Results Revolution » E-mail Marketing

What the Future Holds

Marianna Chapman — Thu, 12 May 2011 19:12:16 +0000

From time to time, I update the readers of this blog on the goings on of the blog and our other business interests. It’s been quite some time since I’ve made such a post, so here goes…

This morning I was considering that next year (2012) will be the 10-year anniversary of my blogging on this URL (some of the original content has long-ago been eaten by the interwebs as a result of my learning curve back near the beginning in doing things such as this…). That seems noteworthy to me in a world of often changing technologies, the blog has held its own and continues to drive an immense amount of business our way – and also to our clients who blog on their own domains. It’s a powerful tool, and one worthy of more attention in the coming months.

One-Year Ago

In March of 2010, we introduced the new logo on this blog, and what ensued was the most successful year of this blog’s history in terms of traffic, reader engagement, and social sharing. At the same time, we launched an effort to get small business owners to connect with one another in more of a community format, free of charge. We provided a free business directory listing exclusively for locally owned and operated small businesses (the sorts that don’t get marketing assistance from an outside power and really make 100% of their decisions at the local level). That part of the experiment didn’t go as well. We learned, as I think some other major bloggers and business people are learning as we speak… small business owners don’t have time for extracurricular networking online. I was reminded that this happens on a local level – where they are pressured more to participate in Chambers and business development groups – and so they do. Over the year, we’ve backed off of wishing business owners would spend more time using us as a networking center and have been happy that they’ve increasingly relied on us for information and ideas.

Promotional Ideas via Email

As such, we’re pursuing more ways to get more information and ideas out to small business owners in a way that they can digest it. Saving you steps saves you time, so just two months ago, we launched Promo Ideas that Work in This Economy – a weekly e-letter delivered directly to your Inbox. For only $27 a month, you don’t have to think about what sales or promotions you’re going to have, we cover it for you and make the ideas easy to implement. And we do NOT focus on discounting: four out of every five-promo ideas is for selling in a way other than discounting. If you haven’t yet signed up for this, may I recommend that you do – it’s a long, beefy letter every single week, delivered to your Inbox.

Some Things Always Stay the Same

I have been reminded that in more than a decade of being self-employed, technology and marketing tools have changed a LOT, but the lifestyle of a local small business owner has NOT changed much at all. The obstacles of limited time, limited know-how when it comes to technology, and limited ability to maintain consistent, effective marketing are all still in place. And these are the challenges that we must help you overcome.

What the Future Holds

As such, the future holds more “on the ground” services that will be bundled and made ridiculously affordable for small business owners AND save you time, save you having to know about technology at all, and save you from the emotional and financial roller coaster that results from inconsistent marketing. The blog will carry on, and it will be a supplement to new business models that will bring services to your door (yes, with a real live person). It will bring expertise to your community. And it will bring even more ideas and information to your Inbox and to this blog. I’m not ready to make any formal announcements yet, but suffice it to say, we’re very excited about the iteration of our relationship with you. I hope you’ll stay in touch and continue to help us learn how to help you better as we go along this path together.

If you don’t get our blog posts delivered to your Inbox, now might be a great time to subscribe, so you don’t miss any opportunities for you or your community as we announce them in the coming months. I welcome your feedback. Our passion is to help you succeed.

Image by: By ▌ÇP▐

Using Digital Freebies: Get Customers, Build Sales, and Save Money

Marianna Chapman — Wed, 04 May 2011 04:12:57 +0000

In his book “Free,” Chris Anderson (Twitter link) talks about the power of the digital economy to minimize the cost of producing and distributing a product to the public. We’ve all seen and participated in examples of this, whether it’s from using a free e-mail service like Google to downloading free e-books or getting free apps for our phones. Free is nice.

For retailers dealing in tangible items, though, how does the low cost, and ensuing “freeness” of many digital products matter? You’ve still working in terms of concrete stuff: food, clothes, gift items, raw materials to be transformed or tangible lines to be distributed. The good news is that you can still take advantage of free, using it in terms of your own business to attract new customers, retain loyal customers, build sales, and build your business – all with digital content that costs you next to nothing to create and distribute.

A blog is one of the easiest ways to create and give free digital content. It doesn’t have to cost you anything to set up a blog; you can invest in a professional design and hosting service, and at some point you might need to, but getting started can be as simple as setting up a free blog on one of the many web services. After the initial set-up, the cost for you is in terms of time. You need to put the time in to create 1 – 3 posts every week, on a regular basis. These posts are your freebie; they’re informative, valuable, helpful, and, of course, somehow related to your business.

One step up from blog posts are digital products such as e-books and e-newsletters. Both, again, can be produced for only the cost of your time. You can easily create an e-newsletter weekly or monthly and mail it out to your email list of customers who want to hear from you. Make sure the articles you include in your e-newsletter are informative, valuable, helpful, and somehow related to your business. Even though you’re giving this content away free, if it becomes irrelevant, then it moves into the “spam” category.

An e-book can be a collection of the blog posts and e-newsletters you’ve produced, or it can be new content entirely. You can format an e-book in an office program, convert it to a .pdf file, and offer it as a free download on your website, blog, and Facebook page. Here are a few examples:

A restaurant owner could offer an e-book that contained any or all of the following:

A recipe collection
Ideas for entertaining
Cooking tips
A “day in the life of a restaurant” story
Ideas for creating restaurant-worthy menus
Ideas for cooking at home
Tips on using fresh, seasonal food
Essays about cooking/eating green
Essays about food/eating in general
Tips on any food-related specialty topic (spices, herbs, growing your own veggies, ethnic cooking, desserts, etc.)

A retail storeowner could offer an e-book that related to its products in some way, as the following:

A style manual for spring/summer/fall/winter
An up-to-the-minute clothing & fashion trend tip list
Advice on putting a great wardrobe together
Help on dressing for your body/personal style
Tips for wearing accessories
Profiles of fashionable people
Great gift ideas for men
Great gift ideas for women
Tips on hosting a great party
Ideas for fun dinner parties
Ideas for family activities

The list is endless, and limited only in how much time you can give to producing the content. Of course, if you’re thinking “I am not a writer,” then look to your staff for someone who is. You can often find a willing volunteer, someone who can dedicate some portion of their working hours to helping create and promote these digital products.

As you create the digital freebies, of course, you want to let your customers know about them. Facebook and Twitter, flyers in your store, e-mail sign-up sheets at the counter, and some simple training so that all of your employees promote your digital freebies by word-of-mouth. Every customer who walks into your store should know about the great e-book they can get (free!) or e-newsletter they can sign up to receive (free!) or regularly updated blog they can follow (free!).

Every digital freebie you distribute builds your reputation and strengthens your connection with your customers; and, since digital is so easy to share, it gets passed along from one network to another, extending your reach well past where you can go with a print mailing or newspaper ad. It’s cheap for you and free for them, so everybody wins.
Image by Ken Hawkins

Improve Conversions from E-Mail Marketing with This Simple Tip

Marianna Chapman — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 13:30:44 +0000

I subscribe to lots of online, big box and chain restaurant e-mail newsletters. Why? Because it helps me keep a pulse on the offers and strategies that you local folks are competing with, so I can help you stay on the cutting edge and out maneuver those slow turning big box battleships.

Today I want to use an example from a Boden e-mail newsletter – a company that I think does a very nice job with strategy, offer composition and color psychology in their e-mail marketing efforts.

Win from the Start

All those complicated matters aside, note this one liner found at the top of their e-mails:

Apply this Idea Today

You can do this, too. No matter what e-mail marketing software you use, there is a “click here to read this online” or some one liner similar to that as a default setting on your e-mail marketing software – and included in every e-mail you send – whether from Constant Contact, aWeber, MyEmma, Blue Sky Factory or the like…

Instead of the default message, try updating the message every time you send an e-mail to match the content of your message. Many smartphones don’t automatically load images on such e-mails, and many e-mails go to the smartphone first. Try structuring your next e-mail to include a beefier “can’t see this message?” one liner that includes the offer. I also like that the “click here to view online” element of this sentence is earlier in the sentence rather than later. And I also like that the one liner is short enough to just be literally ONE LINE in the visual display of the e-mail on my computer screen.

Keep it simple but make the offer and ask for the sale right away, and watch your click-thru rates and conversions climb.

Happy e-mailing!

Photo credits: Boden USA (http://www.bodenusa.com)

How To Collect Customer Information This Holiday Season

Marianna Chapman — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 21:38:43 +0000

Collecting customer information is one of the best forms of marketing you have. It gives you the ability to get in touch with people who have already been to your brick-and-mortar store, who have experienced your services or products, who have, essentially, already begun building a relationship with you. And best of all? It’s free. You may pay out a little bit if you send postcards or a paper newsletter or flyer, but the cost is minimal compared to paying for a radio or newspaper ad. And if you start moving your customer interactions online, you can use this customer information to stay in contact with your customers and prospect list via email without any postage or printing cost. (More on e-mail marketing ideas.)

So what stops local business owners from regularly collecting customer information?

They don’t think about it.
They don’t want to be pushy.
They don’t know how.

Start Thinking About It
If I offered you a way to get targeted marketing messages to your best customers for free, wouldn’t you be interested? That’s what collecting customer information is all about it. “Not thinking about it” is just a poor excuse, so here’s your free reminder to start thinking about and take advantage of a great marketing strategy. You don’t have to be pushy to ask if people want to be on your Preferred Customer List. You just ask, politely, and give them a quick and easy way to sign up. If you get a “No” in response, you don’t have to push it.

How to Collect the Information

Step 1: Make it quick and easy.

Have a simple form handy, make lots and lots of copies, and leave it out in your retail space. Don’t make the form long; in fact, the shorter the better. Ask for the customer’s name, email address, and (perhaps) phone number or mailing address. The name and email address are the essentials, and you can just stick with those and get great results.

Step 2: Make it beneficial for the customer.

Give your list a name – the Preferred Customer List or something along those lines – and give customers a clear, concise reason why they should join it. “For exclusive offers.” “For special discounts.” “For members-only events.”

Step 3: Train your employees.

Create a short script and train every single employee to go through that script. It can be very short, and very simple: “Sir or Ma’am, would you like to sign up for our Preferred Customer List? We just need your email address, and you’ll get access to exclusive offers just for our Preferred Customers.” Teach your employees to have the form and a pen ready, and hold it out to the customer while they are asking the question. This small physical gesture makes it almost instinctive for the customer to reach forward. And no, employees shouldn’t be pushy either. If a customer declines, all that is needed is a polite response: “Well, maybe next time! Thanks for shopping with us!”

Step 4: Be an Example.

Let your employees see you going through that script whenever you ring out a customer, answer a question, or call a customer about a special order. The script can easily be followed over the phone; you or your employee will just need to take the information verbally and write it down.

Step 5: Be True to Your Word

If you’ve offered exclusive deals or special events, follow through. A weekly email is best, but at the least follow up with a monthly email offering a special deal, coupon, or event. Make sure the folks on your mailing list understand that it’s exclusive; that’s the value for them.

Step 6: Get Feedback

Over time, your list will grow and you’ll have customers you get to know well. Use your list to get feedback on everything from your products to your store appearance to the kind of deals or events they would really like to see. Your customer list can quickly become a very valuable, informal method of market research; and the market is your ideal customer, so you know the information is good. (Here is a cool idea on WHAT to send to your e-mail list once you create it.)

The holidays are the perfect time to start collecting customer information, so get to it. Create that form and start asking. You’ll have a great way to follow up with all those new customers you get shopping for holiday specials.

Image by bulliver.