Tuesday, November 24, 2009

There's a Better Way to Ask

There was a big story in the New York Post this weekend about how a restaurant owner lashed out at his body in a profanity-laced note for not aggregation the telecommunicate addresses of customers. [Note: If you’re easily offended, don’t utter on those links.] Granted, the owner was a bit over the top in his method â€" he told the body that any computer or patron who failed to collect at least 20 telecommunicate addresses per hebdomad for digit weeks in a month would be fired immediately â€" but it was great to see that he appreciates the power of telecommunicate marketing. The specifics of the note aside, the message was good: One of the best ways to physique your transmitting list is to ask people when they’re right there in face of you. When they walk out the entranceway and get back to their lives, they instantly lose a piece of that connection with your business or organization, and it’s harder to reach them.read more

How do I make Money with StreamSend?

Many of our new clients come to us through referrals from friends, business associates etc. Customer referrals are one of the prizewinning avenues for marketing and to reward our users we have an Affiliate Program. You only place a clew up unification on your website or email a url for those fascinated in signing up with StreamSend. As an affiliate you module receive 20% per period reoccurring for the clients you refer. The affiliate information is free to join so ground not start earning some player dough for something you may already be doing! For more information or to clew up please meet the unification below.Affiliate Program:https://affiliates.streamsend.com/For those of you who are fascinated in a more hands on approach we offer a albescent label reseller program. You clew up for a large volume plan with Streamsend and reseller it. You are able to create user accounts under your own sort and allow your clients to log in and send emails or you crapper send emails on their behalf. You pay StreamSend monthly for your account and you charge you clients what you would like based on the services you are providing them. For more information on the albescent label reseller service please review the screen cast linked below or occurrence sales.White Label Screen Cast:http://www.streamsend.com/reseller.html

Motivate Employees to Get Email Addresses - Just Not This Way

I meet read an article about a restaurant someone who wrote a filthy telecommunicate (careful, this contains SEVERE  language, folks) to his employees for not collecting telecommunicate addresses. In fact, if they don't collect at least 20 emails a week, he's planning on fining them $100, and if they don't collect at least 20 emails in 2 weeks they're fired. This was reported by an anonymous tipster, but the someone does admit sending it.Now I applaud that he sees the value in telecommunicate marketing, however he's crossing the line by his actions and conduct (in my opinion). Why not do it in a positive fashion, after all, telecommunicate marketing will intend customers in the door and stressing to your body that the people who will benefit will be them, might meet work in your favor. Here are a few more constructive ideas: For every valid telecommunicate address your body gets provide them $2. If they intend 20 valid telecommunicate addresses they intend a kicker of $50. Have a oppose with your staff, whoever gets a certain number of emails wins a prize like cash or a pleasant bottle of bubbly. Motivate your customers to provide you their telecommunicate addresses by having "email only" offers in the bill holder. Test assorted offers to see what works like a liberated birthday dinner up to $xx, or liberated appetizers on their next visit. This gives your employees a reason to ask the customers for their addresses. Giving up something of value to intend it in return crapper go a long way. At the patron stand or checkout, display a business card bowl or a sign up book, then have the patron kibosh people on the artefact out the door and verify them about "email only" offers. Give an semiautomatic 5% VIP discount for any customer who is on the telecommunicate address list. These are meet a few positive ways to intend your body excited about collecting telecommunicate addresses instead of forcing it down their throats. If you've got any ideas of your own, please comment!

Thursday, November 19, 2009

You Better Watch Out

Don’t be surprised if you impart a Facebook friend request from Santa Claus, Hanukkah Harry, the Holiday Armadillo, or whoever your favorite festive personality is this pass season. That’s because more people module be using social media this assemblage to help with their shopping than ever before, and even Kris Kringle knows to go where the people are. A new study by Deloitte of more than 10,000 adults in the U.S. reveals that 17% of shoppers plan to use social media sites as a part of their pass shopping. Of those using sites like Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace, 60% feature they module do so to seek out sales, discounts, and coupons; 53% impart to use the sites to research gift ideas; and 52% feature they module use the sites to check the desire lists of friends and family. read more

A Friendly Suggestion to Our Competitor

I'm all about getting new business, but we've proven to cows clear of going after our competitor's customers because we conceive there are enough businesses out there that need  email marketing services. I will also say I don't conceive it's criminal to go after a competitor's customer either. We have a ton of attitude for many of our competitors and find them very cool and friendly. So as a friendly competitor I have a suasion for iContact: If you're going to target our customers, at small spell our company name correctly. Best of luck at Dreamforce! 

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Have You Started to Plan for 2010?

The holiday season is play to reach its peak (can you believe Thanksgiving is just over a week away?), but it's already time to start thinking about next year. Have you started to make plans for 2010 yet? Find out if you are in the eld or majority by sharing your respond in our latest poll. Immediately after you vote, you module get to see how another diminutive businesses and organizations answered. Enjoy!

29 Great B2B Subject Lines

With a business-to-business offering, you strength be trying to get your customers to sign up for a liberated trial, intend them to an event, a webinar or provide them information on how to be better at something or use your products or services better. Here are a few examples of some great B2B subject lines I dug up that you can test out for your business today. How to Leverage [your product] in Your BusinessSave Money and Look Like a Star to Your BossHow to Impress Your Cranky CFO - Save $1000Increase Your ROI by [xx]%, GuaranteedHow to make it onto your buyer's short listComplimentary Webinar: [insert webinar name]Now you can do modify more with your [xxxx]Should your consort outsource [insert thing to outsource here]?Breakfast & Secrets for How to [insert problem you solve or product you sell]Success Tip: 5 Ways to a Better [xxxx]Register Today: [inert study of event] Nov. 5 2009Entry deadline alacritous approachingNew White Paper: Best Practices for [Insert problem and solution here]Success Tip #1: [Insert Tip Headline Here]A gift employees and clients will love: [Insert gift study here]Extended for a Day: Get Free Shipping Through FridayYour Weekly Alert: [insert topic here]Hear Exclusive Research Presented on [insert what your circumstance is about] - Register Now! Inside: [hot topic in your newsletter you conceive will intend the most opens]5 Ways to Maximize Holiday SalesSave $200: [insert circumstance here] Early Bird Registration Ends [insert fellow here]Specific ones I conceive are good and why: Marketing on a Tight Budget - Part 1 - Hits a discompose point and makes it seem like there is modify more information to support me, on its way.Countdown to the Awards Gala: Reason #5 to Attend - This consort did a series of 7 email campaigns in a row, to intend grouping excited.The Venture Capitalist Industry Isn't Broken: VatorNewsletter - Here they started with the blistering topic in the front of the subject line and it was somewhat controversial.Secure Your SaaS Application (White paper Included) - I like that they tell you there is something realizable in it for you right in the subject line.Cognos Training: 50% Discount - Year-End Budget - I LOVE the way they use Year End Budget because in many companies if you don't pay the budget you have this year, you won't intend it again next year. This also entireness well with "Quarter-End Budget"Thank You From Dice - This was just a nice thank you for your business with a huge reduction to intend customers reaching back.Get a $30 Gift Card for 30 Minutes of Your Time - It was to take a demonstrate of a new product.Frustrated with Graphics in Microsoft Office? - This consort sells a product to make it all better and they got to a real discompose point for people.Subject lines are so essential since it's the reason your recipients are going to look to that to decide if they want to open your email. If you've got some B2B subject lines that have worked for you in the past, comment on the post, we'd love to undergo them.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

How to Best Profit from the Holiday Season, Part II

Standing out in your subscribers' inboxes is especially essential during the pass flavour when there is so such more junk telecommunicate to sift through.  In Part I of this series, I covered two key components of successful pass telecommunicate marketing. Now let’s finish off with three more tips to maximize the spirit of the flavour to boost income or intend donations.read more

Contests & Awards for Small Businesses

Following on my post Using Industry Awards to Grow Your Business, I found a list of great awards for diminutive businesses. Check discover Ramon Ray's SmallBizTechnology.com. Even though the list is not business specific, there are some great awards in there for diminutive businesses in general.

Friday, November 6, 2009

The Inox Box

Last week, we had another of our Constant Contact Guide to Email Marketing book launch events. This digit was in Washington, D.C., at the Inox Restaurant in Tysons Corner. It was a terrific circumstance where we got to spend some quality time with more than 70 customers and business partners. After the event, we (the Constant Contact contingent) old to the main dining shack of Inox for dinner. The dinner was outstanding, and as a bonus, I saw in state digit of the best ways for a restaurant to make the dining experience modify beyond the restaurant.read more

Your Competitive Advantage Could Double Your Sales

It's tough competition out there. You've got to uprise above the noise to get the attention of any new likely customers. You probably do a great employ promoting your deals and your wonderful products in every artefact you crapper think of. But you might be missing something. Do you do something really well and really different that doesn't go head to head with your competition?What got me thinking about this was watching the television ads that Southwest Airlines has been streaming recently. In these tough economic times when many of the airlines are nickel and diming travelers for things like blankets and bags, Southwest is promoting "Bags Fly Free". They're not going for "most on-time arrivals" or "most legroom". They're hitting a pain saucer that's giving them some real differentiation. I started to think of a few other big names that have done a great employ at this. Enterprise Rent-a-Car picks you up if you can't get to the car rental location. Westin Hotels markets their Heavenly Bed to weary guests. Red Envelope sends everything they sell in beautiful red packaging. Heck, Playtex is even marketing their wager through packaging so you crapper wager what's inside before you acquire it.What do you think that you have in your arsenal that will make you uprise above it all in a crowded messaging arena? Here are a few ideas I kicked around.Wineries - Promote something off the surround like your wine is great with a burger.  Promote that your propellor caps are better for the environment than corks or that you don't need a wine opener for your wines. OR vice versa, your wine will age better with a cork. Jewelry Designers - Talk about how your adornment clasps never break. Nail Spas - Promote that your nail radiance lasts 14 days or that you've got the most comfortable chairs and the prizewinning magazines. Hair Salons - Talk about how you give the prizewinning 10 minute scalp massage with any haircut and promote a free "clean up" or bang trim two weeks after your cut. Hotels - Is your property dog-friendly? Talk about it! Promote the clam in the rooms so that your guests crapper clean their creased clothes.Auto Shops - Promote your kid-friendly shop and your free coffee, bagels and muffins in the morning. Restaurants - Open for Thanksgiving? Promote a take-home baggie of a dud sandwich for every patron. Software - Talk about how you are saving the environment because your user guide is online or on a CD, or that your SaaS consort loves the environment because there is no packaging. Once you have your competitive advantage down, test it in your next email marketing campaign and in your messaging. You might be surprised what resonates with new prospects. What great competitive advantages do you have to use? Share them please, we'd love to center them.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Show a Little Respect

One of the most important tasks for email marketers to perform is to respect their customers’ wishes with affectionateness to receiving email marketing messages. If a customer updates his profile to change his subscription preferences, or requests to be unsubscribed from a list, then it’s functionary upon the email marketer to honor that request. This helps to build a trusting relationship between sender and recipient. The challenge for many small organizations is that they have their subscribers’ contact data, and perhaps related preferences, in multiple places. Typically, the data will subsist in Constant Contact, as substantially as in a playing management application, customer relationship management (CRM) system, and perhaps also in Outlook. Constant Contact can make organizing all this aggregation a lowercase easier by helping you manage the unsubscribes. But what if your CRM also needs to know about a customer who unsubscribes from your marketing list, or perhaps updates her preferences or contact data?read more

Monday, November 2, 2009

Playing with Numbers

Would you be interested in datum an article titled “Great Time-saving Tips?” What about an article titled “7 Great Time-saving Tips?” Which of those digit options would you be more willing to read? You may modify using numbers in a headline as meet added attention-getting trick used every the time by glossy women’s magazines, but I’m guessing that when presented with the digit headlines above, you chose the option with the number in it, right? It’s amazing what adding something so small to a headline module do to draw us. Now put yourself in the shoes (and inbox) of those on your mailing list. When visaged with so some telecommunicate messages and not enough time to read them all, a subject line with a number in it module usually be more attractive than one without. read more

Case Study: Test a Subject Line in 2 Minutes & Get More Clicks

Recently we did a analyse on the State of Small Business, you haw hit conventional it. Our Marketing team performed a subject line test in the email. One person line was very generic and one was a taste more specific. We split our list in half using the list segmentation tool. It took meet a some extra transactions but from what we scholarly it was worth it. The first person line: Take Our Survey and Tell Us What You Think We conventional 181 more opens and 35 more clicks than the following more limited person line: Take 5 Minutes - See How Your Business Stacks Up In this limited case it seemed to be that we had more opens and clicks from the generic subject line and more people attractive our survey. This illustrates why it's important to be testing person lines to get more opens or content exclusive your email to be getting more clicks.