Attention Small Business Owners Who Want To Increase Sales

One of our clients met with us this last summer to discuss their newsletter that they send out to their prospects as well as their customers. Their goal was to facilitate the process of sending out the newsletter, adding and removing recipients and making the process easier as a whole. The first solution that came to mind was Mail Chimp as we have used this tool before but little did they know it would bring many more benefits to them than they realized. In the few months that they have been using Mail Chimp, they have noticed an increase in sales that is directly attributable to switching the delivery method of their newsletter to this solution.

Their first issue was a common issue when you email over 700 people at one time, and that is all of the bounces, being flagged as spam by your email server, and having to go in manually and cleanup their list trying to keep it under control. This in itself can be an extremely time-consuming and tedious process. No one wants to go through 60 plus bounced emails and try to cleanup their list, and in this day and age, you shouldn't have to. With Mail Chimp, we were able to import their list into the system and right away their software did a soft scan of the list and noted items that may bounce. 

Once we sent out the first newsletter Mail Chimp went to work and showed us immediately how many were successfully delivered and how many bounced. It automatically removes the bounced emails from the list and flags them, so they are not sent again until they are fixed.  This saved my customer over an hour a week in trying to cleanup their list.

Next is the issue of adding new subscribers and removing people who no longer wish to receive the newsletter. With Mail Chimp, we were able to place subscribe buttons on their website and their Facebook page so that people can sign up themselves and the business owner never has to do anything. Users who no longer wish to receive the emails can also unsubscribe or change their subscriptions, so they receive fewer notifications. This feature ensures that you aren't flagged as spam and gives you the ability to retain customers who may just want to hear from you less often instead of completely unsubscribing. Users who unsubscribe are also asked to give the reason that they want to unsubscribe, and that can be helpful in order to make changes to your campaigns to retain customers.

Our customer always sent their newsletter out, they assumed people were reading it but didn't have any proof of that, they were getting some sales, but they didn't know if it was because of the newsletter or something else.

Well, guess what? Now they know! Once they send a campaign out they can watch the dashboard and see exactly what is going on. They can see how many people are opening the newsletter, how many people are reading it, and more importantly see what they are clicking on. They not only have these statistics but can also compare them to industry standards. 

We set their campaigns up so that the products mentioned in the newsletter were linked directly back to their website where they can be purchased directly. Looking at the dashboard, we can see where the emails were opened and exactly what links were clicked, and we can tell if they purchased the products. This has directly increased sales as it has facilitated the customers getting to their website and enticing them to click on the links and purchase the products. It has also allowed the business owners to follow the trail and see what is working and what isn't. The great thing about Mail Chimp is that you can test different layouts, product placement, and timings and see how it affects the response rate from your customers. 

Now for the cherry on top, Automation! Mail Chimp can be setup so that your customers can be sent follow-up emails and notifications for your website based on items like website responses; emails open, clicks, etc. We setup a lead magnet for one of our clients where people were offered an Ebook when they clicked on the link it took them to a sign-up page (Mail Chimp). They signed up and were automatically sent the link to download the Ebook. Three days later they were sent a follow-up email if they didn't download it, enticing them to follow through and see what they were missing. If they did download it they were sent a follow-up a few days later asking if they enjoyed the reading and would like to learn more about the company and services. All of this automation turning prospects into leads and leads into customers thereby increasing sales without the business owner doing anything! 

If you would like to learn more about how this solution can help your business increase sales or need help setting it up, feel free to reach out to us on our website at Hill Country Technical Services.