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Congratulations on your success - this is a great example of how an organization can leverage a smart platform to not only make their marketing great, but improve the workflow and efficiency of their processes! ... View more

I agree with the great commentary above and I think with some adjustments to the sections (breaking them apart for easier visual cues), adding more photos, and some layout adjustments you are well on your way to a much more engaging and professional style email! ... View more

Hey Josie! Here are different answers depending on what you are asking... -to delete photos from an email, you can hover over them and click the trash can icon in the upper right -to delete photos from the Constant Contact system you can click tools in the top menu bar of the system and from the dropdown choose library, then you can use the check box and trash can to remove anything from the system ... View more

Hi Jason, great question! There are many companies offering lists for sale, and most of them are not at all good quality or current, so I would be very careful to qualify the source... Whenever I need to gather contact data for sales purposes for other businesses, I use Reference USA which is free through your library and can be accessed online from anywhere. The next question to ask is, what is the intent with the contact info/list of contacts? If you are going to cold market to them manually (manual emails, phone calls, etc) that's one thing (and not fun if you ask me, from experience). But if your intent is to market to them using Constant Contact or a marketing platform that is not something you want to do. Not only does the FCC have guidelines about bulk marketing being permission-based, most trustworthy platforms like Constant Contact are not prepared to handle cold non-permission-based lists as it violates the rules and best practices. In the end, not bulk marketing to strangers works out for the best in results as well - cold marketing to strangers from a purchased list without any reference point generally gets very poor results in the first place. Permission based marketing is the way to go. This means folks are opting into your email list, your marketing database, and a relationship can be built with them. This is done through outreach, events, networking, business groups, social media, and crucially, your website. Your website should be set up to have embedded forms in strategic places as well as popups and engaging interactive forms that offer great value in exchange for their email. This way your database is comprised of members who know they are on your list and enjoy it! Your results with this approach will be night and day. ... View more

@ChrisB80179 Right out of the gate I like what I see. Even thought it's a "newsletter" it's not long or cumbersome. And it pops with bright images and pictures. You also have easy action buttons for them to use. I might consider swapping that section to be lower, though, maybe swap with the article about donations. (still leave your pennant flag a the top, though). This opens the newsletter up with a lead story or piece of content that is feel good and not sales focused while allowing you to still get that section in very early in the scroll by having it second or middle.  Love the traffic tips - quality content right there! Love the ice cream favorite flavor requests... what do you dow with that data? have it ready to give them a bowl when they close on their new ride? sooo curious.  Great job featuring your reviews, that is one of the surest sales tools there is. Kudos on having an app, that's a great value add and I'm sure lead generator. And one final kudos on branded wallpaper. Nice work! ... View more

@CPortanova You are welcome, I'm always happy to help - Aaron @ ACTIVATEbiz.com ... View more

Awesome direction from the folks in the previous answers! I'd like to address length in more detail. Clients always want to know "what's most effective?" The answer is that different lengths of video work best for different goals.  Here are some general guidelines I use: 15 seconds to 60 seconds - Awareness (first time they are seeing you) or teaser video  1-2 minutes - Short form sale videos leading them into the sales funnel 2-5 minutes - Informational, how-to, Q&A, unboxing 5+ minutes - Content-centric. They know they are watching a longer video and it's on purpose. You are providing great value by giving them in depth content.  ... View more

In addition to the spot on comments above, my favorite features of the Constant Contact Social Media Tool are 1. The ability to monitor and engage with your posts from the dashboard (not just making a post, but managing it and the ongoing engagement. When you have more than one channel this becomes even more awesome because you have that central feed of updates to your posts across all channels to work with in one place. 2. The AI-assistant - and not just that the AI Content Generator is right there to help, but that out of the gate it drafts 3 separate post ideas to choose from and edit from there!   ... View more

@RealtaSnap I concur with Chris and Nick above - to me your email hits so many great "notes": - big beautiful awesome photos - a clear brand theme of colors and styles - not to mention a clear explanation of what your business is and what you provide! Many times I have to work with clients to get all of the above into play. Often we assume folks know who we are, what we do, and we just go straight for the sale, but your visual-centric approach with clear and easy wording and icons are an A+ in my book.   ... View more

My wife's favorite food is hot dogs! When we eat them it's like we are at a steakhouse. I like Chicago dogs with the celery salt and pickle! ... View more

@CPortanova @JamesH8805 The Clear Styles button in the editor toolbar can also be immensely helpful. Let's say you wanted two blocks or sections to have the same styling. You can copy the entire block and when you swap in the correct content to that second block you can use the clear styles option which snaps it to the style of the block.  ... View more

@JamesH8805 @CPortanova the Copy formatting is indeed doable! If you go to the left side of the builder and look you'll see three tabs - one is the normal builder column, the second is a shortcut to drag and drop photo library, and the third is the money shot: the Design tab. You can make changes to font, size, color, style, buttons, all of it and it makes the changes to all in unison *without* having to go into each section and do it manually. ... View more

ACTIVATE provides marketing services, consulting, and training to businesses of all shapes and sizes.   You can follow on ACTIVATE on X, my personal Linkedin, and my company Linkedin.   ACTIVATEbiz.com   ... View more

I eat peanut butter and jelly every day for lunch... now I'm gonna have to branch out ... View more

I love how Constant Contact also has automated segment builders. So it is doing the basic housekeeping for you out of the gate - tracking who is most engaged, least engaged, somewhat engaged... and even cooler are the eCommerce triggers that segment your eCommerce shoppers, buyers, biggest customers, and more. ... View more

I'm a flexitarian, meaning I eat meat every once in a while... and I live in the mountains of Western North Carolina, so you can bet I eat some BBQ! I love pulled pork sandwiches or smoked beef brisket. ... View more

In addition to the other comments above which are robust and thorough, @Caitlin_M highlights something that is irreplaceable at the core - ease of use! So many of my seminar/webinar attendees or consulting clients are the sole operators or lead a small team, meaning they have to do the marketing themselves. Since it's not their main skill set, they fear the unknown and imagine it to be worse than it is. There is no system easier or simpler to use! That was a core part of Constant Contact's goal in creating their software all those years ago: easy to use for the average small business or nonprofit! ... View more

I love how Constant Contact's landing page builder is a very easy drag-and-drop interface, no technical skill required! ... View more

One of the keys to social media success is to think about it in some ways like showing "what is behind the curtain". For creative businesses this is an easy step: show work in progress, show your process, let them see in a natural and authentic way what goes on to make your product or service. For non-creative businesses, you can still do this by featuring updates and fun tidbits about what is going on in the day or life of your team members, ie: a fun picture of a group eating together or a quarterly meeting with high fives, etc.   People look at social media with the intent and desire to see something fun and authentic in small bite-sized bites. So resist the urge to use Social Media to repeatedly promote your business, but rather think of it as a special environment where you can be *less* business focused and more relatable. ... View more

I love click reporting for the reasons Chris mentioned above and because it tells me the most important metrics all at once:  -They opened the email (had to have to click) -They clicked on a piece of content or a link (I was right that some would enjoy it) -If I set "click segmentation" to on for a link and have it save clickers into a new list, like Chris mentioned above, it allows me to have ultra-targeted and ultra-relevant marketing. This is the ultimate "message to market match" within email marketing strategies. You can even go as far as to say "click below if you'd like to be added to x,y,z list or campaign"   ... View more

@VanessaM7330 I have to agree with @Chris-S. The simplicity of images and videos are the "secret sauce" so many marketing campaigns miss. People nowadays, mostly on mobile, only READ after they SCAN and they SCAN for images and video frames that give them a clue they will want to read... ... View more

@MicheleH2 I agree with Chris above and want to suggest trying a larger font. Your email is relatively short so go ahead and pump up the images to be larger (think full bleed) and the font one or two clicks. Send yourself a copy on mobile and see if it's better! ... View more

@user9090 I like the feedback both Chris and Caitlin gave. I also recommend dialing *down* the size of the opening graphics. I'm a huge fan of big chunky, easy to read images, word blocks and content (and most of the time I have to convince people to make them larger!) but in your case I think making them slightly smaller will serve you. The reason I say that is all about the scroll line. In a newspaper the thing to pay attention to is keeping your critical content that draw them in "above the fold" and in an email it's "above the scroll". In your case the blocks at the top "January" and "What's new with" are so large that they likely take up the entire  area "above the scroll" meaning folks have to scroll and go lower to even start to engage the content. I would combine those two huge blocks into one single header and make it a littler smaller: "January: What's new with" can be one unit!  I LOVE the use of photos, great job! I love the commitment to important and in depth content, but the email is pretty long so maybe host some of the content in those sections somewhere else (website? social? landing page? source link?) and then have the section in the newsletter be a little smaller. I often refer to this as a "magazine approach" because you are giving them a clear taste of the topic and content but not serving it all to them right there. ... View more

@TomA775 David's tips were spot on, and I highly recommend finding more ways to work in photos that include people. Something clicks in the consumer's head when they see people enjoying products. You do have some of this but I would step it up big time. Photos of happy people in full width... ... View more

@Elizabeth_K awesome tips you just broke down right there! The biggest "whoops" I've seen is continuing to keep customers in a sales-focused series after they have converted. Example: Someone is in your welcome series and it's a blend of great content and great offers. Once they buy, the following marketing not only doesn't match their situation, it's worse: it feels tone-deaf and like you don't care that they became a buyer! An easy fix is to use the segments for e-commerce transactions to trigger a move of that list member out of that series and into a new series that fits the tone, messaging, and gratitude you have for them spending their money with you. From there you can massage this into a new upsell series where you are both grateful but also setting the table for their next purchase, upgrade, or follow up! ... View more

I love the automated segmentation that goes on behind the scenes. To get this data in the past was a challenge, and then when it was available it required a few steps to filter, tag, save as target list and then run campaign to. Now it's ready and "on deck" and from the send screen we can even choose "segments" rather than "lists". This goes the other direction as well - if you have segments who are not at all engaged, you can target them with eye-catching wake-up call type emails using fun subject lines like "Are we breaking up?". Not much to lose having fun with the segments that are not engaging in the first place! Kudos to Constant Contact for continuing to develop and roll out exceedingly smart automation into systems.  ... View more

The guide @Grace_R shared is really excellent. Having set up a number of new e-commerce websites for clients lately, I'd like to underscore the portion about researching and planning your operations, namely shipping. This is the one of the major blind spots that causes lots of friction for some business types because it can be hard to determine what the best method is for you. My advice is to analyze multiple ideas: free shipping (build it into product pricing model), flat rate shipping based on cart value (this has wiggle room on the over and under but helps stabilize in the middle) and specific in-cart calculated shipping. Consider how far you'll be mailing your products and with what carrier. Nail this down, at least in plans, before getting close to your rollout. I've witnessed multiple clients get near the finish line towards launch and then were caught up figuring and refiguring their shipping plans for extended periods of time delaying the whole project. ... View more