For one of my new projects, I had to sign up for GetResponse, an email marketing service. Since I had to get a subscription anyway, I wondered if there was a way I could use the app to improve my freelance practice. Email newsletters are often used for product promotion, so why not use it to  market my services?

While it might seem to be too late for me to hop on the email marketing bandwagon, I see very few options that offer the same effectiveness for reaching my customers, particularly with my client base. Many of my clients aren’t tech savvy, which means they don’t have social-networking accounts, so I can’t contact them using Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Also, I doubt that many of them return to my web site after we’ve started working together.

In order to maximize the effectiveness of my email marketing campaign, I had to plan what kind of messages I would send to my customers. Here’s what I came up with:

Provide general business information to clients. Educating our clients is always a good thing. It’s not enough to just give them our work output — I have to teach them how to use it well. But this often burdens me with hours of repetitive tech support. With the use of email marketing services, I can keep clients updated with the latest industry trends, as well as what they can do to adapt.

Promote new work. An email list can also be a good venue to tell others about the current work you’re doing. Did you just publish a new book? Are you launching another web app? It’s a good way to promote your new projects and show your clients how much you’re growing professionally. After all, the more skills you learn and the more experience you gain, the better you’ll be able to help their business.

Share feedback. If a client writes to you and tells you that your work increased their sales by 150 percent, wouldn’t you be proud of it? Just make sure that you have a client’s consent before featuring their comments on your newsletter.

You don’t have to share purely positive feedback, either. You can mention client complaints, but include the steps you took to fix the problem, and what your client had to say after. This brings some honesty into your testimonials, and should make them stand out from the usual testimonials that skeptical clients tend to gloss over.

Hand out exclusive offers. You can also use your mailing list to send out exclusive offers that will alert inactive clients to any new services or products you are offering. In my experience, it’s more effective to contact people who already know you and have worked with you before. They’ll always be more comfortable about rehiring you, compared with new prospects who have never heard of you.

During my first year as a freelancer, I ran into a “dry spell” for a couple of months. I had no new leads, and my current clients didn’t seem to need any work from me. While I didn’t subscribe to an email marketing service, I used my email contact list and sent out a message offering some of my services for a small discounted fee if they sent me successful referrals. I received several new, referred clients, and, thanks to the discount,  several existing clients were encouraged to rehire me for future projects.

Learn the interest level of your customers. While some of the tips above could be done just by sending emails with your regular email client, tracking your clients’ interest level is something you can only do with an email marketing service. You can check who opens your messages, clicks the links embedded in your emails (and which links they click on), or buys something through your site.

Like any other communication tool, mailing lists shouldn’t be abused or you risk losing your audience. As long as you’re providing value to your subscribers, your messages will always be welcome in their inboxes.

Do you use email newsletters or email marketing software to keep in touch with clients? If so, how has it affected your business?

Image by lusi from sxc.hu

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I have a new toy, and today is Show and Tell.

The company is CampaignMonitor. I looked around for easy-to-use and affordable options for sending mass html e-mails and found plans that were too expensive for my needs, or tools that required more IT knowledge than I had. I needed to send a nice-looking e-mail newsletter to members of the social network I launched because the mass e-mail feature included with the platform I use is just pathetic.

To be honest, I’ve never been so thrilled by a web app. With my new toy I can send beautiful HTML e-mails to a bunch of people at once. They have 28 templates to choose from if you can’t do the HTML yourself, but you do have to be able to do basic editing of an HTML file in the editor of your choice.

I can create different subscriber lists for different purposes. Then, once I’ve sent my e-mail, I can see who unsubscribed, who opened, who forwarded, which links within the e-mail were clicked and how many times, which e-mails bounced, and lots more. Not only is it tons of fun, it is an extraordinarily useful professional tool. Plus, it could be a revenue stream in itself; you can brand the app and offer mass-mailing services to your own clients.

I created a free account with CampaignMonitor and imported all the members’ e-mail addresses from a csv file I’d created. I then uploaded the HTML e-mail I had. CampaignMonitor let me do a test to see what the e-mail would look like in the top 18 web, desktop and mobile e-mail clients:

Once I sent the e-mail, I had access to a Reports tab that instantly showed me how my subscribers had reacted to the e-mail (and continues to provide stats today, three weeks later). I was enlightened by the results. I found out a former grad school classmate unsubscribed (to my surprise and annoyance) and I learned just how many people were interested in the contest I’d advertised; they’d clicked on the link to learn more about the prize.

I stopped sending Christmas cards several years ago, and decided to make a personal website with an annual review of what my family has done every year. Beats a form letter and I can include lots of pictures. At the end of the year, I send an e-mail to all my closest friends and family with a link pointing them to the new page. I’ve just created a kitschy, tongue-in-cheek “announcement” that I’m sending through CampaignMonitor this year instead. (I told you it was fun!)

I’m sure I’ll also be using it to send pro e-mail updates to clients, like the people I translate for, and sub-contractors, like the people who translate for me. Given the interest in branding these days, including personal branding, CampaignMonitor offers an elegant way to publicize your personal or corporate brand.

CampaignMonitor subjects every new subscriber list to their approval process in order to prevent people from using the service to send spam. They also offer incredible security so that your subscribers’ contact info is as safe as it can be.

I nearly forgot about the pricing! You pay only $5.00 per mailing plus $0.01 per recipient. By far the most reasonable option I found.

The UI is clean and intuitive, the organization of content is pretty much flawless. I could go on and on, but I suggest you just go and try it for yourself! You won’t be disappointed. (Thanks for the tip, Demian!)

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