I just plowed through my inbox after an afternoon of meetings and came across the monthly email newsletter from Habitat for Humanity St. Louis, one of our long-time clients. I had to put aside what I was doing to write this shout-out for Habitat. Aside from the fact that it’s a great cause, Habitat produces some great emails.

Here’s a link to an online version of the newsletter (MarketVolt automatically generates a version of every mailing you create with the system).

Here are five of the things I like about it:

• Great subject line. “Open Plea for Construction Volunteers! Rain barrel workshop in the ReStore next week!” It’s a bit long. But it includes two topics from the newsletter. Too many organizations use subject lines like “August Newsletter” or “Email Update.” This subject line piques your interest. And it remains readers that the email is full of good content — some not even mentioned in the subject line. So readers wonder, “What else will I find?” as they click to open.
• Attractive, clean design. Habitat has done a great job customizing one of MarketVolt’s built-in, do-it-yourself templates with an outstanding banner image and eye-catching colors. The email is neither too long, nor too busy. Short paragraphs with links to read more.
• Great use of immediacy. Email is great for delivering the last-minute message. And Habitat is a master at doing this. I’ve seen an email from Habitat that says we need volunteers on a building site now. Today’s mailing has several items about events just a few days away. This helps bump up attendance at those events. It also gives the emails a fresh, up-to-the-minute quality. Recipients will open and read these emails because they announce what’s happening now.
• Excellent use of calls-to-action. Every item in this newsletter has a link with an explicit or implicit call-to-action. The “Open Plea for Construction Volunteers” includes a link to “visit our blog for more information.” Habitat can track who clicks that link and identify them as “prospective volunteers.” A follow-up email a day or two before the event may follow. Even if Habitat doesn’t follow-up this way, the organization has some idea of the people who have interest in volunteering. Link-tracking reveals a lot about your recipients — information that you can use to land the prospect. This applies whether you’re a non-profit like Habitat or a for-profit. You can’t track clicks if you don’t include links.
• Prominent Social Media Links. Readers can’t miss the links to Habitat’s pages on Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites. If you have them on your email list, get them to follow your social media efforts — and vice-versa. Habitat does that well!

Way to go Habitat for Humanity.

The following is a special invitation from my friend Skip Bryan. Skip and his partner Bill Hebert are two of the best marketers I know. They run St. Louis Marketing Experts (GKIC – St. Louis). They’ve invited me to speak at the “Results Based Marketing Seminar” — a great event on Tuesday, August 10, 2-4 p.m. It’s FREE, and you’re invited to attend. Again, it’s free, but you have to register in advance at http://www.StLMarketingSeminar.com..

All of the details are in Skip’s letter below. I hope to see you there!

- Tom Ruwitch

FREE Seminar Reveals Secrets to Increased Profits,
Cash Flow and Return On Investment…

 Get More Bang From Your Marketing Dollars!!

Greetings.

Quick question: Would you like to spend the same amount of money, energy and time you’re spending today on your marketing and get increased response, sales and repeat business?

Would you invest just two hours to discover tried and true direct marketing strategies used by successful companies, around the world and right here in St. Louis, right now, today, in the midst of the Great Recession?

All for FREE?

Market Volt and Glazer – Kennedy Insider’s Circle of St. Louis, in association with the Northwest Chamber of Commerce, invite you to join us for just such an afternoon on Tuesday, August 10th, from 2 – 4 at the Maryland Heights Community Centre.

 FREE, huh? What’s the catch?

 NO CATCH! You see, when speaking at last week’s Northwest Chamber of Commerce Lunch ‘n Learn, Tom Ruwitch (President of Market Volt) and Bill Hebert and Skip Bryan (GKIC – St. Louis Chapter Directors) realized there just wasn’t enough time to really get into the strategies that are most effective, why they’re effective and to interact with the audience and show them how simple it is for them to adapt the strategies for their own businesses.

We needed a little more time to get beyond the broad strokes of what differentiates marketing that gets results (quality leads, sales, $$$) and marketing that sucks up money and time and leaves you frustrated and contemplating a career change!

Strategies You’ll Discover:

 From Market Volt President Tom Ruwitch, You’ll discover how to put more leads into the sales funnel and convert more to customers by “marketing to the maybes.” He’ll reveal proven strategies and tactics to connect with those who are not ready buyers but who are willing to raise their hand and ask for more information. And Tom will show you how to turn those maybes into customers — with maximum efficiency and minimum hassle.

• Acquire more leads than you ever imagined.
• Convert more leads to warm prospects and then to clients.
• Maximize the lifetime value of clients.
• Maximize the efficiency and minimize the hassle in your marketing and sales efforts.

 Make YOUR Marketing “Magnetic”

Just imagine…your phone rings and your “ideal” prospect is on the line. They saw your ad, read your free report, and are dying to purchase your product or service (think Wal Mart the day after Thanksgiving). Believe it or not, this happens every day in real life, all over the world…to a very small number of businesses. Businesses that understand their customers wants and needs and develops products specifically for them.

 On August 10th, you’ll discover:

• The 11 elements of effective marketing pieces
• Practical solutions of attracting new customers/clients/patients in both B2B & B2C
• How to replace cold calls and prospecting
• How to cut through marketing clutter
• Proven techniques to level the playing field against bigger competitors
• Strategies for attracting only your ideal customer/client/patient
• How to develop an effective marketing system
• How to turn your customer list/mailing list into more money
• The dozen top promotions to use in your industry whether it’s B2B & B2C
• And much, much more…

 Space Is Limited…Register Today!

 Due to the play Seussical performing at the Maryland Heights Community Centre, the room we were able to secure is not very big. Soooo, if you want to be one of the few people in St. Louis that actually markets effectively, giving you an advantage over your competitors, you need to go to www.StLMarketingSeminar.com

NOW and register for this 100 % FREE event!

Plus, a smaller group allows for more interaction with attendee’s and allows you to get your questions answered and share with others what is working in your business.

Results-Based Marketing Seminar
Tuesday, August 10th
2:00 – 4:00 PM (Sign-in starts at 1:30)
Maryland Heights Community Centre
www.StLMarketingSeminar.com

Bonus Hour!

Would you like some FREE, expert advice on your current marketing piece? From 1 – 2, bring your flyer, brochure, sales letter, etc. and we’ll critique them for you at no charge! That’s right! On a first come, first serve basis, Tom, Bill and Skip will provide you the kind of critique they normally charge hundreds of dollars for. Yours free when you register at www.StLMarketingSeminar.com.

Marketing Material Review BONUS HOUR
1 – 2 PM (Sign-in starts at 12:45 PM)

Don’t miss this opportunity to become a better, more profitable marketer!

Register NOW at www.StLMarketingSeminar.com

To your improved success,

Skip Bryan
GKIC – St. Louis Chapter Director
Skip@GKICStLouis.com
636-373-4566

Remember the Jackson 5 hit “I Want You Back?” Michael and his brothers sing, “Oh baby give me one more chance (show you that I love you). Won’t you please let me (back in your heart)?” You should add this song to your marketing playlist.

Reach out to your former customers and tell them you want them back. It can be one of the most cost-efficient ways to increase sales – especially in a down economy.

Here’s how:

1)      Search your database for lapsed customers. For example, you might find those who made purchase in the past three years but not in the past six months.

2)      Send an email that says, “We want you back.” I received such an email this week from a video editing and hosting service called Animoto. The subject line: “We miss you – free Animoto.” The email offered me 18 months of service for the price of 12 if I renewed within one week. It also described great new features (with links for more information).

3)      Use an email marketing system that tracks who opens the email and clicks links and then follow-up. For example, you can call or send another email to those who click a link but don’t renew by the deadline.

4)      Include a survey that asks lapsed customers where they’ve been, why they left, and what you can do to win them back.

Take these steps at least once a year, and you’ll win back customers who would otherwise be lost forever.

This article by MarketVolt’s Tom Ruwitch originally appeared in St. Louis Small Business Monthly

Have you seen the cool video on my web site about internet marketing? If not, you can watch it at www.marketvolt.com/video.

Many people who read that opening paragraph will follow my suggestion and watch the video. In fact, some who read this column at a computer may have jumped to the video before even reading this far.

How do I know? Because video works. The promise of video drives people to web sites, and the presence of video converts prospects to customers. If you want to drive traffic and convert prospects (what business doesn’t?), it’s time for you to join the video revolution.

“But, Tom, I can barely get text and pictures on my web site. How can you expect me to create and post online videos?” cry the naysayers.

It’s far easier than you may think to produce and distribute effective online video. To demonstrate this, I’ll share a story about my son, the budding rock star.

Jacob, 12, has spent most of his summer at Dave Simon’s Rock School. Roughly 15 kids attend each summer camp session, and they are split into three bands that receive private and group instruction. On the final day of each camp session the bands perform live for adoring audiences (a.k.a. parents and other relatives).

One week before Jacob’s concert, I bought an iPhone, the new model with a built-in video camera. When Jacob and his mates took the stage, I pulled the iPhone from my pocket, tapped once to open the video camera application, tapped again to start recording, and pointed the phone at the band.

Fifteen minutes and three songs later, I had a phone full of ear-splitting, bone-jarring, rock-and-roll video. I then clicked the “Send Video to YouTube” button on the iPhone. Five minutes later the videos were on YouTube, ready for the world to see. Twenty minutes later, the videos were on my web site (see http://marketvolt.com/rockvideo). I would have had the videos on my site sooner, but I had to drive 10 minutes from the camp to my office.

In well under one hour (including a 10-minute drive), I shot 15 minutes of video, posted it on YouTube, and embedded it in a page on my web site.

If you still think this is too hard for you, if you would prefer to wait, consider these facts: Apple sold 5.2 million iPhones in the last quarter. In 2008, pocket-sized video cameras—led by Pure Digital’s Flip camera—accounted for more than 20 percent of all video cameras sold. The Flip costs about $125. And while it can’t transmit video to YouTube wirelessly, it plugs directly into the USB port of your computer (no cables required) and comes with software that makes it easy to edit and post your videos online.

Rest assured, many of your competitors are walking around town with video-enabled iPhones or another tiny video camera in their pockets—ready to shoot and post traffic-generating, sales-converting video.

The day after I bought the iPhone, I met with a prospect who had attended an internet marketing seminar I hosted the previous week. He told me he enjoyed the seminar and learned a lot.

My response: “We’re planning to have more seminars in the months ahead. Would you mind repeating what you said and elaborating on video so I can have a video testimonial when I market future events.”

“Sure,” he said. “When do you want to do that?”

“How about now?” I said, pulling the iPhone from my pocket.

His testimonial and others I collect will be part of a video I post to promote the seminars. Go to www.marketvolt.com/seminars for more information.

What should you know before hopping aboard the iPhone bandwagon or buying a pocket-sized video camera? Here are some guiding principles:

You don’t need to be Spielberg—Don’t fret over the quality of your videos. If you can hold the camera with a steady hand, be concise, and get to the point, your video will work. You’re not competing for an Oscar. You’re promoting your business.

Promote your videos in emails by linking to them, not embedding them. Insert a picture (a screen shot from the video) in the email and link that to a web page where the video will play. It is technically feasible to embed a video inside an email so it will play immediately inside the recipient’s email software. But this is ill-advised. Many people have email software that will not properly display videos.

Include direct calls to action in your video. Your videos should have a purpose tied to specific business goals. We see countless television ads that build brand awareness without having specific calls to action. That’s OK for big corporations with multi-million dollar ad budgets. But in your videos, you need to ask viewers to act—now! Register for the event. Visit our site to download the coupon. Visit our store today—the first 100 people to respond to this offer will get a special bonus. You have their attention. Take advantage of the opportunity.

Distribute your video to multiple sites and link back to your web site from the video. YouTube is the big one, but there are many other sites where you can post your videos. TubeMogul (www.tubemogul.com) is on online service that will distribute your video to multiple sites with one click. By doing this, you will expose the video to a wider audience, drive more traffic to your site, and improve your site’s rankings with the search engines.

Track who watches your videos. My company, MarketVolt, has partnered with Flimp, a company that hosts your videos and can track who watches them. Send an email that links to your video on the Flimp site. When a recipient clicks through, Flimp records that person’s email address and tracks how long that person viewed the video. Imagine sending 1000 prospects an email promoting your new product or service, and then being able to tell which prospects watched the video from start to finish versus which ones quit watching after 15 seconds. That takes prospecting to a new level.

***********************

This article originally appeared in St. Louis Small Business Monthly. Tom Ruwitch writes a monthly column called High-Voltage Marketing. You can read these columns and other great content for small businesses at www.sbmon.com.

Clients ask me all the time how they can improve the performance of their email marketing campaigns. Nine times out of 10, their writing needs to improve. If you fill your emails with boring, unpersuasive copy, you will have bored, un-persuaded readers.  It doesn’t matter what you offer or how good the deal. If your copy suffers, your sales will lag. So here are a three tips to strengthen your copy and improve your sales.

No. 1: Use the “Why Should I Care? Filter to Distill Core Benefits from Your Copy. I met last month with a client who wanted help promoting his company’s new online order-tracking system. His draft email described the system under the headline “Introducing Our New Online Order-Tracking System.” Customers can log in, enter the order number and see the status of the order. The copy described the system features in great detail. After reading the draft, I understood what the new system could do.

I then asked, “Why should I care?”

At first he was taken aback, but then he played along and answered, “Because now you can get the information online.”

“Great,” I said, “Why should I care?”

“You can log in 24-7 to track your order,” he said. This was a detail not mentioned in the draft copy. Now we were getting somewhere.

“That’s great for people who want to check their inventory after business hours. But I work 9-5 when you’re open. Why should I care?” I asked.

“Because even if you call during business hours, it can be a pain,” he said. “You don’t always get to the person who has your information. You get put on hold. It’s frustrating. The new system makes it easy.”

Bingo! Get the information whenever you want. Never wait on hold. Avoid the frustration. Make it easy to track your order.

By asking “why should I care?” in response to each claim in your copy (and repeating that question several times over), you will distill your message to its core benefits.

My client isn’t selling system features (log on, enter order number, see status). He’s selling benefits. Never wait on hold. Avoid the frustration. Make it easy to track your order.

Force yourself to ask, “Why should I care?” as you review your copy. Answer and then repeat the question. Keep going. The more you ask and answer, the better your copy will become.

No. 2: Be a storyteller. The day before I met with that client, I called the telephone company to correct a billing issue. I got one of those automated attendants who sent me through the maze of confusing options. Occasionally, I had to say something (and hope the automated attendant could translate my words); once in a while, I had to enter a number on the telephone keypad. After nearly five minutes of this, I was able to “press zero to speak to a representative about your bill.”

“Finally!” I thought as I pressed “zero”. Then: “Ringggg… Ringgg… Ringgg…We’re sorry. Our billing department is currently closed. Please call back during regular business hours.”

I nearly threw the phone out my window! “Has something like this ever happened to you?” I asked.

Of course, it had. “Has it happened to your customers.” I asked. Sure, he said. Everyone has had a similar experience.

If I was promoting an order-tracking system, I would tell my story about the phone company and then say something like this: “If you’re anything like me, you hate being on hold, flailing around the automated attendant maze, only to reach dead-ends. You want to get the information you need easily, when you want it, on your terms — not the automated attendant’s terms. I certainly don’t want to put you or my other clients through what I went through with the telephone company. That’s why we’ve introduced a new order tracking system that…”

By starting with a story, I connect with the readers. They can relate to me, and they can connect their own experiences with the problem I’m trying to solve. It gives me — the salesman — greater credibility and authority. And it gives the prospect greater comfort and confidence in the solution being offered.

Stories move readers forward. Stories keep readers’ interested. Stories make your copy more interesting and persuasive.

No. 3: Understand the Psychology of Persuasion. In the introduction to their outstanding book, “Yes!” authors Noah Goldstein, Steve J. Martin, and Robert Cialdini write, “…Small, easy changes to our messages and to our requests can make them vastly more persuasive…Everyone’s ability to persuade others can be improved by learning persuasion strategies that have been scientifically proven to be successful.”

If you want your prospects and customers to say, “Yes” more often, you must buy this book. You also should consider Cialdini’s earlier work, “Influence – The Psychology of Persuasion.”

When promoting my new order-tracking system, I would also include a sentence like this (after outlining the benefits for the customer): “We’re also adding this system because it helps us reduce our customer support costs while actually improving the service we provide.”

Why would I include this copy? Because! That word — because — is very powerful. When added to your copy, it can dramatically improve the persuasiveness of your pitch. Cialdini and his colleagues have proven it, and they explain it in both books I recommend.

I explain the power of “because” in an expanded edition of this article: 7 Proven Ways to Make Your Marketing Messages More Persuasive, available for download at www.marketvolt.com/persuasion.

Three Tips to Make Your Copy Less Boring and More Persuasive

by Tom Ruwitch

Clients ask me all the time how they can improve the performance of their email marketing campaigns. Nine times out of 10, their writing needs to improve. If you fill your emails with boring, unpersuasive copy, you will have bored, un-persuaded readers.  It doesn’t matter what you offer or how good the deal. If your copy suffers, your sales will lag. So here are a three tips to strengthen your copy and improve your sales.

No. 1: Use the “Why Should I Care? Filter to Distill Core Benefits from Your Copy. I met last month with a client who wanted help promoting his company’s new online order-tracking system. His draft email described the system under the headline “Introducing Our New Online Order-Tracking System.” Customers can log in, enter the order number and see the status of the order. The copy described the system features in great detail. After reading the draft, I understood what the new system could do.

I then asked, “Why should I care?”

At first he was taken aback, but then he played along and answered, “Because now you can get the information online.”

“Great,” I said, “Why should I care?”

“You can log in 24-7 to track your order,” he said. This was a detail not mentioned in the draft copy. Now we were getting somewhere.

“That’s great for people who want to check their inventory after business hours. But I work 9-5 when you’re open. Why should I care?” I asked.

“Because even if you call during business hours, it can be a pain,” he said. “You don’t always get to the person who has your information. You get put on hold. It’s frustrating. The new system makes it easy.”

Bingo! Get the information whenever you want. Never wait on hold. Avoid the frustration. Make it easy to track your order.

By asking “why should I care?” in response to each claim in your copy (and repeating that question several times over), you will distill your message to its core benefits.

My client isn’t selling system features (log on, enter order number, see status). He’s selling benefits. Never wait on hold. Avoid the frustration. Make it easy to track your order.

Force yourself to ask, “Why should I care?” as you review your copy. Answer and then repeat the question. Keep going. The more you ask and answer, the better your copy will become.

No. 2: Be a storyteller. The day before I met with that client, I called the telephone company to correct a billing issue. I got one of those automated attendants who sent me through the maze of confusing options. Occasionally, I had to say something (and hope the automated attendant could translate my words); once in a while, I had to enter a number on the telephone keypad. After nearly five minutes of this, I was able to “press zero to speak to a representative about your bill.”

“Finally!” I thought as I pressed “zero”. Then: “Ringggg… Ringgg… Ringgg…We’re sorry. Our billing department is currently closed. Please call back during regular business hours.”

I nearly threw the phone out my window! “Has something like this ever happened to you?” I asked.

Of course, it had. “Has it happened to your customers.” I asked. Sure, he said. Everyone has had a similar experience.

If I was promoting an order-tracking system, I would tell my story about the phone company and then say something like this: “If you’re anything like me, you hate being on hold, flailing around the automated attendant maze, only to reach dead-ends. You want to get the information you need easily, when you want it, on your terms — not the automated attendant’s terms. I certainly don’t want to put you or my other clients through what I went through with the telephone company. That’s why we’ve introduced a new order tracking system that…”

By starting with a story, I connect with the readers. They can relate to me, and they can connect their own experiences with the problem I’m trying to solve. It gives me — the salesman — greater credibility and authority. And it gives the prospect greater comfort and confidence in the solution being offered.

Stories move readers forward. Stories keep readers’ interested. Stories make your copy more interesting and persuasive.

No. 3: Understand the Psychology of Persuasion. In the introduction to their outstanding book, “Yes!” authors Noah Goldstein, Steve J. Martin, and Robert Cialdini write, “…Small, easy changes to our messages and to our requests can make them vastly more persuasive…Everyone’s ability to persuade others can be improved by learning persuasion strategies that have been scientifically proven to be successful.”

If you want your prospects and customers to say, “Yes” more often, you must buy this book. You also should consider Cialdini’s earlier work, “Influence – The Psychology of Persuasion.”

When promoting my new order-tracking system, I would also include a sentence like this (after outlining the benefits for the customer): “We’re also adding this system because it helps us reduce our customer support costs while actually improving the service we provide.”

Why would I include this copy? Because! That word — because — is very powerful. When added to your copy, it can dramatically improve the persuasiveness of your pitch. Cialdini and his colleagues have proven it, and they explain it in both books I recommend.

I explain the power of “because” in an expanded edition of this article: 7 Proven Ways to Make Your Marketing Messages More Persuasive, available for download at www.marketvolt.com/persuasion.

Yogi Berra once said, “If people don’t want to come to the ballpark, how are you gonna stop them?”

I love that quote, and I think about it often as I work with clients on their marketing campaigns. In his charming, convoluted way, Yogi presented a very basic but essential marketing principle: It’s far easier to tap someone’s desire than to create desire in someone who doesn’t have it. If you want to fill the ballpark, identify and market to the baseball fans rather than trying to “stop” nonfans from choosing another option.

Email marketers often forget this principle. Email is inexpensive, easy to create and quick to deliver. That’s the problem. Because email is so easy, e-marketers often send everything to everybody. In other words, they send baseball promotions to people who don’t want to come to the ballpark.

The following case study – also from the sports world – demonstrates the point.

A small, Midwestern university wanted to promote its women’s basketball program. The women had a breakthrough season the year before, winning the conference championship, but the arena was nearly empty on most nights.

The athletic department had a list of 8,000 people, collected from booster club rosters, ticket order forms, website registrations, alumni lists and other sources. These people had opted in to receive information from the university, but the athletic department had no idea who they were.

The university sent several emails to the list, all covering multiple topics. Each email included sales promotions for women’s basketball. The emails weren’t working. In fact, they backfired. With each subsequent email, the open rate dropped and the opt-out rate grew.

The athletic department’s marketing director asked me to help. “How can I use this list to promote women’s hoops?” he asked.

Yogi’s quote echoed in my head.

“You have 8,000 people on that list, and I bet more than 7,000 have no interest in women’s hoops,” I said. “You can send them 100 emails, and it won’t help. If people don’t want to watch women’s basketball, you can’t force them.”

Worse still, if you continue to send mailing after mailing to people who don’t care about women’s basketball, those people will stop opening your emails and opt out from your list. Then you’ve lost the chance to promote other sports to them.

At first the marketing director heard only one thing: More than 7,000 people on your list won’t respond to your offer.

“I guess we shouldn’t use email then,” he said.

He was missing the point. He was like a gold rush pioneer looking at a river full of gold and thinking, “More than 90% of that riverbed is just worthless pebbles.”

But about 10% of that riverbed held gold. He just needed to find it.

“We need to find the people in your email list who like women’s basketball,” I said. “Then we can market aggressively to them without wasting time and effort selling to the others.”

We devised a plan. The university would send emails twice monthly to the entire list. Those emails would include short summaries about multiple sports: men’s basketball, women’s basketball, wrestling and others.

Each summary would not be a direct sales pitch, but each would include a link allowing the recipient to read more. For example, the women’s basketball summary might be a brief summary of upcoming games (or a recap of past games) with a link to the rest of the schedule (or to more news).

“But why don’t we just promote ticket sales directly in this email?” he asked.
“Because the goal of this email is not to sell tickets. The goal of this email is to find the prospects we’ll target,” I said.

If you ask people to “buy now” or “click to purchase,” they need to be in buying mode to act. You’re not offering them anything other than the transaction. If they’re not ready to buy, they won’t click. That’s fine if you’ve already identified your targets and plan to send promotions to them regularly.

But at this point you simply want people to raise their hands, to show you they’re interested in women’s basketball. You’re separating prospects from suspects. The sales will follow.

If you ask them to “read more” or “learn more,” you’re offering them something that has immediate value and involves little risk. Far more people will click these links than the “buy now” link.

We also planned to include a brief survey with the email. Among other questions, the survey asked which sports the readers followed. The list of checkboxes included, of course, women’s basketball.

The university began to send the general interest newsletter (with a survey included) to the list. Using the email software’s tools that automatically track who clicks which links and who checks which survey boxes, the marketing director identified roughly 900 people who were interested in women’s basketball. Those people either clicked the women’s basketball link in one of the emails or checked the box in the survey.

Over the next four months, the university sent weekly emails to the 900 people on the women’s basketball list. The emails included detailed game summaries (the local newspaper didn’t even include box scores for the games), player profiles and prominent ticket offers.

The results were great. On average, more than 60% of recipients opened each email (a great open rate for a weekly email). Over the four months of the campaign, only one person opted out of the list. (Meanwhile, the thousands who showed no interest in women’s hoops were not bombarded with weekly emails and consequently remained on the master list.)

Most important, ticket sales spiked. The university didn’t fill the arena, but attendance increased noticeably. Because it identified the 900 people out of 8,000 to target, the university was also able to create a print promotion. It would have been too expensive and inefficient to send that mailing to 8,000 people. But because it used email – and a low-risk call to action – to identify prospects, the university had a great list to help it focus the postal mail program.

So, in the end, the university heeded Yogi’s advice. Rather than “stopping” nonfans from ignoring women’s basketball, it found the real fans and marketed aggressively to them.

You can apply this lesson to any business, any industry. The music store that wants to clear its classical inventory can identify those who like classical music before selling to them. The nonprofit that wants to promote a planned giving program can find the people interested in planned giving before sending them more detailed information on this delicate topic. The pet store can separate dog lovers from cat lovers. And so forth.

To do this well, you must remember that each email serves a different purpose. Some emails are designed only to identify prospects. Others are designed to sell.

The following article appeared in the July 2009 issue of St. Louis Small Business Monthly

A friend of mine recently was on the verge of selling his small business, but the deal collapsed. The business was profitable and growing, and the prospective buyer liked the numbers. But the deal tanked when the prospect asked to see the customer list. When my friend replied that he had not been collecting emails and other contact information from most of his customers and prospects, the prospective buyer bolted.

The prospect knew that a business is only as good as its list. Sure, your business may be making money and even growing. But you limit your potential to grow your business if you do not have a good, clean, homegrown list of prospects, customers, and former customers.

Your most valuable asset is not your inventory, employees, or intellectual property; it’s your list—the herd of people with whom you can communicate regularly to sell your products and services.

Before you roll your eyes and say, “D’uh,” read the list-building checklist below. If you answer, “no” to any of the questions, you’re missing list-building opportunities that could drive your business forward.

* Do you collect contact information, including email, from every customer when they complete a transaction?
* Do you actively work to get additional information from people in your database for whom you have incomplete data? For example, if you have a customer’s postal address, but not email, are you doing anything to get that email?
* Does your website include a prominent form (or link to the form) on every page to collect visitors’ contact information?
* Does your advertising include direct calls-to-action that invite people to submit contact information to you? For example, all of our print advertisements direct readers to a page on our web site where they can sign up for marketing tips.
* When you send postal mail to customers and prospects, does it include a contact form they can return with updated contact information? Does it include direct calls-to-action that invite them to submit contact information online?
* Do you actively and perpetually ask existing clients for referrals?
* When you field phone calls from prospects or customers, do you collect their contact information?
* When you meet people directly—at networking events, parties, on airplanes, or through any other encounter—do you collect contact information?
* When you ask someone for contact information, do you explain what you will and won’t do with it?

Offer Value and Protect Privacy

The last question is key because it addresses how you ask for contact information. People are happy to share contact information with you if you offer them something of value and if they believe you won’t violate their privacy. When you ask someone for contact information, you should clearly state what they’ll get in return and how you’ll honor their privacy. That applies to existing customers, active prospects, and people you’ve just met.

I attended a networking event this morning, and this is what I said every time I asked for someone’s card:

“May I have your card? From time to time I’ll send you information to help you understand what we do, and I’ll also send you occasional marketing tips that will help your business. Even if you’re not actively shopping for the services we provide, I think you’ll find the emails valuable. And you can easily forward them to others who may need our services or might benefit from the information. You can opt-out of our email list at any time, and we will never share our list with others. We honor your privacy.”

Before the end of the day, I will send a personalized, trackable email to everyone whose card I collected. It will deliver what I promised—information about MarketVolt, interactive marketing tips, and a request for recipients to forward the email to others who might be interested. The email system will track who opens and clicks so I’ll be able to determine who has interest in particular products and services I mention in the message.

After we complete a sale and again following training sessions for new clients, we confirm their contact information and notify them that we will be contacting them regularly with how-to information, marketing tips, and other information that will enhance their experience.

What About Purchased Lists?

You may have read the list-building checklist above and thought, “That’s a lot of work. It’s much easier to just purchase a list.” Sure, it’s easy to purchase or rent a list of email addresses, but that doesn’t mean you should do it.

You may consider list purchase as a way to find leads, but you shouldn’t do it in lieu of building and working your list of existing clients, former clients, and known prospects.

If you add email list purchase to your lead acquisition strategy, tread carefully. People on many of the so-called “opt-in email lists” have no idea they’re on those lists. Such lists violate most anti-spam policies for internet service providers, spam filters, and email service providers so the computer that sends to such lists runs the risk of having future deliveries blocked.

If you want to use a third-party email list for lead acquisition, look for a vendor who will keep the list (you won’t see the addresses) and send the email for you—rather than one who will give you a file with the email addresses. Vendors who send the email for you usually have cleaner lists that have been built more ethically.

Do you have an email signature? If you’re like most people, you may have one that lists your name and basic contact information, but you most likely don’t see it as a marketing opportunity.

You should think of your email signature as an opportunity to promote your business and capture leads.

Here’s the signature I use for people who are not already MarketVolt clients:

p.s. Get Free E-Mail Marketing Tips:
“10 Secrets to Write Email Subject Lines that Sell”

http://www.marketvolt.com/SubjectlineTips

p.p.s. Please check out my twitter feed — http://twitter.com/marketvolt.
Daily interactive marketing tips and other ideas and observations to help you grow your business.

(My contact info follows the p.s. and p.p.s)

A p.s. is an effective copy writing technique. Readers tend to look at a p.s., even if they skim the content above. The first p.s. offers readers something of value — that’s free. The topic reinforces MarketVolt’s expertise in the field while simultaneously offering a favor — free assistance — to the reader.

Those who click through and get the report are added to my prospecting database and begin to get follow-up emails from me. The first actually explains how I executed the campaign. That shows them how powerful the MarketVolt system is and how they could do the same thing with their marketing.

The p.p.s. invites people to check out my twitter page. Twitter is not for everyone so I don’t expect everyone to click through. But those who do click will most likely follow me. That opens a new communication channel for me to promote products and services to this prospect, and it puts me one degree of separation away from many others who are connected to this prospect.

I used to put only my contact info in my signature. But since I put an interactive call to action in the signature, I’ve generated several leads that I might otherwise have missed.

I recently got a call from a former prospect who is president of a company here in St. Louis. To save money, he chose not to work with MarketVolt, and instead installed a free email marketing application on his company’s servers. After a few months of sending email newsletters to a list of people who all had opted in, he began to notice a problem:

A certain internet service provider — a big one that serves many of the people on his list — was blocking delivery of the email newsletter. But worse yet, that internet service provider was blocking all emails sent from the company’s network.

Not only were the newsletters being blocked, but emails from the company president to individuals who host their email boxes with that internet service provider.

“What can I do?” he asked me.

I explained: Internet service providers — the companies that connect households and businesses to the internet and host their mailboxes — have spam filters that paint with a broad brush. Even if you comply with all of the anti-spam policies when you build your list, even if everyone on your list has given you explicit permission to contact you, there’s a good chance that the spam filter will eventually conclude that you’ve sent unsolicited commercial email.

A recipient might inadvertently push the “this is spam” button. The spam filter itself might misjudge the content of your email as “spammy.” There are countless things that could happen.

When the spam filter decides that you’re sending spam it will determine the network address of the computer from which you sent the offending email.

All computers connected to the internet have a set of four numbers, called an IP address. For example, MarketVolt sends email from several different computers, including one with the IP address 206.196.99.77.

If a spam filter identifies a particular IP address as sending spam, it may block all email from that computer or it may even block email from all computers connected to the same network. For example, your commercial email may be sent from the ip address 206.196.99.77 and your “office” emails from one individuals may be sent from 206.196.99.76. The spam filter may block all mail from computers that are in the network 206.196.99.76.

Why is this a problem? Well, it’s bad enough if you can’t get your email newsletters and product announcements past a spam filter. But it’s even worse if your company president or sales reps or customer support team can’t get individuals emails they send to one person through the filter.

That’s why we also urge clients to run their broadcast email systems on networks completely separate from the network on which they run their primary office email. If you follow this advice, you’ll still get those essential individual emails through even if your broadcast emails get blocked.