An often overlooked feature in email marketing is the ability to track links. That is to say, determining the exact subscriber who clicked on a particular link.   If, for example, there are 3 links in an enewsletter and 2 people clicked on the first link, 10 people the second and 6 people the third, the reports section of the email will list the email addresses of the subscribers that clicked on each link. Bingo! A lead! You will know who clicked on which link and what the interest is. You can customize your follow-up and thereby increase the likelihood of making a sale.   From marketing perspective, this tells you what is the hot topic and what topic is of low interest? You can take this feedback and modify your marketing plans accordingly. This is the type of information that companies pay tons of money to marketing agencies to find out and it comes as part of your email marketing program at no additional cost. Take full advantage of it! It is a powerful feature! ... View more

One of the key elements in a successful email marketing program is to have good subject lines that interest your subscribers to open your email. There is no formula for writing subject lines but these guidelines will help.   1    Keep it short and simple 5-8 words. 2.   What is the immediate benefit of opening the email?  What will they gain by opening and reading the email? "January Newsletter" doesn't tell subscribers anything they didn't know beforehand. 3    Compel  people to open the email -  Use numbers and questions marks 4.   Be different. 5.   Lastly, an insider's tip - Look at the subject lines in magazines.  Yes, they are good examples for you to follow.  If you want to discuss  "Subject Lines" with me, or any other aspect of email marketing,  feel free to contact me. ... View more

Like so many  people I have been advised to blog frequently.   To be frank, up until recently I did not blog because I felt it was too time consuming with questionable results. A  few weeks ago I started blogging twice a week and have been very pleasantly surprised by the outcome. I have a LinkedIn account and typically 5 or so people would   search for me over a 12-18 day period.   Since I have been blogging,  the frequency has increased dramatically to roughly 5-7 times in 3-5 days.  The number of hits on my website has also increased which is very encouraging. There are several steps I use to publish my blogs.  First, I post it on my website.  Then I get the URL for it, post it on my LinkedIn account, and simultaneously to both my Twitter and Facebook accounts.  Finally, the blog is used as an article in my newsletter and also to start discussions in several of my LinkedIn groups.  It's amazing that one document can have so many different channels for exposure. I have found that once I got into the habit of blogging it took me less and less time to write a good blog (My most recent blog took about 30 minutes to write and spell check).  In my opinion, blogging is no longer an option. It is a requirement.  I wholeheartedly recommend  doing it because there is a very high return for the amount of time invested!! ... View more

Email List Segmentation by Joseph Grillo JNG Associates Email Marketing can be thought of as having 2 components-the Email piece and the Marketing piece.   The "Email" piece consists of the content, images and the like and making sure it looks professional etc. While this does take skill most email marketers can perform this and do a very credible job, the part that really determines how successful the campaign will be is the marketing.   The most important part of the ”Marketing” piece is list segmentation. Suppose we take a very simple example where you manufacture widgets and conduct an email campaign to a permission based list. The email is sent to everyone on that list and the reports indicate 30% of the subscribers opened it. That’s not bad.   What if, however, you segment the list into 2 lists, one list is Doctors, the other Lawyers, and then the same email campaign is sent to both lists.   Now suppose further that 50% of the Doctors opened it while only 10% of the Lawyers opened it. What does that tell you about the widget and Doctors? Why are the Doctors so interested? What ancillary products could be of interest?   Conversely, what are the implications of the widget and Lawyers? Is this the wrong product for them? Is the pricing correct? Should there be a special mailing for Lawyers with a different widget? What impact do the results of the email campaign have on the other aspects of your marketing program?   The point here being that segmenting subscribers lists can provide valuable information to you that can affect not only future emails but your entire marketing program. Segmentation can help determine where your markets are and where they are not and in the process save a lot of time, effort, and money.   If you need help segmenting your  list,  just contact me and I'll be glad   to help.   781-307-5258   jgrillo@jngassociates.com ... View more

How am I doing? This may seem like an odd type of question   but I really need your help in order to know what you think of my blogs. I am asking you  to take a few minutes and drop me an email with your thoughts.   If you could, can you address some issues that are of particular interest  such as: 1  Is the content relevant to you? 2  What topics would you like to see discussed? 3   Are they easy to read? 4   Do they have a professional appearance? 5   Any suggestions  for improvements (don't be afraid of hurting my ego) Thanks  in advance for your time  and here is the my email address jgrillo@jngassociates.com Joe Gri llo ... View more

What is a blog? A blog (comes from weblog) is a website consisting of entries (also called posts) that appear in reverse chronological order by day month and year with the most recent entry appearing first (similar in format to a diary or journal). Blogs typically include features such as comments and links to increase user interactivity. Blogs are created using specific publishing software. Blog writing style is usually informal. Blogs topics and be on anything you choose but most bloggers stick to a certain niche.   Top 7 Reasons To Create a Blog for Your Business   1. You will able to add content in minutes You don’t have to go through the trouble of uploading (FTP) files to your host like static sites. You can update your content from any computer as long as it has internet access. This is great for when you have the next big idea. You can easily log in to your admintration panel so that you post and let the world know.   2. It’s a Free (or Low Cost) If you are on a budget, blogging is the way to go. You can start your blog absolutely free at popular blogging sites such as blogger.com or wordpress.com. If your business name is available, you can use it as the blog’s URL (web address). If you would like to purchase your business name’s domain, you can do so inexpensively from sites such as godaddy.com or register.com. If you want a self host your blog then you can go Host Gator for hosting services.   3. It Makes You the Expert You will become the go to person in your particular niche because you are showing your knowledge on various subjects when you post them to your blog. Your visitors will appreciate when you post instructions, tips, how-to’s, and other articles which can establish you as an expert in your niche. If you draw people in with content, you are more likely to sell any products or services that you are promoting because you have become a trusted source.   4. Create a relationship with visitors to your website On a static website most visitors may visit once or twice but then they may never come back. Because a blog is updated more often, visitors often return over and over again if you have good content. This enables you to create a bond with your visitors. You will be able to interact with your visitors by responding to the comments they leave on your blog.   5. Improve your search engine rankings Search engines like Google and Yahoo love blogs because they are always trying to provide fresh content to their customers. Since blogs are ever changing, they usually get better placement on the various search engines.   6. Make New Connections A blog is a great tool to use for networking. As people notice you on the internet, you will find that many will contact you to try to form a connection. Also, if you blog on a regular basis you will get the attention of other bloggers in your field. These bloggers may end up being potential customers. These contacts are opportunities for you to meet people that you never would have come into contact with otherwise.   7. Blogs will help you get links Drive more traffic to your blog by creating links on Social Media sites. The more links you create then the more traffic your blog will receive.   All in all, blogging is a low cost way to get massive exposure for your business. With all these benefits there is really no reason that you shouldn’t start blogging today! ... View more

  When ever I go to a Social Networking event I collect business cards from attendees with whom I have had a positive conversation and within 24 hours each person receives a follow-up email from me. There are 3 reasons why I do this.   First, it is the proper thing to do and it refreshes your presence in the minds of the people you worked so hard to find.  Surprisingly, very few people do this and by sending “Follow-Up” emails you separate yourself from all the other people they met at the event.   If you don’t follow-up then you can rest assured that the people you have met will forget you very quickly. How many other social networking events do they attend and how many other people do they meet?    Second, by sending them an email, people can see a sample of my work. Wouldn’t you like to have the opportunity to send samples of your work to 5-10 people?   Thirdly, I can tell EXACTLY who opened my email. In the email, I ask for their permission to be placed on my mailing list. My feeling is that if someone opened my “Follow-Up” email and want to be on my mailing list, then they have exhibited interest in me. This helps me determine who my potential customers are where I should focus my energy.   When I send my monthly newsletter to people,  I am keeping my name fresh in their Over the course of a year I expect to add between 400-500 subscribers and chances are that sooner or later some of these will turn into sales or referrals.   Sending out “Follow Up” emails does not take a lot of time or effort to do.  It keeps your name in front of people and help develop personal relationships. Think of all the people you meet during the course of a day. If your name is not refreshed  it will quickly be forgotten and the time and effort you put into networking will be wasted.   If you want to learn more about how Email Marketing can help grow your business Contact me and we’ll set up a date and time where we can get together.  If we have a fit, then That is okay.  If we don’t  that is okay as well. Maybe I can point you in a direction that can help you.   Thanks for your time today. ... View more

Marketing today is in a state of flux.  The established marketing tools have lost some of their effectiveness but are still widely used.  The digital age has seen a bevy of new tools which have become popular and are increasing in their popularity.  What are the tools your business should use?  To help you decide, today’s blog is a brief summary of the existing/new marketing tools their advantages and their limitations.   Traditional Marketing / Outbound Marketing The concept is to reach out to potential customers with the message:  “Here is my product/service and this is why I am great.  Call today”.  This is what is referred to as the “hard sell”. For the longest time that is all that was available.  Examples are cold calling, radio/TV advertising, direct mail, and print advertising and tradeshows.   The advantage is that is normally produces a quick response. It, however, does not build personal relationships with customers and can be very expensive.   Current Marketing/Inbound Marketing The concept here is to 1 - build a relationship with your customers and 2 - establish yourself as an expert so that customers will contact you when they are in the market for your product/service.  Examples are Email Marketing, social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn, blogging and social networking.   The advantage these tools are that that they are not costly in terms of dollars. They are, however, long term items and may take a while before positive results occur.   Some of these can be very time consuming if you let them.   If you do them correctly they do not take that much time.   As to how to use them properly, just do a Google search and there will be tons of articles on proper techniques and strategies.   What is best?  What are the best marketing tools for your company?  That depends upon your target market, budget, and what are you trying to achieve.   Most marketing experts recommend a mix and experimenting with those that you think will work.  I often hear “All you need is _________________”. Do not fall into the trap of putting all your eggs in one basket.   Take your time, experiment, learn and seek help.   If I can be of help to you, please feel free to contact me and I’ll be glad to hear from you. ... View more

  1. Avoid putting all of your content into one picture. Businesses usually do this when they are trying to avoid ‘spammy’ words, and a lot of times those email servers can pick up on the fact that the entire email is an image and it will instantly block you.   2. Pay attention to your bounce rate, the total number bounces you have and individual bounces. If it is something you can easily fix because it was a typo, make sure you go in and fix those. If it is a hard bounce or an email that doesn’t exist, remove it from your list.   3. Separate the inactive people. If you have subscribers that are never opening your emails or clicking on anything, then there is a good chance that it might become a spam trap, which is an email address that somebody uses to subscribe to your newsletter, but never goes in and checks it. That can actually negatively affect your delivery rates.   4. Avoid excessive capitalization, punctuation such as exclamation points and ‘spammy’ words like ‘free’, ‘daily’ or ‘pledge’. Avoid using these words in your subject line, as well as the body of your email text.   5. Insure that all the links in your email are valid and do not link to websites that are spammers. Excessive broken links will triger a spam filter. Same for linking to websites that ISP's think are spamming.   6. Avoid inappropriate language ie four letter words etc.   For more email marketing tips  go to my blog:   http://www.jngassociates.com/blog ... View more

1. Use all three H tags in your post and use bold or italics properly in your on-page SEO optimization. 2. Your keyword must appear in the title and then it must appear in the URL. 3. Optimize your keyword and make sure that it has a nice keyword density of 3-5% in your article with relevant LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing). 4. Your Keyword should appear in your first paragraph and in the last sentence of the page. 5. Have relevant usage of Bold and italics of your keyword. 6. There should be one internal link to a page on your blog and you should have one image with an alt tag that has your keyword For  more on-page SEO tips please go to   http://jngassociates.com/images/On_Page_SEO_Checklist_Backlinko.pdf   ... View more

Many people think that it is sufficient in an email marketing newsletter to just put in some articles you think are of value to your subscribers. While this is certainly important, it is also just as if not more important to   gather information about what groups of subscribers are interested in your organization and in what specific product, service or topic they are interested.   A properly designed email will accomplish this as well as inform/educate subscribers.  In brief you may want to think of an email as another form of a survey and instead of using questions, tracking clicks on articles is used to get vital information.   Does it make sense to hunt tigers in Antarctica? Email Marketing can help you find where the tigers are located and keep you  out of the cold regions   If you know who your customers are and their interests, you may then use that in other aspects of your marketing program. Suppose you want to do a direct mail to potential customers. If you have  determined from your email marketing campaigns that, let's say, small business owners have a high open rate of your email campaigns and they have clicked on articles dealing with payroll, then you should purchase a direct mail list of small business owners and make the subject of your mailing payroll. This can similarly be applied to your other marketing instruments.   If you want more information,  please feel free to contact me at 781-307-5258   or drop me a email at jgrillo@jngassociates.com.   ... View more

It's getting to be old news now that you don't communicate to your customers and members -- you communicate with them. As social media continues to grow, and communication channels like email marketing continue to evolve, the idea that you're simply pushing information to your readers moves further and further into the rear-view mirror. Involving your customers and members in your business or organization by asking their thoughts, encouraging their comments, and responding to their feedback leads to more engagement. And more engaged customers leads to greater success. But engagement isn't just about soliciting comments and feedback on Facebook and Twitter. It's about connecting those (and other) social media channels with your email marketing and event marketing efforts, and bringing them full circle. Email to Social and Back Again. "Email lights the fire, and social media fans the flames." In your next email newsletter, use strong social calls to action, such as asking a provocative question about content in your issue or a topic that may be on the minds of your readers, to draw them to your Facebook Page or to Twitter, where you can continue the conversation. If your customers and members are anything like the people I come in contact with every day, then they have lots of opinions -- about you, your products and services, current events and trends -- and are all too eager to share.   If your newsletter includes your helpful tips, you can ask people to go to your Facebook Page and add to the list. Or, use content in your newsletter as the basis for a poll question using Facebook Questions. Maybe you depart from your newsletter content entirely and ask readers to share their thoughts on a timely topic, such as their upcoming summer plans. Better yet, on Twitter, have your followers use a hashtag that you choose, which will make it easier for you to find and collect the responses.   Don't leave those comments and responses just sitting on Facebook or Twitter. In the next issue of your newsletter, pick a couple of your favorite answers and include them. Share the results of your poll. This will save you time in creating content for your newsletter and will encourage readers to engage with you, because they may see their answers shared. Then start the cycle again by asking a new question.   I love going to an event and seeing attendees tweeting away. It's not a distraction for me; it's further proof of how engaged they are. Social media tools like Twitter allow attendees to network with each other easier, to share feedback on how they think the event is going, and to take "virtual notes" that they can share with others who aren't in attendance. That's right: When attendees tweet during an event (especially when they use a hashtag), they're helping to spread the word about you and your event beyond the confines of your event venue.   As early as when you send a save the date email for your event, provide your invited guests with a hashtag and get them talking about your event. Ask them, on Twitter and on Facebook, what they're looking forward to learning or doing. Then share those thoughts in your email newsletters and on your event homepage. Let your attendees help you build the buzz for the event -- continue to share their thoughts until the big day arrives. During your event, monitor the Twitter feed for your hashtag to see what the chatter is. Encourage the discussion by promoting the hashtag on signage at the event.   If you've asked during the registration process what attendees' Twitter handles are, then you can include those on each person's nametag. If it's appropriate during your event to share tweets and Facebook comments, then do so; it'll make people more eager to get involved and will create a more engaging experience for all in attendance.   Remember: Don't just communicate to your customers, communicate with them. The more you can integrate your customers' and members' feedback, opinions, and thoughts on social media into your other channels, and then direct them back to keep that dialogue going, the more easily you'll create a communications circle that will never end. ... View more

A very common tool to see who is really interested in the message in newsletters to do an “Opens Only” analysis. Conceptually it is very simple. For the last 3 - 4 emails you have published make a list of just those subscribers who have opened 1 or more of the newsletters. Once this is done, start to analyze for common traits such as age, profession, location etc.   If you do a mailing to this list, the Open Rate will definitely rise.  Conversely, generate a list of “Never Opens” That is to say, subscribers who have never opened any of your newsletters. Just take your entire list and remove the “Opens Only” subscribers. This is analogous to the “dog that didn’t bark” Well, why didn’t the dog bark?   I do not recommend throwing away these subscribers. Again analyze for trends and common traits. Also, you may try to re-engage them by making special offers or by asking if they want to be kept on your mailing list.   By separating your lists in this way, you will have a somewhat smaller list but they are the people who are interested in your product or service and are your best potential customers. If you would like more information as to how to go about generating the Opens Only and/or Never Opened lists, just drop me a note. I’ll be glad to hear from you. ... View more

Who are your typical customers?   Can you draw a profile(s)?  To help you here are some characteristics to keep in mind. Age; Self-employed; Size of company; do they have a product or service; Location;  male or female; computer savvy;    typical value of a sale;   repeat business;   Why do customers buy from you?  What problem or problems does your product or service solve for them? Is it convenience, customer support, or some other  reason.   What makes you different  than your competition? Is bigger, better, faster,  less expensive, easier to use?   What specific companies are your competitors?  Do you know the url for their website?  Have you visited their website recently?  You should subscribe to their newsletter or be a contact on their LinkedIn account. Do they rank higher than your company in SEO  rankings?   What other Marketing are you doing?  Do not place all the marketing efforts into one or two types of marketing.   There should be a mix of email marketing,  social media, social networking, SEO,  and direct marketing.   What image of your company do you want your customers to have? What effort is being spent to towards achieving that image?   What do people like and dislike about product or service?  All products have their advantages and limitations. Accentuate your strengths and work to overcome your limitations. This can explain why your sales are increasing or sliding.   What major events are happening in your industry? Are there important developments on the horizon that could spell trouble for your company.   Do you plan to have a new product or improvement released soon? ... View more

Recently I read an article from Time magazine and a discussion on LinkedIn describing Facebook's new strategy on organic posts. Since they began, Facebook's strategy was to deliver only 16% of the organic posts. A few months ago they reduced that to 4% and soon they will further reduce it to less than 2%. What this means is that if you want your posts to be published,  chances are,  you will have to pay Facebook for more exposure. I find this to be very disturbing as it will make marketing for small businesses such as mine, and non-profits much tougher. Whether or not to continue with Facebok is an individual decision, but I think you know the issues involved. For more information,   I have on my recent blog a post from Ron Mattocks, Online Marketing Manager at Aptera Software,  entitled   1.  "Is Facebook Worth the Effort for Marketers Anymore?" http://jngassociates.com/facebook-page-posts-one-two-percent/   2.  Time magazine  in   http://time.com/34025/the-free-marketing-gravy-train-is-over-on-facebook/   Thanks and have a good day. ... View more

  Email marketing leads can be generated by using an often overlooked feature in email marketing  - the ability to track links.  That is to say, determining the exact subscriber who clicked on a particular link.   If, for example, there are 3 links in an email newsletter and 2 people clicked on the first link, 10 people the second and 6 people the third,  the reports section of the email will list the email addresses of the subscribers that clicked on each link. Bingo!  A lead!  You will know who clicked on which link and what the interest is.  You can customize your follow-up and thereby increase the likelihood of making a sale.   From marketing perspective, this tells you what is the hot topic and what topic is of low interest.   You can take this feedback and modify your marketing plans accordingly.  This is the type of information that companies pay tons of money to marketing agencies to find out and it comes as part of your email marketing program at no additional cost. Take full advantage of it! It is a powerful feature!     Interested in getting more leads?  Go to Contact Us and download "Free Report: 11 Ways To Combine Email Marketing and Social Media To Get More Customers" ... View more

                                                                                      I am blogging today about changes in the JNG Associates marketing plan that have  come about mainly due to advances in technology.  These changes have had  a beneficial effect on my marketing and I strongly suggest that you consider them for your marketing plans as well.   I now have a mobile website in addition to my regular website and  I will be  changing  the  email  template that  is used for my newsletters to a template that is mobile friendly.  Constant Contact has recently released a mobile editor and it is very easy to have a mobile friendly email.    The reason for going mobile is simply that mobile phone use is exploding and that 40 % of searches are done from a mobile phone.   The other change is that I will be including videos in my newsletters, blogs, and eventually on my website.  The reason for this is that videos have been proven to convey a more effective message than just text.   I have discovered that my Cannon camera can produce videos of sufficient quality that they have a professional look about them and can be done fairly easily.   As marketers we should be constantly striving to improve our marketing efforts.   If we don’t, then our competitors will be improving their  efforts and we will lose market share.   If you have any questions or if I may help you please drop me a note at jgrillo@jngassocites.com.   Thanks for your time and have a great day!       ... View more

Today I want to take a few minutes to talk about Open Rates for email campaigns.   The most important item in Open Rates is the From Line. Use either a person’s name or the name of your company, whatever is more recognizable to the subscriber. The reason for this is that you have less than 2 seconds for the subscriber to identify where the email is coming from. If they can’t identify where it is coming from, they plain and simply will not open the email.   The second item is the subject. It should be short and simple and in general, less that 40 characters. Keep in mind the 2-2-2 principle: The first 2 words are most important, it takes less than 2 seconds to read, and it must answer the question: What is in it for me?   Lastly, When and How Frequently the email should be sent. The rule of thumb is to send once a month. If, however, your content changes frequently, you may want to consider once every 2 weeks. Generally, the best time to send an email for most applications is between the hours of 10:00 AM and 3 PM. On Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. The best time for your application may be different so I suggest doing some experimenting.   To set your expectations, Open Rates vary from, industry to industry but for the most part they range from 17% to 22%. If you follow these simple tips then I am confident you will be pleased with your Open Rates.   If you have any questions or if I can help you, contact me at 781-307-5258 or drop me an email at jgrillo@jngassociates.com Thanks for your time and have a great day. ... View more

You can either watch my video or  read  the text of it below.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Video takes a moment or  two to download      Over the last few months I have experimented with videos and have put a video in a personal email campaign and a business email campaign.  Both campaigns resulted in favorable comments, high interest and increased subscriber engagement.   As a result,  i plan to incorporate videos in my blogs, email newsletters, website and LinkedIn page.    I highly recommend looking into their use for your own applications.   A quality video is not that hard to produce. Most computers today come equipped with a webcam and microphone and the learning curve is not that steep.  Poke around a bit, do some experimenting and your off and running.   I have found, however, that if you are careful and watch what you are doing, you can produce a video of sufficient quality that you can feel comfortable issuing.   I get very excited when I think of all the different applications for videos and expected results.   If you try making videos and need some help, please feel free to contact me     Joseph Grillo    781-307-5258 or Via email   jgrillo@jngassociates.com   Thanks and have good day!   ... View more

Sales and Marketing Plan Tips   Tis the Season To Be Jolly. Right?  Well sort of.  Tis the season to be thinking about 2014  and making and achieving sales goals for the upcoming year.   There are several items to consider when you sit down to devise your Sales and Marketing plan.    The first is to examine the plan for 2013 and determine what worked and what didn't work, why some things were successful and why some things weren't.   Sad to say, all too many people didn’t have a plan and chances are they didn't do well.  If you are one of these folks, I urge you to make the effort to develop a plan and increase your chances for a good year ahead.   Here are some items to consider when developing your plan:   Customer Profile.    Do you know who your customers are?  Draw up a typical customer profile.  Take into account age, gender, size of their company, geographic location, estimated annual income, just to name a few.  Also, what do they like about your product or service.  What don't they like about your product or service?   Existing Customers.   Too many people think that increased sales have to come from entirely new customers.  Wrong!  The easiest sales that you make are those from your existing customers.  Keep in touch with them using email marketing and social media.   New Customers.   How are you going to reach out to new customers?   Determine how much time and money you can spend on networking, email marketing, social media, advertising, SEO, and direct mail.  Decide which of these work for you.  Which don't.   New Products or Services.  Do you plan to introduce new products or services in the upcoming year? What needs do they meet and how are you to roll them out into the marketplace?   Most importantly, do they work?   Competition.  Be aware of who your competition is and know what they are doing. It is not unprofessional to subscribe to their newsletters to keep tabs on them.  Be assured they are subscribing to yours.   These are just a few of the items to consider in developing your plan for 2014.  If I can help you,  please  feel free to contact me,  I'll work with you  to help you come up with answers to  your questions  and issues.    But please, please, develop a plan. ... View more

What is Engagement Marketing?    In 25 words or less, it is the basis for modern day marketing especially marketing by email and Social Media.  It is designed to increase Word of Mouth advertising.  Word of Mouth Drives People to Your Door.  Your customers' testimonials carry more credibility than any marketing message you could ever deliver yourself. 90% of consumers trust recommendations from people they know while only 14% trust advertising.        There are 3 main items in Engagement Marketing: (1) Providing a Wow Experience (2) Entice your customers to connect with you and (3) Engage People.   1. Create A WOW Customer experience. This is the first step. If you don't create a WOW experience, then the Engagement Marketing will not work. The curious thing is that, more often than not, it doesn't take a lot of money to create the WOW Experience!  Do something simple that the competition isn't doing.     Do something that can be done quickly without costing money.  GET CREATIVE!  Small businesses have the tremendous advantage over big businesses because they are more flexible and new and exciting ideas can be implemented quickly without having to get approval from 16 supervisors and not having to play political games.  Get an idea and do it!                 2.  Now that you have created a WOW experience, capitalize on the customers emotion, ENTICE your customers to Connect with You.  Creating opportunities and methods for enticing new customers to connect with you is limited only by your imagination and creativity.     By connecting with you, you can stay in touch with them.   Connections can be established by email, social media and direct mail (It is not dead).   For example, by emailing once a month, even if they don't open the email, customers see your name and it is refreshed in their minds.   If you don't stay in touch with them, they will forget you.    To help entice your customers to connect with you, offer them something.  Offer them, for example, a white paper on business trends or information about the hottest item.  You can also offer them a coupon or a free consultation.  Again, GET CREATIVE!!   3.  Engage People. Engaging with people is not a one-way street. Your goal, whether online or off, should be to drive participation.   There are several items that you will need to engage people.   First is content in which they are interested.  Examples of this are news, special events and special offers. Second is a call to action that grips people.  Third is a delivery mechanism such as email, social media and so on.   Lastly, make it easy to interact with you and share your content with others.   I have touched on just the highlights of Engagement Marketing.  I strongly suggest that if you are interested that you purchase the book “Engagement Marketing” by Gail Goodman and it is  available at Amazon ... View more

Mobile devices are becoming an increasingly popular way to view email and the experience is different than viewing them on a traditional computer. You can redesign your email campaigns so that they render well on any device by incorporating a few best practices:     Design and Content     Fonts and Colors     Images     Contacts Design and Content The screen size varies from device to device, but you have much less real estate than on a computer monitor.     Use single column templates to make your content friendlier to small screen sizes.       Note: Not sure which template to use? We've labeled our mobile-friendly templates so you can easily find them.     Keep your standard template width around 600 px. Since our mobile-friendly templates are designed to     auto-adjust, you can increase the width slightly to 650 px.     Put your call-to-action near the top of your email and leave enough space around it so it is easy to touch.     Have a clear and concise message to get your point across in a glance. Fonts and Colors Portable devices are used in a range of lighting, from full sunlight to complete darkness.     Avoid using tiny fonts that won't be easy to read on small screens. Use a minimum of 11 pt for your email's body    and 22 pt for headlines.    Use a strong contrast of colors so it is easier to read in bright sunlight or when the brightness level on the device    has been turned down to conserve battery power.    Avoid white text; if the email client doesn't render a background color, you might end up with white text on a white    background. Images Some mobile devices display images by default, while others block them or provide prompts to make them viewable.     Include images that are essential to your email and leave the rest out.     Note: Our mobile-friendly templates include image placeholders with recommendations for sizing.     Always include a description of your image to let folks know what is there when it isn't being displayed.     Avoid emails containing your content in a single image; if the image isn't displayed, your recipient will miss your     entire message! Contacts Knowing what portion of your contact list reads their emails on a mobile device will be helpful in creating your content.     Add the contacts you know read their email on a mobile device to a separate list and design emails just for them.     Consider adding a field to your web sign-up form to easily identify mobile users. ... View more

Email List Segmentation Email Marketing can be thought of as having 2 components-the Email piece and the Marketing piece.   The  "Email"  piece consists of the content, images and the like and making sure it looks professional  etc. While this does take  skill  most email marketers can perform this and do a very credible  job, the part that really determines how successful the campaign will be is the marketing. The most important part of the "Marketing" piece is list segmentation. Suppose we take a very simple example where you manufacture widgets and conduct an email campaign to a  permission based  list.  The email  is sent to everyone on that list and the reports indicate 30% of the subscribers opened it.   That's not bad.     What if, however, you segment the list into 2 lists,  one list is Doctors, the other Lawyers, and then the same email campaign is sent to both lists. Now suppose further that 50% of the Doctors opened it while only 10% of the Lawyers opened  it.  What does that tell you about the widget and Doctors?  Why are the Doctors so interested? What ancillary products could be of interest?   Conversely, what are the implications of the widget and Lawyers? Is this the wrong product for them? Is the pricing correct? Should there be a special mailing for Lawyers with a different widget? What impact do the results of the email campaign have on the other aspects of your marketing program? The point here being that segmenting subscribers lists can provide valuable information to you that can affect not only future emails but your entire marketing program.  Segmentation can help determine where your markets are and where they are not and in the process save a lot of time, effort,  and money.   ... View more

Who Are Your Customers? Who are your typical customers? Can you draw a profile(s)?    The purpose of these questions is so that you  can have a better idea of who your customers are and why they buy from you.  More importantly,  you can focus your marketing efforts and  have a more cost-effective marketing program.      To help you, here are some characteristics to keep in mind: age;   self-employed; size of company; do they have a product or service;  location; male or female; computer savvy; typical value of a sale;  repeat business.     Why do customers buy from you? What problem does your product or service solve for them?   What specific companies are your competitors? Do you know the URL for their website? Have you visited their website recently?  Research them and see what they are doing.   What other Marketing are you doing? The purpose of this question is to see if your other marketing can interface with Email Marketing.   What image of your company do you want your customers to have?   What do people like and dislike about product or service.   What major events are happening in your industry?     How many of these questions could you answer?   You can have as much time as you need to complete the quiz.       ... View more

Who Are Your Customers? Who are your typical customers? Can you draw a profile(s)?  To help you, here are some characteristics to keep in mind: age; self-employed; size of company; do they have a product or service; location; male or female; computer savvy; typical value of a sale; repeat business;   The purpose of these questions is so that you  can have a better idea of who your customers are and why they buy from you.  More importantly,  you can focus your marketing efforts and  have a more cost-effective marketing program.    Why do customers buy from you? What problem does your product or service solve for them?   What specific companies are your competitors? Do you know the url for their website? Have you visited their website recently?  Research them and see what they are doing.   What other Marketing are you doing? The purpose of this question is to see if your other marketing can interface with Email Marketing.   What image of your company do you want your customers to have?   What do people like and dislike about product or service.   What major events are happening in your industry?   ... View more

1.     Email needs to be done on a periodic basis. In general, one issue per month is recommended.  If you’re content changes on a frequent basis, one issue per week or every other week would be appropriate.   2.     Timing of the publication is critical. The rule of thumb was Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday morning.  However, recent data indicates that Mondays and weekends also result in good open rates.  In any case, the best time of day is between 10:30 AM and 3:00 PM.   Some experimentation may be needed to obtain the best results.   3.     Lists should be segmented. Break down your list into 3-6 categories and see which ones have the best open rates.  Also, change your content to match the interests of each category.   4.     The email should also be sent to connections on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. This can be done by using most good email marketing software.  In Constant Contact a few clicks will do this.  By sending out the email campaign to the various Social Media tools, you are expanding your marketing reach.   5.     Subject lines are critical. There are many different schools of thought on how to write good subject lines.  In general they should be short, to the point and   peak the subscriber’s interest in the content of the email.  Answer the question”What is in it for me by reading this email?”   6.     A sign-up box should be placed on the website. Having a sign-up box on your website is one of the best ways to take advantage of the traffic to your website and grow your email list.  Offer subscribers an incentive to join your mailing list such has a gift coupon or a white paper etc.   7.     Follow-up with Subscribers that click on links. A subscriber that has clicked on a link is interested in the subject of that link.  Follow-up with that customer with a phone call or email to discuss and develop the subscriber’s interest further.   8.      Email must have the same look and feel as a website (branding). Subscribers feel more comfortable when the email and website match each other fairly closely.  It conveys a sense of professionalism and organization.   9.      Newsletters need to have a call to action. The purpose of the email, in addition to providing information, is to get the subscriber engaged with your product or service.  Examples of good calls to action are…..   10.    Personalize each email. Subscribers like to feel they are special.  Greetings can be easily personalized with the subscriber’s first name.  Also, a bit more challenging approach is to include data in the body of the email that pertains to them and them alone, similar to a mail merge. Most good email marketing software programs have this feature.   These tips are designed to help you in your email marketing efforts.  For more information feel free to contact   me at 781-307-5258 or  Jgrillo@jngassociates.com   I will be glad to help you, and looking forward to hearing from you. ... View more

Like so many  people I have been advised to blog frequently.   To be frank, up until recently I did not blog because I felt it was too time consuming and the results it would produce were questionable.  Well,  a few weeks ago I started blogging twice a week and have been very pleasantly surprised by the outcome.   I have a LinkedIn account and typically 5 or so people would   search for me over 12-18 days.   Since I have been blogging,  the frequency has increased dramatically to roughly 5-7 times in 3-5 days.  The number of hits on my website has also increased.   While I have not experienced an increase of sales as of yet, I am optimistic that will occur in time.   There is a multi-phase process I use to publish my blogs.  First I post it on my website.  Then I get the URL for it, post it on my LinkedIn account and simultaneously to my Twitter and Facebook accounts.  Lastly, the blog is used as an article in my newsletter and also to start discussions in several of my LinkedIn groups.  It’s amazing!!   One document with so many different channels for exposure.   Interestingly enough, I have found that once I got into the habit of blogging it takes me less and less time to write a good blog (this blog has taken about 30 minutes to write and spell check).  In my opinion, blogging is not longer an option, it is a requirement and I wholeheartedly recommend  doing it because there is a very high return for the amount of time invested!!   Has anyone had a similar experience ? ... View more

A very common tool to see who is really interested in the message in newsletters to do an “Opens Only” analysis. Conceptually it is very simple. For the last 3-4 emails you have published make a list of just those subscribers who have opened 1 or more of the newsletters. Once this is done, start to analyze for common traits such as age, profession, location etc. If you do a mailing to this list, the Open Rate will definitely rise.   Conversely, generate a list of “Never Opens” That is to say, subscribers who have never opened any of your newsletters. Just take your entire list and remove the “Opens Only” subscribers. This is analogous to the “dog that didn’t bark” Well, why didn’t the dog bark?   I do not recommend throwing away these subscribers. Again analyze for trends and common traits. Also, you may try to re-engage them by making special offers or by asking if they want to be kept on your mailing list.   Interestingly enough, I have  a "Never Opens" list and send to them regularly.  There always are 2-3 % of those subscribers that do in fact open  my newsletters.   By separating your lists in this way, you will have a somewhat smaller list but they are the people who are interested in your product or service and are your best potential customers.   If you would like more information as to how to go about generating the Opens Only and/or Never Opened lists, just drop me a note. I’ll be glad to hear from you.   Joe Grillo 781-307-5258 jgrillo@jngassociates.com   ... View more

  An often overlooked feature in email marketing is the ability to track links.  That is to say, determining the exact subscriber who clicked on a particular link.   If, for example, there are 3 links in an enewsletter and 2 people clicked on the first link, 10 people the second and 6 people the third,  the reports section of the email will list the email addresses of the subscribers that clicked on each link. Bingo!  A lead!  You will know who clicked on which link and what the interest is.  You can customize your follow-up and thereby increase the likelihood of making a sale.   From marketing perspective, this tells you what is the hot topic and what topic is of low interest?  You can take this feedback and modify your marketing plans accordingly.  This is the type of information that companies pay tons of money to marketing agencies to find out and it comes as part of your email marketing program at no additional cost.   Take full advantage of it! It is a powerful feature!     ... View more