Welcome. Today we’re going to have some fun and learn a lot…we’re going to expose for you the connection between email and marketing, share with you some practical tips for getting the most out of your email marketing efforts.
(Introduce yourself). Thanks for taking the time today to learn more about using email marketing and social media to grow your business. We hope you will gain insight into some if the key strategies for using Constant Contact tools – both for your own business and also for your clients.
Here’s a quick look at what we’re going to go over today. We’ll talk about Marketing, and the fact that email is one of the strongest formats for real marketing.We’ll talk about how email goes beyond just the messages you send and really leads tomore referral business as well as repeat businessWe’ll talk about what kinds of content work well How to time your messages and to get more people to stop and read themWe’ll go over some important tactics for getting more response from your campaignsAnd we’ll talk a little bit about where you go from here.
Before we get started, let me just quickly get my short commercial for Constant Contact out of the way. I am showing you this slide because it helps illustrate the fact that Constant Contact is more than just an email marketingCompany. There are tools in the system for promoting and managing events, for running social campaigns on your facebook page, for offering local deals, similar to groupon but much more affordable, SinglePlatform is our one-stop-shop for managing your mobile directory listings, making sure you are “found” on all the search engines and it gives you a rich, more complete listing with photos, your menu if you’re a restaurant, etc… and we do also have our survey and poll system. All of these products work together well and it’s nice to have all of your contacts in one place. OK, I’ll be happy to answer questions specific to Constant Contact as we go through today’s class but this is the end of my commercial. Now let’s talk about growing your business with email marketing.
Marketing has changed….maybe you’ve noticed? How many of you use [click to build] Facebook for business? How many are on Linked In? Twitter? Anyone tweetingright now? (remind of twitter handle) [click to build] Who uses Pinterest? Instagram? YouTube?[click to build] And how many have checked your email today? (all hands up) …. And right there is one of the key messages I want you to take away from today’s session – not everyone uses each of the social media channels…but these days it’s safe to say that just about everyone you are trying to reach for business has an email address.[click to next slide]
So let’s start by talking about marketing, and I realize that you know what marketing is, but I want to make sure we are all on the same page in terms of real marketing, plain and simple. It’s worth a couple of minutes to go over it.
That ability to see lots of physical and measurable response is just one reason email is so great…Turns out, email is hard to beat. It’s really where you should start – and where your clients should start when they decide to start marketing. It’s the hub of all engagement including social media marketing because it’s where you store your list and manage the graphics and store the stats on who opened your emails, what they clicked on, whether they shared it…There is an awful lot of physical, measureable response for a very low cost – relative to more traditional forms of marketing. Even if you are wrapping your own creative and project management services around our email product, it’s still a low barrier cost as compared to print, radio and payperclick.The average return on email marketing is $87 per dollar spent. Helps quell the concerns many small businesses have in terms of the value of social media. Email is so easy to measure that combining the two brings the value of social media activities up as well. Email offers a whole lot of opportunity for genuine, authentic engagement for your clients and their customers in a one-to-many tool.
Yes, when you use email, you are marketing. Which brings me to being able to tell you that email is more than just “email” (the message, the words, the thing that takes up “space” in your Inbox): I now want you to transition from thinking about marketing at a high level to thinking about email as a tool…What does email do? It communicates! It extends your reach! It helps you build your list! It slices bread (ok, no it doesn’t, but it’s pretty great nonetheless! )Best of all? You can grow your business, because email helps you nurture your relationship and it’s a one-to-many tool. Meaning one person can send to many people and if you’re doing it right, you can be genuine and authentic and really reach those people as if it were on a one-to-one basis.
We’ve told you a little bit about marketing and why it’s important, and how email fits into the marketing mix and can be a primary driver of your business. Now it’s time to move forward and talk about ways to make the most of your email marketing efforts – and we’re going to do that today by providing you with some tips and advice we’ve gleaned from the efforts of over 500,000 customers.
There are two key pieces of thinking your email that can often seem like a reflection of the old “which came first” debate: figuring out what you want to write about or making sense of some of the practical realities of email (like how to ensure your emails get read, or when to send them). We’re going to start with the “chicken” – coming up with what to write or send to your audience, after which we’ll talk about helping your email get opened and when to send it.
“What should I write about?” This is a very, very common question. It’s likely the most common question you will have yourself, and it’s also important to know how much to write. The answer can actually take some of the pressure to write a lot of great, engaging content off of you and ease some of that pain by giving you an opportunity to focus on what you know and how you can help.At the end of the day, the answer is simple. [click to build] You write about what you know that they don’t know. You share your knowledge and raise your profile as an expert in your field. What you are trying to do is build what is called a resource relationships, Where when their need for what you do comes up, YOU are the person that comes to mind. And it’s a good idea to share just for the sake of sharing. Giving your knowledge away. You cannot be afraid to give away the farm. Nothing you write in an email or on facebook is going to eliminate a paying customer’s need for you and your services. Nothing you write is going to replace your experience, or more importantly your comfort level with that experience.[click to build] provide insights into information that you have access to that they don’t‘[click to build] the best part is that you don’t always have to write original content…just be interesting and relevant (it’s OK to “borrow” content from others, and share it with your own comments or thoughts…ABOVE all else, be generous…give away the farm…let people enjoy the full range of expertise you have to offer.(If you have a longer session, this is a great time to ask people in the audience what they do for a livingand give them some ideas for content so that you get the room thinking in these terms)(Also if you have a longer session, you can give an example of a business that “gives away the farm” and drives business doing so)[click to next slide]
[click through these samples, letting people see them as ideas]discounts (what most people think of)e-books or downloadable contentserviceshints + tipsexperiences or eventssupport a causeJULIE: perhaps mention a couple of specific examples, for example: “Download our free Spring Gardening guide” or “Free Tradeshow Booth consultation” or something like that…[click to next slide]
(ask if anyone in the class wants to get a long email from anyone else in the class. No one will raise their hand.) No one has ever raised their hand. If you are a church, a chamber of commerce or a school, you probably have long emails and we are all okay with getting those. Our children and our businesses rely on you and we want to see activity – we are willing to get a long email from you. (right? Ask the crowd) …we don’t read them, but it’s okay that we see them.So take the pressure to create or write off of yourself. Instead focus on being the resource. Less is more. Always.There is no rule that says your newsletter needs to have three articles, three pictures and three links. One thing is plenty. There is a Constant Contact customer whose newsletter is called One Thing – he did it to make it easy on himself and it works really well – people can absorb it and he’s not under the gun to come up with a bunch of content to fill it.Your emails and their social media activities are NOT for telling people everything that they do. That is part of the hole people dig for themselves when they start writing their emails, they try to say everything. That is not what your emails and social media posts are for. That’s what your website is for. Your emails and your social media is about offering one thing at a time and tracking whether or not it moved the needle. Plain and simple.Mobile stat from: research from:email open by platform: https://litmus.com/blog/email-client-market-share-stats-infographic-june-2012
Content can be visual as well…and you can satisfy the appetite of your audience for visual content in several ways…here are some examples:non-profit, sharing information about themselves that’s in the press…and letting logos and large pictures tell the story more than textrestaurant sharing their current specials…featuring their specials in a visually-branded email template that reflects their company branda non-profit, sharing an event notice….drawing the reader in with a large image on a simple templateB2B, showcasing the services they have…again, a simple template, with just the right amount of visual “punch” to spice it upanother event notice…this one is all visual, showing the creative event poster in the email itself.
Repurpose and reuse everything. These are example of the same single piece of content being shared at different times, in different ways on various channels. All keep the conversation going. All are slightly different. There is no reason to kill yourself trying to write new content every day or event every week – find ways to use it more than once.
Make it easy on yourself. Instead of making a complicated marketing calendar,Choose a theme or a specific vertical and focus on being the hub or resource for that subject. It can be monthly, weekly, quarterly – just use the theme to create guidelines for yourself so that you are not staring into the abyss of having to find something to write about. Go narrow and allow that subject to expand and alwaysMake sure that you are the resource. The hub of information and access.
Make it easy on yourself. Instead of making a complicated marketing calendar,Choose a theme or a specific vertical and focus on being the hub or resource for that subject. It can be monthly, weekly, quarterly – just use the theme to create guidelines for yourself so that you are not staring into the abyss of having to find something to write about. Go narrow and allow that subject to expand and alwaysMake sure that you are the resource. The hub of information and access.
We started by looking at the “What” for your emails (what you write)…now we’re going to talk a bit more about the “how”…
Examples from customers…can be built quickly either before or after the audience interaction piece…List of customers, in order:BolocoBlue PenguinTee FuryFish and BoneJill Singer Graphics
(This is alternative to the previous slide – up to the speaker which one to use)Examples from customers…can be built quickly either before or after the audience interaction piece…List of customers, in order:BolocoBlue PenguinTee FuryFish and BoneJill Singer Graphics
Use the same three groups of people and now you will choose three different times of day you want to test.So, a morning, midday and afternoon or evening. The next time you are ready to send out an email,Send it on your best performing day from the last test. Send the first group their email in the morning,The second group gets it midday and the third group gets it in the afternoon or evening. And look at your stats. You will know which time of day did the best. So now you will know the best day and the best time of that day to send your emails for the best response. Please make sure you are not romanced by a high open rate. Just measuring the open rate will notGive you a clear picture of success. You might have a lot of people open it but very few take theAction you want them to take. Measure the physical, measurable responses
So now you have the best day on which to send and the best time at which to send. Excellent!! But let me caution you… [click to build] DO NOT BE ROMANCED BY A HIGHOPEN RATE – MEASURE ACTIONS!
Source for 67%: Jeanne Jennings, Marketing Sherpa: “Preview Panes, Image Blocking and My Pitch to Have Microsoft Outlook Turn Images on by Default,” June 2010
Source for 67%: Jeanne Jennings, Marketing Sherpa: “Preview Panes, Image Blocking and My Pitch to Have Microsoft Outlook Turn Images on by Default,” June 2010
Remember our discussion of what marketing was all about? It’s about eliciting a physical and measurable response…so let’s dig deeper into that idea.
I hope you have a better understanding of the importance of email as an integral part of your marketing mix and some of the practical tips you can take home with you today.I have just two more pieces of advice, and then some next steps you can take.
Restaurant vertical
What questions do you have?SPEAKERS – YOU CAN CHANGE THE COACH NUMBER TO YOURS IF YOU ARE SET UP TO HANDLE THEM.(Also, please help us continue to improve these sessions by filling out the form…)[click to build] if you’re looking for more help, don’t hesitate to call one of our fantastic coaches…they’re eager to help and make things work for you.[click to build] if you haven’t been using email marketing, but are ready to get started and to make it a part of your marketing mix, visit ConstantContact.com to get started today.Finally, feel free to reach out to me with other questions you might have.Thank you!
