Work Better, Not Harder

Having a discussion with a friend recently about  Messenger chatbots for delivering newsletters , she was perturbed there would be no way to download a list of subscribers. My response was, "Why would you want to?" These contacts have only opted in to receive communication via Messenger. By downloading them, all you'd have is a spreadsheet. (Which is OK, if you like spreadsheets.) As a small business owner, how many times have you been chided to have a database, a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) app, even a spreadsheet, with all of your contacts in one place ? Now, imagine the colossal task of putting all of your contacts into one place. I'm talking ALL of your contacts - email contacts, phone contacts, Twitter fans, LinkedIn contacts, Messenger subscribers, and so on. And what would you do with them when they're all nicely entered? I sure won't be adding my 4500 Twitter followers to my email list. (Can you imagine the response?!) Engage peop...

There’s a reason that finding new clients is described as prospecting , and researching our contacts is called mining . It really can be long hours of hard work for little immediate return. In 1849, when Dr. Matthew Fleming Stephenson proclaimed, “There’s gold in them thar hills,” he wasn’t telling his friends to rush off to California. He was suggesting they stay and mine in their own neighbourhood. That’s a lesson for small business owners, too. Greener pastures aren’t always greener. Have you fully mined the possibilities within your current circle of contacts? Before you do any prospecting, you need a mine. It might be a spreadsheet, a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool, a bulk email account, or some other ‘place’ where all your contacts (clients, vendors, colleagues, potential clients, referrers, press, and so on) are gathered together. If you don’t have that yet, start now – make it the next priority of your small business marketing strategy. Your contact lis...

If you have a newsletter, it should have a read online link . This link takes the reader to the web version of your newsletter. This is an archive copy of your newsletter that is like a web page. How can you use this? 1) You can use it to provide event details and online payment for any event you are planning. Particularly useful if you have difficulty with website updates. Just send a newsletter event announcement with a register now PayPal link in it. The read online link url becomes your event registration page. Share it on social media, include it in follow up email, and post it on your blog. 2) Put it on your website as a resource for your clients and customers . Many of us are answering common client questions inside our newsletters. You can use the read online url on your website with your FAQ answers or in case studies. If you are answering those questions on your blog, you can use it there too! 3) Once you have a few issues under you belt, keep your archive link hand...

screen shot of email header There's nothing like getting an email addressed to 'fname' or 'subscriber' for making you feel valued. Yes, I'm being sarcastic. This is definitely  not the message you want to send to your readers. You want to make a personal connection with your readers but using form fields is not the way to do it , even if you use them correctly. A form field is simply another automation. People know. Am I blown away when I get a newsletter addressed to 'Linda'? Not usually. Sure it takes a little more time to set up and maintain. Various experts will tell us that using a person's name will have a subconscious impact. Is the sender suddenly my trusted advisor? No. Let me start at the beginning. What do I mean by a form field? They're places in an HTML document used to insert specific data from a database. As an example, [fname] will insert the person's first name from the database. You can type "Hi [fname]...