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The sweepstakes is now closed! Thank you so much for everyone who participated and shared their insights. We really appreciate it. We will be randomly selecting a winner soon!   Fall Into The Holidays!   It’s hard to believe the holidays are fast approaching! It’s the time of year where most businesses and nonprofits are rolling out the red carpet for their patrons. But with so many organizations vying for attention, how does one rise above the rest? That’s what we’re here to find out!   Well, at Constant Contact we have some ideas, but we’d rather hear from our illustrious small business owners and nonprofit organizers! Which is why we are back again with another excellent sweepstakes to entice our lovely Community members to share what their marketing goals are for the next couple of months!    How to Enter: Reply on this Community article with an anecdote about what your goals and strategies are to produce a successful winter holiday business season! For example, you can share:   Email template design ideas Subject line ideas Communication frequency Holidays you will focus your marketing efforts around (Black Friday, anyone?) Contact collection strategies   These suggestions aren’t exhaustive! They are just some ideas to get the ol’ brainstorm raging.   If you’re in need of some inspiration, or some assistance, don’t hesitate to check out all the awesome services our Professional Services (it’s in the name!) team offer! For example, they offer animated template packs, premium template design, and more!   What is the prize? We are offering up a $100 credit on your Constant Contact account!   The sweepstakes will run from October 22, 2021 to November 19, 2021. Once completed, we will select a winner for each prize at random and notify them!   If you are the winner we will notify you by the contact email address listed on your Constant Contact account, so make sure it is up-to-date! Thank you.   Questions? Let us know below!   ---   *No Purchase Necessary. The Constant Contact Community Fall Into The Holidays is open to legal residents of the 50 United States (and D.C), 18 years or older. For Official Rules, visit here. Promotion ends on November 19, 2021 at 11:59 PM ET. The Sweepstakes is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Khoros, Pinterest, or Twitter. ... View more

The Sweepstakes is now closed! Thank you to all our wonderful participants for sharing your stories!   National Small Business Week is here, but we want to keep the celebration going all month! This week is a great opportunity to pat yourself on the back and relish the success! At Constant Contact, we love seeing small businesses and nonprofits succeed and we want to hear about your triumphs. What fist pumpin’ experiences have you had this year? How to Enter: Share your success story by posting a reply to this article. We want to hear about your victories, big or small, in the last year that have helped you grow confidence in your business or organization. Some topic ideas, for example: A marketing campaign or other activities that contributed strong growth to your business A positive customer experience Any progress made toward your nonprofit goals A new or updated physical store location or office expansion   But wait, there’s more! Share an anecdote specifically about how Constant Contact has helped your business and earn an additional entry to the Sweepstakes! Make sure to clearly define the start of this anecdote so it isn’t intermingled with the main entry. But wait, there’s even more! Share the permalink URL of your reply on this sweepstakes article on Twitter with the hashtag #sbss and earn another entry to the sweepstakes! Where to find the permalink: When viewing your reply on the official thread, click on the three dots in the top-right corner and right-click on the “Permalink” option. A window will pop up where you can select “Copy link address.” Voilà! Sharing the permalink in your tweet will allow us to track who tweeted what. We appreciate it!                               What are the prizes? We have a bevy of great prizes to give out this time around. Grand Prize - 1 Premium Email Template Design ($299 value) First Prize - 3 Months of the Marketing Advisor Program ($150 value) Second Prize - $100 credit on your Constant Contact account ($100 value) Third Prize - 3-Pack of Animated Templates ($79 value) The sweepstakes will run from September 13, 2021 to October 12, 2021. Once completed, we will select a winner for each prize at random and notify them! If you are a winner we will notify you by the contact email address listed on your Constant Contact account, so make sure it is up-to-date! Thank you. Questions? Let us know below! --- *No Purchase Necessary. The Constant Contact Community Small Business Success Sweepstakes is open to legal residents of the 50 United States (and D.C), 18 years or older. For Official Rules, visit here. Promotion ends on October 12, 2021 at 11:59 PM ET. The Sweepstakes is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Khoros, Pinterest, or Twitter. ... View more

  For a business to grow, it needs customers. Loyal customers. A healthy customer base creates a strong foundation to accelerate that growth. Positive word-of-mouth is a huge deal that encourages prospective clientele to take notice of your brand.   That said, there are a lot of things vying for your audience’s attention. How do you rise above the rest, attract their focus and keep them coming back for more?   How to engage your audience   Frankly, I like to go right to the experts themselves - our fellow Constant Contact users! Consider these 20 insights from your peers on how to improve loyalty. For some customers, it’s creating the flashiest, picture-perfect email. For others, it’s about highlighting additional incentives to get them back in the door (literal or digital).    As I mentioned above; once you have excited your base, utilize those happy customers to act as organic outreach. The goal isn’t to force the narrative, but create incentives that are hard to ignore and get people talking. Do you share your email campaigns on social media? Do you create opportunities for your customers to forward your work to their peers?    Every year is filled with opportunities to re-engage with your contacts. Use email marketing to recognize anniversaries, such as birthdays or the first time they signed up to your mailing list, and give your most engaged contacts exclusive content. If the exclusive content is truly appealing, it might not stay exclusive for long because they might tell their friends about it! Think of it this way; your business has a gate, but prospective customers can see through it to the realm of opportunity beyond, and you’ve done your best to show where you’ve hidden the key (underneath the little turtle statue, of course).    Connect with Nift    Incentives are a huge way to draw attention to your brand and keep customers coming back. Constant Contact has partnered with Nift to help you capture new contacts and turn them into loyal customers by giving you the power to offer Nift gift cards through our Lead Generation Landing Pages!   If you don’t have a Nift account, we will create one for you with your Constant Contact credentials. Nift is great because you can only gain by using their service. A prospective contact that likes your business, but might be on the fence with joining the mailing list, could be swayed by the potential gift. Plus, the new contact can select which categories of business (restaurants, athletics, etc.) interests them and Nift will give them the best two of the bunch. Nift works with over 9,000 businesses and will even try to match the recipient with local options!   Offering gift cards to your new sign-ups is great, but it is designed to encourage loyalty, not cement it. What happens after the contact gets their free gift card and redeems it? Keep them engaged by following up on their experience. Use segmentation to put them in an automated email series that keeps them involved with your business in the short-term while you work on your latest and greatest promotion or business move. The goal is to keep your business top of mind so when the contact hopefully needs your goods or services again, they will come to you. On top of that, Nift gift cards can work well to show appreciation for long-time customers when sending out anniversary or birthday campaigns. Still curious how Nift works? Read our overview for all the frequently asked questions and learn how to connect your Constant Contact account to Nift and build your loyalty program today! ... View more

The sweepstakes is closed! Thank you so much for everyone who participated and we will be selecting the winner and announcing them soon. Stay tuned for our next event!   Let's Get Started Sweepstakes!   Even though the end of the year is usually reserved for reflection, we wanted to get a head start and ask our esteemed users to reflect on their humble beginnings with online marketing and what hurdles they may have had to overcome.    When you first sat down to use Constant Contact, what gaps in your knowledge did you need to fill? Were you familiar with contact upload and management? Did you need to learn how to design a template from the ground up? Were you able to translate the information under Reporting into actionable goals?    There are lots of elements to consider when you’re trying to launch a successful marketing campaign and we want to share your stories with new and future Constant Contact users that might be in a similar situation! Heck, if you are new we want to hear from you, too!   How to Enter: Visit this thread and share your story by replying to the article. Specifically, focus on what you had to learn when you were first starting out (or are learning currently, if you’re new). Limit one entry per person/Constant Contact account holder.   Some topic ideas, for example:   Creating an email Collecting and/or managing contacts Use of other Constant Contact tools (Landing pages, sign-up forms, etc.) Understanding reporting   These are just some ideas. This is your experience!   But wait, there’s more! Share a URL or screenshot along with your response of an email template design and earn one additional entry toward the sweepstakes! This is optional, but we love seeing what our customers are working on!   Important to note, that if you are having any trouble on getting started with using Constant Contact, we offer many services that can help cut down on the learning curve. For example, we have a premium template design service or we can set you up with a Marketing Advisor to help walk you through the ins-and-outs of online marketing! Visit our Professional Services page to learn more! We’re also running a deal where you can receive 3 animated templates for $79!   What’s the prize? One lucky winner will receive a $100 credit on their Constant Contact account!   The sweepstakes will run from July 12, 2021 through August 9, 2021. Once completed, we will select one winner at random and notify them!   If you are the winner we will notify you by the contact email address listed on your Constant Contact account, so make sure it is up-to-date! Thank you.   Questions? Let us know below!   --- *No Purchase Necessary. The Constant Contact Community Get Advice: Let’s Get Started Sweepstakes is open to legal residents of the 50 United States (and D.C), 18 years or older. For Official Rules, visit here. Promotion ends on August 9, 2021 at 11:59 PM ET. The Sweepstakes is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Khoros, Pinterest, or Twitter. ... View more

The sweepstakes is now closed! Thank you to all who participated and we are working on selecting the winner now!   Get Advice: Wave Hello to Summer Sweepstakes   Surf’s up! Spring is in swing and the summer is comin’ in hot! We’re excited to announce a new Sweepstakes for the Community! This month we’re interested in hearing more about your marketing strategies for the summer. Some industries thrive and others might use the summer as a refresh period to prepare for the autumn and winter seasons. We want to hear about it all!   How to Enter: Ride the waves to this thread and reply with a written response, 280 characters minimum, that covers any number of topics relating to how you plan to market for the summer season, and earn one entry toward the sweepstakes.    Some topic ideas, for example:   Share email design tips Subject line ideas Use of other Constant Contact tools (Landing pages, sign-up forms, etc.) Specific holidays you focus on Contacts management suggestions   These are just some ideas. You’re the experts!   But wait, there’s more! Share a URL or screenshot along with your response of your email template design and earn one additional entry toward the sweepstakes! This is optional, but we would love to see what our customers are working on.   What’s the prize? One lucky winner will receive a $100 credit on their Constant Contact account!   The sweepstakes will run from May 10, 2021 through June 8, 2021. Once completed, we will select one winner at random and notify them.   If you are the winner we will notify you by the contact email address listed on your Constant Contact account, so make sure it is up-to-date! Thank you.   Questions? Let us know below!   ---   *No Purchase Necessary. The Constant Contact Community Get Advice: Wave Hello to Summer Sweepstakes is open to legal residents of the 50 United States (and D.C), 18 years or older. For Official Rules, visit here. Promotion ends on June 8, 2021 at 11:59 PM ET. The Sweepstakes is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Khoros, Pinterest, or Twitter. ... View more

The sweepstakes is now closed! Thank you to all who participated and we are working on selecting the winner now! And we’re back! The Community is trying something new and our lovely user base reaps the rewards! Every month we plan to keep the Get Advice Sweepstakes rolling, providing different themes to focus the feedback efforts around. With Spring in full swing, we thought we would encourage everyone to review their Contacts and solicit their peers for advice and/or if you happen to be having a successful streak with managing your contacts, then drop us a line and share your insights!   It works like this: First, for your fearless contributions you will be entered for a chance to win a $100 credit on your Constant Contact account!   The sweepstakes will run from April 14, 2021 through May 5, 2021. Once completed we will select one winner at random and notify them!   How to Enter: Visit the thread you are currently in and perform one or more of the following, up to two times maximum:   Sharing advice related to contacts management, either independently or in response to another user's request.   Requesting assistance with your contacts management, by providing some insight into your current contacts situation. ‘Insight’ is defined by providing the audience details on your current or historical Open Rates and other contacts reporting, examples of your subject lines, and/or short URL to an email campaign, so potential advice givers can assess and give appropriate feedback. Please note: Do not provide account sensitive information, such as number of contacts in the account, specific email addresses, or list names.   Additionally, one participant each week of the contest has the chance to win one bonus entry by having their advice chosen by a panel of moderators (i.e. the Community Team) as exceeding expectations. 'Exceeding expectations' is defined by the subjective standards of the moderators, but is judged by clear instruction, attention to detail, and lengthier than one or two sentences.   The bonus entry will be chosen on the Friday of each week during the course of the Sweepstakes by 4:00 P.M. EST. If there are no entries posted in a given week then we will skip the bonus entry selection for that week.   Here is an ‘exceeding expectations’: “Your Open rate has historically been above 20% but dipped to 8% around November and has stayed there. I looked at the short URL of the email campaign you shared for your November campaign and it looks like your template is a single image containing all the information. Generally, you want to have a balanced image-to-text ratio as a single image email is more likely to end up getting caught in spam filters. Constant Contact actually has an article on this. Have you always been using a single image for your emails?”    If you are the winner we will notify you by the contact email address listed on your Constant Contact account, so make sure it is up-to-date! Thank you.   Questions? Let us know below!   ---   *No Purchase Necessary. The Constant Contact Community Get Advice Sweepstakes: Spring Cleaning is open to legal residents of the 50 United States (and D.C), 18 years or older. For Official Rules, visit here. Promotion ends on May 5, 2021 at 11:59 PM ET. The Sweepstakes is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Khoros, Pinterest, or Twitter. ... View more

This sweepstakes is now closed! Winners will be chosen shortly and notified. Thank you so much for participating! And check back next week for the start of April's Get Advice Giveaway! We're going monthly for 2021!   Get Advice, Give Advice Sweepstakes   The following task will reward you with 1 ticket, 1 time total, per participant:For complete Terms & Conditions, visit here.   Online marketing is, in its way, an art form. As the architect, you are trying to produce something that elicits a response from your audience. And anyone that has ever sat in front of a blank canvas knows the potential is limitless, but also daunting. Additionally, when finished with a piece of work, the artist can often be dissatisfied, even if the construction is sound. In this vein, advice is invaluable.    But we’re going to put a price on it. For the month of March, we want to give Community members a chance to win by sharing their wisdom with their fellow members. Similar to our last sweepstakes, participants will earn tickets by completing tasks. When completed, the participant’s tickets will be entered to win one of three prizes:   1st Prize - $300 American Express Gift Card 2nd Prize - $200 American Express Gift Card 3rd Prize - $100 American Express Gift Card   The sweepstakes will run from March 1, 2021 through March 31, 2021. Once completed we will select three winners at random and notify them! The following task will reward you with 1 (one) ticket, one time, for a maximum of 1 (one) total:   Visiting the Community's Get Advice board and creating a new topic. The topic must follow the guidelines explained in Welcome to Get Advice - What To Know Before You Post. There is no character limit if the topic specifically shares one of the following: websites designed in Constant Contact, email campaigns designed in Constant Contact, and landing pages designed in Constant Contact. There is a character limit of 420 if the new topic is tips and tricks using Constant Contact or general marketing advice.   The following task will reward you with 2 (two) tickets, per entry, up to 3 (three) times total for a maximum of 6 (six) entries:    Visiting the Community's Get Advice board and replying to an existing topic. The reply must be in the form of feedback toward the original post's topic. The reply has a character minimum of 420. The feedback must be specific to the content of the original post’s topic. For example, if someone shares their email campaign, website, or landing page. The feedback should focus on: Text-to-image ratio Color palette choices Scroll length (Email) Recommendations for different action blocks to use (Email or Landing Pages) Call-to-action Suggestions for navigating between pages (Website)   Important: For feedback, focus on the first page of threads as it will be most relevant to today's users.    Here is an example response: “I think your email looks good overall! My suggestion is to shorten the overall length. Most people will not scroll that far more than once or twice before moving on. If you have a website, I recommend putting some of the information on there and then using a Read More block to to direct people to the site.”   Once you’ve completed the number of tasks you feel comfortable with, it is required that you return to this thread and let us know which tasks you completed.  This will help us streamline the verification process and confirm your entries! After we have compiled the total entries, we will randomly pull a winner for each category starting with the First Prize and work our way down. If you are a winner we will notify you by the contact email address listed on your Constant Contact account, so make sure it is up-to-date! Thank you.   And stay tuned! We’re developing plans to keep the ball rolling and will share more when this sweepstakes ends!   Questions? Let us know below!   ---   *No Purchase Necessary. The Constant Contact Community Get Advice, Give Advice Sweepstakes is open to legal residents of the 50 United States (and D.C), 18 years or older. For Official Rules, visit https://community.constantcontact.com/t5/custom/page/page-id/2021GetAdviceOfficialRules. Promotion ends on March 31, 2021 at 11:59 PM ET. The Sweepstakes is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Khoros, American Express, or Twitter. ... View more

Did you design a flyer for your business that you also want to share with your online audience? A menu for your restaurant? Whatever the document might be, instead of trying to recreate the graphic from scratch in Constant Contact’s email editor, you can utilize a couple different strategies to save time and get the job done!   Create an Email from a PDF   This strategy is the most straightforward. Constant Contact has a PDF-to-Email function that allows the user to upload a PDF file directly into the body of a new email template. It generates a PNG file of the first page of the PDF and will also generate a clickable button already linked to the PDF beneath the image!   This is a great option if you envision your email being almost entirely the PDF in question. For example, if you are a restaurant trying to promote your new menu, this will keep it front-and-center. Keep in mind that you can still make additional edits if you want to build more of your template around the initial creation.   The PDF file and the newly generated PNG file will both appear in the account Library after the email template is created.   Visit the Knowledge Base to read a step-by-step guide.   Important! Please note that sending an image-only email increases the likelihood of your email ending up in the Spam folder.  A balanced text-to-image ratio can make the difference! Consider adding your hours of business, contact information, or a brief message to your audience, for example!   Create an Image From a PDF While Uploading to the Library   Some Constant Contact users like to reuse the same template they’ve already designed, making small tweaks to fit whatever their needs are for that installment. In the event you already have a template ready to go, but still want to feature a graphic of and/or link to your PDF, you can acquire said assets from the account’s Library.   From the Library page, click on Upload To Library, then My Computer. Drag-and-drop the PDF file or click ‘or browse your computer to upload’ to bring the file into the account ecosystem. The great thing is the upload process will automatically generate a PNG image file for you!   Before leaving the page, click on the thumbnail or title of the PDF file you uploaded. A pop-up overlay will appear with the options to change the title of the file, add Alt Text for the Description, add the file to a specific folder, and most importantly for this overview, to copy the URL for the PDF. Copy that URL!   Return to the email template you are working on and in the top-left corner, click on the Image tab between Build and Design. The PNG version of the PDF file will be available for you to click, drag, and drop wherever it is you want to place it. Click on the image in the template and choose the ‘Link’ option in the pop-up toolbar to paste the URL of the PDF file so the image itself is clickable! Why is it worth doing this? Because when viewing an email, the image can only become so large; by making it clickable to the actual PDF file it gives the audience a chance to see it in its intended state.    You can always generate a button to make it clickable as well.   Visit the Knowledge Base to read a step-by-step guide.   -- Interested in Constant Contact? Try it free! Sign up today. ... View more

Hello!   We've launched our marketing calendar for 2021, which provides a template and a full list of holidays (including Houseplant Appreciation Day, who knew?).    I hope this is helpful! Also, I'm curious. For Nonprofits, which holidays do you usually focus your efforts around? Giving Tuesday is huge, but what other parts of the year get attention?  ... View more

Hello!   We've launched our marketing calendar for 2021, which provides a template and a full list of holidays (including Left-Handers Day! Is anyone else here left-handed?).    I hope this is helpful! Also, I'm curious. For your industry, which holidays do you usually focus your efforts around?  ... View more

Hello!   We've launched our marketing calendar for 2021, which provides a template and a full list of holidays (including Houseplant Appreciation Day, who knew?).    I hope this is helpful! Also, I'm curious. For Real Estate, which holidays do you usually focus your efforts around?  ... View more

Hello one and all,   Thank you so much for checking out the Nonprofit Hub!    I can't say I have much inside experience with nonprofits, but I can only imagine the work involved, let alone just the marketing for it!    That said, nonprofits come in all shapes and sizes and cover a wide range of missions. Our hope is the Nonprofit Hub will be a place where people can kick up their feet, find like-minded individuals, and foster meaningful discussions around the nonprofit space.   Introduce yourself below and we will see you around the Hub! ... View more