The workshop looked at the following topics:

If you attended the session please post your comments and feedback below.

1. Be Human and be You: This might be the virtual world, but don’t distance yourself from your subscribers. People buy from people, as the saying goes. So a good email campaign is based on the same principles as any other sales and marketing drive. Study your audience and what appeals to them. What do they want to read about? What are their concerns and interests? How much time do they have to read and digest your message?
2. Check Your Data: have a close look at your customer relationship management (CRM) information, and any other relevant data. Make sure that what you are saying is relevant, timely and interesting to the market you are sending to. Are the people you are contacting really the ones you need to be targeting? Is email the most appropriate means of reaching them? Weed out old or inactive accounts from time to time, to stop wasting your efforts and be loved by anti-spam regulators.
3. Acquire New Leads: one objective of your marketing is to constantly refresh your data through your website, social networks, CRM, networking and other available channels. Segmenting your data into a variety of lists and categories will help you to make messages as personal as possible. Data can be a commodity in the Information Age, but if you can get a good return on the investment, it may be worth purchasing new leads too.
4. Make a Call to Action: Some companies fire out e-newsletters without ever reviewing why they are doing it. You must be clear on your reasons for messaging your clients and customers: branding, sales, a news message or a combination of the three. But there has to be a call to action. How do you want your audience to respond? What is the most-desired action your reader needs to take? And don’t be afraid to repeat your call to action a few times throughout the message.
5. Quality, NOT Quantity: The frequency of your campaigns and the information contained there is equally important. A sharp, well-prepared, targeted and relevant message can work wonders. Yes, good be just good enough on one hand, but sending just for the sake of sending will not bring you any extra profits.
6. Beware of Spam Filters: Emails containing large images and attachments are often prevented from reaching inboxes by firewalls and filters, so focus on ways to make simple, text-based emails work for you. There are spam testers available online and with most email marketing systems, but use your common sense and try softer methods of selling.
7. Think Mobile: Research by Morgan Stanley predicts that by 2015 more people will access the internet via their phones more than by their desktops (and this can include iPads and similar devices). Therefore, you need to test how your message will be viewed on a small screen. Again, large images, graphics and attachments are not appropriate.
8. Use Hot Incentives: Incentives shouldn’t cost you a lot of money, but as long as they appear valuable to the audience they will actually make you money. Look-out for hot topics and trends, and try to use them to your advantage in marketing.
9. Don’t Just Rely on Email: In 2009, more communications were conducted on social networks than via email, according to research conducted by Morgan Stanley. Your newsletter is just one part of your marketing mix, along with social networks, blogs, articles, and all other offline and online tools. A service like FlowTown can help you collect more data about your subscribers using their publicly-available information on all major social networks.
10. Track Results and Monitor Feedback: Your e-marketing software should offer the facility to track results: deliverability, the number of opens and bounce-backs, click-through ratios. As long as your stats are improving month on month, you are doing a great job. You can also encourage interaction from your subscribers by asking for feedback and comments.

What about your top tips for managing your email marketing? Please share with us and other readers!

Testing is important

Use your open and click rates to determine the potential strengths and weaknesses of your own campaigns. From the results you can identify areas to test to improve performance. Try split-testing subject lines, FROM name, newsletter title. Research and surveys show that email marketing spend is expected to grow and expand to $2 billion in the US by 2014. The other increase in Marketers’ budgets was in Social Media. This means that if you are not using newsletters yet – don’t miss a chance to get started before it’s no longer a “purple cow” of marketing.

Correct use of Subject line

It’s a myth that you can’t use the word ‘free’ both in the body and subject line. Fact: along with ‘newsletter’, ‘free’, ‘news’, ‘event’ and ‘update’ are some of the top one hundred words that are used in the subject line. Length: research shows open rates of 52% and upwards for a subject line of 35 characters or less and a click rate 69% higher. The effort spent converting your subject line to 35 characters or less is worth it and will help the reader discover what’s in it for them by concentrating on your dialogue. Be clear, be precise but make sure the subject line truly represents the contents of the newsletter so that your email doesn’t get spammed.

Best day to send – Sunday.

According to the research people are getting ready for their week and they are looking ahead, they have the time to read. During 2009 CTR was the highest on Sunday (4.1%) and Saturday (4.0%). Open rates show a peak on Sunday, with Tuesday and Saturday 12.6%  & 12% respectively. However, open rates declined during 2009 as part of the trend over the last 3-4 years. Similarly click rate is also declining. Some reasons for that:

To evaluate how well your own marketing is doing compare your different campaigns to see if your campaigns follow this trend.

Frequency – more is MORE!

Send more frequently – once every 3 months doesn’t work. Try once a month at least or even every other week. Schedule your emails for a regular day/time, so that people know they can receive and use the information during the working week.

Stay relevant.

Newsletters are changing, the format, how we use them, what we do with them. But nevertheless newsletters are about relationship building.

So think about the following questions:

1. What works for my audience?
2. What does my audience want to read?
3. How do they want to read what I have to say?
4. How often do they want to read it?

Good luck! And please share with us what works for your newsletters and how you test them to get even better!

Are newsletters a waste of time? Yes and no!

But if they take too much time to write and too much time to read then they do just waste everyone’s time.

The pace of life is such these days that it’s difficult to find the time to read a full newsletter – even if most of it is interesting. (Let’s face it the ‘filler’ articles that make up the bulk rarely are).

How much more difficult to find the time to write the stuff – especially if hardly anyone’s going to read it!

Yet they do fulfil a purpose – they keep you in-touch with your clients/customers on a regular basis (so long as you put the effort in regularly enough). Remind them you exist and are still there when they need you.

How about ‘a little often’?

I’ve noticed that of the slew of stuff that hits my email account the stuff I do read is generally a) interesting and b) bite sized. A punchy subject line goes a long way – especially if it’s backed up with an interesting story. And short. Almost the shorter the better.

There are some real masters of this craft out there who get me almost every time. (Sorry guys – no one is 100% interesting all the time!)

They hit my inbox at least once or twice a week – sometimes more. But I don’t mind. Because they’re short, to the point and interesting.

MicroNewsletters?

THE cardinal rule of Twitter is ‘a little, often’. Perhaps the same applies here – just on a different scale?

So no need to labour over ‘War & Peace’ – and take an afternoon out to write a whole slew of stuff. Take ten minutes to write about something interesting and keep it short.

And to the point.

I did. This took less than 10 minutes.

How was it for you?

Barry James is the creator and founder of Receipt Angel, Followup Angel and Angel Rooms – all parts of Angel Revolutions. He can be found on Twitter as @ReceiptAngel or online at FollowupAngel.net/events

That’s why advertising on Facebook presents a fabulous business opportunity. You can drive traffic to your website, connect with a huge community of your target customers, promote your services, products and special offers. What’s more – Facebook offers very cost-effective advertising opportunity through its own pay-per-click ads. However you can do it for free by just creating a business page or a group.

Pay-per-click advertising

Facebook allows businesses to purchase image and text-based ads that can be targeted to a specific demographic based on age, location, gender, marital status, interests and more. Therefore a luxury wedding planner in King’s Lynn can target women who are 25-40, engaged, within 20 miles from King’s Lynn and are college graduates. It’s impossible to achieve such targeting with Google AdWords as all you can specify is someone’s location.

Ads are charged on a cost per click (CPC) or cost per mille (or 1,000 impressions, CPM) basis. You can set up a daily budget and a bid per click or impressions. The minimum daily budget is $1. Facebook will show a suggested bid range displaying what other advertisers targeting your demographic are paying. To get good results you’ll need to bid somewhere in the middle of the suggested range.

How to succeed with Facebook Ads:

You can find more tips and articles on how to create a winning Facebook Advertising campaign here.

Facebook Groups and Pages

You can create Facebook groups and pages, which users can then join or become a fan of. You can suggest the page or group to your friends first, then ask them to do the same in turn. You can also promote the links via your website, email signature and newsletter. Groups and Pages represent a great opportunity to really connect with your consumers, advertise your offers and promotions to people who are actively interested to hear from you (by being fans). And it’s free to set one up too!

How to succeed with Facebook Pages:

You can find TJConsulting Facebook Page here – feel free to become a fan too if you like what you see.

The answer is simple. Would you use a typewriter to prepare a proposal for your customer? Probably not. Same reasoning applies to managing your customer data. The business database is one of the most important assets in your business and, if used properly, it can generate a steady stream of income each time you turn to it.

A database is essentially a collection of information about something, in this case – about your customers and prospects. The main benefits over collecting paper cards are:

Why would you need one? There isn’t a business type out there now that doesn’t need a database! If you do any networking, it’s a pointless waste of time and money without a proper follow up on leads and new contacts. If you are trying to drive traffic to your website it’s a waste of resources if you don’t capture details of your visitors. If you invest in advertising your shop you have to get everyone’s details in order to get them through the door again.

There are plenty of tools out there now, all aiming to make it easier for business owners to manage their data effectively. For example:

The principle is the same across all tools: you import your data from any email program’s contacts or business cards. Sort it and arrange it into categories, tags, groups etc.

We recommend using Capsule CRM to our customers. It’s very easy to use, you can share access with many users and you don’t have to be a techie in order to use it effectively. The benefits however are very important:

For those who have lots of paper cards that need to be converted into electronic format we have a special offer: up to 100 cards entered into Capsule, system setup and training – all for £85+VAT. Find out more about the offer here.

Or, if you would like to find out more and get your questions answered, join us together with Oma Edoja (client attraction coach from GetClearGetKnownGETCLIENTS.com) for a free webinar on Thursday, 22 July at 8pm BST. Recording will later be available for sale (so don’t miss out to learn it first-hand while it’s free). To secure your place while the last few are still available click here to register.

Some people are wondering if Twitter is more for fun and therefore is not suitable as a business tool. Or whether it’s just too full of spam and no one ever reading each other’s comments or messages.

Well, I’d say that Twitter is a bit of both.

It’s like a big party, where you can have fun, make friends and catch up with old connections. But at the same time meet new clients or strategic partners, get referred or make referrals for others. The key is to use Twitter appropriately.

If you just talk about social, your day-to-day life – not many will be interested (apart from your family and old friends). If you always talk about business – you will become one of those annoying people we have all met at networking events. You know, they don’t listen to you, they switch off immediately once they’ve heard what you do (you are not their “target” customer), or at the end of their long and boring elevator pitch they ask if you are interested to buy. You certainly aren’t, so they leave.

Twitter is about balancing social and business. Talk about what you do, your business, your clients and events you attend. Talk about your day, the weather, or the lovely dinner you’ve made. Obviously respond to RTs and mentions, participate in conversations,and  follow people back if you like what they are saying. But remember that you will get what you put in. And it’s unrealistic to expect lots of business and referrals from Twitter when you are only showing up once a month.

Here’s my Wordle for June. A lot about social media, business tips and call answering. What have you been talking about?

Over the past year we have been searching high and low for a super-efficient business system we can use in TJConsulting and offer to our clients. And finally, after trying and testing, reading 100s of reviews – it’s here.

It consists of 3 parts, but don’t despair – they all work as One, efficient, online, affordable solution. And they are…. Xero, Capsule and MailChimp.

Xero is the accounting system of the 21st century. If you are not an accountant and dread “reconciliation” or “P&L” – this is the system for you. It’s very simple to use, you can access it from anywhere with an Internet connection and it’s secure.

Capsule is an online Contact Relationship Management (CRM) tool that will integrate with Xero – so you only have to enter your data once. You can track leads and conversion, manage information, analyse sales and productivity, and (yet again) it’s very simple to use!

MailChimp is used to send your newsletters, mailshots and autoresponders. Without being repetitive – it’s simple, clean, straightforward. It can send regular newsletters and schedule a series of messages. MailChimp can integrate with a large number of social media networks, Eventbrite (for event bookings) and is a top-rated social media tool (according to mashable.com).

So what does it mean for you?

Exclusive Xero benefits

Xero provides a view of financial information in real-time. There’s no need to buy expensive software and install upgrades. Xero is available on your PC or Mac in the office, at home or on popular mobile devices – anywhere, anytime. The beauty of Xero is you can invite a number of trusted people such as us, your accountants, to collaborate online. No more cumbersome transfer of data that can be corrupted or is out-of-date!

As a Xero Certified Partner we can introduce you to Xero and have you up and running in no time. The following services are exclusive to Xero Partners:

Interested? Contact us now to arrange a demonstration.

Biz Cards Buster, now with Capsule CRM!

You think you’ve seen it last month? Our popular Business Cards Buster offer is back, AND it’s even better this time round! As an exclusive partner of Capsule CRM we are now offering the setup to you as part of this AMAZING DEAL!

Why not consider passing over the responsibility to your virtual assistant TJConsulting. Here’s what we offer:

You will get ALL of the above for just £85+VAT. BOOK NOW to secure this amazing limited offer!

I’ve been sending out a lot recently the link to our online survey (what you STILL haven’t received it?! here it is again: http://tjconsultinguk.wufoo.com/forms/online-marketing-survey-tjconsulting-va/). I do love @DesignerDepot links and tweets – some have great design ideas and tips. “VA, delegation, call [answering], time [management], admin, emails [management], [virtual] working” – are all good words illustrating what we do and how we add value to our clients. What are you talking about on Twitter? Connect with me and let’s stay in touch.

Why bother indeed – with well over 50 million users all over the world, the absolute majority of who are business professionals (not kids or teens like you may assume about Facebook or MySpace) – why would a business owner not want to be part of such network? If you are still wondering how exactly it works, here’s a short video that will explain the basics:

So what kind of results can you expect when you start using LinkedIn effectively:

If you are not convinced – here’s another short video for you where a LinkedIn member talks about his successful experiences.

And by “using LinkedIn effectively” I mean the following 10 steps:

1. Add your picture to the profile.
2. Fill in as much information about you as possible, including Skills, complete your job history, education and awards.
3. Do not set it up as a private profile – you want to be found and connected right?
4. Find your existing contact on LinkedIn (via Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo etc) and connect.
5. Find your past colleagues, current and past employees, customers and business partners – ask for testimonials.
6. Make it a habit to ask for a LinkedIn testimonials for each new project you complete.
7. Research and join relevant industry groups: some related to your profession, some related to your area of interest, some related to your customers – and be active and visible!
8. Add your blog feed and Slideshare presentations (if you have any).
9. Regularly update your status with interesting and relevant information.
10. Promote your LinkedIn profile on your website, email signature; regularly check for new connections you may already know offline.

And you are well on the way to success!