A challenging economy has encouraged many small businesses to test out email marketing with an invitation or announcement. It’s simple, affordable and trackable, after all. But the idea of creating a consistent e-newsletter that you issue on a monthly basis seems daunting.

Well, fear not. You can put a surprisingly compelling newsletter together with a small amount of information. In a recent Extreme Email Makeover session that VerticalResponse hosted, we found that many customers are putting too many offers together in one email and calling them newsletters. The result is that nothing stands out, it isn’t clear to the customer what action they should take, and over time recipients might stop opening the emails. A great e-newsletter can be created with very basic information that is readily available. The key is a balance of information and offers (remember the “what’s in it for me?” factor). Start by testing a newsletter format with three topic areas and then increase to five over a series of a few months to see if you get more clicks. Let your audience decide the right amount of content with open and click-through rates.

Easy e-newsletter content topics:

1. A Message from the Expert – A short paragraph from you to your audience or an introduction that drives recipients to your blog for a feature-length article. Consider offering Five Ways to Improve X in 2009. Include the first two lines of copy in your newsletter as a teaser and link to the full story on your blog for the full list.
2. Customer Testimonial – A simple quote from a happy customer about how your product or service helped them or fixed a problem, a measurable result achieved; or, link to a video testimonial that you host on YouTube.
3. An Offer – Do you have a white paper, discount, or promotion currently running to announce?
4. Event Schedule – Link to the event page on your website or directly to an industry event you plan to attend.
5. Quick Fact – What’s the most popular selling product last month? What do your customers view as the greatest challenge for them next year? Gather important insights and facts with a simple online survey tool and share results in each issue.

The final challenge is committing to frequency so that your audience will come to expect your newsletters. Write your first three issues at the same time. Line up three customer quotes, three notable events worth covering, and three facts to share from a single survey. Remember, this month’s event can become next month’s main article. That’s a formula for successful email newsletters in 2009.

About the Author
As Director of Marketing at VerticalResponse since 2007, Erin is responsible for evangelizing the benefits of email marketing to emerging companies. With over 14 years experience managing global marketing campaigns for technology companies large and small, Erin now shares her Lead Generation and Email Marketing insights with the small business community, helping them increase sales and promote their business online as cost-effectively as possible.

Blog. It’s a strange term, an even stranger phenomenon to some. With all the hoopla surrounding blogs, it’s easy to dismiss them as more sideshow than substance. Yet, as numerous small businesses have discovered, blogs can provide real business value as a communications tool that helps define your image and bring you closer to your customers.

Here at VerticalResponse, we’ve reaped the benefits of launching our own blog and would like to provide a quick primer on the world of business blogs and the benefits it offers. We’ll begin by answering the natural first question posed by those who are new to the concept of blogging.

What, exactly, is a blog?

At its root, a blog is a communications tool, a forum for airing ideas and building community over the Internet. More specifically, a blog is a simple, Web-based content management system that allows users to distribute information with little or no technical experience.

Blogs can be used to voice opinions, establish dialogues with readers, link to interesting articles and studies, post press releases and display graphics. While you can accomplish many or all of these ends with other Web content formats, blogs, because they’re easy to use and call for a casual writing style, can provide a personalized quality that distinguishes them from more traditional media.

Why do I need a blog?

There’s no guarantee you do – they aren’t for everyone. But if you’re trying to achieve one of the following business objectives, blogs might be worth a look:

Competitive positioning
For companies that are proactive about discussing and shedding light on current events, emerging trends and customer concerns, blogs provide an efficient, cost-effective way to position your business as the thought leader in your field and to differentiate you from the crowd.

Customer relations
Blogs allow you to strengthen your ties to customers while taking a break from the hard sales approach that can be time consuming. Presenting tips and responding to comments from customers publicly helps develop customer loyalty and enables you to keep your finger on the pulse of what’s happening.

Search engine marketing
Blogs are an effective way to improve your rankings on search engines, such as Google and Yahoo!, that tend to order pages based on their relevance to a specific subject. Because most top search engines index sites based on content, frequently updated blogs that focus on specific topics can boost relevancy ratings and put you higher in the rankings.

Brand building
The informal nature of blogs makes them a perfect place to promote your brand in a way that expresses your company’s particular style. Blogs provide a virtually cost-free channel through which you can present your company’s image, values and objectives.

Media relations
By establishing your company as an industry expert, blogs serve as an information resource that compels the media to come visit your site – instead of receiving, and perhaps dismissing – unsolicited press releases.

Getting started
VerticalResponse used TypePad to launch our blog. It took roughly 30 minutes to set up. It’s an easy-to-use Application Service Provider solution that gets you started right away at a minimal cost. You can also research Blogger as well. If you need more customization, check out Moveable Type and WordPress, solutions which require software hosting.

Low investment, high reward
These benefits illustrate the point that, done properly, blogging offers a unique means of stimulating and shaping discussion about your company, with almost no capital investment. And, with an email component, you can start driving people to your blog immediately. As a low-cost, low-maintenance way of bolstering marketing and outreach efforts, blog is a strange word that’s worth getting to know.

About the Author

VerticalResponse is a leading provider of self-service email marketing and direct mail services empowering businesses of all sizes to create, manage and analyze their own direct marketing campaigns. VerticalResponse’s flagship product, which allows customers to deliver sophisticated yet easily deployed email campaigns, is the most intuitive and affordable Web-based direct marketing solution available. For additional information,please visit www.verticalresponse.com.

Testing can be an important part of your email marketing strategy. A simple tweak in your email campaign could squeeze in some additional clicks, opens or even added revenue! Here are some ideas for each part of this rule that can hopefully help you garner better results.

Get “control” of the situation
What is a “control”? It’s you putting a stake in the ground regarding what you think will work for your audience OR using what you have commonly used to date as a benchmark. You can’t really determine if any changes you make to your campaign in your test are having an effect unless you have a comparison baseline. That’s where the control message comes in; it’s a handy reference point that allows you to evaluate those “tweaks” you made in your campaign.

So take your best stab at developing your creative, copy, offer and messaging, and always test against that control email. Once you’ve beaten your control, that is, garnered a better result, the new email becomes the control.

Test your list
A good way to test your list is to simply divide your mailing list into different segments, send each group a different email, and determine which one got the better response. This usually works best with larger lists (over 1,000); smaller lists may have a sample size too small to be statistically valid. Either way, it doesn’t hurt to try.

Test small, roll big!
If you’re fortunate enough to have a larger list of 10,000 or more, consider reserving 20 percent of the total addresses for testing purposes. If a particular tactic yielded great results with this group, then you can feel confident rolling it out to the remaining 80 percent of your mailing list. Feel like being a cowboy? Test a new offer to your entire list and compare it with the previous mailing. Yee hah!

Test different variables within your email
When you try a new idea, make sure it contrasts with the wording, theme or style of your control email – it’s the only way to really determine what works and what doesn’t work. The key here is to get them clicking. With so many different variables you can test, here are just a few:

Offer – Your offer is very important so let’s get it right. Once you have your list segments in order, try sending some different offers to your list. Try to get the offer in the subject line if you can.

• Test a hard sell (Buy now $29.95) vs. soft sell (include content around your offer).
• Test pricing – $29.95 vs. $39.95.
• Test varying discount levels – 20% vs. 30% off.
• Test a free offer, such as offering a free product with purchase vs. no free product.
• Test free shipping vs. discount.
• Test one product vs. multiple products.
• Test a multi-step approach – Free trial vs. hard sell.

Look and feel – You’ve built a “control” based on your brand and what you are trying to accomplish. Since a good portion of your response is based on your creative, you can learn by testing specific variables within your email as it relates to your general look.

• Colors and fonts – Try not to stray TOO far from your branded image but if you’re looking to boost response do a test, see if it works. (Keep in mind filtering rules from Creating your Email.)
• Mail format – Test text vs. HTML, long vs. short form, or columns vs. vertical layout.
• Length of message – Include the entire message in the email or just a small teaser with a link to the rest of the information.
• Degree of personalization – Test no personalization vs. personalized name.
• Subject line – Your subject line, as I’ve mentioned, is one of the most important parts of your email. If it doesn’t get opened you don’t get your desired results. So go ahead and test within the subject line to increase your open rates. If you can, get your list of those who did not open your email, and send another one with a different subject line.
• Test your offer wording – “20% discount and complimentary shipping” vs. “Complimentary shipping and 20% discount”.
•  Test the word “free” vs. “complimentary” to do a “filter” test.
• Different article headlines from your newsletter –  Five Tips – How to Grow Tomatoes vs. Growing Tomatoes – Your Guide

Test your mailing days
The day of the week and even the time of day when an email is received can have a significant effect on the response. Does your audience consist largely of people with desk jobs who check email throughout the day, or do they check personal accounts in the evening hours? Are your clients located in one region of the country or spread across several time zones?

The impact of timing will vary according to the target market for each company, so there’s no hard-and-fast rule. The only way you can determine what’s best for your audience is to supplement common sense with trial-and-error.

Test your frequency
This is the toughest of all to test. You really need to track how often you’re mailing and the decline of response as well as a possible increase/decrease in unsubscribes.

The volume of email you send as well as the frequency with which you mail your list affects the response. It’s generally accepted that “regular” emailing is more effective than sporadic efforts, but does regular mean twice a week or once every two weeks? It really depends on what you told your recipients when they registered. If you do test, don’t stray too far from what they expect and only test a small segment to start.

Also, be aware of your frequency as it relates to bounces and unsubscribes. If you mail too sporadically, you’re likely to lose your recipient’s interest or they’ll change email addresses in the meantime and forget to inform you. If you mail too much, you are likely to frustrate them. Find your balance.

Keep Testing
There’s no magic bullet with email testing, but even the seemingly smallest change could produce dramatic results. Just because email marketing is more affordable than most forms of advertising doesn’t mean you can afford to squander what you’ve invested. A well-conceived testing program is sure to improve the results of your email campaigns – and your bottom line.

Most importantly, incorporate the changes one at a time. If you introduce a number of new twists to your traditional approach, there’s no reliable way to tell which one is responsible for the success or failure of the new email campaign.

About the Author
VerticalResponse is a leading provider of self-service email marketing and direct mail services empowering businesses of all sizes to create, manage and analyze their own direct marketing campaigns. VerticalResponse’s flagship product, which allows customers to deliver sophisticated yet easily deployed email campaigns, is the most intuitive and affordable Web-based direct marketing solution available. For additional information,please visit www.verticalresponse.com.

Email Delivery sounds pretty simple: you create an email, hit send, and then mighty wizards transport that email to your recipients through the use of hand-crafted cables and powerful laser beams. What more is there to it than that?

As anyone who has sent more than a few pieces of commercial email knows, there is much more to it than that. Nothing has a bigger impact on the bottom line of an email campaign than seeing that email is delivered properly and then opened by as large a range of recipients as possible.

This leads to two questions: what does VerticalResponse do to ensure email is delivered?  And what can you do to ensure your email is getting in front of as many recipients as possible?

Let’s take a look at both these questions.

What does VerticalResponse do to ensure excellent delivery?

Authentication protocols
Client emails are authenticated through the use of the four major protocols: SPF (Sender Policy Framework), Sender-ID, DomainKeys and DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail). With SPF and Sender-ID, we have published records that state our mail domains are allowed to send email on behalf of our own IP Addresses. With DomainKeys and DKIM, we sign each email with a key that the recipient server can then use to verify that we actually sent the email. Authentication is an increasingly important component in email delivery, as email service providers can be confident that fully authenticated mail is not a scam or phishing scheme of some sort. And VerticalResponse is one of the only providers in our space that utilizes all four of the major protocols for clients, by default.

Feedback loops
VerticalResponse has feedback loops set up with every single Internet Service Provider that is known to offer one. This means if someone clicks Report Spam at Hotmail, Hotmail trusts us to take action on the complaint. It also means that when someone clicks such a button at a participating ISP (like Hotmail), VerticalResponse users don’t have to worry that they’ll accidentally send mail to that person again, as we automatically unsubscribe recipients who treat your mail in this way from your mailing list. Each ISP has their own threshold regarding how many complaints are allowed. If you near this threshold or go over it, VerticalResponse will reach out and help you get to the root of the problem.

Automate bounce / unsubscribe processing
By automating this process (like many Email Service Providers), we ensure no users can abuse our IP Addresses by ignoring bounces and unsubscribes. This also helps keep an excellent reputation, from which we all benefit. Most service providers take their bounce messages very seriously and do not like it when someone continues to send email to addresses which the provider says no longer exist. Ignoring bounces can lead to mail not being delivered. And, of course, ignoring unsubscribes is illegal according to the U.S. CAN-SPAM Act.

Anti-spam
Everyone says they’re anti-spam, but at VerticalResponse we really, really mean it. Responding to and investigating every single complaint that comes in to the abuse desk, we quickly deal with clients who receive complaints (before they start causing delivery problems), and even look over every email our clients launch to make sure nothing suspicious or fraudulent can make it out the door. This keeps complaints to a minimum, which is a big part of maintaining a strong reputation for the IP Addresses. And a stronger reputation means a higher delivery rate for you, since your mail is being sent out through our IP Addresses.

What can you do to help ensure excellent delivery?

Keep your list healthy
Be sure everyone on your list has specifically requested info from or about your company. Also make sure you’re not mailing previously unsubscribed or bounced addresses (as I noted above). That went out of style a long time ago. And remember that permission is not forever. If someone gave you their business card at a tradeshow two years ago, it’s not a good idea to send them their first email today. Don’t wait more than a month or so to mail a new contact, otherwise large segments of your list will begin to forget their interaction with your company. This will lead to a lower open rate and cause some people to unwittingly report your email as spam.

Design with delivery in mind
Don’t just put a big image together in Illustrator and think you’re good to go. Make sure the email is easy to read (consider paragraph length and fonts). Images should be used only to enhance the HTML / text content (not as the sole content), and the email should be something that the subscriber would expect to receive based upon their sign-up. If you use one of the VerticalResponse email creation tools – like the Canvas – then you’re probably just fine here. However, if you write your own HTML, you’ll need to make sure it’s validated and that you’re using code that is supported by all the various email clients out there (email clients are not as capable as Web browsers when it comes to rendering HTML).

Treat subscribers with respect
Don’t mail subscribers too often and clutter their inbox with mail they don’t want. Set expectations at the time of sign-up: “This is what we’re going to send you. And we’re going to send it to you this often.” Also try to maintain a relationship with the subscriber. Don’t mail them sporadically once or twice a year and expect them to take action with your emails. How often is too often? How sporadic is too sporadic? I would say twice a week to once every two months is a good range to keep in mind, depending on the type of messages you’re sending out.

Have any thoughts or questions?  Let us know in the comments!

About the Author
VerticalResponse is a leading provider of self-service email marketing and direct mail services empowering businesses of all sizes to create, manage and analyze their own direct marketing campaigns. VerticalResponse’s flagship product, which allows customers to deliver sophisticated yet easily deployed email campaigns, is the most intuitive and affordable Web-based direct marketing solution available. For additional information, please visit www.verticalresponse.com.

In a perfect world, you’d know exactly what your customers were thinking and could give them exactly what they want at all times. Unfortunately, things don’t quite work this way, so you’ve got to use the tools you have available to find out more about your customers. The availability of online surveys today means anyone can create an effective customer survey in a matter of minutes or hours without a degree in market research. Our retention marketing team came up with five great reasons to survey your customers. I’d like to share them with you:

1. Get Feedback: Ask your customers what they honestly think about your products, services, events or marketing. You won’t know until you ask. The knowledge you gain will be invaluable to your business.
2. Set the Bar: Surveys allow you to look at your business at a certain moment in time. Benchmark how you are doing in different aspects of your business and make goals to improve or maintain that status over time.
3. Evaluate the Competition: Ask what other products or services your customers use, and find out why or what they enjoy about them. Doing this will make you aware of the alternatives in your market and how best to compete.
4. Learn New Ideas: Your customers are an untapped resource for you. They are smart, creative, and likely have ideas that you haven’t thought of. Just imagine all the cool ideas you can get from the people that matter the most and know your business!
5. Guide Business Decisions: Using surveys, you can gather information that is helpful in making informed business decisions. The feedback you get from your customers can guide you in future product, marketing, or organizational decisions – both big and small.

Feeling compelled to send a survey now? Good. I’m happy to tell you that creating and launching an online survey is extremely easy! I’ve created a few (using VerticalResponse of course) and came up with new blog topics, webinar ideas, and even stats to share with customers.

About the Author
Janine Popick is the CEO and co-founder of VerticalResponse (#402, 2006 Inc. 500), a leading self-service direct marketing provider to over 25,000 small businesses. Janine brings over 17 years of experience leading direct and Internet marketing programs for some of the biggest brands in technology and entertainment. Janine lead the Direct division of NBC Internet as well as XOOM.com. She also managed direct marketing for a variety of technology companies like Claris Corp. a wholly owned subsidiary of Apple Inc., Insignia Solutions and Symantec Corporation.

Janine holds a Bachelor’s degree from Hofstra University in Communications and English. She has been a private investor and serves as an advisor in the U.S. and Europe. Janine is VerticalResponse’s CEB (Chief Executive Blogger) and won the 2006 ClickZ Best Marketing Blog Award as well as the 2007 Stevie Award for Best Blog. She is a columnist for Inc.com “Women in Business” and has been published in DM News as well featured in Entrepreneur Magazine, ClickZ, and B2B Magazine. She frequently enjoys trips to Europe as well as to her home in Lake Tahoe, California.

I read an article this morning about the importance of integrating email into lead-generation programs. As a long-time marketer, it seems obvious to me to use email as an integral driver in direct marketing and not just for customer newsletters. In fact, since email marketing is among the least expensive media options, it should be one of the first tactics tested in any marketing campaign. Whether you are measuring your program’s effectiveness based on cost-per-lead, cost-per-customer, or total program return on investment (which are great metrics for tracking your success), here are suggestions for launching an integrated campaign cost-effectively:

1. Launch your landing or registration site where prospects or customers can respond to your offer. This is your initial marketing investment, and some prospects may find you simply through search engine optimization tactics.
2. Promote that link/site on your company website, social media group page, or any other communication avenues that may already be in place at no added cost. Consider mentioning your offer and URL in your hold music at the office, voice mail recording, and even employee email signatures.
3. Launch your first email campaign to your list of opt-in contacts with a Forward-to-Friend feature enabled – referrals from current customers and friends will make the best leads.
4. Don’t forget to segment any responders from steps 1-3. Since you already got them to respond, don’t spend another penny re-marketing them the same offer. It’s time for your sales process to take over the next steps with this group.
5. Now it’s time to make an investment. Launch your direct mail program to your current house list of prospects, or purchase a mailing list from an association, online site, or a list you’ve built using mymanta.com. Save dollars by only mailing to people who haven’t already responded online and invest your dollars in the next communication in your campaign. Direct Mail reinforces your email message if they received it via email before or came across the offer on your website but didn’t initially respond. If a mailing recipient is no longer with the company, your DM piece still has a chance of ending up in a new contact’s hands.

Now go outside your current list and launch paid SEM (search engine marketing)/online promotions and advertising/telemarketing to expand the audience even further. Test new subject lines and re-market at least once to non-responders to increase your response.

Start each campaign on your website and leverage all internal resources and free promotional opportunities. Then, spend wisely, only increasing the investment when you are having difficulty reaching the target audience through cheaper means. Finally, calculate your cost-per-lead for each tactic and list source so you know where to invest in the future.

About the Author
As Director of Marketing at VerticalResponse since 2007, Erin is responsible for evangelizing the benefits of email marketing to emerging companies. With over 14 years experience managing global marketing campaigns for technology companies large and small, Erin now shares her Lead Generation and Email Marketing insights with the small business community, helping them increase sales and promote their business online as cost-effectively as possible.

Customers often ask me, what are the best offers to use in email marketing programs, or any lead generation program for that matter. The answer, of course, is dependent on a long list of factors – among them: What is the nature of your business? What are you trying to achieve with your email? What are you able to offer?

My answer: Before sending out a marketing campaign consider, “Is there something in this email for the recipients to LEARN, GAIN, or ENJOY?”

Here are some examples of each type of offer:

LEARN:  If you are a consultant, service provider, or industry expert, sharing your experience and insight can be powerful and relevant to the recipient. Examples: Three Tips, Best Practice, Inside Scoop, even your perspective of an event or presentation that you attended which your audience may not have access.

GAIN:  If recipients don’t feel there is something in it for them, they will not continue to read and open your emails. Commit to the value in each of your email campaigns. Examples: an added benefit to customers when asking them to consider referring your business, a discount for early registration to an event, free shipping or gift-wrapping, early access to a sale or information. This type of offer works great for survey responses, too; promise to share information before it’s released to a wider audience.

ENJOY:  Like the free gift with purchase at a cosmetics counter, or an adult beverage coupon for checking in to a flight online, sometimes marketing offers are just for fun. If your goal is to change or encourage a behavior, then a little something extra for the response may provide an added lift.

Bottom line, don’t lose sight of the customer on the receiving end of your email communication. If they respond once and find value in your message, they are likely to pass it on and everyone wins.

About the Author
As Director of Marketing at VerticalResponse since 2007, Erin is responsible for evangelizing the benefits of email marketing to emerging companies. With over 14 years experience managing global marketing campaigns for technology companies large and small, Erin now shares her Lead Generation and Email Marketing insights with the small business community, helping them increase sales and promote their business online as cost-effectively as possible.