How to Improve Your Profile in the Market

By David Fischer | February 17, 2017 |

As a public presenter, I am often asked, “do you take your own advice in terms of marketing?”

Well, that’s a great question because as you’ve noticed many marketing companies have conveniently succumbed to the “cobblers’ shoes” syndrome and consider it ok, to not take the advice they prescribe.

Like your business, Solutions for Growth is a small business that needs to market its services. We test new strategies and tools before they are ready for prime time and for use in client programs – and we don’t recommend things we don’t have intimate, first-hand knowledge about.

So with all of this, we track our own work as we learn from direct experience. We pay careful attention to see what works and what doesn’t. In this case we developed a new email Solutions for Growth Newsletter strategy, which included an increased frequency, content and layout.

Why did we do this? The success of our program over time had slightly waned, almost to the point where we didn’t notice the downturn.

CASE STORY

Solutions for Growth email analysis – first quarter 2017

  • In January 2017 Solutions for Growth tested a new format of its email newsletter
  • Goal was to increase engagement with email and garner more inquiries

In 2016 emails were monthly with one article with a single call to action at the end

In 2017 emails were weekly and contained 4 sections:

   1 – Video

   2 – Article on marketing subject

   3 – Article on marketing tool

   4 – Testimonial and a closing section

We ran the test for 5 weeks in 2017.

Results show that the new format had a:

  • 4.5% increase in open rate
  • 180% increase in click rate

Specifically for open rate, the higher open rates were tied to subject lines that provided a “why” or “how.” This means that our readers are hungry to learn about the specifics of marketing.

Specifically for click rate, 81% of clicks were on the video and the second most clicked item was either the article about a marketing subject or the Solutions for Growth website.


Takeaways:

  • Video in email works to provide detailed advice to the market and increase credibility and expertise of the speaker. Video also makes the company and speaker more human and approachable.
  • Content to be very specific for solid and detailed advice on marketing tools, techniques or processes.
  • Short is better, weekly emails will move to one video and one article with a brief call to action.

Click here to set up a call with me to discuss how Solutions for Growth can help you activate a marketing program that can be measured and fine-tuned.

Posted in Email Marketing Agency, Marketing for Small Businesses, Marketing Strategy