Small Business Marketing

Small businesses and companies trying to figure out how to make a splash in the marketplace sometimes pay consultants hundreds of dollars for advice. The result is, most of the suggestions they get will cost them even more money.

With a little clever and ambitious thoughts, you can find plenty of ways to get noticed without spending all you have. Here are 3 ideas you can use.

Newsworthy press releases about your company or a company event is a good way to attract attention. This time of year it might be all about giving for seasonal needs.

Take some promotional items to a trade show and give them away. Make sure it is something that the recipient can use. If trade show costs are high, consider a buddy in a complimentary business.


Prize drawings can stimulate interest in a retail store or other business by using social media.  It also increases your brand awareness.

For more ideas, connect with me on Facebook and if you have some ideas, please share them

Copywriting Your Email Campaign

Designing Great Emails; The Essentials

Good copy is essential to effective email marketing. You only have a few lines to move your reader to action. To do this, your offer should describe the offer and a reason why your reader should take the action you have defined.

Email copy requirements

A few common copy elements require close attention. The email subject line should be enticing and move the reader to open the document. That is the first step in conversion. The first sentence of the email, the body and details of the email, need to focus on one and only one call-to-action (CTA). Getting these elements down succinctly with the main CTA, is critical to driving high conversion rates.

 Professional copywriters use a number of best practices to achieve high conversion rates:

• Easy-to-understand and engaging subject lines
• Utilizing simple language in the first sentence
• Reiteration of  the benefits in the offer
• Providing supporting evidence with proof of concept (POC)
• Clearly written calls-to-action

Great copy starts with your audience

Remember, you want to describe the offer in an engaging way, so use the language your audience would use. Ask questions and listen for answers and what words are used. All of your copy is important but most important is the subject line. Make sure the email subject line is written in a clear and compelling way so that it causes recipients to open the message.

The opening sentence needs to keep the reader engaged. Write it so that it clearly describes the offer so that it is understood in 3 seconds or less.

Your email body needs to be short and sweet, use white space and bullet points to make the body easy to consume. Always use a personal touch such as a first name whenever possible.

The CTA is the follow up which pulls the concept together. The CTA button uses strong words that ask recipients to take a specific action.

Here are some helpful hints

Power words such as; “you,” “free,” “instant,” and “improved,” always enhance your copy. Make a list and use them in your body to describe the value of your offer.

A consistent voice is important because it helps the reader get to know you. More than likely you will send multiple emails to your list, make sure you have a consistent voice and tone throughout each.

Using plain language means not only writing down words your prospect would use, but keeping your sentences short and to the point. People are busy. For prospects to read emails quickly, keep the email copy short. Create a first draft and then set a goal of reducing the number of words by 50% for the final draft.

Detail one or more benefits in the subject line if possible. This enhances the compelling benefits the recipient will receive if they open the email. The subject line is the key determinant of performance. If there are no opens, conversions and form submission rates will be irrelevant. Try to draft at several subject lines and ask a friend which one moves them the most.

Bullet lists are your friend. People like lists that organize their thoughts. Not all people comprehend a paragraph in the same manner. Put the bulleted items in the text of your message but be sure to have them in a list as well.

Your CTA button can have a significant impact on conversion rates. Your  copy for the CTA  button should avoid words like “submit” or “click here.” Instead use warmer commands such as “download your … now.” Think of other negative words in your own experience and make a list that you do not want to use.

Mock Up a potential copy of your landing page and make sure it contains the same message as your email. Inconsistent content will inhibit some readers and may sway them in an undesirable direction. If you have a trusted friend, have them review your mock up and email for inconsistent copy and message flow. The objective is to see how easy it is to read and how relative it is to the email.

Never forget the test. Some emails will do fine all the time, others may not be so lucky. Engage in testing (A-B type) with all your email content. Using a good third party measurement process will insure that you don’t get your emotions involved. Once you have selected the “best” email copy, test it against other copy to keep improving the process. Always remember testing is not limited to the email copy, you can have more than one landing page developed to test against variable conversions.

Let me know if you need a FREE evaluation of your email copy.

The Email Offer

Your Email Offer
What you offer is critically important in your email marketing efforts. Examples of offers might  be a sign-up for an event or downloading a white paper. The offer must have value to the prospect to encourage  the open, click through to a landing page, and a completed form.
On line events such as webinars or educational presentations and white papers are very often presented as offers. Price related offers with discounts are also quite common as are free consultations with an expert. These pull marketing efforts convert with a higher rate than a request to buy something.
Email offers that convert recipients into leads share some common characteristics:

   A good offer is something that the prospect wants.
   The subject line catches interest and prompts the open.
   The offer needs to be easy to understand.
   Finally the offer needs to have value.

The integration between your email and the landing page needs to be clearly defined. The loss of continuity
between the two can diminish your returns. For example, your email offer and copy should match your landing page offer and copy.  The email offer should help create a deeper relationship or bond with the prospect. The offer may also move prospects further down the sales and marketing funnel, closer to the point of purchase.

Here Are 5 Essential Steps To A Great Email Offer

Brainstorm your offer. The offer may not be your product but it should have value to the recipient. Offers include newsletters, white papers, online events, pricing discounts, and free product trials. Think back to your target audience. Who are they and what are their priorities? This will help determine the offer.

Think about how valuable the offer is to the prospect. Is it of sufficient value to entice the prospect to click through to the landing page? The offer is usually the key determinant of whether your email will drive opens, clicks and form submissions. Can you make an offer that is relevant to the position in the buying funnel? Be sure to move the prospect closer to the point of sale
.
Be sure that prospects will understand the offer in three seconds or less. This means you need to make sure that your email subject line and headline capture the essence of the offer and associated benefits.

Keep it simple. You should start with an offer that doesn’t require a lot of work. Offers in the form of content such as a newsletter, white paper, or online event are usually the easiest to create.

Make sure you can deliver. You need a way to capture information, place it in a database and  a mechanism to deliver. For more information or a FREE consultation contact us today.

Segmenting your list

NOW THAT YOU HAVE A LIST

Always, the first step to successful email marketing campaigns is to target specific types of prospects. If you’re like most businesses, your email database likely contains various types of customers and prospects that vary according to factors like gender, geography, and interests. While you can sometimes send the same email to all of these folks, it’s usually more effective to create specific email campaigns for a list of recipients who fit a certain profile. You may profile on a specific or perhaps more than one.

THE POWER OF PROFILING

Targeting particular recipients with contextually relevant emails offers you and them a lot of benefits. For example, if your product is baseball uniforms, an email to soccer moms will not have the same impact as an email to baseball coaches. The result is you have probably wasted your time and theirs and you risk having the soccer mom remove herself from your mailing list.

Moreover, the email will have higher open rates, when recipients will it more relevant and  more prospects will click through to your landing page completing the form. Your side benefit is   the email will see lower unsubscribe rates. So profiling or list segmentation can be critical to a successful list.

DIFFERENT TYPES OF FOLKS

Your first step is to understand the types of customers you do business with. Depending on your market you may have several different types but a segment may have some unique qualities that set them apart. So start with some obvious items but keep it to three or four to maintain a sense of congruity. Think of terms that may apply. They may be geographical, gender or any characteristic that is common among a group. Keep the persona of your customers simple and keep the criteria to three or four types. Once you have a handle on these core segments or persona, you can create additional segments later on.

SEGMENT YOUR LIST

We have all heard the term “walk before you run”.  The phrase couldn’t be more true, when you are segmenting your database. To start, try segmenting using some simple criteria like geography mentioned above. Later on, you can tackle more advanced techniques, such as behavioral segmentation that will allow you to send emails to specific types of prospects based on some action or behavior you know they have taken in the past.

Stepping into this process will require access to your database and information about the people in that list. Have they purchased before? If so, what did they buy? Look for age or age ranges. Start a spread sheet and record the information. It takes work but it is well worth the effort. Soon, you will slot new people into segments of your database based on the criteria you have selected before they go to your mailing list.  If you need help, send us a note for a FREE phone consultation. Or if you wish to comment we would love to hear from you!

Build A List

Email marketing  requires a list. List building requires collecting information and that requires a process. Fortunately, there are several proven techniques for collecting emails from your target prospects. Most of these techniques involve presenting visitors to your website with persuasive offer so they will share their email address with you. 

 As a best practice you should set monthly targets for the number of email addresses you’d like to add to your database where the focus is your target market. First step; Develop a plan that specifies the specifics for the people you want in your database and monthly targets. That might be age, gender, education or any items that describe the customer you want.

Best Practices

Your list building will depend on three main elements. First, you need to find a way to drive a large number of people to your website or landing page. This is by nature a numbers game. Second you need to present an offer they find useful so they will sign up. It must be relevant to their needs. Finally pay attention to the form elements on your page. It needs to be designed with conversion in mind. If it is “blab bla” then you can expect that type of response.

What is it you will need to collect? Some marketers start with a name and email address, while others collect other information so they can differentiate their list for targeting specific types of prospects. The less you ask for, the higher your completion rates will be. Make sure that what you offer prospects is compelling enough for them to choose to share their email information with you.

Here are 8 Steps to Building A Quality Email List 

1. Establish a monthly goal for the number of emails you’d like to collect each month. 
2. It’s important to focus your list-building efforts on your target  prospect so your campaign  will provide conversion rates that allow you to hit your lead generation and revenue targets. 
3. The most important item is to specify the data that you need to collect. The email address is most important and additional information requests can reduce the sign-up conversion rate. 
4. You don’t need to be a database expert to manage your email list. Just make sure that the technology you use is capable of storing the data you collect and will allow you to manipulate it into smaller lists according to some factor, without changing the master list. 
5. If you’re an established business, you likely already have some prospect and customer email addresses. In many cases, you can use these email addresses to seed your list.
6. You’ll need to offer people something in return for their contact information. common offers include “white papers”, “how-to-do papers” and online events. 
7. It is important to have an opt-in process so you do not violate any of the spam laws. Just putting a person on a list without permission could lead to litigation or worse. A double opt-in is the best practice because it confirms the signup.
8. A simple best practice when building your list is to send a thank you or welcome email to prospects after they sign up. Create an automatic triggered email to make this happen quickly. This allows you to start building a relationship with the prospect right away and sets the tone for future emails that they will receive from you.

Michael