Web design by thinkllike a bride   marketing consulting   other sservices

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: , ,

Bridal Spam. Get Out of My Inbox!!

April 24, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Bridal show season is upon us again. What are you going to do with those lead lists this year? Same as last year or do you plan to actually use them this time? Now what the heck has that got to do with the title?

So in the title I call it Spam and in the first paragraph I dole out guilt about your not using the lead lists. That’s right I did just that. I did it because I want to talk about permission marketing yet again and show season seems to be a prime time to revisit it.

Just how valuable are those lead lists you get from bridal shows and magazines? Not much no matter how you look at them. First of all many of those leads are bogus; a bride can fill in anything with out any verification. I mean come on, would you want your regular inbox to fill up with email from every one of those 200+ vendors hawking everything from home mortgages to ridiculously expensive cookware? I sure wouldn’t.

Many times if the email addresses are valid, they are for a third or fourth tier email account that rarely gets checked anyway. These are accounts that brides set up specifically for just this kind of event. What you want is their real email address, one that they actually check. You aren’t going to get that from the show promoter simply because brides aren’t going to give it to them in the first place.

So what is a hard working vendor to do? You have to get the brides to give the right email directly to you because they want what you have. That is permission marketing in a nutshell: they give you permission to send them something that they want. Yes, yes I know, they should be just dying to learn all about your unique business. Ya, right. Sorry, you have to hook them first my friend.

So here is how you develop great lead lists from bridal shows. First off, you have to do the collecting in your booth. The only way to get them to give you their real email address is to make them an offer they can’t refuse: give them something. Sometimes you can do this by just offering a newsletter but at a bridal show it usually takes more than that. The offer of an E-book is a good one, that is if you have taken the time to write one. Coupons are even better. Tell them that you send out coupons every month by email and request their address. You see, you can’t simple ask for their email address with out giving them a legitimate reason why they would want to do so. Today’s brides are way too savvy for that.

One of the best ways is to use your event marketing to build your lead list. Here is how it works. In your booth post snap shot images of some of the in house marketing events you have hosted or ones that you have participated in. Give it a tag line something like “Come play with us.” Show happy, happy women having a great time together and ask if they would like to be invited too. Of course they do! Everyone wants to be on the hot list for fun and free events. Once you have their email you can certainly send them more than an evite.

Another way is to get them to register for a drawing with the winner to be notified by email. The toughie here is that so many vendors at bridal shows do this but they are giving away really lame prizes. You need to step it up a bit, make it worth their while. Remember that you are only giving one of these away so you can put a bit more money into it. Here is the feed back I hear about this from vendors about this technique. Suppose your prize is something as big as a free $350 bridal bouquet, your natural hope is that you will get the rest of the winners wedding. Don’t count on it; not even a little. Your return is not that one wedding, it is the valid lead list the giveaway generated. While you probably won’t get a big payoff from the winner you have gotten yourself a sweet list of real email leads to mine at your leisure. If you work that list, judge your ROI by how many sale the list generated rather than what you didn’t sell to the winner. One more thing, don’t forget to use that happy winner in your future marketing. Put in your blog or on your website and capture images for your next bridal show. Squeeze every drop of marketing you can out of that $350 bouquet.

Here are a few quick tips regarding email marketing campaigns

  • Be frequent and consistent. With the window for potential bridal clients estimated to be less that 16 months you have to connect with your lead list on a weekly basis. Your emails should be 75% information and 25% sales. If you just send them hard sell ads every week they are going to hit that “junk” button pretty quickly and you want them to keep reading.

  • Include an unsubscribe link in your emails. Any good opt-in email program has one.

  • Use good subject line on you emails.

  • Track your results. Your mail program should have a really good stat package attached so you know who opened your emails and what links they clicked on.

Permission based email marketing is one of the most cost effective tools in today’s arsenal. If you are using it effectively research shows it can have a $45 return for every dollar spent.  Here is an incredibly easy to use cost effective tool at your finger tips. Invest a little time and I think you will like the results.


Filed Under: Blog 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.



Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , ,

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.

Filed Under: Uncategorized 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...]

Filed Under: Blog, Marketing Tagged With: , , , ,
Newer Posts »