Yellow Dog Consulting

Sales & Marketing Consulting for solo-preneurs.

The Perks of Being Related to Me

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Having me for a big sister is pretty great, if you ask me. If you ask my two younger brothers, they may have some varying opinions on the situation over the past 30+ years. But late last month for my brother Jake, it was all worth it.

Jake has been on the job hunt this summer. When he and his wife moved back to Spokane after 2 years living in Prague (they say Spokane is the Prague of the Northwest…) he got a job teaching. He decided it wasn’t the right fit and he needed to look for something else. Here’s the thing about Jake & his wife – things ALWAYS work out for them. It’s ridiculous.

With my large network across the Northwest, we’ve been talking over the summer about companies that may be a good fit and I’ve been helping him to best network and take advantage of my contacts. So, in late August we were chatting and I asked if he’d contacted my friend Kevin. They know each other and so Jake sent Kevin a note. And then a few days later Kevin called me. They were scheduled to have coffee the next week, but this couldn’t wait.

Evidently someone in Kevin’s office left that they weren’t anticipating. And they had a position available ASAP and they needed someone with a teaching degree. Kevin wanted to talk with me to see if this is something Jake might even consider. To which I said multiple times “holy crap this is perfect for Jake!” So instead of a meet and greet and brainstorm coffee next week, Jake went to Kevin’s office the next day to meet with the CEO and ended his day with a new job.

Kevin summed up the point of all this well…

Don’t worry, I won’t EVER let Jake forget this.

What does this have to do with marketing and small business?

You need to use your network.

The whole point of spending time networking is to develop relationships. If I ignore you for years then call you up and ask for a favor, that’s not great. But if we keep in touch over the years, I see you at networking events, we grab beers once in a while, then when you need a favor (for your brother or yourself or a client or a colleague) you’re top of mind. And, when I’m looking for a connection or referral for someone, I haven’t forgotten about you because I saw you or heard from you recently. I will preach it till everyone gets it:

Networking Works.

Why Aren’t People Opening My Newsletter?

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Why Aren't People Opening My Newsletter?I received an email a few weeks back from a colleague who has a client that’s struggling with their MailChimp open rates. Like any newsletter program there’s always a strong chance that your newsletter can show up in their spam folders. It happened to a client of mine earlier today.

I had so many issues with a clients deliverability a few months back that I reached out to MailChimp to see what was going on. Here’s what Caleb (a fantastic customer service rep) said:

As you may know, open rates are not an exact science. There’s quite literally dozens and dozens of variables that can effect the open rate of campaigns and the average open rate, although it varies, usually doesn’t ever exceed 30%. That said, A low open rate generally indicates one of these things:

  • Your subject line is not relevant or interesting enough
  • Your list is composed of a wide variety of subscribers
  • You may be sending too many or too few campaigns

There’s also the consideration of updated security policies affecting delivery. These days more and more companies, public and private, are raising their DMARC security settings which can cause emails to be quarantined.

The first thing I have had clients do is to set up custom domain authentication which will help with their DMARC security settings. Here’s instructions on how to do this. I attempted to set this up for my website but HostGator wasn’t having it. I’ve since migrated my hosting (for a variety of reasons but this was the tipping point). I suggest having your web developer handle this unless you’re really tech savvy. (Don’t ask me for help on this specific thing, it is not one of my many talents.)

Review Your Open Rates

If you often have low open rates then it’s time to try out different times of day and different days of the week for delivery. MailChimp will let you try some A/B testing where you can try half the campaign with one time and the other half with another time/day. This way you can see what works better for your audience. I did this with a client and we’ve had better open rates since we analyzed those results!

Resend Your Newsletter

And a third option to help with your open rates is to resend the newsletter a few days later. Don’t change the subject line, just resend to everyone on your list who didn’t open the newsletter the first time. When I started to do this I realized I have a few colleagues who receive the newsletter at a couple of different email addresses, so we got that cleaned up after they commented on receiving my newsletter twice.

When your newsletter open rates are low it’s easy to get discouraged. Don’t get discouraged, get to work. It’s not them, it’s you. Try a new delivery time, try sending it again, make sure your technology is working WITH you not against you.

If you have questions or want to talk more about increasing your open rate, let’s chat.

5 Things I Want to See on Your LinkedIn Page

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5 things I want to see on your linkedin pageI talk a lot about LinkedIn when I talk about follow up. Why? Because it’s another great place to connect with your network and keep them informed of your awesomeness on an ongoing basis. But if that profile isn’t fully filled out, it’s time to fix that. You spend hours keeping your Facebook page up to date with the latest and greatest, so why aren’t you doing that for your business? Take 10 minutes in the next week and review what’s working with your LinkedIn and what you may need to update. Here’s 5 things to check out.

  1. Images – I want a professional and up to date headshot of you. No cropped out friends, no hats and sunglasses, I want to see a picture of you. Why? Because if I’m meeting you for coffee and we haven’t met before I need to check to see what you look like. Also – make sure you use that background image!
  2. Summary – The summary portion of your profile is meant to be more personable and conversational. This is your summary about how awesome YOU are. Include your niche and specialties here too.
  3. Contact Information – Make sure your contact information is up to date. If you’ve changed jobs make sure your email is up to date so I can reach out if I need to refer a potential client to you or check in.
  4. Experience – For your current position make sure you have this fully filled out. It can be the about piece from your website if you’re a soloprenuer. Or a piece of your bio. This is where you also where you can list out services you offer in your business.
  5. Recommendations – If you’re really as awesome as you keep telling me (which is annoying FYI, don’t tell people, show people you’re awesome) then you should have some recommendations to back that up. Get a system in place to ask for recommendations. If a client sends you a note about the work you did, ask if they’d be willing to post it online for you. You can request recommendations too. Take a minute to think of 2-3 people you can request recommendations from this week.

LinkedIn is a fantastic business tool that you can use for follow up and networking and growing your business. But if your profile isn’t filled out and you’re hard to find, I’m going to question what else you aren’t taking the time to complete in your business.