Archive for November, 2009

John Arnold has had many roles in his nearly four years with Constant Contact. For those of you not familiar with Constant Contact, it is an email marketing company that has been at the forefront of the email marketing industry for over 10 years. Many of you out there might have done an email marketing campaign while those who are new entrepreneurs this might be a thing you have heard of but don’t know much about it.

John is the author of E-Mail Marketing for Dummies and co-author of the comprehensive desk reference Web Marketing All-In-One for Dummies. John is presently the Director of Training and Certification. I recently had the opportunity to sit down with him and talk with him about Constant Contact and email marketing trends. Here is a transcript of that interview:

Steve: John, Constant Contact has been around for over 10 years and as email marketing has evolved do you think that social media has been the biggest shift in online communications?

John: Clearly social media is getting a lot of attention from marketers, and I think it’s a good idea to be aware of the possibilities and make a few moves. A very small percentage of consumers consider social media to be their primary form of communication, however. As with any emerging trend, it’s important to be involved, but as a small business you can’t afford to bet the farm on new forms of communication before majority adoption. Email is still the best choice for small businesses. Good marketing relies on evolution, not revolution.

Steve: Email marketing has evolved to include social media tools. You say that “Share This” is the new “Forward” button. What kind of advantages do these capabilities provide small businesses?

John: This is a perfect example of evolution in marketing. When you send an email, there are only three possible positive outcomes. Your audience can respond to your call to action immediately, they can save it for later, or they can share it with someone they know. Putting a “share this” button in your emails allows your recipients to easily post the emails they want to share to any social media site. This is better than forwarding because the content lives on and reaches beyond the inbox without the need to overhaul the way your business communicates.

Steve: You have been with Constant Contact for almost four years and have been know for starting up new divisions within the company. Your new initiative is Training and Certification. What is it and what is your role?

John: Constant Contact believes that if we help our customers to grow their businesses, they will reward us by being customers for a long time. This attitude extends to our products because we only develop product features that we believe will help our customers grow. This attitude also extends to our education services because we know that our customers are usually very smart and good at running their businesses, but they need help learning how to be good at marketing. Constant Contact has education services that include a distance-learning center, local seminars, hands-on product training, and certification training. My job is to develop new training and certification programs that help make our customers and business partners more successful.

Steve: Since this is about teaching the customer and empowering them, what would you ultimately like to see small businesses get from Constant Contact?

John: We want small business owners to adopt our success formula because we know it works. Constant Contact is a small business success story. The company started in an attic with only three people and zero customers and used the principles we teach to grow into a market leader and a public company. I believe that small businesses make our lives better. They drive our country and our economy. I’ll never rest as long as there are small business owners struggling to find success.

Steve: To wrap up I always like to ask a “five things” questions. So for you, what are five things a small business should do when starting an email campaign?

John: 1. Have a plan for multiple communications and a measurable objective. When you send an email, the majority of your audience will not be ready to buy for one reason or another. You’ll have to communicate an average of 7 times to get a sale so you need to plan 7-10 communications that fit together and keep people interested during the buying cycle.

2. Send to a permission-based list. People don’t like to receive emails from total strangers. In fact, they hate it and last time I checked hate is not one of the buying emotions. It doesn’t matter what you think the law says or what your ethics tell you because your audience doesn’t care what the law says or what you think about business ethics. They can also ruin your ability to deliver emails by marking your emails as spam and putting your business on a block-list. Just make sure your emails are wanted and expected by your audience before you send and you’ll avoid most negative responses.

3. Send valuable information. There are two types of value in emails. The first is inherent value and it includes things like tips, articles, expertise, opinions, entertainment, and other content that make the email valuable in and of itself. The other type of value is valuable offers or content that is valuable if the person receiving the email takes action. Valuable offers include discounts, coupons, incentives, special privileges, giveaways, and so on. I suggest an 80/20 rule when developing email content. 80% of your email content – over the course of many emails – should be inherently valuable, and no more than 20% should be promotional.

4. Track your results. Email is one of the most trackable forms of marketing. If you use an email service like Constant Contact, you’ll get a tracking report for every email you send that tells you which emails bounced and why the bounced, who viewed the images in the email, which links they clicked in the email, who forwarded the email, and who wants to be taken off your list. You can use this information for targeted follow up and to refine your strategy.

5. Remember that marketing is about people. Always remember that marketing isn’t a technology game, it’s a people game. Don’t get caught in a feature race trying to adopt new technologies before you have a handle on the effect on your customers and your business. I never want to be the first person to adopt a new technology and I never want to be the last. I recommend you test before you invest.