Constant Contact is offering a great deal when you sign up for Email Marketing in May!

Your first month can be as low as 99 Cents with 500 or fewer contacts.  If you have more than 500 contacts, you get 94% off the standard rate for the first month.

Yes – not a typo – 94%!

Sign up today and enter the promotion code MAYEMMLE to take advantage of this offer.

On Friday, I received the email from Constant Contact notifying me that I earned the 2011 Constant Contact All-Star Award.  This is the third year in a row that Constant Contact has chosen to recognize my work.  I’m excited and humbled at the same time.

Here’s a copy of the press release information:

2011 CTCT All Star PressRelease

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I had the opportunity to test drive Constant Contact’s new tool, Social Campaigns.

In a nutshell, this is a tool that helps you create a custom landing page for your Facebook Business Page so you can engage more with your existing fans and to help you attract more fans for your business.

Wouldn’t it be great to give a free download, a coupon or something else to your Facebook followers on your Business Page?

Wouldn’t it be great if it looked professionally awesome? And didn’t cost you an arm and a leg to do it?

Wouldn’t it be great if it was customizable with your business colors, logo and branding?

Wouldn’t it be great if you didn’t have to speak HTML or any other web language that you don’t have time to learn because you’re too busy running your business?

Shouldn’t the answer to all of those questions be, “Heck, yeah!”?

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I’m SO excited.

Earlier today, I was the first trained Constant Contact Expert to return my paperwork to start presenting Constant Contact Seminars as part of a new pilot program.

My regular readers know that I’m a Constant Contact raving fan.  It’s a tool I’m totally passionate about because it makes such a difference for my business and the businesses of my clients who also use it.

Since I’m a trained Expert and an award winner, I’ve got that unique perspective to share with small business owners and entrepreneurs on how this all works.

I also just read an article that 47% of small business are not using social media. Since email marketing and social media go hand in hand, it means that there’s a knowledge gap that needs to be addressed.

I’m pleased – heck, I’m jazzed – to be able to offer the following topics:

• The Power of Email Marketing
• 3 Keys to Email Marketing
• Social Media Made Simple

Oh, and by the way…these seminars are FREE to attend.  That’s right – it costs you nothing to get this valuable knowledge.

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It seems that my inbox has been flooded with requests from my network to accept referrals from them through Referral Key.

My first reaction was, “What the heck is Referral Key?”  It seems that it’s everyone’s latest favorite thing.

So here I am digging around for info.

Is it like LinkedIn?  Or more like Angie’s List?  Or a little like both?

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Did you know LinkedIn has the Company Profile feature?

Have you listed your small business there yet?

I think some small businesses haven’t found this feature or haven’t taken advantage of it yet, thinking they aren’t big enough to make use of it.

I admit to not having done very much with my own Company Profile since setting it up until recently.

I recently started filling out the Services section of my Company Profile.

What’s great is that you not only describe your service, you can also add in a YouTube video about your service.

AWESOME!  This is a great way to share and show how your business works and what you can offer to your potential clients and customers.

I’ve added in my Email Marketing Training service description and plan to add all the other services that I offer so that more information is available in this area and in a variety of formats.

What types of products and/or services would you share for in your Company Profile?

This is my press release that is going out today.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Mary Albright of Can Do Virtual Assisting
Named One of Constant Contact’s 2010 All Stars

Company’s use of Constant Contact products and services helped increase its overall marketing performance and deepen its engagement with customers

Circle Pines, MN — April 4, 2011 – Mary Albright, virtual assistant and owner of Can Do Virtual Assisting, a business that provides administrative support to small businesses and entrepreneurs, has received the 2010 All Star Award from Constant Contact^®, Inc., the trusted marketing advisor to more than 400,000 small organizations worldwide.  Mary is one of Constant Contact’s 2010 top performers and most prolific user of its tools, whether within Constant Contact’s email marketing, event marketing, social media marketing, or survey products – or a combination of all four.

“I’m pleased to be recognized by Constant Contact for my use of its tools not only in my own business, but also when managing client business. Being an expert in  Constant Contact’s tools have helped me to be more productive in my own communications needs as well as managing  client email newsletters and event marketing needs.”

Constant Contact looked at criteria including the following when selecting this year’s All Stars:

• Frequency of campaigns, events and surveys
• Open, bounce and click through rates
• Usage of social features
• Mailing list sign up tools
• Use of reporting tools

“We work hard to listen to our customers, and we use that feedback to create products and services designed to help them better engage with their customers and prospects,” said Gail Goodman, chairman, president and CEO of Constant Contact. “The Constant Contact All Star Awards are our way of recognizing our customers that have successfully used Constant Contact to market their companies. We have some of the most committed, passionate customers out there and we’re proud we can be a part of their continued success.”

About Constant Contact, Inc.

Constant Contact is revolutionizing the success formula for small organizations through affordable, easy-to-use Engagement Marketing™ tools that help create and grow customer relationships.  More than 400,000 small businesses, nonprofit organizations, and member associations worldwide rely on Constant Contact as their engagement hub for starting and driving ongoing customer dialogs through email marketing, social media marketing, event marketing, and online surveys.  All Constant Contact products come with unrivaled know how, education and free coaching with a personal touch, including award-winning customer support. 

Constant Contact and the Constant Contact Logo are registered trademarks of Constant Contact, Inc. All Constant Contact product names and other brand names mentioned herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of Constant Contact, Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks or service marks of their respective owners.

Media Contact:

Mary Albright
Can Do Virtual Assisting
763.634.1536
mary@CanDoVA.com

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I love LinkedIn.  I probably have made more meaningful business connections using this oft-thought-of third wheel of the “Big 3″ social networks.

LinkedIn recently rolled out a new section for your personal profile called Skills.

The above is a snapshot of my LinkedIn Skill section.

Why would you want to fill out the Skill section?  If someone on LinkedIn is looking for someone with your skill set, the more information you share in your public profile, the greater the chance you have of being located by the people who are looking for someone like you!

What can you share?

• General skill categories.  The bonus is you can add whatever skill you think applies here.  You can list the number of years and rate what your proficiency status in each skill would be (eg Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, Expert)
• Certifications.  If you have certifications that are pertinent to your job, include them.

The nice thing about this new profile feature is that it’s very flexible. You should be able to add whatever you’d like and really personalize your profile with this.

This is a great tool that can help you make more meaningful and engaging connections.

I’ve been loosely following the SXSW conference as there’s a lot of emerging technology and such that might affect small business owners and entrepreneurs.

I came across a great YouTube video (shot by YouTube user constantcontact) that is a 45 second interview/comment from Guy Kawasaki.

Social media is all well and good, but email marketing is still a great way to connect with and engage with your clients, peers and friends.

Did you even know that you could have a Google Profile?

It looks like Google’s attempt at a Facebook profile.  You can have a profile picture, a scrapbook of other photos, personal info, etc.   Like all things Google, it’s simple, clean and straight to the point. I like that you can add links about yourself, whether it be websites, articles, or blogs.

How is this personal Google profile business related?

Well, this can help you with your personal branding.   If someone is searching for you in Google, if you have a Google profile, you’ll probably find yourself pretty high on page 1.   Add in your personal and professional links to your profile, and you have yet one more way people can find you.

Right now, I have links to MaryAlbright.com, CanDoVA, a business spotlight page, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Google posted in its blog that it’s working on ways for businesses to engage their customers.  But for now, think about doing some personal branding and check it out.