If I understand your question correctly, you need a marketing automation platform that lets you send mass emails, nurture contacts and engage in progressive profiling so you can get to know them better and tailor communications towards their interests or behaviors. If I got that right, I recommend Hubspot or Pardot. I used to be a Pardot reseller and now I am a Hubspot partner (full disclosure) but both platforms have a ton of advantages that ease the marketing process. Hubspot also has it's own lean CRM but both platforms can sync with traditional CRMs as well. There are other platforms, but most of the others are complex systems that I don't believe are well suited for smaller organizations. If I understood your question, I'm happy to talk more about how these platforms could benefit you.

I don't have a great answer if you have a limited budget and time, but I would focus on 1) Building a social media strategy with an incentive plan attached to spark engagement. 2) Create a "hit list" of companies that fit the profile and ask them to participate. Not sure how many companies you'd need for the beta but this select list could have special privileges and guarantees such as free or reduced cost when it launches. 3) Check out launchrock.com. For $5 per month you can build a acquisition website and get free promotion to their audience which I think is 200K+ people. Not sure the demo of those people though. 4) Rent a list of contacts in your target market, perhaps through a trade publication that caters to your audience, and send an email (or series of emails) asking for their participation and telling them why they should participate and what they will get for it.

Rinse, reuse, recycle! People consume information in a variety of ways and most have preferences so there is no harm in retooling them in different formats. Here are five immediate things you can do: 1) Use the video as a podcast. Wait - that was your idea! Not sure how long your videos are, but you want it to be no more than 45 minutes on average. Of course there are exceptions. 2) Break the videos up into chunks. Take the most interesting bits and turn them into 3 minute lessons or tips. Make sure to include your branding whether you execute this in video or audio (podcast) format. 3) Transcribe the audio and turn it into a whitepaper or ebook. 4) Create a blog series from portions of the content to promote your content. 5) Pull interesting quotes and/or short slices of the audio/video and use them on social media. 6) Because I recycled your idea -- Create a summary infographic from the video content to provide a visual snapshot of the material. Hope that helps, but happy to chat more about your options.

I think you have two options or can use a combo of both. Without knowing more about your business or site, it's difficult to be very specific, but here goes... 1) Make sure the chat feature is clearly visible from every page, but not obstructing normal navigation. 2) Program live chat to pop up at key points in the buyer's journey. For example: If someone is lingering too long on a page, you could ask if they need help. If they are abandoning their cart, you can try to redirect them. You could even use live chat to suggest a complimentary item. However, if you find that you need live chat in order to complete the majority of your sales, you may need to reassess your website to ensure it's doing the heavy lifting you need.

The answer depends on your goals, resources and budget. You have a good body of work listed above. Content creation and marketing seems to be missing, but you want an agency that can create meaningful strategies and guide you on the tactical execution of those strategies using the appropriate media. Happy to chat further once I know more about your business goals.

First, congratulations on your new endeavor. You're about to enter a brave new world. And while you will worry about every detail and make a few mistakes, just promise yourself to learn from them. That being said, as a startup the reality is that you will be strapped for cash and will reply on outsourced contractors to get you up and running until you have a need for dedicated, full-time personnel. Until then, your main focus should be on finding great outsourced partners. Don't go for cheap. Go for quality and go with a partner you can trust, collaborate with and who understands the end goal. All outside firms or freelancers know that one day the gig will end so don't just ask about what they will do for your know, ask how they will support and transition once the gig is up. Good partners will be able to do this seamlessly for you. (I now have transition down to a science!) Also, make sure there's some overlap between the end of the engagement with the outsourced firm/freelancer and the new hire. This way you can ensure your new hire has access to the people who did the previous work and because they are being paid to transition, you'll get the best out of the firm too. Hope that helps you. Good luck with your new venture!

How old is old? Have you been in communication with these people on a regular basis? - If yes, you could send an email to introduce your new company/product. Best practice would dictate that you ask them to opt-in, but in this case you could do the reverse and ask them to opt-out of future mailings since they know you already. - If you don't have an ongoing relationship with them, you could send a two-part email series introducing your new product and asking them to opt-in. You can also disclose that they purchased something from you in the past so they know why you have their email. As your send the email series, eliminate all non-responders from your future mailings. Allowing your old list to proactively opt-in ensures that you will have engaged prospects on your new list, and allows you to eliminate bad email addresses and avoid low engagement from people who haven't shown interest in your new product - two key reasons for ending up in the spam folder or worse undeliverable. If you'd like to chat more about how to structure your emails, email best practices or maintaining high email deliverability, let's schedule a call.

The primary reason is usually lack of relevancy. If you are delivering great content that the subscriber asked for, then they will become and stay engaged for as long as it's relevant to them. If you have an high opt-out rate, evaluate how those people ended up on your list in the first place. Did you buy those emails or do you have an opt-in process that is obscure? If so, people may be opting out because they didn't formally ask to be subscribed in the first place. If they are true subscribers, map your content to your audience and see what messages are suffering from low engagement. It may also be time to rethink frequency. In any case, remove non-responders from your list. High opt-out rates and low engagement will negatively affect your email deliverability thereby preventing you from reaching the people who actually want to receive your email messages.