Newsletter Tips Part Two

Focus on list quality over list size
Growing your mailing list is important, but don’t do it at the expense of quality. While it may look impressive to have a large list, quality names should be your highest priority. Make sure your company has defined its target audience and focus your efforts on adding names that fit this target. You may not have a large number of names in your database, but careful targeting will mean you have a list of high-value prospects and customers that result in higher response rates and greater success.

With opt-ins, establish and build trust
An opt-in is a statement of faith from your subscriber. Respect that by asking only for the most necessary information at registration. If all you really need is a name and email address, ask only for that. If you need a bit more – say city or state if your product isn’t available everywhere or size of business for routing leads – ask for that as well. To keep from scaring prospects away, keep the request for data to a minimum. You can always use subsequent email campaigns to qualify and fill in more detailed information.

Respect recipients’ privacy
Respecting the privacy of your email recipients and subscribers is a good business practice and will also help you avoid legal and ethical problems. Include a short, simple email privacy statement within your opt-in form and link it to the full policy statement on your Website. Define your contact strategy, the format in which you’ll share content and if you can, give the subscriber options on format and frequency. Adhere to the policy and make sure that if you change it, you give your sub- scribers an opportunity to opt-in again.

Give recipients what they want and need
Your subscribers expect control. If you don’t give them what they want, they’ll go elsewhere. Let them decide the email format (text or HTML), contact frequency and content preferences, if they’d like to receive additional information beyond what they opted-in for. Then segment your lists to reflect those choices. It’s always more effective to contact someone on their schedule and under their terms and get a higher response rate than to try to force a schedule or terms on an unwilling recipient and risk their unsubscribe.

Source: Lyris

Thursday, August 19th, 2010

Newsletter Tips Part One

Permission is not optional
When you send unsolicited email, you hurt your brand, your campaign and your sender reputation. Don’t use “stealth” methods to collect email addresses such as pre-checked box- es on site registration forms. Use a proper, two-stage opt-in process that requires confirmation before the address goes into your database. Ask subscribers who have been on your list for more than 12 months if they want to continue receiving your email and retain all the permission data on each subscriber.

Manage your sender reputation
Don’t get on an ISP’s bad side by sending too many emails too often or by generating a high number of spam complaints. ISPs will block your emails, shunt them to oblivion in the bulk
folder and won’t bother to tell you what you did wrong.

Clean and analyze mailing lists
A “dirty” list – one with too many unsolicited, incorrect, out-of-date or duplicated addresses – hurts your cam- paign performance and your company’s delivery and sender reputation. “List hygiene” means cleaning out bad addresses, which reduces undeliverable emails and helps you spot prob- lems fast. Review your list to see who hasn’t opened or clicked for the last six months. Provide them with a compelling offer to re-engage. If that doesn’t work, try changing the frequency with which you contact them to test if that makes an impact in how they engage with you.

Source: Lyris

Wednesday, August 18th, 2010

Freelance Camp 2010

We were happy to be selected to sponsor the Freelance Camp 2010 held on July 28th at the CSU business school. Freelance Camp is a place to discuss and explore the different approaches to running a successful freelance business / service company. Anyone with something to contribute or with the desire to learn is welcome and invited to join. Each camp is run by a local team of volunteers and is put on for the benefit of the community. Cohere Fort Collins and WTF Marketing were key sponsors in putting this great event on and pulled it off without a hitch. 

Saturday, July 31st, 2010

Have you looked for broken links?

When was the last time you went through your site, link by link?  12 months ago?  When it was built 3 years ago? Never?  Many of our new customers have never gone through their site with this purpose.  We'll be the first to tell you that your customers do.  When a customer comes across a bad or broken link that sends you no where, its a reflection of your business.  Sure mistakes happen but it ultimately frustrates the customer.  There are many tools online that will help you look for broken links on your site.  One of them is from W3.org and can be found here validator.w3.org/checklink .  Simply enter your website address into the box and let the validator a few minutes to search your website.  If you do come across broken links, you'll want to report these to whomever manges your website immediately!

Friday, July 30th, 2010