It’s Your Responsibility to Go Green

Business has to take the lead in helping the world create a sustainable planet. Every business should take a leadership position in making this change. Its easier than you think to turn your company into a socially responsible firm and it might even help you save a couple of dollars in the process. Here are a couple of small ideas that will make a big impact.

1. Replace all the regular lights in your office with compact fluorescent light bulbs. Each light changed saves 150 pounds of carbon dioxide each year.
2. Walk, bike, car pool or take mass transit more often. Each mile you don’t drive saves 1 pound of carbon dioxide.
3. You can save 2,400 pounds of carbon dioxide per year by just recycling half of your businesses waste.
4. Avoid products with a lot of packaging and look closely at the amount of packaging in your own products. You can save 1,200 pounds of carbon dioxide if you cut down your packaging by 10%.
5. Adjust the thermostat in the office. My moving your thermostat down just 2 degrees in the winter and up 2 degrees in the summer you can save about 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide year over year.
6. Plant a tree. At Square 2 Marketing, we plant a tree in honor of each new client we start working with. It’s a great way to get our clients involved in our commitment to a greener, healthier, planet.

If each of us makes these small changes, we make a big impact on the future of our planet. I encourage all of the business leaders reading this blog to not only implement these six changes, but to go farther and make even more changes to keep our world sustainable for future generations.

Square 2 Marketing—we help entrepreneurs.

To Scrape or Not To Scrape

Clients regularly ask me…can I grab a list of email addresses from my local networking group, trade association, or chamber? Sometimes I get asked if copying email addresses from a directory is ok. The bottom line for both questions is--no. Building an email database isn’t easy and it takes time, but short cuts only lead to trouble.

Here are a couple of questions to ask yourself before you add those names to your email database.

1. Is every member of the list someone who has a relationship with your business or organization?
2. Has every member of the list signed up to receive your emails?
3. Has every member of the list given you their email address (knowing you will use it)?
4. Has every member of the list bought something from you in the past 18 months?

Only you know the answer to these questions but, there are a number of downsides to uploading a list with names that don’t answer positively to at least one of these question.

• ISPs like Comcast, AOL, Earthlink, or Verizon could flag you as a spammer and block your URL from all of their subscribers. This means you wouldn’t even be able to send a personal email to anyone with a @comcast.net account extension.
• People on the list could report you as a spammer and your Email Management Provider might ask you to stop doing emails or even suspend your account.
• Your opt out rate might be extremely high, also alerting your Email Management Provider as to a potential problem, which could result in account suspension or even termination.

I hope you see the downside, clearly outweighs the upside. Be persistent, patient, and be obsessed with collecting email addresses legitimately. This will provide you a slow and steady growth to your email address database. If you need any additional tips, or have any questions on scraping, please email me directly.

Square 2 Marketing—helping entrepreneurs.

Getting Your Emails Delivered – How to White List!

It’s pretty clear that marketers don't do enough to get their brands whitelisted or added to their subscribers’ address books. Studies have shown that more than a third of consumers check their junk bins regularly for email from trusted senders because that’s where so many legitimate messages end up these days.

What is even more critical, is that 38% of consumers said commercial messages rarely or never prompt them to add senders to their address books, according to the April 2007 ‘Email Spam Consumer Attitudes and Behaviors’ study by Epsilon And 57% said they weren’t encouraged (i.e., nudged, directed or incentivized) to add them to their address books either. Delivery rates, image rendering and response rates would improve if more marketers show customers how to add them to their address books.

Tips to get your email white listed
Tip #1. If you aren’t already doing this, always remind new subscribers in your Welcome message to add your email address to their address book. Surprisingly, not all e-retailers do this.

Tip #2. In each campaign, provide a link to a landing page with information about how they can add you to their address books, including instructions for every major email brand. Most importantly, place it prominently at the top of the message.

Tip #3. Test your email with the objective of getting into people’s address books. For instance, segment your list according to the recipients’ receivers and send them copy instructing them only on how to add to their type of account.

Use a targeted subject line, such as “Only for Hotmail Subscribers,” for each brand segment. In this case, you won’t even need a landing page for the instructions.

Where to Put the Landing Page Link
You want to get consumers to the actual landing page. We recommend that you put an “Ensure Delivery” or “Address Book Help” link at the top of your emails where they can easily see it, whether it’s the Welcome message or a campaign offer.

Finally, share the instructions for all the major email systems with prospects and customers. Click here to view a document that includes instructions for all the major email systems.

Square 2 marketing - helping entrepreneurs