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.
