Tag Archives: email marketing
Blow the Dust off Your Email Program
Perhaps you’re coming out of winter hibernation and noticing that your email results are slumping: open rates and click thrus are down, unsubscribes are up. And your mom hit the SPAM button. See if you recognize these symptoms:
Your list isn’t true opt-in
You swipe names off business cards at tradeshows, buy affinity lists, or enter customers in contests without gaining permission to send other email.
Your creative is burned out
You send the same emails over and over again with minor changes. Your customers feel SPAMed and drop out.
You don’t have effective landing pages
Your email sends customers to a page in a catalog that is unrelated in design and message to the email, and doesn’t have a response mechanism. This trains them not to click!
Your list is stagnant
Even the best email programs lose subscribers. Email addresses and jobs change, and people just get overwhelmed. Make sure that your acquisition plan replaces subscribers at the rate they’re lost and also factors in your growth objectives.
There is no reason to click thru
Are you giving away the whole story in your email instead of using teasers? Do you provide offers, white papers or real news to entice prospects? If not, don’t expect higher click thru rates.
Your frequency is off
Every list has a frequency it will tolerate. Are you mailing weekly, bi-weekly, monthly? If you increase or decrease the frequency does your response increase?
Poor design
Do you give your customers something to click within the first 300 pixels? Is your email just one big image? Do you have clear and compelling calls to action in text? If not, review best practices and tweak.
Mobile Friendly Email Becomes a Must
Forty percent of adult Americans use mobile phones to access email, according to a 2010 survey by Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.
With more people turning to their phones for email, it’s worth a little extra time to make your emails mobile friendly.
Make sure your leads are brief and catchy. People who use cell phones for email are already on the go, so catch their attention fast with leads that scream “open me.”
Define link colors clearly, and use text links in favor of images or buttons. Always include a visible plain text version of the email.
Find out how many users are actually using their mobile devices to open the newsletter. Analytics are important because if none of your audience uses mobile email, it’s not necessary to fret – yet.
Most new smartphones (iPhones, Androids) display regular emails (Blackberrys don’t), but because the screen sizes vary and are considerably smaller than PC monitors, formatting can be a pain. Generally, the rule of thumb is the less complex coding and images, the safer the email. The mobile resolution will be about less than half the size of desktop emails. Never use large images!
Dear [John] is not dynamic content.
Doesn’t that make you feel special when email spammers use your first name? We think it’s a stupid trick, and it’s delusional if you think it’s a substitute for dynamic email marketing.
Real dynamic content is much different, and much more powerful. Based on user preferences or segmentation, contents are tailored to individual interests. This increases click- thrus and conversions, and overall ROI of your campaign.
Engage your audience through more relevant content.
To get started with email marketing you’ll need an emailer who can handle dynamic content, separate content for each segment you wish to target, and a segmented list.
- Define the most advantageous segmentation for your business. For example, a professional oven manufacturer might capture e.g. the names and titles of restaurant owners and head chefs, and type of restaurant (Italian, French, Haggis).
- Invite your existing subscribers to express their preferences on a web page; and explain what’s in it for them, e.g. they’ll receive a recipe that’s perfect for their restaurant every month.
- Create a newsletter format and design that contains core content pertinent to your entire audience, e.g. trade shows you’re attending and company news. And allow a space for dynamic content.
- Create a specialized chunk of content for each of your markets, and space for it to be dynamically inserted in your newsletter.
- Continually prod subscribers to update their preferences. For example, would you like to see a recipe just for your restaurant every month?
- Track analytics to improve the content for each segment.
Email Marketing: When to Send?
Of the many factors that determine the success of an email campaign, the time of day and day of week campaigns are deployed is the most often ignored. New research from Pivotal Veracity may just change your timing. It shows, for example, that the elapsed time from when messages are first sent and first seen has expanded from 23.2 hours in January 2009 to 25.9 hours in August 2009. This is critical if your email campaign is time sensitive.Target an Episode
Pivotal Veracity also identifies 2 daily episodes especially pertinent to B2B mailings targeting office bound workers. The first period in the morning, from 7:30 to 9 a.m. is the most extended time people use to cope with their email. Later in the day, from 2 to 3 p.m., workers attend to their emails in shorter bursts. While mornings are popular, PV suggests that your customers may view your email as welcome relief later in the day.
The ideal time of deployment is a moving target. As soon as a day or time becomes “popular,” it’s time to move your campaign away from the onslaught of email competing for your customer’s attention.
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