I *love* new ideas. I get excited by my client’s excitement at new ideas. And as my clients become confident with my navigating their business goals through the social media waters, they ask for bigger and brighter things to happen for them. My work frees them up to dream big and ask for it to happen. I grab their idea/wish and I marinate, turn it around a bit, figure out what it’s going to do for their business goals. Then I go on a search and find mission to make it happen.
It’s THE fun part of my services, because it allows me to problem solve using whatever tools I can find (namechk.com, etsy.com, ecards, etc.) online and massage it, work it and present it as their ‘next move’. I get to find cool applications and apply it to what the client and I have planned to achieve. Lately, Mail Chimp has been my best mate in reaching these goals for a variety of my clients.
Mail Chimp is an online newsletter sign up service (that’s like saying Amazon sells stuff online, or Facebook connects people). It does everything for many many email subscription campaign types. You can collect, sort, email, schedule, and-I-just-can’t-name-it-all stuff. It integrates (plays nicely) with so many highly used website applications from plain old website design to Facebook customization tabs. It’s just so clever and easy, with tons of support and guides.
Here is how I’m currently using it for in-the-field work:
1.) Local bakery wants to advertise to incoming military population. We’re creating a one-year-only subscription to e-Newsletter that lists local ‘must do’ events, planting seasons, festivals and recipes, including bakery specials and ordering information for holidays. Having the subscription expire in one year, frees the subscriber from having to clean out their inbox each time a PCS (permanent change of station) looms. Giving away the local knowledge of events encourages regular reading of the email. Bakery specials will introduce the current season with a free sample add-on of one of the next season’s items to encourage regular orders. Mail Chimp encourages sub-lists and offers easy unsubscription for both receiver and sender.
2.) Local cafe wants to reward its customers with no strings attached. Client mentioned a birthday list with a free treat for those who sign up. Within 5 minutes of advertising the list, three customers signed up. Sure, everyone loves free stuff, but the relationship building is what will keep customers loyal the other 364 days of the year. Mail Chimp has an auto-responder that allows an AUTOMATIC send out of the Happy Birthday email, so the client doesn’t have to maintain the database themselves.
3.) Local artist wants to advertise scheduled classes and workshops without clogging up her Facebook Page. We’ve started a couple of lists to join for targeted e-Newsletters and advertised sign up on a Facebook Page customized tab with a giveaway. The first week of sign ups resulted in 10% of her ‘Fan’ base to sign up and an additional 5% increase in ‘Fans.’ Mail Chimp has a variety of templates to use to modify in sending out to each of the populations.
And if you’re into Google Analytics, it gets even better. Mail Chimp records clicks and all kinds of doo-dads with each campaign.
To be honest, I haven’t even scratched the surface of this cheeky monkey. Not here and not in my management within Mail Chimp. But every time I turn around lately, that monkey seems to know how to make my client’s Big Ideas work! And I just wanted to share that with ya.