VerticalResponse Email Marketing Blog for Small Business

Contests & Awards for Small Businesses

Following on my post Using Industry Awards to Grow Your Business, I found a list of great awards for small businesses. Check out Ramon Ray's SmallBizTechnology.com. Even though the list is not industry specific, there are some great awards in there for small businesses in general.

Your Competitive Advantage Could Double Your Sales

It's tough competition out there. You've got to rise above the noise to get the attention of any new prospective customers. You probably do a great job promoting your deals and your wonderful products in every way you can think of. But you might be missing something. Do you do something really well and really different that doesn't go head to head with your competition?

What got me thinking about this was watching the television ads that Southwest Airlines has been running recently. In these tough economic times when many of the airlines are nickel and diming travelers for things like blankets and bags, Southwest is promoting "Bags Fly Free". They're not going for "most on-time arrivals" or "most legroom". They're hitting a pain point that's giving them some real differentiation.

I started to think of a few other big names that have done a great job at this. Enterprise Rent-a-Car picks you up if you can't get to the car rental location. Westin Hotels markets their Heavenly Bed to weary guests. Red Envelope sends everything they sell in beautiful red packaging. Heck, Playtex is even marketing their see through packaging so you can see what's inside before you buy it.

What do you think that you have in your arsenal that will make you rise above it all in a crowded messaging arena? Here are a few ideas I kicked around.

Wineries - Promote something off the wall like your wine is great with a burger.  Promote that your screw caps are better for the environment than corks or that you don't need a wine opener for your wines. OR vice versa, your wine will age better with a cork.

Jewelry Designers - Talk about how your jewelry clasps never break.

Nail Spas - Promote that your nail polish lasts 14 days or that you've got the most comfortable chairs and the best magazines.

Hair Salons - Talk about how you give the best 10 minute scalp massage with any haircut and promote a free "clean up" or bang trim two weeks after your cut.

Hotels - Is your property dog-friendly? Talk about it! Promote the steamer in the rooms so that your guests can steam their wrinkled clothes.

Auto Shops - Promote your kid-friendly shop and your free coffee, bagels and muffins in the morning.

Restaurants - Open for Thanksgiving? Promote a take-home baggie of a turkey sandwich for every patron.

Software - Talk about how you are saving the environment because your user guide is online or on a CD, or that your SaaS company loves the environment because there is no packaging.

Once you have your competitive advantage down, test it in your next email marketing campaign and in your messaging. You might be surprised what resonates with new prospects.

What great competitive advantages do you have to use? Share them please, we'd love to hear them.

Case Study: Test a Subject Line in 2 Minutes & Get More Clicks

Recently we did a survey on the State of Small Business, you may have received it. Our Marketing team performed a subject line test in the email. One subject line was very generic and one was a bit more specific. We split our list in half using the list segmentation tool. It took just a few extra minutes but from what we learned it was worth it.

The first subject line: Take Our Survey and Tell Us What You Think

We received 181 more opens and 35 more clicks than the following more specific subject line: Take 5 Minutes - See How Your Business Stacks Up

In this specific case it seemed to be that we had more opens and clicks from the generic subject line and more people taking our survey. This illustrates why it's important to be testing subject lines to get more opens or content inside your email to be getting more clicks.

50 All-Time Great Retail Subject Lines

Here at VerticalResponse we're always being asked things like, "What is the best day to send email?", "What are the real email marketing secrets?" and "What are great subject lines?". I decided to focus this post on that last one, and offer some really great and proven-to-work subject lines that you can test out for your email marketing campaigns.

First of all, I'm assuming at this point that your recipients will recognize you from your "From Label". I've written why your From Label is very important in your email marketing campaigns. If they are familiar with who the email is coming from, you'll have better luck getting your email opened with a catchy subject line.

As a retailer your email marketing campaigns are probably all about selling. If you sell your own products or products from other manufacturers, you'll be trying to announce new products, new seasons or discounts and sales. You'll want your recipients to act fast, so you may want to try expiration dates in your subject line. We even see businesses using hours in the day in their expiration time periods.

You'll see that some of these subject lines are a bit vague like "An Exclusive Offer for You", however sometimes that might get more opens than if you talk about a specific product. That's something that you need to test for yourself in your own campaigns.

Offer, Offer, Offer

Enjoy this Special Offer at Our New Location

25-40% off - Email-Only Offer – Today Only

Invitation-Only 2 Hour Event Starts 11:30 AM CT

Ends Today! 20% Off Friends & Family

Top 10 under $10

Free shipping - offer ends in 3 days

Free product with purchase of [product name]

[New Product] has arrived. Order now before we run out.

Earn double points for [insert product or action].

Last Chance: Get up to $25 now

Save 10% on your next order

Enjoy [season] with rates from $65

Service Notice: Exciting new changes at [your company]

An Exclusive Offer for You

[Your company] October Specials

Last minute deals, special offers, and new [product name]

Act Now to renew your [subscription name]

Online only: 25% off friends and family

Introducing our latest…[product/feature here]

[Product name] Promotion week. Save 25%

Extended for a day! Get Free shipping through Friday

Stock up and save 15%

Limited Supply: Limit 2 [product name] per customer

Ho-ho-ho: The [your company] holiday catalog is here!

Email subscriber exclusive: [Product name] sale is here

Ends Today: Take 20% off your entire order

Private Sale Ends Today

Your choice of amazing items $50 + under

Great gifts for [Dad, Mom, etc]

Best Sellers every [girl, boy, man, woman, dog, etc.]

Everything you need when the temperatures [rise, fall]

Free Shipping--Limited Time Offer

Catchy & Creative

Sometimes all you need is a little vase lift  (retailer selling vase's)

We've got you covered from head to toe (retailer selling hats, shirts, pants and boots)

How La Perla got its name (retailer selling lingerie, telling a story inside the email)

Temperatures Fall, Style Rises (retailer selling coats)

Celebrity Favorites (selling accessories that Hollywood is wearing)

Did you remember to get a gift? It's ok, we did. (retailer wanting to get people to register for gift reminders)

10 Gift Ideas for your little ones (retailer listing top 10 suggestions for kids)

Manhattan View for a Song in the Shower (retailer selling shower curtain with Manhattan skyline on it)

Take your pick: Our 9 Favorite Dresses (retailer suggesting by popularity)

Coolest modern desk on the job...for $149 (retailer including price in the subject line)

Score Great Savings on Game-Time Gear: HDTVs, Furniture & More (retailer selling TV's with a sports slant)

Party Like it's 1999 Aged Cabernet Special (wine retailer)

In our store: Last minute Mother's Day combo ready to go (retailer getting the last minute shoppers with a catch "combo to go".)

Adorn Your Home Now & Through the Holidays (Home decor retailer)

Mind-Blowing Grenache (wine retailer)

Bring this email to a Gap store and win! (retailer trying to get store traffic)

I hope this gets your creative juices flowing. You can also find some great holiday-specific subject lines here. If you've got some great subject lines that have worked for your business, comment and let us know.

What Any Business Can Learn From Chef Gordon Ramsay

I'll admit it, I love watching any TV show with Gordon Ramsay in it, but “Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares” is my current favorite. He’s brazen and harsh. He swears like a sailor and belittles people. Not my style of leadership, but it makes for great TV.

I like the show because he gets down into the inner workings of a small business and peels away the onion to find any issues that might be hampering the business from growing.

So, I've outlined 6 things we can all learn from Gordon Ramsay, followed by a question you can ask yourself to see how you rate by his business strategy.

#1 - It all starts with the customer.

One of the first questions Chef asks the restaurant he is working with is how many people have reserved for the evening. More often than not, it's a pretty low number, so he observes for a night to find out why. In most cases (or there wouldn't be a TV show) there are serious issues with the way the entire restaurant is run.

He also takes to the streets; in many shows he walks the streets of the town to observe other restaurants and he'll stop people and ask what they think about the restaurant he's trying to help.

Question: When was the last time you surveyed your customers to find out what they think about your business, your product or your service?

#2 - Chef Ramsay gets at the foundation of the business.

He wants to get to know the owner of the place to find out how the business got into bad shape in the first place. He wants to see the owner's passion for what they do. He works with the staff to make sure they have a proper foundation and that the person leading the charge is truly leading the charge.

Then he gets into the real foundation of the business. According to Ramsay, success starts with a clean kitchen and in many cases that's the first thing that gets done.

Question: When was the last time you did a proper "cleaning" of your business to make sure it’s in order? It could be cleaning out old inventory lying around or it could be actually cleaning up your office environment. Spring cleaning is always a great idea for a fresh start!

#3 - The product needs to be good.

Chef wants to know who is making the food and what ingredients are being used. He wants to know if the staff is capable of doing what needs to be done. Then he works with them to make a great product (in this case, menu) and changes the way they think about what they're making and how they're presenting it.

Question: Is your product or service the best it can be? What would it take to get it to the next level? Do you need to change the way your staff thinks?

#4 - The experience needs to be good.

Ramsay will go to the extent of training the staff himself to make sure that reservations are being booked in a way that doesn’t overflow the kitchen. He'll make sure that the staff is offering entrées that the kitchen can make quickly and tries to get them thinking about the customer experience. Then he'll go to extremes and redesign the restaurant and give it a clean, friendly and updated look. Doing this has often given the staff a morale boost, which often leads to a great experience.

Question: When was the last time you looked at your location, or your website? Putting a fresh coat of paint on your walls, changing your front door entrance, or reducing the number of clicks your website visitors have to go through might be just the thing your business needs.

#5 - A business needs to market itself.

Obviously you can't get the word out without a great product and a great experience, but now there's something to talk about. My favorite thing about this show is that Chef knows how important it is to get the word out, from the signage out front to winning over customers on the street. For an Indian food restaurant, he had Indian dancers perform in the neighborhood and hand out food; for a Soul Food restaurant he set up an outdoor BBQ and gave food away. He's a true marketer at heart, which is what I love about him.

Question: What creative things are you doing to get the word out for your business?

#6 - Get back to the customer.

After it's all said and done, Chef Ramsay asks for feedback. After the dining experience, he wants to keep the business in check so getting comment cards back from the customers is critical.

Question: Are you asking your customers for feedback constantly, then acting on it?

There you have it, 6 reasons why I think there's a lot to learn from Gordon Ramsay. The meat of why he’s effective is laid out above; imagine what can happen when you interpret these tips with your own special sauce.

Oct. 09 Inc.com Article: How Training Employees Can Boost Sales

I've got a new article up on Inc.com for my column Girl Power: Female CEOs. It's entitled How Training Employees Can Boost Sales. Training can sound boring, however what happens when one of your employees ruins your reputation, check it out!

Email Being Replaced by Social Networks? Not So Fast Wall St. Journal

The Wall Street Journal recently published the story, Why Email No Longer Rules. The writer, Jessica E. Vascellaro, talks a lot about the increasing number of people jumping on the social media bandwagon, and how that could have a negative effect on the way people use email today. Are people jumping on the social media bandwagon? You betcha! And why not? It's free, easy to use, and you can communicate to the masses. But are they using email less? Nielsen doesn't seem to think so in some recent research they've done.

So I started thinking about how this is the antithesis of what we've been seeing in our own customers businesses, and I really wanted to write about it. However, ME writing about it seems somewhat self-serving, since well, I run an email marketing company. 

Then I got an EMAIL forwarded to me that Chris Crum over at WebProNews had come to the rescue and already wrote about all of the things I've been thinking about relating to how consumers are using email and social media.

So here is Chris's story "10 Reasons Social Media isn't Replacing Email."

I decided to add my own $.02 about how marketers feel about this article: 10 More Reasons Why Social Media Won't Replace Email.

11. Twitter and Facebook are fantastic products and companies; but that's what they are, companies. Even though email is host to 279 million users vs. 301 million users of social media according to Nielsen, email isn't going anywhere soon with many companies offering it as a service. Twitter and Facebook are just two companies that likely make up most of the social media users.

12. Your email recipients are still going to use business email for business purposes. They'll not likely let their boss know that they've finished the spreadsheet and are ready for the meeting now by posting to Twitter. If they don't use their business email address they probably also have a personal email account that they like to receive your email-only specials.

13. You can't easily segment your friends and followers to do targeted marketing in Twitter & Facebook for the optimal response.

14. You can't tell who clicked on a link with some social media outlets so that you can follow up with them again because they might be interested in your content.

15. That said, you can't tell who didn't click on the link so you can follow up with them with a different message trying to get them to take action.

16. You cannot personalize your Facebook updates. This has been proven to boost response in any marketing campaign you do.

17. You cannot size your graphics or use more than one in Facebook. You can't use them at all in Twitter. Graphics help tell a story.

18. You can't track how many clicks you got on your links in Facebook unless you use a third party URL shortener.

19. You are limited to 140 characters in Twitter leaving it impossible to put multiple messages in one Tweet.

20. You almost have to have separate social media accounts for your business and your personal life. Some customers might not care about that vacation you took where you...let's just say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

Am I against the use of social media as a marketing tool? Hell no! I love it. I've written about how Twitter & email marketing work together, and I've written how to use Facebook to grow your email lists. I've also written about how to post your email marketing campaign to your Twitter and Facebook pages to get more readers of your newsletters because I feel that these are two mediums that complement each other very nicely. Why? Because no one is going away from email anytime soon, and people are using social media as well. What are you seeing?

Have You Registered Misspellings Of Your Domain?

I'm taking an email marketing break to write about something different, your domains. Many businesses register .org, .biz, .gov, and they may even register their domains in other countries like Great Britain (.co.uk) or Argentina (.com.ar). However, have you thought about registering the misspellings of your domain?

For instance a common misspell happens if you have double letters in your domain where the last letter of the first word and first letter of the next word are the same for example www.verticallearnings.com. People might only type in one "L" so you might want to register the domain with one "L" as well as two and redirect them to your site.

As an exercise to see how many people are doing this for my company VerticalResponse, I headed over to the Google Adwords Keyword Tool and typed in "www.verticleresponse.com". To my surprise I saw there were over 700 visits to this page in a month, a clear opportunity for us to redirect these visitors to our home page. One note: If people type our misspelled domain into a Google search box they will ask people "Did you mean VerticalResponse?" with a link to our listing and list us in the top spot. But what about the people that hear about your business and type your misspelled URL directly into their browser? Those are the visitors you could potentially lose.

So try and think of the ways that people can misspell your domains and use the keyword tool to find out how much traffic in Google, at least, you could be missing out on. If it makes sense, register them and redirect those visitors to your website. It's a small cost ($10/month) and you could end up with new customers.

The Importance of Your From Label

I was perusing my inbox and saw a particular email that looked spammy to me. This one in particular was from "accountupdate". Now, like you, I get a lot of email and I have a lot of "accounts" so I question an email coming from "accountupdate" because it is not a person or business I know. I didn't have time to read a lot of emails on this day so I skipped it, which I'm sure many people did.

When I had time, later in the day, I went back to my inbox. I looked again at this email and the subject line read "Important Notice Regarding Your Domain Name(s)". So I opened it. The email was actually from my domain registrar Go Daddy wanting me to update my information. I don't know about you, but anyone asking me to update any information makes me suspicious, but because it's from "accountupdate" I was even more skeptical. It made me very reluctant to go in and "update my account". 

Bottom line? Make sure that the from label you use on your email marketing campaigns is from your business, you, or whoever it was you used to make your initial e-relationship with your recipient. I bet this campaign didn't get a great response if they emailed people like me.

Inc. 500 Conference Wrap Up

Inc. Magazine was kind enough to bring me to the Inc. 500 Conference this year and wanted me to blog about the sessions I attended.

First of all, I have to say that it was amazing and exciting fun. There were close to 1,700 attendees at this conference and at $995 a pop, that makes me think entrepreneurs are trying to thrive!

Things I heard at the show?

"Get around entrepreneurs and get your battery recharged at the Inc. Conference."
"I can't believe how many people are at this show! It's a great networking event."
"I went to this show last year thinking I might not get much out of it. What I got was an idea for an entire new business model."

Pretty cool in my opinion.

Being Strategic

I was fortunate enough to see Erika Andersen who is the CEO of Proteus International. Her company helps other companies think about ways to grow through being strategic. By the size of the room and the attendance of this session (130 people and full) it sure seems like entrepreneurs are craving information for how to grow in this economy. She was kind enough to hand out a template for thinking strategically and we all walked through it for our own businesses. What a great template that any business can put to work now. I've shared it here.

Small Beginnings, Big Dreams

Speaking of inspiration, I got to listen to Jill Blashack Strahan, CEO of Tastefully Simple, speak on the main stage at the Inc. 500 Conference. Today Tastefully Simple is a $140 million company that sells easy-to-prepare food for busy people.

Jill’s story is interesting and inspirational. It actually started with the death of her brother when she was just 26, which was a major wake up call and ultimately what motivated her to start her business. The saying “Life is Short” became very real to her and she decided that it was time to DO something. She has three major points she lives by: Just Start, Know Where You’re Going, Don’t Stop. Check out my Inc. post on this great session here.

Wow. Now I was full of inspiration and got to talk to a bunch of entrepreneurs between sessions. The energy in the place was exciting and it appeared that small business is where it's at.

Mutual Support for Mutual Success

I also listened to Keith Ferrazzi, CEO of Ferrazzi Greenlight, a research company that spends time understanding how building relationships can make companies grow. His interesting point was that relationships are critical to growth and success not only in life but in business. Every entrepreneur who thinks they aren't in sales is crazy. We're all in sales, selling our dream. And in sales discussions, there is a person at the other end of the relationship that needs to buy our message. 

He went on to say that employees who have friends at work have a 30% higher level of engagement, and 20% more productivity. Completely a surprise! They have even more productivity if the friend is a boss.  It’s not just a business relationship according to Keith, it's a personal relationship in business. Good point.

How to Get Your Message Right

Last week I was at the Inc. 500 Conference and caught a session with Michael Sheehan, CEO of Sheehan Associates. His company helps businesses, people, and government officials craft messaging. At this session he was discussing how hard it has become to get your message right and get it understood by your audience in a world where we all have information overload.

Michael stressed that your message isn’t your brand. I’ll admit, at first I was a bit confused by this. But he went on to give a couple of great examples, one of which was Nike. When Nike got bad press for working with overseas companies that employed young children that were barely paid, “Just Do It” was not their answer. With Coca Cola and the health debate, the “Coke Side of Life” isn’t their answer to childhood obesity. So he stresses that there is a concentration on branding but not necessarily messaging. Check out the rest of the story here.

Should You Stay Small or Go Big?

After that I was at Doug Tatum's session. He's the author of No Man’s Land, What to Do When Your Company is too Big to be Small but too Small to be Big. What a great session. He talked about the "chasm" that companies fall into when they're over 25 employees but trying to get to 100 employees. According to Doug there are 4 "M's" to watch out for, market, management, model and money. He outlines all of the things to watch out for in your business if you're trying to grow past the small giant phase. These things really hit home with me. I posted my notes here.

The Gala

Inc. puts on a great gala at the end of the conference. They go all out. We had great speeches from top entrepreneurs from the Inc. 500/5000 list. They were truly inspirational. There was not a dry eye in the house when Alison Schubak, CEO of Invisibib, was wheeled onto the stage in her wheelchair, and told her story about after becoming disabled from a car accident, she invented a transparent, washable bib for adults with disabilities and launched a company to sell it. She was named Entrepreneur of the Year by Inc. Magazine and deserves every bit of it.

We were lucky enough to sit next to #4 on Inc.'s list Alden Mills, CEO of Power Pushup who grew his company by leaps and bounds! What a great guy. And his in-laws were with him. Unlucky for his father-in-law, the Washington Huskies got stomped by Stanford and the team he hates, the Oregon Ducks stomped Cal that weekend. Bummer. But Alden (Ex Navy Seal) has something really going for his company. Congrats Alden!

The other company at our table happened to be a VerticalResponse customer...bonus! Doug Parker, CEO of RMCN Credit Services (Repair My Credit Now), out of McKinney TX, was a wonderful tablemate. These guys have it going on. I love what they do on their about us page, scanning in all of the great things that their customers say about them. Great job guys!

I have to say I didn't expect such a wonderful turn out to this show in this economy, but it was clear to me that small business and entrepreneurs are thriving and wanting to learn and network more than ever. As Doug Tatum put it, we're responsible for over 65% of the employment in the US. We're strong, we persevere, and we'll get us through these tough times.