Erich Stauffer

Tag: Email Marketing

  • Business Cards vs Email Marketing

    I recently sent a “soapbox” email to a couple of friends about how I’ve felt recently about business cards in relation to networking and building up your business through local interactions. I’m currently in the process of building up my business consulting business again and I’ve been thinking a lot about networking I did in 2012 and how I want to market myself in 2014.

    Is it just me or is the act of asking for someone’s business card the equivalent of “I just want to end this conversation and never talk to you again”?

    I get asked for my business card [a lot?] and it’s almost always from someone who does not want to do business with me, but wants to either spy on me remotely later or end the conversation.

    What are some positive interactions from potential customers?

    They seek me out. They call me. They email me. If I don’t write back, they email me again or they call me. No business cards are involved. They’ve heard about me from someone else. It’s a referral thing.

    So how do you get referrals?

    Mostly by doing great work that’s shareworthy. Add a ton of value, show ROI, or other thrilling things that makes someone want to share your work with other people. Other than that, it’s a matter of showing up.

    Email Marketing vs. Network Marketing

    I brought this up while reading about networking meetings in the book, Double Your Freelancing Rate, which I did a lot of last year and had very, very limited success. The greatest success was from simply staying in contact (via email) with existing clients, meeting their needs, and being referred to others by those existing clients. I’m looking to do more of that, but not sure exactly how. That’s why I’m reading the book and looking to other experts in my field for help/feedback.

    In reply to this email, my friend wrote this about his graphic design business:

    I can see that I’m getting local referrals on the basis of the work that I’ve done…For a designer, it is important to have a business card because that is likely the first chance (and maybe the last chance if you don’t have one) that they will have to see your work. They may not get a chance to sit in front of a screen before they make a decision about whether or not to work with you. I’ve always had positive interactions around my cards because they are premium paper and thickness, they are slightly larger than your standard US business card, and they prominently feature my branding (pixel perfect at 300ppi) on the front and a playful, full-bleed image on the back. I think if I had a vanilla business card, it wouldn’t be much of a boon and it would probably hurt me (especially if it were a Vistaprint template card). I also get asked for my card from friends/acquaintances that aren’t looking for design services, but want to share with someone they know or a business owner (to help me or them out).

    Good points. And I like how he was pitching his design services right into his reply. Nicely done.

    Email marketing is one goal I’ve had to start doing more of in 2013 and it will continue into 2014. KissMetrics recently posted 7 Overlooked but Critically Important Details of Profitable Email Marketing in which they mention how Nathan Barry, a web designer, launched an eBook that made $12,000 in sales in 24hrs and went on to make over $85,000 in its first year (what they don’t mention is the 10,000 hours of work he had in his life leading up to that point). But seriously, I’m not even talking about product launches or information products here, I’m talking about communicating with your customers – decent human-like things you could be doing to let them know you’re not dead. Your competitors are talking to them so you should be too. Hopefully this blog post helped someone take some action. Stop reading and start writing!

  • On Developing Our Professional Email Signature Product

    Recently, like Seth Godin suggested, we started looking for way to “redefine a service as a product”.

    We’ve found that custom HTML email signatures was a way to use our web design and email management skills to create  an introductory product that’s great for a wide variety of clients. Our typical clients are independent business owners or non-profits who can make their own marketing decisions, but now we have a product that can help franchisees or real estate agents who don’t or can’t have their own web site, but do have control over their email signature.

    Email signatures provide a way to offer increased interaction, coupons, calls to action, and integration with review sites, business directories, social media sites, and home pages. They can be inserted into many of the major web based email programs as well as traditional email clients. The images can be hosted on your web server or ours.

    We’ve considered branding for the email signatures can range from “mini-web sites at the end of your email” or “custom HTML email signatures”. When we do keyword research for doing our SEO, keyword terms like, “professional email signatures,” “email signatures for business”, and others come up so we might use those.

    On our home page, we currently have a huge image of the email signatures product with a giant button that says, “Learn More”. This is in response to feedback we got about our old page design which lacked a central call to action. In the future, we’d like to have that central image and text swap out in what’s called a “content slider”.

    This is a new product for us and we’re still doing customer development and looking for feedback. We’ve done many customer interviews and implemented a lot of what we heard in order to continue to iterate the product. The end product may change from where it is now, but so far, it’s shaping up to be something people really like.

  • Indianapolis Dentist Hires Pre-Med Teen as Summer Intern

    Indianapolis dentist, Dr. Ted Reese, DDS, MAGD, has hired a local high school graduate, Kishan, to intern this summer before entering the Pre-Med program at Duke University thus fall. Kishan graduated at the top of his class, but hopes to learn from one the best dentists in town. Dr. Reese allows Kishan to shadow him during patient visits in between Kishan’s other roles of assisting the office manager, Karen, and doing a summer email marketing newsletter for the Indianapolis Center for Implant and Sedation Dentistry where he is working.

    Erich Stauffer has been assisting Dr. Reese with his marketing campaign and recently with Kishan as he learns how to use Constant Contact, our preferred email marketing software. Kishan is a whiz on the computer and a fast learner. We’re sure he’ll do well at Duke and we wish him well this summer in Indianapolis.

  • Introduction to Groupons

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    Groupons is a company and a website with a unique business model that is mutually beneficial to vendors, customers, and Groupons itself. Vendors like retail outlets contact Groupons about goods or services they would like to package and promote. Groupon reps work with the vendor to create an ad that runs in a daily email newsletter. Each coupon has a quota and if enough people purchase a package, all packages sell at once. Groupons takes a small percentage of the sale and mails the vendor a check the next day. Customers get the coupon immediately for use.

    Because Groupons only makes money when you, the vendor, makes money you can be sure that the ad reps will help paint your company and products in a good light. There is very little risk and a lot of potential exposure. Even if not enough coupons are sold, your brand will still go out to thousands of potential new clients who may use your business in the future.

    If you want to learn more about how Groupon works, check out their guide site. At Erich Stauffer, we can also assist with helping your company apply to Groupon or setup an email marketing campaign of your own. We prefer Constant Contact, but we are also familiar with Delivra. We recommend email marketing be a core part of your overall marketing strategy and advertising budget.