Small biz at its best

For small businesses, it can be a challenge to look uber-polished and sophisticated with every communication and customer relationship tactic. If you’re also repositioning and rebranding the company as we are at Ovation, in many way’s it’s on par with a brand new start-up.  There’s the Web site, collateral, product sheets, trade show materials to develop. On another level is logowear, corporate gifts of various values, advertising for awareness and image building. There’s also the requisite trade associations, Chambers of Commerce, and more for networking.

The reality is that small business budgets are, well, smaller than that of their mid or large sized counterparts. With an eye on growth – that one “tipping point” win – small business marketers know they can’t afford to be overlooked.

Beautifully Simple

One area I’ve given a lot of thought to is email.  Done right, email can be a professional, relatively unobtrusive way to reach a variety of prospects, influentials, and existing customers. Many elements can be placed in a library and re-purposed for multiple “drops,” and of course there’s the power of the visual to draw a reader in (along with well-written content) and lead them to key landing pages.

But which provider was right for us? I had a few essential requirements when I started my search.

My Basic Criteria

1. Low monthly cost (or free!)
2. Flexible design and layout formats
3. Low-level coding requirements
4. Tracking and reports for insights
5. Flexible list management (we use Highrise for CRM)

The Little Red-Haired Girl

After a lot of evaluation (I confess, I didn’t understand the significance of some of the items listed on

Mad Mimi: email with moxie

various feature sets) I narrowed my choices down to two. Running neck and neck (sharing many of my requirements, and each offering a few “something extra’s”), I chose MadMimi.

In just minutes late the other night, I pulled together a simple email sample and sent it to a few people. Using a few branded graphics I had easy access to, my new email had a masthead, intro paragraph, two stories (each with their own visual), and a footer. There’s no charge for a good long while (we’re still developing a list). It was easy to tell which of my recipients opened theirs (and which didn’t!), and also who forwarded it.  I can create separate campaigns for different purposes (say, a drip marketing program for customer development, routine emails for ongoing relationship management, etc.), maintain separate lists, and generate insightful reports that tie into site conversion funnels.

All of this may be all in a day’s work for many – email consultants, direct marketers specializing in digital, developers, and the like. But this was my very first hand’s on creation experience (it’s one thing to receive a slew of them, another to plan and create them for specific use cases!), and I have to say I’m jazzed at the potential. I’m only limited by the time and energy I have to focus on learning all the ins and outs. Not to mention watching the trends…

Other Options and Resources

During my research and with help from others during my Twitter crowdsourcing, I made note of a number of other email providers.  Now that we’re in the last leg of planning our first few email campaigns, I’m also paying more attention to articles and posts on the topic. I’ve listed a few of those as well, in case you can use them.

1. Exact Target
2. Act-On
3. SendLoop
4. iContact
5. Constant Contact
6. StreamSend
7. Mail Chimp (my runner-up preference)
8. Silverpop
9. Campaign Monitor
10. SendLoop
11. Mailer Mailer
12. Jason Bayer of Convince & Convert is a leader in email marketing and its possibilities with social
13. MarketingProfs continually focuses on great email content, email strategies and email tips
14. ChiefMarketer instructs on how to build an email list
15. Google even helps for campaign-specific insights, tying email to your Web site
16. iMedia Connection has new-school thoughts on email
17. Website Magazine offers info on subject lines

Your Turn

Is your small business using email for customer retention or lead development? If so, do you have any good stories to tell? Experiences with a particular provider you’d like to share? Resources to add to the list? Let me know!