How have you used an e-mail marketing program and has it been effective? Any experience with Vertical Marketing? What type of promotions have you done?

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Hi Ray,
We have done some cross marketing with our sister companies. 222 Bakery and Goshen Coffee Company are owned by the same couple. We focus marketing on the Bakery since the list is generated there.
Here is an example of one of our emails: http://www.222bakery.com/email/07_july/
We are slowly building our list for Goshen and hope to get monthly emails going with them soon.

Results have been good. Over 60% open and 30%-ish percent click throughs. The conversion for Buying coffee online is weak but that is not currently our focus with the emails. They function more as a reminder and encourage folks to stop in more often because of the great things we offer.
Business has improved in the bakery with the use of emailing. It is becoming part of their marketing plan after seeing and hearing positive feedback from the emails.

Hope that helps.
Very helpful. It does seem to be a big project to initiate, but worth it.

Bill Klingensmith said:
Hi Ray,
We have done some cross marketing with our sister companies. 222 Bakery and Goshen Coffee Company are owned by the same couple. We focus marketing on the Bakery since the list is generated there.
Here is an example of one of our emails: http://www.222bakery.com/email/07_july/
We are slowly building our list for Goshen and hope to get monthly emails going with them soon.

Results have been good. Over 60% open and 30%-ish percent click throughs. The conversion for Buying coffee online is weak but that is not currently our focus with the emails. They function more as a reminder and encourage folks to stop in more often because of the great things we offer.
Business has improved in the bakery with the use of emailing. It is becoming part of their marketing plan after seeing and hearing positive feedback from the emails.

Hope that helps.
seems like email would be far less effective than facebook or twitter. it used to be that if your target demographic was above, say, 25, you'd use email, but now everyone is on facebook. you could probably get some momentum going there. i know i don't enjoy getting email newsletters, but i'll check a facebook fan page (or a myspace music page).
good point. thx

Jared Rutledge said:
seems like email would be far less effective than facebook or twitter. it used to be that if your target demographic was above, say, 25, you'd use email, but now everyone is on facebook. you could probably get some momentum going there. i know i don't enjoy getting email newsletters, but i'll check a facebook fan page (or a myspace music page).
i think if your facebook fan page gets more than like 500 fans you can get a custom URL too, like www.facebook.com/yourcoffeeshopnamehere

at any rate, social media is def. the best way to market on the internet currently, i reckon. and it's mostly free
Email marketing is just ONE of the many types of contact you can make with a potential customer. To be seen as "the neighborhood" coffee shop (or any type of business) you need to have made as many as 7 points of contact with EACH customer before they will come in and visit your shop.

Do not listen to the guys who run email marketing for a living as they will tell you that email is the holy grail for obtaining customers and growing business. Actually yellow pages still tells people they are the holy grail...

So do some email, have a newsletter that you can forward to your current customers and give them a coupon or some other reason to forward that to their friends. ALSO do some work on twitter and Facebook and Google Wave when it goes public. ALSO be seen in your community, donate your time and product in small quantities to local charities. Get out to businesses adjacent to yours and give out some samples and coupons for their employees and customers. Lastly be creative and BRAVE. It is not easy to run up to unsuspecting people and tell them about your business, but be brave and let your passion for what you do shine through.
I agree with Jared. You have to figure out where your potential customers hang out (via facebook, Twitter, etc.) and talk to them there. It is nice to work out a discount with companies within the same shopping center too.

I actually used to write a newsletter for an indy cafe' I worked at. I would just included upcoming events and coupons in that. And we had a Facebook fan page as well to post events. Have you thought about blogging about events with pictures so those who did not go can see how much fun the event was and don't want to miss the next one. Having press releases about donating time to charity are a huge deal and great media exposure.

Get your cafe' on Yelp.com

As for Twitter, unless our customers' businesses were on there, it didn't get much attention.

It's all about community and exposure.

If you need any help getting all this going, contact me. I do a lot with social media and help cafe' do this type of thing.

Cheers,
Jennifer
I meant Jarred..oops

Jennifer Vaaler said:
I agree with Jared. You have to figure out where your potential customers hang out (via facebook, Twitter, etc.) and talk to them there. It is nice to work out a discount with companies within the same shopping center too.

I actually used to write a newsletter for an indy cafe' I worked at. I would just included upcoming events and coupons in that. And we had a Facebook fan page as well to post events. Have you thought about blogging about events with pictures so those who did not go can see how much fun the event was and don't want to miss the next one. Having press releases about donating time to charity are a huge deal and great media exposure.

Get your cafe' on Yelp.com

As for Twitter, unless our customers' businesses were on there, it didn't get much attention.

It's all about community and exposure.

If you need any help getting all this going, contact me. I do a lot with social media and help cafe' do this type of thing.

Cheers,
Jennifer
Don't forget to comply with the unsubscribe and other requirements of the CAN-SPAM Act!
After taking it all in, I am going to just grab some business cards and go door to door. Building relationships by extending personal invitations is my cup of jp.

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