Posts by Heidi Tobias

This Week’s Free Webinars: 5/14 – 5/18

Looking for some tips, tricks and best practices for getting the most out of email marketing, event marketing, social media campaigns and local deals?  We have a whole host of webinars that will show you how to do just that.

Join us and discover new ways to make your communications more effective.  Have questions? Our expert hosts will be happy to answer your specific questions during a live q & a session following the presentation.

Take a look at what’s on tap for this week!

Tuesday, 5/15

1. Email Marketing: How to Get Started with Great Design – Tuesday, 5/15 at 11am EST

How often do you come across an email in your own inbox and actually do something with it? If you notice the emails that you open, click on, forward to friends and share in social media, what do they have in common?  Odds are they look good and give you information that matters to you in a quick and easy way. Here, we will teach you real life best practices using Constant Contact’s email templates to make your email the one that gets noticed.

Get more details and reserve your spot.

2. Planning Email Marketing – Tuesday, 5/15 at 2pm EST

When it comes to your email marketing efforts, do you find yourself wondering what emails to send, how often to send and what to say?  Join us for “Planning Marketing Emails” where we will cover all the basics to plan your email marketing program.  We’ll review the different types of emails you can send and help you define your goals.  Learn how to craft a strong call to action and understand how to determine when and how often to send your emails.  As a special bonus, you’ll leave with a calendar to help you plan and a list of questions you should know the answer to before you send.

Get more details and reserve your spot.

3. The Non-Profit Event Management Success Formula:  Planning and Promotion  – Tuesday, 5/15 at 4pm EST

You do events, but can you do better? Learn the techniques to plan a successful event for your nonprofit, an event that creates buzz, increases registrations and maximizes attendance. Master the formula to get the most out of your event management. Walk away with specific tips to plan smooth and successful events that capture your attendees’ interest and make them a huge referral engine for your next event.

Get more details and reserve your spot.

Wednesday, 5/16

1. Event Marketing Live Product Tour – Wednesday, 5/9 at 11am EST

Let Constant Contact’s in-house experts guide you step-by-step through using Event Marketing successfully—live, from the comfort of your home, office, or wherever you are. We’ll answer your specific questions, provide insider tips, and show you how to set up and promote your event.  We’ll also show you how you can use Constant Contact reports to gain useful information about your target audience.

Get more details and reserve your spot.

2. Email Marketing: How to Build and Manage Relationships with Your Contacts – Wednesday, 5/9 at 2pm EDT

What makes up your contact database and social networks? It’s the people you’ve formed relationships with – customers, potential clients, members, vendors, partners, or just interested individuals. By discovering as much as you can about these people, you can increase the success of your email marketing, event marketing and social media marketing. Explore how Constant Contact helps you manage and build relationships with your contacts.

Get more details and reserve your spot.

Thursday, 5/17

1. Email Marketing: Newsletter Makeover – Thursday, 5/17 at 7am EST

An effective newsletter builds relationships, retention and loyalty. Is yours doing that? Learn what you should be doing to make sure your newsletter not only makes it into the inbox …but also gets opened. See examples of well constructed newsletters and get design tips that you can use to make your newsletter a “must read” for your audience and help you get the results that you want.

Get more details and reserve your spot.

2. Email Marketing: How to Extend the Life of Your Email Beyond the Inbox – Thursday, 5/17 at 11am EDT

You spend a lot of time perfecting your email. Why not make sure it has the best possible reach? Don’t let it “die” in the inbox!  Join us for this webinar and learn how to schedule your email to hit your customers’ inboxes at the right time and how to expand the reach of your email through forwarding and social sharing.  You’ll also learn about Constant Contact’s reporting tools and learn how to use this information to improve future emails.

Get more details and reserve your spot.

3. Getting Started with SaveLocal – Thursday, 5/17 at 4pm EDT

Thanks to Constant Contact’s  SaveLocal, small businesses can finally get great new customers from local deals, and make money doing it.  Gone are the days of paying 50% of your revenues to a deal provider that brings you only deal-seekers who are unlikely to return!  And, it doesn’t end there – we also help you stay in touch with new buyers to keep them coming back. Learn the best ways to promote your deal with SaveLocal.

Get more details and reserve your spot.

Want more?

If you can’t make any of these sessions or want to see what other webinars we offer, check here for a complete list of our Best Practices Webinars for both live and recorded versions.

This Week’s Free Webinars: 5/7 – 5/11

Wondering about how to get the most out of email marketing, event marketing, social media campaigns and local deals?

We have a whole host of free best practices webinars that will show you how to do just that. Join us as we offer best practices, tips and tricks to make your communications more effective. Have questions? Our expert hosts will be happy to answer your specific questions during a live q & a session following the presentation.

Take a look at what’s on tap for this week! [Read more...]

This Week’s Free Webinars 4/30 – 5/4

Do you have questions about what you can do to get the most out of email marketing, event marketing, social media campaigns and local deals?

We have a series of free best practices webinars to show you how to do just that.  Join us as we discuss key topics to make your communications more effective.  Our expert hosts will be happy to answer your specific questions during the live q & a session.

And don’t forget to join us on Wednesday, May 2nd  at 1:00 PM Eastern for – Facebook’s 4 Steps to Business Success featuring leading small business experts from Facebook and Constant Contact.  See the details below for more information and to reserve your spot for this very special event!

Check out what’s on the schedule for this week! [Read more...]

This Week’s Webinars: April, 23rd – 27th

How do you make the most of email marketing, event marketing, social media and local deals?

We have a series of free best practices webinars to show you how to do just that. Join us live as we discuss key topics to make your communications more effective.

What’s on the schedule for this week? Check out the list below and reserve your spot today! [Read more...]

Staying in Touch Is Easy with These Two Mobile Apps

The best way to build relationships with current and our future customers is through two-way communication.

As both businesses and organizations, and as consumers, we are now connected so many ways, and we take those connections wherever we go, so building those relationships should be easy, right?

Well, the dark side of being so connected is that we sometimes miss the important messages in all of the noise.

Mobile devices have changed the way we work and communicate, and often for the better.

So with that in mind, here are some apps that have helped me adapt to the increase in volume and speed of information. [Read more...]

2 Must-Have Mobile Apps for Managing Your Time and Money

Everyone has either heard or said the cliché, “Time is money.”

When there’s so much to do, even our time is valuable.

Mobile technologies can often help us to make the most of our time, because they give us the information we want when we want it, so we can stay productive — even when we’re far from the computer and standing in line for a coffee, or waiting for our children to finish up at school.

Recently, I wrote about some apps that help you be more organized. Now that you know what needs to be done, you can figure out how much time and money these activities are costing you.

A better question, however, is how much are you getting back from these efforts?

Here are two great apps that will help you answer these questions while helping you manage both your time and your money. [Read more...]

3 Mobile Apps that Will Help You Stay Organized

With so many low cost or free tools available, small businesses have a competitive advantage that I have never seen before.

A large puzzle piece of this advantage comes from the adoption of mobile technologies. Mobile enables a small business owner to work when and where they want.

Today, when small business owners are asked about mobile and their business, 96% of them say they rely on mobile technology to run their business, and 75% of them say it gives them a significant competitive advantage.

As this rapid adoption has occurred, I’ve witnessed a massive growth of apps aimed at the small business marketplace. Some of these really can save you time and money, and keep you productive even when you’re on the go.

Over the next couple weeks, I’ll be sharing a collection of top apps that either I love or small business owners I’ve spoken with I say they cannot live without.

Let’s start with ones that keep you more organized. [Read more...]

Your Customers Are the Gift You Give Yourself

What’s the best gift you’ll get this holiday season? Is it some cool high-tech gadget? Gift cards? New clothes? Bottles of alcohol?

What if there was something that could reach qualified new customers (without costing you anything), convince them you are the right person to do business with, and for each one of these people who becomes a fan on Facebook, it gains you another $9.56 for your business? It’s not a fairy tale. In fact, you have this gift already: It’s your customers, and with just a little nurturing they will be happy to give you the gift of a growing business. [Read more...]

Giving Back Shows Your Customers You’re All in It Together

Looking at all the special-deal emails and social media messages, it’s easy to think that the only thing people care about this time of year is price. But take a moment to dig a little deeper and you’ll find that’s not as true as you might think.

No doubt, price is important to many people, but it’s not always the ultimate factor when prospective customers are picking who to do business with. What’s important to the majority of us? According to a recent study by Cone Communications, when choosing between similar products with similar prices, 94% of us will choose a brand that supports a social cause over a competitor that does not. This is not a small group of idealistic big-box customers — we’re talking about Main Street!

How can your small business use cause marketing to leverage our desire to do good? Just look around; there are lots of great examples you can learn from. Here are three of them: [Read more...]

Why Do People “Like” You on Facebook?

Looking around at the articles, blog posts, guides, and eBooks about Facebook, they all seem to focus on the same question of “How do I get someone to ‘Like’ my Page?”

While getting people to Like your Page is certainly important, many of these how-tos fail for one business or organization and work great for another.

How are you supposed to know what tips will work for you? Start by asking yourself the question, “Why would people Like me?” and let this determine the techniques that will work for your individual situation.

The reason people do business with you ties directly to the quality of service and the perceived value of their interaction with you.

Did you know those are the same reasons people will chose to Like you on Facebook? Of course, being Liked is not a given — 78% of us only Like 10 brands or less. But it can be valuable: According to Syncapse Corp., a Toronto-based social media management software provider, a customer who Likes you is worth $136.38 more than one that does not.

The reason why someone would Like a business or organization on Facebook may be a little different for everyone, but there are some constants that can help you identify your own why: [Read more...]