VerticalResponse Email Marketing Blog for Small Business

Great Ideas for Direct Mail - Video from Pitney Bowes

I was on Twitter (@janinepopick) and saw my friend John Jantsch from Duct Tape Marketing (@ducttape) tweeting about this Pitney Bowes Video on increasing the value of any direct mail or postcards you might be sending. Snail mail, is it the new black? Watch it here, it's good.

Deliverability and Your Email Campaigns - What You Need to Know

As legitimate email marketing senders, we all get frustrated when we get unsolicited email clogging up our inboxes. It's not only infuriating it's time consuming as well.

On top of this, phishing and spoofing are even more infuriating to us since that's just plain illegal. Phishers are those people that act as a legitimate company you may or may not do business with and "spoof" the from address to make it look like that legitimate business. How many of us have clicked on a link from our bank, eBay, or another legitimate company asking us to "update our information" which may include our credit cards?

How Does an ISP Authenticate a Legitimate Email Sender?

As a way to fight this bad behavior many ISPs (AOL, Gmail, Yahoo!) are adopting authentication protocols for how they screen incoming email to their users. There are four recommended protocols that are available to email senders right now SPF, SenderID, Domain Keys, DKIM.

SPF and Sender ID are very similar and use the some of the same data points to verify if a sender is authorized to send from the sender’s domain.  Because of this similarity they are often referred to at the same time, SPF/SenderID.  SPF was the first widely adopted protocol used for email authentication and is still most broadly used.  SenderID was developed by Hotmail to also help verify the origin of the email.  The limitations with SPF/SenderID, which include the protocols no longer working when a message is forwarded, is why SPF/SenderID are most effective when used in tandem with other protocols.

Domain Keys (DK) and DKIM are also very similar; DKIM is technically the next generation of DK and has improved upon that earlier technology.  

A New Measure to Weed Out Unscrupulous Email Senders - DKIM

DKIM (Domain Keys Identified Mail) is the newest protocol to be introduced and it is being quickly adopted by ISPs such as AOL, Gmail, Yahoo!, Bell South, Cox, and Earthlink and you can bet these make up a bunch of consumer email inboxes. 

On a very basic level, DKIM is technology that looks at the sender's domain (after the @  sign) and verifies to see if the email did, in fact, come from that domain. If it doesn't match then there is a possibility that the email won't go through or get flagged as potential spam.

On a deeper level, a digital signature is attached to each email. When it reaches the receiving party they check the signature by looking at two things in the email header (which normally most recipients don't see): a private key, which is the signature of the sender and a public key, which verifies the hidden private key.

What You Should Know

So if you are using an email service provider that uses DKIM, you're ahead of the game in getting your emails delivered more effectively. Why? Because as DKIM gets increasingly adopted by ISPs or the receiving party, chances are your recipients are either in a company that uses DKIM to verify incoming email or they use an email provider like Gmail to do the same.

One more thing: It's a good idea to ask your email service provider how and if they deal with DKIM and other protocols that are being used.

GOOD NEWS: VerticalResponse is ahead of the curve! Since we know how important it is for our customers' emails to be delivered at the highest rate possible, we've adopted all protocols including SPF, SenderID, Domain Keys and DKIM.  

VerticalResponse Goes to the Zoo

VerticalResponse partnered with HandsOn Bay Area (HOBA) last weekend to improve our community through animal conservancy efforts.  Activities included planting and refurbishing various gardens and exhibits at the SF Zoo. In the wee hours on a Saturday morning you could find 24 VR team members cleaning up the new hippo exhibit! Go team!! Great job.

If you haven't read it yet, read Can Your Business Be Socially Responsible?

Obama's Small Biz Stimulus Package

This week our President talked about getting some much needed cash in the hands of struggling small businesses as soon as the end of this month. After all, a majority of all employers in the US are small businesses so they should be getting some help. But hey, we know that, we live it every day.

Hey, Obama needed to do something since he touts that he's our guy for Main St. not Wall St. right? Yet AIG has already been given $170 billion and are now paying out Executive bonuses to the tune of $165 million. Not to mention that other large companies are being bailed out like Bank of America, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase, many of which got us into this mess in the first place. It's clearly time to get the country back to work and one way to do that is by helping small businesses. But will it happen?

So What Does It All Mean? First, Free Up Frozen Credit.

What had been happening is that the primary bank lenders will try to sell the SBA (Small Business Administration) loans in the secondary market. Then they use the proceeds from selling these loans to make new ones for other small business owners. But since the credit crisis hit because of terrible ways that mortgages were being handled, investors have been scared off.

Now our government wants to step in to buy these loans to help unlock the current frozen credit market. They'll use some of the money from the massive $700 billion financial bailout package to the tune of about $15 billion in total.

I've read that as soon as the end of March the Treasury Department would begin making direct purchases of securities backed by loans guaranteed by the Small Business Administration. My fear is that it won't happen in time for many small businesses and it will be a HUGE hassle to even get one of these loans.

What's crazy is that small businesses with good credit aren't even able to borrow. I know that at VerticalResponse we have great credit yet all of our credit card limits from American Express to VISA were taken down overnight!

Tax Breaks and Reporting

With this new infusion the government would require that the top 21 banks that got federal funds will HAVE to give monthly reports that they're lending to small businesses. The rest of the banks may need to report quarterly.

What's more is that the Internal Revenue Service is going to issue tax breaks that will look something like this:

• Small businesses with a net operating loss in 2008 can elect to offset this loss against income earned in up to five prior years, instead of the usual two-year limit. The gives small businesses increased cash flow so they can invest it in their businesses.
  

• Small businesses will be able to write off $250,000 on new capital equipment investments which is nearly double the previous amount.

• They can reduce estimated tax payments to 90 percent of the previous year's filing.

• They can take larger depreciation deductions within the first year of property purchases.

So hopefully our government will act fast to get this money into the hands and hearts of small businesses that can get it and use it. But there is a concern that many businesses still won't get loans from the banks. And, since so many employers are small businesses, is just 2.1% of the overall bailout enough? I don't think so.

Our government needs to remember, small businesses infuse money into our economy. We need to buy things like supplies, contractors, computers, software and shipping to run our businesses which can crank up the economy. And we'll likely hire more people here in the US rather than in another country unlike larger corporations.

From what I'm seeing and hearing, the government needs to help us out with health care, rising costs of insurance, employee payroll taxes and federal contract awards. And, since we're rewarding execs for not being successful at companies like AIG, how about rewarding small business owners who are successful by giving them a break on personal and business tax cuts ? Then maybe we'll get somewhere!

What do you think? Weigh in.

FREE & Low Cost Tools We Found (And Use) To Help Your Business

I'm taking a break from writing about email marketing to tell you about some very cool online tools you might try to put to work for your business. We know that you like online tools that are easy to use and affordable, so we took that into account when we made these fantastic recommendations, plus we use a lot of these tools for our business.

 

Vontoo Express - Outbound Voice Messaging

You may have received a short voicemail from VerticalResponse when you signed up to use our service. We welcome you, we tell you how to get started and ask if you'd like to talk to someone immediately. That's what we use Vontoo for. 

How does it work? You basically upload the phone numbers of your customers that told you it was ok to call them, just like you upload your email addresses into VerticalResponse. You record your voicemail message and launch your campaign.

Vontoo express will give you stats back as to how many people picked up, how many transferred and how many messages were left. They also provide an "unsubscribe" feature for those who don't want to hear from you in this manner anymore.
 

Why do you think you'd need this for your business?

• Get people into your store or restaurant with a coupon code
• Give a discount on your services (limo service, rug cleaning, teeth whitening)
• Community sports teams and clubs
• Small to mid-size churches
• Event or webinar reminders the day before
• Appointment reminders

 

COST: $15 for 100 minutes...yep pay as you go! First 25 calls are FREE.

Email Center Pro - Get Control of Your Customer Service Emails

This service is a must-have for any small business communicating with their customers through email, and that's pretty much all of them.

Here is a simple example of why it's great.

Let's say you send out an email marketing campaign and you input the email address where people will reply to you as info@yourcompany.com. Then you get a flurry of customers responding asking questions or making comments. Do you forward that email to the people in your business responsible for answering it? Then what happened? You have no idea who answered these replies or more importantly "if" they were even answered. The folks at Palo Alto Software had the same problem so they developed Email Center Pro. This service rocks.

You log in to one simple-to-learn interface and you can access all of your company's mailboxes. You can assign emails to people and track if they're being answered and how effectively.  Email Center Pro helps you provide consistent and timely responses to customer emails. Check out the video.

COST: FREE for 2 users, $19/month for 5 users (VerticalResponse customers get an additional 10% discount!)

Shorten Your Long URLs with Tr.im, Bit.ly and TinyURL

Try out these free web services that provide short aliases for redirection of super long URLs. 

Why would you need this tool?

• If you are using a text-only email that has a very long URL, you'll want to avoid your link breaking when you have line breaks. You want your link to work!
• Twitter only allows for 140 character tweets, so you'd want to redirect a URL that pushes your tweet over the limit.

TinyURL doesn't provide tracking however Tr.im and Bit.ly provide tracking on number of times your link was clicked and offers a few other very cool reporting features.

COST: FREE

Pando - Transfer HUGE Files for Free 

I had to send a large logo file to a friend of mine at Selling Power magazine and I had to do it fast. I was having lots of trouble because the file was so big he couldn't receive it. I think his email limit may have been set too low for this file. I needed to make a deadline that day so putting it on a DVD wasn't an option. So my friend Gerhardt told me about Pando, a free P2P software that makes downloading, streaming and sharing large media files fast & easy.

It worked and I'm hooked.

Cost: FREE for 1GB files or $24.95/year for 3GB files

There you have it. Our round up of services we use to make our lives easier here at VerticalResponse. Hope they make your life easier too.

Using Scarcity to Get More Business

You see them all the time, offers in stores and online that have limits attached to them. Whether there's a limit of one per customer or three, it does catch your eye, admit it! Using scarcity to motivate people to not just buy a product in the first place but perhaps even buy more of a product can work for any business. Perhaps a customer was only going to buy one item from you, but you've only produced 300 of them. Do you want to sell them all? Of course, so why not try telling your customers only 300 were produced and they can only buy four. You may have just increased your average order size by 3 times.

In a book called Going Broke: Why American's Can't Hold Onto Their Money, by Stuart Vyse, a study in Iowa showed that when consumers are given a limit, in this case 12 cans of soup vs. 4 cans of soup, they bought significantly more when presented with the 12 can limit than with the 4 can limit.

Due to Popular Demand

Many businesses limit just one per customer. You'd think that by doing this you wouldn't necessarily increase your average order size. However, limiting one per customer could make more consumers want to be one of the "elite" to have this and perhaps they'll buy something else while they're on a website or at a location.

Here are some highly visible successful scarcity examples...

Automotive Industry - Mini Coopers and Smart Cars - Only a few thousand were to be released in the US when they first came out. Waiting lines started at these dealerships and waiting lists were established. I know a couple that flew from San Francisco to Long Beach just to have one of the first!

Fashion Industry - Louis Vuitton constantly has waiting lists for upcoming bags and accessories and requires a credit card to be put on the list in many cases. When you're name comes up there's no waiting for them to ding your card! And you get your lovely new purse!

Wineries do a great job of this. Some wineries have waiting lists to get into their wine clubs. Then they tell you how many bottles you WILL buy each month.

I did a quick search online and found offers all over the board using limitations to give you just a few ideas on other offers using limitations.

• $19 Bath and body lotion, limit 4 per customer.
• $13 thumbdrives, limit 3 per customer
• $4.99 Bakers Iced Zoo Biscuits, limit 2 per customer
• $29.99 box of Huggies, limit 2 per customer
• $95 Blue tooth headset limit 2 per customer

So you see there are plenty of different products with varying pricing levels that all take advantage of this tactic. Do you have a product or service that you could test this out with? Let's hear the results!

Make a Referral Week - 200 Referrals Made on Our Way to 1000!

We've just passed 200 referrals and need your help to get to our goal of 1000 for the "Make a Referral Week - Small Business Stimulus Package."

We've already referred a few businesses on the list so match up a few businesses you know and like with people or businesses today!

B2B Marketers - Build Your List Using White Papers

If you are marketing to a business, you're always looking for creative ways to build your prospect list. You need to constantly keep feeding the funnel with prospects so you can convert them to your best customers. If you are selling technical products, one way to do this is to develop white papers. When you think of a white paper you might think that big corporations are the only businesses that write them. To the contrary, small businesses can grow enormously using white papers and they're not that difficult to put together.

From Wikipedia: A white paper is an authoritative report. White papers are used to educate customers, collect leads for a company or help people make decisions. 

White papers can be one of the most cost-effective marketing vehicles you have in your arsenal.

So where do you start?

You first need to come up with the subject you want to write about. Is there something hot going on in your industry right now? Become an authority on it. Just remember, you want to temper any sales messages here. You want to be considered an expert on the subject you're writing about not shoving your product down your prospect's throat.

Now it's time to begin writing. There are many templates I found online but this template seemed to be the most pervasive.

Introduction - Here you'd want to briefly write about your subject of choice.

Problem - Here get to the heart of the matter. If it's a technical issue for your prospects that your company solves, write about the problems you know they face.

Solution - Start writing about the overall solution to your prospect's problem. How does your product or service (or your competitor's) address the problem? If you do mention your product or service again, don't be salesy, it won't lend to your credibility and it might even take some away.

Benefits - Once your prospect's problem has been addressed, now write about how easy their day will be or how much more money they'll make. Whatever the benefit, you need to scream it from the hilltops.

Summary - Sum it up for them and end with a bang.

On every page of your white paper you need to have your company name or logo, your web site address and your phone number at the very least. If you can fit your physical location somewhere on it, even better.

Just like when you create your email marketing campaigns you should make sure not to heavy up on too much text or too many graphics. Your prospects want your white paper for information, so make sure you use a healthy mix of both. You'll also want to avoid those long paragraphs, so make sure you consolidate your thoughts in smaller, easy to read paragraphs. Then you'll have a better shot at keeping your prospect's attention.

Promote it!

Now it's time to get the word out. Remember, since this is a prospecting tool you'll want to make sure you put a form on a page of your site to capture your prospect's information along with a snippet or some bullet points about the great information your white paper will give them. You can use a VerticalResponse opt-in form for this if you'd like, then after they've filled out their information you can direct them to the page where they can download the white paper. Here is a checklist of where you might want to promote it:

1. Send an email campaign to your prospects
2. Announce it in your newsletter
3. Put it on your homepage and on every page of your site
4. Set up a Google Adwords campaign
5. Put it as a link to download in all of your employee's email signatures
6. Blog about it
7. Put it on your Facebook Group and Fan pages
8. Tweet about it
9. Put it on a CD or a thumb drive and give it out at tradeshows

Now it's time to follow up on those leads that will be flying in the door! Now it's time to read 5 Ideas for Cultivating Leads.

Skittles Replaces Website with Social Media

In a bold move to spark some word of mouth, Skittles has changed its entire website and turned it into a social media extravaganza. Yesterday the Skittles home page was their Twitter stream, and today the home page is now their Facebook Fan page. They appear to be rotating through all of the social media outlets.

To get to different areas of their site you're now presented with the hovering navigation box. For instance, now when you click on "Media" you're taken to their You Tube and Flickr pages. Gutsy move especially if they don't always monitor these highly trafficked pages.

They do present visitors with a screen that asks their age and tells the visitor that there might be content not suitable for kids.

If anyone Tweets the word Skittles it will appear on the Skittles site in the Twitter stream.

In an interview with AdWeek, Carole Walker, VP, integrated marketing communications for the brand, had this to say, "Skittles' brand positioning was a border zone . . . Skittles lives in a world that is unexpected." 

Seems like instead of pushing marketing messages out to their consumers, they're letting consumers do it on their behalf.

Bold or crazy? I don't know. But I did see on their Facebook page they have 585,000 fans and growing, they've got 1,500 wall posts of people talking about Skittles, they have 16,000 pictures that match the criteria "skittles" on Flickr and countless Tweets by the minute. They are targeting their exact market with the tools that this market lives and dies by. Seems like they may have tasted the rainbow on this one but you tell me!

Want to Hear From Your Customers? Create An Advisory Board!

If you’ve got a customer pool you can talk to, first of all, do one thing, consider yourself lucky. Sometimes we only think about how we communicate TO them, instead of asking them for their opinions. We’ve talked a bit about how to do that with surveys, but what about actually visiting them or meeting with them face-to-face to find out how they like your products or services?

Do you have a product or service that might warrant getting some of your best customers into your establishment and start a round table to get their ideas? You might be surprised at what ideas come up from other companies they like and patron.

At VerticalResponse we’ve got a great group of customers we tap into to find out how they use our product and what they like or like to see changed. We’ll be increasing the size and use of that customer group soon because we think it’s important to actually visualize how they use our service and talk to them about their challenges. Chances are our customers have figured something out that we couldn’t have possibly imagined and it might even be a useful idea for all of our customers.

Here's one way to start your CAB:

1. Send an email marketing campaign inviting your customers to your Customer Advisory Board. Use a VerticalResponse opt-in form for this select list. It will be a separate list in your account.

2. If you've got new ideas on the fly, send an email to them asking them about their opinions. They'll tell you when it's too much for them.

3. Invite them to meet face-to-face each quarter but be cognizant of their time.  A larger group is always better, more ideas come of it and if some can't make it you still have a meaningful discussion. If you can't do it at your business site, select a local restaurant or establishment. Either way make sure you offer refreshments, lunch or dinner, it's the polite thing to do and a very inexpensive focus group.

4. Come prepared with what you want to get out of the meeting, then be surprised at what you actually do get out of the meeting. If it's a new product line, show them the product line and ask for their feedback. If it's a partnership you want to do, talk to them about the features and benefits and ask them if this would benefit them.

5. Give a half hour at the end (or the beginning) for networking. People will leave when they have to, they shouldn't be rushed out of the door. Introduce your customers to some of your employees, customers always like to know who is behind the scenes.

6. Give a gift! If you have schwag give it up! Everyone likes something for free, and if it has your logo on it even better!

7. Thank your customers profusely!

Your customers are visiting many websites and many businesses each day. You could really learn from their experience. Create your own Customer Advisory Board and make it work for you.