by Ron Daly 

If you’re waiting until the last minute to figure out that perfect gift for a special someone, might I dissuade you from looking into giving them the “Twelve Days of Christmas” gifts? Twelve drummers drumming, eleven pipers piping, and so on, will cost you quite a pretty penny. Plus, where do you put it all? I haven’t really got the room for the 364 total presents I’d be getting. Maybe we could stick the birds outside in the back yard, but all the milk maids and leaping gentlemen would be a little annoying.

I’ve decided none of you is getting all these birds, rings, busy artisans, etc. Instead, I’m giving you the twelve days of electronic marketing! Sing along, if you think you can.

On the 12 Days of Christmas, DigitalMailer Gave to Me: 

• 12 Months of eMailing - A monthly email newsletter doesn’t cost much to send and gives your customers an idea of what’s shaking at your business.
• 11 major holidays- You’ve got:
  1. New Year’s
  2. Valentine’s Day
  3. St. Patrick’s Day
  4. Easter
  5. Mother’s Day
  6. Father’s Day
  7. 4th of July
  8. “Back-to-School”
  9. Halloween
  10. Thanksgiving
  11. Christmas/Holiday

  That’s eleven easy touch-points with built-in branding to play with – get to work and make something outstanding.

• 10 fingers typing – Got an initiative you’re trying to get off the ground? Have a fun community outreach program? Got something really interesting to say? Start a blog! It’s never been easier.
• 9  referrers referring – If you’re looking into NetPromoter scoring, remember – nines and tens are your only “referrers”. Sevens and eights aren’t counted and six and below are detractors. And always ask “why?” when it comes to the score you were given.
• 8 hours of working – The eight hour workday is disappearing. People are working from home and on the go. Consider how much information you’re hoping they’ll retain. Make your messages clear and concise, and always lead them to an action. Be efficient, you want to be a solution, not part of a bigger problem.
• 7 days a week – Are certain emails more likely to work on the weekend? How will you know if you’re not split-testing? Consider a weekend email for new home buyers looking into open houses, or car shoppers who might take a Saturday afternoon to browse the lots.
• 6 month reviews – Check out how your efforts are doing every six months or so. Set benchmarks, evaluate, make changes, and strive for the best.
• 5 GOLD RINGS! (Just felt like singing that one.)
• 4 points-of-contact – We like to give people a few ways to get hold of us, if they need us. We welcome people to email us, call, write or tweet at us…whatever works for them, works for us.
• 3 calls-to-action – In a good email campaign, you’ll want to give at least three call-to-action links: one at the top, in text, for the impulsive; one that’s a big graphic for the visually minded; one toward the bottom for the thorough readers.
• 2 ways to view – Remember, more and more users are reading their email on a mobile device – ReturnPath estimates that more people will be reading email on a mobile device than on a computer by the end of 2012 (which, I don’t need to remind you, is less than two weeks away). We’re working on a few ways to optimize emails responsively that we’re going to share with our clients in 2013. What are you doing to prepare?
• And a cartridge printer in need (of a job) – More mobile documents, fewer things to print out, more ways to save and store those documents…we’re committed to taking our clients further away from their paper needs.

Not to toot my own Christmas trumpet or anything, but that’s a much better list. Better to have good advice and food for thought than a bunch of dancers, geese and hens breaking all your furniture and getting allergy-causing down everywhere.

From all of us to all of you, MERRY CHRISTMAS and a happy, productive, lucrative new year!