Meet Constant Contact Spotlight Member
Founded in January 2005 by Africa Riviera, Atlanta-based Your Host Solutions, LLC (YHS) offers affordable website design services.
YHS provides a comprehensive solution for building and maintaining an online presence through website development, online store solutions and web hosting.
Additional services include email and search engine marketing, database development, graphic design, and site maintenance.
Staying in touch Africa found attending networking events to be a good way to build her business, but communicating regularly with, and managing and tracking these new contacts quickly became a challenge.
And she also wanted to be able to track and measure the effectiveness of her communications.
Recognizing e-mail marketing as a potential solution, Africa did some online research and discovered Constant Contact.
The low cost of the program, top-notch customer service and positive user reviews all made Constant Contact attractive, but it was the reporting features that were the deciding factor and she signed up in March, 2005.
She was immediately able to upload and organize her client lists quickly and found the system easy to implement.
When she did have a question, "Oh, man - the customer service was great! That's one of the reasons why I'm a business partner today," Africa exclaims.
Now she sends a monthly newsletter with e-mail marketing tips, case studies of customer projects, search engine optimization techniques, updates on Google and Yahoo! tools and specials, and industry news.
After each campaign, Africa accesses the reports to view those that opened the message and what they clicked on.
She then uses this information to follow up on the interest shown - "It's a great way to help build repeat business and develop new clients," Africa explains.
With a focus on educating clients and offering useful content, she says, "I always get responses from my subscribers after I send an e-mail - it never fails.
They reply saying 'Thanks for the info, this is very helpful,' or with questions and new business.
This is truly a relationship-building tool.
" Managing Growth Starting with 25 subscribers, YHS has expanded its e-mail list to include 341 contacts and receives a 28.
9% open rate on its mailings.
In addition, over the past three years, more readers are clicking on links included in the newsletters and sales have increased 25%.
One particularly successful newsletter focused on the topic of business image and included photos of company logos before and after redesigns.
It was a powerful illustration and Africa relates, "The response rate was fantastic and resulted in several logo redesign requests from subscribers.
" She also sees a significant increase in web site traffic after each campaign, with a link to a recent video interview providing an additional boost.
Partnering Up After meeting Pamela Adams, a Constant Contact Regional Development Director, at a networking event, Africa decided to expand her professional relationship with Constant Contact and signed on as a business partner.
"My experience with Constant Contact has been so phenomenal, I've decided to align Your Host Solutions with Constant Contact and offer our clients the same experiences and successes I have enjoyed", she adds.
Pamela and Africa are collaborating on an e-mail marketing workshop, and when Africa sent out an announcement to her subscribers encouraging them to signup, the event sold out within six hours and they had to book a larger conference room to accommodate demand.
Africa concludes, "55% of your sales come from repeat business - what better way to communicate the value of your services to your clients than through e-mail marketing with Constant Contact?"
YHS provides a comprehensive solution for building and maintaining an online presence through website development, online store solutions and web hosting.
Additional services include email and search engine marketing, database development, graphic design, and site maintenance.
Staying in touch Africa found attending networking events to be a good way to build her business, but communicating regularly with, and managing and tracking these new contacts quickly became a challenge.
And she also wanted to be able to track and measure the effectiveness of her communications.
Recognizing e-mail marketing as a potential solution, Africa did some online research and discovered Constant Contact.
The low cost of the program, top-notch customer service and positive user reviews all made Constant Contact attractive, but it was the reporting features that were the deciding factor and she signed up in March, 2005.
She was immediately able to upload and organize her client lists quickly and found the system easy to implement.
When she did have a question, "Oh, man - the customer service was great! That's one of the reasons why I'm a business partner today," Africa exclaims.
Now she sends a monthly newsletter with e-mail marketing tips, case studies of customer projects, search engine optimization techniques, updates on Google and Yahoo! tools and specials, and industry news.
After each campaign, Africa accesses the reports to view those that opened the message and what they clicked on.
She then uses this information to follow up on the interest shown - "It's a great way to help build repeat business and develop new clients," Africa explains.
With a focus on educating clients and offering useful content, she says, "I always get responses from my subscribers after I send an e-mail - it never fails.
They reply saying 'Thanks for the info, this is very helpful,' or with questions and new business.
This is truly a relationship-building tool.
" Managing Growth Starting with 25 subscribers, YHS has expanded its e-mail list to include 341 contacts and receives a 28.
9% open rate on its mailings.
In addition, over the past three years, more readers are clicking on links included in the newsletters and sales have increased 25%.
One particularly successful newsletter focused on the topic of business image and included photos of company logos before and after redesigns.
It was a powerful illustration and Africa relates, "The response rate was fantastic and resulted in several logo redesign requests from subscribers.
" She also sees a significant increase in web site traffic after each campaign, with a link to a recent video interview providing an additional boost.
Partnering Up After meeting Pamela Adams, a Constant Contact Regional Development Director, at a networking event, Africa decided to expand her professional relationship with Constant Contact and signed on as a business partner.
"My experience with Constant Contact has been so phenomenal, I've decided to align Your Host Solutions with Constant Contact and offer our clients the same experiences and successes I have enjoyed", she adds.
Pamela and Africa are collaborating on an e-mail marketing workshop, and when Africa sent out an announcement to her subscribers encouraging them to signup, the event sold out within six hours and they had to book a larger conference room to accommodate demand.
Africa concludes, "55% of your sales come from repeat business - what better way to communicate the value of your services to your clients than through e-mail marketing with Constant Contact?"
Source...