Yellow Dog Consulting

Sales & Marketing Consulting for solo-preneurs.

3 Newsletter Tasks to do Your First Year in Business

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3 Newsletter Tasks to do Your First Year in BusinessWhen you’re starting a business it’s hard to figure out what all you SHOULD do, versus what you want to do, need to do and have to do. When I am working with a company as they are about to launch a business I recommend three things when it comes to a newsletter.

  1. Send Out an Announcement Email –  I can’t support you and hire you if I don’t know you’re in business. It’s a big deal! You’ve started a business! Tell all your friends, family and colleagues about it! Get that announcement email out to your contacts. I recommend you do this almost immediately – but at least within the first 3 months
  2. Setup an Email Capture Form on Your Website – The sooner you can start collecting contact information from people, the better. Eventually you can setup a free gift but for now, just make sure you have a way for people to subscribe and give you their contact info. MailChimp makes this really easy with their forms – and your web developer will know how to do it too (and it’s a giant red flag if they don’t!)
  3. Start a Monthly Newsletter – You thought I wouldn’t suggest this? Once your business is up and running it’s time to have a monthly newsletter. Yes monthly. Once a month reach out to your contacts and let them know what you’re up to. What awesome tools have you discovered? What successes have you had with clients? What kinds of projects and services do you offer that people need to know about? I can’t hire you if I don’t know what you do. And I won’t hire you if I forgot you were in business.

Starting your own business is a LOT of hard work. And there are a bazillion moving pieces. It’s hard to figure out what you have to do, what you should do and what can wait. I can give you a million more ideas of what to do, but these are three things that I guarantee will set you up for success in the long run.

It’s Not too Late to Setup a CRM

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It's not too late to setup a CRMI’m talking a lot about CRM’s lately and it’s not a surprise. Your Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) is a vital piece of your growing business, but who wants to build a database?

Like it or not you need one. And ideally you setup your CRM when you’re just starting your business. But if you’re a few years into business and still haven’t done it, there’s no time like the present! Here are a few things to consider when setting up your CRM…

  • Your contact list isn’t your CRM – You need a dedicated database that contains ONLY your contacts for your business. A spot where you can save notes related to the client, or prospect, and set reminders to follow up with them.
  • Your newsletter program isn’t your CRM – I’m always surprised when people tell me that they have MailChimp setup and does that work as a CRM? It doesn’t. Technically you can make notes in MailChimp but that’s not it’s purpose. Setup a dedicated CRM that can integrate with MailChimp (I use Zoho CRM which does) so you can easily import contacts into your newsletter program.
  • Figure out what contact info you want to track – You may decide that you want all sorts of contact info available in your CRM including admins and multiple phone numbers. When you’re building your CRM you can customize the data. When you upload your lists it’ll make your life easier if you clean up the data and organize it up front.
  • Consider what kind of reminders and tagging you want to include – I make sure to reference how I met the contact – was it a client referral or a networking event? Did they come through my website or a speaking engagement? All of this should be tracked so you can follow up down the road when you have a new offering for that group.
  • Setup Templates  – Many CRM’s will allow you to setup templates so you can have a standard series of emails that go out. This is a feature that I’ll admit I don’t use, but I should. If your CRM has all the info you need, you can build a template that will even automate or plug in all sorts of details for you.
  • Use it! This is the most important thing. If you go through the trouble of setting up a CRM to manage your contacts make sure you use it! The second item on my to do list each week is “Zoho” which is my reminder to check in with my CRM and make sure I do the follow up or check in with clients/prospects as promised.

I believe you need a CRM and that it will help you grow your business and stay organized. If you need help, my friend wrote a great post a couple of years ago on how to choose the right CRM for you.

3 Things Your Speaker Marketing Plan Needs

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3 Things Your Speaker Marketing Plan NeedsI talk with a lot of speakers about their marketing efforts and I often share a few simple marketing tasks that can make your life as a speaker easier. This week I thought I’d share three I end up talking about most!

  1. Your Follow Up Email – You know exactly what you’re going to pitch when you get on that stage – so why isn’t your follow up email locked and loaded before you head out the door? Once you get home you can add in the contacts (more on that next) and make any final adjustments (a funny joke from the event you want to add in to personalize it?) and hit send!
  2. Ask for the List – Any time you speak you should be asking for (requiring) a list of the attendees WITH their email addresses delivered to you the day of the event. I am well aware some organizations aren’t allowed to share – and that’s okay. In that case make sure you’re passing around a sign up form (better yet – an iPad signup form so you don’t have to decipher handwriting when you get back to the office) and reference the follow up email that’s coming so they WANT to receive it.
  3. Adjust Your Automation – If you have a standard download on your website and you’re including it in your follow up email to attendees – make sure that you adjust whatever automation sequence is included if you need to.

You are speaking to groups because you want to grow your business by connecting from one to many instead of 1:1 meetings. Why not make sure that you’re following up in a timely manner and communicating with EVERYONE in the room right from the start? Don’t forget to have a handout and a great offer that makes it easy for your audience to say YES to working with you!