Using All the Tools

Barbara Talley of Business Support Training (and The Poet Speaks) in Germantown, Md., is an author, speaker, consultant, and poet who focuses her work on the themes of vision, values, and virtues for professionals. To date, Barbara has written six books and given countless keynote addresses to groups around the country. She also offers workshops and consults with clients on issues around time management, diversity training, and organization development skills. Her goal is to inspire and motivate people to be more present in their lives by living with joy and being true to themselves.

Challenge: Getting her name out there

Barbara has been in business for herself since 1987, with the majority of her marketing efforts centered on word-of-mouth recommendations from satisfied clients. But as the economy soured in recent years and corporate budgets dried up, she could no longer rely on her regular customer base. "It's critical that I build relationships and expand my contact list," Barbara says.

For her last four books, Barbara has published them under her own imprint, making her more responsible for publicizing and marketing them. Business Support Traning's "staff" is only Barbara, so she also has to collect email addresses, paper-based speaker feedback forms, and organize book signing and other publicity events all on her own. "I needed a better way to stay in contact as I wasn't getting the follow-through that I needed," Barbara says.

Solution: Constant Contact to the Rescue

Barbara signed up for Constant Contact Email Marketing in the summer of 2008, but it took her about a year to realize its full potential of reaching a customer base that is spread around the United States. Today, she sends out a monthly newsletter filled with valuable information and time-saving tips. "I don't use it as a sales tool. Rather, it's about creating relationships and staying in front of people," Barbara says of her newsletter.

Barbara decided to use Constant Contact Event Marketing in the fall of 2009 to promote two events designed to give prospective customers a taste of what she offers. For the second of the two events, her friends and associates thought it was crazy to try to schedule an event in the middle of the busy holiday season. But Barbara persisted and sent out her invitation during the Thanksgiving week – just three weeks before the event. "67 people responded and registered, and we had 40 to 50 people at the event," Barbara reports. "It was hugely successful."

I am staying in front of the audience so they don't forget about me. Barbara is also using the Online Survey tool to collect feedback from all her speaking engagements. Previously, she had handed out paper forms for people to fill out, which meant individually entering the information back into her contact database. "Using an online survey lets people type all the information in themselves, resulting in much cleaner data," Barbara says, noting that it helps cut down on the number of bounced emails resulting from mistyped addresses.

Results: More client engagement

Right off the bat, Barbara's newsletter resulted in more engagements with customers. "I can see clearly that some of the work I'm getting now is a direct result of me doing a monthly newsletter," she says. "I am staying in front of the audience so they don't forget about me."

Barbara is a self-described "neurotic" when it comes to her key email statistics, constantly refreshing her reports to see who has opened her messages and what they are clicking on. "Most of my hot prospects are the people who have been looking at my newsletter," she says. "I can tell from the click-throughs that I get."

Her events are helping too. The December event that focused on preparing for 2010 brought in hundreds of dollars in book sales and a handful of speaking opportunities, all from a free event. Barbara's new online feedback forms are also bringing in customers. "I had at least eight people say, 'Here are the people you need to talk to in my organization'," she reports.

Plus, electronically collecting the information has saved Barbara from having to manually enter data. "I don't have to collect all those forms and try to read all that handwriting," she says. "I have all the information entered already, saving me weeks of time."

Barbara considers the trio of Constant Contact tools invaluable to her business. "I see all these tools as being critically important in different phases of what I do," Barbara says. "I am a small business – it's just me – but I'm able to use these tools to have a virtual office."