August 22, 2010

Ezines - An Essential Business Tool

 

Remember the old marketing research about a person having to see your message at least seven times before they buy from you? Well today it is more like twelve times.

An Ezine (email newsletter) gives you an easy way to keep in touch with current, past and potential clients (creating Top of Mind awareness), share valuable information, special promotions and establish yourself as an expert in your field. An ezine will allow you to reach thousands or millions of customers locally and globally.

Anatomy of a good ezine -

  1. Provider - Use a reputable service provider like Constant Contact, IContact or MailChimp. Make sure your provider has backend reporting so you can track your open rates and click throughs.  
  2. Database - Make sure your list has "opted in"  
  3. Layout - Pick a template that meets your needs and then have it customized with your business colors and graphics 
  4. Name of ezine - Pick a catchy name so it is memorable and it stands out from the crowd in your recipients inboxes 
  5. Keep it brief (one or two "pages"), most people "scan" through their emails, and you want yours to be read, make sure your content is worth reading.  
  6. Send your ezine at least once a month but no more than once a week depending on your business and your readers.  
  7. Consider Archiving your ezines and having a link to the archive on your website so potential subscribers can see if it's for them. Archives are also great for the press/media to learn more about your business. 
  8. What to include -


    • Personal note from you, people do business with people they know, like & trust
    • Educational information, resources and links
    • A promotion about your product or service
    • Pictures with each article
    • Your social media and website links
    • An easy way for readers to forward your ezine to others
    • A simple way to unsubscribe
    • Your Company name, mailing address and phone number
      
How do you get more subscribers? Promote, promote, promote!! On your website, blog, social media, at business networking events... Having a sign-up box for your ezine in the upper right corner of your website will capture some of your one-time visitors. You can also have an ezine sign-up form on your Facebook business page and on your Blog.

 
  
What results can you expect? Depending on how your mailing list was collected, who's on it and how old the list is.. You can expect an "open" rate somewhere between 18% and 75%. About 50% of the people who are going to read it will open it within the first 48 hours. People will forward it to others and it will continue to be seen for several weeks/months after you send it. Converting readers to clients will depend on your business, your offers and timing. But over time it will definitely increase your business revenue.

Along with your website, blog, social media marketing and traditional marketing, an ezine is an important business tool in today's marketplace!

Contact us for an evaluation of how your business could benefit from adding an Ezine to your marketing system, or how you can improve what you may currently be doing in this area.

August 2, 2010

How Do You Stay Connected To Your Clients?



As the demographics of business continue to evolve around us, our marketing must evolve also. You've probably noticed that what you used to do is no longer working as well as it used to. So now what do you do?

People are craving connection and access to information. Are you making it easy for them to connect with you?

Let's start with the basics... The vast majority of businesses are now using enewsletters, blogs and social media in their marketing. Why? Because it works!

1. Enewsletters - Are an inexpensive way to keep in touch with your clients and potential clients. You can inform, showcase your knowledge, services and products. There are many different enewsletter service providers like Constant Contact, IContact, AWeber etc. Some are easier to use than others.

2. Blogs - Rank high in search engine results with their frequently changing content, links to/from your website, keywords, tags etc. From free to thousands of dollars to set up, blogs are a great place to showcase your knowledge and services, and are a great way to expand the reach of your website, newsletter and social media marketing.

3. Social Media - Is either an extremely effective way to connect with your clients and potential clients, or done poorly it is a complete waste of time. Did you know that the 85% of the USA population spends 55 minutes or more on Facebook every day? Roughly one hundred million people use Twitter. Small businesses and major corporations are using social media to interact with their customers every day because it works!

In conjunction with your website, these three marketing tools can dramatically improve your results! We will be going into more depth on each of these in future newsletters.

                              

Please feel free to contact us for an evaluation of how your business could benefit from adding these to your marketing system, or how you can improve whatever you may currently be doing in these areas.