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More on Email

May 7, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Yesterday I ranted a bit about an email blast I had received. As a result of some conversations that followed on Twitter, I thought it may be a good idea to give you some pointers on how to do it right.

It’s about permission.

  • Build your own lead list. Use a lead generator on your website.
  • Collect your own leads in your booth if you do a bridal show.
  • Don’t use the mass lists that come from bridal shows or media that you advertise with like magazines and websites.*
  • Use a qualified opt-in email service like A Weber.

It’s About Branding.

  • Your emails should match your other branding.
  • Include headers and graphics that look like your website.
  • Include links to your other products/profiles.
  • Unless you are HARO, graphics are good.**

It’s About Frequency and Content.

  • Sending 1 or 2 emails and expecting a response is outdated.
  • You have a brief window to influence a bride. Sending a weekly email blast isn’t far fetched.
  • Give your recipients a reason to read you email. Content is king; you can’t just send a sales pitch.

Track and Test.

  • Follow your stats. Check open rates and click thrus on every email.
  • Split test your list. Send half you list one subject line and the other half a different one to see which gets a better open rate. Likewise, send a different email to each half and see which one gets a better click thru rate.
  • Take the time to preview/test your emails before you hit send. Glaring typos, omissions and broken links make you look bad


Email marketing is but one of the tools in your social media marketing toolkit. The better you are at using it the better your overall marketing results will be.

*When a bride signs up at a bridal show, magazine or website she is giving permission to that entity, not to their vendors. I have argued this point till I am blue in the face with both the major email services and the bridal show producers. Not one of the top notch email services will let you use those lists, regardless of what the list providers tell you.

**HARO, Help A Reporter Out, is a thrice daily listing of writers and editors looking for sources for articles. It can be a great way to get you name in print. If you aren’t a subscriber to this list you should be. Fair warning though, you have to jump on those lead ASAP.

Filed Under: Blog, Marketing Tagged With: , , , ,

Are Your Emails Losing You Customers?

May 6, 2010 By Leave a Comment

I got another one in my inbox yesterday: a completely lame email blast that instead of making me want to buy,  made me lose respect for the sender. How sad is that?

What, you ask did they do that was so horrible? Dang near everything.

First, the greeting: Dear Valued Important Prospect

How funny is that? I felt neither important nor valued. I felt like they couldn’t even be bothered to use the personalization option on the email platform. OH WAIT! that is because they didn’t use a qualified opt-in bulk email program. They sent it from their regular email.

I wonder how valued and important the other 34 people they sent it to felt? How do I know they sent it to 34 other people? Because they didn’t even bother to use the BCC feature that would have hid all the other email addresses. Gee, now I know who is on their lead list. Come on, that is just standard email etiquette.

The email said that there were pictures attached. Whoops, they forgot to attach then, they came later in another email.

There is really no excuse for this. Good opt-in email programs like Emma and AWeber are not that expensive, cheaper than direct mail. Some, like Mail Chimp are even free for small accounts. They aren’t hard to use and they can be formatted to look lovely and carry your branding. What is the problem folks?

Everyone is working hard to build a strong lead list of “Valued Prospects” but calling them that to their face is not the best way to ingratiate yourself with them.

Email is really not that hard. Far harder is generating a nice fat lead list to send it to; but that’s another rant for another day.

Here is a some more reading on the topic of crafting your email blasts from the gurus at MediaPost  Publications.

Filed Under: Blog, Marketing, Rants & Raves, wedding marketing Tagged With: , ,

Why You Should Cherry Pick Your Lead List

January 9, 2010 By 5 Comments

We all know about lead lists. I’ll bet most of you do one of 3 things: Ignore it, Email blast it or send out a single post card. Suppose you did something outrageous instead?

It’s tough/expensive to do much more than the three things I just mentioned with a lead list of 500 to 2000. With direct mail, you have to put together a piece that will get noticed. How many postcards do you think brides get right after a bridal show?  What is going to make yours stand out enough to even get noticed? Add to this, it is proven that you need multiple mailings of standard direct mail before you have any chance of the lead acting on it. So now it isn’t just about sending out 500 to 2000 post cards; it is about multiplying that by at least 5 to get the response you need.  Now that is starting to get expensive.

Blast email can work with a couple of caveats. For one, you have to have permission to send them. Any reputable bulk mailer will require that you have gathered the leads yourself. That means that the list that you get from the shows or from bridal mags you advertise in are usually prohibited. What’s more, even if you found a way around the system, about half of those email addresses are bogus or are just junk mail dumping accounts. The second caveat is to get around the spam filters you really have to know what you are doing when you craft your email. That is particularly true in crafting your headline.  If you start getting caught by the spam filters you may well find your email address or isp blocked altogether.

Of course at least these two options have a bit more of a chance than doing nothing. Unfortunately, that is what most people do with the lead lists.

Now suppose you really analyzed those lists ,compared a few different lists, pared them down to only the really juicy prospects, and separated them by wedding date? You may end up with maybe 3 leads some months, maybe 7 to 10 for others. Now that is a doable number. You could pull out all the stops to get their attention then, couldn’t you?

So now what? That is where your unique creativity comes in to the equation. How outrageous do you want to get and how much are you willing to spend to get a great client?  I read something recently about a house cleaning service that would cherry pick their leads and send the ripe ones a DVD player with a DVD full of testimonials of happy clients shot in their clean homes. Now that is pretty dang outrageous, but if you get one out of 3 and stand to make a good bit of money on their weekly service, it was worth it. They did this once a month and grew their business by at least one or two new clients a month.

Now I am not saying you need to send brides DVD players but there are other outrageous things you could do. I spoke with a florist recently about sending out a small floral arrangement to 3 leads a week. She would just order a bit of extra flowers and deliver them herself. I can guarantee that she will be on that bride’s radar so much more that an email or postcard would have done. If you are a baker, how tough would it be to send out a few boxes of cupcakes a week?  Hey DJ’s, how about a CD of the 15 Best First Dance Songs?  Caterers, could you invite 4 couples to a tasting a month? Remember, you are only hitting the very best prospects, those prospects that your close ratio should be high on if you can get their attention.

I know a bridal salon that does appointment only champagne shopping on Sundays. There are signs posted and she tells the brides that come about it. How much more effective would it be if rather than waiting for brides that already had been in her shop to book an appointment she started sending out selective invitations to good prospects off of her lead lists. Maybe do a private fashion show once a week for a select number of girls.

Yes, all of this costs money; all marketing does. This kind of marketing is done on a small scale and is highly track-able. It is also so outside the box that you are bound to get noticed. Or you can keep doing what you have been doing and hope it works.



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Refining Your E-mail Marketing

January 9, 2010 By Leave a Comment

I love email marketing. Getting a well crafted e-mail campaign in the inbox of your potential client is a wonderful thing. In the past we have talked about building your list, not getting blacklisted as spam and why it is an important part of your overall marketing plan. This month I want to give you some tips on bad vs good email design.

You may be doing all the right things in terms of list quality, consistency and e-mail services and still not be getting the open rate that you hoped.  Here are some pitfalls that a lot of people don’t even consider when designing their campaigns.

Subject lines

Think hard about your subject line; often it is the only thing that your recipient will see. If they have the preview pane turned off in their email client (like I do) your subject line IS the headline that will have to grab their attention. Be sure to reference your business name in some way and give them a reason to open it. Tease them. Stay away from spammy words like Free.

E-mail Length

Longer is not better. In today’s world people want fast e-mail. A couple of paragraphs with links out to more information do the trick better than trying to explain everything in the text body.  Another reason to think short is the growing numbers of people that read their email in hand held devices like Blackberries or iPhones.  No one wants to have to scroll through 4 screens to get to what you want them to read. In fact, most people won’t even bother.

All Images

An increasing number of e-mail clients have the defaults set to NOT display images. If your entire email is an image all you recipient will see is a blank box with an X in it. If you are luck and have included an alt image tag at least they will see that, maybe. Some e-mail clients like Yahoo and Hot Mail won’t even display the alt image tag. A better plan is to use mostly text in your email (especially in the upper left quadrant) and add images sparingly. Any image you do include should carry an informative alt image tag so at least your readers will know what they are missing.

Plain Text

I’m guilty of this one and I  overcame it in 2009. Once you have designed you e-mail in HTML with all its lovely pictures and links be sure to check the plain text version. The system I use allows me to edit the plain text version separately from the HTML version. Take a look at yours. A lot of times what happens is all those links and images end up looking to the untrained eye as lines of gobbledygook.  So just get rid of them. If there are links that absolutely have to be there, write them in plain language.  Ditto the images. Just get rid of any links to outside images since they won’t show up anyway. Next, take a look at the layout. There really isn’t any way to make it pretty but at least strive for clean.  Why is this important?  It’s important because about 50% of e-mails open in plain text. I thought that number was a little high until I considered the number of people viewing their e-mail on mobile devices. Sadly, I expect the number to grow.

These are just a few tricks of the trade. The other thing you absolutely must do is preview and test. Then do it again.  I test every campaign in at least 3 different e-mail clients. I send it to my Outlook acct, my Thunderbird account and my gmail account.  You can set up free accounts on Yahoo and Hotmail as well and then just add those addresses to your test account. Most bulk e-mail programs don’t charge you for your test emails so there isn’t any reason not to test like crazy.

Put these tips into practice and watch what happens to your open and click through rates. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

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Email Marketing

January 9, 2010 By 1 Comment

It is a common fallacy to stop marketing when money gets tight. It is very easy to see your marketing budget as a quick fix place to cut. Don’t do it. You need your marketing now more than ever.

So what do you do when those high dollar spends like magazines and bridal show keep getting more expensive and returning less. I didn’t say you had to keep marketing the way you were, I just said that now is not the time to stop.

Right now the most cost effective way to market is through email, but you need to do it right.

Here are some of the things I have learned along the way.

  • Don’t use your regular email. Use a quality bulk email system that has a good opt –out  application.  I like A Weber and Emma. I like Emma enough to become an agency for them. Both offer great tracking and are ridiculously easy to use. I recently started using Constant Contact for a client. I have to tell you, I am not a fan.
  • Preview, preview and preview again. A good system lets you send test emails to yourself and a limited group free of charge. In my case I send them to myself at email addresses on three different email programs just see how they look. I use Outlook, G-mail and Thunderbird. Be sure to check how it looks in the various preview panes on your mail programs. Sometimes that is all your recipient will look at. Once I have it tweaked, I add the client to the final test for their approval.
  • Have a “Tell a Friend” button prominently placed in your email. Most systems have this feature just be sure you enable it.
  • Use good lead lists. The single best way is to build your own list. As I have said in a previous article, the ones you get from magazines and bridal shows are dicey at best. In fact, Emma won’t even let you load them.  If you do bridal shows, have brides sign up IN YOUR BOOTH. Offer them something in return, a discount coupon works well.  Set that up as an auto-responder when they opt in, don’t just hand them to them at the show.
  • Make sure you have a lead generator on your website. Again, offer them something to sign up. It can be information, invitations to events or a coupon. Give them something.
  • Be regular in your mailings. You can’t send an email blast every now and then and expect it to work. You have to send them out on a regular consistent basis. Remember, brides take between 12 and 16 months to plan their wedding. If you take away the months they spent getting around to thinking about your particular service or product and the months the need to book in advance of their date you have a window of 6 months at best, probably more like 4. Looking at it in that light, weekly isn’t a bad goal.
  • Make your emails short, sweet, lively and fun. Make your readers look forward to the next one.  Include a few interesting illustrations but don’t overload it. To high of a percentage of images to text sets off the spam filters.
  • Include pertinent links to things you talk about. Say you are having a special on Fondant cake, include a link to your description of fondant and a galley of fondant cakes on your website.  Running a special on Maggie Sottero Gowns, link to their website. You can track those click-thrus to find out what gets your readers interest; then do more like it.
  • Tracking. Yes any good system has good tracking stats and you need to be using them.  I’ve said it before, there is gold in your statistics if you would just use them.

Email marketing is easier than you think and it certainly is more cost effective then most other forms of marketing. Here is one more little thought to get you thinking…

Among 18- to-34-year-olds, consumers are more likely to be influenced to make purchases based on e-mail marketing messages and direct mail than from advertisements or marketing messages on social networks according to new research from Ball State University and ExactTarget.

If you would like the Agency @ Think put together you email marketing strategies send me an email here.

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How Are You Using Social Media?

January 9, 2010 By Leave a Comment

For our industry, blogging and email marketing are the most effective tools in the social media tool bag. Yes there are  Facebook and Twitter to be included but for most of my clients the first two are the most powerful and easiest to incorporate into the mix; the last 3 take a measure of dedication and devotion that not many of you have. Heck some days even I don’t.

Our most effective tool is email marketing. I’m sure you have put a bulk mail program like A Weber in place but have you customized your template? Is there a lead generator on your website for people to sign up? Do all of your email blasts look alike and friendly? Do they include your branding and pertinent information like phone number and hours of operation? Do they have links to your website? Or are they just plain, boring text messages that lie there like yesterday’s news? This is advertising people!

How often do you send out an email blast? This isn’t like the old days when you had to pay someone like the Knot an arm and a leg to send out a blast. Today’s bulk mailers are dirt cheap and completely DIY for very many of us. You should be sending out a blast to your lead list at least once a month, every other week is even better. Surely you can think of something to say that is short and informative. You are trying to build a relationship with your leads.

When I say leads, I don’t just mean brides. You should have a lead list for other wedding professionals too. It goes back to networking. The other professionals in your area are the true influentials in your market. Keep them informed on what is new and exciting in your field and you will quickly become the go to guy in your market. They will bring the brides. I hope I don’t need to remind you to do the same for them.

The other most effective tool is your blog. I know you have a website but a blog is different. As I have said in the past your blog is where you let your personality come through. It is where you show your excitement. Your excitement get’s others excited. Talk about your events and your products. Use your blog to show case upcoming promotions and highlight your successes. Corporate blogging, unlike blogging for profit, is about showing the human side, the personality if you will of you and your company. Because of that difference, your posts don’t have to be long winded research pieces. They should just be short little bites that illustrate your day.

Blogging platforms today are a breeze to use and when you add all the cool free tools on the internet that you can use to enhance them your blog should be a lively place for prospective clients to visit.  Pop up a slide show of last weeks wedding or one about the backstage setup on your last big catering job. Do a slide show of a recent trunk show to show how much fun the brides were having. Keep it up to date and exciting.

Oh thing you must understand about social media marketing is that rather than broadcasting your message to a massive group and hoping it lands on a few friendly ears you are building relationships with a small group of influentials and encouraging them to spread your message. To that end, one of the things you can do to get your message out to the right people is by reading and posting comments on their blogs. You should be following blogs of like minded individuals in your market and making a connection with them. Let’s say you are a photographer that wants to expand into destination weddings. You should read a list of blogs written by wedding planners that specialize in destination weddings and you should comment frequently and intelligently enough that they begin to recognize you. When you do get to the point of pitching them they will already know you. Hmmmmm, that’s a good thing, no?  Suppose you are a caterer, you should be leaving comment on the blogs connected to venues you like. Again, it is about making connections and building relationships.

Social media marketing only works if you work it. The thing is that it get easier to use every day and the cost is next to nothing.

Filed Under: Ask Christine, Branding Tagged With: , , ,

The Synergy of Email Marketing and WordPress

September 9, 2009 By 3 Comments

Many wedding professionals are using Email blasts for marketing. Let me show you why moving to WordPress will make that easier and more beneficial.

In today’s fast paced environment, email marketing works best when it teases several articles rather than using the full Think Like A Bride Newsletterarticle content. If a reader doesn’t get hooked by the first one, there are more chances on down the page.
I have been doing this with my Think Like A Bride newsletter. The great thing about it is I can look at the stats for the email campaign and see what articles are catching my reader’s eyes. Then I of course write more of them. The thing is, you have to have somewhere for those full articles to live.

Publishing content remains a huge barrier to small businesses who too often rely on static Web sites – and sometimes-expensive, often-hard-to-reach Webmasters to update those sites.
That is where WordPress comes in. Publishing via WordPress is something that most anyone can grasp. It becomes a simple task to get your content online. Even if your newsletter is just a collection of images from the last month’s weddings, you can still manage it yourself.

In each teaser in your newsletter you link to the post for the full article on your WordPress site. By posting it on your site you have the benefit of added content and better SEO. That is something that just putting it in an email won’t give you.

Additionally, WordPress sites are set up to easily allow you to install the tools needed to gather leads as well as cross post your material to all the other social networks like Twitter, Facebook and FriendFeed. Again, great for SEO and a timesaver for you.

Even if you aren’t ready to completely switch you website to a WordPress CMS, (which I highly recommend) you can still just have a WP blog set up on your existing site. Call it something like “Latest News” or “Fresh Ideas” and let your articles live there.

It is something to think about. Why not get all the benefit you can out of the effort you put into writing articles for your newsletter? Kind of seems like a no brainer to me.

Filed Under: Blog, Marketing, Social Media, Website marketing Tagged With: , , , , ,

The Truth About Lead Lists

August 28, 2008 By 2 Comments

Each bridal show you do or magazine or website you advertise on uses a lead list as the carrot to get you to book. Well let me tell you, that carrot gets more shriveled and pale everyday. [Read more...]

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