VerticalResponse Email Marketing Blog for Small Business

Notes from the ad:tech Show Floor

Well, the VR team was out in force at ad:tech this week. Standing all day made our dogs bark and I'm not talking about my basset hound!

So observations are as follows:

What a scene! First of all, until this year, ad:tech was always held at a hotel and the biggest booth you could get was a double-wide (10x20). It made VerticalResponse look as big as Google :-) This year ad:tech was at Moscone Center, the huge sprawling trade show center here in SF and had a totally different vibe. I think Ask.com had 4 spaces! Anyway, it was big, music pumping, beer flowing and girls gone wild. Classy, huh? Are we in Vegas?

Ad:tech is all about getting leads, however you can. My eyes were spinning from all of the SEO agencies, bid management companies and ad networks. I wasn't really sure how to tell one from another. How many possible eyeballs can be looking at the web at one time? Oh, and very few if any ad networks to drive business leads, only consumers. The positive note? It seems like all are doing well, so that shows businesses are spending heavily in online advertising. And I think we're going to try a few so we'll see how well they do.

Ad:tech is not really about servicing small business.  Here you can find ad networks, agencies, neural software (that's right!) and they all cost real MONEY. Very little that a small business can afford, there's very little that are self-service and it's all about the big brands.

Rampantly bad trade show booth design - Putting your logo on your booth just isn't enough people. It would be great to actually tell passers-by, in your design, what you do. I can't tell you how many booths I passed by where I said to myself, "What do they do?"  You only get one chance to make a first impression and unless your Coke or Pepsi, you should assume people don't know what you do.

The few companies of interest for small businesses:

Engine Ready - After you spend your dollars on your pay per click, these guys help you optimize your landing pages. Seems like a good deal if you're spending top dollar on Google.

ClickTracks - Great web analytics for small businesses. Very easy to use and affordable.

Local.com and whitepages.com - advertising opportunities for small business, or at least make sure you're listed.

Atlas One Point - This solution is a self-service bid management system. Can get pricey if you have a ton of keywords but we find it's very usable.

My opinion? Too many poker, herbal product, and work from home scams participating in this show I have to tell you. Ad:tech seemed to take anyone that would pay them this year. And between us getting sold to in our own booth, sketchy people with theoretical spam lists trying to talk to us and people looking for free schwag, it was less than pleasing.

I'd like to give a shout out to a few of our customers that came by, DocMurdoch, Due Maternity, salesforce.com, and R&R Images.

Have a different perspective, let me know! Give us a comment!

Direct Mail - It's the New Black

And I'm not just saying that to line the VerticalResponse pockets! Now I'm sure you all know we also have a direct mail postcard service where you can design postcards online and we print and mail them for you. Right? (Shameless plug, I know.) I will tell you that it was the number one thing asked about at the VerticalResponse booth at ad:tech this week. (The interactive show for marketers.)

There actually is a time and place for direct mail or a postcard either to augment your email campaign or in some cases in place of your email campaign. Yes, postcards are more expensive than email but if you need a higher impact for your message, I suggest trying it out.

Here are some ways we see people having great success with postcards:

• Realtors announcing a new listing to a neighborhood
• Retailers driving people into a store with a coupon
• Holiday cards
• Invitations to an event, opening or party along with an email follow up
• Announcing you’ll be at a tradeshow
• Email bounce? Send them a postcard asking them to update their email address
• Yearly calendar for keepsake with your logo on it

Ok, that does it for now, hopefully you’ve got some new ideas here. If you use VR, great, if not find someone you trust. In any event, send yourself a free postcard, it’s right in your account.

Using direct mail in a different way? Let us know, give us a comment!

5 Quick Ways to Improve Your Delivery Rates

The number one question I get here at VerticalResponse: “How can I ensure my email reaches the inbox?”.

Here are 5 quick things you can do today to increase delivery rates and avoid nasty spam filters:

1. Get into the address book - Try adding "white-listing" instructions near the top of your email such as:
   
   To view all images and links, please add Widgets_Inc@mail.vresp.com to your address book.
    
   Of course where you see “Widgets_Inc” simply replace it with your From Label (or else you'll really confuse your readers!). Once accepted into your recipient's address book, future emails should arrive in their inbox immediately. See below how WorkZ does it.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. Be wary of punctuation in your subject line – No matter how exciting your offer or announcement may be, try to keep your punctuation in check to avoid activating sensitive spam filters. Overuse of exclamation marks asterisks and dashes may lead to your email getting blocked or dumped into the junk folder. Ouch.
   
   
3. Use web-friendly fonts and colors - The bottom line is use simple and clean HTML when designing email campaigns. Using obscure fonts or intense colors might seem like a great way to set your email apart from other messages, but spammers also use that same logic. And when you're up against spam filters your outcome won't be good.  Try sticking with standard fonts such as Times, Arial and Verdana and stay away from colors like red, magenta, yellow and green. These tend to score higher than black or blue on many spam filters.
   
   
4. Beware of image-heavy emails - Many email readers have an option to hide images from  being displayed.  So when you're creating your email marketing campaign always ask yourself "how will this look if images are turned off?"  Make sure to have enough text copy above the fold so it's clear right from the start that this is an email your recipients are expecting. In addition, and very important, if the recipient has their images turned off and your entire email is one large graphic, the first thing they’ll see is your unsubscribe text and link -- ouch again. I’ve mentioned this in my previous blog here.
   
   
5. “Click here”...in moderation - Yes, I know, we all want LOTS of clicks but I'm referring to the actual text of "click here" which is also commonly seen in spam emails.  Encourage your recipients to click by mixing "Click Here" with other terms like "Read More" or "Visit Our Site".

There you have it, five quickies to help you get into the inbox. If you have more ideas please comment on this!

We're Going to Ad:Tech this Week

It's that time of year again where the advertising and marketing industries descend upon San Francisco at the Moscone Center to go to ad:tech, the event for interactive marketing. Come see us if you're there!

Booth: #6281, we'll be the fun people in the crowd!

VerticalResponse on KCAL!

VerticalResponse has been taking to the airwaves lately. What a trip! CNBC one minute, KCAL the next! SoCal cares, they really really care.

Why were we on? Well, we ran a survey (thanks to all who responded) about tax day and what you'll do with your refunds. We also talked about those of you who have marketing programs for your business around this frightening season.

Check out the release here, and watch the KCAL video here.

Don't Put all of Your Eggs in the Open Rate Basket

Although it's a good metric to look at, your open rate should never be the end-all-be-all when deciding if your email marketing campaign is working. Why?

Most major consumer ISPs (AOL, MSN, Yahoo!, Hotmail) have a “feature” where a user can block images in their email reader. Many ISPs even have it as the default when you sign up for an email account. So take note of the following when creating and assessing your campaign:

• Unsubscribes Beware - If your email campaigns ONLY contain images and the images in your recipient's email reader are turned off, the first thing your recipients are likely to see is your unsubscribe message. Ouch! They may be so frustrated they click on unsubscribe leaving you with a negative affect on your campaign and one less happy recipient.

• Open Rate Tracking - Most of the open rates are tracked by inserting an invisible image in the email. When this image is displayed in your recipient’s email reader, it tracks back as an open, so you can view who is opening your email. When a recipient has their images turned off the image is not displayed and the open cannot be tracked.

VerticalResponse's recommendation?

When you create your email, use a little bit of everything. Have a healthy mix of graphics and text. This way if images are turned off, your recipient will see the text of the email and they know what your message is all about.

When you assess your campaign look beyond the open rate. Count your clicks and overall ROI or metric for success for your campaigns.

Got any ideas of your own? Give us a comment!

Small Biz is Booming!

VerticalResponse is HQ'd in South Beach, it's adjacent to South of Market (SOMA) the up-and-coming area of San Francisco. When we moved here back in 2003, it was like the dot.com bomb exploded and the center of it was right here. Expensive office spaces were vacant and retailers were closing up shop. We got a great deal to move, but not too many places to eat.

So now we look around our little slice of SF, retailers are rolling in, restaurants are packed, office space is getting pricey and not much of it is left around here. To top it off, it's getting hard to hire - we have 4 open positions! And these businesses that are moving in are real. They're making real money and not dot.com funded either.

This week was declared Small Business Week in DC in celebration of our entrepreneurial spirit. Top lenders were recognized for their support of small businesses. VC's are investing in things they would never have thought to invest in. In 2001 we were laughed at for trying to service the small business market, "It's like marketing to consumers Janine, you'll never get enough money to do that." I heard this over and over. Well it's time for small businesses to shine!

According to the US Census Bureau small firms:

• Represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms.
• Employ half of all private sector employees.
• Pay 45 percent of total U.S. private payroll.
• Have generated 60 to 80 percent of net new jobs annually over the last decade.
• Create more than 50 percent of nonfarm private gross domestic product (GDP).
• Produce 13 to 14 times more patents per employee than large patenting firms. These patents are twice as likely as large firm patents to be among the one percent most cited.
• Are employers of 41 percent of high tech workers
  
• Are 53 percent home-based and 3 percent franchises.

So for all of you small businesses out there, guess what? You're important, keep growing. And happy small business week to you!

Child Protection Registries...Quiet for Now

Even though we are still saddled with those in Michigan and Utah, it looks like other potential child protection registries are dead in the water. Bills in Georgia, Connecticut, Iowa, Wisconsin and Hawaii seem dead or dormant as of a week ago.  Read more on this story on each of these bills from Ken Magill, Direct Magazine.

For our previous post on Michigan and Utah registries go here. We'll continue to keep you updated as things change.

Why Comment on a Blog?

So you want to know what I spent a good chunk of my Friday morning at VerticalResponse doing? You won't believe it. Let me start the story.

When I ordered Movable Type, the software version of Typepad, they requested my email as my username. I get it, we do it too. But when I found that Typepad was better for us for the time being, I registered for it and they wouldn't let me use the same username for two different products. A bit of a flaw for Six Apart, but I get that these things happen when you buy a company. Hey Six Apart, put two products purchased under my username in the database when you get a chance. I should walk over and tell them, they're right up the block :-)

So what did I use? My Yahoo! email address. The address I RARELY check. It's the one I use for the things I don't really want, or to test campaigns. We all have one, I even PAY extra for it.

To my surprise, 40 people had emailed me since about October! So you guessed it, I spent hours Friday replying back to as many of you as I could, hopefully with the info you requested. Apologies for being so late folks.

Now you all know I love email, but the beauty of blogs is that now readers become involved. And for those of you who did email me you all had great questions, and they could have been commented on by many different people giving you many different perspectives. I've even been known to comment on a comment!

So, please, I encourage you all to comment. Just click on "Comments" under the post you want to talk about. If you don't feel comfy with it, I get it, go ahead and email me, I changed my email address so I'll get it and I'll try to respond in a more timely fashion. But I do post comments every single day they come in.

VerticalResponse on CNBC!

Whoa! You heard it right! I got a call from an investment banker yesterday morning, Chris H. who left me a message about a meeting we're having this week and ended it with, "Oh by the way, great coverage on CNBC this morning for VerticalResponse."

Gasp! Will someone come up with NewsGator for radio and television please?

Our PR agency Atomic PR and my PR Specialist Troy, came up with the idea to do a survey around Opening Day baseball festivities and how it impacts organizations with regards to employee absenteeism, all the way to email response rates. It's a great survey, check out the release here, it's pretty funny.

View the clip!

VerticalResponse on CNBC's Morning Call!