VerticalResponse Email Marketing Blog for Small Business

February Inc.com Article - Making Friends with the Competition

If you've got a few minutes of downtime, check out my monthly column for the Inc.com, Women in Business section entitled Keep Your Friends Close, Keep Your Enemies Closer. (My team always enjoys my Godfather references. Thanks FFC!)

VR Now Offers Full Service

A few weeks ago I posted a poll to the blog and an overwhelming amount of you said that you're just too busy to do your own campaigns and could use some help. Well today we're announcing VR Goes Full-Serve. Yep, we're going back in time to the days where your gas is pumped for ya.

We know you're busy, some of you might even be afraid to hit the launch button (I still get the willies when I do). Let us help! Our Email Marketing Experts are here to get you up and running in no time and looking your professional best! We know you’ve got a lot on your plate and this is why we’re excited to bring you a few nifty email marketing services.

And at any time you want to take the gas and pump it yourself, go for it! Your account will be all set up for you to do it yourself!

Start Me Up, I’ll Take if from There!         
$49 one time fee

We’ll create your account and set you up with a border for your email including your logo and company colors. Then you’ll simply fill in the blanks and away you go!

YOU

• Fill out the form and you’ll be contacted within 48 hours by one of our Email Marketing Experts.

WE

• Set up your VerticalResponse account
• Upload your email lists for you
• Using a VerticalResponse border, set up an email for you to include your content and mail

Just fill out the form here and you’ll be contacted by one of our Email Marketing Experts.
Turnaround time: Approximately 1 US business day if we've got what we need.

Do All of the Work For Me Please, I’m Too Busy!
$99 per campaign

You’re busy, we get it, we’re here to help. We’ll do the heavy-lifting, you just need to provide us with your content.

YOU

• Fill out the form and you’ll be contacted within 2 US business days by one of our Email Marketing Experts.
• Provide us with the following:

• Logo
• Email lists you want to mail to (.csv, .xls, .txt please)
• From Label and where you’d like to receive any replies that come in
• Copy and Images you’d like included along with links

WE

• Set up your VerticalResponse account
• Upload your email lists
• Choose a template for you (which you can change)
• Include your copy and images
• Create 3 proofs for you to choose from
• Give you 2 revisions
• Send your campaign when you want us to!

Once you’ve done this with us once, we’ll pretty much get what you like for future emails. We’ll even remind you when your next campaign should go out, so you can stick to what you need to do, run your business.

Just fill out the form here and you’ll be contacted by one of our Email Marketing Experts.
Turnaround time: Approximately 3-5 US business day if we've got what we need.

Can You Make Me a Fancy Border?
$399 one time fee

Need to enhance your email marketing campaign even more? In addition to our easy-to-use VerticalResponse borders and our advanced HTML option (Freeform), you can now add a custom, branded email border to your VerticalResponse account.

Our technical and creative staff will work with you to create an email border that is customized with additional graphics, fonts, and colors to match the “look and feel” of your website or marketing materials.

Here’s the deal:

• YOU fill out the form and you’ll be contacted within 2 US business days by one of our Email Marketing Experts.
• YOU provide us with a basic mock-up of your design. Including: your company logo, colors, fonts, images, and any current marketing materials you would like us to match.
• WE review your mock-up, create your custom HTML email border, and send a proof to you via email so you can evaluate it right from your inbox.
• WE give you two rounds of revisions.
• YOU sign off on the final template and your custom template will then be accessible within your VerticalResponse account for any future email campaigns.

Just fill out the form today here and you’ll be contacted by one of our Email Marketing Experts.
Turnaround time: 3-5 US business days depending on revision timing

5 Quick Tips on How to Recover Bounced Email Addresses

Even with the best of lists bounced email happens. For those of you who don't know what a bounced email is, you send an email to an inbox, before it gets to the inbox the server checks to see if the email exists. If it doesn't exist, it bounces back.

If you're a VR customer you already know we handle those bounces for you. You also know that you won't mail them again (ISPs like AOL, and Hotmail don't like it when you keep mailing bounced email, they can tell). But what about if someone changed a job and forgot to notify you? Perhaps they changed ISPs and their new email is from comcast.com instead of yahoo.com.

Here are 5 quick tips on how to "recover" bounced email addresses. The first thing you'll want to do before anything else, is to download your bounced emails or get access to them somehow.

1. Eyeball them to make sure you don't have any misspellings. If you do you might want correct any spellings and re-load them.

2. If you've got phone numbers for them why not try to call them and get an updated email address. A carefully worded script might sound something like:

"Hi Anne, this is a quick call from Emily's Restaurant and we're updating our preferred customer list. We've noticed that the last time we sent you an email it bounced. Would you like us to update your email so you'll get our notifications of special events and chef's menu changes?"

Make sure there's a value you're providing in order for them to want your email. And if you're using something like Skype, more cost effective.

3. If you've got their postal address why not try sending them a postcard? Your content on the front might say say something catchy like:  "Where Did You Go, We Miss You!". Then the copy might sound something like:

"We've recently noticed that your email address has bounced! We hope you enjoy the email-only specials you've been getting and we would love for you to get them again. If you go to {Insert Web Page where you host an opt-in form} and update us on your email address, we'll email you a special offer of 50% savings on your next purchase!"

Testing out incentives for this is always a good idea. We've seen wineries that require email addresses to inform their customers of a pending wine club shipment. This is a great idea since someone has to know to be home to sign for the package.

4. Post something on your homepage. A simple link with an opt-in form telling people to re-sign up for your newsletter if they've moved is never a bad idea.

5. At your retail or professional location, have your sign-up book also say something like "Have You Moved or Changed Email Addresses? Make Sure You Tell Us!" This reminds your users that they may be missing something you're offering.

Bonus! - If you use a separate CRM system (ACT!, FileMaker, salesforce.com) and you're updating your contacts with new email addresses, make sure you either transfer a new list or update your information on your email lists, wherever they may live.

Ok, that does it, it's been a heck of a week, I hope these help. If anyone has any other ideas let's hear them!

 

MarketingSherpa Webinar Q&A

First of all a HUGE apologies for the technical issues we were having with the MarketingSherpa webinar last week. Thanks so much for your patience, we're still converting the webinar, it comes in a weird format and most of us here are on macs. Take the bad with the good I guess. As promised, we parsed out the Q&A that we didn't get to and we've answered them here.

I also want to thank Anne Holland and Stephan Tornquist for their amazing and insightful email marketing information. I know we picked up a few pointers here at VR. Don't forget to check out the full-blown report and also if you're going to be in Miami in March, check out their Email Marketing Summit. We'll be there!

Enjoy...

Q: I have about 38,000 subscribers in my list. 12.7% click through rate and 25% open rate. Is that below average?

A: You might want to check out the VerticalResponse Trends report. We tracked all rates by list size and industry. A quick glance shows that you’ve got a very nice click through rate, great job!

Q: Any thoughts on subject line content. What works better straightforward or creative approach? 

A: You may want to see a few blog posts about subject lines here. Since many readers cut off subject lines at 35-40 characters you don’t have a ton of room to play with. That said, include the most important information at the beginning, that is, the information your recipient is going to be most excited about.

Q: As a PR agency, my email campaigns have influenced my client's expectations for press releases. They now want interactive Social Media Releases  (a la Shift Communications/Edelman's StoryCrafter) -- PLUS the eye candy of email marketing. SMRs have similar properties to targeted email marketing plus support of RSS, Technorati tags, DiggIt ,etc.  Have you tracked this trend specifically or the trend toward need of more interactive buttons inside the email?

A: Most of our VR users have not adopted SMRs quite yet. For those of you who do PR and don’t know what a Social Media Release is check it out. It’s seems like it's another way for writers and publishers to get important facts about a piece of news as well as search engines finding the news. In fact we’re just starting to figure out how this plays into our own marketing.

Q: Can we add someone who's ordered a product on our site to our list without them opting in as long as we give them an opt-out option when they receive our email?

A: Technically the answer is yes, it isn’t against the law to do so. However we always recommend that an opt-in list is far more responsive than an opt-out list. Another option would be to add them to a list and send them an opt-in email with a link to an opt-in form, then mail them only after they confirm.

Q: Do filtered emails show up a bounced emails?

A: No, filtered emails do not show up as bounced emails because the email actually did make it though the ISP and also made it through into a “box” (trash, junk, spam) even if it wasn’t the inbox.

Q: Would you recommend sending audio files in email?

A: Audio files really depend on the receiving mail client and type of recipient.  If you are sending to a Internet savvy audience it's likely that they are capable of receiving audio files correctly. However, if you are sending to a not-so savvy audience, they may not be equipped to receive an audio file if they do not have the proper downloads installed.

Q: For event promotions, is it better to have important copy all in the email as a way to induce click rate or leave part of the copy info for the landing page? We have been putting all info including seminar description, agenda and speaker info on the email to attract registrants. Is this the wrong approach?

A: Not necessarily. This is a great test actually. If you can divide your list in half why not try both? One caveat, if the speaker is the catch, you’ll want to include their information in the body and maybe even the subject line.

Q: For someone with a brand new website, how different are the new subscription numbers?

A: It all depends on how much traffic you’re getting to your site and where you’ve placed your forms. If your forms are prominent on your home page as well as your sub-pages you can expect a much higher increase in subscribers than if you bury it on your “about us” page. It’s also a great test, try different placements on your pages to see where you’re going to get the best rate of subscription.

Q: How can you find out if you are on a Public Blacklist?

A: You’ll need to get your sending IP Address, usually found in the headers of the email you’re sending. Then go to rbls.org, type in the sending server's IP address, and you’ll be shown all of the lists your sending server may or may not be on.

Q: Where is the best place to find out what our reputation is? And, if there are issues, how can we clean it up?

A: First find out if you’re on any blacklists. If you are you can attempt to contact the blacklist owner and plead your case. Some may take you off but you’ll be on a short leash for a while. Others won’t answer you and you may be out of luck. VR takes this very seriously and we work pretty hard on keeping all of our IPs off of blacklists.

Q: How much is too much for graphics within an email?

A: A mix of text and graphics is really the way to go due to email readers potentially stripping out your graphics. Should you use graphics? You bet. However we recommend your email in general shouldn’t exceed 30-40 kb to keep it under the filter’s radar. If your email is too large it might get filtered as well.

Q: How often should we be sending email newsletters to our customers?  Is there specific information that should be included in every newsletter email to our customers? We typically send out monthly email newsletters.

A: This is really a business decision for you. When your recipients opted in you may have set their expectations for how often you’d be mailing them. If you didn’t, you might want to going forward. “Monthly News”, “Weekly Specials” are a few examples. However, if you wanted to test your frequency and increase your mailing to 2x a month, then you’ll want to look at your response rates over a bit of time. If you find that your unsubscribes are increasing and your opens and clicks are decreasing as a direct result, go back to monthly.

Q: Is there a specific number of fields in an online form that is typical or expected ie - don't have more than 5 fields?

A: There is no hard and fast rule here, it all depends on your offering and why you’d need the data. We’ve done a few tests and decreased the amount of information we ask for. As a result we saw a pretty significant increase in those who fully complete the form. If you want to test this just add another field or take one away and see if there is a change over the course of a month.

Q: Open rate tracking - how is it possible to track open rates with default graphics suppression?  Outlook 2003 blocks graphics by default until user clicks on 'allow download' --- how do we check open rates in this situation? Not possible?

A: Open rate tracking has been declining because of this exact reason. We’ve been recommending to our users to do your best to get into your recipient’s address books. This way your emails goes directly into the inbox with graphics displayed. We also stress to really analyze clicks as a real statistic instead of opens.

Q: What are some of the best ways / strategies to build an opt-in email list?

A: We’ve got some great strategies for restaurants, realtors and everyone else here. Check them out they’re pretty creative.

Q: What are the most used email programs for testing purposes?

A: I’m assuming you’re talking about ISPs email readers. Try Outlook, Yahoo!, AOL, Comcast, MSN, Hotmail, Gmail and Earthlink. This should cover you.

Q: What successful methods have you used for gauging response besides raw stats?

A: If you’ve highlighted a product or article did you sell more of those products? Did your information get picked up and linked to from other websites? Do people mention they saw your email? Did you get a new customer or reader from someone who got forwarded your email? I’m sure there are more but those are a few to start with.

Q: What was the name of the service that a marketer can send their test emails to, to increase the chances of getting it into the inbox to business customers?

A: The SenderScore Certified Program "certifies" a list of approved mail servers (IP addresses). They then provide this list to ISPs and/or corporate domains so they can identify legitimate incoming email. As a reseller VerticalResponse maintains specific IP addresses that within this list.

Q: Is it allowed per CAN-Spam to send an email asking people to opt-in to your newsletters? I thought this was not allowed.

A: Under CAN-SPAM it is allowed to send people an email asking them to opt-in to your list. If you do this, our recommendation is that you only email to those that have opted in going forward.

Q: What is "harvested email"?

A: An email that has been harvested means that it’s “stolen” from a web page, a form, a list, or simply “guessing” at what the logical email would be. Many spammers harvest email addresses which is probably how many of us receive spam.

Q: You suggest a mix of text and picture, but all major retailers (eddie bauer, gap, fossil, etc.) use just 1 big picture. Why don't they use more text? Why shouldn't we emulate them?

A: Lots of larger companies have amazing creative departments that do a really great job at making things look pretty. What these creative people don’t always know is that their email is going to wind up in the junk folder. Creating for email is very different than creating for a web page or even print. Lots of small businesses that don’t follow what the big guys do, get their mail delivered a heck of a lot better.

Q: Regarding your postcards, when can we personalize post cards with customer's names like we can with the emails?

A: Great question. We’ll be sliding that into the queue for this year, I’m just not sure when.

VR is a Finalist for Stevie Awards

We were nominated as finalists for The Stevie Awards for Women in Business in 4 categories this week. I'm pretty excited about it. The categories are:

• Best Entrepreneur - Non Services Business Up to 100 Employees
• Best Overall Company of the Year - Non Services Business Up to 100 Employees (the one I really want!)
  
• Blog of the Year
• Fastest Growing Company of the Year

All I can say is wow. Who knows if we'll win any (due out in March) I'm just happy we were nominated. Got to give a huge thanks to all of you who support us here at VR as well as the nifty team we have working hard behind the scenes to make sure you're taken care of.

Starbucks and T-Mobile - A Remarkable Combination

There are so many ways a business can build an email list whether it's offline or online. One of the many is word of mouth. (You can tell I'm hot on word of mouth being this is the 2nd post on word of mouth I've done in a week.) Today I wanted to talk about Starbucks and T-Mobile.

So for some icky reason I have to spend one day out of the month working out of Starbucks. Don't ask. My husband and I sit in comfy chairs pecking away at our keyboards like crazy. We buy a cup of hot cider and (try to) relax. I have to say bravo Starbucks. The one place I actively sought out to get online because I TRUSTED I could have a comfy seat and get internet access. Why? Because I see people working on their computers every time I run in and out of there to get my coffee and I have been invited to meetings there. (It's not like Starbucks has a big ad campaign "Work at Starbucks ... free!")

Capitalizing on the guilt sale? Perhaps. I sure felt like I had to buy something while sitting in their chairs for 6 hours. (The hot cider is to die for...WITH the whipped cream of course). In fact, I felt like I had to buy more than one thing. Who cares, I got internet access and a roof over my head. I even got sick of working and browsed around their "store" full of gifts around coffee.

So Starbucks and T-Mobile both have now two loyal customers (and T-Mobile has our email addresses) and I can go to any Starbucks and know I'll get what I need.

Can you think of anywhere else you seek out a trusted service like this? I actually think that being able to sit for "free" and work all day is pretty remarkable for the price of a cider and $10 Wi-Fi.

Here are a few others I was thinking about:

• For Sunday brunch at the Palace Hotel ($40) you can eat all of the most remarkable food you want and drink an endless supply of mimosas. I've told a hundred people about this when they want to impress their visitors.
  
• A store I go to on Union St. asks me every time if I want an espresso while I shop. I also gave them my email address because I want to know when they have cool new items.
• After your 1 hour massage at Splash Spa you can spend the entire day steaming and relaxing. While I'm there they promote "buy in bulk for better savings".
• Jet Blue is inexpensive, nice seats, great legroom and FREE TV. It's the first place I go to when I have to fly to the East Coast. They also heavily promote their frequent flyer program on the plane.
• Our local self-storage place offers a free use of a pick-up truck to move in.

I went back to the office and told everyone about my positive experience and they really need to think about Starbucks in a bind for their "office" needs. Now that's some good word of mouth.

Oh, and great people-watching too!

Webinar Invite - Small Business Blogging 101

We're pretty lucky here at VerticalResponse! Michael Sippey, THE General Manager of TypePad is coming over to do a webinar for our users! I'm a big fan of his. You can't miss this one.

Presenters:

Michael Sippey, THE GM of TypePad
Raj Jambotkar - Product Manager, VerticalResponse

Wednesday, January 24, 11 am PST

Small Business Blogging 101

• The basics of what blogs are and why you should care
• Why small businesses should be blogging
• Tips about how to get started with blogs
• Resources for where to learn more
• How VerticalResponse and TypePad integrate for blogging
• Benefits VR can bring to blogging
• Case Study on the VR blog

Ever been interested in blogging but don't know where to start? Already blogging and want some new ideas? This is a FREE webinar so sign up for it today!

Great Short Videos on How to Market & Sell Better

Check out SellingPower Magazine. Gerhard Gschwandtner, a friend of mine who is the founder and publisher, has a daily segment of videos, each less than about 4-5 minutes. You can have them running in the background while you multi-task. The videos are incredibly useful whether you are on a sales team in a corporation OR you run a small business.

My faves:

Hilarious Selling Mistakes - Dan Seidman, Author and Speaker, this one is funny!
The New Face of Marketing - Seth Godin, Author and Speaker
Feeling Comfortable about Being Uncomfortable - Barry Farber, Entrepreneur

You can download them to your iPod of you don't have time to watch at your computer. You can also sign up for the daily reminder.

4 Rules of Word of Mouth Marketing

I sat through many sessions at the Word of Mouth Marketing Show a few weeks ago in DC. I’m going to be posting a bunch of ideas that came from it.  The one thing that really resonated for me was the fact that the customer is finally in control. Did you know that 30% of the population is reviewing products online today and making their voices heard? I didn’t. It’s a pretty big number when you think about it.

Word of mouth or "buzz" marketing has always been a necessity for any business. But since tools on the web make it easier than ever to talk about a product it's becoming vital. Look at Amazon reviews or yelp.com. Salesforce.com has a review center, even one on VerticalResponse. They've all got people talking.

Andy Sernovitz, who up until recently headed up WOMMA.org, wrote a wonderful book on WOM and Buzz. I read it, I love it, you will too. It's a quick read. I sat in his session and got some great ideas and examples on the 4 rules of WOM. Check them out…

1. Be interesting, be remarkable – Zaza Nail Salon right around the corner from us has HUGE theater-style reclining leather seats, Carnegie Deli in NYC has 7” tall corn beef sandwiches, each in its own way is worth talking about. Ask yourself, what have you got?

2. Make people happy – The Mini Cooper, Dyson working on the vacuum for 14 years to get it right, Target rolling a semi into Manhattan on the hottest day selling air conditioners off the back of the the truck, all of these brands created buzz because they’re fun and they’ve got a story that makes us happy.

3. Earn trust and respect – I trust that Starbucks is always going to have working WIFI and somewhere for me to sit. Nordstrom’s is always going to take a return, no matter what. We make sure your email is delivered. Have you got something people trust?

4. Make it easy for people to talk about you – Another example Andy gave was Kiehl’s skin products, whatever you buy, they’re constantly giving you free samples of other products you might like. What do you do? You talk about it.

I talked to Andy later on about his book and he said "Janine, all of the information in this book leads to buzz, but in the end, you've got to collect email address and communicate to them. Email is just the number one way." I couldn't agree more Andy.

I’ve got so much more to write about on this subject. None of us have big advertising budgets to play with so we all need more ideas about how to create buzz for our products or services.

What's your buzz? Share!

VR Is Hosting MarketingSherpa in a Webinar!

I'm pretty excited to announce  MarketingSherpa, the business research leader in the Marketing field, agreed to do a webinar to you, our wonderful VR followers.

Even more exciting? Anne Holland herself (The President) along with Research Director Stefan Tornquist will be presenting. For those of you who don't know who they are check them out here. I'm a HUGE fan.

Email Marketing Benchmarks - Key Trends for 2007
January 16, 11am PST

Based on the new edition of “MarketingSherpa’s Email Marketing Benchmark Guide 2007" you'll learn:

• Surprising new open and clickthrough benchmark data
• How to redesign your email newsletter and sales alert templates to improve results (based on new eyetracking heat maps)
• Discover if segmentation, personalization, or other advanced tactics are worth testing for your program

The Guide isn't free but the Webinar sure is.  Do NOT forget to sign up for this one.