Your Reputation Delivers Your Newsletter

photo by Anirudh Koul

In simple terms, there are two things which affect the deliverability of your newsletter. The first is the content itself - the words, links and graphics included. The second is your own reputation.

These things below impact deliverability and have nothing to do with the content in your email:

The blacklist/whitelist status of your email address, domain, DNS settings, IP address, etc.
Blacklisting can happen when you have high unsubscribe, complaint, and bounce rates resulting from (among other things):

• buying mailing lists
• using misleading subject lines and generally being sneaky
• not providing an easy way to unsubscribe

The reputation of your bulk email service provider (ESP)
All of the issues above also apply to them. They must work hard to ensure continued deliverability of your emails. This is part of the service you get when you use a bulk ESP and why it’s important to choose a reputable one. (We prefer iContact!)

A Marketing Strategy Gone Wrong

The first thing I said when he answered the phone was, "Josh, I really feel sorry for you today!"

Josh is a pleasant fellow who answered the phone last Thursday when I called the Centre for Arts and Technology in Halifax. I was just a little upset. I was pretty sure that mine wasn't the first call of this sort that he had received, and it wouldn't be the last.

It started when I received 17 identical promotional emails to 17 imaginary Daley Progress employees from the Centre for Arts and Technology back on April 17th. (Click here to get the back story on our imaginary staff.)

That's the footer of an email addressed to mikehopkins@daleyprogress.com. (There is no Mike Hopkins.) At the time I replied and asked for all email addresses ending in my domain name to be deleted from their mailing list. Of course, I also took the time to preach a little about the dangers of buying mailing lists. I was disappointed that a reputable organization had been duped.

I thought no more about it until I got these 17 flyers by snail mail last Thursday:

Once I got past my surprise at finding out that Daley Progress has a new Interim President, I got a bit pissed off. There's the wasted money and resources. And the tainted reputation. Read some of the words on that flyer and consider the irony.

Josh's handling of my complaint was an excellent example of skillful phone work, but it was obvious that I wasn't the only person to take note of this poor marketing strategy. How many thousands of other companies were spammed with both email and flyers, and didn't take the time to call?

This is the first time that the mailing list fiasco has resulted in print material arriving at my door. When this fake list was compiled (by someone I'd dearly love to throttle), not only were names and email addresses made up, but the mailing address was included along with nonexistent positions here at Daley Progress. Despite being a Star Trek fan, I don't think we need a Chief Medical Officer! There are only two of us here so 17 new people were immediately obvious.

This one struck home for me because it was close to home. Someone at the Centre for Arts and Technology made a poor decision when they hired a marketing company. For an organization like this, reputation is everything. That means working to build your following and, at the same time, building relationships. It also means acting with integrity, especially within your own field of endeavour.

Here's what really annoys me. The folks in my industry who mislead their clients and alienate the general public taint the industry's reputation and make it hard for organizations who are doing legitimate business and offering value to their subscribers.

Your Reader's Experience

“...at some point along the way, gathering and managing their subscribers' info became more important than their subscribers' experience.”
 

I made that statement a year ago in response to an article that Danielle wrote explaining her troubles when trying to unsubscribe from Air Canada’s newsletter. Don’t let this happen to you.

While your newsletter is your marketing tool, your readers don’t care about that. They don’t care about your processes. They don’t care how much work goes into your newsletter. And they don’t care how successful it is. They only care about the value you’re providing... if you’re lucky enough to get their attention.

"Build it and they will come." Don’t hold your breath while waiting.

photo by CarolBEE_blogger

Put yourself in your potential subscriber’s shoes. How often do you sign up for newsletters? What triggers you to do that? How do you feel when you’re expected to do extra work? Do you give up?

Getting new subscribers is hard work. Getting them to consider subscribing is one thing. Getting them to your sign-up form is another. And getting them to complete the process is yet another. If you’re fortunate enough to get someone to your sign-up form, that is not the time to baffle them with your ingenuity. The only information you need in order to send someone a newsletter is their email address. ANY other information you request is for your benefit, not theirs.

Our own newsletter sign-up has a field asking subscribers to select their location from a drop-down list. It’s a recent addition and done completely for our benefit so we can send out event announcements specific to Nova Scotia or Saskatchewan. We don’t want to bother someone in Winnipeg with a free lunch and learn in Halifax. But that’s all about our needs because we are the ones choosing to send the announcement. While it’s an optional field, it still mucks up a smooth subscription process just a little. The work involved to add it was minimal. The determination to do it took a long time and the decision wasn't made lightly.

Likewise, a double opt-in process is for your benefit too, not your subscriber's. Don’t expect people to click and type multiple times. Don’t expect them to hunt through their inbox for an automated email so they can click and confirm yet again. And, if you do go with double opt-in, don’t expect any more than 40% of subscribers to actually complete that last step. (Yes, ‘the experts’ have lots of reasons for telling us to use a double opt-in process, but I’ll be happy to debate any of those over coffee!)

Auto-responder emails confirming subscription are also a no-no. Don’t send an email thanking people for signing up and especially don’t send a bunch of marketing spoof along with it. You've got them already. Don’t ruin it. Just give them what they signed up for.

Respect their inbox. (As an alternative, we recommend the use of a redirect page.) I've actually unsubscribed from newsletters after just signing up, when I received auto-responders full of promotional text.

To keep your subscribers engaged, listen to feedback, watch your stats, and pay attention to what they’re interested in. Put your time and attention to making that the best experience possible. Your subscribe (and unsubscribe) process should be a ‘nothing’ experience in comparison.

Audit your Reputation

I know, I know! Doesn't it sound dreadful? The Audit. Conjuring up images of spreadsheets, accountants and bad hair days. But wait... this isn't about that kind of audit. This is much less stressful, yet just as important.

We have talked about auditing your website before. But if you are online, you need to be auditing your entire online presence. It should be done on a schedule. We suggest quarterly.

Review all online content related to your business, testing all links and reading every word. Broken or irrelevant links are an annoyance to readers. Make sure there are none when they visit you. When testing links, stop long enough to ensure the referenced content is still there.

Some places to check in addition to your website are:

Profiles. Remember when we found out that online profiles helped search engine ranking? Suddenly, we had more profiles than was managable. Check them. Find your log-in or request a new one and keep the profiles current. If they are of no value to your business, delete them. Better to have no information than misleading out-of-date information.

Social Media Accounts. Usually checked daily, there shouldn't be much to audit here. But look at your About information, cover images and icons with a specific eye to how a new follower would perceive them. Do you need to freshen the look or update the information? Have you even read the information since you first entered it?

As a last step, Google your business name. Look through the results for anything funky. Did you set up a profile at some long forgotten, now defunct service? It could be still out there, providing old or misleading information to those searching for you. Make sure anything you want to keep active is current - update it if it is not. Get rid of anything that is no longer providing you value. Sometimes this will require a couple of steps or an email to the service. Take the time to complete the steps or send the email. It is never a good idea to have bad information showing up in a search.

Originally published in Work Better, Not Harder, April 24, 2013

Collaboration Works

Neil Everton specializes in teaching writing skills. Of course, good writing is important to a successful newsletter, so he’s a useful person for me to know.

For 3 years I've been sharing what I've learned from Neil with my newsletter clients. That led me to ask Neil if he would collaborate with me on a lunch and learn workshop. My purpose was to give additional value to my local clients and share my enthusiasm about newsletters with whoever else might want to attend. Of course, Neil and I both wanted to increase our brand exposure and build our reputations too.

Our collaboration made the work easy. Here’s why:

• Neil and I share a common philosophy when it comes to newsletter writing.
• We shared the workload and each did the work we’re good at.
• We were able to maximize our exposure through our combined mailing lists and social media contacts. Within a few days of announcing the workshop, we were full up with a dozen people on the waitlist.

Neil prepared and delivered a “precise and very informative presentation” (direct quote from participant). I basked in his glory.

Was it successful? Here’s my take on it:

• We provided great value to those who attended by sharing our expertise.
• We met new people and exposed them to our brands and philosophies.
• We each increased our newsletter mailing lists.
• We received testimonials.
• We’re seen as collaborators and plugged into the local small business community.
• I've gained a new newsletter client.
• We had a blast!

With all those results, I’d say it was a success... and a testament to the benefits of collaboration.

PS: If you missed the lunch and learn, you’ll learn a lot by reading Neil’s free 30-page white paper, Tighter, Brighter Writing (pdf file).

Originally published in Work Better, Not Harder, April 24, 2013

Content Strategies: Curating vs. Creating

photo by Marcus Hansson

I read a great article recently called Content Curation vs. Content Creation: Finding the Right Combination which discusses the goals of these two different strategies. It’s a detailed article and well worth reading. I’ll summarize a little here.

Curating content is all about becoming a trustworthy, reliable resource of high-quality, cutting-edge information that your readers and customers can depend on.

This strategy is reactive, depending on others’ content and schedules. This blog post is an example of curated content.

Creating content is about becoming a thought leader and demonstrating your expertise and authority.

This strategy is proactive - you set the trend.

Which strategy is right for you? It will likely be some combination of both. For us here at Daley Progress it’s about 70% curating and 30% creating. Our target market is interested in a heck of a lot more than just what we have to say.

Take a few minutes to read the article. It’ll help you decide what’s right for your business. Share your results by commenting below.

Everyone I Meet Should Do This

photo by iammikeb

I want everyone I meet to take one key action. Whether you meet me at a networking breakfast or on Facebook, browsing our website or reading our blog, there's one simple thing I want you to do.

You want every person you meet to take that same action. It doesn't matter if you sell insurance or shoes, advice or lunch, workshops or ideas. That action can mean the difference between never seeing someone again or becoming their favourite stop.

Calls to action beg you to phone or email, download this file or fill out that form, click here or read this, watch a video or follow on Twitter. So many choices, so little time... and so many distractions.

Everyone I meet should subscribe to my newsletter mailing list. A bit of an anticlimax? Consider that if I can get them to do that, I'll have more chances to do all of that other stuff, like get someone as a fan or on the phone, sell them an idea or a service, get a referral or a testimonial.

All of that is possible because I'll have another chance to do it instead of cramming everything into one interaction. I'll have the opportunity to build a relationship in the future, to become someone they know, like and trust.

4 Ways to Constantly Grow your List

photo by VirginMoney

Over a year, your mailing list will decrease by 30%. That’s an industry average but we've seen it with our own and clients’ lists. You’ll lose contacts in several ways, not just through unsubscribes. People change their email addresses, for example, or have other difficulties which cause your newsletters to bounce.

If you start the year with 1000 subscribers and don't do anything to grow your list, you’ll be down to 700 by the end of the year. Please believe me. Don't try this at home.

A newsletter set-up is not a one-time event. Your strategy, design and content will get stale unless you’re paying attention to keep them fresh. Likewise you need to continue to grow your list.

1. Use your social media accounts to actively promote your newsletter. Use a compelling call to action.
2. Take advantage of your place of business or point of sale, whether online or off. Collect email addresses as part of your sales process.
3. Recruit subscribers when networking. Offer to sign them up - don’t leave it up to them to do it when they return to their busy office.
4. Offer an enticement to get people to your sign-up form. This may be a give-away or a great teaser for the content to follow.

Once you get someone to your sign up form:

• Make it immediately visible on the page.
• Ask for email address only unless you have a burning reason for wanting more.
• Explain what subscribers will get and how often - what's in it for them.
• Provide examples of past issues by including a link to your newsletter archive.

Fiasco in the Fields

screen shot of email header

There's nothing like getting an email addressed to 'fname' or 'subscriber' for making you feel valued. Yes, I'm being sarcastic. This is definitely not the message you want to send to your readers.

You want to make a personal connection with your readers but using form fields is not the way to do it, even if you use them correctly. A form field is simply another automation. People know.

Am I blown away when I get a newsletter addressed to 'Linda'? Not usually. Sure it takes a little more time to set up and maintain. Various experts will tell us that using a person's name will have a subconscious impact. Is the sender suddenly my trusted advisor? No.

Let me start at the beginning. What do I mean by a form field? They're places in an HTML document used to insert specific data from a database. As an example, [fname] will insert the person's first name from the database. You can type "Hi [fname]" and it will look like "Hi Linda" (the subscriber's name) in the newsletter.

Here's where the trouble starts - what if you don't have the subscriber's first name in your database? Then it will look like "Hi Subscriber" in your newsletter. Or, if you use the form field symbols incorrectly, you may end up with something like "Hi {fname]" or the screen shot above. No one wants to be addressed as 'subscriber' or 'fname'!

So you might be thinking that you'll be OK with the technical piece - doesn't sound too hard. Let's talk data collection. How are you going to get the first name (or another piece of data) into your database?

Manual subscription process:
If you're typing up contact info from business cards or paper forms, you'll also have to type in the first name - correctly, of course. A name spelled wrong is much worse than no name at all. And what do you do the first time you get a subscriber who doesn't give you their first name? Not add them at all? Follow up individually to collect that info? If you're only collecting a few names a month, maybe. If you're collecting hundreds, not likely.

Automated subscription process:
If you're using an online sign-up form to gather subscribers, you'll need to add a required field for first name. The more information you ask for at sign up, the less likely people will be to sign up. Don't underestimate the impact of this - it's huge. OK, so you decide to go for it anyway, what about the person that signs up as 'lINDA' or 'linda'? Are you going to insert those in a newsletter? You'll need to constantly review your list and correct issues like this.

Am I saying to never use form fields in your newsletter? No, but if you do choose to use them, make sure you're prepared for the extra effort required to maintain them. When it comes to data, it doesn't take long for things to go awry from lack of maintenance.

SPAM is a Dirty Word

photo: Gwen's River City Images

I really hate the word SPAM. For me it usually means a sudden sick feeling in my stomach that has nothing to do with the unwanted visual of canned luncheon meat.

Clicking that SEND button on a newsletter is the last step in a meticulous process. It’s like that little high we get from checking an action item off our to-do list. One thing done and onto the next.

So when that SPAM checker pops up flashing ‘FAILED’ with a BIG RED X, I start feeling sick because I know I've got extra work ahead of me. (It doesn't actually flash and it’s not really so big, but that’s the way it seems to me when it happens.)

My first reaction is "D*mn!" But of course the SPAM checker is there to help us, not hinder us. It helps make sure our newsletters get delivered and don't end up in SPAM folders. Still, I feel like shooting the messenger.

There are a multitude of reasons that a newsletter can fail a SPAM check. The combinations and frequency of certain words and phrases will be triggers. The solution is usually not as simple as using a thesaurus to find alternates. You can't change the title of a book or re-write a direct quote, for example.

Another reason your newsletter might fail a SPAM check is because a hyperlink you've included leads to a blacklisted domain or IP address. This is usually more straight forward to resolve by deleting the link - unless it's your own domain or IP address, of course.

A SPAM checker is one of the advantages of using a bulk email service. It’s also one reason to use a company like us to manage your email campaign for you. We get that sick-to-your-stomach feeling so you don't have to.

Your Business Personality

photo by _Davo_

I discovered that my business has a personality! It had never occurred to me to think about my business this way until I attended a presentation by Frances Leary recently.

As an exercise, Frances had us describe our businesses with characteristics like describing a person. I came up with newsletter expert, problem solver, and trusted advisor to describe Daley Progress.

Why does my business need a personality? Because that will help me build my brand.

It'll be like a measurement tool to help me decide what to post (or not post) on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, among many other things.

I thought this was great because it gave me another way of looking at my business, another perspective. Sometimes we can get so hung up on details and action items that the big picture eludes us. My business personality will guide me in making the right choices about my brand, both online and off.

Take a few minutes and jot down the personal characteristics of your business. I'd love to hear what you come up with.

10 Signs this is Your First Newsletter

photo by photosteve101

I'm such a newsletter critic. I think it makes me better at what I do - learning from others' good and bad examples. Here are the things that often stand out during my critiques:

1. You didn't use a bulk email application.
   This is such a big mistake, it deserves its own post to list all the reasons why!
2. You didn't include a link to subscribe.
   If your newsletter is good, your readers will share it with their friends. Don’t make those friends have to hunt for your sign-up form. Not everyone is tenacious.
3. You used a misleading subject line.
   Perhaps you felt that you had to trick people into opening your newsletter. Don’t do this! Readers will feel like they've been duped if you don’t deliver on the promise in your subject line.
4. I see obvious errors.
   There are spelling errors and, oops, a hyperlink doesn't work. Always get another set of eyes to check your newsletter. Don’t forget to click on all the hyperlinks. Don’t get complacent about this over time. Mistakes stand out!
5. You didn't include social media sharing links.
   You’re missing out on the opportunity to extend the reach of your newsletter beyond your subscriber list. If your content is interesting, people will share your content… but only if you give them a quick, simple way to do it.
6. You didn't include social connecting links.
   You’re missing another opportunity to increase your fan base. Make it simple for them to find and follow you online. Include direct links to all of your social media accounts and make those accounts public.
7. There’s no value!
   Nothing in here appeals to me or piques my interest. I've seen some of it before. And stop talking so much about yourself.
8. It looks plain icky.
   It’s got a poor design and even worse, poor formatting. You've used colours that make reading difficult. All the text is jammed against the borders and... how many different fonts did you use?
9. I’m confused! Too many different calls-to-action.
   I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do next… or first? Having too many choices causes indecision and inaction.
10. There’s no ‘read online’ link.
    That means no longevity and some folks simply won't be able to read your newsletter.

Resist the Impulse

Photo: elvissa

Every day I’m faced with opportunities to offer a deal. I receive calls asking me to invest in print ads. I can easily tweet a deal or insert it in our newsletter. I can offer an added bonus. I can low-ball requests for quotes. It would be like standing up and waving my arms and yelling, “Look over here. Have I got a deal for you!”

It would be so easy to do. Every day I resist the impulse.

Easy is not always better.

A recent article by Bernadette Jiwa at The Story of Telling reminded me why. Take a minute to read it. It’s short, I promise. You need to remember why, too, and she’s a much better writer than I am.

The ending is perfect: “…build your brand around being chosen on purpose.”

Email Addresses Galore

I recently received an invitation to purchase mailing lists... lots of them!

Informational email marketing is quite different from promotional email marketing and they have very different goals. If your goals are to build your reputation and relationships, then buying email addresses is definitely not for you!

Reputable bulk ESPs (email service providers) insist that you have permission to email the contacts you add to your databases with them. So if you buy mailing lists, there's the potential risk of having your bulk email account shut down. The trigger for this would be a high number of bounces on your first send.

Aside from being a nuisance, there are other downsides as well. You don't even know if you're buying valid email addresses! Daley Progress has 17 imaginary employees who regularly receive email because someone made up their names.

10 Reasons to Love Being a Small Business Owner

photo: Michael Lokner

There’s nothing like a vivid reminder of your past life to cause you to take stock of your current situation and do a little comparison. That happened to me recently after having a catch up phone chat with someone I worked with 15 years ago. Marcia and I were talking about an industry, a work culture, and processes that now seem so foreign to me, yet at one time were so imperative. At that point in my life, I certainly never envisioned the lifestyle I enjoy now.

I absolutely love being a small business owner and working with other similar people.

Here are some of the perks that I especially appreciate about being a small business owner:

1. Not having to wear pantyhose
2. My garden is 25 steps from my desk
3. I can go into the office at midnight if I feel like it
4. Getting the whole team behind decisions is easy, when the team is two!
5. Team building is easy, too
6. I can work all day with my cat in my lap
7. I don’t need a briefcase to take work home
8. I can wear pajamas to work once in awhile
9. I can choose who I want to work with
10. I can daydream whenever I want

Take a few minutes now to appreciate the things you love about being a small business owner! I'd love to hear about them.

When to Send

photo: The Stakhanovite Twins

We get asked this a lot, “When is the best time to send out my newsletter?” The short reply is usually this: Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday between 9:45 and 10:15am.

Then one Thursday morning I received 4 newsletters at exactly 9:45am.

The fact is there is no magic answer - no set of best practices or generally accepted principles. There are lots of opinions though and we've seen many of them disproved through our own work.

If you review overall average e-marketing statistics for time of day and day of week, no real trends stand out. See an example below.

At first I found that kind of surprising but now it makes total sense - because email marketing is so diverse. More specific statistics, such as industry averages, offer some insight... but who wants to be average?

This is why it's so important to know your target market!

• Where will your subscribers be when they receive your newsletter: at home, at work, or on the road?
• When, during a typical day or week, are they most likely to take the time to open your newsletter? And when will they have the time to read it and act on it?

Here are some things that impact the answers to those questions.

• Are your subscribers consumers or businesses (B2C vs. B2B)?
• Are you sending a promotional email or an informational email?
• To add to the confusion, what time zone are they in? Are they all in one or widely distributed? Where are the bulk of them?

What about social media? Is your reach broader there? Consider the best time to post your newsletter on Twitter or Facebook - that will impact your strategy around auto-posting.

Tip: Social media analytic tools can give you some good intelligence about when to send your newsletter in addition to when to post.

Does it really matter?

Now that I've asked more questions than I've answered, you’re probably wondering if it’s really worth all this deep thought and research. That answer is a definite YES. In our search for the magic answer, we've come across all kinds of examples. Here’s one of our own.

A couple of years ago, our subscriber list was just shy of 1000 with 95% of the subscribers in NS. It was a Thursday and I was late getting our newsletter ready for issue. I knew that if it didn't get out on Thursday, I’d have to wait till Tuesday. I was impatient and sent it out about 3:30pm. Big mistake! Our open rate dropped by over 10%.

That may not sound like such a big deal till you consider the math. Our open rate was consistently about 35% at that time. Take that down to a 22% open rate and we lost well over 100 readers on that issue. That’s significant for a small list. Think of the impact on a large list of several thousand.

This is also an example of why it’s so important to stick with a schedule once you go through all the trouble to create it! And it shows you that it’s important to review your email statistics so you know what is and isn't working.

Encourage the Connection

example of connection links

Not every reader is going to want to engage with you in the same way. Each will have a platform they prefer to use. Linda and I are a perfect example of that. Linda likes Twitter. I prefer Facebook. But none of that will matter if you do not include social media connection links in your eNewsletter.

Different than social sharing links, social connection links are the ones that take the reader to your page or profile on that platform. These links allow readers to find you everywhere online instantly. If they can't find you, they cannot connect with you. Facebook, particularly, has a really crappy search feature. It is common to not be able to find what you are looking for. You want your reader to be able to find and connect with you in a couple of clicks.

Encourage the connection by including social connection links.

Guest Post: Marketing to Your Tribe

Stephanie Holmes-Winton, The Money Finder, is a crusader for financial freedom. She doesn't wear a cape (but that would be kind of cute). She does have an important message for you and me and every small business owner...

This just in: some people don’t like what I have to say. They might unsubscribe from my newsletter, or they might make a snide comment on social media... or they might just ignore me. And after I have a good cry over people who don’t care about my cause, my message, or me and wouldn’t care if I was on fire, I get completely over it. Do you know why? I wasn’t talking to them anyway! 

While my message may come across the eyes or ears of many, only some will be my tribe. Only some are already marching to a similar drum, or looking for a new beat to march to. I’m only talking to them.

When you market your business, it can be so easy to default to the win-the-popularity-contest-at-all-cost mode but that will get you no one - no one fiercely loyal, no brand ambassadors. People do not stand passionately behind vanilla. There are no parades for the completely neutral, those who never had an opinion. 

So if you are building your brand to fit in, or your blog posts are not ruffling anyone’s feathers, you may succeed at doing a great impression of vanilla pudding, but you will never build a fiercely loyal, people-who-change-your-life-as-much-as-you-change-theirs kind of tribe. 

If you think I’m obnoxious, or silly, or a waste of time, that’s ok. Please tune me out; I wasn’t talking to you anyway. 

For those who do me the kindness of commenting on my posts, reading my newsletters, buying my books, attending my FREE Webinars or trainings, any genuine heartfelt interaction, on any level, it’s for you I create my art. You are my tribe. I am marketing to you. When one of you says something to me I listen.

Stephanie Holmes-Winton is a Halifax-based advisor, author, speaker, radio columnist and CEO of The Money Finder. She is on self-appointed mission to see that Canadians get the kind of financial advice they need to get what they truly want from their money. This article originally published http://themoneyfinder.ca/marketing-to-your-tribe/ .

Make it Obvious

“Put a sign-up form on every page of your website.”

You’ve heard this, right? Well, it’s good advice… sort of. Half the story is missing. Here’s the other half, with context.

Imagine that your best friend has just forwarded to you a newsletter that they’re raving about. You have a look and realize that you really like it too and want to subscribe so you don’t miss future issues. (This happens to me a lot.) You scroll around and can’t find anything about subscribing. Being tenacious, you click through to the website and spend a couple of minutes scrolling around and clicking. Still no sign-up form.

I once called a lady in New York because I could find no way to subscribe to her newsletter, either in her newsletter or on her website, although apparently it was there somewhere.

If you ask people to 'subscribe', in your newsletter or anywhere else, you want to send them to a webpage where they can’t miss your sign-up form. If you don’t have it on a page of its own, where will you send them? If you send them to your home page, they'll have to hunt for the form unless you also give them directions like 'subscribe via the lower right sidebar on our website'. Having to provide directions is complicated for your subscriber. You want to avoid it.

Here is our best advice:

Yes, put a call to action on every page, asking me to subscribe. Then use a link to take me to a page featuring your sign-up form. On that page, your ‘sign-up’ or ‘subscribe’ page, give your form the attention it deserves. Make it clear to me why I want to sign up for your newsletter. How often will I get it? What can I expect to find in it? Sell me on it. At the same time, don’t try to sell me on something else. You have me there... make sure I sign up before you ask me to do something else!

our newsletter sign-up page

Why use a bulk email service?

Photo: markyweiss

For a small cost, a bulk email application gives you LOTS of benefits:

• Cost is minimal.
• It allows you to schedule your email sends.
• It allows you to auto-post to your social media accounts.
• It handles subscribes and unsubscribes effortlessly and accurately.
• It has built in functionality to manage your contact lists and segments.
• It saves you time and mistakes. Take advantage of templates plus spell/spam checkers.
• It keeps you compliant.
• It keeps you up-to-date and ready to take advantage of new functionality.
• It raises you above amateur status.
• Statistics drive strategy. Without them there is no way to know if you are being successful, what works and what doesn’t, and what readers are interested in.

The real question is, why not use a bulk email service? If you can think of a reason, please share!

The Point of Sale Advantage

If your customers and clients come to you, you have a big advantage over the rest of us when it comes to growing your contact list. Here are some suggestions that you can adapt to your specific situation.

Put a large jar with a sign on the check-out or reception desk:
WIN a FREE lunch! To enter our monthly draw, drop your business card to subscribe to our email specials.

How easy is that as a way to grow your contact list?

Run a contest among your staff. Offer a free service, product or time off for the one who signs up the most new contacts.

Place paper copies of your newsletter or email flyer at reception, check-out, waiting areas, dressing rooms... you get the idea.

Have a computer handy so contact information can be entered on the spot or soon after. Contact information sitting in a drawer wrapped in elastic bands is lost opportunity!

You’ll lose about 30% of your subscribers during a year (called ‘list churn’). You need to continually work just to maintain your list. Continued growth requires some effort.

A Networking Philosophy

In conversation last week, I was surprised to hear for the third time in as many weeks, a similar reason for resistance to joining a networking organization: "I don't want to connect with people that are just looking to sell me something."

It has me speaking up this week. Never did it occur to me, before I joined a network, that this would be a problem. And never, since I joined a network, has it been a problem.

All of the small business owners I have encountered through organized networking seem to have the same goals, desires and philosophy as we do - find other small business owners and independent professionals to:

connect and share
Both experiences and lessons learned. Meeting new people only brings more lessons learned to the table. It is possible to learn from others mistakes. Use your network as an educational tool.

support and collaborate
Whether support comes in the form of sharing social media content, attending events or spending dollars - it is equally appreciated! Often working alone for long and thankless hours, any support is appreciated by small business owners.

Our philosophy of networking is to build a cooperative community that can collaborate to support business growth for everyone.

I have never found a fellow networker that was more interested in talking to me about selling me a product than the coolest new thing they saw on Facebook. Most of us are all just looking for ideas that work. Idea execution comes from brainstorming and that is what a network gives you. The opportunity to work together even though you work alone.

Not to mention support when things just don't go your way. Trust me, they won't always go your way. Wouldn't it be nice to have someone to lean on? If you have been resisting, take a chance and join a network. Get involved with an open mind and you might just get a pleasant surprise. I did.

Originally published in Work Better, Not Harder on February 26, 2013

Building your Reputation

You don’t build a reputation by churning out facts or putting on a suit. A reputation is built through walking the talk.

The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.

- Socrates

If building your reputation is one of your goals for your newsletter (blog, social media), here are some suggestions for content that will achieve that.

Share success stories
Use narratives, graphics, photos, videos. Give your readers a taste of what success feels like. Create showcases and galleries. Summarize case studies and research. Tell about lessons learned.

Solve problems
Apply your skill and experience to help people solve real problems. Give time saving tips. Create how-to instructions and checklists. Answer questions.

Give insight into your area of expertise
Stay current with trends, news, and innovations. Curate and summarize information appropriately for your readers. Share your opinions. Get interviewed and republish the resulting articles.

Know the right people
Interview well known experts or celebrities. Solicit articles for your newsletter. Get those experts to publish your work in their newsletters. Share insider information.

Encourage others to endorse you publicly
Request testimonials and also gather those spontaneous ones from social media and email exchanges. Show them off in your newsletter, as well as on your website.

A positive reputation is one of our most valuable business assets. Invest time to cultivate yours.

Originally published in Work Better, Not Harder on February 26, 2013

Delivering the Goods

Think about the executive summary that prime ministers and presidents read every morning. That has to be a darn concise document. Up-to-the-minute information, well-curated, and accurate, with an appropriate level of detail.

Doesn't that sound like a great newsletter? A newsletter has to be useful or interesting. Both is what you're aiming for. It won't be useful if it isn't interesting enough to read.

It doesn't have to be long, full, or detailed. It doesn't need to be chock full of advice. It doesn't need fancy graphics and eye-catching colours. While any of those things may help achieve your goals, they aren't necessary. In fact, it doesn't have to be about the content at all.

Think back to that top secret briefing. There's one attribute I left off the list above that makes it ultimately useful. In fact, it would be useless without it. Did you guess that it's the speed of delivery, or timeliness?

Can you imagine the busy White House staff working all night to prepare each issue? Spell-checking and spam-checking and tweaking the template... NOT! None of these things are as important as speed in this case.

There are many attributes that can make a newsletter successful. Sometimes it's not the content itself but rather the way in which it's delivered.

A great example of this is a daily newsletter sent out by my friend, The Gratitude Guy. It's not so much about what's in it but the fact that it reminds me every morning to stop and be grateful for something.

Make it Easy to Read Online

A ‘read online’ link allows subscribers to click to view your campaign directly in their web browsers. There are two reasons that you want to include a ‘read online’ link in your newsletter.

Most obviously, it’s helpful for subscribers who can't view the HTML version of your email or download images in their email programs.

The ‘read online’ link provides a permanent url that you and your fans can use to share your newsletter, now and in the future. You can use this url to link back to your newsletter issue from your website and blog.

This link is also a fallback option to social sharing links: readers can copy/paste the url to share on any social media platform regardless of what sharing buttons you include or don't.

I receive a weekly newsletter from ColourLovers called Happy Huesday. It’s a wonderful newsletter filled with links to colourful, interesting articles. Every week I want to share it… and can’t. They don’t include social sharing buttons OR a read online link. What a wasted opportunity!

Please, No Cute Animal Pictures

I read this recent article quickly at first. Then I blinked and reread it. Sure enough, there it was... advice to add cute animal pictures to your newsletter.

If you’re a vet or an animal groomer, this is definitely your strategy. The rest of us should stay far away from them, at least in our business-to-business newsletters. (And blogs, unless you're illustrating a point and have an excuse. I wonder how they got him in that mailbox anyway!)

That article was all about how important it is to make your newsletter fun. Here are the other 3 tips:

• Surprises
• Jokes
• Puzzles and games

Surprises are good, if they’re genuine. Made up surprises are just plain hokey and un-credible.

Jokes? Unless you are a comedian, jokes can be a little tricky (especially dry humour) and socially risky. Anyway, do you really want to be remembered for your jokes?

There may be legitimate uses for puzzles and games, depending on your business. Use them only if they really add value, never to just fill space. I can tell you from experience that getting a crossword puzzle into an eNewsletter so that you can print it and still read it is a real pain.

Should newsletters be fun? I sincerely hope that you have more important goals for your newsletter. But if being fun is a strategic way to meet your email marketing goals, then I suggest that you make sure to do it really, really well.

Note to our clients: One of you will undoubtedly write and ask for a cute puppy in your next newsletter. Please don’t torture me (Stephanie).

Finding Your Ideal Client is Like Finding a Mate

Do you remember being single? Perhaps you are now. How do/did you find your soulmate? As business owners, I think we can use some of the same strategies to build strong work relationships too.

Hang out where they hang out
If you’re looking for a buff guy, go to the gym. If you’re looking for a business owner, go to a networking event. Get involved and get to know people.

Chat them up online
Private chat rooms aren’t usually appropriate for business but tweeting and liking and sharing are great ways to get acquainted.

Ask friends to fix you up
Ah, the blind date. Or, the business equivalent, the referral. Both can be stressful and boring and a waste of time. But some will ignite sparks and if you don’t go, you’ll never know. Coffee shops work great for both!

Make a proposition
Take the bull by the horns, pick up the phone and ask that buff guy for a date. This taking-the-bull-by-the-horns thing works in business too. It’s often referred to as ‘cold calling’.

I’m having a little fun with the Valentine’s theme. Can you come up with any other ways that finding your ideal client is like finding a mate? We’d love to hear them.

My Favourite Client

During one of our January workshops in Regina, we had a discussion about our ‘ideal clients’ vs. our ‘favourite clients’. I look on them as being the same thing but I discovered that this isn’t true for everyone.

It became evident during our chat that there was one very specific defining characteristic that made some clients ‘ideal’ but not ‘favourite’. Can you guess what that was? Money.

Once we got past financial gain and started talking about our favourite clients, another word kept coming up over and over again. That word was TRUST. Almost everyone mentioned it… wanting their clients to trust them and being able to trust their clients.

Do you have an important client that’s a real pain to work with but brings in half of your income? I’m not suggesting you should dump them. Not by a long shot. Some of those ideal client characteristics pull more weight than others and that will be different for each of us.

Last summer I sat down and listed 10 characteristics of our ideal client. Not one of our current clients fits that profile 100%. But 80% of them are at/over 8 out of 10. We think that’s pretty darn good. We love our jobs because we love our clients!

If your ideal client is not your favourite client, how can you bring them closer together?

Originally published in Work Better, Not Harder on February 12, 2013 

Don’t Leave Them Wanting More

Whenever you or I read something that we like, often a “What’s next?” comes to mind.

I’m frequently cautioning about using calls to action strategically and not having so many that they become distracting. The other end of the spectrum would be not having a call to action at all.

When someone is done reading your newsletter, make sure to give them something that answers the “What’s next?” question.

Our planning worksheet can help you prioritize your calls-to-action.

How to Review Your iContact Statistics

One of the important items we do not do for our clients is download and email statistics reports. There is a very good reason for this. When email statistics are viewed inside your iContact account, they are presented in a user friendly way. It is simple to review any of the statistics iContact tracks - right down to the detail level. When those statistics are downloaded, a .csv file is generated that is opened in Excel. This file contains a single line item per action. No graphs, no intuitive compilation of the data, one line item per action. This means that when a subscriber opens your newsletter 15 times, it generates 15 line items in the file. We recommend clients log into iContact and view their statistics within a few days of every send. There is valuable information that can aid your business decisions in the report. That value can be increased when you view them in conjunction with your website statistics.

Once you log in, you will see a basic report on your last message sent. This quick view report offers you statistics represented in percentages.

You can then click on any of the three icons down the left or use the 'Actions' drop down arrow at the top right and select 'Track Message' to open the larger report. The top of the report shows the same statistics represented in number of subscribers.

Scroll to the bottom of the page. If it's your first time, you may have to click the big blue 'view details' button. You will see a more detailed report by subscriber for all the actions that could be taken by them represented as report type. You can click on any of the report types along the top to view the detail associated with that action - clicks, opens, unsubscribes.

You can then check the 'Expanded Data' box to get even more detail. For example, the expanded data for 'clicks' shows you which link each user clicked on and how many times they clicked through.

Reviewing your statistics regularly can help you determine how well your strategy is working, if you need to make changes to that strategy, and can even give you reasons to follow up with subscribers. While valuable, the information does have its limits and we caution you to view it with those limits in mind.

• opens: your message will be opened by some subscribers that do not show as having opened. This statistic can be affected by a number of subscriber email software issues which are beyond your control.
• forwards: will only show on the report if the message was shared through the 'Forward to a Friend' link in the footer of the message. If a subscriber shares by clicking forward in their email browser, it will not show here.
• bounces: can be registered if the subscriber has a full mailbox, the email is no longer valid, or some other technical problem. Unless a subscriber bounces 5 times in a row, they will show as bounced but not be placed in bounced status. Until the subscriber status changes to bounced, they will still receive your messages.

View your iContact statistics regularly to help you grow your business or just to celebrate them!