Constant Contact Best Practices Blog

Don’t be surprised if you get a Facebook friend request from Santa Claus, Hanukkah Harry, the Holiday Armadillo, or whoever your favorite festive personality is this holiday season. That’s because more people will be using social media this year to help with their shopping than ever before, and even Kris Kringle knows to go where the people are.

A new study by Deloitte of more than 10,000 adults in the U.S. reveals that 17% of shoppers plan to use social media sites as a part of their holiday shopping. Of those using sites like Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace, 60% say they will do so to seek out sales, discounts, and coupons; 53% intend to use the sites to research gift ideas; and 52% say they will use the sites to check the wish lists of friends and family.

The holiday season is starting to reach its peak (can you believe Thanksgiving is just over a week away?), but it's already time to start thinking about next year. Have you started to make plans for 2010 yet? Find out if you are in the minority or majority by sharing your answer in our latest poll. Immediately after you vote, you will get to see how other small businesses and organizations answered. Enjoy!

In my last blog post, I talked about the value of online registration and how you can apply a theme to your registration form and event homepage. But you can’t stop there. You also have to “sell the sizzle.”

What does “sell the sizzle” have to do with themes and the event homepage? And what is an event homepage? Well, similar to the templates in Email Marketing, themes in Event Marketing are a coordinated set of background images, colors, and fonts that can be applied to your event homepage and registration form. Themes help you communicate your thoughts, feelings, and ideas through graphics and images. Themes also provide a consistent look between your event homepage and registration.

At the recent MarketingProfs Digital Marketing Mixer, one of the presenters explained that the old marketing model of selling products and broadcasting information was over. The new model is based on serving and conversing. “The goal is to sell by serving,” she explained, “and to create long-term value.”

It was a great point, I thought, and it was emphasized by a recent article published on AdAge.com that declared we now live in a “conversation economy,” where we aren’t selling products and services — we’re selling conversations.

Standing out in your subscribers' inboxes is especially important during the holiday season when there is so much more junk email to sift through.  In Part I of this series, I covered two key components of successful holiday email marketing. Now let’s finish off with three more tips to maximize the spirit of the season to boost sales or get donations.

Last week, we had another of our Constant Contact Guide to Email Marketing book launch events. This one was in Washington, D.C., at the Inox Restaurant in Tysons Corner. It was a terrific event where we got to spend some quality time with more than 70 customers and business partners.

After the event, we (the Constant Contact contingent) retired to the main dining room of Inox for dinner. The dinner was outstanding, and as a bonus, I saw in action one of the best ways for a restaurant to make the dining experience extend beyond the restaurant.

One of the most important tasks for email marketers to perform is to respect their customers’ wishes with regard to receiving email marketing messages. If a customer updates his profile to change his subscription preferences, or requests to be unsubscribed from a list, then it’s incumbent upon the email marketer to honor that request. This helps to build a trusting relationship between sender and recipient.

The challenge for many small organizations is that they have their subscribers’ contact data, and perhaps associated preferences, in multiple places. Typically, the data will exist in Constant Contact, as well as in a business management application, customer relationship management (CRM) system, and perhaps also in Outlook. Constant Contact can make organizing all this information a little easier by helping you manage the unsubscribes. But what if your CRM also needs to know about a customer who unsubscribes from your marketing list, or perhaps updates her preferences or contact data?

Would you be interested in reading an article called “Great Time-saving Tips?” What about an article called “7 Great Time-saving Tips?” Which of those two options would you be more willing to read?

You may dismiss using numbers in a headline as just another attention-getting trick used all the time by glossy women’s magazines, but I’m guessing that when presented with the two headlines above, you chose the option with the number in it, right? It’s amazing what adding something so small to a headline will do to attract us.

Now put yourself in the shoes (and inbox) of those on your mailing list. When faced with so many email messages and not enough time to read them all, a subject line with a number in it will usually be more attractive than one without.

Saturday is Halloween, one of my favorite holidays. It’s a day for dressing up in costume, being someone else for a change, and of course, eating lots of sweets. Looking back on my younger days, whether I went out dressed as Darth Vader or the Incredible Hulk (true stories), I always hoped for Nestlé Crunch bars or Kit Kats — actually, I still prefer those — and was disappointed whenever I’d get a Sugar Daddy or Snickers bar.

Are you thinking about your email marketing like a dressed-up kid thinks about trick-or-treating on Halloween? The most popular house is always the one giving out what everybody wants (in this case, the best candy), and the one with the least traffic is the one giving out something lame that nobody wants. The same holds true for email: The businesses and organizations with the most people on their mailing lists (and the highest click-through rates) are the ones that give their subscribers exactly what they want.

Look in your inbox. Chances are good that many businesses and nonprofits are already attempting to harness the holiday spirit to boost sales or get donations. With all the offers competing for your subscribers’ attention, don’t just be one of the many. Here are the two tips to help your organization stand out from the crowd this holiday season.