Yellow Dog Consulting

Sales & Marketing Consulting for solo-preneurs.

Newsletter Timing

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my newsletterI talk a lot with clients and others about having a newsletter. A consistent form of communication with your network to let them know what you’re up to and give them a “taste” of the method to your madness. I just sent out my May newsletter and started wondering what time of day and day of the week had better results. There is all sorts of data out there about when to send a newsletter and who reads what, when. But the fact of the matter is, it depends on your audience and target market. Start playing with it.

Here’s my 2013 stats:

January Newsletter: sent Wednesday at 9 AM had a 27% open rate

February Newsletter: sent Wednesday at 9 AM had a 25% open rate

March Newsletter: sent Thursday at 9 AM had a 24% open rate

April Newsletter: sent Wednesday at 12:30 PM had a 28% open rate

May Newsletter: Sent Thursday at 12 PM, so far at 29% open rate (the Thursday before Memorial Day Weekend)

No matter how long you’ve been sending out your newsletter take some time to play around with the time of day and day of the week you send it. you might be surprised by the results, or they may stay relatively the same. But it’s good to change it up every once in a while!

Ask Yellow Dog: Customer Referrals

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Last week at a workshop I got a GREAT follow up email from someone asking:

How we can encourage and motivate current and past customers to recommend us to other potential customers?

GREAT question! I’m assuming you have a list of current and past customers (hopefully in email form) that you can reach out to. Here’s a few ideas:

1. Referral Campaign– Full Circle Farms does great referral campaigns, any time someone puts my name down when they setup their account, I get $10 off my next box of produce. They do bigger pushes throughout the year where if I refer someone my friend gets a discount AND I get a discount to get started. This could work to send an email to all your current/past customers and say you save 10% for anyone who puts your name in the referral field (which you’d have to add to your ordering page), OR give them a code (FRIEND or MEMORIALDAY), etc. Make sure there’s a limit to it- valid through Monday of Memorial Day or Fathers Day weekend only, etc.

2. Do you notice when you order something from Amazon that after you place your order it says “share with a friend” and you can tweet/FB/email your network and tell them what you just bought? Likewise, when I sign up for a contest sometimes there’s a landing page after I enter that says “share with friends” and asks for the email addresses of friends to send a note to.

3. Promo Cards– my husband bought really fancy Bose headphones and when they came, inside the case the headphones are in there were 5 business cards about the headphones. That way when he’s on a flight and someone asks him about his headphones he can just give them a card. BRILLIANT. Sure he might take out those cards and put his own business cards in there, but I know him well enough to know they’ll just stay right in that headphone case and he’s DREAMING of the day he can talk about his headphones. I’m okay with it as long as I don’t have to hear it! For you, throwing in 3 promo cards with each order, and maybe it has a 10% off code on it (or free shipping, etc.) would be an easy thing to do.

Another Successful Introduction Tips…

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Here’s the short of it: if YOU want something from ME, be on top of it.

I got an introduction the other day from a colleague introducing me to someone who thinks I’d be a good fit for their networking group. And 24 hours later I still hadn’t heard from the person who “wants me” evidently. I was polite and replied because of the colleague who took the time to make the intro, but it amazes me: if you ask someone for a referral, they give you that referral and you let it drop, why would I trust you with my business?

If you get slammed at work with a big project and know it’ll be a couple of days until you truly can get back to me, that’s OK, just say so. I”ve gotten emails before that say “happy to connect- have a crazy client project for the next 48 hours, will send you info by the end of the week.”

Whatever it is, don’t leave me hanging bro.