The new rivers of gold, part 2: your list

Serendipity.

According to Dictionary.com it means:
1. an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident.
2. good fortune; luck.

Here’s a third definition:

When a real-life example of the very thing you are scheduled to blog about actually occurs in front of you.

In this case I’m referring to the benefits of a good and well-maintained ‘mailing’ list.

You see it was 5.58 last night and I was about to pack up for the day. Typically of course the phone rings.

Turns out it’s a name I’d heard of but just couldn’t place.

Further prodding reveals that it was an attendee of a seminar I’d given several months ago.

Now while delivering an event may well help expose my brand to the caller for future reference, the caller told me that it was in fact my regular eNewsletters that had prompted her to call.

Now several months later, she says that because the eNewsletters appear so regularly in her inbox and that much of the information is relevant to her business, I seem like someone she knows quite well.

Now she is looking to have a new website created and I was the first person she thought to contact.

All this because at exactly 10.51am on March 11, one of my team entered her details into our Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system after she agreed to ‘opt-in’ to our eNewsletter list.

And ever since, my eNewsletters have come a knocking on her inbox just like an old friend.

So that minute or two to enter her details, in tandem with a commitment to regular communication, are now likely to yield me a valuable piece of business.

And therein lies the magic of a well-maintained list.

New life to an old technique

While mailing lists have always been invaluable, the web has given them astonishing new powers.

In the past, members of such a list may have received the odd newsletter in the post or occasional phone call.

But even these low cost activities now seem expensive compared to what’s possible today.

Nowadays at the touch of a button you can send unlimited members personalised and graphical emails about information specifically geared towards their business at your chosen time of distribution.

So good is the personalisation of these e-missives that I often get recipients hitting the reply button to thank me personally for this week’s musing.

And, providing you have a good Email Marketing System (EMS), these amazing viral agents can cost you absolutely nothing.

That’s right. Up to tens of thousands of recipients receiving your valuable personalised information for no cost at all apart from your time in creating it.

No wonder professional marketers consider email marketing more than twice as effective as Search Engine Marketing (including both ‘organic’ search results and paid advertising) and a mind-boggling more than five times the effectiveness of telemarketing.

The same survey last year (as conducted by America’s Direct Marketing Association and reported in industry bible eMarketer) reported a staggering 4565% return on investment from email marketing.

That’s right – a return on investment of $45.65 from every dollar spent on the tactic.

So why haven’t you heard about these kind of results before?

So cheap it’s not worth publicising

It’s very simple. There’s little vested interest in spruiking the amazing results of email marketing.

Unlike Google, eBay and other online giants, nobody really makes much out of email marketing because it is so cheap.

Therefore no firm in this industry niche possesses a fraction of the PR muscle that these organisations boast. And so you never hear about it.

But while the return on investment is enormous in anyone’s book, it’s not necessarily easy to ensure this kind of ROI.

The biggest obstacle for smaller organisations in getting a great result from their email marketing is something they have little of. Time.

Great email marketing relies heavily on great content. And unless you have the time or skills to provide that on a regular basis you won’t get the traction required to keep you top of inbox and top of mind.

Commitment to content creation critical

The best way to get around this is to make an ironclad commitment to coming up with new content on a regular basis.

For example, my regular blogs are due first thing on Wednesday morning to meet the deadline I’ve agreed to.

Therefore, I schedule myself to write my content every Monday night. Not only does this give me an extra day to make any changes or improvements, but allows me to reschedule to the following night in case I have a scheduling problem.

I also keep a running list of topics. Whenever an idea for a new story or piece of content comes to mind, I make sure I don’t entrust it to the greying matter and commit it to the list.

So come content creation time I’ve got a nice list of topics to choose from.

But you don’t need to take the total responsibility for this. Get staff and/or other stakeholders to contribute to the list. This can be done by using a shared document or online collaboration tool such as Editgrid.

Remember too that the first eNewsletter is always the most difficult. But once you have your first eNewsletter created and on its way, you can simply use that as a “style template” for future editions.

If this all sounds too much, a great way to proceed is to get professional help with your first eNewsletter, then gradually take over the reins at a pace to suit your time, budget and comfort level.

Tooling up

Another piece of advice that you will save you a small fortune in productivity is to ensure your CRM is integrated with your website and EMS.

This way you have centralised data about people on your list that impacts on all of your online communications instead of one that requires multiple database maintenance touch points.

This integration also ensures that list members can log in via your website to make any changes to their contact details – again improving your productivity.

Finally, like they say in the ads, results won’t happen overnight, but they will happen. Just stay committed and consistent and the results will follow.

So treat any contact you come across in your daily life as a little nugget that you can add to your list (with their permission) that may one day provide a virtual gold mine.

For more Internet Secrets, click here.

Craig Reardon is a leading eBusiness educator and founder and director of independent web services firm The E Team which provide the gamut of ‘pre-built’ website solutions, technologies and services to SMEs in Melbourne and beyond.