The ins and outs of e-newsletters
I recently had an email conversation with Dani Nordin, principal of The Zen Kitchen, about her studio’s marketing – in particular, email marketing. Dani specializes in eco-friendly marketing communications and publishes a monthly e-newsletter, Notes From The Zen Kitchen as part of her marketing and self promotion efforts.
Notes From The Zen Kitchen is an elegantly produced css-based newsletter with an interesting angle. In addition to studio news and a “tip of the month,” Dani includes one of her very own recipes. Subscribers not only keep up-to-date with Dani, they get a useful tip and learn how to eat well. Not a bad deal for the price of admission, which is free. Hmmm ... let’s use “complementary.” It sounds better.
One thing that separates Dani from most of the other designers out there is that she rolled up her sleeves, figured out where she wanted to go and put together a marketing plan. Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m always talking “plan.” But, truth be told it really is important to go through the exercise. Something magical happens when you have a written plan staring you in the face. First, you’re more likely to follow through with your marketing because you have a road map. Second, you get to feel pretty darn proud for putting together a tome that rivals anything you’ve ever won an award for creating.
I asked Dani about how she developed her plan. Here’s what she wrote back:
“Okay, well this goes back to the reason I started the studio in the first place. I had been working as a contractor with a large company for about five months when they laid me off (on my day off, no less) right before Christmas. I’d been wanting to have my own studio for a while, so I decided to take the opportunity to fly down to Florida to meet my boyfriend’s parents and figure out the structure of my studio.
I started thinking about who I was, what I wanted the studio to be, who I wanted to work with, all that stuff — and I started writing it down. I also read a couple of books on starting your own business, which helped a lot.
The marketing plan (and business plan) was actually pretty easy to do — I found a sample plan online and based the structure on that while inserting my own information. As for the marketing plan, Ilise Benun has a great worksheet on her site that I found and filled out for myself, with definable action steps by month until June.”
For a lot of folks, the time and effort needed to build a list can be daunting. But it doesn’t need to be that way. For instance, my main shooter guy, Shawn Wood with Studio 7, and I were having lunch a while back. He was looking for ways to increase his visibility and get more business. It’s worth saying here that he already is the ipso facto photographer in the area, shooting sports icons, presidents and rock stars. But hey, work is work and it’s better to have more than not enough.
Alas, I digress. I suggested Shawn develop an e-newsletter. They’re inexpensive, relatively easy and great way to get, or stay, on the radar screen. We went back to the studio, signed him up with MailerMailer and put together a broadcast email to everybody in his address book. It’s important to note that these were folks he had relationships with and not strangers. The purpose of the e-mail was simply to announce the newsletter. Within 15 minutes of hitting the “Send” button, folks started to sign up to receive it. As for results, after he sent his first newsletter out, a prospect who was on the list – a big one – called. Shawn had been trying to get in there for years. They commissioned him for a gig that was worth several grand. Not too shabby a return for a small investment in time and resources.
As for Ms. Dani, she built her list the old fashioned way – by networking her head off. She said, “I do a lot of networking events, and I had a lot of contacts from Providence (RI), and some clients; so I just took all their e-mail addresses and put them on the list. If I meet you at a networking event and you give me your card (especially if we spend some time talking), you’re on the list. I’m very good about taking people off if they ask to unsubscribe (I’ve only had two), but I will never add someone unless they’ve had some kind of contact with me.”
This method is known as “opt-out.” That’s when a newsletter publisher adds people to their list and those folks then have the choice to remain on the list or be taken off. In most cases, a simple, “Can I add you to my list?” is enough to get a “Sure.” “Opt-in,” on the other hand is when visitors actively request to be added to your list, typically through a form on your site, but also by phone, personal contact and such.
When it comes to producing your e-newsletter there are several options to pump up your publishing prowess. You can take the low tech approach and simply send a plain text or html message using your email application (Outlook, Mac Mail, PowerMail, Thunderbird, etc.), or you go with a list manager like Constant Contact, Emma or MailerMailer. List managers aren’t very expensive and can make your publishing efforts run smooth.
Nordin tried a couple of options when she began publishing her newsletter. “I was originally using a free mail script that I found online and attached to my website. It was a bit wonky, but fine for my first newsletter. When I sent out my second (it’s all HTML with CSS), the program stripped almost everything I had, and I had to send it five times to get it to actually look right. I got two unsubscribes as a result of that mess. Now, I use Constant Contact, on a recommendation from a friend. It’s a lifesaver — so easy to use.”
The handy thing with using a list management service it gaining the ability to track your subscribers. Most give you the ability to see, by name, email address or both, who opened your newsletter, when, how many times, what they clicked on and more. That’s a huge help in learning what’s important to your audience. Plus, they handle the opt-in stuff and generate the form code to pop on your site.
The buzz is that folks aren’t very open to giving away information about themselves on the Net. Baloney. When I did my e-newsletter a while back I asked a boat load of questions on my subscribe page – name, address, company, phone numbers, if they bought or supplied design services, what kind of stuff they bought, etc. I was stunned to find that nearly every subscriber answered everything. The point is that if you’re offering something people believe to be of value, they’re more than happy to trade some info for it.
The biggest stumbling block for many is coming up with content. I recommend picking a topic that’s broad enough to have something to say, yet narrow enough to be of relevant and of value to your niche. Also, writing several newsletters in advance is a good idea so you’re always ahead of the game.
Dani had this to say about how she goes about developing her content: “Overall, coming up with the content generally involves pulling from things I’ve done already — I have a folder on my hard drive called “articles” and another called “recipes” — I type it up in Word docs or Text files and label it red if I’ve used it already. I have six main things I need to update every month (down from the eight or nine I had in my first newsletter)—News Items, Recent Blog Entries, a Tip of the Month, a Recipe of the Month (cuz, you know, I’m the Zen Kitchen), a Random Quote of the Month, and a short blurb about the month in review.
The recipes I tend to type after I’ve cooked them — I’m very intuitive in the kitchen, so I tend to make incredible stuff but not remember what I did afterwards. The recipe for Thai Chicken Soup that was in my first newsletter ended up going in because my boyfriend was so enamored with it he told me in no uncertain terms that I had to make it for him again. So, I started typing the really good ones down as I came up with them, and now I have a brief collection.
The same thing happens with articles — I’ve been blogging since 2002 (my business blog is new, but I’ve had a personal one for years), and journaling since 1990, so generally I just come up with ideas based on things that come up in my day. The Random Quote of the month comes from a text file on my computer full of random quotes that I just enjoyed. I have a lot of Douglas Adams and Oscar Wilde in there, with a little Scott Adams and some other random folks.”
If you have a little savvy, producing your newsletter isn’t a huge time investment. My newsletter, after I created the initial design and worked out the bugs, usually took less than a half hour to do.
“The template took me about 2 hours to build with HTML and CSS; once the template is created and your format is set, if you’ve been creating the content as you go along as I tend to do, I’d say it’s about a half-hour a month to update it and send it out. The articles and stuff take time for me, but once you have a stockpile, you can just pull them and add them to the newsletter,” said Nordin.
So, is it worth the effort? Dani’s had success. “After it goes out, I would say I get at least four or five e-mails back saying ‘Great newsletter!’ or ‘This is beautiful, Dani (I get this one a LOT).’ In this most recent (my third) edition, which announced the revamp of my site, as well as a new client and new speaking engagement, about an hour after it went out I got an e-mail from someone who had actually downloaded and filled out my questionnaire and sent it back to me. I now have a new client.”
She added, “I think that the newsletter is definitely going to stay an important part of my marketing plan — it’s cheap as all get out ($13.50 a month right now), it’s easy to update, gets results, and as a designer with a strong green focus, it fits right into my philosophy. I’m also brainstorming a postcard campaign and a cookbook (for the holidays) as a mail campaign, and I’m going to continue with my online and in-person networking (although cut down on the time a bit). In addition, I definitely seem to be creating a niche with the green focus — I’ve gotten a good amount of response from people about what I do, and I definitely want to keep it up!”
Considering the plusses and few minuses, a relevant e-newsletter might be just the thing to round out your marketing arsenal.
