Work Better, Not Harder

When I sent out my last newsletter, almost 400 people opened it in the first 2 hours. If you need to reach a lot of people fast and at the same time, email is definitely the medium of choice. For one thing, sending an email is faster and easier than phoning 400 people. (My jaw just clenched in horror!) And broadcasting a tweet or Facebook post is not the same as putting a message in someone’s inbox; it’s hit or miss. Direct mail is costly and the results are minimal. Some say the ROI on email marketing is over $40 for every $1 spent. I haven’t gotten those results for myself (yet) but I have seen some very quantifiable successes . For example, it’s easy to calculate your ROI when selling event tickets. Let's say you spend $300 to sell $6000 worth of tickets, which is a pretty darn good return. More to the point, consider if - and how - you’ll sell all those tickets if not by email. One of the big benefits of email over other options - the phone, social media, snail ...

Nine years ago in June, I was taking the first steps to start my own business. One of those steps was to come up with a company name. If you know me, you also know this is something I took great pains about. In the book, Getting Business to Come to You , was a suggestion to use your own name and a play on words if you were fortunate to have such a name. I was lucky to have recently married a fellow with the last name Daley (for more reasons than his name, of course). So, I thought ‘daily’ and searched that word on Google. The overwhelming response was ‘Daily Progress’, with links to a multitude of newspapers in North America and Europe. At the time I was not doing newsletters, but I felt that ‘progress’ was certainly the result my clients were wanting, so ‘Daley Progress’ it was. Interestingly, now that my company name actually aligns more fully with what I do, the loose association to the declining newspaper industry may be lost before too many more years go by. Click to Twee...

You might think I am writing about social media but I'm not. I am writing about email marketing. Your newsletter is similar to your blog... you can write it but they may not come. You need to promote your newsletter and nothing works better for promotion than making it easy to share. I have been advocating including sharing icons in your newsletter for a very long time. But my recent discovery of Click to Tweet , used in the Daley Progress blog posts , has made me remember why this is so important. You see, I don't like Twitter. I am always logged in but I never go there. I will retweet what arrives in my email but signing on to read is just never going to happen for me. What I have noticed is that if anything arrives in my email with a double click option to share, I will share it. If I have to open a new window, logon to my social feeds and copy/paste a link. It will never happen! Including a way to easily share your newsletter WILL result in more shares. It really is t...

Email is an ideal way to communicate details , such as meeting minutes, action lists, project updates, instructions, reference data, decisions, event info, checklists and much more. Sending previously prepared information is a snap - just attach, or copy and paste. When I started specializing in enewsletters, I quickly discovered that there are a lot of details to discuss and make decisions about. Some clients like communicating by phone and others by email. But for some of this detailed communication, email is definitely the best method regardless of preference. It allows me to standardize the process, provide checklists, track action items, explain complex ideas, show examples, and document decisions. Here are some tips for communicating detailed information by email: Strive for clarity. Be brief, but not to the point of leaving out relevant information.   Use point-form numbered or bullet lists. This makes it easy for your reader to mentally check things off, or to ...

Yesterday I politely wrote asking to be removed from a mailing list after receiving a promotional email that was ugly, far from CASL-compliant, and for products I’m not interested in. I even included links to CASL info in an effort to help. I received this response a few moments later: “Please do the same for me.” This childish reaction came from an older man who had attended a free email marketing training I put on last spring at the request of the Halifax Chamber of Commerce. He sells products to my target market. Do you think I’m ever likely to recommend him to anyone now? Email marketing isn't a game, it’s a business strategy. I firmly believe we should unsubscribe from mailings that aren't of interest to us. I read many newsletters from people who don’t read mine. It’s not a “tit for tat” thing. Email marketing costs money. Why would we want to waste our efforts sending messages to people who don’t want them ? Go ahead, unsubscribe from the things you don’t w...