Email marketing is one of the most cost effective ways to keep your prospects and customers engaged with your business on the ongoing basis. After all, not all prospects are ready to buy ‘right now’, but they may be ready 6 months from now. Learn why email marketing is essential in enhancing the ‘soft sale’ with a prospect, how to build a value-based monthly newsletter, and various best practices to get your email through the spam filters and in front of the right eyeballs!

1. Why Email Marketing is Still so Important
and How to Reap the Benefits
Thank you to our sponsors

2. Overview
• Introduction
• Planning
– Developing a strategy
– List segmentation
– Campaigns
– Choosing a provider
• Acquiring Subscribers
• Design, layout, and content
– Getting through the spam filters
– Increasing click-through
– Optimizing campaigns
• Tracking and Follow-up
• Easing the pain

3. Creating Your Marketing System

4. The Stats
From Brightwave Marketing Webcast 6/26/08

5. Benefits of Email Marketing
1. Cost effective
2. Measurable
3. Develops relationships

6. Your Email Strategy
• Get to know your customers (market research)
– Frequency
– What are their interests?
• Content versus promotion
• Leverage contributors
• How will you connect email to offline
techniques?

7. Choosing Your Provider
• Multiple providers out there!
– Constant Contact
– iContact
– MailChimp
– OnMarketer
– Vertical Response

8. Building Your List
1. Sign up forms throughout your website
2. Beware of too many form fields
– More form fields = less likely to fill out
3. Offer an incentive
– White paper / eBook / Download
4. Ask for email when they buy
– Make it a requirement
5. Display a sample
– Give them a taste!
6. Networking Networking Networking
– Ask when you receive their business card

9. Segmenting Your Lists

10. Email Campaigns
1. Monthly email newsletter
– Multiple segments
2. Targeted email blasts
– New products, upcoming events and webinars
3. Auto-responders
– What do they get when they sign up?
4. Drip campaigns
– What they receive over a period of time

11. Email Design, Content and Layout
1. Focus on content not promotion
– 80%/20%
2. Make sure there is a clear call-to-action
– Above the fold (above the scroll)
3. Use ‘click here’ and bright colors sparingly
– Alerts spam filters (run spam checker)
4. Take advantage of the F pattern
– Use headlines and a columned layout

12. Best Practices
• Look for innovative ideas and experts
• Decide which of our mailing lists will benefit
• Develop a comprehensive eMarketing strategy

13. The Email

14. The Headline

15. The Landing Page
http://tinyurl.com/cmoo89

16. Analytics

17. Who’s Interested?

18. Information is Gold!

19. Campaign Strategy
• Opens • Post Card, 2nd email
• Clicks • Phone Call, Letter
• Bounce • Call, post card
• Do not mail • Acknowledge

20. The ‘Subject’
• Study of Best and Worst Open Rates from MailChimp.com

21. Examples of Awesome Newsletters

22. Examples of Awesome Newsletters

23. Examples of Awesome Newsletters

24. Tracking Results
• How do you measure success?
1. CTR (Click through rate)
2. OR (Open rate)
3. Conversions
4. Subscriber list growth
5. Opt-out

25. Tracking Results

26. Tracking and Follow-Up
• Develop Protocol
• What do you do with clickers?
• How are you improving your
campaigns?
• Are you connecting your
campaigns to Google Analytics?

27. Track Your Relationships
• Track each customer as closely as possible
– Contact Log (below)
– VIPs/Tiers

28. Use Split Testing
• Use statistical analysis to optimize results
• Change various aspects of the email
1. Subject line
2. Sender from name
3. Layout
4. Content VS Promotion ratio
5. Call to action

29. Try Split Testing

30. Connect to Google Analytics

31. Easing the pain
1. Calendarize Calendarize Calendarize
– Place monthly blast campaigns in your calendar
2. Assign topics to team members
– Focus on content not promotion
3. Leverage your community
– Have them write blog posts - use blurbs for emails
4. Test Test Test
– Try different formats, subject lines, copy

32. Creating Your Marketing System

33. Thank you
Thank you to our sponsors