eMail Marketing - Power of Business

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension & North Dakota State University Extension Service Author

12/17/2015 Added

204 Plays

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Creating an eMail Marketing strategy should be a part of your online marketing plan. eMail is still an effective way to reach your target audience. This video provides tips for you to consider when creating your eMail marketing campaigns.

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[00:00:01.136]Email marketing is still such a challenge for all of us,
[00:00:04.236]and it really does need to still be part of our online
[00:00:06.894]marketing strategy to attract people and our customers
[00:00:10.169]to do kinds of the things that we want them to do.
[00:00:13.314]Today we have Alice Hinneman, UNL extension educator,
[00:00:16.818]and myself, Connie Hancock, talking about the power
[00:00:19.800]of business, but specifically, how email marketing
[00:00:22.679]can benefit you as a small business owner.
[00:00:25.698]Alice, tell us a little bit about email.
[00:00:28.276]Okay. Thanks, Connie.
[00:00:29.680]You know, email may sound kind of everyday,
[00:00:32.559]but it really is one of the most powerful marketing tools
[00:00:35.972]that you can use.
[00:00:37.179]There was that recent survey done
[00:00:38.410]by McKinsey & Company, where they found that email
[00:00:40.917]could actually be 40 times more effective than Facebook
[00:00:44.168]and Twitter combined.
[00:00:46.850]So, today, we're going to examine some little things
[00:00:49.288]about how to get started with email marketing,
[00:00:51.389]and some little tips, if you've already gotten started.
[00:00:54.013]Now, Connie also does a lot of work with promoting
[00:00:56.509]businesses in the Nebraska University's
[00:00:59.353]Exchanges Entrepreneurship Program.
[00:01:01.795]One of the things she always asks people is,
[00:01:03.896]"Why are you doing this?"
[00:01:05.742]And we have here like the four Ws
[00:01:07.483]of why, what, who, and when.
[00:01:10.258]Connie, what are some of the things,
[00:01:11.163]when you're quizzing people that are starting a business,
[00:01:13.253]that you start asking them about?
[00:01:15.795]Well, I really start to say, "What is your goal?
[00:01:18.221]"What is it that you're really trying to accomplish
[00:01:19.998]"with spending time creating this email marketing campaign?"
[00:01:23.934]And so, you have to think about that call to action,
[00:01:26.592]as you think about, "What is it I want my customers to do
[00:01:29.796]"when they read my message, and where do I want them
[00:01:32.478]"to go once they're reading that message?"
[00:01:35.408]And, you know, too, one of the things is:
[00:01:37.927]who is your customer?
[00:01:39.471]Because this can determine what you say and how
[00:01:42.220]you collect the email addresses for that.
[00:01:44.995]Plus, also, when are you going to do this,
[00:01:47.700]where are you going to do it as a...
[00:01:49.337]If you were at the farmers' market,
[00:01:51.217]will you do it just doing the market season?
[00:01:53.133]Will you do it more frequently then?
[00:01:54.910]Will you maybe do it throughout the year?
[00:01:57.138]So, thinking about those as you get started.
[00:01:59.472]And, you know, as with any enterprise,
[00:02:01.573]you can adjust as you go along.
[00:02:03.198]But the important thing is just to get started.
[00:02:04.975]Oh, exactly.
[00:02:06.135]And the other part of the "when," Alice, is don't do it
[00:02:08.816]too frequently.
[00:02:09.595]There's that fine line between not doing it enough,
[00:02:12.369]sending enough emails, and sending too many.
[00:02:15.492]Okay, good point, Connie.
[00:02:16.815]And Connie is one of those that if she doesn't like
[00:02:18.534]the email she gets, the way it sounds,
[00:02:20.751]it's deleted, so, (chuckles).
[00:02:22.794]Now, we tried to distill out what we thought were some
[00:02:25.488]of the most important things to talk about with you.
[00:02:28.030]And we're going to cover over the next about 15 minutes
[00:02:31.431]the "from" and the "subject" area,
[00:02:33.834]your signature line,
[00:02:35.563]how you get those email addresses,
[00:02:37.966]how you distribute that email,
[00:02:39.846]and, finally, some tips on writing an email newsletter.
[00:02:43.399]Okay, one of the first things: what do people see first
[00:02:46.243]when your email arrives in their mailbox?
[00:02:48.275]Connie, you say this determines whether or not
[00:02:50.678]you open that.
[00:02:51.676]Do you want to elaborate a bit on that?
[00:02:52.883]Exactly. The first thing that I look at
[00:02:54.500]when I open my email inbox is the subject line.
[00:02:57.936]And if the subject line doesn't capture my attention,
[00:03:00.861]it doesn't give me that wow factor of what potentially
[00:03:04.472]benefits me as a customer, I'm probably likely
[00:03:08.477]to delete that message versus opening up
[00:03:10.915]the email message and finding out what else
[00:03:13.272]is inside of it.
[00:03:14.839]Okay.
[00:03:15.296]That is really one of the most important things.
[00:03:17.455]Some research says that maybe somewhere around
[00:03:20.043]30% of whether or not a person opens it
[00:03:22.899]is what is the subject?
[00:03:24.118]And that's one of the things that appears first.
[00:03:26.115]Also, the name of the people sending it
[00:03:29.261]or the business sending it.
[00:03:30.712]And check your email when you get back
[00:03:33.022]to your computers and see if those are not
[00:03:36.273]what show up on your email.
[00:03:38.258]So, thinking about who is it from and what is
[00:03:42.693]that subject line, what's going to be compelling enough
[00:03:45.258]to get people to open that.
[00:03:46.652]I thought about, you know, if I saw one that's like,
[00:03:49.113]"Corn at a booth this week," I'd probably get out there
[00:03:52.270]and be there before the market even opens
[00:03:54.174]and be standing in line to get some.
[00:03:56.519]Okay, now, in setting up an email distribution method
[00:04:01.197]to get to your customers, there are a couple of ways
[00:04:03.450]you do it.
[00:04:04.471]One of the ones you may just start out,
[00:04:06.689]which is using a general email account
[00:04:09.115]such as Gmail or Yahoo, or one of those.
[00:04:12.191]And with this, you'd set it up, you wouldn't be sending it
[00:04:15.557]from your name unless your name was just extremely
[00:04:18.611]well-known and was just your name was synonymous
[00:04:21.118]with the business; it didn't sound like a personal account.
[00:04:23.475]But you would set it up with something like, say,
[00:04:26.633]Jones Farm, so that when people got that,
[00:04:28.827]they saw the subject, and then they saw the name
[00:04:32.216]associated with it, it'd be from your business.
[00:04:35.896]So you would set up that as your name,
[00:04:37.835]and then you'd set up your, your account with that
[00:04:41.875]and go from there in setting up that general account.
[00:04:45.231]That may be enough in just getting started,
[00:04:46.751]if you've not already begun.
[00:04:48.307]But in thinking about this, think about going a step further
[00:04:52.869]as you progress and getting a .com address.
[00:04:55.434]And, Connie, you work a lot with that.
[00:04:57.130]Would you talk a little on that?
[00:04:58.488]Well, exactly, Alice.
[00:04:59.672]The domain name that you really need to think about
[00:05:02.087]is the domain name that you will use for your website
[00:05:05.534]and all of your social media profiles as well.
[00:05:09.133]And so, what is that domain name going to be?
[00:05:11.351]And the example here at the bottom really shows
[00:05:13.974]that this domain name is jonesfarm.com.
[00:05:17.469]And so, you can have an info@, you could have yourname@,
[00:05:22.205]but it gives you a much more professional-looking feel,
[00:05:25.165]and only you can have that email address,
[00:05:28.428]whereas anybody can get a Gmail account.
[00:05:31.190]Not that that's a bad thing, but it does show that you've
[00:05:33.524]gone that next step in terms of being a much,
[00:05:36.098]a professional business owner.
[00:05:38.199]And as you're moving up in becoming a larger business
[00:05:40.835]and maybe trying to get a loan or something,
[00:05:42.994]one of the things you may look at is how serious are you,
[00:05:45.769]and having that .com may make all the difference.
[00:05:48.752]Also, when you say .com, that there are a lot of choices
[00:05:52.618]out there.
[00:05:53.095]There's like .me, .net, .org.
[00:05:56.601]But that .com is what still people associate most
[00:05:59.898]with a business, so if you're getting a domain name,
[00:06:02.057]make sure it's a .com one.
[00:06:04.347]Also, when you have an email address,
[00:06:07.131]you want to have something, at least you may be able
[00:06:10.303]to get more than one, if you're getting a domain name,
[00:06:13.356]but have one that's pretty generic that you can send
[00:06:16.316]most things from, and that other people besides you
[00:06:20.716]can send from.
[00:06:21.679]So, like, it may be like the info, so you could sign off
[00:06:24.640]on an email that came from an info address.
[00:06:27.519]Somebody else that works with you could do that also.
[00:06:31.024]You know, make sure, too, that with the name that you give,
[00:06:34.762]that you don't have a hyphen or...
[00:06:36.701]Excuse me, an underscore, as a part of that.
[00:06:39.314]That, if you're writing that down somewhere,
[00:06:41.461]sometimes it looks like a space,
[00:06:43.040]and if people are just typing in your email address,
[00:06:45.478]it may not get to you.
[00:06:46.859]Plus, it's a little more difficult to share that
[00:06:49.297]with somebody when you have to go, you know,
[00:06:50.918]abc_cdef.
[00:06:54.017]So, just a couple of tips in just setting that up,
[00:06:57.048]whether you're doing it through a domain name
[00:07:00.612]or a general email.
[00:07:02.608]Now, about subject line.
[00:07:04.048]This is the one that really gets to Connie,
[00:07:06.114]as far as whether or not she'll open your email.
[00:07:08.169]So, Connie, how do I get you to open my email?
[00:07:11.129]Well, that subject line has to have a wow factor for me.
[00:07:15.111]It has to have that call to attention.
[00:07:17.410]So it might be only today is the opportunity to purchase
[00:07:22.494]this item, or within the next 48 hours,
[00:07:26.569]this sale is going to end.
[00:07:28.311]And so, those are some things that get my attention
[00:07:30.411]from a consumer perspective.
[00:07:32.130]But you've got to think about what's going to catch
[00:07:34.127]your customer's attention, what's the hot item going on
[00:07:37.551]right now, what's the seasonal kind of thing
[00:07:39.769]going on right now.
[00:07:41.046]And it may be that sweet corn is fresh out of the field
[00:07:44.946]this morning, and that's good enough for me to catch
[00:07:48.730]my attention and to tell me that I need to be,
[00:07:51.633]whether it's at the farmers' market
[00:07:53.746]or the farmers' location to get my fresh sweet corn.
[00:07:57.565]Okay, so, remember, if you're sending to Connie,
[00:07:59.284](laughs) use a grabber subject line, and make it short.
[00:08:02.951]Some references say only about 40 to maybe
[00:08:06.121]60 characters, and that includes the spaces between.
[00:08:08.826]Now, also, you're going to think about telling
[00:08:10.776]and not selling.
[00:08:11.959]You don't want to be hard-sell, because you're really
[00:08:14.154]also trying to establish an ongoing relationship
[00:08:17.114]with the people you're emailing.
[00:08:19.076]And avoid "spammy" words, or your email may well
[00:08:21.990]end up in their, filtered away into their junk box
[00:08:25.890]or filtered place.
[00:08:27.133]You know, some of the "spammy" words, for example,
[00:08:29.234]would be if you used the word "free," you know.
[00:08:31.358]Maybe avoid that one.
[00:08:33.854]Avoid, like, "Act now."
[00:08:35.712]It's something that sounds too assertive with that.
[00:08:38.996]Also, avoid all caps.
[00:08:41.075]Those sometimes end up through your spam filter.
[00:08:44.197]So, think about that and try some of those.
[00:08:46.438]Think about the short and sweet,
[00:08:48.655]telling versus selling, and no "spammy" words.
[00:08:51.337]Now, these were just some possible subject lines.
[00:08:54.054]You know best what turns your customers on,
[00:08:56.677]so put that in there.
[00:08:57.513]Keep it short, and put the most important words first,
[00:09:01.913]because only so much is going to show up on the screen
[00:09:05.628]when it comes in your email.
[00:09:07.091]So keep it short and make sure that the important thing
[00:09:09.656]is seen when people open your email
[00:09:11.734]and look at their inbox.
[00:09:13.708]Okay, email signature.
[00:09:15.229]Not only is it important to start out your email correctly,
[00:09:18.886]but you end it correctly.
[00:09:20.012]Connie, you've got some very strong thoughts about this.
[00:09:22.194]Yes, I do.
[00:09:23.007]You know, oftentimes, if I get an email message
[00:09:25.254]from somebody, I may very well want to call them,
[00:09:28.098]or I may want to go to their location.
[00:09:30.873]And so, making sure that you have your name,
[00:09:33.682]your physical address, your phone number,
[00:09:36.515]your email address even, as well as maybe some
[00:09:39.498]of your social media profiles.
[00:09:41.298]This is going to be critical for me because too oftentimes,
[00:09:44.212]I want to make that personal touch with somebody
[00:09:46.754]in a phone call, and it just makes it easy for me
[00:09:49.993]versus having to look it up.
[00:09:52.175]And a couple of things with that, too, in your signature,
[00:09:55.298]you don't want it too long, you know,
[00:09:57.039]going down half a page.
[00:09:58.317]And one of the things where you can kind of bunch
[00:10:01.312]your information together is using something
[00:10:02.937]that's referred to as a pipe.
[00:10:04.399]It's just a little symbol on your keyboard.
[00:10:06.640]It's on the same key as a black-slash.
[00:10:09.173]It just helps separate things up
[00:10:11.077]and move things up to that, that same line.
[00:10:13.816]Also, if you're giving in a regular email newsletter,
[00:10:18.611]not one of the...
[00:10:19.574]In a regular email newsletter.
[00:10:22.070]Don't give the name of something which then make
[00:10:26.679]a hyperline underneath it.
[00:10:28.653]Spell out the link.
[00:10:30.928]Because sometimes, in some email systems,
[00:10:33.053]that underlined link, in just the general system,
[00:10:37.255]will go through kind of all scattered apart.
[00:10:40.772]People really won't be able to figure out
[00:10:42.177]how to click on it.
[00:10:44.255]Okay.
[00:10:45.474]Now, (chuckles) we need to email this to somebody.
[00:10:47.795]How are you going to get the customers?
[00:10:49.757]Well, one of the easiest things is just,
[00:10:51.813]as people come to your booth, say the farmers' market
[00:10:54.163]or some other venue where you're at,
[00:10:56.286]just ask them, maybe have a notebook there,
[00:10:58.597]collect those email addresses.
[00:11:00.826]If you have a website, we're going to talk about this
[00:11:02.777]a little bit more in the next couple of slides.
[00:11:06.178]This may be a place to collect them.
[00:11:08.163]I think there are some important things to tell people
[00:11:10.241]when you're asking for an email address.
[00:11:12.516]One is: how often are you going to get that newsletter?
[00:11:15.964]And it may vary during the season.
[00:11:18.216]For example, maybe during farmers' market season,
[00:11:20.480]you would be telling them, every month,
[00:11:23.719]every week, you know, "This is what we're offering
[00:11:25.541]"at the market."
[00:11:26.679]Maybe you just have one a month during
[00:11:28.955]the less busy season.
[00:11:30.603]Also, what are they going to get from
[00:11:32.263]your email newsletter?
[00:11:33.923]Why should they subscribe?
[00:11:35.874]And I think most important too is that people
[00:11:37.720]really want a sense of privacy.
[00:11:41.075]You know, assure them that.
[00:11:42.874]The email addresses are only used for distributing
[00:11:46.240]the email letter.
[00:11:48.632]Also, that they could unsubscribe at any time.
[00:11:51.314]Now, one of the persons that I know that collects these
[00:11:54.900]actually has on his collection book,
[00:11:57.176]at the bottom of his notebook, he even has a little
[00:11:59.254]on every page, a note in dominant letters,
[00:12:02.354]to the effect of, "Your email address is only used
[00:12:05.000]"to distribute this email newsletter,
[00:12:07.380]"and you can unsubscribe at any time."
[00:12:09.993]And when you do send out your newsletter,
[00:12:12.210]also include a little note in there that says,
[00:12:15.391]"To unsubscribe, just simply hit Return
[00:12:17.676]"and write Unsubscribe in the subject line."
[00:12:21.994]Okay, web contact forms.
[00:12:24.095]As you move on up, you may well have a website
[00:12:27.567]and may offer the collection through a web contact form.
[00:12:31.410]And, Connie, you've started working a bit with this
[00:12:33.290]in some of the things that you're doing
[00:12:34.474]with the Entrepreneur Program of the university.
[00:12:36.506]Would you kind of elaborate a bit on this?
[00:12:38.189]Sure, I'd be glad to, Alice.
[00:12:40.871]It's important to collect name and email addresses
[00:12:43.773]from people.
[00:12:44.772]You know, there's a lot of forms out there that collect
[00:12:46.745]a lot of information.
[00:12:48.405]And, again, for me, and I think other people,
[00:12:51.249]we're really leery about providing phone numbers
[00:12:54.758]and addresses and all that information
[00:12:56.754]because we're not sure about what's going to happen
[00:12:58.740]and how they're going to use that information.
[00:13:01.177]So, name and email address is a great way
[00:13:04.358]to start collecting those contacts
[00:13:06.877]so that you can create these email marketing campaigns
[00:13:09.536]that we've been talking about.
[00:13:10.778]That's just a cool way in today's world
[00:13:13.738]to capture that information.
[00:13:15.839]So, as you create these forms, there's also,
[00:13:19.357]a lot of our forms will have a,
[00:13:22.770]a little word scramble at the bottom.
[00:13:26.090]And what that is, it's called recaptcha.
[00:13:28.679]And it's a Google tool.
[00:13:30.152]You will need to create a Google account,
[00:13:31.916]if you don't already have one, and that's a free account.
[00:13:34.539]And this is a free service from Google as well.
[00:13:37.558]But it's a way that the spiders and the robots today,
[00:13:42.875]if you don't have this kind of a code embedded into that,
[00:13:47.890]the backside of this form, the spam can easily
[00:13:53.137]get through to your email, and you'll be inundated
[00:13:57.212]with lots of email messages.
[00:13:58.907]So, just having this on your web form is a great way
[00:14:02.215]to protect yourself from all of that spam
[00:14:05.710]that potentially is out there for us.
[00:14:08.287]Okay. Thanks, Connie.
[00:14:10.029]You know, one of the easiest ways that you may
[00:14:13.186]get started is simply, if you have a general email account,
[00:14:17.156]like this is a Gmail account here, is just to do a BCC
[00:14:22.101]to multiple recipients.
[00:14:23.599]Now, a BCC stands for Blind Carbon Copy.
[00:14:27.140]And where this should be, where is that located?
[00:14:30.135]We often have those email systems where we have
[00:14:32.491]to poke around at the top of the subject line area
[00:14:35.021]for this, until this BCC shows up.
[00:14:38.539]But you just send your email to whatever you've established
[00:14:42.011]as your email name, and here we've got Jones Farm
[00:14:45.993]as the email name, and then, you put in this section,
[00:14:50.221]the customer's email addresses.
[00:14:52.925]Now, there are a couple of ways that you may need
[00:14:55.630]to do this.
[00:14:56.640]Depending upon your email system, you may need
[00:14:58.985]to separate them with a comma,
[00:15:00.970]or possibly with a semicolon, and then a space.
[00:15:03.745]Also, you may limit it as to the number of people
[00:15:07.088]you could send this to.
[00:15:08.447]And that's kind of a deep, dark secret,
[00:15:10.907]as to how many.
[00:15:11.581]So, people used to use this as a way of spamming folks
[00:15:15.086]by just putting a lot of email addresses in there.
[00:15:17.618]You know, I was telling Connie before we got started,
[00:15:19.940]I had a one-time email I needed to send out
[00:15:22.888]to a lot of folks, and I was just going to do a BCC,
[00:15:26.486]and I had no idea of how many people I could send it to.
[00:15:28.878]So, I started with 100.
[00:15:30.597]Well, it came back and said, "I'm sorry."
[00:15:32.617]Finally, I just cut that number to about half,
[00:15:35.646]and it got through a couple of times.
[00:15:37.899]Then it started saying, "Well, no, we think something wrong
[00:15:41.718]"is going on (chuckles) with this email account."
[00:15:44.156]And then I had to actually get out of it,
[00:15:46.756]then I could come back and it'd let me do it again.
[00:15:49.101]But, so, anyway, it does have its limits as to how much
[00:15:53.699]you can use it and how many names you can do.
[00:15:55.683]And there's no...
[00:15:56.879]You just have to experiment to find out.
[00:15:58.864]Now, some email systems may have a group feature,
[00:16:03.578]where, when you get these email addresses,
[00:16:05.180]you can put them altogether in one group.
[00:16:06.971]So rather than copying and pasting this list
[00:16:09.165]of email addresses that you've separated by commas
[00:16:12.125]or by colons, you can just click on this group,
[00:16:15.352]and all of these will appear.
[00:16:16.791]Again, make sure you get it in that BCC section,
[00:16:19.531]because otherwise you've made all of these
[00:16:21.064]email addresses public to everybody receiving your email.
[00:16:24.465]And so important, do a practice run before you send
[00:16:28.981]your first one.
[00:16:29.806]Recruit some family members.
[00:16:31.430]Put them in the BCC section, or some friends,
[00:16:34.124]and see how it works for you.
[00:16:36.527]Also, do it on different devices, because a lot of people
[00:16:40.288]nowadays aren't reading their email on the computer.
[00:16:43.200]They're reading it on like a tablet
[00:16:45.302]or they're reading like on something like an iPad.
[00:16:47.356]They're reading it on a smartphone.
[00:16:49.156]So, do your due diligence and practice before
[00:16:52.755]you send it, but do send an email marketing newsletter.
[00:16:57.317]Now, there are some services out there that you can use
[00:17:01.124]to make it a little bit easier than using a general service.
[00:17:04.236]And, Connie, you're really an advocate,
[00:17:06.441]as people move on up the ladder, to use one of these.
[00:17:09.158]Plus, they have some benefits that you don't get
[00:17:11.003]ffrom just a general email.
[00:17:13.221]Oh, exactly, Alice.
[00:17:14.463]if you think about the way that Alice
[00:17:17.075]was talking and sharing her experience with using
[00:17:19.722]the BCC, that works really well for 10, 15, 20 emails.
[00:17:24.099]But once you start to collect 100 emails or 200 emails,
[00:17:28.278]how are you going to manage that in an
[00:17:31.494]email blank carbon copy?
[00:17:33.281]And so these services really kind of (clears throat)
[00:17:35.046]help us do that.
[00:17:35.928]They provide that list so that if we want to target
[00:17:39.283]a particular location or we want to target a particular
[00:17:42.429]group of people, we can do that within these
[00:17:45.970]management systems.
[00:17:47.270]We can schedule emails so that during your downtime,
[00:17:50.427]you can create email marketing campaigns
[00:17:53.167]and then have them ready to go at different locations
[00:17:56.105]or different times of the year, different times of season,
[00:17:59.947]whatever works for you.
[00:18:01.747]But it's really a management tool.
[00:18:03.442]And it helps us be more efficient with the email
[00:18:06.205]marketing strategy that we're trying to establish
[00:18:09.339]in communicating with our customers about
[00:18:11.886]what's happening, what's new, what's going on
[00:18:15.149]with our particular business, and informing them
[00:18:17.424]or educating them about new products
[00:18:19.954]or new ways to use our product.
[00:18:22.473]And these are the top...
[00:18:24.250]Well, I won't say the top three, necessarily,
[00:18:26.026]but they're the ones that appear most often
[00:18:28.591]when you're searching for a list of email services.
[00:18:31.587]So, they maybe something that you want to start out
[00:18:33.804]with exploring.
[00:18:34.732]All of them have a way that you could check them out
[00:18:36.486]for free, and then they kind of have different
[00:18:38.412]service levels beyond that, as far as how many
[00:18:40.828]you can send to, how often you can send to,
[00:18:42.929]and so on.
[00:18:44.148]Also, all of them have great help sections,
[00:18:47.351]sometimes videos that tell you how to do that,
[00:18:49.662]just a lot of information to help you get started.
[00:18:52.680]Now, a couple of other things that are within
[00:18:54.944]these services.
[00:18:56.326]They refer to your different letters as a campaign.
[00:18:59.785]So maybe you're wondering about when Connie mentioned,
[00:19:01.990]"What's a campaign?
[00:19:02.804]Well, that is your email newsletter that goes out.
[00:19:05.625]Your lists are great.
[00:19:07.041]What is so nice is that you don't really have to worry
[00:19:09.746]about it getting to the wrong, you know,
[00:19:12.044]to the wrong, being shown or something like that.
[00:19:15.202]The're hid.
[00:19:17.582]Also, they're set up so that people can unsubscribe
[00:19:20.814]at any time.
[00:19:21.871]That's usually a feature of those.
[00:19:23.473]And another nice thing is they kind of take care of,
[00:19:26.352]you know, not having the same email address twice.
[00:19:30.426]If you try to put it in there a second time,
[00:19:32.168]it goes, "Oops, already on there."
[00:19:33.747]So it really saves you maybe checking back over 200
[00:19:36.405]to see, "Well, have I or have I not added this person?"
[00:19:40.027]But I think the real powerhouse of these
[00:19:42.395]that really is worth your while to start exploring
[00:19:47.445]is the reports, because you get to see how many people
[00:19:51.914]opened that newsletter.
[00:19:54.805]You get to see if you had a link in there, how many people
[00:19:58.404]clicked on that link.
[00:20:00.830]You can see which people opened it the most.
[00:20:04.127]So it really lets you see: is there one season that's
[00:20:07.192]more popular, a topic that is more popular
[00:20:10.663]than another one, is there maybe something that I,
[00:20:14.621]something I should be talking about more often
[00:20:18.359]or a different time than this, or maybe a different day.
[00:20:20.960]You know, the other thing that we can do with this,
[00:20:22.967]Alice, is to do some AB testing.
[00:20:25.208]Oh, yeah, yeah.
[00:20:26.439]So, we can take the same marketing campaign
[00:20:28.680]and say, "Sweet corn fresh today,"
[00:20:31.443]we can say something around, "Sweet corn is going to be
[00:20:36.945]"at the farmers' market on Saturday,"
[00:20:38.965]and see which of those campaigns does a better job
[00:20:42.018]of getting people's attention and capturing their...
[00:20:46.885]Who opens them the most.
[00:20:49.786]And so, we can do that AB testing with this as well.
[00:20:52.364]That's a good point, Connie.
[00:20:53.548]You know, you all work so hard.
[00:20:55.649]This just helps your work to be even more effective.
[00:20:58.424]And, really, once you get started, it takes a little while
[00:21:00.920]to set up, but after that, it's really not hard at all.
[00:21:04.797]Okay, now, this is what one might look like,
[00:21:07.665]and we're talking a little bit about the content
[00:21:09.266]of an email newsletter.
[00:21:11.159]This, I actually set up from one of the email services,
[00:21:14.259]but a lot of the points of doing email newsletter,
[00:21:17.080]whether it's straight email or one of those services,
[00:21:19.401]are the same.
[00:21:20.655]Like, first of all, I have a name of who it's coming from.
[00:21:24.021]So immediately when you open that, you get the identifier.
[00:21:26.994]In the services, it's very easy to include a photo,
[00:21:30.999]which is a little bit more difficult sometimes
[00:21:32.938]in the straight email.
[00:21:34.922]And all of these help you with photos.
[00:21:37.139]Usually, they have some photo editing things.
[00:21:39.172]You can do cropping in there right in them.
[00:21:41.099]So, it's also a great way to help you make your photos
[00:21:44.732]look even better.
[00:21:46.578]Some of them have...
[00:21:47.797]They all have some kind of a template that show you
[00:21:49.991]where you can insert photos.
[00:21:51.581]They help you insert photos.
[00:21:53.277]They have different settings, whether you have
[00:21:55.656]one column, two columns, what size of column.
[00:21:58.152]Some of them even have templates.
[00:21:59.731]Here, I used a template that was for a farmers' market.
[00:22:03.051]And I put things like address down.
[00:22:06.650]I put down that corn, first of all.
[00:22:09.692]And then, told a little bit about it.
[00:22:12.513]Also, it makes it easy to set up links.
[00:22:15.310]They stay really nice in these.
[00:22:17.110]You don't have to worry about them going askew
[00:22:18.851]like underlining the link would in a regular newsletter.
[00:22:23.575]Now, one of the things, if, when you're thinking
[00:22:25.875]about the content, recipes are one of the things
[00:22:28.503]we all like, and that's something that people,
[00:22:31.417]if they know you're going to give them some ideas,
[00:22:33.785]may help sell your newsletter.
[00:22:36.061]But there are some real dangers, if you will,
[00:22:38.963]in including your recipe right in that newsletter.
[00:22:41.645]One, you've got to make sure it's not copyrighted
[00:22:43.630]or that it could get back to you.
[00:22:45.429]Also, if you're copying one into a newsletter,
[00:22:49.145]it is so easy to leave out one of the ingredients,
[00:22:52.859]or, you know, that teaspoon of salt becomes
[00:22:55.506]a tablespoon of salt.
[00:22:57.747]So I often like, with a recipe, especially if I'm using it
[00:23:01.438]from another place, is just to link to it and tell
[00:23:04.283]where's it from, like maybe I have a favorite recipe site,
[00:23:07.068]I've tried something, and say, "Well, here's a recipe
[00:23:08.566]"our family really enjoys with this food,
[00:23:11.480]"and you could find it at," and then just give
[00:23:14.266]the link to it.
[00:23:15.660]Also, again, here is that signature, whether or not
[00:23:18.318]you have it in either mini slider, of you telling more about
[00:23:23.043]who it is from and how to reach other parts of your,
[00:23:26.804]your website, any kind of social media,
[00:23:30.020]like Facebook, and so on.
[00:23:31.877]And this template even has a little section
[00:23:33.700]where you can include more things that are
[00:23:35.545]at farmers' market that week.
[00:23:36.903]So, again, kind of think about and start exploring
[00:23:40.677]doing this.
[00:23:41.663]You may start out with a straight newsletter
[00:23:45.042]for a regular email service, but you can always
[00:23:46.957]move on to this.
[00:23:48.281]You already have your names.
[00:23:49.535]You're just going to import them into this.
[00:23:51.961]Okay, one of the places, if you're looking for information
[00:23:54.804]to include in the newsletter or to link to
[00:23:57.475]is with the university's food.unl.edu website.
[00:24:02.699]And on that, "Buy Fresh, Buy Local Nebraska,"
[00:24:05.741]it has a section, and it's just marked right there
[00:24:08.573]at the top drop-down menu, and it just has a lot of recipes,
[00:24:12.474]other tips about growing different types of foods.
[00:24:16.293]Okay, I hope that we've given you some information
[00:24:18.975]to help you get started with that email newsletter,
[00:24:22.434]and some tips to help you have the most effective
[00:24:24.095]one possible.
[00:24:25.755]Don't be afraid of email marketing.
[00:24:27.820]It's one of the strongest, most effective ways
[00:24:30.839]to capture your customers' attention.
[00:24:33.300]And there's more information around all of this online
[00:24:37.271]marketing, social media, to help you as a business owner
[00:24:41.195]at powerofbusiness.net.
[00:24:43.958]Okay, Connie and I are looking forward to receiving
[00:24:46.430]your first email newsletter.

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eMail Marketing - Power of Business

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