For Malama Marketing, a consultancy firm that works with brands including PetBirthdayParty.com, computer systems integrator S&L International and West Inn & Suites, e-mail is a key channel for its marketing strategy.
So it comes naturally that Malama is taking advantage of VerticalResponse’s new tracking and reporting tools to help its small business customers plan their marketing efforts. Malama has been working with VerticalResponse since 2006 and uses it to power any e-mail marketing done by their clients.
“The tools are great because you can gauge the interest of the reader, based on what they click on. Then, you can follow up,” said Denise Mahaffey, president of Malama Marketing. “I think of it as the Big Brother approach to marketing.”
One example of how Malama Marketing uses e-mails is to do PR for its hotel and hospitality properties. For example, when its client West Inn & Suites, a luxury boutique hotel based in Carlsbad, CA, wins an award, Malama uses e-mail to promote this to the press.
“That allows me to have a benchmark of who has opened the press release, what time and if people on my contact list did not open it, and I need to send them a personal e-mail,” said Mahaffey.
Another example of Malama using e-mail is to help build a marketing plan for a small business. Mahaffey said that if a client comes to her and wants to do a direct mail campaign, she suggests beginning with e-mail, since it is cheaper and has analytics. The brand can use e-mail and if they deem it important to follow up using direct mail, they can use what they learned in the e-mail to design the creative and the call to action.
“E-mail is very cost effective, with VerticalResponse costing only about 1 cent per e-mail,” Mahaffey added.
Petbirthdayparty.com sends a monthly newsletter to its customer base and uses the analytics and reporting information to decide what to include in the next month’s e-mail.
“It gives us a benchmark on what we should put in our newsletter,” said Mahaffey. “For example, we know that our readers predominantly own small dogs, love spa products, and buy holiday-themed collars and wintertime pet apparel.”
