Outstanding Customer Service Builds Your Business

It’s not often enough that we encounter great service and customer relations.

So kudos, and the first “Negev Direct Award for Outstanding Customer Service” being presented to……(drum roll, please):

Naomi Catering of Jerusalem.

The catering is great and their food is delicious...

But the real treat is that they run Kosher tours to Italy! And the way they run them makes them incredible.

For our 10th anniversary we spent a week in Tuscany, enjoying cooking lessons with one of only three master Chefs in all of Tuscany.

We ate delicious meals and took exciting tours of Jewish sites in the region.

Did you know that on the outer wall of Pisa, not far from the famous Leaning Tower, you can find Hebrew names engraved on some of the stones? (see right photo above). But only if you go at night because they are not visible during the day.

That kind of unique information, plus the attention to detail and the infectious enthusiasm of both Naomi and her husband Eric, who personally guided our small group, made the tour more than a memorable anniversary present: it made us advocates for their company.

We’ve already told many of our friends about the great time that they had and I’m sure that some of them will become customers of Naomi Catering. It’s viral marketing at its best. Satisfied and enthusiastic customers generate more business.

The Lesson: do something incredible for your customers and do it with enthusiasm. It’s the best thing you can do for your business.

David

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The Power Of Electric - First Generation Marketing Video

Marketing for electric cars will definately get more sophisticated than this, but this is a good (and fun) start!

Yesterday, here in Israel, I paid more than $7.70 a gallon to fill up! What's wrong with this picture?!

I can't help but think about of all the incredible marketing opportunities a company like P.B.P. could employ... save money, save the environment, end oil dependence, etc., etc.

Crude oil closed at a new high of $143.57 a barrel in New York, up $2.60 from Tuesday, and hit $144.19 a barrel in electronic trading late in the day. Crude is up nearly 50% this year.

Yoav

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Direct Mail Tip of the Day - 07.01.08

Are you registered as a 501(c)3 non-profit organization in the U.S.?

If you are and you do any sort of mass mailings I strongly encourage you focus on cutting costs and apply to the U.S. Postal Service for non-profit postage rates.

Here's a link to the Postal Services web site that will take some of the confusion out of the application process.

If you need more help, get in touch with your direct mail professionals.

Yoav

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WUJS Packs it's Bags for the Big City!

WUJS , The only post-college grad Israel program on the market has called Arad it's home for 40+ years.

That's about to change.

Starting next semester, WUJS will be packing it's bags and saying "goodbye" to the sleepy Negev town of Arad and saying a big "hello" to Jerusalem and or Tel Aviv!

A number of factors, including the recent take over by Hadassah played a major role in this decision.

Look for tuition hikes and additional program options, both indications of Hadassah's takeover.

The WUJS program will be missed dearly in the small desert town of Arad by staff, Alumni and Arad residence who had the opportunity to interact with WUJS students over the years.

Yoav

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Negev Direct makes Nextmark's top 50!

Negev Direct has broken into the top 50 list managers for data card quality!

In the category of "Top List Mangers For Data Card Quality (100 - 249 Titles)", Negev Direct ranked #23 with an average score of 86.7% out of 100%.

To put that into perspective, our closest competitor had an average score of 68.8% and also has 115 less data cards listed on the Nextmark system than we do!

To view Nextmark's entire top 50 rankings in all four categories please click here.

Yoav

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Direct Mail Tip of the Day - 6.26.08

Direct mail is a long term proposition.

The clients who expect to make money or even break even the first, second or third mailing aren't in touch with the D.M. reality.

Direct mail is an effective method to acquire donors over time.

If you build meaningful relationships with those donors then you can expect them to donate and give their time to you again and again.

Yoav

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Direct Mail Tip of the Day - 6.25.08

This tip is very, very simple and yet very often overlooked by most Jewish organizations!

If someone takes the time and effort to donate to your organization either online, by telephone or by mail, take one minute to write them a personal (notice how I said personal and not form letter) email or letter to thank them.

A personal letter or email will go a long way in acknowledging a donation and retaining that donor.

The risk of cost and time is minimal and the rewards are potentially great!

Yoav

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Project Better Place - Part IIII

In this video Shai explains the "Zero, "Zero" model and the four elements needed to make introducing electric cars to the mass market possible.

* If you want to skip right to Shai Agassi's talk, you can directly go to 00:08:50

Yoav

* Update: I just paid $7.86 a gallon to fill up my car today... Looks like the oil monopolies can charge whatever they want and get away with it!

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Direct mail fact

On June 10, 1902, in Chicago, window envelopes were first patented by the wonderfully named Americus F. Callahan. His patent described the windows as “holes” for looking at the paper inside, and he noted that they could save both time and labor.

Hat tip to Ethan Boldt, editor, Inside Direct Mail

Yoav

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"Amazing" new study!

Don't you just love those studies that state the obvious?

I know I get a good laugh anytime I hear scientists proudly proclaim such well known truths like "smoking is dangerous to your health" or "living next to or around an industrial zone increases your likely hood of cancer and other diseases".

Thanks for the news flash, but if anyone doesn't 'get it' by now then the likely hood of a new study imparting any new knowledge is slim to none!

In a recent post on the Donor Power Blog, a new psychological study relating to fundraising is examined.

Here's the re post from the Donor Power Blog...

"I love those human guinea pig psychological studies that claim to inform us about fundraising realities. Their findings tend to be either blindingly obvious or laughably wrong.

Here's one, reported in The Chronicle of Philanthropy's Prospecting blog: Want Bigger Gifts? Ask People to Volunteer Before Asking for Money, with the study itself available here.

The gist:

Asking people to volunteer their time at a charity before asking for their money increases the amount they ultimately give to an organization...

Wow! And how did they come up with that conclusion? They put college students in artificial situations and asked their opinions on how much they'd theoretically give to a phony organization. Oh, and the total study group was less than 200 people -- a number so laughably insignificant that a direct marketer wouldn't pay attention to it.

Don't take this type of study as gospel truth. The best they give us are ideas and directions that we can explore with real testing.

In this case, the studies point out a phenomenon that most good fundraisers understand: Someone who's done something for you is more likely to do something else for you.

That's why someone who's given to an organization is ten or more times likely to give again than someone who's never given. And the more times someone has given, the more likely they are to give again.

It might also tell us that volunteers are very warm prospects to become donors. As are event participants.

But don't take my word for it. Test it for yourself."

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Great Quotes

Here are a couple Quotes regarding direct marketing that I really enjoyed reading. I found them on Denny Hatch's "Business Common Sense" eNewsletter.

I hope you will not only like them, but also be able to learn from them, as I know I have!

“To be a successful direct marketer, you must be a conceptual thinker. Like method acting, you have to get inside the head of your prospect and BECOME the prospect. Think how your prospect thinks ... Feel what your prospect feels.”—Lew Smith

“You must think through the entire sales process. Nothing can be taken for granted at any stage of the relationship, from the clicking onto the Web site or the opening of the envelope to the act of giving the credit card number or putting a check in the mail all the way through to the 10th renewal and beyond.”—Bob Hacker

Yoav

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How Facebook Lost my Online Donation

I just tried to give some money to the "Friends of the IDF" cause on Facebook. Bad Idea.

I actually wound up donating my hard earned money not on Facebook, but to World Jewish Congress instead.

Why?

Basically because the World Jewish Congress online donation page would take my money. The WJCF online donation page was simple, easy to use and had my country listed in the place where I needed to specify where I live.

The donation page for Frineds of the IDF on Facebook also had a place to enter country of residence, but Israel is no where to be found! No where to be found!!! Try it for yourself, I'm not joking! You can definitely specify that you live in Iran, but try to say that you live in Israel and you are out of luck!!!

If any of our readers know why Facebook has left Israel off it's list off countries in the donating to causes area, please let know in the comment area, I would be very interested to hear some sort of explanation!

Lesson: Donors donate to organizations that make it easy and convenient to donate to. If I can't figure out how to use your online donation page AND make it work in 2-3 minutes, I'm moving on because there are plenty of other good causes out there who will happily take my money and make me feel good about giving and the giving process as well!

Yoav

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Mobile Giving the Next (Big) Small Thing?

Could the next big thing in giving be Mobile giving - donating over a mobile device?

This re-post from the Connection Cafe gives us a recent example of why mobile giving may be the next big thing...

"The recent cyclone in Myanmar and earthquake in China have given rise to a
whole new way of giving in the non-profit sector:

Starting today, customers of Verizon Wireless in the U.S. can donate to a charity called “Save the Children,” who has mobilized in this time of crisis to provide lifesaving assistance in these two affected regions. Verizon customers can text to the
address 4SAVE (47283) with the keyword “quake” to contribute to earthquake relief or the key word “cyclone” to contribute to cyclone relief. They will then
receive a reply asking them to confirm their donation of $5.00, which will appear on
their next monthly bill.

Definitely a potential game changer."

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Technophile or Technophobe?

"...if your are an organization professional, give this test to each and every staff member and consultant responsible for your marketing and PR efforts. If you are a lay leader, give the test to your CEO / Executive Director.

For both of these categories, anything less than a perfect score requires some serious retooling.

1.What is a blog? Is there a difference between a website and a blog? Do you know how to find Jewish blogs?

2. What does Web 2.0 mean? What is Wikipedia?

3. What is YouTube?

4. What is Facebook? Is it the same as MySpace and Friendster, or are there differences?

5. What is iTunes? What is an MP3 player?

6. and a new addition, What is Twitter?

If you can’t answer all of these questions, it’s definitely time to start learning. Technology is not going away.

Thanks to Dan from the eJewishphilanthropy blog for this guest post.

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Direct Mail Tip of the Day - 6.10.08

Can non-profits learn from companies who do business for profit?

Melissa Busch, associate senior editor, for FundRaising Success writes the following on the Fundraising Succcess online Magazine

"Behaving like a business can have some real benefits for nonprofit organizations.

So said Kurt Aschermann, president and COO of Boston-based fundraising consultancy Charity Partners.

It would be foolish for nonprofits not to begin exploring some of the practices instituted by their corporate partners, he warned.

“We learned a lot from our corporate friends,” Aschermann said.

Among those lessons: that businesses just do some things better, such as hiring professionals, specifically those in marketing and sales. “You get what you pay for,”

Aschermann said, adding that not only do corporations hire the best and the brightest, but they “fire the lousy ones.”“Nonprofits are not good at that,” Aschermann said. “We carry them, but they do us in every day. But they love the organization [so we keep them on.]”

It’s vital that nonprofits let go of those employees who no longer have a positive impact, he said."

Yoav

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Project Better Place - Part III

Oil topped $139.00 a barrel yesterday to reach an all time high! As I've predicted here before, we could very realistically see a barrel of oil climb up $200.00 in the coming year or two.

MSN Money reports that the average price of a regular gallon of gas in the U.S. topped $4.00 for the first time ever (full article here).

Where are you when we need you Project Better Place?!

Yoav

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