Here are the nuts and bolts:

• Brain storm, come up with one sentence descriptions of your service or product.  Get ideas from emails that you’ve received, mimic the sales element  the  best subject lines you’ve seen.
• Create four or five different subject lines.  This is important, make sure they aren’t too similar to one another.
• Create spread sheets or something designed for tracking data.  List out the subject lines in different cells so you can easily track the results of each subject line.  I found it easiest to assign a numberical value to each subject line.
• After you send out your emails, track how many people respond to each subject line. 

This approach is one that I have personally taken and seen success with.  Also this is only half the equation, the body of the email is equally important; which I will be touching on the body in the next post.  After we go over the body of the email, we’ll tie together both the subject line and the body to create the ultimate email. 

Email is a crazy thing, if you don’t get any responses or you have mixed results stick with it.  Make sure you measure all of your results, it doesn’t take much time and if you stick with it long enough you will ultimately accomplish your objective.  Again this is a strategy for manual email marketing, its free but it can be time consuming.

The next post will definitely be about the content  in your messsage, also known as the body.

Today’s topic is one of the most important topics when it comes to email marketing.  There are laws and regulations surrounding email marketing that are important to consider before you begin.

Permission based markting is the concept that every person you send an email to has to opt in or agree to recieve messages from you.  In order to be Can-Spamm compliant you must have a “opt in” list, however this only matters if your sending mass emails.  Odds are if you are sending mass emails you are probably using some kind of service, any kind of legitimate service will have rules and regulations regarding the information you must provide.

That being said, I don’t personally see any harm in cold solicitations.  After all business is business and email is a form of communication;  and again I’m not talking about spamming someone.  If you offer a service or product that you believe will benefit a business there is no harm in contacting someone out of the blue.

Who do you send it to?

Really sit down and think who would need your product or service… Hopefully this isn’t the first time you’ve done this.  Now if you want to do it for free, start doing some good old fashioned detective work.  Again this is only for business to business communication!

Use the search engines, use directories, use any resource which might list your potential customers email addresses.  Log them in a spread sheet, I would recommend Google Docs for ease of use.  Keep gathering email addresses until you have a good quality list.

Also, if you have a website make sure you include a place for visitors to leave their email addresses.  If people aren’t leaving their information give them a reason why they should… Offer something free!  Its a revolutionary thought, but this is the information age and people value good information.  If you have a site that offers goods or services, then offer exclusive savings in exchange for participation in your email list.

Next time I’ll start in on subject lines…

Like I said yesterday email marketing is a pretty extensive topic.  I touched on a bit of history in regard to email marketing yesterday, its awesome to think that email has been around for so long.  Its also pretty morbid, email was first designed as a means for communication in case of a nuclear Holocaust.  Either way email has proven to be a useful tool (and a huge time consumer!), its almost indispensable,and has revolutionized business and personal communication. 

There are a few disclaimers I need to throw into this one. 

• Don’t be a prick!  Think about how lame it is to get spam.  If you don’t like it, then don’t  send it.  Email marketing done properly should be sent to opt in only audiences (defined below)
• Look up the spam compliance in Google and it will give you a an idea of what you shouldn’t do.
• Be straight forward…  Let people know why you are contacting them.

 So lets get to it:

Here are the basics, much like almost everything I recommend on this site test and measure your results.  Make sure your time and money are well spent.  Here are some of the things you need to analyze from an email marketing campaign.

K.P.I.’s  (key performance indicators)

Key performance indicators are the essential information that is generated from an email marketing campaign.  These pieces of information will allow you to gauge the success of your campaign.  If your campaign is successful you will know why, if not you will also know why.  

• Open rate: If you aren’t using an email service, then you may not be able to get this information.  Some email browsers like outlook will reflect your open rate.
• Click-through rate: This is important if you add links to your website, if you have analytics software it will reflect your increased traffic.
• Number of emails forwarded:  Again, this information is hard to come by unless your using an email service.
• ROI: Return on Investment, you will probably know whether or not you’ve generated any revenue.   If there is any doubt where your customers are coming from then simply ask them.

These are some of the basics, I am probably going to spend way more time on email then originally anticipated.  But it will be excellent information.

Thank You for coming to this blog and I hope that you’ve found this information useful.

Again, I have absolutely no affiliation with, nor I at this point have ever met Stokes.  I am not endorsing any business or service, simply using the best information at my disposal.   Enough said

“Email actually predates the Internet, and was first used as a way for users of the same

Email Marketing

Email marketing fits what I consider to be the fundamental definition of marketing, which is being in front of current and potential customers.  There are a ton of ways to use email as a marketing tool.  I am going to go over some of the basics through out this series, newsletter development, cold solicitation (ethically!),  and pretty much any other thing email can be used for. 

Tomorrow’s post will start out with the campaign objectives of an email campaign.

Until tomorrow….. 

Its great to start a new year, 2008 was interesting to say the least.  Things are already strating to turn around and its only a matter of time before we regain a collective sense of optimism.   At least in the marketing world it is a fresh start, the first quarter brings some pretty awesome possibilities.  If you have never done anyting to get in front of your customers before now is the time. 

I will be back to generating marketing tips for you in a couple of days.  I am preparing some information on email marketing for the next series of posts.

May 2009 be your best year yet!

This may be the last post until 2009.  This little blog is getting a pretty decent amount of views  so , I apologize for the time lapse.  I will be back in town the January 5th so, feel free to stop back in the January 6th or 7th and there should be some new info.

Good news is I’ve been doing a ton of research the past few days and have some really solid new content.  Right now I am absorbing everything and I’ll be regurgitating it soon, as not to plagiarise anyone.  I am going to start linking to pages that have valuable information, again I am not endorsing these sites, just steering you to good information.

It’s funny I was checking out some other blogs about marketing and realized I am not the only one… I am a minor leaguer compared to some of the sites out there.  Bear with me, I’m in the process of putting together a website right now.  Once we put together enough content we’ll have a nice site that is easy to navigate.

So let me get to it, how do you track and measure the success of what your doing?  Todays post will outline, a few simple ways to keep track of the results from a classified posting campaign.  

Ask:  when someone inquires with your business, ask how they heard about you.

Survey: surveys work on a number of different levels, for this purpose again ask how they found you.

Website: like surveys there are a number of different applications, for this purpose again include a section on your contact form that asks how they found you.

The only problem is that at least 50% of the people (opinion not fact) will not fill that part out  Put yourself in the consumers shoes, I personally dont fill the “how did you hear about us” section out.  You will have better luck asking people on phone or in person. 

As you gather the information you’ll want to make sure that record it, it doesn’t matter how you record it; tally sheets, excel spread sheets, whatever… just make sure you record it.  It is important information, that you will want to record. 

Keep track of daily, weekly, and monthly totals.  It is important to record as much information as you possibly can about the quality and quantity of the leads you get from the campaign.  If you are doing straight sales think about the dollar sale amount of the consumer, how often they buy from you etc…

Well I hope that this information has been useful for you, I’m not sure if I am going to go any further into classified marketing.  Some of the information will be pretty similar in up coming posts about directory marketing.  Stay tuned and HAPPY NEW YEARS!

I hope that you enjoyed the guest post by Kassidy from puget paint and drywall.  More importantly I hope that you took something away that will benefit your business.  From time to time you will see links to puget’s site, Kassidy and I have been working on some principles for SEO.  Check out his site and you will see a constant work of progress.

We’ve gone over classified sites like craigslist, as well as service rating sites like angieslist.  I never really got in depth about how to find free and low cost advertising, so I will outline a few quick concepts that will help.

• Google your local news paper, I’m sure they will have an online classified.  Most local papers offer posting in the both the electronic version of the paper as well as the actual paper. 
• Google, local directories, classifieds, service rating sites, you get the drift.  The point is just look around, develop a local “scouting report”. 
• Follow the links from the classified postings, see if you can find anything that might work for you. 
• Craigslist is in most areas, and it can either be low cost or free to post.  This is increasingly becoming more effective, as more people are looking are craiglist every day.

 You will inevitably come across sites that charge for advertising, here are some suggestions to consider.

• How much traffic is this source getting?  (the more eyeballs the better!)
• How relevant is the traffic?  (would the eyeballs spend money with you?)
• Think about the reputation of the source.  Getting in on the ground floor is great, but really think  about whether it’s money well spent.

I hope these tips have been useful, and feel free to comment with any questions or information.

It’s been a few days since my last post, I am in the middle of composing a case study that is an excellent example of  how to develop a business with marketing principles in your foundation.  I feel like the best information I can provide you can come from multiple channels.  So today’s post I’ve invited a guest writer.  Again, I want to provide you with information that can make an immediate impact for your business.  That being said the guest writer has successfully applied many marketing principles to his business, and can describe in better detail the importance of using “classified” style sites to increase your lead flow and build a strong reputation for your business.

Hi, my name is Kassidy Lane, my business is Puget Paint & Drywall, Inc. We are Seattle’s green painting company. Our website and more information about our company is available at www.pugetpaintanddrywall.com . I am not here to talk about our business today, so much as I am to talk about a specific tool that we have utilized successfully to help our business thrive and survive.

Angie’s list is a website that was first introduced to the City of Indianapolis Indiana a number of years ago. It has since spread all the way to the east and west coasts of the country with over 15000 members in the Seattle area alone. That number continues to grow presently, Dec 2008.

Members of Angie’s list are usually homeowners and sometimes small business owners themselves who have paid a membership fee that allows them access to other members comments and specific grading of services they themselves have purchased. It behooves the service provider to provide exceptional service and it helps purchasers weed out bad apples in the local service providing community. Angie’s list has saved countless people sorrow and strife by weeding those apples out and is by all members accounts worth every penny.

Our painting company in Seattle, WA is a perfect example of  a real success story with Angie’s List. We opened our doors for business on March 1st 2008. Its hard to say exactly at the moment but this may go down as one of the largest economical collapses in history. During the past year very established services providing companies, especially in residential constrution have been upheaved and reduced to layoffs and other cuts. During our first year we have met our goals for total sales, and having been recently awarded the Super Service Award by Angies List Members we anticipate greater success for 2009.

If you own a small business, you have may already have been reported on. In fact it is likely. What every small business owner in America needs to know is that you are being graded by mamy, many customers of yours. This may be seen as an added pressure to doing business, but for a business that does nothing but add value, it is a godsend. What better thing could a great business want than people talknig about them? Nothing.

In order to work this new opportunity in your favor you must follow a series of simple instructions.

First you need to go to www.angieslist.com and register your small business. Once you are registered you can see all of the reports that exist about your company. This will tell you more about your company that a pair of 20,000 dollar consultants can hope to give you in a weekend.

Second you follow up with every single past customer who you are possitve was extremely happy with the service you rendered them. Ask them if they would be interested in engaging with you on a cooperative marketing agreement. Ask them if they would like to recieve a $120.00 credit with your business in exchange for a referall on a website. The membership can cost them as little as 10 dollars for a one month membership, which is common if someone is looking for one service one time  and nothing more. Or your customer may elect to purchase the year long membership for 60 dollars. You must insist to your customer that they will not regret going with the year long membership. Every home owner I know who is a member absolutely loves it.

It is also of vital importance that you stress to you customer that you are in no way paying them for a ‘good’ referall. You are simply giving them a gift of a great membership that you believe in very strongly and an aditional 60 dollars over the cost of the membership for their time. It usually takes one hour to register and fill out the extensive report on the service one has purchased. It is essential that the report be frank in its description of the experience.

Once you have three or four straight A reports on angies list in your service category you will start to reap the benifits of your groundwork. You will begin to recieve customers engaging you with requests for your service. Not only that but they are good quality leads that actually purchase your product with little if any hard negotiations. 

The bottom line is tha t if your company is offering a valuable service you are probably already well on your way with Angies List or other service rating sites. It is worth it to check it out though  and with the help provided by the service rating sites themselves you can enhance your image in your marketplace. An enhanced image in your market place brings more qaulity customers.

After reflecting on the past couple of posts I realized that if anyone found this blog hoping to find some information on growing their business they would be pissed.

So here’s a quick and easy technique that is all but guaranteed to generate some “now” business.  A couple of discalimers before I unleash this one: 1. All of these suggestions may not be free, however I’m sure there are tools in your local community that are free 2. Dont be a rat, meaning once you get the hang of it dont take advantage 3.  Much like all of my free tips they take time and patience, if something doesn’t work the first couple of times be patient.

Craigslist and classifieds!

I dont know what else to say other then that, its pretty much that simple.  Someone might look at this and say duh… except the fact of the matter is most people are missing the boat with this one.  I personally know people steering multimillions dollar businesses using craigslist and classified ads alone.

 If you live in a smaller area, or work in certain industries craigslist is free.  If you have time check out the craigslist manifesto, they seem like a bunch of really neat people.  Either way they have spent a ton of time and money developing a free classified system, so take advantage.  Its not like you are doing anything wrong by posting ads in craigslist, I’m sure the folks over their would be happy to know that you are using their site.

Craigslist can work really well for service industries, mlm’s, and smaller boutique style businesses, property managers, and realestate agents.  There are some regualtions regarding there service, dont over post they will take it down.  I’m not going to illustrate any underhanded methods, but once you start using it you can probably figure out ways to get around posting limits.

(hint: email accounts are free all over the place! Change up your ad for each posting)

News papers classifieds are a bit different, in smaller areas where the online version of the paper is under developed you can get ads in the classified section for free.  Depending on what you do investing in a classified ad for the paper can be a business maker, plus some papers will put your classified ad online at no additional cost as part of the purchase.

The Nickel, auto trader, etc…

Not free but a ton of people read those things religiously, its worth considering if there is a weekly that features your product or service.

Tips:

This is standard for any form of advertising campaign, test and measure different ads.  Come up with 4 or 5 different messages as well as 4 or 5 different tags (subject lines).  Mix and match them everytime you post and ad, track the results see which ads are performing better.  Be prepared to test your ads a bunch of different times, its important to find a good combination that works.

Dont get discouraged if it doesn’t work, try it our for awhile.  If it doesn’t work try it again later, especially free services, after all they’re free!

Examples:

Mlm’s:  I know a person who has built a significant down line using, “work from home ads”.  So much so he has built a pretty decent passive income.  Its funny I dont really endorse mlm’s, I dont think they work for 95% of the world.  Honeslty I had never met anyone that had ever made any money until I saw this guy in action.

Property management:  I’ve seen this work on not just one but many property managment companies.  Acctually its how I found the place I live in now!

Service industries:  A couple of my best friends own a paint and drywall company in seattle, they do a ton of marketing.  SEO, promotional products, social networking, strategic alliances, and anything else under the sun.  They swear by craigslist, when business is slow they pump up the craigslist ads and pretty much wait for the phone to ring.  They are just as busy as ever, during the winter in Seattle, in a “down economy”, and these guys touch on a key point they “pull the trigger” when it comes to marketing.

I went way over on this post, I’ll get back to social epidemics soon.

After I finished the post yesterday I started thinking about whether or not I should have started with social epidemics.  After all the stated intention of this blog is to show free ways to generate business for your website or business. 

I can justify it by looking at the broader implications of Mr. Gladwell’s work.  Social epidemics are a great way to look at the moving parts of a successful marketing campaigns, the psychology and social process behind generating a buzz.  I’m not saying that applying theses principles is going to produce a pandemic everytime; but keeping these principles in mind when developing your marketing strategy definetly won’t hurt.  All that being said here is a continuation of yesterdays post.

• The Stickiness factor

For anything to become memorable it has some level of “stickability”  basically the stickiness factor uses case studies to show how packaging information in a irresistable way can make an idea or product sitck. 

The best examples Gladwell uses are Sesame street and Blues Clues, the idea that these shows are built around the concept of educating children. 

Sesame Street:  Blended fiction and reality, something as simple as puppets interacting with human beings in a human enviroment was among one of the main factors for Sesame Streets ability to stick.  Also, advances the concept of repetition as a great way to make a lesson stick.

Blues Clues:  Furthered the concept of repetition, apparently they run one episode of blues clues for a week straight.  It is the best way to make the lesson outlined in that particular show stick in the minds of children.  The coolest thing I took away from this chapter was that Blues Clues is pretty much Sesame Street on steriods, as far as educating children goes.

From my understanding stickability in its simpilest form is how and why people will remember an idea, product, or service.  Which I believe is a great question to ask yourself about whatever it is you do.  What makes me different?  Why should people remember me? I think that is at least a start.

Thats it for todays tommorrow I might start in on the power of context.