In today’s world of social media updates and text messages, pen pal letters can seem like a relic from the past.

But for me, few things beat the excitement of receiving a personal letter from a friend when I was a kid.

I was constantly keeping my eye on the mailbox, waiting for a letter to arrive. When it got there, I quickly opened and read every word, and would talk all about it to whoever was willing to listen. I always made sure to respond right away and couldn’t wait for the next letter to land in my mailbox.

When you think about the emails you enjoy reading, I’m willing to bet your experience isn’t all that different.

You look forward to receiving them because you know they have great information inside. You always open, click, and read every word. And you’ve probably even talked about them with your friends and family or shared them with contacts of your own.

See what I mean?

The good news is that with email, you don’t have to spend hours writing out a hand-written letter. Often, all it takes is a few lines of text, a photo, and an action you’d like your readers to take to generate business results.

To help you create emails your readers will look forward to, consider these three important lessons inspired by pen pal letters:

Step 1: Know your commonalities

How great is it when you make a connection with someone based on something you have in common? This is how most pen pal relationships start — maybe you met at camp, in a creative writing class, or during a summer softball league.

Once mailing addresses are exchanged, chances are you start the first few letters with that one commonality, from which a deeper conversation is started.

Think about the commonalities and areas of connection you share with your subscribers. But also remember that all your contacts are not the same, and there are unique interests for different contacts on your list.

Segmenting your email lists can help dial in on the specific needs and interests of select groups of customers and what message will be most effective for each of those groups.

An easy way to define these groups is to initiate the conversation with your customers early. If you own a retail shop, ask each person who signs up for your email list what their favorite retail therapy is. It’s a fun way to get to know their buying habits and what types of email marketing messages you can serve them later on depending on what they love to buy most — be it shoes, purses, or accessories.

In addition to organizing your lists by interest, you can do the same by customer behavior. Using the insights you gain from click-through rates, you can easily find your most engaged audiences and what content resonates with that group.

Step 2: Show, don’t tell

Do you remember your excitement when a Polaroid or a doodle on a scrap piece of paper fell out of your pen pal letter immediately upon opening it?

You can give your subscribers a similar feeling of excitement when you use images to illustrate your message. By following some basic image rules, you can bring your email to life!

Better yet? Share a short video. This is a great opportunity to show your business in action — whether you are a retail store in the middle of unpacking a new shipment of stylish outfits, or a nonprofit recapping the results of your annual fundraiser.

When used correctly, video has the power to improve your email marketing results and make a more meaningful impact on your audience.

Step 3: Be consistent

Waiting…waiting…waiting. Never a good thing when you are looking forward to hearing from someone. And when you finally do receive that long-awaited message, it’s often far more lackluster than any of the ones before were.

Wouldn’t it have been much better if your pen pal had let you know they were going to be on vacation and wouldn’t write for a few extra weeks? Upholding consistency is critical for retaining both newly-added and long-time email subscribers.

Similarly, look for ways to create consistency within your email newsletters. I remember many of my pen pal letters ending with long run-on sentences asking question after question to show your interest in the reader in a fun and casual way.

Think of ways you can make your communication a two-way street by asking questions like: Did you get the chance to attend our in-store cooking event with our chef? What did you think? Do you have suggestions for our next event? Feel free to reply with your suggestions!

Asking questions is a great way to echo your interest in your customer’s opinions and most importantly, to assure them you’ll be writing again. This cycle is the basis for a strong seller-buyer relationship.

How can you use these tips today?

I hope these tips, inspired by the nostalgic handwritten predecessor of email, have you thinking about ways to create messages your subscribers will look forward to.

Try this out — take a look at your last few emails. Do they sound like they came from a real person? Is there good information that would get people to want to read? Will it be interesting to the people you want to reach?

By incorporating some of these lessons into your email marketing, you’ll be able to make a more personal connection with your email readers and build excitement every time you hit send.

Do you have any tips for creating emails your subscribers look forward to? Let us know you best piece of advice in the comments below!

No matter what your customer base or cause is, you know the importance of delivering an exceptional experience.

Whether you’re helping a new customer pick out the perfect gift from your store or adding a thank you video to an email newsletter, you’re committed to making a great impression both online and off.

What does this have to do with the interview experience you’re providing?

Hiring new employees is not something small business owners should take lightly. Attracting strong candidates that fit in with your company culture and add value to your team is no easy task.

And while you may only think of interviewing as one of the first steps of hiring, in reality the interview experience you provide has the power to affect everything from your business’s reputation to customer satisfaction.

Let’s take a closer look at why it’s so important to provide a positive interview experience and some advice for how to do it.

Why is a good interview process important?

1. It could help make your recruiting process easier…. Or harder.

Similar to how you get customers through word-of-mouth (both in the literal sense and through online rating sites like Yelp), the same goes for attracting potential employees to work for your company.

If you don’t have the time or money to invest in a robust recruiting strategy, your customers, employees, and interviewees are your biggest advocates and will help or hurt your ability to bring in great talent.

Consider this: is your interview process getting candidates excited about working for you or are they vowing to revoke their patronage? These experiences are the ones that will be shared with their family and friends. Some may even take it to the masses through career-focused sites like Glassdoor. Creating a great candidate experience can help secure a steady flow of quality people.

2. It can bleed into your actual customer-base.

There’s a good chance the candidate interviewing for your job has interacted with your business before, or at least has a good understanding of the products or services you provide.

Regardless of whether you think a candidate is a good fit as an employee, it’s important that you protect that connection. Make sure you’re treating each candidate thoughtfully during the interview and in any follow-up communication.

3. You’ll give your future employees a great first impression.

Employee engagement starts with a great interview experience. If your candidate has a positive view of you during their interview, they will be invested and ready to hit the ground running if you extend an offer to them.

This will feed into your employee onboarding experience and can boost the morale of the team. If your new employee is excited to join your team they’ll be eager to add value to your team right away and will ultimately stay with you longer.

How do you create a good interview experience?

1. Know the do’s and don’ts of interview questions.

First off, you need to make sure all the interview questions you ask are legal. While you might find some questions about nationality or marital status to be simply conversational, the reality is that there are laws that prohibit you to ask personal information that is not directly related to the job.

There are many resources out there to let you know what you can and can’t ask, so to avoid any problems make sure you’re educating yourself as well as anyone else who interviews candidates.

Secondly, you want to make sure you’re asking questions to help you identify whether or not the candidate has the right skills (both technical and soft) to perform the job well. Think of some of the most important skills they’d need and the  situations they may encounter in their day-to-day activities.

From there, develop out behavioral and situational questions that can get them talking about their own experiences in depth. That can help you bridge the gap between your needs and their capabilities.

Tip: Create a cheat sheet or interview questionnaire to keep you compliant and on track during your interviews.

2. Provide feedback and a timely follow-up.

What you do after an interview is almost just as important as how you conduct the interview. All candidates hate feeling like their resume has gone into a black hole. The same could be said when it comes to interview feedback and follow up.

Would you give your customers the silent treatment, keep them in the dark, or keep them waiting? Of course not. This mentality should also be applied to candidates as well.

Be transparent and let candidates know how long you expect to keep the job open, and when they should expect to hear back from you after their interview. Even if you don’t have an answer at the time you initially set, give them a courtesy call to let them know you haven’t forgotten them and provide a new timeframe for when you’ll have a final decision.

Just remember, though, it’s a candidate market these days. Don’t expect them to be sitting around if you take too long.

3. Use your marketing skills to showcase your employment brand.

During an interview, your candidates are interviewing you just as much as you are interviewing them, so be prepared to sell yourself. Take your consumer branding skills and apply them to your recruitment process. What makes your company a great place to work? What are your differentiators? What’s the culture? What’s the team like? How’s your leadership style?

Be prepared to give a full picture of your company as an employer. Making it easy for people to envision working with you is an essential part of not only landing a new hire, but also making them an engaged hire from day one.

Where can you start today?

Start identifying what your employment brand truly is. Assess it, ask your current employees questions, and think about what you can offer an employee. This can be a great starting point to understanding what makes you the employer of choice.

Need some inspiration? See what it’s like to work at Constant Contact! Visit Constant Contact’s Careers Page to learn more.

You know the people who are important to your business or organization.

You’re interacting with them every day in person, at events, and online as well.

But what are you doing to make sure you’re staying in touch with them on an ongoing basis?

Email marketing is one of the best ways to regularly communicate with your audience and keep your business top of mind.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that 91 percent of U.S. adults like to receive promotional emails from the companies they do business with.

But how do you get those people who are so important to your business onto your email list?

Learn three simple tips for getting quality contacts onto your email list.

3 Tips for Getting Quality Contacts on Your Email List

Quality contacts are people who know, like, and trust you and are interested in communications from your business.

I have three tips for getting quality contacts to sign up for your email list:

1. Always ask permission

The most important part of growing a list of quality contacts is to make sure you’re always asking permission before adding someone to your email list.

Permission is one of the things that makes email marketing such a powerful marketing channel because people have the ability to raise their hand and say they are actually interested in learning more about your business and the products and services you offer.

2. Be proactive

Tip two is to be proactive when growing your list. This means participating in the conversations that taking place online and in person, and making sure you have a presence in all the places that are important to your target audience.

Are there local events or tradeshows that you can attend? Are there any blogs, websites, or publications that you could guest contribute to? Are there online communities specific to your industry that you can be involved in?

3. Create a custom landing page

My third tip is to create a custom landing page on your website and share that link or include it on your About Us page. Customize that page for that specific audience and offer something that people finding your business through that channel will find valuable.

Try this formula: this is what I got, this is what it will do for you, this is what I want you to do next.

Looking for more email marketing tips? Visit the Constant Contact YouTube Channel for more marketing advice.