VerticalResponse Email Marketing Blog for Small Business

Your 2009 Marketing Checklist

New year resolutions lists are running rampant, so we decided to call this one the 2009 Marketing Checklist. You can tack this one up next to the list where you vow to "lose 5lbs.", "volunteer more" and "get a dog" which is what my list looks like.

While coming up with this list, the economy really drove my thinking and the theme of "penny-pinching" really came out. So here is our list of things you need to be doing in 2009 to not only keep your business afloat, but keep it growing.

1. Social Media

Don't be scared, Facebook & Twitter are an easy and free use of social media to grow your list using . First, if you don't already have one, create a Facebook & Twitter account, they're free. Then post to your Facebook & Twitter pages that you just sent your email campaign.

On Facebook, post to "what are you doing now" as well as your "share a link" section.  Include the link where you host your email and your subject line. You might get your email in front of one of your "friends" or "followers" that may have missed it in their inbox.You may also include links in your emails for people to be your friends and followers.

While you're at it, join some groups on Facebook that might lend themselves to your content. If the group allows for anyone to post, then post your link there as well.

On Twitter, just "tweet" that you finished your email marketing campaign. Include the subject line and the link where it's hosted on a web page. Remember you only have 140 characters on Twitter so keep it as short as possible.

2. Track Your Customers & Registrants

Ask people where they heard about you on your site, on your opt in form or after they've purchased. If you're advertising on CitySearch, I'd include "CitySearch" in your list. I'd also include "Friend" to see if word of mouth is driving any business. If you're advertising in a specific magazine, or on a site, I'd include those as well. Then look at who your best customers are, by where they heard about you, and do more of that type of advertising.

3. Use Google Adwords

I was recently at a small business conference and asked the audience how many were using Google Adwords to drive business. Maybe 20% of the audience raised their hands. This is the year you need to be thinking about cost-effective advertising for your business. Many people go to the web to search for businesses whether it's an online business or an offline business, not the yellow pages. The best thing about Google is that YOU are in control of your spend and your messaging. You control how much you want to cap your spend in any given time period and you control where you want to advertise (local, national, world wide).

You can do it yourself or use our VerticalRepsonse partner MerchEngines to do it for you. It's a $250/month minimum commitment with them, but they guarantee targeted traffic to your site, and they'll even select your keywords, write and place the ads for you, soup to nuts.

Remember, it's an investment that won't happen overnight, you need to give it time to work.

4. Test Your Subject Lines in Your Email Campaigns

Testing your subject lines in your email campaigns will require you to spend a bit more lead time in launching your campaign, but it could get you a few more clicks and add a few more sales!

Here's one way to do it: two days before you want to mail your email campaign, take a small portion of your list and split it in two. Make sure you have enough email addresses on each list to make the test valid, you wouldn't want to make the wrong decision based on a data set that's too small. We recommend each split part be no less than a few hundred email addresses. Then make a copy of your campaign and send two different subject lines to see which one got the most opens/clicks. Take the winner and mail it to the rest of your list. It really could make a difference in the subject line you'll use in the future.

5. Survey Your Customers

By using surveys you can find out instantly what you're customers think about your business by sending it in an email. You could also learn over a longer period of time by including links on your site. Either way it's a good idea to keep in check with your customers to make sure you're delivering the best products or services you possibly can. Doing surveys early in the year gives you a change to make the changes your customers are telling you to, then you can email them telling them that you've listened and made the changes they asked for. You'll be surprised how far that goes. Here are just a few things you'll find:

• How customers were treated by your personnel on the phones, in email or in person
• What customers might think about a new product line and how much they'd pay for it
• How customers feel about your online checkout process
• What products or services your customers would like to see from you next

Check out VerticalResponse Surveys and get your first 25 responses free then as low as $15/month. Also read this post for more ideas: 5 Places to Include a Survey.

6. Collaborate!

Whether your company is 3 people or 30, see how Google Docs can help your business save time and money by consolidating and sharing information. Not only will it save you time, but it also could save on printing documents which in turn saves the environment. Here are some ideas for how your business can benefit from them. Did I mention they're free?

• Use a calendar to schedule marketing campaigns or even appointments and events. 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.
• Use Google Docs to gather information so that everyone can see it instead of passing word docs or emails around.
• Use Spreadsheets to keep customer data in one place. Then it's easy to update your email marketing list.
• We use Presentations so that everyone in our staff meetings can input into one place what they've worked on in the previous week. Then we present to the group. It becomes a living document we can refer back to.

7. Get Control of Your Data.

I've blogged about this one before but I thought it was important enough to repeat! 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 lists in separate places, 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.

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.

8. Change The Look of Your Email Campaign

If you use a very linear campaign style where one article sits on top of another and so on, why not try to shake it up a bit; use columns and create a different look to your campaign. I know it's easy to copy the campaign you did last time, but next time use a different approach. You might find that placing your content higher up and in a different format gets you a better response.

9. Use PR!

You have news and you don't even know it. It might not be the Wall Street Journal that picks up the fact that you have a new head chef in your restaurant, or a new winemaker at the winery, or that your software company just hired a new VP, but you'll be surprised at the local coverage or online coverage you might get. Every little bit helps!

If your industry gives out awards, apply for them! Then post if you won on your site and do a press release about it. It is an inexpensive form of advertising that might not only get you industry coverage but you may get local coverage as well.

If you survey your customers ask them questions about your industry or the economy. Then craft a release out of that. Once we surveyed our small businesses around tax time and asked if they had already spent any refunds they might get. We then crafted a press release around it. Do you know what happened next? CNBC and an LA TV station picked up the news! It sure got our name out there.

Finally you need to submit your press release so the world knows about it. You can use free services to do this like PRLog or The Open Press. If you want greater distribution you can spend a little money and use PR Newswire or MarketWire.

10. Use Your Neighbors

Everyone needs new customers right? Now it's time to find businesses that you can jointly refer customers to.

Business to business marketers can find complementary businesses and do joint webinars about your products to each other's lists. Not only do you help your customers with another product they might be able to use, but you'll help each other grow your businesses collectively.

Local businesses can put up collateral or business card offers in a neighboring business to drive business back and forth. You might even pay referral fees for every customer another business drives you. 

It's been a tough few years for small businesses, and who knows what the new administration will bring for us. In the meantime we all need creative ways to keep going and these are just a few we can all do to get us going and prosper in 2009.

Microsoft Needs Email Marketing Help...Someone Rescue Them!

Jason Stewart, who writes the blog over at Demandbase (business leads and measurement for B2B companies), shared this lovely example of how not to create an email. It was so good I had to share with you. Jason, take it away...

"Sweet Irony...An Email from Microsoft

by Jason Stewart

So I got a "Happy Holidays" email just now from Microsoft adCenter, and was immediately struck by the irony of the fact that a Microsoft product prevented me from reading an email from Microsoft."

You have to see this email, read the full story here.

Are You Scared to Click the "Launch" Button for Your Email Campaigns?

Do you ever get that nervous feeling when you click to launch your email marketing campaign? You do it, but then you might quickly cancel it because you need to take just one more look at your content.

It's ok, I'm talking you off the ledge. It happens to me and the team here all the time. You need to make sure you've selected the proper list to mail it to and you need to make sure your copy and images are correct.  You have to make sure your anchor tags really work and you don't really remember if you've enabled forward-to-a-friend. Maybe you copied your campaign but never changed the subject line from a previous mailing! So you resend yourself the test of the campaign that you really need to get out the door now. It's MADDENING!

So here it is again, your checklist for clicking the "Launch" button, without being scared.

RESPECT - Find Out What it Means to Me

Well, it's the end of the year and you're not only sending a ton of email but you're getting it too, right? Retailers are going nuts trying to get as much as they can out of the short season. I'm seeing an email every 30 seconds pop into my inbox and I'm sure many of you have it just the same. Bloomie's and Nieman Marcus are up to 2-3 mailings a DAY right now, but they mail every day anyway, so that's not completely out of the ordinary. On top of that, the businesses who market to businesses are feeling the end-of-year crunch so they're having fire sales for their goods and services too.

What really got me this year was the sheer number of retailers I've purchased from last year, that didn't send me one email until November. Now by inbox runneth over with emails from them.

Where's the Respect?

Bounce rates are likely to be higher due to the amount of people that had a change of email address. Think of the many people who've unfortunately lost their jobs this past year. If you're not giving them something of value and keeping in touch with them throughout the year, they probably won't give you their updated email addresses.

Response rates might be lower because it's been so long since recipients have been communicated to. In fact, like me, recipients might feel "used and abused" because businesses are only giving them great deals when THEY need them the most, not when recipients need the deals most. Remember, it's a two way street. You both are giving and taking.

On top of response rates being low unsubscribe rates could soar. If recipients are all of a sudden getting slammed by your emails when they've not heard from you, they're more likely to unsubscribe. 

So here's to 2009, we all need to look at our marketing dollars under a microscope. The people that are going to get you through any tough times are your customers. So make sure you don't abuse them, and make sure you build a lasting relationship with them all year long.

Diary of Mad Email Marketing Woman

You know the feeling, that great feeling you get after you send your email marketing campaign out? POOF! Stuff happens instantly. Whether it starts your phone ringing, or it gets people to your site, it's a great feeling. Let me read you a page of a diary from a VR customer, Donna (the name has been changed to protect the innocent.) She sells facial products online.

Two days ago:  Donna sent me a test email campaign. "How does it look?" she asked. I said "Looks great!" It's a huge step for Donna to send her 2nd email campaign out.

9:47 AM Saturday - Donna says "I haven't sent it out yet, maybe Monday morning?"

10:12 AM - We say: "Send it today!"

10:30 AM - Donna launches her campaign, "OK, I did it. It's in pending approval for 11am. Hope it works!"

11:08 AM - Donna: "I did it!!!!"

12:30 PM - Donna: "$400 so far!!!! 1hr and 30 min!!!!! YAY VR!!!!!

I think "YAY Donna". There you have it. Gotta love email.

5 Things To Focus on For this Short Holiday Season

Since Thanksgiving came a week later than last year, it's got both businesses and consumers flustered. Not only is there a week of less sellin' there's a week of less buyin'!  For those of you who aren't retailers this might even be the end of your fiscal year. Couple that with the economy and everyone is freaking out!

So what do you do? Sit down for a moment, relax and let's think about things. How will you treat this short season?

1. Get your email marketing ducks in a row - Because email is so quick, there doesn't have to be a big lead time and a lot of moving parts. However, you need to devote an hour, where you sit down and calendar out your campaigns. Then create them all at once and schedule them out. If you do this now, you can get at least 4 emails out to customers before it's too late.

2. Email your non-responders - If you've sent an email in one week, and you see that 60% of your list have not opened your email nor clicked any links, chances are they probably won't. Create a list of Non-Responders in the Download List section, copy the previous campaign, change the subject line and shoot it out again. It should take you no more than 5 minutes. You'd be surprised at the lift you get on this single campaign.

3. Expiration/Order-by dates - If you're shipping a product, make sure you're very clear about the date someone can order by, to get their gifts to the destination before the holidays. If there is an expiration date on your offer make sure you're clear about that as well.

4. Be honest - The holiday season is normally riddled with flaws. Things don't always ship on time or you might be out of stock on a product. The best thing you can do it to be honest with your customers and do it fast! No one likes to give bad news, but if you tell your customers of an issue, it gives them time to re-adjust if they want. That's superb customer service even if you're telling them something they don't want to hear. I just purchased an in-stock car seat from Target for a couple who are having a baby SOON, Target told me it shipped, however the very next day they told me there were problems and it won't ship for another week. For a big company that's pretty fast.

5. Smile - Sounds cheezy huh? But it isn't! If you have a retail location and it's really busy, great! So you have to work a bit harder, it's better than you being bored sitting around an empty place. Smile and think "How lucky am I?" If you have to deal with an influx of customers calling you around the holidays your customers can tell if you're smiling on the other end of the phone, trust me. It could even turn a bad situation into a good one.

Any other holiday suggestions? Comment!

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.

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.

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!