Author Archive: Annie Parsons
Email goes local
How a few Emma customers use email to enhance their local presence
It’s easier than you think to find email trends that mimic fashion trends. One might go so far as to say that “local” is the new black. Location-based marketing is all the rage, and it starts with making connections with fans and customers in your neighborhood.
Today we’re proud to feature a few Emma clients who do local email strategy really well.
Besaw’s Restaurant & Bar
For over 100 years, Besaw’s Restaurant & Bar in Portland, OR, has had the same mission: providing delicious, seasonal and local edibles to their guests. The folks at Besaw’s use Emma to communicate about the local touches they build into everything they do, from using veggies from their own garden to supporting nearby charities. It’s a great way to inform their subscribers of latest menus and happenings, and it also demonstrates their commitment to the community they live and work in.
Moreover, they use Emma’s trigger feature to send their patrons a birthday greeting that includes a coupon for a treat of their choice. If free dessert doesn’t win the locals over, nothing will.
+ See an email campaign
+ Join Besaw’s email list
Team Diva Real Estate
Just a jump north from Portland on I-5, Team Diva Real Estate in Seattle is a team of real estate agents defined by their approachability and command of Seattle’s neighborhoods. Their Emma campaigns focus on specific qualities that make each Seattle neighborhood unique, and they support independent, local businesses by offering their clients discounts to more than 15 shops through a “Diva Deals” card.
Every month, their newsletter also highlights one person’s story of home ownership, lending a very real, personal feel to each campaign. Team Diva gives their audience solid real estate information without sacrificing excellent, community-focused content. As a result, it’s no surprise that their response numbers are consistently high, and they have a strong community of fans.
+ See an email campaign
+ Follow @SeattleDivas on Twitter
FoodWorks Colorado
And finally, as a resident of Denver, which is one of Emma’s satellite cities, I’ve become fascinated by the work of FoodWorks Colorado. FoodWorks runs both a cannery and a packaging plant, employing those who may have had trouble finding jobs. They distribute healthy produce, meat, bread and other nonperishable food to local nonprofits that provide food at no charge to those in need. Every fall, they host Project Glean, which gives community members the opportunity to gather 400,000 lbs. of seasonal, locally grown crops to help feed the hungry. Emma is proud to power the emails of an organization that’s doing so much good for their community.
+ See an email campaign
+ “Like” them on Facebook
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We have lots of customers making the most of their local presence, and we’d love to hear about some of your favorites. Which local businesses, organizations and nonprofits are communicating effectively in your neighborhood?
5 questions for Network For Good
Rebecca with the cherry blossoms in D.C.
Here at Emma, we love our nonprofit clients. I recently caught up with Rebecca Higman from Network For Good, one of our largest agency partners, to learn a bit about how this network of nonprofits uses Emma.
Describe Network For Good. What do you do, and what sets you apart?
Network for Good is a nonprofit organization that enables charitable acts anytime, anywhere through technology. In order to do that, we offer services to nonprofits, companies, and directly to donors/supporters. For the nonprofit audience (the one with which I get to spend the most time), we offer online donation processing (DonateNow), email marketing (EmailNow…powered by Emma!) and event management services, as well as many great social networking resources including Causes on Facebook and Crowdrise.
What sets us apart can be summed up in our classic “broken button story.” Our COO, Katya Andresen, was giving a presentation to about 100 nonprofit professionals when a gentleman raised his hand and said, “Yeah, I use Network for Good for my organization’s online fundraising.” Katya’s delight quickly turned to dismay when he continued, “But your button doesn’t work.” Thinking quickly on her feet and being attentive to his situation, she apologized and said it was odd that clicking on a donate button wouldn’t allow a supporter to go through to complete a donation. She was more than happy to put him in touch with our support team.
“No, no – you can make a donation,” he explained. “It’s just that no one’s clicking on the button.”
With that “broken button” in mind, Network for Good developed its array of free fundraising, marketing and supporter engagement resources to share with its fellow nonprofits: enewsletters, eBooks, an online library and community, and our training webinars. Because, really, what good is a tool unless you have the know-how to make it effective?
What Emma feature could you and your clients not live without?
I don’t know if I can speak for all of our clients here, but I can definitely share which feature I think is the snazziest: Search & Segment. I cannot begin to describe what a time-saver (and awesome-ness creator –- yes, it’s a term) it is for sending really targeted messages. Often, we need to send out multiple communications to folks in a short time period. Rather than bombard all in one day, we can easily suppress certain groups and stagger our campaigns.
Tell us about one of your nonprofit clients, and how they inspire you.
One organization that comes to mind is AIM (All India Movement) for Seva. They’re doing some incredible work in India to make education accessible to underprivileged children. They caught my eye when they were one of the winners of our Year-end Fundraising Challenge. They raised thousands and thousands of dollars in November and December alone by taking advantage of EmailNow and DonateNow, and I was truly inspired to learn more about their great work and see how their reach has expanded globally.
Network For Good has employees all over the country. Where do you live, and what is your favorite restaurant in the city?
I live in St. Petersburg, Florida (also known as the Sunshine City, according to Wikipedia). I’m going to cheat on this question and give you a few different answers. For lunch, you can’t beat Evos –- it’s fast food with less guilt (think baked, not fried); for dinner, I’m all about Sushi Rock Grill (I could eat sushi every day … I don’t, but I wouldn’t complain if I did); and, for a snack, Yogurtology (12 flavors of soft-serve frozen yogurt + 60 toppings choices … just think of the fruit and candy bar decisions!).
Summer is upon us. Any big plans?
Nothing too wild and crazy planned. My husband are I are heading up to Minnesota to visit some of his family and take advantage of a couple of those 10,000 lakes they boast of. Meanwhile, I’m counting down the days to our fall trip –- Paris and Munich! Oktoberfest, here we come.
Emma in Denver: What’s up with our mile-high outpost
Annie and Gina, enjoying the Denver sun
In January 2008, Emma sent a member of our sales team out to Denver to start our first satellite office. Gina dug her roots in the Rocky Mountain soil and began to spread the good word about Emma across the West. Two years later, she was joined by yours truly, and today, the two of us make up our small-but-mighty Denver branch. (For some context, Emma also put a stake in Portland in March of ’08, in Austin in July of ’09 and in New York City this past fall.)
Over the last few years, the Denver office has existed in various spaces, from a single cubicle in a basement to a corner of an interior design firm to a modern loft north of downtown. But arising from a desire to be more involved in the community, beginning on March 1, we took the Denver office completely mobile.
In this day and age, working remotely is becoming more and more popular, especially for those working in the field of technology. In addition to lots of coffee shops that offer Wi-Fi signals, coworking spaces are cropping up. Gina and I will be taking advantage of both options, and on any given day, you might find us working away at St. Mark’s Coffeehouse, joining a conference call from Stella’s or interacting with the folks at Boulder Digital Arts, where we rent a desk.
It’s an exciting time for us Denverados, and an intriguing experiment for Emma as a whole. If you’re in the Front Range area and interested in meeting up, let us know — we’re out and about, and we love meeting our neighbors.
How about getting to know some of our Denver clients? Gina shares a list of some favorites:
- Our friends at YouthBiz: This fantastic nonprofit and Emma client of nearly three years has helped more than 2,500 youth become successful scholars, businesspeople, community leaders and entrepreneurs through after-school programs.
- The good people of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science keep us entertained and up-to-date on museum exhibits through their emails. And the DMNS is one of our favorite ways to spend a Saturday in Denver.
- One of Emma’s newest clients, the Downtown Denver Partnership informs residents about what’s going on in the community. We love seeing the Daily News Highlights in our inboxes each morning.
- The most valuable workshop I’ve ever attended was with Emma client and program extraordinaire, Boulder Digital Works at CU. If you want to be enlightened and challenged by the creative geniuses of CP+B, their workshops are a must-do.
- We love catching up with our friends at Emma agency partner, Cahoots Communications. Helping local and national nonprofits with their brand and marketing strategy, they bring good causes to life. And they are great for a visit over a morning cup of joe.
(Additional writing by Gina Nykerk.)
Video tips: Holiday Email Ideas
Your friendly Emma support crew offers five solutions for your upcoming holiday email campaigns.
We know it’s a busy time of year, so we put together a video full of festive content ideas and examples – whether you’re planning a party, raising money or doing something else entirely. In fact, I’m so committed to helping out that I even put on my least favorite holiday sweater from Great Aunt Mildred for your viewing pleasure. So join Miles from our Community Relations team and watch our video (but please, don’t judge the sweater).
Video credits: Annie Parsons, Daniel Brown, Elizabeth Williams, Mary Claire Zibart, Miles Price, Trey Piepmeier.
Emma is a member of the Email Sender & Provider Coalition and the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group.
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