Class Summary: Growing Your Business with Email Marketing

Two weeks ago, Dana Pethia of Constant Contact presented a workshop about the use of email as a marketing tool for entrepreneurs and small business owners. Attendees commented that the information she presented was "very informative," "a great resource," and "practical, up to date marketing." 

The course presented information comparing what Dana referred to as "ISP email" such as Outlook, Gmail, and so forth, with email delivery services such as Constant Contact (and there are others) that do more than just send and receive email, but also include tracking of how many messages are opened, archiving past email newsletters on the web so they can be linked to later, and other statistics that help you to understand how your subscribers are interacting with your communication.

One of the big things that she stressed throughout the workshop was the idea of permission. It's important to be sure you have permission to send your messages to the people on your list.  Not doing so is spam. Not having that permission (and not reminding people that they gave you permission) can get you reported, leading to a dramatic increase in the number of your emails that go strait into the junk mail folder.

The other general topics covered included tips for increasing responses, statistics about what is common or average (including the most common times and days of the week that email newsletters get opened), best practices, good and ethical ways of building your list of subscribers, content that can be used for your messages, designing both the look and the delivery information of your emails, and additional resources for things like finding good colors and writing subject lines.

Full Disclosure:  Constant Contact allows Community Capital Development and the Washington Women's Business Center to use their services at below the regular rate as an in-kind contribution.