Gary wrote this in
Email Marketing
on 27-Jul-2010
- 11/11/11 at 11.11.11
- Google+ “It’s already good for rankings”
- Whoo hooo, Pebble Mailer editor just got a facelift...
- How wide should E-news and EDM's really be?
- Get more from your mobile traffic
- Beautiful one day - Promoted the next
- Why Trip Advisor is getting a bad review
- Your Website's New Year's Resolutions
- Why Permission Marketing Is the Future of Online Advertising
- The Queensland Floods and the power of Social Marketing
From the Blog
11/11/11 at 11.11.11
amazing to have all one's in date and time, we stopped for a second. More
From the Blog
Google+ “It’s already good for rankings”
Google+ hasn’t even been around 6 months yet, and it’s considered a major player in the social media realm. It regularly draws comparisons to both Facebook and Twitter. But, Google+ does have one thing going for it that currently Facebook and Twitter doesn’t: it’s good for rankings… in Google. Imagine that. More
From the Blog
Whoo hooo, Pebble Mailer editor just got a facelift...
Many new features have been added to the the Pebble Mailer system by our awesome partners in Sydney. As online email marketing becomes a part of our daily lives, this now makes things even easier for us all. Read on for more info and to watch the video. More
From the Blog
How wide should E-news and EDM's really be?
You’ve probably noticed that the majority of email newsletters you receive these days are designed with a fixed width as opposed to a fluid layout. More
From the Blog
Get more from your mobile traffic
With more and more users accessing the web from mobile devices, can you be sure you are capitalising on this new traffic source? More
From the Blog
Beautiful one day - Promoted the next
Tourism Queensland promotion blitz steps up its game. More
From the Blog
Why Trip Advisor is getting a bad review
TripAdvisor.com is the foremost travel advisory website pushing transparency on to the hotel industry. But as TripAdvisor’s 2011 Dirtiest Hotels are announced, it leads us to ask, "Are the reviews really as good as we think?" More
From the Blog
Your Website's New Year's Resolutions
We're all now well into the swing of things for 2011. So why not think about your New Year's resolutions for your business? Here's 5 things you can do for 2011 to improve your online performance. More
From the Blog
Why Permission Marketing Is the Future of Online Advertising
The concept of “Permission Marketing” isn’t new; in fact, Seth Godin’s 1999 book about “turning strangers into friends and friends into customers” seems remarkably prescient in today’s age of “Friending,” “Liking,” and “Following.” More
From the Blog
The Queensland Floods and the power of Social Marketing
See how social marketing has made the Queensland Floods one of the most accessed news item world wide. More
Send Stuff People Actually Want. Repeat
An effective marketing campaign is servicing the customer, not the other way around. Email marketing today seems to have lost that message. See our tips on delivering your message and getting them read.
Email Marketing is proven to provide additional traffic to your website. It's a valuable tool that not only is an easy, cost effective way to deliver your message, it delivers consistency on a mass scale.
So... What's the problem?
The problem is everyone is doing it, and a lot are doing it badly. As a result we get so many emails from all sorts of businesses selling their product which most of the time we don't really care about. Those few rotten apples then puts everyone in the same boat. And even though you feel your message is just as important as the next guy, in most cases it's the customer who decides.
What's the answer then?
As competitive as this market is there are a few ways you can stay ahead of the pack and get both your open rates and click-through rates to increase. Here are a few tips to improve your email marketing strategy:
Find out what your customers want and give it to them
A good reliable database takes time to build up but the rewards are worth the effort. Understanding who your customers are and what they want is the first step to a successful marketing campaign.
Remembering that industry wide only 20 - 40% of emails are opened and only 20 - 40% of that actually click on a link. If they are continually getting useful information you've got more chance of them trusting your email address and opening your emails.
Use an industry standard email marketing tool
Don't use Microsoft Outlook or any email client you have installed on your computer. Yes, you can create an email using Word Art but it honestly isn't professional. No matter how good your design skills are, Word doesn't cut it.
Add a subscribe form to your website
By adding a subscribe form to your website you are going to resolve two issues.
You are allowed to send subscribers sales emails.
There are very specific rules about spamming. You can't just pluck an email list out of the air and start selling your product to them, it's illegal. You can only send emails to people that have agreed to receive them (such as a subscribe form) or who have already purchased something from you.
Your customers have done half the work for you.
Because they've subscribed, they are already interested. Meaning you've got a better chance of them opening your email because they actually want you to email them. Because they've also entered the information in themselves you've got a better chance of their details such as their name and email address being correct. Incorrect name spelling is the quickest way to make your customers feel like you don't care about them.
Replay to emails
Yes, we know that you are sending out to a gazillion people but you have the responsibility of treating every person as an valued customer. no-replay@mybusiness.com is a quick way to show you don't care about them and customers like talking to a human every now and then.
Remember, it's a two way street. Customers aren't ATM's. It's not an "I send you stuff .. you send me money".
Use the 80/20 rule
Your email should comprise of at least 80% text and the rest images. Full image emails get blocked by nearly all spam filters. Plus you're using up your clients bandwidth which is not very considerate of you when you are trying to sell them something.
Run a Design and Spam Check
All decent email marketing tools will have a feature to both check your spam rating and design delivery across the major email clients. Your spam rating will tell you how likely your email will be blocked by a spam filter and be sent to the spam folder or just not deliver at all. The design delivery test will show you how your email will look across the major email clients. With over 30 major email clients such as the Microsoft Outlook (there is more then one and they all display differently), Thunderbird, Apply Mail and your web based email clients such as Gmail, Hotmail & Yahoo Mail, your email needs to display the same across all. Every email client generates the email differently.
Get a Developer proficient in Email Coding
Because of the previous point of email clients displaying emails differently, the code for emails needs to be written carefully to ensure consistency across these players. Because your web designer built your website it does not necessary mean they know how to correctly build your email.
And Finally... Make a call to action
It's all well and good emailing your customers with great news and updates every month, but if they are not completing some form of action such as clicking on a link back to your website then you are never going to be able to measure how effective your email has been and you'll never know whether your email campaigns are actually working.
Want more?
If you want to find out more about email marketing, get access to Pebble Mailer and start creating a profitable sales avenue today.
