2010. Twenty-Ten. 010. Whatever you call it, 2010 is a new year and new decade. 2009 was a great first year for Rock Solid Media in the business world. Our growth was completely unexpected, but very welcome! Ok, 2009 is history.
2010 has started with a BANG for Rock Solid Media. Last week, we launched a completely new website that more accurately conveys the services and capabilities of the company. We’ve certainly grown from a single offering of full-service email marketing! With our expansion into working with public schools, we now have the capabilities of larger public relations and marketing firms. Plus, we’ve added video production services to our quiver! The new website also features links to connect with us on Twitter, Facebook and Vimeo. And, I would be remiss if I didn’t invite you to join our email list when you visit the website!
Along with launching the new website, we’ve also launched a new self-service email marketing platform: RSMeMarketer! This new platform offers businesses of any size the ability to manage their email marketing efforts from contact lists to reporting. Our software is different in many ways, the biggest of which is the pricing. Rather than paying a monthly fee for the service, you purchase email credit bundles. This pricing structure is much more cost-effective for small businesses because the outlay of capital can be a one-time expenditure if estimated properly. Contact Us to find out more about RSMeMarketer! Keep an eye on our blog as we’ll be sharing tips, tactics, and best practices for self-service email marketing!
What’s next for Rock Solid Media? Well, let’s just say that the future is bright!
Well, it’s been over 3 months since we’ve posted to the blog, and my what a trip it’s been! There are many new things happening at Rock Solid Media. Where to start?!?!?
The company is transforming as I write! We’ve moved from providing strictly permission-based email marketing services to providing marketing consultation services. One of our first clients, Fowler State Bank, engaged us to provide marketing consulting services. Fowler is a community bank based in the Heartland of Western Indiana. So far, so good! We’re in the starting phase of a campaign to increase their subscriber database for their monthly E-News campaigns. We’ve also brought them into the 21st century with online video. Plus, we’re helping them develop their new website. Are we building it? Nope! There are companies out there that can do it better. Our job is to help them with content development, as well as website maintenance once the new site is launched. Overall, I’m thrilled to be working with Fowler in this expanded capacity, and I really think we have an opportunity for growth in this market space.
We’ve also been engaged by the Bucyrus Area Community Foundation and the Crawford County Veterans Hall of Fame to provide public relations and marketing consulting services. Non-profit is another space where tremendous growth potential exists!
Finally, the biggest news! The Bucyrus City Schools engaged Rock Solid Media at the beginning of September to provide full-service public relations and marketing services on an annual basis. Education is near and dear to our hearts, as we have family members that have dedicated significant portions of their personal and professional lives to educating young people. Small school districts do not have the resources to employ a full-time communications professional. However, we’re finding that districts are extremely receptive to the idea of working with a consultant to provide the much needed services and functions. To date, we’ve conducted community and parent surveys, assisted in the dedication ceremonies of their new buildings, and written many press releases, feature stories and Facebook Fan Page and Twitter updates.
So, what’s in the future? One word…GROWTH! We’re very excited and pleased with the growth we’ve experienced in 2009. Are we satisfied? Never. Our goal is to continue working with our clients that have engaged us for full service email marketing. Our growth will come in the areas mentioned above. Plus, we’ll have some more BIG news to announce at the start of 2010!
Stay alert as we stay in the weeds to help our clients achieve success…One Rock at a Time!
Eat your heart out David Letterman! We’ve developed our Top 5 Benefits of Email Marketing. For many of our clients, they’ve realized many of these benefits in their bottom-lines. Which, at the end of the day, is the ultimate goal for any business that markets its products and services. Ladies & Gentlemen, the Rock Solid Media Top 5 Benefits of Email Marketing.
5. Increased Personal Relationships with Clients – Think about it. Your clients are giving you their email address and asking you to keep in contact with them. They want to hear from you. This is your opportunity to relate to your clients on a personal level.
4. Targeting with Pin-Point Accuracy – You’ve probably, at some point, spent money on traditional advertising mediums. And you should, but not for the reasons you probably think. Traditional advertising mediums (radio, TV, print, billboards) are great at driving traffic and building name awareness and brand recognition. Used properly, these venues can support a effective email marketing strategy. Drive people to your website, invite them sign up for your free e-newsletter. And for God’s sake, give them something FREE for signing up. Give them a certificate good for a $10 store credit to use with their next purchase. A free bottle of carpet stain spot remover. Something to get them in the store, or something to get them engaged with you. Once they’re signed up, you can target them specifically based on their interest, which you asked them about on the sign up form on your website.
3. Trackability – We now live in a world where everything is tracked. You log on to your favorite website, your IP address is being recorded. Email marketing gives you the ability to see who is opening your email, how many times they’ve opened the email, which links they’ve clicked on, and most importantly, bounces. If you get a bounced email from a subscriber, you can use that as an opportunity to reach out and have a conversation with that client/customer. Again, building a stronger personal relationship.
2. Stronger Online Presence – If you don’t have a website, get one. Everyone is turning to the internet to find products, services, phone numbers. The days of opening the phonebook, especially for the younger generation, are slowing diminishing. You need to have a website, and if you have a website, you NEED email marketing. Again, it comes back to trackability. You can see who’s visiting your website when they sign up for your e-newsletter.
And, the Number 1 Benefit of Email Marketing is…
1. Cost Effective – I want to bring the traditional advertising back into focus for a minute. Picture a funnel. When you put a bunch of “stuff” in the funnel, the result is a slow stream coming out the bottom of the funnel. Marketing, especially with traditional advertising, is much like a funnel. You’ve got to put a ton of money in the top of the funnel before you start to see a return on your investment. Remember what I said though. You need to have traditional advertising as a part of your marketing mix, with the specific purpose of driving traffic to your website and your e-newsletter. Now, turn the funnel upside down. What happens? You put a little bit of money into the top of the funnel (the narrow end), and what comes out at the bottom…an overflow of business. That’s email marketing’s cost effectiveness at work for you. Email marketing, when compared to other forms of marketing and advertising, is more cost effective and can bring you a greater return on investment.
So, you’re here. At the bottom of the post. Are you ready? Ready to take control of your marketing future? Ready to implement email marketing? Contact us today and let us show you how email marketing can help your bottom line!
We work extensively with Send Labs, and wanted to share some of their great insights about email marketing. In their most recent post, Josh Nason (an email marketing “ace”) discusses the importance of using a valid reply-to email address. We’ll let Josh preach it!
——————————————————————————————–
Email Marketing Best Practices, Hints and Tips by SendLabs
Email Marketing: Use A Valid Reply-To Email…Or Else!
Tuesday, August 18, 2009 4:24 PM
We had a new client send through our system recently and after their first deployment, they asked why their send-from address got hit with some Out Of Office replies. After explaining how the process works, they asked if they could just use a fake address or a noreply@company.com address instead. While it’s their list and they can do what they want, I highly recommend against anyone using an invalid email as a best practice. Why?
It’s an easy interaction point with your recipients. Everyone knows how to reply to an email, so why take the opportunity to interact with someone away? The user has given you permission to correspond with their inbox, but now you’re going to put up an iron wall when they want to talk to you? C’mon now. If I told you the potential for someone to spend a lot of money with you was at stake, you’d find a way to make this work, right?
That’s how you have to think about it: money. If you’ll do whatever it takes to keep your existing clients and obtain new ones, this is a no-brainer and should be encouraged. If you have to, create a new email address specifically for this purpose. By using a non-valid email, you are essentially saying you’re about one-way communication and that’s all.
Too many people assume using a real email address when deploying campaigns is going to be too much hassle in sifting through emails from people wanting to interact. Heaven forbid! Take a look around today’s economic landscape. There are plenty of other companies that would LOVE to have that problem. Hire an intern, create a system or make this part of an existing employee’s workflow, but don’t shut off this opportunity to talk with your clients in a very familiar and friendly medium.
And if you ever want to email me, I’m josh [at] sendlabs [dot-com]!
Thanks to the gang at SendLabs!
Thought I would share a recent recommendation from one of our clients. Metro CD Engineering, LLC is an engineering firm in Columbus, OH. We’ve been working with them for approximately 7 months, preparing monthly newsletters about their business. Michael Chow is the Managing Principal for the firm, and these are his words.
“My firm is an engineering consulting firm that utilizes Rock Solid Media, LLC for marketing e-mail newsletters.
We have been extremely pleased with the service Rock Solid Media has provided. Chris Stone, the Principal of Rock Solid Media, goes above and beyond to ensure our needs are met and our expectations are exceeded.
Chris prepares our newsletters including developing graphics as well as the text. The newsletters have been well-received by our existing clients and have helped us gain new clients.
The newsletters help us communicate to our clients projects we have completed, new services we offer, introducing new employees and ways for the clients to improve their bottom line. We are able to review statistics on each newsletter that show us which clients have read our newsletters.
In closing, we strongly recommend Chris Stone and Rock Solid Media, LLC for anyone interested in developing a highly effective marketing e-mail newsletter program.” – Michael Chow, Managing Principal, Metro CD Engineering LLC
Michael, we appreciate your business and thoroughly enjoy working with you and the team at Metro CD Engineering!
I had a great phone conversation with a banking client in Indiana this week. We were discussing their email marketing and what has worked well, and what hasn’t worked so well. From our discussion and review of their tracking reports, we found that pictures work EXTREMELY well!
Pictures, especially of your employees, work very well when you do a feature article about that individual. It gives your subscribers a chance to put a face with a name, before they come in to your business! In this era of “big box shops”, independently owned, local businesses need to take advantage of every avenue possible to build a strong relationship with current and potential customers. Great customer service should be the hallmark of every locally owned business, regardless of the products or services you sell! Being able to walk in and know a person’s face, name, and a little info about them makes that customer feel they’re a part of your family.