Email Marketing from the Street: Part 1

In the last post, we explored the easy-to-use email marketing services that have popped up over the Internet. If you are still uncertain of the benefits that can be gained by any company or uncertain that printers can utilize the service as a value added service, then read below for a first person account of the benefits by my friend Ann Perri. Ann recently launched email marketing campaigns for two completely different businesses: one a Sign A Rama sign shop in Winston-Salem, NC,  and the other for an experiential education and development company called Blue Ridge Learning Center, Inc in Todd, North Carolina.

What first attracted you to email marketing? How did you find it?

Representing two companies in different locations of North Carolina, I quickly realized they both had a similar dilemma…How do we reach a large amount of potential clients on a small business budget? That’s where email marketing came into play. The ability to generate a visually appealing marketing piece that could be delivered instantly, provide feedback immediately, and for such a small cost per email, it was to easy not to pass up. I learned of Constant Contact through there consistent advertising on NPR [National Public Radio].  Once I had become familiar with their name on NPR, I started paying attention to those marketing emails I was receiving in my own inbox and realized others were already capitalizing on this new marketing tool.

Was your main purpose to communicate with existing customers, reach more customers, or generate repeat business?

We in fact had 3 major goals for email marketing which surprisingly enough cover all these customer bases you just mentioned.

1. To stay in contact with existing customers; The emphasize being on “existing” customers that we may have not serviced in over a year.
2. To target specific Market groups in the hopes of obtaining new customers. For example with Sign A Rama, our March newsletter will be tailored to the landscaping/nursery industry of the triad to remind them of  how important signage is to their business as they rev up for the spring season.
3. We also send out a generic newsletter to both existing customers as well as the “leads” list we have put together. The key is to keep the newsletter appealing to all customer bases while being concise and offering a deal anyone would be excited about.

You decided on using Constant Contact as your provider, did you evaluate different services before committing to that service?

Honestly the evaluating came after the purchase. Again I knew of CC via NPR and that was good enough for me. With the 60 day trial period it was a no brainer to go ahead and dive into CC and see what it was all about. I was able to use all the design features and send a newsletter up to 100 contacts before being charged a dime. A brilliant marketing plan on their part. After working with Constant Contact I have looked into other services from Go Daddy and Vertical Response, but once I had done the leg work of uploading my images and creating some templates with CC, it wasn’t worth transferring to another service.

What features have you found most useful?

Having a history in graphic design, I find the ability to alter the templates one of the greatest advantages. It’s one thing to generate an email marketing piece. It’s another to develop a truly captivating piece that holds the customer’s attention through the entire email and the design features of CC really allow that to happen. Customizing the existing templates really allows you to convey a mood to your message, as well as deliver a look for your company. The ability to track who opens your emails, and how often they open it are also valuable tools to evaluate your return on investment. Two features I look forward to constant contact improving on  are:

1. The ability to track who forwards your email. Right now they can track who forwards, but that only actually tracks when someone clicks the “forward to a friend link.” What I would like to know is who actually clicks “forward” in their web server.
   
2. Currently it is difficult to sift through who opened the email versus who never looked at it. For a service where you pay per contact, it is important to be able to manage the lists and send to your high percentage customers, i.e. those most likely to open your email. Currently you have to navigate through a complicated maze of exports, copying, pasting, importing…you get the idea. If CC could make this a simpler process I think all would benefit.

What content is in your typical emails? Promotions? Community outreach? Business Tidbits?

The key is short bulleted articles along with great design which keeps the customers eye wandering over the entire newsletter. If they wanted to sit and read long articles they would pick up a Time magazine on a lunch break. My thought process is…I am going to have their attention at the most 30 seconds so how can I get the customer to have an idea of all the articles in that time?

How do you select what content goes into the emails?

I created a general outline of what I thought I would read if I was sent
an email, gathered internal feedback, and sent a “dryrun” to
coworkers/friends/family. I try to include a “link” that can be tracked
in each article, that way I have some feedback as to what is being
looked at. Our customer spotlight ALWAYS gets clicks, as does our gear site.