E-Newsletter Marketing
Colorado Potters Guild e-invitation (click to enlarge)
As the web mistress for the Colorado Potters Guild, I volunteered to handle email invitations and internet sign-ups for the Guild’s e-communications. I researched a lot of different software applications and companies that could tackle the job into the future before settling on Vertical Response for a variety of reasons including ease of use, cost based on use and not monthly fee, variety of applications, and the fact that it’s web based. The first 500 emails are free to send after which the service costs anywhere from .03¢ an email to .01¢ depending on size of list – the larger the list, the cheaper the cost per email address). The Guild’s email list is less than 100 strong right now – but our snail mail list is 6,000 – 7,000 strong.
One of the goals for the next few years is to move away from mailing out invitations and to rely more on web marketing - imagine the cost savings of a .01¢ per email sent versus .42¢ to send a postcard in the mail twice yearly ($60 versus $2520 for 6,000 invitations sent – not including post card printing costs). The trick lies in getting people on our current mailing list to switch to email invitations. We do not currently advertise any other events, though we might begin opening the studios on First Fridays and other local events.
I’m learning that there is a down side to e-marketing though – based on Vertical Response’s statistical data tools, only 46% of the people on our email list have actually opened our invitation. That means that the email newsletter is ending up in people’s spam folders and might not even get looked at. I’m going to add a disclaimer on our website to please add our vertical response email address to folk’s address books so that our invitations don’t end up as spam – since these are people who want to receive an invitation. I hope to talk to people at the Guild’s sale next weekend in person to explain why they might not have received an e-invite.
Hand-built butter dishes
Meanwhile, I’ve continued making work right up till Friday – but alas, the time has come to stop and switch gears. I need to load the kiln and get this work bisque fired so that I can glaze on Monday, fire on Tuesday and inventory/photograph on Wednesday.
Flower printed box
I don’t have 105 pots (allowance per guild member), but I have made about 60 buttons to fill in the gaps. Whatever doesn’t sell, will make it’s way to my Etsy Shop – which I will empty of pots for the show next weekend. The jewelry will stay in my shop since we aren’t allowed to bring any to the Guild’s sale…yet.
Meanwhile, I thought I was going to buy a new computer this weekend. My daughter has been home sick and yesterday, she spilled a full glass of ginger ale on my laptop’s keyboard. Not healthy, non? Unfortunately (or fortunately), my geek instincts took over and I quickly flipped the computer over to allow it to drain, unplugged it, took all the guts out and waited 6+ hours before reassembling it. With bated breath, I was half disappointed that it booted right up, faster than before. Since I had it disassembled, I took the opportunity to clean everything with compressed air – no more crumbs, hair balls or dust anywhere. My daughter was very upset, thinking that I was going to be really upset with her – but hey, it’s just a thing right? Dang, no new computer…but my files weren’t lost either!
Have a good weekend,
~Cynthia
P.S. If you have a e-marketing solution that you’d like to share, let me know – I’d love to hear about what services and companies that you use to get the word out about events.
Eva
April 25, 2009 at 12:39 pm //
… went to the website. Wanted to see pictures, but — alas! — it is Flash.
Is there no way to renounce on this software?
The Jacob-Nielsen-disciple
Eva
Cynthia
April 26, 2009 at 9:37 am //
Sorry Eva – slide show is only way to have a simpler page without the clutter. I’m all for simpler sites, but think that the minority of people who can’t see flash is not worth changing it for. But, did you go to http://coloradopotters.org/artists? This page has images in non-flash as well as slideshow capability.
Shawn McCann
April 25, 2009 at 5:00 pm //
Thanks for the great info Cynthia. I am always looking for good apps for the e-marketing side of things. Ps, love the butter dishes!
Cynthia
April 26, 2009 at 9:39 am //
Thanks for the comments about butter dish
Vertical Response was what I ended up settling on and while not exactly what I was looking for, it’s not too bad. I did look at the software my daughter’s school PTA uses (Constant Contact), but didn’t like it as much for some reason or another – might have been cost factor.
ang
April 25, 2009 at 5:44 pm //
oh nicely done..good old spam file i gave up using mine it kept pinching emails i needed, now gmail takes care of that occaisionally it pinches an email or 2 but its better than my home one..good luck getting peeps to sign up with email, i’m sure you’ll be good at schmoozing on that one..
Cynthia
April 26, 2009 at 9:41 am //
I don’t have any spam filters on any of my email accounts, which unfortunately numbers 5 now, for precisely that reason.
I do have a gmail account and wish I liked the interface more, but I hate that I can’t set up folders. I like a nice tidy interface and don’t want to see old messages.
ang
April 27, 2009 at 4:46 pm //
I use a desktop widget that gets all new messages so i don’t have to look at all those messages..the only time i do is went i’m searching for an old message..i just had a look there is a document subheading that has folders in it..
Mary T.
April 25, 2009 at 5:55 pm //
Nope no emarketing tips from this girl. In fact I’m not even a good shopper! I went to the Bead Bazaar today and there were 3 functions I could spy at the Mart, Pavillion and Expo. I just couldn’t find a parking space and said, “Well there are more cars than spaces and NRA folks look a little creepy to me, so off to home I go,” after cruising for a parking spot for 20 minutes. Somethings are just better left undone.
Cynthia
April 26, 2009 at 9:41 am //
Bummer – I saw the ads for the bead expo and was sure you would be there.
LB
April 25, 2009 at 6:08 pm //
I am working on getting more folks to sign up for my mailing list and it’s not easy! Vertical Response looks great! I will keep that in mind. I am looking for a good free email newsletter template at the moment!
Cynthia
April 26, 2009 at 9:44 am //
If I sent out any e-newsletters from my own account, I would probably go with Vertical Response for my personal stuff. It’s not terribly expensive to use – at the low end, $15.00 for 500 emails sent. I can spend more than that buying fancy coffee drinks for family of 3
I did find some free open source software to download, but I didn’t have time to dink around figuring out how to use it.
ron
April 25, 2009 at 7:12 pm //
Hey.I’m using VR in addition to my snail mail list. I’ll have to go back and check my stats but I think it’s being received by most of my folks.
Glad your computer survived.
Cynthia
April 26, 2009 at 9:46 am //
That’s good to know, Ron – Since our email sign up list is fairly new, we have some work to do in order to publicize it more. I think we’ve only been collecting addresses for the past 2 shows. Since putting the form on our website, we get at lease 10 a month just by people landing on the site with minimal promotion.
New computer would have been nice…sigh. Not meant to be.
Linda Starr
April 25, 2009 at 10:20 pm //
Your butter dishes are exquisite. I have heard folks use Constant Comment and like it. I’ve rarely had it go into my spam filter, but I think I signed up for it, so perhaps that prevents it. That might be an answer for folks to receive it, if they can pre-sign up for it, you could snail mail notify them to sign up for the e-newsletter. Maybe an incentive for them to sign up, like – “the first so many people that sign up receive a…” (one of your buttons or a discount or something)
Glad your computer is ok.
Cynthia
April 26, 2009 at 9:47 am //
Hey Linda – I just switched the email sign up form to Vertical Responses for that reason – it automatically adds people to the Guild’s mailing list making it easier for me too.
Since it’s not my email list, no incentives – but good idea should I ever have the need for a personal marketing list.
cindy shake
April 26, 2009 at 1:29 pm //
It seems the biggest challenge is reaching everyone and not getting caught in much needed and necessary filters. Snail mail and printing prices those options out of the market and becomes a non-option.
Lately I received several e-mailed show related announcements from “Email marketing software” which had a link from i contact.com -there was a link that I followed a free educational eCourse on Email Marketing… not sure if this would help. I noticed that the Graphic Designers Group here use doteasy.com to send out their e-announcements.
Cynthia
April 27, 2009 at 8:10 am //
I suppose the co-op nature of the guild makes it easy to afford postage and printing costs since we all share in the operational expenses. Unlike a gallery, we don’t take a large percentage of each individual artist’s proceeds – but we do take out operational expenses for each show such as venue rental, postage, printing, print advertising etc. It amounts to about 15-18% per person.
I might have looked at i-contact – I’ll take another look though – thanks!