Email Marketing Blog

The ROI of any email marketing campaign is determined by the size, quality, and responsiveness of your list.

But what if you don’t have a list? Or your list is nothing to brag about?

If you aren’t a prolific writer, a blank sheet of digital paper is a scary thought. If you are creating well-thought-out, original content, word will spread. Your blog, forum post, or article posted at a directory will catch the eye of people looking for answers and they will want to learn more.

The traffic increases. Your opt-in list builds.

Life is good.

The downside is that it takes a lot of time to research, outline, and write good content. That’s where repurposing content comes into play. Repurposing allows you to make slight modifications so you can re-use your content in another form or directed to another group.

Here are a few examples of where and how you can repurpose content:

Develop a PowerPoint presentation. Take your article and expand it into some slides with bullet points and graphics. Add audio and you have a completely new item.

Yahoo Answers allows you to search keywords for specific questions people have asked about your area of expertise. By reworking your content, you can not only answer a question or two, but direct them to your website for even more on the subject!

Similarly, forums are a great place to show off your expertise. Pull a few items from your content to answer questions, generally followed by your signature file.

Expand your content by interviewing an expert. Have the interview transcribed, thereby creating another product.

Post the audio on iTunes and an entirely different demographic will find you.

Create a video (many videos are no more than the PowerPoint and audio mentioned above) and post to video sites like YouTube.

Choose a few Social Networks and be available to answer questions and post information, directing people to your site for more in-depth information.

Post on your blog or add it to your website.

Expand your FAQ’s. If you are answering questions that others may ask as well, add them to this section of your website.

Rewrite your content into short, easy-to-digest nuggets, and build an email marketing campaign.

Look at your work as a reporter and turn it into a Press Release which can be distributed to the PR services as well as added to your website’s Media Center. For even more attention, tie it into an upcoming holiday, current event, or news item. Make the connection with the current buzz and you’ll get noticed!

Rework your working and paragraphs so it’s  not a duplicate, then submit it to Article Directories.

Break it up. For instance, you could break this blog post into many separate subject to expand upon, creating entirely new content.

Pull it together. Find 10 articles that synergistically work together and – voila! – You have a Free Report!

Rewrite your content for different target markets. For instance, I could write a base document about email marketing and then sub-niche it by gearing it towards doctors, dentists, house painters, etc.

By using your creativity (and having a thesaurus handy!) you can repurpose the same content multiple times.

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

I’ve got good news and bad news.

The bad news is that, according to a report recently released by Cisco, approximately 90% of all email is spam.

The good news is you’re not crazy after all!

Spam accounts for about 200 BILLION messages a day, and the United States is the biggest source with over 17%. Turkey and Russia tie for second place.

The hackers are using botnets to take over legitimate email accounts, where their spam messages are sent out with the email owner’s name. Unfortunately, this is easily accomplished because many businesses and individuals use weak passwords that can easily be cracked.

Now’s a good time to review ALL of your email accounts and upgrade your password if necessary. I’ve been the victim of crime and, believe me; you never want a customer emailing you to ask why you are sending out fake PayPal links! If you don’t think it can happen to you, think again.

It only takes a few minutes - check your accounts today.

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

Email marketers are finding that an unanticipated side effect of job layoffs is increased email bounce rates, due to people using a work address for email correspondence. In the chaos, the last thing on their minds is downloading a copy of their email and subscription lists or redirecting their incoming personal email.

Once you’ve lost a subscriber, even unintentionally, it’s difficult to regain them.

Here are some ideas you can implement starting today:

1. Ask for a backup email address. People are used to providing a daytime and evening phone number for emergencies. Yahoo Mail is just one of the sites that request this information. If you’ve ever set up an email account with them, they ask you to list another email address that can be used for notifications if you cannot access your Yahoo account.
2. Ask for and maintain a physical address. If your subscribers purchase physical products for delivery by you, this information is already in your database. But info product producers that make their wares available by digital download can also request a home address.

   If your customer’s email bounces, you have the opportunity to send a notice to them through the mail, directing them to your opt-in box, and, perhaps, enticing them to do so with a special offer.

3. Ask for a phone number. You should always request a phone number on your order form because there are many circumstances that may require a quick phone call to verify shipping information or credit card issues. Even if you are not selling physical products, you should include a space on your opt-in form for a phone number.

If you sell digital products, an easy way to gather this information is to offer an at-cost (or very low cost) upsell to a physical CD which can be mailed in addition to their digital download. Services such as Kunaki can do this for $1.75 each + shipping, including the case, CD printing, bar codes and all the trappings of a professional CD.

If you would like to gather physical addresses from everyone who subscribes to your list, include an optional physical bonus report on your opt-in form. The only way your reader can receive your bonus is by mail. Your report doesn’t have to  be long or fancy and should be kept to a minimum number of pages to keep your costs down.

While it’s great to have this information on everyone, it’s critical to have it on your customers because they are proven buyers and will likely purchase from you again. A buyer is much more likely to be an engaged customer and we could ALL use more of them!

As marketers, we must polish our marketing efforts even more. Job losses will probably not slow down for the foreseeable future. It’s imperative that you stay one step ahead by protecting that database you’ve worked so hard to build.

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

Many companies tie promotions and articles to holidays in order to draw extra attention to their product or sales.

To that end, here is a nice 2009 Calendar of Holidays and Special Events that will get you started in planning out your calendar. It includes know-(and not-so-well-known) holidays from around the world.

And, if your company prefers to celebrate those off-the-wall holidays, you can find holidays for every day of the year at Holidays for Everyday. For instance, how many of you remembered to celebrate “National Lemon Cupcake Day” on December 15^th?

If you don’t have a-year-at-a-glance calendar, get one. It’s a great planning tool to use in planning your editorial, email marketing, and website promotions.

The economic pressures have certainly been evident in the retail sector this year, as is evidenced by the number and frequency of email offers flooding mailboxes this season. Without “outing” any individual retailers, you have to ask if your customers need daily (or more frequent!) emails from you.

In the last post, we talked about engaging your customers and how that creates loyalty…which creates sales. One way to engage your customers is through surveys or polls. Why not survey your list to find out their preferable delivery schedule and then test the results to see if what they say is what they mean!

If you are establishing an email marketing or newsletter campaign, a once-a-week delivery schedule is a great starting point. Your list may also be receptive to special pricing, limited deals, or “hot” news one other day during that week. The key is to get the click (and hopefully the sale) without alienating your reader by flooding them with too many emails.

Remember when we discussed how engaged customers are more loyal and generally buy more? KitchenAid has developed a Weekly Specials program that can be customized by their customers. To see this example, go to the page above and click on the image labeled “Weekly Specials”” (obviously that link changes weekly so I can’t use it!). Once there, click on “Product Alerts”.

KitchenAid runs a one-day special every Monday on a product in their outlet store. These are money-savings deals with a short window and significant savings (I recently purchased something for 67% off). The Product Alerts allow you to select the products in which you are interested to receive information about sales in that category. Notice that they are very clear in stating, “You can add or change categories at any time.”

In this way, KitchenAid can email its customers more frequently because they are providing the latest information, sales, and rebates for specific types of products that the customers have selected. Since email notifications go out by product line, customers can delete emails regarding blenders after they’ve purchased one, yet keep receiving emails about other products of interest.

By implementing a system such as this you could easily mail your customers twice weekly – and have them sitting by their inbox waiting for your mail!

How could you adapt this for your business? Please share with us…

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse