VerticalResponse Email Marketing Blog for Small Business

Assessing Your Marketing Budget in This Economy

Last week I talked about how to reduce costs across the board, today I'll talk about how to continue to grow while cutting back a bit on marketing. You never want to completely cut back on all of your communications but you can take steps to reduce them a bit.

Print ads - First of all make sure your print ads are working for you. Ask your customers how they heard or read about you in the first place. One simple thing you can do is to reduce your ad sizes if the publication will let you.

Google Adwords - Don't cut Adwords spending altogether, but assess what's working for you. If you sell locally make sure you're not spending to show ads in other areas of the country, spend locally only. Google let's you do that. If you have campaigns that just have not pulled you might want to pause them for a few months.

Email Marketing - You don't have to cut here at all and it's not just because you might be a customer of ours. Now, VerticalResponse let's you send unlimited email for a low fixed monthly fee in addition to our flexible pay-as-you-go option. This enables you to increase your email sends and keep growing your business.

Tradeshows - Instead of cutting tradeshows out of your budget altogether, you might be able to reduce your presence. Why not share a booth with another complementary business? Do you really need 3 people to go or can you do it with 2? Maybe you can have a smaller table or booth? Make sure you don't skimp on printing business cards, but use the back of your card for a promotion instead of printing on a larger datasheet. There are simple ways to reduce, while still promoting your business.

Start a Refer-a-Friend Program - Ask your customers to refer their friends and you'll give them a discount or free gift every time their friends purchase. This only costs you your discount or gift and it's a fantastic way to spread word of mouth.

Just a few quick ideas for you to save some $ or get new customers.

Unlimited Emailing from VerticalResponse

Today we're pretty excited to announce some new features from VerticalResponse; you'll have access to unlimited emailing for a low fixed monthly fee. No, we're not kidding. It's tough in this economy and we want to give you the email marketing tools at the price that will keep your business growing. If you're happy on your current pay-as-you-go plan, feel free to stay put. Here are just a few of the new features you'll  have access to:

• Now you'll be able to view and edit one record that now exists across multiple lists.
• You can now download all unique list members with/without bounce and unsubscribe info.
• View one complete profile of all of your list members.
• Search on any field or partial email address.
• You'll have access to unlimited emailing for a low fixed monthly fee.
• And more!

Current VerticalResponse users will be notified within your account with more details on how you can get access these new features.

Great Ideas from a VR Customer

From time to time I join a customer's list to see what they're doing in the wonderful world of online marketing. This one was particularly special because I used to be a customer of this business. This post is devoted to some really great ideas from Pet Camp, a place to bring your pets for short-term or long-term boarding.

Things they do well:

Email

• The email has a fun and friendly tone, and all of the staples you need in your email campaign are here.
• There is a great mix of graphics and text. The text will show in the event the images are blocked by an email client. Most of their content will show.
• They prominently ask you to forward the email to a friend.
• They prominently display their locations.
  
• Since they spend a ton of time and effort being a "green" business they tout that in their email.
• They push their refer a friend program with a discount.
• They include a hosted version of their email for people having trouble reading it in their email clients
• They talk about their community program, helping local schools. People like doing business with businesses that help the community

Blog

Separate from the Pet Camp website they have a blog. I am going to assume it's because it's easier to post to and make changes to than going through their web designer.

You might be thinking "Why would a company like Pet Camp need a blog?" The great thing they do with this particular blog is that they devote the entire blog to images of their furry guests and they try to post them each day if they can. The cool thing about that is that when the parents of the pets see their pet on the blog, they'll surely email their friends to show them. That's the power of word of mouth. Now lots of people that may never have heard of Pet Camp will.

Site

I've always liked the simplicity of the Pet Camp site. It's an easy to navigate site and I love the use of the pictures of the guests and guests with the people who work there. It puts a nice personal touch on the site. They've also got some really good testimonials from past guests, which every site should have.

Great job from Pet Camp, how are you employing these tactics in your online marketing? Do you have any additional goodies you want to throw in?

We Made a Mistake...

Yesterday's newsletter talked about the use of lingo and images we recommend for the holidays so as not to offend anyone. Then right under the article we included a small image of postcards with an ornament on one of them. How ironic. I'm posting this to apologize to anyone who may have been offended and for us not eating our own dog food so to speak. Cheers.

6 Ways to Cut Costs for Your Small Business Now

Since we've seen the stock market plunge in the past few weeks, there has never been a better time to take a closer look at how we can shave to save. So I put together a list of some things to look at, because every little bit helps.

Credit Card Processing Fees - Banks are hurting these days but it doesn't mean that you have to bear the brunt of it. Call your bank and see if there is any room to lower the percentages you have to pay when someone uses a credit card to buy your product. I found an article on Forbes about small businesses saving on these fees.

Paper Costs - It's becoming rare that you should actually have to print a document. You can read email, you can read a document attached to an email and it's even quicker than printing on paper. So here's an idea: every time you go to print something so you can snail mail it or read it on paper, ask yourself "Can I send this in an email?" or "Can I read this on my computer screen?" I bet you'll find out most of the time you can avoid the printer. 

Another idea for reducing paper usage is to keep your documents online. Google Docs are free and you can invite people to share your documents and make changes to them. I know an events manager at a local restaurant who was keeping event dates on a paper calendar until he was introduced to Google Calendar. Now he's keeping everything online. Even better? The owners can access the calendar without having to contact him.

Obviously I'm going to tell you to stop printing out and snail-mailing your newsletter. It's not environmentally friendly and it's probably about 10x the cost of sending an email newsletter. Now is the time to convert your list into getting your newsletter in digital format. Feel free to take a test drive of VerticalResponse to do it, if you don't already.

Last, but not least, stop faxing. Get rid of the fax machine, there are a ton of free services as well as services with low monthly fees.

Travel - If your business relies on a face to face meeting to close the sale, you probably can't cut down drastically. However there are many ways to have meetings on the phone especially if you need to present something. Check out InterCall and GoToMeeting for web conferencing, and Glance to share your desktop.

One more thing, have you looked at your frequent flier statement recently? Now's the time to cash in on some of those rewards for travel if it is an important part of how you do business.

Supplies - Take a look at the monthly supplies you buy for your location. Can you save money buying cheaper paper plates? Can you use real silverware in the lunch room instead of buying plastic utensils? Do you really need name-brand paper towels? Are there coupons you can use from the Sunday paper? It might not seem like a lot but it all adds up.

Phones - Do all of your employees need a phone? Of course you'll need them especially if your sales or marketing folks have to speak to your customers or order inventory. But if you've got a group of employees that don't need their own, try setting up a phone for them to share.

Also look at Voice over Internet Protocol. VoIP allows users to use regular telephone networks anywhere through any internet service provider, cuts down on long distance charges. For a listing of providers go here.

Shipping Costs - If you ship a lot of your products, why not put a call into your shipper to see how you can reduce some of those costs. I also found this blog post from the Shipping Coach with tons of advice on reducing shipping costs.

Little by little it all adds up so make sure you keep a close eye on everything you're spending money on!

Offline Non-Profit Fundraising Idea

It has got to be tough for non-profits to do any fundraising in this economy. I did come across a clever fundraising idea recently. I was at a restaurant here in San Francisco and I saw on the bar they had a brochure holder with envelopes from their favorite non profit organization.

What a great idea! Non-profits can partner with offline businesses that get a lot of foot traffic. In this case the restaurant supports this organization 100%, it's the "Street Smart 4 Kids" organization and the copy reads:

Now that you've had a wonderful dining experience, please consider donating $3 - or more - in this envelope.  100% of your gift goes to at-risk and homeless youth programs.

That's some great targeted copy especially if this non profit has partnered with a lot of restaurants. The back of the envelope had an area where the restaurant could track the server's name (so the restaurant can give them a little bonus for bringing in the donations) and the name and address of who gave the donation for tax purposes.

Are you a non-profit and asking for donations like this? Love to hear how your fundraising is going.

P.S. Non-Profits email free with VerticalResponse.

Writing Holiday Copy That Sells

It's going to be tough to get noticed in the sea of emails that your customers are going to be getting this holiday season. Couple that with a plunging economy and you've got yourself a bit of an uphill battle. So what are some of the tricks of the copywriting trade for your upcoming email marketing campaigns that you can use to get noticed?

Sprinkle Your Message with The Holidays - First of all make your messages a bit more festive. Be careful: some of your recipients might take offense to you wishing them a "Merry Christmas" when they celebrate Hanukkah, but the reality is that most won't. To get around offending anyone my advice is to be a bit more generic in your well wishing unless of course you do know the exact makeup of your list. Sticking to "happy holidays" or "season's greetings" is probably your best generic bet while still conveying good wishes.

Include some nice holiday images in your email to make it even more festive. Images of nicely wrapped gifts, candles, pinecones, snow scenes, a wreath, snowflakes and candy canes are nice additions. If you'd like to call out all holidays then you can use images like Santa, Kwanzaa candles, a Hanukkah menorah, and a Christmas tree. Now that's festive!

Holiday Offers - Now it's time for the fun stuff. What is going to really get the attention of your recipient? In this economy you can bet that your recipients are really going to be looking for deals now more than ever so make sure you give them what they want!

• Top 10 Under $20, Under $30, Under $40 - This is a real time saver for your recipient in a busy holiday season. Many people know what they want to spend and want to know what the hot products are this season. Giving them quick lists will get you noticed.
• Free shipping - This is a great offer especially for comparison shoppers. Even if you are slightly priced higher than a competitor, more often than not people will choose you if you're willing to ship free.
• 10% off for early bird shoppers - Why not start the season off early and send an early bird email to your customers in late October? Make sure you include an expiration date and stick to it, then you'll train people for your next early bird offer.
• Free gift with purchase - For those comparison shoppers who see your offer vs. your competitor's, if you're giving more value you'll likely get the sale. Why not even combine this with free shipping? You'll be a real hit.
• Buy one get one free - Call it the "Holiday Recession Sale" and offer two for the price of one.

VerticalResponse just published a whitepaper with even more ideas for offers, subject lines and more. So download it free today.

We Want You Back! Winning Back Customers That Have Left You

I got an interesting piece of direct mail the other day from a company we used to do business with. It was in a rather large box that had "Perishable" printed on it. Was I curious? You bet. I dug in. It was from a company we used to outsource our HR, payroll and benefits. So granted it was a very expensive idea but we did pay a lot to this company.

At first blush I said "Wow, didn't they look at their list of companies that left them?" Because we left them a few years ago so I was sort of surprised to even get a mailing from them let alone this big box.

I was shocked at the answer: they actually did look at the companies that left them. It was a "We want you back" campaign and under the top of the box was a "We want you back" CD, a "We want you back" offer note and a letter saying that they'd pretty much do anything to get us back.

When I lifted the hood of this box I saw a "We want you back" coffee mug with a pound of really good coffee. If we weren't so entrenched with our own in-house systems, I may have even given them a call. They definitely got my attention.

Great targeted mailing. It made me think of the customers that we have lost over the course of many years (I'm sad) and what we could do to get them back or raise their eyebrows. It also could be as simple as a great offer in an email marketing campaign.

Do you have any customers you'd like to get back? Do you have any experience with customer win-back campaigns? Love to hear from you!

Personalization - What It Is, How It Can Work for You

Personalization can really add a nice touch to your email marketing campaigns, especially if you have good data on your recipients. So what is personalization?  Defined, it's when you tailor your messages to your customer's characteristics. For example the simple form of personalization would be using your recipient's name in your content.

"Dear John

Welcome to the 3rd edition of our newsletter."

A more advanced scenario would be:

"Dear John

Thanks for buying Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince at our bookstore last week. We also thought you might be interested in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. We're offering a 10% discount if you purchase before November 1."

Something like this would work if you wanted to get rid of product inventory. In this case it's the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix book. Let's say you wanted to sell this book to anyone who purchased any Harry Potter books from you.

Well you're not going to type these out one by one right? Especially if you have hundreds or thousands of people on your list. Most Email Service Providers provide you with a way to do it all at once so here's how to do it using VerticalResponse.

1. Upload your list - When you upload your list into your account you'll include all of the first names of your recipients. You'll also include a custom field for your recipients. This custom field will be filled in with the name of the book they already purchased from you. See the example to the right.

When you upload your list you'll name that column "PotterBooks", see below.

2. Type your copy. It should look something like this if you are using VerticalResponse:

"Dear {FIRST_NAME}

Thanks for buying {PotterBooks} at our bookstore last week, we also thought you might be interested in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. We're offering a 10% discount if you purchase before November 1."

Now your fields will automatically be filled in for you depending on what their first name is and what book it was that they purchased.

This especially works if you really know what products a customer is likely to purchase from you next and you may even increase your response rate just buy knowing something about your recipients.

Are you using personalization? How is it working for you?

How To Test a Subject Line in 3 Easy Steps

I know, I hear it all the time, you barely have enough time to do one email campaign let alone two!! But what if I told you it would take no more than 10 extra minutes of your time to test your subject line to two of the same campaigns to see what performs best. The benefit for you? You could have even more people opening your future email marketing campaigns. There's no better time to prepare for the holiday season than right now. Here's how you do it.

Step 1 - Split Your List in Two

If you have your two lists already simply upload them to your account separately. If you need to split one you already have:

• In your VR Home Tab find the Segment Widget. Click the icon to the right of Segments. 
• Name your segment, click Save.
• Keep the Segment List Members choice, click Save.
• Select your list, click Done then click Save and Get Results.
• On the Preview screen click Save.
• On your final screen click Multiple Lists fill in 2 for number of lists, allocate by Percent. Then name your two new lists and click Create Lists.

Nothing will happen to your original list and you've now got two new ones!

Step 2 - Copy Your Campaign

In your VR Home Tab go to the campaign you want to make a copy of, in Actions click Copy, and rename your new test campaign.

Step 3 - Edit Your Subject Line

Edit your newly copied campaign and simply input your new subject line. Then choose the lists you want to mail to for each and launch. It's that simple. Happy testing!