Maximize the impact of email marketing

A few weeks ago, I had a really interesting discussion with the owner of a small independent retail store. The stores is a specialty wine store, who started this business out of his garage.

The owner told me about his struggles, he like everybody else, wants to increase the customer base while driving frequency with his regulars. With this challenge comes a close to non existing budget.

Can you make efficient marketing on a shoestring budget? YES, he can make a simple 3 legged strategy, which can elevate to a higher level.

• Location and shopping experience

This point is aced. When you enter the showroom, which is in a nice location, on a busy street, you are greeted by the owner, who is passionate, knowledgeable and present.

• Word of Mouth (brand advocacy)

The shopping experience customers receive, is way above average, the owner gives his customers a good experience, and the do tell about their experience, and he experiences that traffic is increasing, however not fast enough.

• Email marketing

The big key is build a solid mailing list and set-up an emailing program which takes advantage of the content of this mailing list, to segment the content to different mailing groups

Learn about guerilla marketing.

Building an effective email platform is NOT expensive but requires hard work. Here is my advice:

• Take advantage of the personal shopping experience and ask customer to join the mailing list. Throw them a bone…. inform them what to expect from the email they are to receive and why they are relevant. Exclusive sales, invites to tasting events, competitions and relevant product information

• Ask the customer to leave more than their email. They should leave the following information: First name; last name; email; postal code; gender; age; preference as a minimum   

• Form a number of relevant segments (mailing groups) based upon the above mentioned details, examples of this:
• Group with young men, who is willing to strop in the market and learn about wine
• Group of men, who is interested in the best deal
• Group of women, who like other types like rosé and white
• Etc.

• Write content that matches the segmented groups. consider that each email should hold about 3-4 topics, some can be generic, which others must be targeted directly to meet the expectations of the group.

• Start sending emails. I prefer to use mailchimp.com is a very user freindly platform, that is free to use in the standard format with list <2000 subscribers.

• Remember to include social media sharing options

• Never stop testing, test placements, links, colors, buttons, headlines and much more.

This program will do well for this independent wine store, and it would do well in plenty of other businesses. The key to maximize performance starts with building a high quality mailing list and using the details of the list to get as personal as possible.

Personalized information will always be better over the generic emails. If you get this and the design and landscape of the email right, you will experience high opening rates, click rates and conversation rates.

For the wine store, this will drive enough revenue to invest more into the business and expand it further.

Good luck

4 Marketing channels on a budget

If you look at your options of marketing mediums or channels you can choose today, one can easily get confused, because there is a lot to choose from.

Say you are on a budget you can narrow down the channels some, below is an introduction to 4 channels which you could consider using.

I have on purpose not included social media, for a few reasons. There is a separate post on social media coming, moreover do social media compliment other channels very well as an accelerator.

Guerilla marketing

There is a parallel from Guerilla marketing to guerilla warfare. Guerilla warfare is concept of irregular war, where small cells or groups of soldiers use untraditional tactics, such as sabotage and ambushes to use the element of surprise.

The parallel is using some of the tactics to achieve the element of surprise. Guerilla marketing is using low-cost elements to promote products or service. Conventional marketing is typical dependent on a big budget, while guerilla marketing is more dependent on creativity, time and energy.

Below are some great examples of guerilla marketing:

These are examples, which hopefully stimulate your creativity and desire to try this out. The big idea is get people’s attention, put a smile on their face by catching them off guard, and leave the valuable impression of your brand or product.

There is a lot more examples to find on the internet, however is much content duplicated on different sites. Therefore do I advise to purchase the bestseller book by Jay Conrad Levinson Guerilla Marketing. The book has been updated several times and is a must read. It is loaded with inspirational content and matching strategy tools.

Email marketing

Sending email is an inexpensive media format, where you can distribute your messages directly to your consumers email or potential customers.

You need to have a database with some contact information and minimum the email address. You can build the database by leaving a printed excel sheet on your counter, and manually enter these names into the database. Alternatively can you obtain contact information from your website, if you build in a HTLM widget.

With a database in hand, you are now ready to send email. Theoretically can you distribute email from your outlook, Gmail or similar account, but this is not recommended. Instead should you sign a subscription with a mail service business, such as MailChimp.

The reason to use MailChimp, is that you can easily create beautiful emails with pictures, texts, links and social buttons, and get tracking on all of this. The program is very intuitive and provides several guide of how to get started. Best of all this there a good free plan to get you started.

When you add content to your newsletter, you have to post information which is relevant for the mail recipients; you can easily add links to your website, to generate traffic and sales. Consider dividing your content into two categories:

·         Hard sell: promotions, new products, services and similar

·         Soft sell: tips, guides, information about donations and similar

Next you should consider when the most optimal time for you, to send your email is? You probably need to experiment, before you get it right. Otherwise are there a lot of facts to find on the internet.

Partnerships

Forming partnership is inexpensive and can be very efficient. The sole purpose to create / turnover to both companies and create a win-win situation.

When you start looking for partners you have to be selective, it is important you select a partner which understand and respects your brand values and your business principles, or even better a partner should share those elements.

Below is 5 examples of partnerships:

• Include a gimmick in your product. Think about cereals! Big brand cereal companies do often include a branded toy. This creates desire to purchase the product and attention to the branded toy

• Coca Cola has three main Cola products, Coca Cola, Diet Coke and Coke Zero, each positioned for a demographic profile. Diet Coke targets the female use, and underlines it with a partnership with Marc Jacobs, both companies’ wins and get great exposure.

• Car dealers and theme parks, often share the same target group – families with kids. Car dealers can advertise free tickets, which initially drives traffic to the car dealership, secondly to the theme park, when the tickers is redeemed. Likewise could the theme park, place cars on display and host a competition of a prices covered by the car dealer.   

• Shortly before Mother’s day did 11 florists gathers together, to buy a one full page add in a big newspaper. Each independent florist, would normally never be able to get in that newspaper with such a powerful add, by splitting the cost, it became possible!

• Where I live, McDonalds support the local football / soccer team. Every time you purchase a particular product, the give x amount to the sports team as a sponsor. This is smart, because McDonald’s gets attention, the football team’s gets attention. In addition can you purchase tickets at the McDonalds counter.

Read my 5 step guide to Partner Advertising

Now ask yourself some questions and find out who can be the right partner / partners for your business.

Public Relations

Comparing advertising and public relations, there is one significant difference. Using advertising you control the content 100%, while using public relation the media´s control. You pitch them a story, they decide if they want to bring and in which format.

For entrepreneurs public relation is an inexpensive format to get your message out, find new customers and elevate your reputation.

Just like the other channels, you should know your position in the market. Start building your public relations locally, before you move to bigger regional media´s.

There are several PR agents that are working freelance and charge by the hour. You should consider this option, unless if you know how to write and have expertise in delivering the stories to the media´s.

You will typical achieve better results, using a pro, because they understand how to approaching medias with a practical approach.

Work on you credibility by focusing on smaller papers. The articles from these papers will help you get into other media, like radio, newsletters, blogs and local tv. Soon or later you will get more coverage.