There are hundreds upon hundreds of sales methodologies in the
world. From the One-Minute Sales
Person to Spin Selling. If you
were boil them all together into one great big "keys to being a
successful sales person" pot, it really comes down to just one
thing - truly successful sales people have to be curious -
about everything. My team often has to hear me expound on
that very thing - in order to be successful,
they have to be curious. They have to want to know
more information about their customers than the next guy:
information about their business, how they make
money, their goals,...
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You might think that statement is sacrilegious for someone
whose very career depends on email marketing. Don't worry...just
give me a chance to explain. What I mean is that you
can not think of your email marketing program the same as those "As
Seen on TV" products. You can't just set it and forget
it. Email has to be a part of an overall marketing
strategy and communication plan with customers. Whether B2B
or B2C, you have to have a plan and many times that plan
may include other mediums: social, sites, mobile,
print, etc.
Some businesses have got it into their heads that once the...
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Although I haven't been blogging about email marketing lately (OK,
I admit it..I've been missing in action). I have been
busy - I've been trying my hand at being "
social". I've been focusing mostly
on
Twitter. I can't say that
I feel like I have all the answers on when to update what and
where, but I am learning. I am fascinated by some of the
recent case studies of companies that have demonstrated the
best (and
worst)
uses of social media.
For the average small business,
incorporating social media can be truly daunting task.
Which social media outlet to update? One? All of
them? For...
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I am one of those people who plant a
vegetable garden. Keep in mind that gardening is supposed to
be a stress reliever. Instead, every year I have
more of something than one family can possibly eat.
So then I have a tendency to become stressed about what to do
with the abundance of veggies taking up space in my
refrigerator. One can only give away so many tomatoes,
squash and cucumbers. So I can - yes I am one of
those people.
This year I was better prepared
than in my previous attempts at homesteading. There
are many who think that canning is a lost art known only by our
grandmothers...
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Summer in Indiana can be hot...really REALLY hot and humid.
The kind of days where you want to just sit still. Everything
slooooowwwws down. Moving requires a great amount of
effort. It may bring on a sweat just lifting an
eyebrow. In fact, I've been moving so slow that it
has taken me a couple weeks to write this blog post.
Often times I think we tend to do
the same thing with our email marketing programs. Can't we
just let it be? The answer is not really...you have to sweat
a little in order to drive results. But keeping with our
theme, we can take it slow and focus on one thing at a...
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So now that we've decided that
it's ok to focus on one aspect of your email marketing program at a
time, let's start with
Subscriber
Engagement. Back in the day, I used to host a monthly
webinar on email marketing best practices. In those webinars
we would talk about tracking. One of the many cool
things about using
ExactTarget is the ease by
which you can track the effectiveness of your email
programs. From the minute you hit the send button, you
start seeing all kinds of really cool data on that email campaign:
opens, clicks, did-not-opens, did-not-clicks, delivery stats,
etc.
The data...
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This time of year in Indiana is basically a weather cornicopia
- hot and humid (wickedly humid), partly sunny, pop-up severe
thunderstorms, 60mph winds, enough rain to cause flash floods, and
the occassional tornado. Summer is like a weatherman's
Superbowl, World Cup and Academy Awards all rolled into one.
Midwesterners that are prone to DVRing know that it's hit
or miss as to whether you are recording your favorite show or
play-by-play storm watch for two hours (and I really wanted to see
the Last Comic Standing). The only things missing are
plague, pestilence and the kitchen sink.*
Trying...
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There is that old saying that "everything
old is new again". This occurred to me the other day as we went
through some training on social media and ExactTarget's newest
family member - CoTweet. The key theme focused on
listening - listening to your customers. Social media
provides unique capabilities to do just that. Listen and
then respond. Take what you have learned through listening and
apply that to your email marketing programs.
It occurred to me that when it comes to right down to
it...listening to your customers, your subscribers, your fans,
your followers...that it all goes back to...
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Wow...I've been a bad blogger. You can officially virtually
slap my hands with a ruler. No excuses..I won't even
try. I will say that I am re-energized though. Last
week I got the rare opportunity to spend four days focusing on
me. I was at a leadership retreat in Arkansas. I will
be the first to admit, that I can be very VERY skeptical of
such programs. I don't look forward to them to the point of
dreading them. But this one actually proved me wrong.
It was invigorating and at the same time a
bit overwhelming - focusing so much energy on oneself
and one's own thoughts.
One of the...
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Maybe I am
just a little too happy about the warmer weather... but I can smell
Spring in the air. The snow has finally all melted, the birds
are chirping, the days are getting warmer. Yes, Spring is in the
air. Granted my happiness may be a tad premature. As
the saying goes: if you don't like the weather in
Indiana just wait 10 minutes. We could easily have more
snow during the month of March. Whatever the case, I am
going with it.
Spring is also the time to think about Spring cleaning. I am
one of those weird people that actually looks forward to spring
cleaning. I like the idea of...
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Everyone
knows that I love to hear how our customers are using
ExactTarget's application for their email marketing campaigns -
especially when it is a great example of incorporating good
design, call-to-actions, and cross sells - while still
maintaining anticipated, relevant and personal content
for subscribers. DineWise is a company that
specializes in prepared gourmet meals delivered right to your
door. They send both informational and promotional emails
through ExactTarget.
Check out this recent article on exactly what sets their
emails apart.
Ok..I admit it, I am not making a great start to the year when it
comes to keeping up with my blog. It is soo easy to get
bogged down in the day to day, that I find myself at the end
of each week wondering where it went. Poof! Another
week gone by in the blink of an eye. And we're only in
the second month of the year..not a good sign of things to
come.
Talking to clients, this same phenomenon easily takes hold of their
email programs. All the best intentions to prep, plan, test,
target, review, revamp are diminished by the need to get the email
out the door. Poof! Another send...
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Santa looked at his list, checked it twice and
probably thinks that I had been naughty not nice
lately...especially as it relates to blog entries. Like
everyone else during the holidays, time slips away from me like
grains of sand through my fingers. I can't seem to get a firm
hold on anything let alone get everything done in the time
allotted. This should be the time of year when we can slow
down and reflect upon our lives. Refresh, regroup and
reconnect.
This should also be the time when you can look at your email and
1-to-1 marketing programs - reflect, refresh and regroup - a
time to...
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Do you clip coupons? Nowadays many people forgo the
ritual of sitting at the kitchen table clipping coupons.
I have to admit - I am a coupon queen. I sign
up for emails from my favorite stores for the coupons. I
print them out so that they are at-the-ready in case
I happen to go by that store during the course of my weekend
errands. I am the type of person that looks
forward to the weekend paper if only for the
coupons.
I get excited at the end of a grocery shopping trip when I can
gaze fondly on the receipt and the long list of coupons that
were used. On those big grocery excursions, I...
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Marketers live in a very strange world. We know that
marketing drives revenue - whatever your definition of marketing
may be. Whether handing out fliers on the street corner,
shouting from the rooftops, or implementing the most sophisticated
Internet search optimization campaign leveraging every keyword
known to man - you are marketing. You have to tell someone
something about your products/services in order for them to know to
buy from you. Otherwise you find
yourself sitting all alone just hoping that someone somewhere
happened to notice the sign you hung on your door.
The weird thing...
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I don't know
about you, but I like to enjoy each holiday on its own and in
order. Especially in the Fall when the three big holidays
come hurtling at you back to back from the dark days of Fall:
Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. I don't put out
Halloween decorations until October, I don't buy a turkey until
November and I don't really start planning for Christmas until
after Thanksgiving. I definitely do not shop
for Christmas presents in July! Who really does that
anyway?
Unfortunately in the world of email marketing, you need to start
planning your holiday email program now - today...
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This morning I am attending
Connections 09
breakout session focused on growing your email marketing subscriber
base with
Morgan Stewart
serving as commentator. This concept is a great follow-up to
my recent posts on how to
grow
your email marketing list.
8:30am - 50% of consumers consider non-permission email from
companies that they are familiar with as Spam...that number has
doubled year over year.
8:45am - what are they keys to growing your subscriber base?
Asking basic questions of your subscribers...do they want to
receive email from you and what kind of email do they want to
receive?...
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I have mentioned before that my goal for this blog was to
feature success stories from our small business customers.
One of the things I love about working with this business segment
is that success and change can actually have a bigger and
more immediate impact. It can be the simplest of ideas and
programs that pack the greatest punch. I have been talking
about list growth and ideas on building your lists. A press
release this week for
Nytro Sports gives a great example of a simple way to grow your
email marketing lists - have a contest! This is their
second big giveaway in 12 months....
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Wednesday was the first day of Fall - the
Autumnal Equinox. It's funny...one would think that when the
weather starts to cool down and the days become shorter that things
would start to slow down. But quite the opposite happens.
Fall is the time for holidays and holiday planning - Halloween,
Thanksgiving, Hannuka, Christmas and New Year's Eve - parties, open
houses, pitch-ins...you name it. They come at you fast and
furious and before you know it kids are at your door looking for
candy...while you sit inside your house in the dark hoping
they go away because you hadn't planned ahead and...
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A few weeks ago I talked about starting with the basics as it
relates to email marketing. The most basic of which is
building and growing your email list. A great message or
product doesn't do any good if you have no one to send it to.
To help you even further, ExactTarget recently announce our
Email List Growth
Advisor. This is a great way to get started - answering a
few baseline questions about your business, your email
marketing program and your current methods of gathering email
addresses. In just five simple steps, we
provide high-level guidance on some immediate
changes/improvements...
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