VerticalResponse Email Marketing Blog for Small Business

Is Your Data All Over The Place? Take Control!

With the economy in the dumpster, it's more important than ever to take control of all of your lists. It could be the thing that gets your business through any tough times. Plus, you might miss out on sending email campaigns to certain recipients just because you forgot about them, which means less revenue to you in the long run.

Do you have your lists in more than one of these places?

• VerticalResponse
• ACT, FileMaker, Salesforce or any other contact manager
• QuickBooks or your accounting system
• POS Systems
• Shoeboxes and fishbowls of business cards
• Spreadsheets
• Sign Up Book

If your business requires you to keep separate lists, that's ok, keep them there. It's not optimal, but if it works for your business fine. BUT, once a week, or more often if you choose, make a copy of all of your lists and choose the place that's easiest to access, upload and download your data. If it's ACT or Salesforce, make sure you don't add duplicate records, it could get messy. If it happens to be a spreadsheet, you might consider having customers in one sheet and non customers in another. And if you want to use VerticalResponse, you can do that too. We will de-duplicate on email address so make sure you include those. Any way you choose, make sure you consolidate your lists so you always have one data source to market to.

One more thing, if you've got your lists offline, spend an hour or so a week getting those lists in digital format. Then welcome these new list members with an email. You'll be surprised at how important managing your lists can be to your bottom line.

Email Marketing Idea for Print Publishers

If you live in a print world where you're sending out a publication like a magazine, a printed newsletter or even a newspaper, email marketing can be a great complement to your current print activities. The San Francisco Business Times does a great job at this in my opinion.

This newspaper is delivered on Fridays and each Friday morning they send an email to their subscribers with about 5-6 of the Publisher's Highlights. I'm sure it's a nice way to get their print readers reading the paper and their advertisers happy.

They do a nice job of including an image of what the cover looks like, so that maybe the subscribers will remember it when it crosses their desks. And for paying subscribers they also include a link for the PDF download version of it.

All in all, a nice clean email campaign that drives people to read something offline. Chime in if you're doing something like this for your business.

Day 2 - Governor's Conference on Small Business & Entrepreneurship

Yesterday morning I was lucky enough to participate on a panel with David Fischer, VP of Online Sales, Google, moderated by a fantastic young speaker Arel Moodie. Arel is also a great motivational speaker on the college circuit, getting college students excited about the possibility of being an entrepreneur.

The questions we got from the crowd were really prevalent to small  business. We talked about how small businesses can use online tools to help them be a more global business. Questions came about like: "Why should I blog, what will I get out of it?" and "Tell us what we need to do to get noticed by the Google search engine" and more. I'll post the video when it's available.

Lunch was served and I sat with some really great small business owners including, to my surprise, Mark from PetCamp. You may have remembered my blog about his great business and all of the marketing he's doing.

Facebook & WIRED Magazine

revenue will come from in the future. More and more small businesses are looking to other vehicles like Facebook and Twitter to drive more customers. He also spoke about the risk you take from doing something with Facebook is worth it, however I disagree, I don't think it's risky at all, in fact I think it's easy. He did say that because of the transparency that Facebook offers, now small businesses need to be authentic, build a better product, and be real. I couldn't agree more.

Louis Rossetto then spoke. He started WIRED Magazine (and now has the chocolate company Tcho). He showed us his rocket ride to stardom, which was pretty powerful as WIRED has been a real cornerstone of the tech movement for the past 10 years. He touched on the complexity of the new network since he started the publication 5000 days ago. He also talked about how millennials are the largest demographic in the US and it's really their destiny to make the web even more than it is today. He previewed this fantastic Coke video to show the power the millennials have with this new network. It's a great example of millennials in fast action.

Marty Keller, Director, Office of Small Business Advocate, brought the house down with his moving speech about how small businesses should be awakened and get stronger with the power of all of the new collaboration tools to enable us as a group to rise up and take advantage now. Believe it or not, the crowd was teary eyed.

VOTE

Then it was time for the recommendation of issues from the previous day and a vote from all of the attendees.

Using remote voters, we all voted on the issues to put forth to the governor enabling small businesses to have their voice in CA. The lobbying got crazy! 

The day ended with the top 11 issues small businesses are facing today. Here are just the top 3 to give you an idea of the types of issues that are important.

1. Restore investment in programs the support small business.

2. California Air Resources Board needs to assess costs for AB 32 (the Global Warming Solutions Act) while assessing how it effects small business.

3. Small business need to be a larger part of the regulatory process.

The day ended with a wonderful bevy of speeches from small businesses on how this conference could and can change our lives. There was talk about doing this every year and growing it beyond belief because the business power in our nation is in the hands of the small businesses.

I met a ton of great people that I'm sure I'll keep in touch with.

Marty, let's do it again next year, I pledge to bring 20 people!

Governor's Conference on Small Business & Entrepreneurship in California

I'm in LA at the Governor's Conference on Small Businesses & Entrepreneurship. They're launching Global Entrepreneurship Week in conjunction with the Kauffman Foundation. It will be the third week in November. There are over 350 people attending, all amazing businesses and stories, ranging from small businesses to non-profits to policy makers from all over CA. We're convening at the Renaissance Hotel.

It's a pretty amazing cast of people here. From the Governor's office Marty Keller, Director, Office of Small Business Advocate is leading the show and doing a superb job. The conference is meant to put real policies forth to the Governor to get more small business growth in the California economy.

The show got off to an amazing start with Author of Jump Point, Tom Hayes, and Michael Malone, ABC News Journalist. They talked about the role that California's entrepreneurs will play in shaping the future of the new economy.

Lunch came and so did the Governator! Governor Schwarzenegger really inspired the crowd with his story on his life and how he came to America to live the American dream and be an entrepreneur. We also got a few muscle jokes out of him too! Watch the video.

After, there were sessions on different issues that small businesses need to deal with. The interesting thing was that in the breakout session you chose, you actually have a say in policies that will be presented to the Governor. The following were the issues facing California small businesses:

Issue: Clean Air
Issue: Access to Capital
Issue: Entrepreneur Encouragement Group - High Tech
Issue: Healthcare - Cost containment (this was a huge issue in a survey I recently did)
Issue: Innovation & technology - Support business who are seeking state dollars
Issue: Procurement Issues
Issue: Regulatory Reform Group
Issue: Transportation - Rising fuel costs
Issue: Taxation - Conformity state tax code, Consolidation of agencies, energy tax credits
Issue: Education - How can we restructure education so that kids want to work in small businesses.

I chose the Innovation & Technology group where we came up with some pretty good ideas. From this, the entire group of 350 will vote on what is the most important for CA small businesses.

After dinner we got to see 3 young entrepreneurs, from the Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour that were really inspiring to listen to.

Notable people I've met:

Kristin Johnson, Regional Director, Northern California SBDC, the SBDC has some really great programs to help businesses grow. I met Terry Hicks, GM, Small Business Group, QuickBooks, and Guy Philips, Head of US Small Business, VISA, (we chatted about the Facebook VISA Small Business Network, check it out) I also met Drew Boyles, Franchise Partner, owning seven 1-800-Got Junk franchises and Brook Taylor from the Governor's Office of Planning and Research, and beloved Oregon Duck fan. Brook had a big hand in putting together the conference. All were great conversations and I look forward to more in the future. 

Next up? I speak on a panel with David Fischer, VP of Online Sales, Google, moderated by Arel Moodie, America's Top Young Speaker about marketing tools that will take your business global.

I'll be back.

Retailers: Great Internet Retailer Survey

Internet Retailer published their Holiday Sales Survey recently. It's a pretty comprehensive survey that might give retailers out there some ideas for the holiday season. It was surprising to me that most of the retailers they surveyed had sales revenue of less than 1 million annually. That really speaks to the smaller retailers weighing in rather than Target or Walmart.

The top three take-aways were that you should start marketing early, you should include gifts with a purchase and include lower priced items in the assortment you offer. Reducing prices across the board was also a big one.

On the marketing front it looks like email marketing is the big winner with regards to the tools retailers will use. A close second is paid search followed by social media in third.

In addition, most retailers will make free shipping conditional, meaning customers will have to purchase $50 or more.

All in all, 81% of the retailers surveyed think that their holiday sales will grow this year, with half of the growth being up 15% or less from the previous year. Sounds promising, let's hope so!

New Features: List Management

A quick note if you're a VerticalResponse customer. Recently we released a range of exciting new list features for customers who have gone through our list consolidation process (it's free btw) . If you're wondering what you need to do, login to your account and follow the simple instructions there.

Upload a list for mass actions

This feature makes it easier for you to target emails, and clean your list.

• Suppress members - Great if you want to temporarily exclude some subscribers from your email marketing campaigns.
• Unsubscribe and Delete - Easily clean your list of data that you are collecting in other places or people you know don't want to get your emails.

Where to find it: Lists > All Lists, and select any list > Tools > Mass Update

More search options

Find email addresses in your account based on their opt-in status. It makes it easy to find subscribers who are single opt-in, mailable, bounced, or unsubscribed. Also easily search on suppression status.

Where to find it: Lists > All Members > List Members > Advanced > Select filter for Opt-in Status or Suppression Status

Get Set Up to Email Unlimited

If you want to join our monthly subscription program (you don't have to), you can send unlimited emails for a low monthly fixed fee. Just check out our pricing page to see where you fit in. Then consolidate your lists if you're an existing customer. (Did we mention it's free?)

It's easy, so what's stopping you?

How Using Twitter Can Grow Your List

If you didn't know, VerticalResponse is on Twitter! Follow us, we're VR4SmallBiz. We're having a blast with it, watching more people follow us every day. Why should you start to "tweet"?

1. You want to be where your customers are and you can bet many of them are on Twitter. You can tweet about what's going on at your company, include links to some great articles you run across, and give your followers up to the minute information about your company and product. Remember, keep it short and sweet.

2. You can grow your list! Think of it as a boost for your email marketing program. When you create your newsletter or email blast using VerticalResponse, make sure you use the feature that enables you to host your email on a web page. Then you can use Twitter to let everyone know you've published your email and make sure you include the hosted version's URL.

Computerworld published this great article with tons of Twitter tips. It's easy, now follow us and tweet!

 

Can Your Business Be Socially Responsible?

I'm sitting at a pretty large tradeshow called Dreamforce, about 9,000 attendees. I'm listening to the head of Google.org, Larry Brilliant, talk about the CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) programs of Google and Salesforce, where each donates 1% of profits, 1% of employee time and 1% product to non-profits. It's a pretty moving speech about how businesses need to be stepping up to socially responsible. I couldn't agree more.

I started thinking, it truly doesn't have to only be the big guys like Google and Salesforce that can step up to the plate because they have the power and the resources. In aggregate small business actually could have more power to make a real difference. Heck, VerticalResponse stepped up to the plate more than 2 years ago when we were a lot smaller than we are today. I say take the "C" out of "CSR" it scares us little guys away.

How Can You Start? 3 Simple Ways

1. If you don't have the dollars to donate or sponsor something, take a good look at what you do have. Perhaps it's your employee's time at first. That's how we started when we partnered with Salesforce for their annual community event. Even better, you get to meet new people as well as share an experience with your employees you never would have. We have teams regularly going to read to first grade classes at a local elementary school as well as teams feeding the homeless. Not one person ever leaves an event thinking they didn't make a contribution to the community, it's a great feeling.

Important note: try to peg how many of these programs are actually feasible for your business to keep running. Your business has to be your #1 priority.

2. If your product or services lend themselves to helping a non-profit, why not give it away at a discounted rate or even free to non-profit organizations and schools? Many times you'll get sponsored links in exchange for this. A great example of this is when restaurants give their dishes and employee time free at events where all proceeds go to non-profits. Another example of this is doctors donating their time to give services to the homeless.

3. Schools often are in need of computers. If you've got old computers laying around that might be somewhat out of date but still work, why not ask your local schools if they'd like to take them off of your hands. Not only is it good for the school, but it's great for the environment as well.

Is your business socially responsible? Do you give back? Give us more ideas!

eMarketer Article: Pinching Pennies Online this Holiday Season

eMarketer just came out with this interesting article. It stated that consumers have devised a variety of strategies to save money beyond just buying fewer and cheaper holiday gifts.

To save money on gas, shoppers will shift some of their store purchases to the Internet. Some will plan ahead so that they make all their online purchases at once to reduce shipping costs. Others will buy in bulk from warehouses and club stores online.

It also stated that consumers will wait for peak promotional times to buy like Cyber Monday (the Monday after Thanksgiving), when Web retailers frequently offer free shipping and other price-cutting deals.

Other strategies include using coupons, finding cheaper product alternatives, reducing gift spending, looking for sales and shopping online for deals, according to a July 2008 survey from comScore.

What does this mean for your business? You might consider the following:

Get ready for Cyber Monday, it's right around the corner! Make sure your email marketing campaigns are ready to go the day before.

Include a cyber "coupon" in your email campaign since 35% of the respondents said they would use coupons this holiday season.

Offer a top 10 under $10 ($20, $30) list. You might be able to get a few more purchases this way by making it super easy not to mention cheaper since 63% of the respondents said they would look to buy less expensive gifts.

Offer free shipping on orders of some dollar amount and over. Looks like that could be a winner this season especially if people are buying at once.Thirteen percent of the respondents said they'd be looking for that.

Oh and make sure people can find you when they search for you online. Since 32% of the respondents said they'd shop online for better deals, you should be getting your Google Adwords going now so you appear when someone is searching on your keywords. Check out our partner MerchEngines if you don't want to do it yourself.

Reporting: How Are You Using It, Or Are You?

        If you are currently using any reputable email service provider like VerticalResponse, you definitely have access to basic reports about how your email marketing campaigns are doing. The real question is, what are you doing with that information? I've put together some ranges for the stats you probably view and some ideas you could be doing with that information to make your email campaigns even better.

Open Rate

 

Customers who tend to have great relationships with their customers can get open rates as high as 40%, which is great. Others that have gathered their lists over several years and potentially lost some customers could be in the 14-18% range. 

 

Idea: Get rid of the dead weight. If you've been sending someone email for years and they've never opened your email or clicked a link, then maybe email just isn't the way you should be contacting them. Why not try calling them or dropping them a postcard to see if that wakes them up? THEN you can try to develop an online relationship with them at a later date. You'll be mailing to more active people in the long run.

 

Idea: Download your list of NON-RESPONDERS, these are people who have neither clicked on a link nor opened your email.  Then, a week or so after you've sent a campaign, send them the same email, but switch up the subject line to something more catchy to see if you can get more people opening.

 

Click Rate

 

Click rates usually fall in the 1-3% range.  However, if they've got an amazing story to tell or great deal to give, then we see it skyrocket to the 8-10% range. Anything over that you're off the charts. Again it all depends on that relationship you have with your customers. 

 

Idea: Test including more links in your email. We tested linking our article headlines and squeezed some more clicks out of people. Make sure all of your images are linked as well. 

 

Bounce Rate

 

We've seen our customers average bounce rates usually come in under .5%. However, lists mailed less frequently can have bounce rates in the 5%-7% range. A list that is mailed for the first time can have up to a 50% bounce rate depending on how "new" it is.

 

Idea: Download your list of bounces. If you have their postal addresses, send them a postcard asking them to update their email address. Then direct them to an opt-in form where you capture their new address. You may have to sweeten the deal with an offer on their next purchase or something free like a gift card. It's worth it for you not to lose that customer.

 

Unsubscribe Rate

 

A regularly mailed list has an average unsubscribe rate around the .2-.5% range. A less frequently mailed email list can creep up to the 2-5% range. 

 

Idea: Keep in more frequent touch with your recipients. Instead of once every 3 months why not make the time and increase it to once per month. A customer of yours may be on their way out the door, you don't want that.

 

Any ideas of your own that you'd like to share? We'd love to hear them.