you and your deep seeded beliefs, values to accept what they say.
If the audience has or sees no real buy in nor reason that, to them, resonates and says "that's me-that's exactly what I need to do and I am doing it" your message and recruiting efforts will fail.
There's just to many "you need to do this" messages bombarding us so its critical that you do what is suggested in this step in the way you reach out to folks.
If we are not marketing types and we want our idea to connect, get the marketing type to figure out how to do that.
Why go it alone when you don't have to?
Why risk failure trying to do what you know you are not good at, especially something as important as gaining willing participants?
This is especially true when you want to influence people, their thoughts, manage your messaging so you do gain traction for your idea or project amongst the many different types of audiences out there.
Knowing precisely how to do this with differing approaches that resonate with differing target audiences is how you get to "yes, that's exactly what I need and I want to do it" from the members of the target audiences you have identified as folks who could benefit from participating.
If you are not good at that, be brutally honest and let someone who is great at that help you by doing that part for you.
And remember very simple but useful way of thinking as you try to go and gain joiners and participants:
Living those two axioms when charting connecting, influencing and getting participants goes a long way to realizing success for gaining acceptance of your idea,event It goes a long way for you in getting folks to participate and willingly join in with your "vision" and, for their reasons, not yours, make it theirs as well.
For more insights from colleagues and others just like you who "sit in your seat" Please join into the discussion and group on this site called "acquiring Paying Customers" 
and lets share thoughts on how to do this in the face of our on line, web and social media "everything's a commodity" sourcing mentality.
Regards, Neil Licht. CEO Hereweare, Chief Advisor Acquiring Paying Customers group
Web Page http://www.wix.com/ndlicht/hereweare
Well...it depends.
Email is still a popular means by which to advertise to customers, even with other avenues available. Coupled with the fact that it's inexpensive, it's almost a no-brainer to make it part of any marketing campaign. A good campaign generates sales and builds customer loyalty. The trick is to determine how often to send notices. If you send them too much, you wind up in the delete folder more often than not. Don't send them enough, and you could miss out on possible leads, sales, or find yourself emailing addresses that are no longer in use.
To ensure an effective email campaign, follow these guidelines:
In general, you should not email customers more than once per week. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. They should look forward to opening your emails to read what you have to say. To determine how frequently to email them, test frequency levels. Try once per week, once per month, and twice per month. Ask yourself the following questions during the test period.
By reviewing the numbers, you'll have a better idea of how often you should send messages to your customers. There's no magic number for all businesses, but you can get as close as possible to what's ideal for your product or service.
Freelance Assistance, LLC can help you create an email campaign that fits your customers' needs. We'll take over the weekly or monthly task of sending out notices. Send us an email to find out how we can create original content so you can stay in touch with your customers.