Do-Re-Me & You! is the latest direct sales firm to sign up for IMN’s Party Pulse e-zine service. Its 1,000 consultants, who sell children’s storybooks and other learning products in home sales parties, can now communicate with customers through e-mail newsletters.
Like many direct selling organizations, Do-Re-Me & You! needed “new ways to communicate directly with our customers while preserving each consultant’s individual relationships with them,” said CEO Michael Dougherty.
The program, which was introduced to the full sales network during the company’s national convention late last month, had apparently produced good results for some consultants.
Do-Re-Me & You! will write and send out the e-zines. Each will be personalized with the consultant’s contact information. In addition, these independent salespeople will also get access to Warm Call reports, showing who read what.
The issues will include specials, product highlights and surveys, all packaged by the company. One benefit of Party Pulse is that “we retain complete control over the content, messages and images we put forward to our customers, and consultants retain control of their customer lists,” Dougherty said.
But that’s not all. The firm will also start an e-zine for its consultants, and this one will feature podcasts. These will provide music samples, tips on working with customers and announcements about incentive trips.
In recent weeks, IMN has also signed up Homemade Gourmet, a provider of meals, education, and F.A.I.T.H. (Fashion Accessories in the Home). They will run similar programs.
Why this rush to start e-zines?
“It’s a highly competitive market for direct selling organizations,” said Jo Ellen Collins, vice president of marketing at IMN. “They have to provide good opportunity and tools or risk losing their consultants to another organization.”
Most consultants lack the time to send their own newsletters And even if they do, branding is difficult because the companies often prohibit use of their logos, she continued.
Worse yet, the companies can lose touch with the customers if a consultant stops selling, Collins said.
IMN’s beta client, PartyLite, rolled out a newsletter program last fall. Though it started out with only a handful, the firm had soon signed up 14,000 consultants, roughly a third of its active roster. They pay a small monthly fee that helps PartyLite defray the costs and add new features to the program.
Where do the subscriber names come from? Names and e-mail addresses are entered on PartyLite’s online ordering system, and passed over to IMN once a month.
