VerticalResponse Email Marketing Blog for Small Business

Blogosphere Facts – Can You Handle the Truth?

Did you know that the earth isn’t just comprised of four hemispheres, but there’s actually a fifth we’re living in? It’s called (cue dramatic music) …the Blogosphere! Did you also know that “blogosphere” is a real term? I’m not even making it up! The term was coined in 1999, as a joke initially, but is now used, in all seriousness, to describe blogs as a connected community or collection of communities.

The blogosphere is an ever-changing and evolving hub and Technorati, a blog search engine directory, has been examining the growth and trends within the blogosphere since 2004. Since then, they’ve been reporting and releasing their findings, which they collect through a series of surveys. The findings may surprise, interest, please or appall you. They reveal who bloggers actually are; what, where, when, why & how successfully they blog, and for the second year, the findings also discuss consumers. To get to the heart of the good stuff, here's a breakdown of interesting facts to note from 2011’s State of the Blogosphere findings:

BLOGGER DEMOGRAPHICS

• 65% of bloggers are ages 18-44; 1/3rd are over 44.

• 59% of bloggers are men (down from 64% in 2010).

• The annual household income of a blogger: $50,000+.
  

• Majority of bloggers are married and half of all bloggers have children.

• 1/4 of bloggers are self-employed, and just less than half are employed full time.

• 1/3 of bloggers have worked for traditional media, with a monthly magazine being the most common form (41%).

• Of the 14% of bloggers who earn a salary for blogging, the average annual amount is $24,086.

• States with highest concentrations of bloggers: California 15%, New York 7% and Texas 6%.

BLOGGER TYPES
 
1. Hobbyists – 61% of bloggers within the blogosphere are blogging “for fun,” and don’t report any income from blogging.
2-3. Professional Part and Full-timers – This group makes up 18% of the blogosphere and are independent bloggers. Most of these bloggers don’t consider blogging their primary source of income and tend to blog about personal musings and technology.
4. Corporate – 8% of the blogosphere. They blog as part of their full-time job, or blog full-time for a company they work for. They primarily talk about technology or business.
5. Entrepreneurs – 13% are entrepreneurs or individuals blogging for a company they own. 



BLOGGER HABITS - WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY & HOW?

• 70% of bloggers write to share expertise, 61% blog to gain professional recognition/personal satisfaction and 52% blog to attract new clients.

• 60% of bloggers blog up to 3 hours a week and 40% blog more than 3 hours a week. Professional full-time bloggers (26%) update their blog at least 3 times per day. Majority of bloggers update their blog 2-3 a week.

• 80% of bloggers have been blogging for at least 2 years.

• 79% describe their blogging style as "sincere," 67% describe their style as "conversational." Professional, Corporates, and Entrepreneurs also describe their style as "expert."

• Wordpress is the most popular blog hosting service among all respondents, used by 51% of them, followed by Blogger (21%) and Blogspot (14%).

BLOGGER MOTIVATON & SUCCESS

• What's the leading metric of success? Among Professionals, Corporates, and Entrepreneurs, they gauge success according to the number of unique visitors they receive. 69% of Hobbyists say that personal satisfaction is a way they measure the success of their blog.

• 54% of bloggers say they’ve made friends through their blog, and have become more involved with their passion areas as a result of blogging.

• More than 60% of Corporate and Entrepreneur bloggers have gained greater visibility in their industry through blogging.

SOCIAL MEDIA

• 82% of bloggers use Twitter, 89% use Facebook.

TRAFFIC & REVENUE

• Across bloggers, Google Analytics is by far the most popular service used to follow blog traffic.
  

• 50% of Professional bloggers receive more than 10,000 views per month.

• Display ads, affiliate marketing links, and search ads are the most common ways bloggers generate revenue from their blogs.

• 60% of Corporate bloggers said they do not have any advertising on their blog.

• Overall traffic drivers to blogs: Twitter, Facebook, and blog tags.

BLOGGER INFLUENCES 

• Number one influence for bloggers regarding the topics they blog about: Other blogs (68%). Second and third most influential for blog topics: Conversations with friends and social media.

CONSUMERS
 
Blogs continue to outpace other social and traditional media in terms of gaining consumers' trust and generating their recommendations/purchases. Almost 40% of consumers now believe blogs are being taken more seriously as a source of information. "Facebook remains somewhat influential, but less so than blogs, and Twitter has seen a drop in influence over the past year."

TAKEAWAY

Now that we know the depths and demographics that make up the blogosphere (if you’d like to dive in further, you can find the full report here), does anything surprise you? One of the most important aspects to note is that 60% of Corporate & Entrepreneur bloggers have gained greater visibility purely from blogging. This means, if you don’t currently have a blog, it’s probably an excellent time to jump on that blog bandwagon (plus, it's pretty fun too!). And, while most of us won’t be living purely off a blogger’s salary alone, the blogosphere as a whole is still strong and striving. Blogs also continuously climb the ranks as a trustworthy reference for consumers.

If blogging charters unfamiliar territory for you, have no fear, there’s a webinar for that! Join us on Wed, January 25^th at 1pm (PST) for Getting Started with Blogging, and soon, you'll be a blogging fool, too (in a good way, promise!).

Related articles:

BlogWorld Expo: Optimize Your Way to Business Blogging Success,

Top 11 Blog Posts of 2011

Posted by: Colleen Corkery

Colleen Corkery is the Lifecycle Marketing Coordinator at VerticalResponse. She writes and reaps about all email-related things. Connect with her on Twitter at @youcollme.

Introducing Webinar Wednesdays!

Happy New Year, everybody! In the same calendar-turning tradition of "starting fresh," we're starting 2012 with our new "Webinar Wednesdays" series, offering plenty of informative and free webinars to help quench your mid-week thirst for knowledge (marketing knowledge, at least).

Plus, as an added bonus, if you attend any of these webinars, you'll receive a follow-up email with a super-exclusive special offer from VR!

So check out our full list of webinars for January and register for one or more today!

Email Delivery Changes in the New Year

Wednesday, January 11, 2012 - 10 AM PST
Join delivery and marketing team members to learn more about email delivery, including changes that the top 4 ISPs have implemented and how that will impact your emails in 2012. 

Go Local! - Location-Based Marketing for Your Business

Wednesday, January 11, 2012 - 1 PM PST
Location-based marketing couldn't be hotter right now. Whether you're a brick-and-mortar retail business or a national brand, geo-location tools can help you build buzz and drum up new business. Join Marketing team members as we cover:

• Which geo-location apps you need to know
• How to leverage them to build social buzz and drive foot traffic
• Innovative geo-location campaigns to inspire your planning

Maintaining Your Mailing List

Wednesday, January 18, 2012 - 10 AM PST
It's a new year and time to do a little housekeeping to start things off right. This webinar will go over:

• Good list practices
• How to clean up your list
• Using segmentation, opt-in forms, plus more

Creating a Successful Email

Wednesday, January 18, 2012 - 1 PM PST
Your email is a tool that helps you stay engaged with your customers and prospects and helps you grow your business. Join us as we discuss how you can strengthen your relationships and customer loyalty with an effective email.



Using Surveys For Your Business

Wednesday, January 25, 2012 10 AM PST
Learn how surveys can help build relationships with your customers and grow your business. We'll also go over how to use the VR Survey tool to choose a template, create and edit questions, and analyze the statistics collected.

Related Posts:

• Holidays You Don't Want to Forget to Remember
• How to Win Back Old Customers via Email
  

Posted by Brendan Hill.

Brendan Hill is a Lifecycle Marketing Coordinator at VerticalResponse. Connect with him on Twitter at @BrendanHill

Is Occupy Wall Street Good or Bad for Small Business?

Ever since supporters of Occupy Wall Street staged their first demonstrations in New York’s Zuccotti Park nearly two months ago, everyone from the President to the owner of my neighborhood coffee shop has expressed an opinion about the movement. In fact, it was a chat with Ali (the aforementioned coffee shop owner) that got me thinking: What do other small, independently owned businesses think about Occupy Wall Street? Do they believe it helps or hurts small companies? 

So, we recently sent a short online survey to a portion of our small-business customer base. Since the topic is a little controversial, we sent it out as an anonymous survey, so there’d be no way to link any specific answer or comment to a name or company (unless the person chose to disclose it).

Here are some of our findings:

• Occupy Wall Street says it’s standing up for the 99 percent of the U.S. population being exploited by the wealthy 1 percent. We asked respondents where they think their income places them along the spectrum:

        The clear majority of those surveyed are within the 99 percent – maybe no huge surprise there.

• Interestingly, respondents were nearly evenly split when asked whether they supported Occupy Wall Street:

 

• Of those who support the movement, 73 percent say it helps small business:

 

• Of those who oppose the movement, though, nearly 82 percent say it hurts small business:

 

These last two findings might suggest that detractors are more confident that it hurts small business, while perhaps Occupy Wall Street supporters align with the movement for reasons other than its impact on small business.

So, despite what many may think, small businesses aren't decisively in one specific camp when it comes to Occupy Wall Street. And while our views may differ, one thing's clear: small businesses aren't shy about voicing their opinion when it comes to our country's future, which we're all for!

P.S. As an added bonus, we shared the results with several small business reporters and got some great media coverage as well. Check out some of the articles in our “VerticalResponse in the News” section.

Has the Occupy Wall Street movement had any effects on your business? Do you feel that its message is good or bad for small business in general? Take a moment to share your opinion in the comments!

Connie Sung Moyle is the Public Relations Manager at VerticalResponse. Connect with her on Twitter at @sungmoyle.

How Gap Fails with Their Customer Satisfaction Survey

Any business that has customers should be concerned with their customers satisfaction. At VerticalResponse, we regularly survey our active customers with a simple  Net Promoter Survey that asks the ultimate question, "How likely are you to recommend VerticalResponse to a friend or colleague?"

Our customers then rate us:

• 0 - 6 "detractors", people that wouldn't recommend us.
• 7 & 8 "passives", people that think we're all right, but not great.
• 9 & 10  "promoters", people that tell all their friends about us.

From time-to-time, to encourage participation, we run an incentive for any customers that take the survey to be entered to get 100,000 free email credits. Anyone can win - regardless of the score they give us.

So, on a recent shopping trip to Gap, I received my sales receipt and was a bit surprised when I read it and discovered they were flat out asking customers to give them a "10" in exchange for 20% off.

Wowza, pretty presumptuous, eh? I think I'd rather Gap keep it real. I really like how they say, "we're striving to make your experience a fun and easy one every time you shop." But they lost me at, "give us a score of 10, and get 20% off."

I think they would be better off extending the 20% discount to anyone that participates and get some real, actionable feedback from their customers. We often learn the most from customers that give us low scores, or those in the middle who are struggling with something. This type of information has helped us grow our business and better meet our customers' needs.

So come on Gap, listen to all your customers and you might just learn something.

What do you think?

Posted by Kim Stiglitz

Kim Stiglitz is the Director of Lifecycle Marketing at VerticalResponse. She blogs about marketing, social media and other things that strike her as interesting. Connect with her on Twitter at @Stiggy1.

Related posts:

Net Promoter Score - What it is and How it Can Help Your Business

3 Ways to Get Feedback from Customers - And What to Do With It!

I was recently talking to a small business restaurant owner who wasn't very web savvy. However, after we ate a good meal she said, "Make sure you Yelp us!" She then went on to say, "I wish people would only say nice things online and if they have something negative to say, they can come to me directly." Well we all know that those days are over and more of your customers have platforms that are easier than ever for them to post what they think - both negative and positive.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if you offer something your customers want, or if you fix a problem they want fixed, you'll either get more of their spend or make them stay with you longer.

So what are a few easy ways you can take the time to do to find out what your customers are thinking?

1. Two times per year send an email marketing campaign to your customers with a survey asking them if they'd recommend you to a friend or colleague on a scale of 1-10 (10 being MOST likely.) Then ask some more questions about their experience so that you can find out what they like and why, but more importantly what they don't like and why. You can also Tweet the hosted version of the survey to your Twitter followers asking them to take the survey as well. If you need an easy-to-use survey tool, there's a free survey tool trial located right in your VerticalResponse account if you have one.

2. Did you ever see those nifty "Feedback" tabs that are usually located down the side of a website you visit? These are a great and easy way to ask people what they want to see from you in the future and what they want you to change. We do it on our site using a nifty tool called Ideaffect, it costs just $19/month and we really get a wealth of information on what our customers want to see from us.

3. Post questions to your Facebook page and send a Facebook message out to your "likers". Then monitor what people are saying about your questions.

Obviously collecting information is important, but even more important is getting back to those people who posted comments. If you offer a service or product they wanted when you asked them, let them know you now offer it. If you fixed a problem, send them an email or post it to Facebook and get the word out that you're hearing them loud and clear. It will go a long way in retaining those customers.

How are you managing your customer feedback?

Related posts:

Ideaffect - Collect and Manager Online Feedback
Net Promoter Score - What It Is and How it Can Help Your Business
How to Create an Online Survey
How to Use a Rating Scale in an Online Survey

4 Quick Ways to Give Back and Prosper!

It's the season for giving so there's not a better time for your business to give back. First of all, it's just a good practice for any business. Secondly, it just might give you an upper hand to increase your sales. People like to patron businesses if they know that a specific business gives back to worthy causes and the community. Plus it's could be a great generator of "buzz" for you.

Here are 4 ideas we thought of for how you can use "cause marketing" in your business.

1. Donate dollars to a cause of your choice for each survey taken up to some number of surveys you need to analyze. We just did a product survey where we gave $10 for every survey taken up to 300 surveys to the Susan G. Komen foundation in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month. We got the number of surveys we wanted in two days.

2. Donate a percentage of all revenue generated from all sales in a specific time period like a few hours or a specific day. "From 12-2pm this Saturday all profits go to the American Cancer Society."

3. Give a percentage of all revenue generated from a specific product purchased for a specific time period. "All profits from our new set of Widgets for the next two weeks will be donated to the SF Food Bank."

4. Donate dollars for each purchase made over some specific amount. "For any total purchase made over $200, we will donate $20 to Parks and Recreation of the Bay Area."

And to prove that you actually "gave back" it's a good practice to send an email marketing campaign to all of those that "contributed" telling them that you just wrote the check to your cause. To top it all off, you can even show the receipt in your email (just make sure to block out the credit card number you used to make the donation!)

5 Tips for Winning Back Customers

If you've got customers that have never left you for another competitor good for you! But I  don't believe you. It happens to the very best of businesses. Business should always be focused on getting new customers but winning back customers from days gone by could be very beneficial (and cheap!) for your business.

The first thing you need to do is assess your customer's behavior. Off to the data you go! If you've got your customer purchases in Quickbooks, Salesforce or your ecommerce platform, see if you can run a report on all of your customers to find out the last date they've purchased. If it's more than a year, you may want to get on it!

Here are a few ideas you can use to win those customers back now.

1. Call Back Campaign - Get a list of phone numbers and get to the phones! Develop a script because 8 out of 10 calls you'll probably get their voicemail. Make sure you address any issues you may have corrected or products newly launched and tell them you want them back! Give them a coupon code, or something free with an expiration date. Carve out 30 minutes a day for you, or an intern to start calling.

2. Surveys - You might want to find out first why your customers have not come back to you. Send them a link to an online survey with a few questions you may want ask about their satisfaction with your company. Make sure you leave a box where they can include "other" information in a freeform fashion so that you can read through the comments. You might find that you now offer something they were looking for and you can follow up with them and let them know via phone or an email marketing campaign. Check out How to Create a Great Survey.

3. Email Marketing - Create a version of your regular newsletter and include an introduction telling your forgone customers that you want them back!  Give them a special offer, and if you know the particular reason they may have left and you've corrected an action or now offer different products or services, tell them you heard their request. You can even personalize it by the last product they purchased and give them a special offer on a complementary product or service.

4. Direct Mail Postcard - Go old school and send a "We Miss You" postcard campaign. Then get them back in your store, restaurant or site with an offer they can't refuse. A postcard campaign is also great as a lead in to a phone call as well.

5. Send a Gift -  If you have samples of a product you sell, that's a great way to get your customer's attention. But if you don't, or you sell services you can also go a bit zany and throw a bunch of fun things in a box to get their attention too. Include a postcard with an offer that's sure to get your customers back.

Getting a customer to come back is a lot cheaper for you than getting new customers, so give this a try and make it an ongoing campaign! Any ideas of your own for getting a customer back?

Net Promoter Score - What it is and How it Can Help Your Business

I was listening to a news conference today about the merger between United Airlines and Continental. Reporters were asking the CEO's of both companies some questions about it and I caught an answer from the United CEO where he stated that he only pays attention to the positive emails he gets on his Blackberry from his customers. Wow. Is he in the dark ages or what?

Any business person should be aware of all of the ratings they get from their customers whether it be positive or negative. A simple metric that you might want to look into is the Net Promoter Score. Simply defined, NPS is built on a simple question that you ask your customers: "Would you recommend my company to your colleagues?" on a scale of 0-10, 0 being the worst, 10 being the best.

People who rate you:

• 0 - 6 are your "detractors", people that wouldn't recommend you.
• 7 & 8 are your "passives", people that think you're alright, but not great.
• 9 & 10 are your "promoters", people that tell all their friends about you.

Then you take the percentage of all detractors and subtract them from the percentage of all promoters. You ignore passives. Then you've got your NPS score.

To put it on a scale for you AT&T's score is 11, and Apple's score is 77. It's a great metric to find out how your customers feel about you and a great opportunity for you to ask for open comments. If your customers are saying great things about you to their friends, you'll potentially get a new customer, and you didn't have to pay for it. It's all about a great customer experience.

What We're Learning

Last year at VerticalResponse we had to focus our teams on parts of our systems that weren't customer-facing and even though we had to do that for our business, it hurt us from our customer's perspective. This year we're able to refocus and we've been taking a hard look at Net Promoter Score. We just released a new upgrade to the way our customers create email and it has addressed a lot of our customer's pain points.

What we found as the key to a successful NPS program is the communications that go back to customers about their issues and what we did, or what we are doing to fix any issues they may have.

How To Give The Survey

We use email marketing to send a survey to our customers, we include a survey link in our newsletters and we post splash pages on our site to ask the ultimate question. We also provide an open comment field for them to fill in, and we categorize those comments into buckets. We assess what any customer issues might be, and if we're in the process of fixing anything or we already did, we use our own email marketing service or a phone call to get back to customers. 

Have you done the this type of survey to your customers? What did you learn?

Happy 9th Anniversary VerticalResponse

It's been 9 amazing years that VerticalResponse has been around and I'm proud to run such a wonderful business that focuses on helping small businesses look like giants, AND helps non-profit organizations by giving them what they need to grow; free email marketing and discounts.

We launched our first email marketing product in 2001 and boy did it look different! But one thing remains the same, our number one focus is our customers.

Our first real "hire" here was Josh Feinberg, now our VP of Product, then our first customer service representative. We have always felt strongly that having a human being on the other end of the line whether it be a call, chat or an email, is critical to our success and yours.

I want to thank all of our customers who continue to support us, we'll keep working for you! We've got some exciting features coming up that I just know you're going to love. Our brand new Email Creation Upgrade due out in March, is going to be packed with better email marketing templates and an even easier way to create emails. Not far after be on the lookout for auto-responders; email campaigns that automatically go out when a new member joins your list.

And to top it all off, as a birthday present to our customers, we'd like to give you:

• Our the 9-Hour Marketing Makeover Guide - This guide will help you take a look at your email, postcard, and survey marketing to see how they can be improved.
• Two new templates for event management that we've connected to our survey tool. Now you can invite people to a party, track who clicked, and find out who's attending. Watch the video for how to start!

Cheers, jp.

Cottonelle is Having Some Marketing Fun - Take the Roll Poll

Cottonelle toilet paper probably doesn't get a chance to really engage with their customers other than the cooky advertising they do on TV. You know the ones with the bears? But they've done something really great to engage with their customers that involves TV, surveys and social media.

The Cottonelle Roll Poll is one simple question; "Which way do you roll, over or under?"

They mix it up when it comes to marketing too:

Website - It's fun, inviting and easy to navigate.

Interactive - There's a RollPoll Throwdown where you can pick two videos of people who disagree.

Video - They have videos of people talking about which way they roll

Map - They're tracking the way people are voting...what's up with California, the only state leaning towards "under"?

Facebook - You can see what people are saying on Facebook and "Become a Fan" right from their site.

Twitter - You can see what the RollPollPlumber is saying on Twitter and follow him.

Share - You can post to your own social media outlets.

Email Marketing - After a bit of a search, I did find a newsletter sign up form on their site, although I've not yet received an email.

I thought it was a great example of a company doing a nice integrated promotion. Can you use a technique like this to generate buzz for your business?  Let me know what you think.