VerticalResponse Email Marketing Blog for Small Business

Facebook - How Do I Love Thee?

It had been way too long that I updated the VerticalResponse - Email Marketing for Small Business Facebook Group. So I decided to go hog-wild on a Saturday with some new information to post.

We have roughly 250 members in the group so far ranging from customers to friends of the company to the media, and even the investment banking community I'm sure. We needed to keep them coming back.

• I updated the "News" section with two new items.
• I posted links of my last 4 blog posts just in case people didn't read them on the blog.
• I started two new discussions about us being on a city tour in Denver and Austin. (If you're going to be in or are already in these areas jump in the discussion, I'm lonely in there.)
  

I then sent an email out to all of our Facebook group members updating them on this new information directing them back to the group. At the end of the email I asked anyone who cared to to write on our wall.

What Happened Next?

Within 5 minutes I got a request from a very well known marketing genius to participate in a podcast series with him. And within 10 minutes one of our great customers wrote a really great comment on our wall. We'll hopefully use it to do a case study with him. Two days later we got another great comment on the wall and we'll be doing the same.

Isn't Facebook awesome? Isn't email marketing great? Two great tastes..yeah you get the point. It's another great tool to use to communicate with your customers and enable them to communicate with each other. Coupled with using email as the traffic driver and you've got yourself a super marketing tool. Join the group if you haven't, participate in discussions, get your questions answered. Oh and start your own Facebook group if you haven't.

Got a great Facebook story? Bring it on!

Blog Business World - An Internet Radio Interview with Janine

I was lucky enough to get stumbled upon by blogger Wayne Hurlbert who has a great Internet Radio Show hosted by Blog Talk Radio called Blog Business World. (BTW, this is a VERY cool technology, those who want to be broadcasters need to check this out...you can bet I am going to.) Anyhoo, Wayne interviews people on a full range of topics from business blogging, search engine optimization, marketing, PR and other topics that will help you grow your business.

Here are a few questions he asked me:

"You say that it's possible for small businesses to compete with large companies. What are your reasons for this bold statement?"

"One advantage that small business does have over its larger counterparts is flexibility, resulting in faster decisions. How important is speed of introduction of new technology?"

"Has the email newsletter got a bright future thanks to new technology?"

"One of the biggest problems with developing an email program is developing a list. Are there some practical and low cost ways to create a solid mailing list?"

"What recommendations do you have for the format of a newsletter to get it read, and used as a relationship development tool?"

"What are some mistakes and pitfalls that a novice email newsletter user should avoid?"

"What are some easy to use and cheap to employ marketing ideas that small businesses can use to give the impression that they are much larger organizations?"

Wait for it...are you sitting on the edge of your seat? 

"What is next for Janine Popick and VerticalResponse?"    :-)

There are many more, and it was a lot of fun. You can listen to this at your desk, or if you've got an MP3 player you can download the content and listen on your way to work. Caveat: it really is 60 full minutes long. Thanks Wayne!
 

Facebook - What It Is, And Join VR's!

I was reading a post by John Jantsch, Duct Tape Marketing guy. He's great. He was a keynote speaker at the eBay Live! tradeshow and his blog is super. Check it out. He started to talk about Facebook, the new super duper social networking site where basically the kids post a bunch of jargon about themselves, about a product they're trying to sell or about an event in a local spot they're going to. MySpace version 2.0 I guess.

So I went to Facebook and set up my own account. (Between Squidoo, the VR Blog, and Facebook who is gonna run the company?) What did I find? It was pretty easy to set up. But I was trying to figure out what a marketer selling to businesses (VR) was going to get out of it. Here's what I did:

• I joined the San Francisco network just to see what was going on. Lots of events for youngsters.
  
• I set up a Network for VerticalResponse, I'm not really sure what this might do.
  
• I also set up a "Group" for VerticalResponse - Email Marketing for Small Business. This was cool. Here anyone can talk about how they use email marketing, why they use it, problems, solutions, you name it.
• I created a "flyer". This is a small advertising unit that I can choose to show to different Alumni, grads or undergrads. We'll see how that works.

So if you have a Facebook account do me a favor, join the VerticalResponse Group. For all of you that like the VR Lounge, that's great too. Log into your account and join in the conversation.

Will VerticalResponse "get" new business out of this? I'm not so sure, but it seems like it could provide a great FREE set of tools enabling customers to chat.

Apps Us Marketers Can't Live Without

Here at VerticalResponse we have roughly 70% of all employees using Apple computers. Our engineering department refuses to use anything else, and our latest convert was our Vice President of Product Management, Josh, who is on the latest Macbook Pro - where if he really needs to, he can run Windows.

As a side note, check out one of our customers, Due Maternity, talking about us on the Apple website.

We love our Macs and we love web-based software (after all, our product is web-based). I figured I'd share some Apple-specific software that works for us and web-based software that anyone can use. I've asked Alf, our Director of Marcom, and Ivan, our Web Producer, to weigh in on what they like too.

Janine's Picks

	Typepad - Online tool for blogging. I use it to publish this blog - it's about $5/month and totally easy to use.
	Salesforce.com - Online CRM tool for managing contacts and marketing to them. You can use VR from within this application. It has a few limitations with a Mac but still worth it! Just $95/month or $65/month depending on your flavor. The best part? You can use VerticalResponse right from within you salesforce account, then when someone clicks or opens your email, it is reported right back into the lead record. Booyah!
	FileMaker - Software to customize and store your database if you aren't into the online thing like Salesforce.com. $299 for the product, and you can totally customize your database.
	NewsGator - This is a great online tool for tracking keywords that appear on blogs and in the online world. We use it to see who is talking about us, and better yet, who is talking about our competition. You can really track where your press releases are being picked up more or less, real-time. I think we pay about $15/month.

Alf's Picks

	Firefox Extensions - Alone, Firefox is a great browser, but add the treasure trove of extentions available, and it becomes an invaluable tool for marketers and developers alike. On the marketing side, one of my favorites is SearchStatus, it shows me the Google PageRank & Alexa Rank for any page I browse right in my status bar and lets me instantly check a page's keyword density, backlinks & indexed pages in a variety of search engines (among a few other goodies). On the development side Web Developer is da bomb, I know there's been a lot of buzz about FireBug (I have that one installed too) with all its Web 2oh AJAXy Goodness, but my loyalty is still with Web Developer ... it's just too useful.
	Apple Keynote (Mac Only) - Them special effects is fantastic. Mac only (you can save to ppt for pc but why?) presentations & slide shows, this app kicks PowerPoint's *#$%. We use it to create the big-screen product presentaions for our trade show booth, and it's as easy as pie to use. Sync it up to a playlist in your iTunes library...click... and you have yourself an instant soundtrack, Rock On! Don't beleve me? Visit us at a tradeshow and see for yourself.
	OmniOutliner (Mac Only) - When I need to structure my thoughts on various marketing projects, I find OmniOutliner from the Omni Group to be the simplest hierarchical outlining app around. You can organize almost anything with this app, complex road maps, or simple to-do list. Its super flexibility and scriptability make it an irreplaceable tool. Can't wait to get my hands on Omni's sister app OmniPlan once its out of beta.

Ivan's Picks

	QuickSilver (Mac Only) - Remember the LiveStrong bracelet at the apex of its popularity? Being marginally tech-savvy and not having this installed on your Apple is like forgetting to wear your LiveStrong bracelet in 2004. If you are fond of keyboard shortcuts, this is the app for you. Despite its overbearing trendiness, it turns out there is reason it fosters zealotry among its users - if you take the time to learn it, it really speeds up your workflow while simultaneously impressing your haughty, hipster friends.
	NetNewsWire (Mac Only) - Just about every site these days has a news feed you can subscribe to, and this gem for OS X is the best way to manage those news feed subscriptions.  Subscribe to all your competitor's feeds, industry blogs and publications. Become one with your business' marketplace. There is a free version (NetNewsWire Lite) and one you can purchase ($29.95). The paid version integrates into your NewsGator account, allowing you to synchronize your feed subscriptions across multiple computers, and even access them through a web browser if you are jonesing for an information fix.
	Basecamp - This web-based application is a great tool to manage your ongoing projects, streamline communication and enhance collaboration within a team. It came quite in handy when we were re-designing our website and needed to keep track of the seemingly-endless task list.  If you're an Apple user, you can also integrate Basecamp into your dashboard with either the Telescope or the Basecamp widget.

Got any applications your marketing can't live without? Comment and tell everyone!