2-01-2011 I am currently teaching a 3-week class at the Hartford Public Library on email marketing. The first week was canceled due to a snowstorm and held last week instead. Tonight would have been, originally, week 3 and the last of the series. Instead week 2 was scheduled for tonight. It got snowed out too, as we’re experiencing the largest snowstorm the continent has ever had. Week 2 will be scheduled for next Tuesday, 2-08-11, and the final session for Tuesday, February 15th, two weeks later than originally scheduled. That’s if all goes well with our New England weather.
So, decided to chip away at my new blog. Today’s topic: the email survey results from my first class.
31 people registered for the class. It was a good turnout. The participants were from Hartford and surrounding towns, either small business people or folks wanting to start their own businesses. They asked good and relevant questions during the 2-hour session, and overall I felt it was an engaged class. Now I wondered how many of the participants were online; how many had Facebook business pages; and how many would email market me (I’d signed up to receive email messages from them).
I sent the 31 class participants a survey and the most notable results to me were not the answers to the survey questions, but the percentages of people who responded, clicked through, “liked” my FB biz page and ultimately, liked and commented on one or more of the threads on my FB biz page.
You can see the likes, comments and posts on the Notes Page of my FB biz page, In Touch Promotions.
Long and short of it is: Out of 31 class registrants, 2 email addresses bounced back; 23 opened the email (74%); of those who opened the email 16 clicked through and took the survey (70%); 2 followed through from the survey to my Facebook biz page (13% of the click-throughs and 9% of those who opened). It looks like 3 classmates “liked” my biz page and 2 posted, liked or commented on the page. So far no one has email-marketed me.
According to Constant Contact (love those guys!) I got 2 Facebook shares, 1 Twitter retweet and 1 LinkedIn share. That’s right around 3-6% of the overall class.
The conclusion I draw is that not a large percentage of the small business and biz start-up population in the Hartford and surrounding area is on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter or uses email marketing. This may be good information to have for building FB biz-page “fans” (or should we call them “likers?”). I will try to connect with this community which is quite vibrant and willing to work.
One good way to connect with them, perhaps, is to be available at the Hartford Public Library once a week in the computer lab room. That wouldn’t be too bad. Now, when there’s a snowstorm, could I do the same at the library in Venice Beach, FL?