Email is one of the best and least expensive ways to reach your target audience, and with today’s analytics measuring effectiveness and ROI has never been easier. Take advantage of this medium to stay top of mind with customers and prospects, customize messages by segment, test offers and more!

Effective email marketing requires a good contact database, but that’s not all. A large email database won’t ensure customers receive, read or act on your messages. Building an effective e-marketing database and executing an e-marketing program that delivers results is an ongoing process. Here are a few key tips to get you started:

1. Capturing Contact Data
   Your website Home page is one of the best places to secure email addresses, but since visitors may enter your site from different pathways you should ensure that every page contains a subscription form that is easy to locate and easy to read. Forms should be simple and require only the necessary information you need to email your subscribers.
2. The Drive to Subscribe
   Most visitors are unwilling to divulge their email information. And, it’s hard to establish trust over the Internet. Giving potential subscribers an incentive to subscribe, such as a list of benefits, other free subscriptions, contests, special promotions etc. will help to encourage them to provide their email addresses.
3. Asking Permission
   Obtain subscribers’ permission to receive “bulk” email. Without permission, your email will be considered spam. Confirm that subscribers have in fact subscribed with an email that thanks them and confirms that they have given you permission to send them information.
4. Please and Thank you
   The thank you email is the first point of contact between you and your new subscribers. Guaranteeing your subscribers’ privacy is vital to ensuring you establish a relationship of trust. The thank you email can also help set expectations about what subscribers should expect (bi-weekly or monthly delivery, ongoing content categories etc.).
5. Deliver Value
   Important as it is to capture and create an accurate email list, securing subscribers’ long term interest and readership is your key goal. Ensure your emails contain:

• Value-Added Content – targeted information, tips, reviews, invitations to exclusive events, special product or service promotions etc.
• Consistency – A consistent email format, length (short) and frequency (often) is vital to ensure readers anticipate and read as many issues as possible
• Personalized Messages – segment your list by target audience – potential customers vs. existing customers, etc. Create different products and promotions based on cross-selling and up-selling goals, special events to convince competitive customers to learn more about your business and its offerings, etc.
• Valuable Links – include links to specific areas of your website where visitors can find more information

Building a brand that will resonate with prospects, customers and employees is critical to success. Once your brand is established, delivering your brand message to the right target markets is the next piece in the puzzle – check the next issue of 5th Insight for more on this and other smarter marketing strategies to meet today’s business challenges.

Remember, subscribers can unsubscribe at any time. Find out why by surveying subscribers at the time of opt-out. This will help you gain valuable insight about where your website and e-publication can be improved.

Like just about everyone else who’s forked over a fair sized chunk of their
year’s marketing budget to achieve a killer online presence, you’re looking
forward to a rush of new sales, right?

Bad news: it isn’t going to happen. And that doesn’t mean your website isn’t
good – it’s more likely because your website’s been left to go it alone.

The simple truth is that for most businesses, a website is a sales tool, not
a sales vehicle. So if you want to dramatically boost sales and see your website
as an ideal place to find new prospects, you need to incorporate the same
techniques used in face-to-face selling to make them convert. That, of course,
begins with prospect follow up.

About 80% of the sales initiated through website contact are made
after several contacts have been made. Why ? Because people
rarely visit a website and immediately buy (unless it’s an e-commerce site), so
if you don’t maintain ongoing contact you’ll miss out on a significant amount of
potential new business. Don’t let that happen – make the most of every selling
opportunity by offering your site visitors information of value so they will
tell you who they are in order to get it. Case studies, white papers, check
lists, guides and e-publications encourage visitors to come back regularly
looking for fresh content – ask them to identify themselves and you can actually
notify them when that new content becomes available, along with whatever else
you’d care to promote. Once you’ve established the contact, follow up with more
of the information they’re looking for and your chances of getting them to buy
will be far greater. Here’s how to begin:

• Credibility = Trust
  The more useful and relevant
  information you provide to prospects, the more belief they will have that your
  business can be trusted. By offering credible information that delivers value,
  you demonstrate that you know what you’re talking about. As a result, site
  visitors will be willing to provide you with their email addresses so you can
  give them even more – they may even fill out short surveys to tell you what they
  really want. Before you know it, Presto! A brand new prospect list is
  born.
• Playing With Emotions
  With every message you send to
  your new list, you should emphasize the “want” your product will satisfy. Saving
  money? Saving Time? Adding convenience? Remember that people buy first because
  they want and second because they need, so your messages need
  to address both the emotional and the tangible.
• Building Value
  Each time you contact your prospect the
  value of your “offer” should grow. It might be a limited time bonus, special
  discount or something else you know your prospect will appreciate. By limiting
  the time available to act, you work to push your prospect toward making a buying
  decision.
• Making it Real
  Once you’ve hit the emotional element of
  decision-making, be sure to focus just as pointedly on the practical. Give
  prospects sound, logical reasons to buy, based on facts. Pinpoint the results
  they will see, the savings they will realize or the efficiencies they’ll gain.
  Be specific and use examples – pie in the sky just isn’t credible.
• Positive Reinforcement
  Testimonials in the form of case
  studies work well to attract prospects with similar “pain” to your customers.
  Because, if you can eliminate your customers’ pain, it stands to reason you can
  do wonders for your prospects’, too.

Now – take a good hard look at your website. Does it offer value? Does it
give prospects an opportunity to ask you for more? Does it give you an
opportunity to learn about them? If it doesn’t, shouldn’t you be doing something
about it?

“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted;
the trouble is, I don’t know which half.”

John Wanamaker, father of modern advertising

If you struggle with the question of whether advertising really benefits your business, you’re not alone. It seems like a good idea, but it doesn’t make the phone ring or make product jump off the shelves for you the way it does for Coke, Rogers, Apple or Telus (and who among us doesn’t love those teeny monkeys?).

So why does it work for the big guys? Simple – it’s all about media weight. Blue chip companies have deep pockets and can afford to place ads literally “everywhere”. They also pursue a mass audience, and television, radio and billboards hit that target. But, if you’re the average business, you can’t afford to do that. You need results in the short term – you can’t wait for your message to sink in and you’re after a specific target audience.

Like a whole lot of other experienced, competent business people, you may tend to think of advertising and marketing as the same. There is a difference between the two, and knowing what each has to offer will help you achieve a much better return on investment:

• Building AwarenessAdvertising is actually a marketing tactic. It’s used to build brand awareness and recognition through media such as television, radio, movies, magazines, newspapers, the Internet and billboards. Advertising through these mass media can be very effective if your goal is to reach a wide consumer audience. For business-to-business marketing, a targeted approach typically delivers a far greater return on investment. So, you might choose to advertise in a trade magazine where you know that the audience is comprised solely of potential buyers for your product or service. Still, for the most part, your ad will build awareness and recognition. And, when someone suggests adding your business to a Request for Proposal distribution list, the approving manager can say “Sure – I’ve heard of them” instead of, “You want to send it to who?”
• Making the Phone RingMarketing is used to attract and retain customers and maximize their potential. There are two types of marketing; Strategic and Operational. Strategic Marketing is the overall strategy aimed at creating and building competitive advantage. Its focus is on issues such as positioning: will you be the best quality? The lowest price? The most innovative? Operational Marketing executes specific, planned tactics designed to attract and keep customers and to build sales volume within existing customer accounts. The Operational Marketing mix should include a wide variety of tactics such as direct mail, interactive e-marketing campaigns, tradeshows, newsletters, special events, e-publications, and, yes, in the right circumstances, advertising.

In short, advertising is just one of many marketing tactics. When developing your marketing plan, it’s important to include a variety of tactics designed to not only attract and retain customers but build brand awareness. Advertising definitely has a place, but to be effective it must be carefully incorporated as part of the overall marketing mix, not its foundation.

Make the most of your marketing opportunities – contact 5th Business and ask about our Smarter Marketing ® strategies.