Thread: Talk to me about e-mail marketing

I signed up for email marketing through VistaPrint earlier this summer. Despite the initial time investment in importing my contacts and figuring out the best way to lay things out, it has been very easy to use & I'm getting great results. I'm very pleased.
I love how I can track who's opening the email, who is clicking on the links, et cetera. I can see who never open my emails, and can remove them from my list based on inactivity.
Anyone else out there using an email marketing tool? Who/what do you recommend? Any tips or pointers?

I used Constant Contact when I ran the Arthur Murray studios in Las Vegas. In fact, we were featured in their hints aned tips newsletter which was sent to over 2 million people.

However, I am in the process of researching different email marketing services out there for the Vegas Intensive mailing list, and I think I am probably going with Mail Chimp. The reason has to do with the readability of the email on cell phones. Every time I get a CC email, there is so much code I have to scroll though that it is nearly unbearable to deal with it, and it almost always gets deleted. My understanding is the MailChimp is cell phone friendlier.

ohhhh...I never even considered smart phones. Good point. Hmm...others' thoughts?

Originally Posted by nayastrance

ohhhh...I never even considered smart phones. Good point. Hmm...others' thoughts?

A quick correction, if I may.

"Smart" phones, like the iPhone, are somewhat of a different creature, marketing-wise, than most cell phones (and then there's the so-called "feature" phones which reside in between.)
This is because a major feature is a web browser that is as nearly as good as the one on your computer. Now, most email marketing doesn't differentiate -- this is why the best "Lowest Common Denominator" for email is still to be short, and use only text. But iPhones, etc. access email in such a way that they can see 99% of what your desktop browser sees, so they're in less need of such protections.
I don't know a good solution or company with a product for all that, just that even something as simple as emailing a cell phone produces a number of different results in terms of readability.

And on that note, I'm surprised more dancers aren't leveraging SMS -- cell phone texting. Not only would it be nice to be able to send a msg a few hours before your next session starts ("Dont' Forget -- New Classes start tonight!"), but if you have a class that has to be delayed or canceled, you can text everyone in said class the situation; in parallel w/emails, that raises immensely your chances of avoiding students being disappointed.

(Or maybe people are, and I'm just missing it!)

Originally Posted by nayastrance

I love how I can track who's opening the email, who is clicking on the links, et cetera. I can see who never open my emails

Don't fall in love with these pseudo-features - a correctly configured email client will totally mask all this. Like the one I use!

a good email marketing program should code both in HTML and text, that way it can reach people who have HTML blocked or are accessing email with mobile devices

my company uses Kintera/Blackbaud

Originally Posted by Asim

A quick correction, if I may.

"And on that note, I'm surprised more dancers aren't leveraging SMS -- cell phone texting. Not only would it be nice to be able to send a msg a few hours before your next session starts ("Dont' Forget -- New Classes start tonight!"), but if you have a class that has to be delayed or canceled, you can text everyone in said class the situation; in parallel w/emails, that raises immensely your chances of avoiding students being disappointed.

(Or maybe people are, and I'm just missing it!)

I really hate getting marketing messages on my phone. It feels like a real invasion of privacy. Then again, I probably wouldn't mind a reminder text about the start of a course I've enrolled in, and of course would love to be notified in the case of cancellation.

Hmm, my students sometime's forget that the term's started. Perhaps I should text them that day. Good thinking...

I do use SMS to let people know the class they expressed interest in is booking out, but I let them know that I'll do that in advance. It's a service more than marketing.

Originally Posted by jewelbellydance

I let them know that I'll do that in advance. It's a service more than marketing.

Oh, Man. I didn't mean to imply that you'd send the SMS messages w/o letting people know, and if that's the take-away, I'm sorry. The intent was that you'd submit your phone number as you do your email, and make it a fully opt-in system. The Obama campaign did this to great effect, of example, and aside from one really bad situation (which had more to do with a bad technical call based on picking the Veep), it worked very well.
But I'd also say that a huge part of marketing IS service, and one that tends to be forgotten. Providing kick-butt services, thing that help the student learn and feel comfortable in class, is the best way to keep those students outside of simply having a great class. Moreover, having that kind of thoughtful "value-add" service can help generate the "above and beyond" word-of-mouth that makes people tell other people about your classes. Since many beginners don't know they are in a great dance class, other differentiators can be important.

...I know I sound like a marketing drone now. I'll shut up. ..l;,

Originally Posted by zorba

Don't fall in love with these pseudo-features - a correctly configured email client will totally mask all this. Like the one I use!

That may be true, but the vast majority of folks don't configure their email clients much, if at all. The stats are still useful, even if they aren't exact. It would actually tend to underestimate the # of opened emails, not overestimate them. So still very useful info.

Originally Posted by najla86

a good email marketing program should code both in HTML and text, that way it can reach people who have HTML blocked or are accessing email with mobile devices

my company uses Kintera/Blackbaud

I can get Constant Contact messages on my mobile. But even the plain text emails are still not very readable. I haven't looked into Kintera/Blackbaud. Do you have a link?

Originally Posted by Asim

O

...I know I sound like a marketing drone now. I'll shut up. ..l;,

Ha ha, no need to shut up. You're offering really useful information. Hearing about people's areas of expertise (or hobbyhorse) is one of the truly valuable things about Bhuz. So keep on droning on.

I use Bravenet, it was at Lauren's suggestion. I use the free version and it has a double opt-in process, which weeds out spam and such. I don't like the ads on mine so I might upgrade it soon. Here are some of my observations/experiences:
- I try to send mine once a month, around the first, no more, no less. If I have something that has to go out, then I use my gmail or my facebook page.
- I build my own html. It is a pain, but their e-mail builder sucks eggs. Also, once you build the html, it is easy to upload it to your site so you can have a newsletter archive.
- I have to test my html in gmail, yahoo and outlook before I send because they all display html differently.
- I lost a lot of contacts during the initial phase. Well, I didn't lose them per se, but they didn't opt in.

Also, for people who don't want to deal with such trouble you can create a google group and a yahoo group. Both offer the html code that you use to have people sign up on your Web site. You can also set it so only the moderator can post, that way you don't have to worry about cross-talk. You don't have much in the way of stats or html building.

I hope this helps someone!

Originally Posted by andalee-oriental

I use Bravenet, it was at Lauren's suggestion. I use the free version and it has a double opt-in process, which weeds out spam and such. I don't like the ads on mine so I might upgrade it soon. Here are some of my observations/experiences:
- I try to send mine once a month, around the first, no more, no less. If I have something that has to go out, then I use my gmail or my facebook page.
- I build my own html. It is a pain, but their e-mail builder sucks eggs. Also, once you build the html, it is easy to upload it to your site so you can have a newsletter archive.
- I have to test my html in gmail, yahoo and outlook before I send because they all display html differently.
- I lost a lot of contacts during the initial phase. Well, I didn't lose them per se, but they didn't opt in.

Also, for people who don't want to deal with such trouble you can create a google group and a yahoo group. Both offer the html code that you use to have people sign up on your Web site. You can also set it so only the moderator can post, that way you don't have to worry about cross-talk. You don't have much in the way of stats or html building.

I hope this helps someone!

I'm still using this one, too, Andalee. I may upgrade someday, but for now I'm happy.

I'm OK with their html builder -- which is funny, because usually I avoid prefab templates like the plague and write my own code! But their template suits my needs perfectly. I also put the gist of the message into the 'plain text' option, but I'm afraid those people are getting short shrift these days because I don't bother reproducing everything I put in the regular newsletter.

I use a couple of Bravenet's free services, actually, and like them.

A caveat if anyone tries it out -- the first time I used it I imported my mailing list and before I realized what was happening Bravenet had already sent e-mails to my subscribers asking them to opt in. I hadn't set anything else up yet, so if they clicked on the link it just took them to Bravenet's home page instead of my 'thank you' page. What a mess, everyone was SO confused. So set up your options before you import your mail list!

WOW. So many different things to think about. I should now add that another thing I like about my vistaprint set up is that it does the work for me. Its kind of a nice, easy, splashy email marketing for dummies set up & that's exactly the entry point I am looking for. Its the lazy woman's approach, if you will. I admire dancers who have more tech savvy & can self manage things like email marketing better.