When most people think of email marketing, the first thing that pops into their heads is that dreaded word, “SPAM.”  Visions of inappropriate ads for adult products, promises of rapid weight loss, and pleas from widows who want you to help them launder their deceased husbands fortune seem to be the biggest associations with email marketing.

But, email marketing gets a bad rap because of these spammers and scum bags who flood our inboxes with their unwanted garbage.  Unsolicited email, or SPAM, is the bane of legitimate marketers who want to use email to effectively communicate with their customers and their community who have given them permission.

And permission is essential if you want to create an effective email marketing strategy for your local business.  Trying to send out tons of email to people who didn’t ask for it is, for all intents and purposes, SPAM.  Even if you have the best of intentions, your unsolicited email is no better than anyone else’s unsolicited email because the prospect didn’t ask for it.  Period.

Email marketing can be wildly successful for local businesses if done correctly.  You can communicate with your own community about your business, build a relationship by showing your human side, and increase revenues with a simple click of a button (or submission of your email program).  But how do you create a successful email marketing strategy?

Here are some tips to get you started:

• Always ask permission: When you create an email list for your local business, make sure you have permission to communicate via email.  I know there are a lot of people who will take emails they have collected with business cards or off a customer’s website, but this is just wrong.  You need to have explicit permission to send emails about your business to the recipient, or you may even be breaking some laws (see the CAN-SPAM Act).  Use a printed or online form to collect their email address, and let them know what they are agreeing to upfront.

• Give them a reason to subscribe: Today, not a lot of people will give you their email address for no reason.  Gone are the days when email was a novelty, and people would sign up everywhere.  You need to provide some value if you want people to subscribe to your list.  Create a special report, checklist, or white paper associated with your business, but that gives the subscriber good, relevant information.  For example, a plumber could create a checklist for homeowners who are winterizing their irrigation system.  You could also include some type of special offer or discount.

• Don’t just sell, sell, sell: If your only objective for email marketing is to sell, sell, sell, then you’re going to have a tough time keeping subscribers unless you are extremely creative.  A better tactic is to provide a combination of relevant information, human interaction, and selling.  Giving your subscribers good information keeps them interested, and offering a human touch builds a relationship.  For example, you might provide information that’s useful to your community in one email, while talking about your recent vacation with your family in another email.  After that, you can use all three by telling your subscribers how a new product you are carrying can help them out and how you use it yourself.

• Email on a regular basis, but don’t overdo it: In order to develop relationships in the real world, you need to stay in touch and show an interest in their lives.  The same holds true in virtual relationships using email.  You have to keep up the lines of communication so your community doesn’t forget about you.  But, you don’t want to become that “clingy” friend who others start to avoid, so don’t overload your subscribers’ email inboxes with emails (unless you have a very good reason).  Weekly or twice-weekly emails on a regular basis are good, and then you can throw in the occasional email blasts to your list when you have something important to say.  People won’t get annoyed with regular emails if you follow the tips above.

• Respect unsubscribe requests: Eventually, you are going to get unsubscribe requests.  Always respond to these quickly, and remove the person from your email list.  People change all the time, and sometimes they are no longer interested in your information.  Don’t take it personally, and if the reason they are unsubscribing is because of a bad experience with your business, it’s an opportunity to fix the issue with this person.  You still want to unsubscribe as soon as they ask, but you can also respond to their request and offer to make things right.  Who knows… they may decide to stay on the list and tell others about your great customer service.

As with most things in life, a little common sense goes a long way in making an email marketing strategy an effective part of the marketing mix for your local business.  At the end of the day, your subscribers would like to be treated the same way you’d like to be treated in all of your interactions: with respect, dignity, and a little human kindness.

Good luck with your email marketing efforts, and make sure you keep in touch!

Weezer is one of my favorite bands of all time.  From the first time I saw the quirky Buddy Holly video, I was hooked.  Weezer makes excellent pop songs that stay with you forever and appeal to not only me and my friends, but my kids as well.  And that’s no mean feat.

I recently came across a video and short article at the SPIN magazine website about Weezer frontman, Rivers Cuomo, and his efforts to promote the release of his second collection of demos, B-sides and obscure tunes called Alone II.  As part of the celebration, Rivers spent two-and-a-half hours playing songs with about 100 Weezer fans at a Long Beach, CA record store.  The really interesting part was that he didn’t just sit and sing himself…

“Prior to the show, Cuomo posted an online request asking Weezer lovers to learn his songs and bring an instrument of their choice to the store to take part in the “Hootenanny” — one of many such jam sessions he has thrown across the nation. Attendees arrived with everything from banjos and saxophones to keytars, flutes, and what seemed to be at least 50 relatively in-tune guitars.”

Called a “Hootenanny,” you can get a real feel for the event, and the joy it brought to those Weezer fans, by checking out the video on the site (sorry… they don’t allow embedding).  And, if you’re a fan of Weezer, don’t forget to go to their website – www.weezer.com – and check out all the videos they have available.

This got me to thinking about how any local business can use some of Weezer’s marketing ideas in their local business:

1. Have fun with it. Weezer obviously enjoys what they’re doing.  And they have a sense of humor.  If you’ve got a funny bone, don’t be afraid to let your customers know that you enjoy a good laugh.  Dress up on holidays or have theme days (i.e. if you’re a Star Trek fan and a new movie is coming out).  Send a joke of the day to your email list (as long as its tasteful).  Laugh early and often and your customers will get a good vibe from your business.
2. Get your customers involved.  The Hootenanny is such a great idea because it gets real fans involved, and because of this, it’s newsworthy.  There are lots of ways you can take this type of community participation and apply it to your local business.  For example, if you run a restaurant, you can set up a charity event where people bid on being a waiter or waitress, or even cook, for a day (or perhaps a few hours).  Or, you could invite one of the local luminaries (mayor, respected teacher, etc.) to work in your business for charity.
3. Provide lots of great content on your website.  On the Weezer website, I counted 86 videos on the Media page.  This content includes a lot of professionally-produced music videos for their songs, but even more interesting, are their own videos where they take fans behind the scenes and things like guitar tabs and lyrics on their Info page.  Can you take a video of the operations of your business?  Interview long-time or brand new employees.  If you manufacture something, take a short video of the production floor.  People love to look behind the curtains.
4. Lots of opportunity to share.  On all of their posts and content, Weezer offers an “Add This” button, which lets you send a link to that content via email, or share the content on Facebook, Twitter, or other social networking sites.  Using plugins or software like Add This or Share This (which is what I use on Life Is Local) allows people to quickly pass the information along to their friends and family.  Make it easy for your customers to share great info from your site and your content could go viral and new business is the result.  And, you can also join the Weezers site and email list (and once again, do you have an email list?).
5. Don’t be afraid to sell.  When you first go to the Weezer website (and you’re not logged in as a fan), you are presented with an offer for their new album, Raditude, and the Weezer Snuggie (yes, it’s the blanket with arms).  Even though this is a fun way to sell their album, they’re not afraid to pitch their product (the new album) and you shouldn’t be afraid either.  After all, you’re in business.  If you have a special deal or a sale going on, then let people know, and do it front and center.  And use your email list to drive people to the information on your website.  Don’t be bashful when it comes to making sales.

I’m always pleasantly surprised when I stumble across great marketing, and I’m especially pleased when its for a product or service I love (like Weezer!).  I ended up purchasing the $3.99 version of Raditude from Amazon.com, and I’m listening to it now.  So, take some time to check out the Weezer site and the SPIN article, and get your Weezer Snuggie while supplies last!

As an added bonus, here is a video from Weezer with Hootenanny instructions:

And, here’s my new favorite song, (If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To:

In a recent post, I talked about warming up a list for my Quilting Business website.  Basically, I have not communicated with the list for quite some time, and I need to reengage the community to build a relationship before I start to sell any products or services to them.  I’m doing this with a combination of humble apologies, giving them some great free resources, and by answering some of their questions.

Answering questions is a great way to bond with a list.  Every time I’ve asked for input from any of my communities, there’s been a flurry of questions and comments.  It seems that there’s a lot of people out there with questions, and answering their questions is a wonderful way of:

• Bonding with the list: When you answer a real question from a real community member, it shows that you are engaged and want to interact on a more personal level.  When you answer a question submitted in the questioners own voice, and answered in your own voice, it shows a sincere commitment to the community.
• Creating new content: Answering questions can generate a lot of new content for your website.  Depending on how many questions you want to answer, and the size of your community, you can develop a LOT of content quickly.  And the content is targeted to your most influential members – those who will raise their hands and ask questions.
• Showing your expertise: When you successfully answer a question, with some style and knowledge, you show the community that you know what you’re talking about.  Good answers build credibility for you and your business, and can work almost like a testimonial in helping move browsers into buyers.
• Increasing search engine rankings: When you answer questions that are right in line with the subject of your website, then you are doing what Google and other search engines want – generating targeted content that will answer people’s search queries.

Any business that wants to build a rapport with their community can use this tactic.  If you have an email list, send out an email asking for questions.  Make sure you specify what you are looking for in the questions.  Here’s what I told my Quilting Business community about submitting questions:

1. Be Specific: Try to narrow your questions to just one specific topic, not a general question. For example, asking me “how do I start a quilting business?” is not a very specific question, but “how can I market online to my local area?” is much better.
2. Be Concise: Don’t send really long questions. If you need to cover quite a bit, break it down into multiple questions instead of a very long single question with too much detail.
3. Be On Topic: Please confine your questions to how you can start, manage, market, and run a quilting business. I really want to make the content on this site as targeted and useful as possible.
4. Be Interesting: And finally, try to make your question as interesting as possible. Think about how you can frame the question in such a way that other people would want to know the answer as well. That way, everyone wins.

You can make up your own suggestions depending on what you’re trying to achieve.  You may want to tailor your question submissions to a specific event or time of year.  For example, a pool supply company may want to have questions about how to close a pool in the Fall so they can provide good information and suggest some supplies that are needed (available at our store) for the pool closing.

The more information that people have about your business, the easier it is to make a decision to purchase from you.  When you take the time to answer a lot of basic questions, and provide excellent content that’s useful for browsers, you’re sure to convert some of those browsers into buyers.

One of the websites I run is www.QuiltingBusiness.com.  This is a site I’ve had for over six years now (it might even be seven years), and it’s dedicated to helping quilters turn their passion for quilting into a full- or part-time business.  This is a classic information product website with a blog that tries to help quilters with their business-building questions.

I have over 6,000 quilters on an email list for Quilting Business, and I’ve developed a very good relationship with the list.  Well, in actuality, I had developed a good relationship but I let it lapse through neglect.  I hadn’t emailed the list a real-time email (I do have an autoresponder sequence) for over 18 months.  That’s right… a good year and a half.

Late last week, I decided to try and re-connect with the Quilting Business list, so I’m in the process of “warming up” the list.  Warming up is all about re-engaging that relationship that existed so the community can be brought back to life.  I can’t just pretend that I was there all along, supporting the community.  I need to take my lumps, explain why I was gone, and try to get back into their good graces by delivering some great content and really finding out what they want the Quilting Business community to be about.

If you’ve built a good rapport with your list (and remember… you NEED an email list for your small business), then warming up your list after an absence – short or long – is a great way to build upon your relationship and “take it to the next level.”  So, here’s what I’m doing to warm up my list:

1. Apologize and Explain: Just like a relationship with a spouse or parents, sometimes you need to take your lumps and apologize for your bad behavior.  And, since they will want to know, explain why the behavior happened.  In my case, I got caught up in my corporate job and felt I didn’t have the time.  This is, or course, not really true as I seemed to remember quite a bit of television viewing in the 18 months I didn’t email.
2. Start to Re-Engage: Just like an old high school buddy you haven’t seen for 20 years, you just can’t start back in with your email list like you never left off.  You need to get to know each other again, and find out what’s changed over the months (or years).  I’m using a poll and asking questions about what the quilters would like to see on the site, and finding out what kind of questions they have that I can answer.
3. Don’t Show Up Empty-Handed: You need to not only re-engage, but give them some gifts that help to show you are sincere about re-establishing that relationship that has lapsed.  In addition to finding out what they want, I’m providing answers to their questions and am also developing a quilt pricing spreadsheet to help them with their most frequently asked question (“How do I price my quilts?”).
4. Be Consistent: Now comes the hard part.  I’m rekindling the relationship, but now I have to show I’m committed.  I can’t lapse into silence again, or they may never believe me.  I have to make some promises about how often I communicate and the types of information I will provide, and then I will have to stick to the schedule.  And, when I’m going to be away on vacation or taking care of an emergency, I need to let them know ahead of time or just send a quick note.
5. Go Above and Beyond: Finally, if I want to keep a great relationship, I need to go above and beyond the call of duty.  Instead of just “phoning it in,” I need to deliver great content on a consistent basis, and surprise them with the quality and quantity.  I’m planning on selling some useful tools to this community, but in order to keep their trust, everything I do must be top-quality.  No skimping allowed!

If you follow these steps with your own community and email list, you can start to reap the benefits that come from having a great relationship with your community, and eventually, your customers.