The BusinessVoice Blog

An email newsletter is a great tool to add to your marketing arsenal. If you’re new to this, here are some answers to the most common questions about getting started.

Why send an email newsletter?

Easy answer here:  email is the most cost-effective marketing medium with the highest Return On Investment .  And if you’re trying to grow your customer share — and you should be — it’s a great way to market to your existing clientele.

What should I put in an email newsletter?

Think about what you would want to read in a trade magazine about your business. Is it article after article that tries to sell you something?  Probably not. Instead, give your readers how-to information, tips, advice and success stories without the sales pitch. Build a relationship as a helpful expert and they’ll become interested in doing more business with you.

How often should I send an email newsletter?

Strike the right balance and deliver your newsletter often enough so you’re not forgotten by your subscribers, but not so often that you wear out your welcome in their in-box.  A monthly newsletter is typical, but every other month — or every other week — is also fine. Whatever you choose, be consistent in your delivery.

When should I send an email  newsletter?

Consider how most of us handle our email. Monday brings a flood of waiting messages. Friday is a getaway day for many people — the day we like to get away from email that can sit unread until Monday. That leaves Tuesday through Thursday, and late morning on any of these days is the best time to avoid the email rush hours.

Where do I get email addresses from?

It’s NOT a good idea to buy a list, for two reasons: first, it’s expensive, and second, you can run afoul of laws that require you to have a business relationship with recipients or get their prior permission to send emails. Better to build your list from existing clients and anyone who you contact. Create a sign-up page on your web site (here’s where you can find the code you need to create a web sign-up form) and link to it from every other page. You can also add a link to this page in your email signature, so every email you send includes a sign-up offer.  Be proactive and make calls to your clients or customers and ask permission to sign them up.

If you have more questions or want some expert assistance, there are plenty of companies that offer email newsletter design, content creation and delivery services. Whether you do it yourself  or get some help, consider using an email newsletter to market your expertise and grow your business.

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Remember the movie Field Of Dreams and the famous line, “If you build it, they will come?” Some people think that’s true about business web sites — just build a great one and they’ll come. But to keep them coming, you need to begin renovations immediately.

Keeping your web site fresh is vital for everyone and every thing that is visiting. People like to see new content and features, and so do the search engine robots that sample your web site looking for updates to your pages. But what should this content be? Scott Randolph of 7xo Media has some sound advice in this area:

You need to craft all your content with an eye for the ultimate goal - conversion.  You need to come up with a schedule and stick to it (this is much harder than it sounds).  You will need to create content that is interesting and useful for someone, even if they aren’t your customer.  You need to give options to share your content (social bookmarking buttons, email this buttons, etc…) - and encourage people to use them.

A web site upgrade doesn’t have to be a huge task if you’re freshening your content on a regular basis. You can create customer tips and produce mini case studies. Add testimonials or begin a blog that lets you comment on industry trends and pass along great ideas.  Open a Twitter account for your business and include a listing of your Twitter posts on your web site. Piece by piece, you can build a better business web site by never finishing the job.

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You probably know the latest round of Best Buy commercials by now — the Best Buy employees are telling the stories of how they’ve interacted with customers to make their dreams come true.  The latest commercial in the series kicks it up a notch and takes Wal-Mart to task.

The employee is telling a story about a customer who calls in asking very specific questions about televisions. The employee asks the customer where they are calling from, and the customer replies Wal-Mart. See the whole spot here. (It starts at about the 14-second mark.)

Major ouch for Wal-Mart. Not only are they being portrayed as not being experts in electronics, but also as shoddy at customer service.

The sad fact for Wal-Mart is it’s true. I had the same experience when I went shopping for a new flat screen LCD television. I priced models at Target and Wal-Mart. Target was too expensive, and I couldn’t find anyone to answer my questions. At Wal-Mart, the prices were great, but I had questions. When I tried to ask the sales associate on the floor, not only did he initially brush me off, but when he finally got around to talking to me, it turned out that I knew more about the televisions than he did!

So I, like the customer in the commercial, went to Best Buy. I didn’t know about their price-match promise, and truthfully, it wouldn’t have mattered. The sales person (yes, I had to wait for a bit to speak with one, it was a busy day in the store) was attentive, answered all my questions, and actually talked me out of buying the more expensive set I was considering because their store brand had all the same features, and was manufactured by the same company, it just didn’t have the big name attached to it.

Score one for Best Buy.

I don’t know why I didn’t go there first… probably because I was fixated on Wal-Mart’s low prices. But I’m proof that people are willing to pay a little more for personal attention and great advice. And that’s a lesson we can all use when running our businesses. Counsel your customers/clients. Provide them with great information and honest feedback. This brings more value to their experience than you know, and it will be worth more to you in the long run with a satisfied, loyal customer who may one day turn in to your biggest cheerleader.

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It’s been a long time coming, but the old stand-by tricks and techniques used by the marketing industry are fast fading away in the face of new media opportunities and technologies.

Gone are the days of global one-note branding. No longer can we create one message and expect it will be heard in the same way by all the members of our audience. Today’s most successful companies are working towards brand transparency and communicating directly with their customers about benefits, services and products specific to their individual needs.

Noted marketing blogger Jonathan Salem Baskin had this to say in a piece in AdvertisingAge:

If I’m right, you can throw all of those surveys and studies on the imaginary value of your brands into the garbage. Your challenge is far greater than adopting new media; the real experiments — offering the potential of real returns — require that you revisit, and risk revising, your very conception of your brands. Consumers are already doing it for you in every market you’re trying to reach.

And he’s right.

But there’s little to go on in terms of best practices for developing strategy in this new age of communication. So jump in with both feet and learn as you go. Experiment with new platforms, reach out to your customers in places they’re already active. You might just surprise yourself and redefine your brand in the process.

Read the whole article here and let me know what new things you’re trying.

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If it’s your job is to create marketing copy, here’s a great tip from the weekly newsletter of Daphne Gray-Grant, a writing coach and one of my favorite wordsmiths. When you’re having trouble getting started on a writing project, begin by reading someone else’s work. And before you think I’m advocating theft, here’s what she means:

The main idea is to find a piece of writing that provides a suitable model on which you can base your own work. Not only is this not procrastinating, it’s not even plagiarism provided you’re not looking for content. Instead you should be looking for style and writing architecture.

Gray-Grant suggests building a “swipe file” - a collection of some of the best work of other writers - to use as inspiration when you’re starting a project. If it’s true that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, any author would be proud to have you base your next ad or sales letter on their style.

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So, I got your attention with a compelling subject line, eh?

That’s what some people are getting right, as documented by email marketing specialist Josh Nason in Man Bites Giraffe: Some Awesome (and Awful) Email Subject Lines on MarketingProfs.Com. Nason offers some examples of great emails, and some that are truly cringe-worthy. Among his Do’s and Dont’s:

Don’t discount the importance of the From name. Keep it your company name and not an individual’s name or drawn-out term. In addition, keep your company name out of the subject line: It’s redundant-a waste of valuable real estate.

And this nugget of wisdom on subject lines:

Write a compelling subject line that won’t deceive people. If people aren’t opening it, that’s OK, as you’ll have many more campaigns to intrigue them. If you break the receiver’s trust early, you’ll have to work twice as hard to get it back. Never forget the Golden Rule.

You laugh, you’ll cry and you’ll learn from this two-part examination of what works — and what doesn’t — when you have just a few seconds to catch someone’s attention with your email marketing campaign.

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How many times have you said, “I’d like to start a blog,” or, “I should get with this Twitter thing,” only to be intimidated by the fear of not being able to do it well enough?

True story: I’ve owned my own domain name for years but never used it to create a web presence. It’s the perfectionist in me; the voice inside my head that says, “It has to be the best.”  I guess I’m not alone, because blogger Mark Ivey had the same problem. His advice? Try The Seven Habits Of  The “Just Good Enough” Marketer.

Ivey’s list is based on a simple premise — the explosion of social media has changed the rules about how we should craft our communications with customers and prospects. He says:

Every day I see companies that make these mistakes: they want to launch the perfect blog, create the polished video, craft the right message.

They often find out the hard way that this is not what blogging and social media is about. It’s more about conveying compelling ideas and connecting with audiences in authentic ways, not just writing beautiful prose or top-down marketing approaches.

Speed is more critical too. There’s not enough time to go through two rounds of approvals on every blog. Slick videos are meanwhile seen as advertising — they don’t ring true.

The new style — conversational, open, engaging, and fluid — just doesn’t mix with traditional marketing and communications.

Ivey admits that these are hard habits to break, but doing this can get you off the sidelines and into social media faster, and that’s the whole idea. By the way, that web domain of mine that gathered dust for years? It’s now hosting a personal blog that I created and launched in just a few days last week. It’s far from perfect and I still struggle with the urge to do too many re-writes, but I’m learning that “Just Good Enough” is better than “Nothing.’ In fact, it might  be the best way to enter the new world of social media.

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Are you a retailer looking for the best way to use video advertising?  Look no further than your own checkout, because researchers say that in-store video advertising is up to three times more effective than traditional television ads.

That’s from a study co-authored by University of Illinois business professor Yunchuan Liu and University of Southern California economist Anthony J. Dukes.  It’s the first to examine the impact of in-store video advertising on the product-distribution chain.

The researchers looked at the success of Wal-Mart, which pioneered in-store video advertising in 1999. With 100,000 screens in more than 2,650 stores that reach 336 million shoppers every month, Wal-Mart has the fifth-largest reach of any network, trailing only ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox.

Up to 70 percent of consumers make brand decisions while they shop, and Liu said about a quarter of Americans now go to at least one retailer every week that uses in-store video advertising. Its effectiveness is proven by these important numbers from the study:

• Brand recall is 65 percent among Wal-Mart TV viewers
• Brand recall is just 23 percent for in-home TV ads

For retailers who want to use the most effective marketing, Liu said in-store video advertising is the wave of the future. When it comes to  “… impulse purchases [like] cereal, razor blades and those kinds of retail products, in-store advertising will be really important.”

The study said in-store advertising also provides social benefits, giving consumers product information as they’re shopping, when they need it most.

“In the future, we see more advertising available in stores, and more advertising shifting from commercial media to in-store media,” Liu said.

While large retailers like Wal-Mart were among the first to use in-store video advertising, it’s not limited to only the nation’s biggest chains. In-store video advertising services available from point-of-entry marketing providers offer a turnkey solution that can be cost-effective for almost any retailer and includes equipment and customized programming that can be updated on a regular basis.

For retailers large and small, in-store video advertising using LobbyVision from BusinessVoice can call customers to action to improve revenues right at the point of sale. And unlike television, in-store video advertising uses a medium that’s free of charge, with a built-in audience that can’t switch off or fast-forward through your ad.

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Yes, that’s our own Scott Greggory in the sound booth to record another On Hold Messaging production for a BusinessVoice client. This rare photo that documents Scott working in his native habitat was captured for a profile of BusinessVoice published in the Business section of the Toledo Blade. There’s more to see than just Scott’s pretty face — our commander-in-chief Jerry Brown talks about how BusinessVoice is working to put more sales value in every Point-Of-Entry Marketing solution. And be sure to read about how a humorous approach to On Hold Messaging is working for one of our clients with award-winning results.

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We’re pretty proud to have been awarded an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau.

This rating represents BBB’s degree of confidence that BusinessVoice is operating in a trustworthy manner and will make a good faith effort to resolve any customer concerns. BusinessVoice has been a BBB-accredited business since January 2000.

Read the report here.

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