Wow – I haven’t blogged in a week! Not sure what happened there but I’m back! There are statistical, meaningful ways to increase your open-rate but how do you know if your readers are actually reading the email? Maybe they email you back? Click on the coupon and bring it in? Forward it to a friend? Those are surefire ways to know that they are reading your email but I want to share with you some fun, creative ways to get your readers involved and reward them for their involvement. It is so nice to receive replies to your email that you spent time developing, isn’t it? So why not make replying mean something, worth it, rewarding and fun? So on this Friday that is turning out to be simply amazing I wanted to share some fun, creative ways to get your readers to engage with you and will reward them. Consider the following suggestions: e-Quest: At the top of your newsletter (not blaring, big and obtrusive, by the way) invite readers to email you (make the words “email me” a link to ...
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I made the horrible mistake of posting my email address in one of my blog posts one day and it was brought to my attention by my thoughtful husband. I immediately removed the link to my email address but I was too late. It didn’t take long for the ‘bots’ and ‘spiders’ to crawl into my blog and retrieve my email address. This is just another reason why I am a huge advocate for permission based emailing and building your email list based on integrity and ethics. Now, I get an insane number of disgusting, offensive and misleading emails on a daily basis. Granted, most of them go directly into my spam/junk folder BUT I still consider it an invasion. Yes, invasion may be a strong word but that’s how I feel about it. It probably irritates me more than the average person because I am an email marketing professional. It’s maybe similar to when my brother-in-law (a Navy pilot) has to fly a commercial flight and wishes he were the one flying the plane. When someone rudel ...
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Wow that’s a really boring subject line huh? I’m so against those too! I’m struggling today to keep my mind focused on one thing. It seems like I’ve got an overflowing of ideas today and am trying to reign them in. Do you ever have days/moments like that? It seems like today is the day and maybe that’s because it’s the first time in DAYS that I’ve got the house back to myself. Last week was Spring Break and I had a wild-n-crazy 7 year old boy running around. He is back in school now and my niece (who stays with us on and off) is out of the house studying. So… I’ve got peace and quiet in my house for a little while. I needed to get into that creative mindset to help myself develop some ideas for … well let’s leave it at ideas. :) I’m not ready to divulge yet! So as I did my normal routine of turning on my favorite positive & encouraging radio station K-Love, turned off the A/C and opened my door to allow some fresh air in I got more than I bargained for. Not ...
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When I think of the Trinity I think of the Father, Son & the Holy Ghost. I think most people probably do. However, I am from Louisiana and down here some people also think of the Cajun Trinity: celery, onion & bell pepper. LOL Yep, it’s true. When you want to cook like a Cajun you need to use the basic ingredients in almost any Cajun dish and that is referred to as the Cajun Trinity. So when you think of “trinity” it is the union of 3 things. So to keep this blog post short, simple and quick I want to share what I’m calling the E- Trinity Error: 3 things you should never do when emailing your clients. To be honest, these are some of my own personal pet peeves so you can take ‘em or leave ‘em but please be sure to read ‘em! Rushing! When you jump online and throw your email to your clients together and send it out quickly with no forethought – it is usually sorely obvious. There are misspellings, grammatical errors and cosmetic issues such as bad spacing, bad links, etc ...
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~ Email Marketing ~ Washing Clothes ~ Cooking ~ ~ Play dates ~ Social networking ~ Playing with my son ~ ~ Managing Finances ~ Blogging ~ Carpool ~ It’s Spring Break in my son’s school and juggling my work at home, my work “from” home and him can be overwhelming. I’m thankful that God wired me with the skills to multitask. Multitasking doesn’t mean you always get things done while managing sanity but, to me, means that you get things done….completely and on time. I can still do that – it’s just the remaining sane part that troubles me! LOL Sometimes the only way I can get my work done completely and on time is to do it in chunks. Yes, in a perfect world I would tackle one project at a time but in mom’s world that’s not always the way. So…chunking is the way to go :) As I sit here blogging (supposedly about email marketing to auto repair shops) my precious, highly energetic, 7 year old son and 5 year old Cocker Spaniel are tearing apart my backyard. Our day so far…. The wake-up routin ...
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I’m not sure what it’s like where you are but here in Hammond, LA the sky is darkening and the rain is imminent. On top of that it’s Friday and people are preparing for the weekend. If we still had our shop open I can just imagine what we’d be saying: “It’s a rainy Friday and business is slow” or “We should just call it a day and take it home”. There were some Fridays where we were so busy we thought the end of the day would never get there. But if, for you, today you’re wondering what you can do to bring in some business on this rainy, slow Friday then open your mind to some positive thinking and let’s see what we can do! Granted, it is 11AM (CST) as I’m writing this and much of the day is already gone so perhaps this will give you some ideas for “next time”. But put your seat belt on and let’s roll. Consider the following questions to help you get started: What’s happening in your town this weekend? Is there some festival (hey! I live in Louisiana – the capital ...
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Did you know that you may be doing something in your emails to clients that could cost you dearly??? If you are using email to communicate with your clients/potential clients then this law applies to you. The Act is not new but still many people are unaware of it and continue to use email to market to clients with no idea what they must contain in their emails. According to the Federal Trade Commission each non-compliant email can cost you up to $16,000! That is one seriously costly mistake. The 7 “Must Haves” in Email Marketing, as prescribed by the FTC are: Don’t use false or misleading header information. Your “From,” “To,” “Reply-To,” and routing information – including the originating domain name and email address – must be accurate and identify the person or business who initiated the message. Don’t use deceptive subject lines. The subject line must accurately reflect the content of the message. Identify the message as an ad. The law gives you a lot of leeway in how to ...
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Don’t you hate when get an email from a company and it doesn’t even relate to you, your purchasing habits or interests? I do! It drives me nuts so why, then would you not want to send emails to your clients to make them smile and know that you understand who they are and what they want. Just think about the intuitive message you send by emailing your clients based on what THEY WANT. It says to your client that you understand them, you get them, you listen. It’s epic! It’s not new though – so get on the train now if you’re not already! I love the simplicity of this video as Forrest shares quickly, yet succinctly why segmenting your email list is beneficial. Take a moment and check it out. So what did you get from that video? Did it get you thinking about segmenting your list? Segmentation can be used for many reason but most importantly it is to further develop your relationship with your client, let them know you’re listening, increase your open-rate and more. F ...
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As we look toward the month of May there is something very special out there – the day that we devote to our Mom’s. (BTW Shouldn’t we be devoting all our days to our Moms – just sayin’!) So as you are planning your next email newsletter take a moment and think about what you have to offer to Moms. As a previous auto shop owner, I offered a variety of specials to honor our Moms.
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Technorati Tags: marketing mix,email marketing vs. direct mail,direct mail,marketing plan Are you struggling trying to figure out the perfect marketing mix? Have you put all of your eggs in one basket? Does it make sense to do one thing well when it comes to marketing? These are all very important questions to ponder. Many marketers create their marketing plan at the end of the year to prepare for the following year, some create one to go along with the fiscal calendar and some don’t even have one at all. No matter which category you fit into – you should consistently, throughout the year, analyze what is working, what needs tweaking and what needs to be kicked to the curb! People often ask me whether they should replace their direct mail marketing with email marketing. My answer is different just about every single time! Yep, really. I believe that there is not ‘cookie-cutter’ answer to this. Every industry is different and then within that industry every business is ...
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