It has been said that experience is the best teacher, so I went in search of a small business owner who could share real-life email newsletter experience. That’s when I found Betsy Harper, CEO of Sales and Marketing Search – a small business owner who has been publishing her “Framing the Issues” email newsletter for more than three years with great success. In this interview Betsy shares her own practical knowledge, tips and lessons learned.

Michelle: Betsy, thanks for taking the time to share your experience with us today. First, can you talk a little bit about your company, Sales and Marketing Search?

Betsy: Thanks Michelle. Sales and Marketing Search provides contingency search services for companies that need to find top sales and marketing talent. Our positions are from entry level up to Vice President. We’ve been a thriving business since 1992.

Michelle: Betsy, please tell us how the “Framing the Issues” email newsletter fits into your marketing strategy. (See the graphic of the “Framing the Issues” here.)

Betsy: We sell the value of marketing to our clients every day – and the value of having talented marketing people in their companies. I always thought that it would be pretty hypocritical of us if we didn’t do any marketing ourselves. Over the years we’ve engaged in a number of activities that accomplished this. We used to publish a quarterly white sheet on hiring trends, etc. We still belong to, and participate in, many organizations and believe strongly in networking and word of mouth. But, these efforts are all very time consuming! We needed a way to augment our marketing efforts and get the word out more time and cost effectively.

Nothing has been more effective for us than our monthly email newsletter. It’s like speaking to an audience of our prospects and “friends of the family” every month. They forward our newsletter to their friends and associates. We get lots of feedback and, most importantly, it works in gaining us new business.

Michelle: Can you give us a “for instance…”- an example of how you have gained new business via your newsletter?

Betsy: Actually, I can give you two of my favorites. The very first time we published our newsletter, we got a search assignment from a fellow on our mailing list. We filled the position immediately – with a resulting big fee.”

This past January, within two minutes (literally!) of sending our email newsletter, I got an email from a fellow in New York. He asked me to call him right away about filling a senior sales position. We talked, signed an agreement to work together the very next day, and started the search. We finished the search in record time and received a $22,000 fee.

Michelle: That’s impressive. In addition to the quick response you just described, what would you say are your long-term objectives for your email newsletter objectives?

Betsy: We want to establish ourselves as experts in hiring. We want to develop relationships and always keep our company name in front of our clients and prospects so they remember whom to call when they are hiring. Our newsletter also helps us create more of a dialogue with our clients, candidates and prospects. As a bonus, it gives us fresh content for our Website. And, we can do all this very time and cost-effectively via email.

Michelle: Has “Framing the Issues” helped you accomplish those objectives?

Betsy: Yes! From the first month I’ve noticed dramatic (and delightfully unexpected) results. We have achieved click through rates of over 60% for the past two+ years. I added three new clients in the first year of publication – accounting for over $50K in revenue, and we doubled our website traffic in the first year. “Framing the Issues” was also a finalist in the ClickZ EMarketing Excellence Awards in the e-newsletter category. And, we had an article written about us in the May 2003 Boston Herald Business Section about aggressive marketing in tough times that cited “Framing the Issues.” Not bad for a small company, huh?

Michelle: Not bad at all. Can you please tell us about your audience?

Betsy: “Framing the Issues” is written for a specific audience – a senior hiring manager or CEO. Most of our clients are small, privately held or venture-backed companies. They don’t have lots of money to spend on consultants. Many times they can’t afford an expensive retained search firm and they have to “do it themselves” when it comes to hiring.

Michelle: A woman who knows her audience – that’s critical. So, what about your newsletter content? What makes your newsletter different?

Betsy: The newsletter focuses on the challenges of finding, hiring and keeping good people in a company. Because companies are so different, there are a myriad of issues to be addressed at different stages in their development. And, usually when companies hire, lots of these issues come to the surface.

I write the newsletter in an anecdotal manner and I always include examples to make concepts easy to understand. I try to help companies identify problem areas and then solve potential problems regarding their most important asset – their employees.

I don’t follow an editorial calendar. I find enough “fodder” in what we’re working on every month! For example, I spoke with a client who told me that, at the end of every interview, he asks the interviewee about his hobbies to get a sense of who the potential new hire really is in everyday life. That was my topic for the very next issue – finding people who you like and who can do the job. I call it the “like-ability” factor.

This approach doesn’t work for everyone. A suggestion would be to sit down with key people in your company and brainstorm a list of possible topics for future issues. That way you’re never in a bind when it comes to content.

Michelle: How do you grow your email newsletter list?

Betsy: No big secret here. We have grown our list organically – one subscriber at a time. Of course we have an email list signup on our website and we proactively sign people up as we meet them at networking events, seminars, speaking engagements etc. We also sign people up as we speak to customers and prospects on the phone. It’s asking the permission question – that is the key. Many people fail to be disciplined and proactive in their list building efforts. It’s an easy thing to do and the reward is a bigger list.

Michelle: I know you have been using Constant Contact to send your email campaigns for the last few years. Was there ever a time when you did it yourself without an email marketing service?

Betsy: Way back when I used to send periodic emails to a list using Outlook. The content was good but I just put them out there in cyberspace. I couldn’t see what was happening with them except the occasional phone call. I very quickly learned that I really needed to have an email service provider to not only manage the process but to add more value to this effort.

Anyone can send a text email to a list and hope someone clicks or calls. But the send is just the beginning. When it comes to sending HTML, new subscribes, unsubscribes, list management, reports and all the other critical details, those are things I know nothing about.

I make money recruiting. To spend my time learning the ins and outs of email marketing and keeping up with changing best practices and the law would be a waste of my time – and I’d likely make a costly mistake or two along the way. I can’t afford that. What I can afford – because it is very affordable – is a service that does all that for me.

Michelle: What would you say is the most important lesson you learned about email marketing in 2004?

Betsy: Sad to say, I think it’s what I re- learned! You see Michelle, one of the basic tenets of marketing is to keep doing it – in good times and bad. I started publishing “FTI” after the market had gone south, so to speak. It was a challenge to carve out the time to start the project but I had faith that when the market picked back up, we would be front and center with our clients and prospects. And I was hoping what little business there was out there, we would get. Both of those things happened – to my delight!

Michelle: Betsy, thanks for taking the time to talk to our readers and giving us the opportunity to learn from your experience.

Betsy Harper is CEO and Managing Partner of Sales and Marketing Search, a contingency recruiting firm founded in 1992, specializing in finding sales and marketing talent for technology and business service companies. Contact Betsy at: betsy@smsearch.com. Sign up for the “Framing the Issues” newsletter here .

Michelle Keegan is the Email Marketing Diva for Constant Contact (www.constantcontact.com) and a recognized expert on best practices in e-commerce and email marketing for small and mid-sized businesses.

Michelle has over 12 years of experience in sales and marketing. Her articles, case studies and tips have appeared in numerous online and offline publications and websites including: Amazon.com, AOL, Boston Business Journal, FindWhat.com, Inc.com, Intuit, Marketingprofs.com, Staples.com and more.