Quality Practice Management Solutions

You are here: Home / Archives for email marketing

Facebook Tagging for Business

By Leave a Comment

Social Media Explorer recently wrote an excellent article about the new Facebook tagging feature and using it for business. Here’s a quick excerpt:

“For a business, this can allow you to stay more top of mind with your friends or fans. When you tag someone, they receive a notification you’ve done so and, thus, come see what you tagged them in. This is potentially very powerful for businesses. As the administrator of a fan page, when you tag someone in a wall post or note, it appears to them as if the business or organization tagged them, not the individual logged in to administer the account.”

Here’s a link to the original article. What are your thoughts?

Email Marketing No-Nos

By Leave a Comment

I received an email today from someone I had gotten a service quote from in the past (for my house). I received it in both my business email and my Gmail account (because I have my Gmail set up as a “back up” for my business account). I didn’t even look at it in my Outlook…simply deleted it because there was NO TEXT in the body of the email. However, Gmail has the thumbnail preview of attached images at the bottom of the emails, and I saw it was possibly a “legitimate” email, so I opened the full picture.  As a result, I sat down and wrote the following email:

Hi [removed],

I received your email today with your [removed] Sunroom information. However, if I may offer some suggestions…

Sending an email to 436 people in a way where anyone receiving the email can view and save the email address of everyone else the email has been sent to is bad email etiquette. It’s very easy for someone to simply right click on a name and get the email address for every single person on your list. For example, I know that [removed name]’s email address is [removed]2001@aol.com simply by using that technique. And in Gmail, I don’t even have to go through all that trouble…I can just click on the “show details” link in my email and it will show the email addresses of everyone with a single click. Some people just don’t want their email addresses out there. And if someone has the option checked to “automatically add recipients to my contact list” in their email program and they click on “reply all” to your email…guess what, now all those people on your email are in that person’s contact list and are more susceptible to viruses and those incessantly forwarded email jokes and chain letters.

Sending that many emails at one time will many times get you flagged as a potential spammer by your Internet service provider as well as raise your SPAM score in SPAM filters…so your email might not even get seen by your customers and potential customers because it is much more likely to get filtered out by their SPAM filters.

Subject line. Most people do not open email where they do not understand the subject line. Your subject was “Emailing: Page Title”. That has no call to action and does not give the sender any information about what’s in the email.

No body text. There was not TEXT in your email stating WHO the email was from, what company, etc.

Only graphics in the email. Most email programs no longer show graphics unless the sender is added to your “safe sender” list or unless you physically click on the “show pictures” option. Again, if no one knows who it’s from and there’s no text in the message of the email to say who you are or what the email is about, so the odds of someone clicking on the option to see the picture to see what you have to say is slim since almost all the emails that have no text and only graphics are ads for “cheap pharmaceuticals” and porn.

Do you have a mechanism in place to see how many people actually opened your email, or are you just going on blind faith?

So, if I have all these reasons why no one would open the email, why did I open the email? I’ll tell you why…because this is what I do for a living…I manage email marketing campaigns for small business and entrepreneurs. And I’m interested in what even the “spam” is like. I learn from every email I receive – good and bad.

If you would like to continue with email campaigns, I would be happy to talk with you about how you can continue to send emails, track who opens them, and increase your “open rate” in the process, I’d be glad to talk with you to discuss how I could help [removed] Remodeling accomplish this.

Will I ever hear from this guy again? Will he even read my email? Will he take any action to help ensure his emails get read in the future? I don’t know.

Why Should Your Small Business Use Email Marketing?

By Leave a Comment

If you think email marketing is just for “Internet” businesses or the “big guys”, your small business could be missing out on one of the most powerful, cost effective marketing tools available. I’m not talking about SPAM emails; I mean a properly managed, fully compliant marketing campaign.

It’s Targeted – A good mailing list will consist of current customers and those who have expressed an interest in your particular goods or services. With a properly managed email campaigns you can target your marketing efforts. For instance, you can send one version to current customers and another to potential customers who have expressed an interest in your product or service.

It’s Flexible – Email campaigns can help your company build stronger relationships with current clients, attract new clients, increase visits to your web site, provide up to date company and product information and build brand awareness.

It’s Immediate – Your mailing list can be notified almost immediately when you launch a new product or service – no waiting days or weeks for printed newsletters or post cards to be printed and mailed.

It’s Trackable – With the right program you will be able to track if your message was received, if it was opened and if the recipient clicked on any links in your email.

It’s Cost Effective – In tough economic times, cost effectiveness is crucial. With email marketing you are instantly eliminating the expense associated with printing, postage and the time it takes to prepare mailings.

It Works – A well managed email campaign and mailing list will yield response rates much higher than other direct marketing methods. Although there are many variables in response rates, overall email marketing has a response rate 5 times higher than direct mail.

Factoring in the cost to have a knowledgeable Internet marketing assistant manage your email campaigns for you, chances are you will be spending less per month for an ongoing email marketing campaign than a weekly ad in the local newspaper. I’m not saying you should abandon all other marketing efforts, but consider adding email marketing to your marketing tool box.

Why aren’t you using email marketing for your small business?

By Leave a Comment

If you think email marketing is only for the “big boys”, think again! Email marketing is one of the most powerful and effective marketing tools available today.

  • It’s cost effective. There are no printing costs and you can reach hundreds (or thousands) of customers and potential customers on a limited budget.
  • It’s trackable. Almost every email marketing campaign service has a tracking system in place to measure how many of your emails are actually delivered, how many people actually open your email, how many click links in your email and how many “convert to a sale”.
  • It’s instant. Your customers get current information about your business and products immediately – without having to wait days for the mail.
  • It’s easily outsourced. Email marketing is easily outsourced to a Certified Internet Marketing Virtual Assistant. A Certified Internet Marketing VA can take the worry, headache and learning curve out of the equation.