Reach Customers Online

Are Websites Over-rated? A $500 website and email strategy (Part 2)

Last time, I wrote about a website and email strategy that would allow almost any business, especially small businesses like florists, heating oil companies, law firms, and hardware stores, use the internet for a modest $500 start up price. My first column explained how to build a one page website. This column describes how to use email newsletters to find and support customers.

While there are reasons to have a multi-page website, many businesses on a budget would be better off if they spent on a one page website and saved their money for regular email contact. The creation and maintenance of a multi-page website costs more and returns less immediate measurable value than email sent to customers who have provided their email addresses in the context of a sale or a vist to an office or store.

There are two ways to use email for business, either as one-off coupons and announcements or as newsletters sent out on a regular basis. For businesses starting out with the internet, one-off emails are probably the best place to start. They require little preparation and you can send them at will instead of being tied to a regular publishing schedule. This column will focus on one-off emails.

Creating email capability for your business requires three steps: writing your emails, finding a provider to deliver your emails, and collecting legitimate email addresses. I’ll discuss each step in some detail.

The first step is to create a process to collect email addresses in person from your customers and prospects. If you have a store or office, the simplest way is to create a small form that captures their full name, email address, and 2-4 areas of interest with a line to express an interest outside of your pre-defined choices. The areas of interest should be products and services your customers value. The form should state a clear benefit (e.g., Sign up to receive x, y, and z!) and state that you will never sell, trade, or rent their email address. You might create this form in Microsoft Word with four forms per page, print a hundred copies, then cut up the pages to make four hundred forms.

Once you have a small form to hand to customers and prospects, train yourself and your staff to incorporate a request for an email address in the context of a sale. For example, if a person likes your shop but cannot find what they want, offer the email address form as a way to let them know when you have what they want in stock. You also can leave a small stack of forms by the cash registers and by the front door. There are other ways, through trial and error, that you can collect email addresses in helpful, unobtrusive ways.

Remember, the best way to get and use a customer or prospect email address is in the context of a stated customer need that you can meet today or in the future. The worst way is to steal their address, either nefariously or through purchase of an email address list. That’s why people hate spam: it’s not based on permission, it’s impersonal, and the offers are not relevant. Do what you can to emphasize permission, be personal, and be relevant. When each customer or prospect fills out your email address form, for example, you might send them a short personal email to thank them and perhaps offer a benefit.

Finding a vendor to deliver your email addresses is your second step. The fastest way to get started is with a vendor called Ezine Director. The first 999 emails a month you send through their service is free (although the number may change over time based on any free offers from their competitors). Beyond the first thousand emails their prices are competitive. Other providers to look at include ListChannel and Cooler Email.

Certainly there is a significant research to be done to find a good email delivery service. However, a service like Ezine Director (or any service under $30/month) is a good place to start sending one-off emails. If the service provider lets you export your email address list (as Ezine Director, List Channel, and others do), there is little to stop you from moving from one service to another. That’s why email delivery services focus on reporting tools and other services to keep their customers.

The key factors to consider with email delivery services are reporting and an active program to place their customers on email white lists and off email spam blacklists. On the reporting side, look for bounce reporting (not just numbers but also the reasons for the bounce, for example, email box full or no such address), open rates (only works if you send html email), and clickthroughs. Basically, you want to know what interests recipients of your emails (not necessarily who looked at what but what people looked at) to help refine what you send in your email offers.

Of course, you can write your emails so that you will know when your reader has responded. Just include an offer code or a requirement that the person mention your email. It is far better to hear ten people buy from you mentioning your email than seeing a hundred people read your email and wondering how many of them actually bought.

As with picking an email delivery service, writing an email can be extremely complex. I will focus on the basics here.

When you configure your email delivery service, you will need to configure the From address, the To address (when a reader clicks Reply, who does their email go to?), and Subject lines for each email you send. These three elements are key to your success with email. The From and To should be the same with every email. The From address, in particular, should be descriptive (Jane’s Exotic Flowers not Jane) and even provide a tone and/or benefit. Your readers will use your From address and Subject line to determine whether or not to open your emails. These details are worthy of obsession.

You will also need to write messages for readers who subscribe and unsubscribe to your emails. These messages typically are one paragraph in length. They describe what your emails offer, how you use their email addresses, and who to contact in the real world if they have questions or problems. Phone numbers and an address are very helpful. So is a personal tone. You also should mention that you will not sell, trade, or rent their email address.

For each email you send out, be sure to limit your email to one topic. Do not offer seven different things and hope that one of them will stick with your readers. Instead, if you are a florist, send an email about fresh cut flowers (your single topic) with 3-5 examples of what you currently offer. Be sure your topic is mentioned in the first three words of your email subject line, too, as well as the benefit that you’re offering (e.g., low price, broad variety, new styles).

Each email you send should be no more than three paragraphs with 1-3 sentences in each paragraph. You should follow the AIDA principle (use attention, interest, desire, and action in your copy) and include a direct call to action (e.g., Call us today and mention this email to receive x). The key is to convey quickly what you offer in your email and tell your reader how to take advantage of your offer. Certainly you can provide jazzy, attention-getting words but they’re probably wasted. Most people have short attention spans. Only offer enough detail to help them make a decision to act on your offer.

Bottomline, write your emails as if you’re visiting a stranger’s home and they have opened the door wearing a bath robe: be polite yet friendly, thank them for their time, state your business clearly and quickly, and tell them how you can help them. Don’t waste their time.

If your list of email addresses exceeds fifty, over time you might experiment with different combinations of words, phrases, and offers in your email subject lines and messages. To do this, divide your list of email addresses into equal parts, at least two groups with at least twenty-five addresses. Then email different versions of your offer to each subset of your email list. While not every business has to test this way, it can be helpful if you want to understand what words and offers resonate with your readers or you simply don’t know what approach works best.

The last step to consider is putting an email signup box on your one page website. Ezine Director and other email delivery services provide the html code that you can provide to your graphic designer to include on your website. At the least, you should have a process to collect email addresses from customers and prospects who visit your store or office. Those addresses should be more valuable than addresses collected from a website.

In conclusion, a one page website and active email campaigns are not the only way to use the internet to find, keep, and support customers. But it is a cost-effective way for businesses to get started with internet tools. This strategy makes it easy to control costs while also experimenting to find what works for your customers. You can prove the internet has value before you spend additional money on a multi-page website or a design for html email.

Resources Mentioned In This Article

http://www.ezinedirector.com
http://www.listchannel.com
http://www.cooleremail.com

100 Tips, Tricks and Insider Secrets for Successful Permission Email: http://media.whatcounts.com/insider_secrets.pdf
The Jennings Report: http://www.jenningsreport.com
WordBiz Article Archive: http://www.wordbiz.com/archive/index.html
http://www.emailsherpa.com

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