How should my email newsletter look?

Sending an email newsletter to your own opt-in database is an essential sales and relationship tool for ANY business. But what should this newsletter look like?

To cut your design costs, you should check out what other people are doing for some inspiration and best practice. I came across this great blog on email newsletter design at Campaign Monitor. It links to tonnes of great examples - and takes the time to explain why they link them.

Excellent for some "visual" inspiration. As for content, that's a whole other post!

Look for free listings on the web

I was reading an article about the extremely cute and clever Australian business Babybuds (those flowers are actually little singlets and jumpsuits!). As with all new businesses, they had little money to spend on marketing in the beginning, so they focussed on zero budget marketing ideas. One of these was looking for online communities or information websites where they could get a free listing.

Whilst there's a plethora of baby and kid information sites, there's also more than 100 million sites on the web. So start looking for ones that might provide a free listing for your business!

All hail word of mouth...but give it time and deliver outstandingly

Without doubt, the one lesson I've learnt as a marketer, is that the BEST marketing tool of all is sometimes the most elusive - postitive word of mouth.

It takes an excellent product or service, passionate customers - and time.

The St Jerome's Laneway Festival is a beautiful case-study in word of mouth and buzz. Originally started as a one off party for a bar (St Jeromes) the owner - Jerome of course - knew that all he had to do was create something great...and be prepared to wait. Three years later, you've got a national festival, sponsors knocking at your door and still an event that people rave about.

Moral of today's story - it won't happen overnight, but be committed to both doing it well and letting it grow - and it WILL happen.

Good ideas don't need to blow your budget

I love a clever little 3-dimesional marketing piece. This one got me because it would be really cheap to do, esp if you've only got a small quantity of people to mail.

The concept has a long breadstick which when you pull it out, is "stamped" with a message proclaiming "Our new oven makes this look like a dinner roll". Clever, huh?

So what's your cost on this. Rubber stamp, paper, bread, your time to deliver. Say a couple of days and a few hundred dollars. Not bad for a big impact.

Of course, the tricky bit is the idea! So get cracking...

Aust Post cant compete on personalised communication

Sent to my work address this week was a cute little mailer from Australia Post. On the outside it said "To: Kimberly From: Santa" as part of the design. And it was a sales piece from Aussie Post crowing about the ability to personalise design...for as little as $1.40 each.

And I had to think - gee, that's actually expensive. You mail the 6,000 people on my dbase for example and it would cost you $8,400 - and that's BEFORE you design anything.

Compare this to the cost of a personalised html email. To email 6,000 people it costs me $60. $8,400 versus $60. Sorry, Aussie Post, just no contest. Even if I did have the dosh, I'd rather spend it on email. I could use telemarketing to build a list AND send it for the same budget...and then keep sending...

So the moral of the story is: get working on building your opt-in email database!

So this MySpace thing...

Righto, so you can't afford a website? Why not get a MySpace page happening!

Now I'm not on MySpace - but I keep hearing about it so much, I thought I should give it a cruise. And I find it's a great mish-mash of a personal website, personal blog, music sharing, social networking, advertising, interaction, etc. And pretty customisable, peopled by tres cool people. I even found two people's sites I knew within a few clicks...now I find that very impressive, especially since I'm not that cool!

So if you're a groovy young brand, or hip freelancer, that wants to interact, be a touch edgy, then make your first foray into MySpace. It's TOTALLY zero budget and you're bound to earn some cool points...

What I learned from a hairdresser...

...ok, a hairdresser with 35 years in the business and a chain of 18-odd successful salons!

Vouchers - one of my favourite, yet underutilised, retail marketing tools - are even better that I thought.

You see, I was running a "Zero Budget Marketing" seminar for Wella. And I said that the crew at Loyalty Magic had confirmed for me what I'd always suspected - that when you get given a gift voucher, you spend on average 5-8 times the value of the voucher.

And this is where the hairdresser of my story says - try 10-20 times. You seen, his chain is SuperCuts. They hand out $10 "cheques" that people can bring in to cash in on a haircut/colour/style/etc.

He said people regularly brought these in and spent close to $200 - and this was a COMMON occurence.

So for all those who doubt the value of giving away a little something for nothing, I offer this story. $10 to get $200 - and a guaranteed sale, not $10 that MIGHT bring you $200.

Retailers - go give away more gift vouchers!