Amy Black's Blog Posts

How important are your subject lines to the overall success of an email campaign? I did a little digging and here are some stats I discovered…

Ron Cates is Constant Contact's regional development director for Arizona. He and his counterparts across the country help people to become effective email marketers through free workshops and seminars.

Businesses aren’t the only ones using email to connect. Both nonprofits and religious groups have found email marketing (or email outreach, as some call it) to be a cost-saving and effective tool for staying connected with their constituents and/or members. We plan to cover more topics that relate to these two groups going forward. For starters, here are two suggestions.

I am so lucky. Every week I get to hear excellent stories about the amazing results people are getting with email marketing. One of the things I love is that these folks are from all different kinds of organizations. Every so often, I will share some of the stories on the blog. Here are a few I received recently that stood out. If you have a great story to tell, respond to this post!

The first one is from Marna Krajeski of Oregon, the author of the book Household Baggage. Marna is doing a great job of compiling and sending content that is valuable to her readers. And at the same time, she’s promoting her book.

As the author of a book for military spouses, I have two goals. The first is to create an outreach for spouses who face the challenges of military life and the loneliness of long deployments. The second goal is to create a platform for myself, which is essential in today's publishing world.

Did you know that your welcome letter may be the most-read email of any you send? According to Ramesh Lakshmi-Ratan, Ph.D., the Direct Marketing Association's executive vice president and chief operating officer, "... welcome emails have significantly higher open rates than regular emails..." What a great opportunity to connect with your new subscribers!

Earlier this year, we featured an article by our CEO, Gail Goodman, in Hints & Tips about this very subject. The idea to focus on the welcome letter was inspired by a presentation we attended at the 2007 Email Marketing Summit sponsored by Marketing Sherpa.

At the conference, Marketing Sherpa’s president, Anne Holland, told us about a test they conducted prior to the summit. Her staff signed up for the email lists of all the companies who were coming and waited to see if they received a welcome letter. They wanted to see if we (the attendees) were taking advantage of the power of this first email.

Interestingly, they found that within 72 hours they had received welcome emails from only 55% and only 36% had content beyond “welcome.” The obvious point was, wow, what a missed opportunity!

A few weeks ago, I received an email from a local nonprofit, one that I’d never heard of before. My first thought was, “How did I get on this list?” I’m not a fan of getting marketing emails I didn't sign up for.

The email was an advertisement for a film produced by a well-known newscaster and an invitation to the opening night. I decided to ignore the email, thinking that it was a one-time thing.

Well, it wasn’t. Last Friday, I received the same email again. I started wondering if it was a hoax of some kind, so I went to the website they were advertising. It seemed legit. So, I replied to the email at the info@ address it was sent from (the same one listed on the website) to ask that they remove me from their list. And almost immediately, it bounced back. Not good. Not legal.

Happy Friday!

Constant Contact® just released the results of its 2007 Small Business Holiday Outlook Survey. While 39 percent of the 2,000+ U.S. small businesses who responded have some concerns about competition from larger retailers, their overall outlook is positive, with 63 percent expecting strong sales this holiday season.

You can see all of the results, including the outlook on holiday marketing, hiring, employee recognition, and sales concerns in this pdf.

How do these results line up with your holiday outlook?

Best,

Amy Black

P.S. Go Sox! : )

That line worked if you just sang it! In the song I have in mind, the singer wants to get to know everything about the people she is singing to. As an email marketer, you don’t need to know everything about the people on your list, but, if you want to provide them with relevant information and offers, you need to know something about them beyond their names and email addresses.

The more relevant you make the email, the better the results. It makes sense, right? If Suzy is ambivalent about chicken, but just can’t get enough of pizza, wouldn’t she be much more likely to respond to a special offer on a large pizza, than on a rotisserie chicken?

This is the part where you interrupt me and ask, “But how do I know if Suzy likes chicken or pizza? I can’t keep track of what every customer likes and doesn’t like.”

Good news. You don’t have to. Let Suzy (and some useful features of your email marketing product) do the work for you.