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E-Newsletter Lessons Learned: Brooks Bell Interactive Presentation on AARP Webletter
Small Business Success Index covered on Blogs and Media
Connecting Startups, Socializers and Job Seekers
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E-Newsletter Lessons Learned: Brooks Bell Interactive Presentation on AARP Webletter

Guest post by Mia Vallo, Online Advertising Manager for Network Solutions. Mia is passionate about helping companies become successful with their online marketing and advertising strategies. She can be reached at Mia.Vallo@networksolutions.com.

Image Source: AARP Web Site

I recently sat in a presentation by Brooks Bell, President of Brooks Bell Interactive, on lessons learned from AARP e-newsletter program. She originally presented this case study at MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2009, and then did an encore presentation in a webinar format.

Brooks Bell Interactive was tasked with reinventing the AARP e-newsletter, called AARP Webletter. The goals of the Webletter are to drive traffic to AARP website, increase engagement with current members, convert non-members to members and drive advertising revenue. Here are some takeaways from her presentation.

Segment Your E-newsletter List
Brooks Bell Interactive segmented the AARP Webletter subscribers by activities within the last four Webletters: active users clicked on the Webletter at least once; passive users opened the Webletter, but did not click; and inactive users did not open the Webletter.

With this segmentation strategy, they were able to customize the Webletter subject line and content. For example, inactive users received a Webletter with the subject line of “[Name], We Miss You! Have You Seen the Latest from AARP?”

Constantly Test Your E-newsletter
If you’re new to testing, here’s a quick basic: testing is when you change one element of your e-newsletter to see if that single change improves your e-newsletter performance. Measuring performance may include how many times subscribers open your e-newsletter, how many times subscribers click on your e-newsletter, or how many sales you get from that e-newsletter. How often you test will depend on your resources and how many e-newsletter subscribers you have. Brooks stressed during the presentation that you can’t expect an overnight success with testing, so you need to test constantly.

For AARP, Brooks Bell Interactive implemented 10 tests per week. With 40 million members, AARP most likely has a huge subscriber base for their Webletter. So testing that frequently makes sense. If you have hundreds or thousands of subscribers, you may only need to test monthly.

An example of a test element is the subject line, so you can see which e-newsletter is opened more. These four types of subject lines worked well for the AARP Webletter:
1. Personalized, such as using the subscriber’s name in the subject line
2. Question format, such as “More Stimulus Payments on the Way?”
3. Boring, such as “AARP Web Letter” — this creates a more official tone to subscribers
4. Slightly alarming, such as “Don’t Let Your Doctor Make a Mistake!”

Content is Still King
Another test element is content. More subscribers clicked on the AARP Webletter when the following types of content were used:
1. “Best” lists, such as AARP’s 50 Healthiest Places to Live
2. Timely content, such as gas price and stimulus package
3. Content with a broad appeal, such as diets and saving money
4. Write in a personal way, specifically using “you”
5. No negative, depressing and scary topics

After almost a year of testing, Brooks Bell Interactive successfully reinvented the AARP Webletter. Not only does the Webletter become the second highest source of traffic to AARP website, but it also serves as the least expensive marketing program for AARP.

If you have any questions about your e-newsletter program, please leave your comment below! You can also check out Constant Contact® to start an e-mail marketing program for your business.

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Small Business Success Index covered on Blogs and Media

Anita Campbell Editor in Chief of Small Business Trends site and the Small Business Trends newsletter and also the host of Small Business Trends Radio wrote Grass Not Always Greener in This Economy, Say Small Business Owners on SmallBiztrends.com

I thought it remarkable that nearly half thought their competitors had been significantly impacted by the downturn. Yet, just a little over a third reported their own businesses being significantly impacted. And 31% thought their own businesses had been relatively unscathed — nearly twice the number who thought the competition was left unscathed. It almost seems as if business owners are counting their blessings.

Read more ..

Ramon Ray Technology Evangelist & Editor at Smallbiztechnology.com wrote What Makes A Business Sucessful? How Do You Measure Up?

The degree of use of internet business solutions contributes to the overall competitiveness of a small business, but it takes more than just having a website. To illustrate, those that are "internet tech-powered," meaning they use at least 6 technologies in the business, have a 31% chance of being "highly competitive." The percentage who are highly competitive drops to 24% among those with moderate use of these technologies (2 to 5), and 19% among those with minimal use of internet technology.

The augmenting role of internet business solutions remains strong even when controlling for size. The pattern above holds when examining very small businesses with less than five employees. It would appear that even a very small
business can use such technologies as an equalizer to compete with larger firms.

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Brent Leary CRM Guru and co-founder of Barack20.cominterviewed Network Solution’s CEO Roy Dunbar for Business Technology Radio.

At a very high level, these reports show just how important the wise use of technology can positively impact small business. They also show that small business people are still a pretty positive group of folks, considering all that is going on right now. So check out my conversation with Roy by clicking the player below, or feel free to download the mp3 file,. And find out more about the study at http://www.growsmartbusiness.com.

Brent also included an analysis of the Small Business Success index in Amex OPEN Forum post focussing along with a study by The Nielsen Company called A Tale of Two Studies.

Tinu Abayomi-Paul wrote on the Free Traffic Tip website after speaking to Roy Dunbar Network Solution’s CEO in a post Why You Should Care About The Small Business Success Index : Site of the Day

Before I came across the SBSI I thought maybe this was just all the Small Business Owners that I knew.

My original theory was that more companies are starting to see that they can get better results from leveraging PR, online and offline publicity and marketing than just paying for search advertising, so I thought perhaps only marketing-related companies were getting a boost in new business from this change in climate.

Apparently, the news is better than I thought - small business is doing much better than I expected, across the board.

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Connecting Startups, Socializers and Job Seekers

Social Matchbox is organized by Robert and Juliana Neelbauer and Network Solutions is proud to sponsor this event under the Small Business Success Index umbrella. Robert says :

Social Matchbox is DC's longest running open mic night and networking event for startup companies that are backed by angel and venture investors as well as those which aspire to join their ranks.

Our event is unique in that it is invitation-based with a refreshingly open format. Social Matchbox provides a quarterly "State of Startups" for the Mid Atlantic by fusing company demos, a startup job fair, investor introductions and the most relaxed tech networking event in DC.

At this event you will see: Startups, Web developers, HR folks, local bloggers maybe even the local media.

Good place to pass on any swag, brochures or t-shirts if you are a sponsor. All startups get 2 minutes to pitch themselves. Abt 150-200 people attend. Would be great if you can make it , I have made the best contacts in the local DC tech scene at previous Social Match Box events.

To register, check out http://socialmatchbox040209.eventbrite.com

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