When Paige Andrews started her needlepoint shoe company, By Paige Online LLC, in 2005, she knew marketing needed to play a role in her success. She didn’t consider herself to be a marketer at the time, but as a new business in a niche market, she wanted a convenient way to stay in touch with her growing customer base. “I learned about Constant Contact from a colleague who was using email marketing for her business,” Paige recalls. “I wasn’t interested in doing any large scale advertising, but really just wanted a way to stay in touch with customers.”

For the first few years of using email marketing, Paige had a lot of success in building her email audience — growing her list to more than 3,000 email contacts.

But as Paige explains, finding the time to communicate with these contacts on a regular basis became more of a challenge as her business grew. “I don’t have a marketing degree and have a lot of hats I need to wear on a daily basis,” Paige explains. “I knew email was important but it really became one of those things that I was putting off to the side when we got busy. I didn’t have the time to stay on top of it.”

At the beginning of 2015, Paige found out about the Complete Email solution from Constant Contact.

With the Complete solution, Paige would be matched with a certified marketing expert who would work with her to plan and run her email marketing efforts. Paige would still be able to leverage all the work she had done to build her existing email audience, but would now have a trusted partner who could plan and manage her campaigns. “At the time, I was only sending out about four emails a year and knew there was more I should be doing,” Paige explains. “I thought that working with a professional would take the burden off my shoulders and give me the help I needed.”

After signing up for the Complete solution, Paige was introduced to David Fischer, founder of Solutions for Growth, a marketing agency that specializes in small business.

David is a Master Certified Constant Contact Solution Provider. His staff worked with Paige to understand her business and to create a plan that would fit her needs. “It’s our goal to go beyond just the creation of the email, but to really provide business owners like Paige with the advice and strategy of how to use the tool to grow their business,” David explains. “We also wanted to make sure that Paige’s emails continue to have her authentic voice, so that her customers know that these messages are coming from Paige and not just a company that sells shoes.” After meeting with Paige to understand her goals, Solutions for Growth set up a marketing calendar with monthly campaign ideas to help drive sales for her retail business. Rather than sending just a few times throughout the year, Paige’s customers were now hearing from her every month with special offers and new product information. For Paige, the benefits of having a more regular and planned out sending schedule have been clear. “I’m getting a lot more sales from the emails we send out,” Paige explains. “For example, we sent out an email yesterday and I’m looking at 18 orders right now that I need to fulfill.”

In addition to building a strategy around Paige’s individual needs, Solutions for Growth also wanted to address specific challenges that Paige had faced in the past.

One of her biggest challenges was branding and making sure her emails looked professional in her customers’ inbox. To help, David’s team designed a custom email template that would match the look of the By Paige website. “The template they created has been one of the best things for us, because we understand how important branding can be,” Paige explains. “I’m much more confident in the emails we are sending out.” Another challenge Paige wanted to overcome was figuring out how to capture the attention of new visitors to her website. She had great results with getting people to sign up after placing an order online, but also knew there were people visiting her site that weren’t signing up. To address this challenge, David and his team added a new sign-up button to Paige’s website, offering new subscribers 10 percent off their first order. To make it easy to follow-up with these new subscribers, David’s team also set up a series of emails that would be sent to new subscribers automatically to welcome them to her list and remind them to redeem their offer. “We definitely noticed people using the coupon. We’re not just adding new sign-ups, it’s also helping to drive sales,” Paige explains. “These are all things I would have never known how to do on my own.”

Today, Paige says she has more confidence in her email marketing efforts and more time to focus on running and growing her business.

When asked to compare the results she has seen from using the Complete solution to what she saw from her email marketing in the year before, Paige explains that the benefits have gone beyond just higher opens and more clicks. “I would definitely say my sales are up due to the Complete Email Solution. That’s the best measurement of success.”

Think the Complete Email solution might be right for you?

  Red Mango Marketing is a Master Certified Constant Contact Solution Provider. We work with clients daily to build their lists, create marketing plans and engage their marketing activities. Want to see your business grow? Contact us today!