Secrets to Building Your Customer List and Email Marketing

You can’t just slap a sign up form onto your website and expect great results.

People are getting bombarded with so many emails from their friends, family, and co-workers that they simply don’t want to see newsletters or marketing propaganda popping up in their inbox. Most people seem to be scared to give out their contact information for fear that they will never be able to escape the endless flood of email you might send them.

The thing is that most email marketing is all about you, the business. You want your customers email address so you can sell them more stuff. This just doesn’t fly with most people anymore. Sure you’ll have loyal fans that will want to receive everything you ever produce because they’re scared they might miss something, but that won’t be the norm.

To quote sales guru Jeffrey Gitomer, “People don’t want to be sold, but they love to buy”.

Use this to your advantage when you approach building your customer list and email marketing. The problem isn’t that people don’t want to buy what you sell, it’s that they don’t want to be sold what you sell.

The trick is all in the offer. Don’t make your email marketing and list building campaigns about you, make it about your customer.

So instead of getting people to sign up to receive your free email newsletter that will be filled with information about how they can buy what you sell, make them a better offer.

Make the offer about them.

When a customer buys something from you, tell them they’ve been chosen to receive $20 off their next purchase. Then provide them with a business card that includes the instructions they need to follow to receive their $20 gift by email. By signing up, make them aware that they’ll also receive more special offers by email up to six times per year.

That might get someone excited enough to fork over their contact information. It also shows that you are willing to treat your customers well in order to earn their business.

You are no longer a spammer. You’re the enabler that allows people to get a special deal on their favourite things.

iStorez - The End of Retail Email Newsletters?

Erick Schonfeld has a post on TechCrunch about Internet startup iStorez. From what I can tell, the website takes all the html email newsletters that retailers send out to their subscriber base and puts them all in one place for people to browse online. The thought is to eliminate the massive amounts of email some people get in their inbox by aggregating the information in one web portal.

You can search for products by tag or by brand.

My question is how they are going to gather this information and legally republish it? (Kind of like how I stole the iStorez logo to use in this post). I mean retailers should be happy that someone has decided to give more circulation to their offers, but I don't think everyone will see it that way. Will the site just subscribe to every retail email newsletter known to man and have someone on their team dedicated to reposting them to the website?

Obviously iStorez won't stop retailers from using email newsletters, a marketing strategy that has proven effective, because the site wouldn't exist if their wasn't any email newsletters available to poach. It will be interesting to see if this concept catches on and what affect it will have on retail email marketing.

Another Note on Spam

If you send out mass emails to a list, you need permission. Most people are pretty good at asking people before they send out information. But there’s another big part to permission, and that’s the ability to opt-out.

People sign up to receive emails because they are looking for information at a certain point in time. Sometimes there comes a point when they no longer want that information anymore. If the people receiving your messages can’t opt out of your communication when that point comes, you risk angering that list.

The source of this little rant comes from the University of Regina. I signed up to be put on an email list to receive an email a few times a week when new job opportunities came through the employment office at the University. Well, that was a few years ago now and I have a job so I don’t really need those emails anymore. Frankly, they’re a little annoying. I emailed the address that sends these updates a few times to ask to be removed from the list but I still keep getting emails from them.

It doesn’t pay to have people on your list that don’t want your information. Instead of creating fans, you end up creating enemies without intending to. If you use email to communicate with your customers, it’s crucial to have an opt-out link at the bottom of all your correspondence. If people feel locked in, you’ll never get them to sign up for something again and they probably won’t buy anything from you in the near future.

Email Marketing - Our Services vs. Outlook

This video was shot as part of a series of videos that will be included in our LRS Consulting website re-design. The video description we wrote for YouTube is below, but it's only two minutes so why not just watch it instead?

Email marketing for small businesses is often done using a personal tool like Microsoft Outlook. At LRS Consulting (http://www.lrsconsulting.ca) we use Infusion CRM software with all of our clients to ensure maximum deliverability, no data entry, and tangible results through click through and open rate reports. You'll know exactly who opened your emails and who clicked on your links. Make sure you check out our Regina Business Blog (http://www.reginabusinessblog.com) for our small business marketing tips.

Email Marketing PLUS Package from LRS Consulting

This video outlines our more advanced email marketing package. If your business is looking at tracking the results of advertising campaigns, running contests, and communicating with customers when you're running a sale, promotion, or special event, this package is for you.

For $349/month, we can help you use your small business website as the hub of your marketing activities. Check out the LRS Consulting Marketing Packages here.

Targeted Email Marketing Services from LRS Consulting

This is the first in a series of videos we created to promote some of our consulting packages. Unlike a lot of consulting firms that will just make recommendations, we actually help small businesses implement systems that get results.

This video talks about our email marketing services. If your business wants to start collecting a list of customers to communicate to directly through email and direct mail, this package is for you. And for the first few clients we sign on, we've got a special rate of $149/month.

For more information, visit the LRS Consulting website.

Getting Started With Email Marketing

Here's a good article I received in the Entrepreneur.com email newsletter about (oddly enough) email marketing. It provides a good introduction to email marketing, and gives you ideas about building your email list.

One of the ways they suggest to build your email list is to add a sign up box to your website. At LRS Consulting, we can help you set up a sign up box on your website and design auto-responders for you to help manage your opt ins. Have a look at our email marketing packages at the following address: www.lrsconsulting.ca/marketingpackages.html.

Email Marketing For Your Small Business

Email marketing could be huge for small business, but not a lot of businesses are currently taking advantage of it. When you have a sale, promotion, or special, chances are your small business takes out some radio ads, has a station on location, runs some newspaper ads, and possibly some television ads. It gets pretty expensive to tell people about the event you're having.

That's why LRS Consulting has developed a program to allow small business owners a way to easily and inexpensively market directly to their customers via email. We start by putting a customer sign up form on your website for your visitors to sign up to receive communication from you. What you choose to communicate to your customers is up to you, but the better your offers, the more subscribers you'll get.

Once you have established a good list of your customers, you can send emails to them directly whenever you are having a sale, promotion, or special event. We look after the maintenance of your customer list with double opt in and unsubscribe features, send the emails on your behalf, and track the open and click through rates of your batch emails.

Looking to start marketing directly to your customers through email? Our email marketing packages at LRS Consulting start as low as $149/month and we can get you up and running right away.

P.S. If you already have a list of your customers with their contact information we can import your Excel files into our Infusion CRM program easily. By switching over to our services you'll never have to worry about maintaining your list again and it will still be available for you to run targeted direct mail campaigns too!

Integrating Customer Sign Up Forms Into Your Small Business Website

Wouldn't you like to know who visits your website and if they are actually interested in buying something from you or receiving more information? By integrating online customer sign up forms into your website, you can do just that.

Customer sign up forms on your website allow your visitors to raise their hands and tell you they are interested in what you have to offer. The information that you can capture with online sign up forms will allow you to conduct targeted follow up marketing that will turn your visitors into sales.

Examples of websites using our online sign up forms are: http://www.restaurantmarketing.ca/, http://www.saskhomebuyer.com/, and http://www.thediplomatsteakhouse.com/.

LRS Consulting's Online Services For Small Business

This video introduces the online strategy side of LRS Consulting's services, which include web design, search engine optimization, email marketing, online video marketing, small business blogging, and customer list management.