VerticalResponse Email Marketing Blog for Small Business

New List Management Features

Our Product and Engineering team have been hard at work doing a "rolling upgrade" for all of our users (too many people to call out on this one but in particular, thanks to our Bostonian Engineer Mr. Marden) By now all of you have access to some pretty cool features for List Management that you may or may not know about.

“Customize” Your Mailing List: Display, Sort & Search!

Now you can choose which columns to display when viewing your list as well as which ones can be sorted (ascending/descending).  In addition, you’ll also have access to enhanced search functionality for both standard and custom fields.

Setting the List View Display

Within the “Customize List” tab, simply use the drop-down menus to set the layout and order of your list view display. You can adjust this at any time to add or remove standard and custom fields from your list view display. 

In addition, you can choose to make specific fields both sortable and searchable from this screen by clicking the designated checkbox.  Sortable fields will be noted with a blue hyperlink and searchable fields will be added into the available search criteria under the “Search List” tab.

Adding & Deleting Custom Fields

Now you can add custom fields to your mailing lists after it has been created.  Simply access the “Customize List” tab and scroll to the bottom of the page where you’ll see blank text boxes that can be used to input new custom fields names. NOTE: You will now have the ability to create up to 233 custom fields for any mailing list in your account

Enhanced List Search Options

Within the “Customize List” tab you can define which fields will be searchable, in addition to the default email address field.  Once you’ve defined your additional searchable fields, simply access the “Search List” tab to conduct your search.  Both standard and custom fields can be searched and you can choose specific operators (equals, contains, begins with, ends with) to restrict the scope of your query.

There you have it, log into your account to check them out!

New Feature Upgrade - Our Biggest Yet!

I've been talking about how we're doing our biggest release ever, well it's finally here! I'm not even going to babble, check them out...

Email Canvas

Designer’s Toolbar – All your favorite tools are here.  Bold, italics, bullets, tables and more! Easily change fonts, colors and add images & links into any section of your message.

Pre-Designed Layouts - Start from scratch or choose a layout, then replace our content with yours!

Compare the features between our Email Wizard, Freeform HTML and Text-only.

Media Library

Resize your images – You can adjust the image by pixel or percent to get the exact size you need.

Flip & rotate images – Instantly change the orientation of your image without bugging your web designer. With a simple click you’ll have your image pointing in the right direction.

Need to crop? – Capture only specific sections of your image. Simply highlight, crop and save!

Organize! - Create and manage folders and subfolders to store all your images. Even drag-and-drop from one folder to another. You’ll never waste time searching for frequently used graphics once you’ve got them set up in folders!

The Media Library is available if you use our new Email Canvas, your own Freeform HTML, or our trusty old Email Wizard!

Watch the Media Library video starring Furious Alf.

Advanced Tracking Capabilities

Click-to-Conversion Tracking - With a simple snippet of code put on your confirmation page you'll be able to see how many visits to that page came directly from your email campaigns.

ROI Calculator - Take it one step further, have your designer pass a $ value from products you’re selling in the code. Then you can track from your confirmation page how much $ is being generated right from your campaign.

Can you stand it? Get on into your account and try it out. Making email is fun! Let us know what you think!

Wineries: Ideas for Marketing Your Wines

VerticalResponse has many wineries that use our service so I thought we'd take a stab at giving up some specific marketing ideas for you.

Forward to a Friend – We’ve seen some pretty rapid list growth from the wine industry specifically. Seems that everyone who loves a particular wine wants all their friends to know! Make sure in each email you send out you include a forward to a friend link. Even if your recipients don’t use the link, they may be inspired to forward it using their email reader. Also, make sure that you always use a link for this instead of a field.

Compliance with Child Protection – If you don’t have total control over who signs up for your email list you may want to consider running your list against the Child Protection Registries for UT and MI. Since you sell wine and if one of your emails gets mailed to a minor who has been registered on these lists you could be facing fines. We work with the registries to scrub lists of those customers who want this program. We offer this service as a pass-through, meaning we don’t mark up what the registries charge us.

Ask at the check-out – On your confirmation page why not ask your users to register for your newsletter? How about at the checkout counter at the winery or tasting room? Someone likes you enough to pay for your wine, get them to fill out a form!

Google Adwords – If you’re not buying adwords through Google, MSN or Yahoo! you should be. It can be a very cost-effective way for you to get new customers or even newsletter registrants. If someone gets to your site but may not want to purchase just yet, they may want a bit more information from a newsletter. Make sure you’ve got a form for them to fill out prominently placed.

Winemaker’s List – I’m sure your winemaker or your winery proprietor has a list of contacts. I’m also pretty sure these friends wouldn’t mind getting a newsletter from them. Get their lists! These could be your most qualified customers.

Hey wineries, got any great ideas? Share!

P.S. Thanks to the folks at Merryvale for the great image!

Couponing!

I got this great looking piece of mail the other day. It was from a local store I've visited a few times. Maybe I bought something once. Looks like they're trying to entice those who aren't regulars which is a great idea.

It was a classy-looking invitation, it came in one of those cellophane see-through envelopes so that I could see the message on the folded piece. It was simple, yet elegant, just one color. I'm sure it didn't cost much to do.

I went to their website and on the home page I was pleased to see  "Join Our Mailing List" link but alas, a "coming soon" message, no wonder I got a direct mail piece. Don't they know they can get a free opt-in form and free data hosting? (Shameless plug.)

I got to thinking, smaller retailers have it tough when it comes to marketing. Usually you store owners are too busy running the business to think about marketing so kudos to you Oceana Rain for sending out the piece.

What can you do as a retailer to market?

Build Your Email List - Whether you use our free opt-in form or another form of collection (even if it's a message like "send us your info in email and we'll add you to our list"), get something up on your site and start. You'll be surprised at people that find you and fill something out!

Your Employee's Contacts - Of course you'll use your personal contacts to announce sales or new arrivals, but what about your employees? Hopefully they love their job and want to encourage their friends to come, why not extend a one-time discount to their friends when a new employee starts? You could start to build a nice business this way!

Preferred Customer Events - Have quarterly events when new seasons or arrivals happen. Offering after-hours parties with preferred customer discounts might not only drive repeat business but allow your best customers to bring a guest. Have a cocktail or wine party and have it sponsored by a local establishment so the cost could be shared. Make sure you get business cards or have a registry so new guests will sign up.

Just a few ideas for the retailers in the house. Share and ideas you might have of your own!

Newsletter Content for Real Estate Pros

It's so important for Real Estate professionals to keep in touch with prospective buyers and sellers especially when it comes to residential real estate. There are many choices out there when it comes to choosing an agent so continuously keeping on top of mind with a client is something you know you need to do. It's tough when your clients only think about buying or selling every year, 5 years, or longer!

Whether they're first-time buyers or have bought/sold before people are always interested in the market. They like to know what's going on with interest rates and what their house might be worth. They're also interested in you since either they're going to, or already have used you for a transaction. In many cases the biggest one of their lives.

So how do you keep in their minds?

Here are some ideas for a communications plan to your clients.

Calendar it out - Do you know your client's birthday or anniversary? How about the anniversary of when they bought their home? It's a nice gesture on your part to remember dates and send an email or card to them.

Holiday cards - Each year I get a holiday card from our agent. It usually has a great picture of his family. Makes us feel closer to him.

Homes that sold - Highlight other homes that have sold in the area. People always want to know what their home is worth. Who knows, they may have a magic number that you don't know about.

Transactions that you've done - Everyone wants to be associated with a winner! If you're doing well, your clients will think about you when it's time for their next transaction.

Event calendar - I've highlighted a few great examples of Real Estate marketing here. Why not do the same for your city or neighborhood?

Content - It's always tough coming up with content for your newsletter or website. I was looking around the web for content that Real Estate professionals could use in their email campaigns. Here are a few sights you might find helpful:

• EZine Articles - Here there are close to 50,000 expert authors sharing their best ezine articles that you can use, for free. I clicked on real estate and got a pretty exhaustive listing of articles in the following categories: Real Estate, Building a Home, Buying, Commercial Property, Condominiums, Investing, Land, Leasing/Renting, Mortgage Refinance, Moving/Relocating, Property Management and Selling. Phew!
• RealEstateABC.com - I thought this site was pretty amazing. You can get a ton of content for free, BUT for just $25/year you can get "personalized" mortgage calculators, home-selling content home buying content even a "What's your home worth" tool. I don't know if the $25 is worth it but seems like there is a bunch of free content you can use for joining as a "guest".

Hope these ideas work. Let me know if any of this was helpful. If I'm off the mark here tell me! Give more ideas.

Restaurant/Bar Reviews...How Do You Handle Negativity?

You get a great review, published in this week's newspaper, you want to tell the world. Of course you get your email marketing list together and send it out to all of your customers. But, what do you do when someone visits a review site and reviews you poorly?

Restaurants are being reviewed at almost double the pace of any other category. And the sites are getting a ton of traffic. Look at Yelp and CitySearch in the past year. There are thousands of reviews for restaurants alone and these sites have become the place where everyone looks for reviews before they patron the place. It can make or break anyone's decision before choosing to go to a new restaurant. So what do you do? Here are some suggestions:

Regulars make for good reviews - More often than not people think to place poor reviews rather than good ones. Remind your regulars, the people that visit you often and love your establishment, to get on a specific review site and tell everyone why they love it. How about sending an email campaign to your list with a link to a review site? It could really help you in the long run!

Read often - You might find that by reading the same thing over and over you could make a change in your business that affects the bottom line positively. Are you being reviewed for poor service? Is it the same server? Are there one or two dishes that keep getting "panned" ?(Pun intended!) It's up to you to listen to what your customers are saying, then make your changes.

Chime in! - Address concerns that your reviewers have. If the steak is too chewy and you've replaced that supplier since last year, go ahead and tell people. Post your own review addressing all of the concerns that people may  have had in the past and what you've done to correct any. Then invite people back.

Just a few ideas on how to address those nasty little reviews...IF you ever get them.

GREAT Sales Video

My good friend Gerhard Gschwandtner, Publisher of Selling Power Magazine, has some great sales videos I've posted about in the past. But apparently he went mad one day and filmed this video.

If you've got a sales team or you truly want to be totally amused, take a moment out to watch Gerhard re-enact Jack Nicholson as Col. Nathan R. Jessep in A Few Good Men, as it relates to Sales.

Great Sales info on the selling power site by the way, you might want to register.

Gerhard we love it, love it. Take a moment everyone!

Stop Looking to the Big Boys for Creative Ideas

I was looking at the email marketing campaigns in my inbox thinking to myself, "I hope that our users don't look to the big boys of retail to copy their email campaigns because, well, they're just wrong."

Will someone tell these guys to stop using image-only emails for their campaigns? Sure they probably pay fancy agencies to do wonderful-looking work (they are pretty) but these guys for sure aren't up to snuff when it comes to creating email marketing campaigns for deliverability.

Return Path shows that "image spam" is going to make even more recipients shut down images by default, particularly on unknown senders.

I'm announcing the winners for prettiest email campaigns that many recipients will never see.

And the winners are.....

Neiman Marcus
Neiman as it appears in my junk folder	Neiman with images turned "on"
Frontgate
Frontgate as it appears in my junk folder	Frontgate with images turned "on"
Brookstone
Brookstone as it appears in my junk folder	Brookstone with images turned "on"

These emails appeared in my junk folder because many ISPs will actually filter you there for image-only emails. The "big boys" of retailing don't necessarily have it down when it comes to email marketing best practices so you may not want to look to their campaigns as a source of creative ideas. Check out more on deliverability.

March Inc.com Article - Dressing for Success

The March Inc.com column Dressing for Success in the Women in Business section was fun to write . If you don't know us we're pretty casual in the VerticalResponse offices. We work hard, we play hard and we're comfortable. Check it out if you've got a minute or two.

Stan's Ad Campaign

I’ve never really got “personal” on the VerticalResponse blog but today I'm in. I’ve mentioned before that I’ve had to spend days working at Starbuck’s for an icky reason. The reason is that our basset hound Stanley was diagnosed with a pretty gnarly cancer late last year and we’ve been giving him chemotherapy in an attempt to shrink it enough to take it out.

Since where we have to go is pretty far from home, we sit, drink coffee, work and wait for the little guy. (For all of you nay-saying Starbucks folks, I think I’d have to drive for hours to find a coffee shop that’s not owned by a chain ☹ If someone can find me one by Westfield Shopping Town in the South Bay and they have internet, I’m in.)

Well two weeks ago Stan had his surgery and I’m happy to say he’s jumping around happy as can be and is back to healthy. Who knows if it’s going to rear it’s ugly head again but for now you’ll find the popular little guy who you can see in the VR ad campaign sticking his head in the garbage cans of the VR employees making a mess!

Tell me what you think of the ads Alf and team designed! Got any ideas of better ones?