Blog - Archive for the ‘Tips & Tricks’ Category

Email list churn is very nearly considered one of the few ‘givens’ in life (next to death and taxes that is). No? Ok fine, maybe it’s not that dramatic but it is something that most marketers have to deal with and likely on a regular basis. List churn refers to the number of subscribers who are ‘lost’ to your list over a given period and it’s measured by the number of hard bounces, unsubscribes, or spam complaints you receive. Other factors that add to list churn include email content relevance, frequency of the campaigns, inactive subscribers (though this can be hard to measure) and ineffective opt-in processes, all of which in turn affect deliverability and your bottom line. On average a marketer will experience 20-30% list churn every year, but you can work out your rate by following this simple equation:

Tally up your hard bounces, unsubscribes and spam complaints for the time period you’re interested in (usually a month or year) and divide this total number of ‘lost’ subscribers by your current list size and presto, you have your churn rate. A basic example looks like this:

• 3,000 (‘lost’ subscribers) / 10,000 (current list size) = 0.3 x 100 = 30% list churn rate.

While list churn is inevitable to a certain extent, there are steps you can take to reduce it and although they aren’t necessarily ‘quick fixes’ (if there is there such a thing in email marketing?!), if you make a concerted effort to employ these tactics you should start to see positive results.

1. Tell your subscribers everything they need to know

If you don’t have a preference centre where subscribers can decide which newsletters they receive and how often, then tell them what they can expect from you when they first sign up, and stick to this. Email marketing is all about developing a long term online relationship with your subscriber, and this is where it starts. This would also be a good time to lay out your privacy policy, in layman’s terms. No need to go into 5 pages of indecipherable text, just let your subscribers know that you aren’t going to sell, rent or disclose any of their details to anyone else. It’s really that simple.

2. Learn from your mistakes

If someone unsubscribes, politely ask for feedback or comments about why they’re opting out and what you could do better, and then do what you can to implement those suggestions into your campaign. It all helps with customer engagement and while you might have lost this particular subscriber, the constructive criticism can be used to adapt your strategy and help ensure you meet the expectations of the next customer who signs up.

3. Make things easy for your subscribers

Quick and simple opt-in and unsubscribe processes along with reliable contact details are what your subscribers are initially looking for, so get off to a good start and make sure these aspects of your campaign are optimized for ease of use. It’s also a good idea to offer a simple preference centre so your subscribers can easily update their profile or change their preferences in terms of what their interests are, which newsletters they’re interested in, how often they want to receive them etc. Not only is this a good way of engaging with them, but the data is hugely beneficial to you too, because you can use it to segment your audience and target them more effectively.

4. Re-engage inactive subscribers

The term ‘inactive’ is open to interpretation, but generally if a subscriber hasn’t clicked on any of your emails in the past 6 months (based on say 1-2 campaigns a month), then you could assume that they now fall into the ‘inactive’ category. It’s not a train smash, rather see it as an opportunity to re-engage with them and get them interested again in what you had to offer. They obviously liked something you did otherwise they wouldn’t have signed up in the first place, so work off of this. Assuming these subscribers are perhaps bored with your current email offerings, your reactivation campaign needs to jump out at them and offer something truly irresistible that’s going to guarantee a high open rate. This would also be a good time to find out if they are still interested in receiving your emails or if they’d prefer to reduce their subscription or unsubscribe completely.

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) describes the process of creating an experience for a website or landing page visitor with the explicit goal of encouraging them to perform a conversion of sorts, be it signing-up for a newsletter, downloading a report or white paper or making a purchase. This isn’t as easy as it appears (go figure!) and marketers use heaps of tactics to persuade people to part with their closely guarded email addresses and/or hard earned money. Tantalizing copy and eye-catching websites and landing pages form part of their modus operandi.

Just to clear any uncertainty, your conversion rate is worked out at the number of people who perform a desired action divided by the total number of people who landed on your site. Unfortunately, conversion rates are generalised (not targeted at all) and are therefore not always considered an accurate indication of the success of your email campaign. Therefore, many marketers are now focused on the pretesting stage of CRO which helps ensure that all campaigns are highly optimized. With this approach, a lot of time is spent understanding exactly who the audience is and what they want and expect before creating highly targeted messages for each group within their audience.

The pretesting stage might include researching:

•             Demographics

•             Geographic location

•             Characteristics

•             Awareness of your company (or product/service)

•             What the customer is looking for

•             What they expect from you

•             If they are already repeat buyers or frequent visitors to the site

•             How they reached your site (referral, PPC, organic search etc.)

All of this information enables marketers to gain an in depth look at their customers which in turn creates a greater chance of increased conversion rates.

Clearly, conversion rates are a vital metric of any email campaign, so we’ve looked at a few ways that you can help to optimize yours.

1. You really do need to have an awesome landing page

Pay extra special attention to detail here. Your design needs to be crisp, clear, bold and eye catching – but keep it uncluttered and triple check it to make sure it doesn’t have any unnecessary copy or links that might distract the visitor from performing the desired action. Importantly, as with most things email marketing related, what does your call to action say? Does it stand out? Is it easy to find and follow? Make it clear to visitors exactly what you want them to do and keep the process painless.

2. Gently welcome your new subscribers – don’t smother them

Once they have converted, resist the temptation to start sending them promotional emails immediately. A simply welcome email shortly after they have signed up is all that’s necessary for now. In it, remind them exactly what they have signed up for and what they can expect to receive from you in the future. Also mention again that the privilege is completely free and that they can opt-out easily at any time. People don’t like to be backed into corners so it’s important they know they are not obliged to anything. In the beginning, while you are still ‘courting’ your new subscribers so to speak, send them 3 or 4 newsletters before you send any promotional emails. This way they get to know you a little better and should feel more comfortable when it comes to buying from you in the (near) future. High conversion rates are a strong indication of the type of online relationship you have with your customers, by nurturing them from the start, it helps build loyalty in the long run.

3. Quality products that offer value trumps

If you aren’t 100% satisfied and proud of your product and its benefits to your customers, then why should they be comfortable buying it from you? If someone buys something from you that’s substandard or faulty and they have trouble replacing it or making you aware of the problem, then they’ll never buy from you again. On top of this you can rest assured everyone they know will soon hear about your service too, and not in the way you want. If you’re going to do something then do it right from the beginning and don’t compromise on your products or service. Provide the best you can afford and you’ll soon see your list of loyal customers (and your profits) growing.

4. Content needs to be catchy and succinct

The best email newsletter design and product offering in the world won’t do you much good if your content hasn’t been given thought. Short, sharp and snappy is what you want to aim for and yes, by all means include one or two relevant images, but bear in mind that most people have images disabled on their email and especially on mobile devices. Your aim is to get your message across without having to resort to lengthy text, which distracts your readers and leaves them feeling bored and disinterested. If you have a lot you want to say, rather insert a ‘click here for more information’ link in your message that will direct subscribers to your website. People’s attention span is notoriously short when it comes to promotional emails so you need be as quick and clear as possible and try to ensure that this is all done above the fold. No pressure or anything, but the faster you learn to do this effectively the better it is for you in the long run.

5. Give them great reasons to convert

Every now and again it’s a thoughtful gesture to send out gifts to your customers, to let them know that you really do care and appreciate their loyalty. Give them the option of an interesting and useful e-book, a free software download that will make their online lives easier, a coupon they can redeem immediately offline or online, or even a discount voucher for the next time they purchase something from you. If you aim to do this every few months not only will it endear you to your regular customers but also to those who might slowly be losing interest in you, in which case it’s a great way to win them back and remind them of just why they signed up in the first place (because you’re a great company of course!)

At some point along the line, you might have bought an email list, or at least been tempted to buy one. This is bad idea for two reasons. Firstly, they are undoubtedly filled with inactive, non-existent email addresses and spam traps and secondly, it’s borderline illegal, so forget that idea.

The only way that you can truly ensure that you have a targeted email list is to build it up from scratch with people who have opted-in to receive your emails, which automatically means they’re genuinely interested in what you have to say and offer. It’s important to remember quality over quantity in terms of how big your list is and in this case bigger isn’t necessarily better. You might have a huge list with low click-through-rates (CTR) and conversions, which means you’re spending wasted money targeting inactive or disinterested subscribers.

Fear not! Building up a relevant and highly valuable email database isn’t as daunting as it sounds and there are a number of ways you can do this for free or for very little money.

Firstly, you need to create a (short) subscription form so visitors to your site can sign up for your email offerings. This form needs to be highly visible and it’s not a bad idea to have a version of it on each page of your website. At this stage, only ask for the person’s name, email address and company name so they can’t be put off by too many questions. Be sure to follow it up with a confirmation email that they have to click to confirm their subscription – also known as double opt-in. Once they’ve signed up, follow up with a brief ‘welcome’ email that reiterates what they can expect to receive from you and give them the option of forwarding or sharing your email with friends, which will of course expand your email database even more. Remember to include the direct link to your sign up page in the message that gets forwarded.

Run a competition on your website. People are always interested in free goodies. The actual competition can be anything – best article, best photo, best design, best strategy, basically whatever is relevant to your industry. What can you put up for grabs? Techie products, software or a great programme always goes down a treat. The catch is that anyone who wants to enter has to give their email address, and sign up for your newsletter in the process.

Contribute your relevant industry articles to various online magazines and blog sites, thereby building a profile for you and your company and establishing yourself as an expert in the field. Almost all sites that accept freelance contributions allow you to have links to your website or email address for people to click on. Take it one step further and include a link to sign up for your newsletter, offering great insider information, updates, advice and promotions.

Seduce them with special offers on your sign up page. This isn’t quite the same as a once off competition, but rather, in exchange for signing up to your newsletter and divulging their precious email address, they’re getting a ‘gift’ so to speak. This could be a discount, coupon or voucher that they can use immediately, an interesting e-book that you’ve created or perhaps a month free premium membership for your website or one that you know is trending at the moment.

Use social media networks (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn) to encourage people to sign up for your newsletter (or whatever it is that you want to promote), then include a direct link to that sign-up page so they can check it out straightaway.

Online and offline, use each point of contact you have with a customer as an opportunity to let them know about your newsletter. This means including links to sign-up on all invoices, business cards, brochures, advertising, feedback forms and surveys.

If you are in a position to, run a PPC campaign. Create a purposeful and hard to ignore landing page that encourages visitors to sign up when they click through on your PPC campaign. Once again, keep it simple and straightforward. Name, email address, company (if necessary) and a big bold button they can’t miss.

Include an invite to sign up in all your email signatures and make sure the process is quick and painless. If you are already communicating with customers on a regular basis, then you probably have or are in the process of, developing a relationship with them, in which case inviting them to sign up should be a cinch.

It might sound like a lot that you have to do just to get people to sign up, but it really is the best way and you may find that it only requires a minor adjustment to what you are currently doing now. It isn’t necessary to immediately incorporate all of these suggestions, by all means start with two or three and see how that goes. You can develop your ‘sign up’ campaign as and when you need and you’ll soon find your (highly targeted) list growing at a healthy rate.

I love this: “Not since the Pony Express have there been so many obstacles to getting mail delivered. Bandits, rugged terrain and wild animals have been replaced with blacklists, spam filters and apathetic recipients.” (Debra Ellis – Target Marketing)

To drive home this fact, a report by ReturnPath Reputation Benchmark Report states that the presence of just one spam trap can drop your deliverability rating by up to 53%.  At the end of our previous article on the top 3 email deliverability issues, we mentioned the importance of sender reputation. Play by the rules and get the ISP’s onto your side and you’ll see your email delivery rates increase. A further study by ReturnPath showed that sender reputation accounted for 77% of email deliverability.

While email marketing newbies can be forgiven for thinking that getting your email campaign into your recipient’s inbox is as simple as writing what you want and hitting send, seasoned pros know that the reality is somewhat different (and more of a fine art in fact). So, for those who are wondering what you can do to get that golden ticket, we’ve looked at 6 of the best practices you can follow for email delivery success.

First things first,

1. Sign up for ISP feedback

This way you can get immediate notification when your subscriber makes a spam complaint, which means you can take action straight away. Bear in mind though that you’ll have to apply to each ISP individually.

2. Make sure you have your subscriber’s explicit permission to send them emails

The best way to do this is with a double opt-in sign up. Also give them the option to choose which of your newsletters they want to receive and how often they wish to receive it, and then honour their request. If they start getting emails that they aren’t interested in and are irrelevant, they’ll simply unsubscribe or worse, report you for spam. If you take the time to get it right from the beginning and give your customers exactly what they want, you’ll have already started on the path to a long and prosperous relationship with them.

3. Ask your subscribers to add your address to their contact list

This is possibly one of the most effective ways to reach a subscribers inbox all the time. It’s as simple as making a note in your newsletter asking them to add you. Get this done and most of your deliverability problems are solved right there.

4. Be consistent with when you send your campaigns

Not only will your subscribers come to recognize and look forward to your emails every Thursday (or whichever day you choose), but the ISP’s also appreciate and acknowledge your consistency.

5. Spend time optimizing your design

Follow your consistency through to your templates and stick to the same (or at least a similar) design depending on if you are sending out your newsletter, promotional or transactional email. This also goes a long way to developing brand awareness and customers will soon start to recognize your emails simply from their design, which is great. Try to avoid adding attachments or large images, which often raise red flags with ISP’s. Flash and JavaScript are also best left out of your email, Flash because it’s not viewable with most email clients, and JavaScript because it’s often disabled automatically.

6. Make sure you always use the same “from” name and address

Not to harp on too much about consistency, but this will also help your subscribers recognize you, and quite simply it’s much more professional than sending out each new campaign from a different address.

Remember that ISP’s and ESP’s are constantly on the lookout for new ways to catch spammers, and although you might be as legit as they come, there is always a chance that your emails can be mistaken for spam. Unfortunately it doesn’t take much to get reported, so as far as deliverability is concerned, adhere to as many of these (and other) best practices as possible if you want to ensure your email reaches its target.

Email deliverability ties in closely with email authentication and more often than not the two are written about simultaneously. While email authentication focuses on validating your email and making sure that it comes from where it says it comes from, email deliverability focuses on what allows or prevents your email from landing in your recipient’s inbox. In this article we’re going to look at the top 3 issues that face email deliverability, these being bounces (hard and soft), spam traps and spam complaints. According to an article on SmashingMagazine, studies have shown that your reputation determines your email delivery more than your content, so by meeting the expectation of your subscribers and providing valuable content they can use, you improve the delivery rates of your emails. You can find out more about creating relevant content here and here.

So, let’s look at those three deliverability issues in more detail.

1. Bounces

A bounce is when an email is returned to the sender when, for one reason or another it can’t get through to the recipients inbox. There are two of these, soft bounces and hard bounces, the latter often being more of a concern for marketers. More often than not a bounce message is promptly sent to the sender informing them that this has happened. Usually, two things cause the email to bounce, one of them is a temporary problem (a.k.a. soft bounce), and the other is permanent (a.k.a. hard bounce).

A soft bounce could simply be the result of a full inbox, or a technical problem whereby the connection is down or lost over the time your email was sent. Internet service provider’s (ISP) generally take this into consideration, however if your message soft bounces the same email address more than say 5 times in a row, you should consider removing it from your active subscribers list. Many email marketing solutions will do this for you automatically.

A hard bounce is when an email is sent to an invalid or non-existent address. ISP’s are less tolerant with these because lists should all be opt-in, so why would you have an incorrect email address on your list, right? Fact is people change jobs, change their email addresses and last thing on their mind (hate to say) is to update their details with companies that send them regular email campaigns. Of course these hard bounces are also expected from any large list, which is why list hygiene is so important. ISP’s automatically block access when a message is sent to an invalid email address and will continue to block you until it’s removed from the list, so it’s much easier to simply comply and delete the offending email address.

As far as spam is concerned, spam complaints and spam traps are also a major issue when it comes to email deliverability, perhaps more so than bounces, because you rarely, if ever, receive any kind of feedback unless you participate in that particular ISP’s feedback loops. Learn how to sidestep these pitfalls and you’ll save yourself a lot of trouble. Let’s first look at the lesser of the two evils, spam complaints.

2. Spam Complaints

These happen when a reader reports your message as spam, which tells your ISP’s that your email is not wanted and unsolicited. This can happen for a number of reasons, some of them not necessarily your fault. Your reader might find it easier to mark you as spam rather than go through the process of unsubscribing; or you might just be unfortunate to get them on a bad day.. The general consensus is that 1 complaint per 1000 emails sent raises a red flag with the ISP’s. What happens is a temporary block is put in place banning you from the inbox for up to 72 hours, if the complaints continue it’s likely to become permanent.

3. Spam Traps

Also known as ‘honey pots’, spam traps are email addresses that are used by ISP’s to identify spammers. Often these are inactive email addresses that are recycled. The theory behind it is that spammers often use old, rented or paid subscriber lists with scores of invalid emails. With spam traps there is no temporary blocking access to an email address, you will inevitably be permanently blocked until the offending address is removed. There are a couple of common sense ways that you can avoid spam traps and blacklists.

• Don’t buy email lists, ever. They are bound to be full of invalid, non-existent addresses and people who have no idea about your company and are not interested in what you have to offer, so really what’s the point?
• Grow your email list organically using a double opt-in approach. Although this will inevitably take time to reach the numbers of a list that can easily be bought, at least everyone on your opt-in list actually wants to hear from you and is genuinely interested in what you have to offer.
• Practice list hygiene regularly. Clean your list of any inactive subscribers, those who haven’t shown any response to your emails in the past 6 months, and continue to update this regularly. You don’t have to delete your unsubscribes entirely, just put them to one side for now and aim to target them with a re-activation campaign.
• All good email mail marketing solutions allow you to check the spam score of your email campaign before it gets sent. This is worth taking advantage of and you can quickly see if the score is too high, in which case you can adjust it accordingly. It’s a hugely valuable tool and one worth utilizing.

As we mentioned before, a good online and sender reputation influences your email deliverability, and is associated with the IP address of the mail server you are using to send your emails from. Basically, a good reputation with them means that you can be trusted, and as far as getting on the right side of the ISP’s, this is a huge benefit.

With viral marketing the principal objective is to increase awareness of a product, service or concept using word-of-mouth behaviours. To put it into context, where spam is based on massive distribution of unsolicited emails, viral emails use popular social networking aspects to achieve their goal of reaching the masses.

The development of a viral email is pretty straightforward. An individual will receive a message that can be of any nature really (something with a humorous tone is almost always effective, but try not to insult),  which they then pass on to their friends using the “forward to a friend” or “share on a social network” button, strategically placed in the email campaign. Secondary recipients can clearly see and trust where the email comes from and therefore the chance of it getting opened is greatly increased. They in turn then do the same thing, and so forth. The concept is similar to that of an email chain letter, except of course there is no explicit requirement to forward it. A viral email is spread because the content that’s in it is relevant and (this is important), there is true value in passing it on.

A viral email is very similar to a real virus, and is in fact where the name comes from, duh. Think about it like this: a virus starts out as a single entity, with the potential to increase exponentially to the point that it dominates. It uses a host and their resources to grow, replicate and double with each interaction. Clever little organisms really, the hard work is done for them, they just have to find the right host to start out with – much like choosing the right recipients for your first viral email campaign.

Recently there have been great examples of hugely successful viral email marketing campaigns.  One that you might be familiar with is that of Threshers – the UK off-licence retail chain. They emailed vouchers to staff and suppliers, which were then redistributed by them. This proved so successful that many branches ran out of stock when people went to cash in on the deal. On top of this, the story made headlines all over Europe and the Internet was filled with news of this ‘viral campaign.’ According to Threshers however, it was not an intended viral email campaign although due to its phenomenal success, they initiated a similar campaign the following year, with similar levels of success.

Hotmail.com is another superb example of a viral email campaign that resulted in the number of people registering for a free Hotmail account climb rapidly into the millions, literally within a few days. The strategy was unbelievably simple; each email that was sent out from an existing Hotmail account had a tag at the end of it which read: “Get your private, free email at http://www.hotmail .com. “

To give you more of an idea of the potential success of a viral email, I rustled up these stats, courtesy of EmailStatCenter:

• 20% of Facebook, MySpace and/or Twitter users have posted or shared something from permission email to their social account(s) via a “share” option.
• 32% of marketers say they’d share promotional email offers with members inside a social network and open emails from others.

Based on these examples and healthy stats, you might very well be thinking at this stage that it’s something you’d be interested in trying out. And so you should. I’ve summed up a few best practices for you to follow to help ensure your viral email campaign gets sent off without a hitch (and potentially make the news).

1. Make it Unique

Think about what makes you respond to an email and take action. It’s probably because it contains something unique, something that makes you laugh or shocks you, something that excites you or maybe even something that makes you rethink your perspective on an important issue. You want your campaign to have a similar effect, so think very carefully about your content and the information you are about to potentially have sent to thousands of people. Think outside of the box and don’t be too quick to fall back on ideas that ‘normally work’. People are naturally curious about anything that’s ‘new’ and your fresh approach could help you reach higher levels of success.

2. Offer a Reward of Substantial Value

Make sure what you are offering has substantial value – this can be in the form of giving something away for free (products, services, white papers or reports for example) or offering a tempting discount or coupon (with an expiry date.) Of course, if your offer is of material value make sure that you have enough stock, or the capacity to deliver on your promise, in a timely manner. There is little worse than offering a reward and not being able to make good on it. You’ll immediately loose the trust of your customers and any further campaigns you send out will inevitably get ignored. On the other hand, deliver as promised and word of your company will spread like wild fire.

3. Send to a Select Target Audience

You don’t want to appear as a spammer, which is why your initial email should be sent to  a select audience. It’s also why you’re going to tell your recipients not to just forward the message any old way to any old person. If they’re going to pass it on, it’s important that they use the special ‘forward to a friend’ or ‘share’ button in the body of your email. This will allow you to track it easily and get the stats you need, as opposed to if they just forwarded the email regularly, in which case you won’t be able to track it from that point on. A viral email might start off small, like a real virus, but it grows and spreads extremely fast. Remember that offering incentives for forwarding may increase the amount of forwarding but it might also increase the chances that recipients will spam their entire mailing list, which could have negative effects on your company’s brand. Therefore it’s vital that you make it clear to your readers that they too should be highly selective over who they choose to share the email with.

4. Check and Optimize Your Message Format

Have you checked the format for your message? Do you have an HTML and plain text message and have you optimized it for recipients that open and share emails on mobile devices?  According to an article on Econsultany.com, 20% of email sent by retailers is opened on a mobile device. Use this to your advantage and plan strategically.

5. Bold Branding and Logo Placement

How clear is your branding, logo, website and contact details, are they immediately visible? Without this, it won’t matter how huge your campaign gets, if it can’t be attributed to you then what’s the point?

6.   As Always – Don’t Forget a Call to Action

Make sure you’re telling your recipients exactly what they need to do and how. Including a strong call to action in your email might be advice that’s drummed in your ears all the time, but it’s for good reason. If you don’t tell someone what they need to do, they won’t do it. Simple. In the case of a viral email, your call to action might be along the lines of “share on your social networks” or “forward this to a friend now”. Make sure this feature is also immediately visible.

7. Your Follow-Up Campaign

Based on the stats and feedback you get regarding your first campaign, you could consider sending up a follow up, targeting those that responded positively to your efforts the first time. This could be in the form of a survey of the campaign results; people are often interested to see how their actions affect the overall results of a project. If you previously sent a video you could consider sending the unedited version, especially if it has humorous footage. This will also help you appear as more ‘human’ to your customers. Another idea would be to let them know if you have any further promotions or specials running or remind them where they can redeem their vouchers or coupons if you included one in your first campaign as reward for forwarding your message.

Although concocting a viral email campaign might be considered ‘fun’, if only to see how far it goes, it’s vital that you still follow best practices to help ensure that it adheres to anti-spam laws and reaches the inbox of your target audience. The purpose of your campaign remains the same as that of a traditional email campaign in that it is there to inform your subscribers, make an offer, share important (or humorous) news, create awareness for your brand and ultimately develop lasting relationships with your customers.

Many months ago, amidst talk of social media dominance in 2010, were whispers of ‘the death of email marketing’. Fortunately though, this overly dramatic statement was laid to waste and instead, the integration of email marketing and social media is on the rise, with favourable results. MarketingWeek recently reported that 47% of email marketers integrate either Facebook or Twitter or both into their email campaigns. In a survey completed in June 2010 by Email and Online Marketers, stats showed that 21% of those surveyed reported ‘significantly better’ results after integrating the two mediums.

Many did not think it possible, simply because on their own, they represent two different platforms of communication. While social media is focused on sharing content and engaging in interactive discussions, email marketing is focused on taking the results of those conversations and fledgling relationships to the next level of engagement. Together however, they complement each other and form a powerful solution.

Essentially, marketing has become a multichannel approach, and why not? The benefits of adapting and expanding email for social media are easy to see, especially if you look at the increase of brand exposure and the potential to reach thousands of new customers.  A quote from Simon Bowker, Manager Director of eCircle UK sums up this integration, ‘It’s not about abandoning one method for another but about using the best element of each to deliver higher ROI.’

If you are considering integrating email marketing and social media (which you should be), there are a few things you need to be aware of so that you can use them to the best of your advantage.

1.  Include a Call to Action:

The most popular way to connect email with social media is by including a call to action link for people to follow you or become a fan on your social media page, such as Twitter, Facebook and/or LinkedIn. Many people also use widgets or apps to add newsletter sign-up and registration forms to their blog. By all means use your newsletter to call people to follow you, but remember to also use those social mediums to let people know that you have an email newsletter they can sign up for. You see, it works both ways. Of course, you’ll find that different people get their fix in different ways so take note of your subscriber’s social media preference and target them accordingly.

2. Convert Your Email Subscribers to Social Media Subscribers

If you already have a significant email list, then ask your subscribers to follow you or become a fan on your different social media pages. If they are loyal customers who trust your brand and who you have built a solid relationship with, this shouldn’t be a problem. Once you have created a profile, make sure that you keep your tweets or posts relevant, interesting and informative. This will help establish your social media presence and will gain the attention of potential subscribers and customers at the same time.

3. Earn Trust to Gain More Subscribers

Remember that integrating email with social media is done with the goal to expand your audience and customer base, pretty much free of charge. Make sure you get involved in conversations, blogs and forums, and after you have developed an online relationship with people, invite them back to your website so that they can sign up to your newsletter or find out more about your company.

4. Be Selective With Who You Follow

Be selective when choosing people to follow on Facebook and Twitter. Even though it’s tempting to add 2 000 people just so that they follow you back, it won’t do much for your professional online image. If you are a carpentry company then follow similar companies and people in the industry. Your customers will far greater appreciate your 200 followers who post useful, informative links and comments, rather than streaming through a list of highly irrelevant posts from 2 000 people with nothing of value to add.

The integration of email marketing and social media might be a relatively new concept, but current trends show that it is set to become a standard practice in the following years, with new apps being created to further ease the integration process. By starting now with a campaign strategy that incorporates both mediums, you can potentially find yourself at the head of your game as this practice gains increasing popularity in the months to come.

Broadly speaking, B2C is the activity of a business servicing end consumers with a product and/or service, a consumer being defined as a buyer of products that are not business related. These products include food, clothes, houses, phone services etc. An easy example of a B2C transaction would be a person buying shoes from a retailer. The transaction that leads to the shoes being available for purchase, that is the buying of the leather, rubber and laces as well as the sale of the shoe from the shoemaker to the retailer, would be considered a B2B transaction.

When it comes down to it, a B2C email marketing campaign is most likely to be assessed by sales, which means it’s successful if it results in a purchase.

Some of the most effective B2C email marketing best practices include identifying the most opportune time to send messages, aiming to increase customer loyalty, using promotional offers in transactional emails and using surveys to gather data about customers.

Looking at them in more detail, the following top 8 results were established according to a 2010 B2C worldwide marketer’s survey on best practices:

1. 51% of marketers identify when the best time is to send emails. This will differ depending on your target audience, but it is a practice that has been thoroughly tested, and knowing the right time to send your message can have a huge impact on the results of your campaign.
2. 38% of marketers include promotional offers in their transactional emails. Just ensure that the promotional aspect does not eclipse the importance of the information in the transactional email, the promotion should be a by-product, not the main focus of your message.
3. 29% of marketers include links to social networking sites in their messages and newsletters. This goes a long way to building and maintaining more of a personal relationship with your customers, which in turn will ensure that your messages get shared with others and your products and services get recommended.
4. 43% of marketers gather customer data through surveys. There is no denying the value in conducting a survey with your customers or potential customer’s; it helps you know more about them and what they want from you. Try to keep the questions short and relatively straightforward, remember that you can always send out another survey at a later stage to get additional data. Focus each survey on information that you need at that point in time.
5. 24% of marketers triggered offers based on recipient activity and how often they do or don’t make purchases. Those who make frequent purchases are rewarded and those who haven’t made a purchase recently are prompted to do so, often with a once-off discount or coupon.
6. 24% of marketers focused on behavioural targeting. What are your customers buying, do they always buy the same thing and is there any pattern that can be established? Campaigns based around this data are highly targeted and therefore appreciated by your customers.
7. 20% of marketers implement life cycle campaigns. It’s a good idea to have a separate targeted campaign for those who purchase frequently, infrequently or haven’t purchased anything in a while. Sending the same email to everyone regardless of purchase history makes customers feel as though you aren’t taking notice of their actions, or you don’t appreciate the purchases they do make.
8. 3% of marketers distribute cart abandonment messages. This is done to prompt customers to return and complete a purchase and the practice often sees positive results. In 2011, this practice is set to increase, and with good reason. The messages should be highly personalized and sent out very soon (with hours or a day or two) after a purchase has been abandoned.

As far as effective B2C subject lines are concerned, there are a number of best practices you can utilize that will help your email not only land up in the inbox, but go a long way to increasing the chances of it being read. Subject lines are a vital component of your email marketing message and neglecting it will almost certainly have a disastrous effect on the overall success of your campaign.

Your subject lines should be:

• Short. Keep them at 35 characters or less, which makes them easy to read and ensures that the whole title shows up in the preview pane.
• Consider the “WIIFM” (What’s In It For Me?) factor. Put yourself in your customer’s position, would you open the email with the subject line you have just drafted? What words would tempt you to open an email? How would you react to what is written in the subject line?
• Be upfront and tell it like it is. What exactly are you offering, promoting or selling? One of the most detrimental things you can do is to mislead your customers and the only thing you will achieve by doing this, is their subsequent distrust of you and any emails you send in the future. It’s just not worth it.
• Add that personal touch and include your customer’s name, it will give the impression that you are speaking directly to them and almost everyone enjoys that type of attention.
• Test, test and test again. You should have a few subject lines that you can put through the paces and track to see which is most effective, which you can then apply to the rest of your campaign.

Although B2C email marketing is not as widely considered as B2B marketing, the value of attending to your customers in the right manner and treating them with individual respect will guarantee that your company and brand name is trusted and respected in return.  It’s worth putting in the time and effort to ensure that your B2C email marketing campaign is as good as it can be.

CAN-Spam defines a transactional or ‘relationship’ message as any email that facilitates, completes or confirms a commercial transaction that a recipient agreed to enter into with the sender. It is said that no other message is as personal, relevant or anticipated and as a result, transactional emails generally see open rates of 47% and click through rates (CTR’s) of 20%. Compared to commercial messages, which on average have open rates of 31% and CTR’s of just 6%, it’s easy to understand why marketers are including transactional emails in their overall e-marketing strategy – it provides an additional platform to create awareness for your company.

Traditionally, transactional emails are triggered by the following events:

• Purchase confirmations / customer order processes
• Shipping notices
• Product recall
• New accounts
• Expired subscriptions
• Membership
• Account balance information

A good transactional email will always describe the event in detail, use language that makes the customer feel good about the action they have taken, invite them back to the website for more information or to expand on the event, and provide contact information for any questions or concerns they might have.

There are however, further features and best practices that you can incorporate to help ensure that you maximise the potential of your transactional email.

1. Always use a valid, existing email address and avoid having ‘no-reply’ in the ‘from’ line. This makes it easier for the recipient to identify the sender and to reply immediately if they have any questions.
2. Use the subject line to remind customers who you are and what the purpose of your email is. An easy example could be: ‘Oliver Bonas – Payment Confirmation’.
3. Express your gratitude and thank your customer for their purchase, no matter how big or small the order. It’s quite common for this to be one of the first sentences of your email.
4. Anticipate any questions that customers might have. What different ways can they follow up on their purchase? Then, make it easy for them to do so.
5. Keep the copy easy to read and scan through. Sentences should be short and clear and don’t be shy to use bullet points if need be.
6. Remember a strong call to action. What action does your customer have to perform next?
7. A purchase is personal no matter what, so personalise your transactional email also. This can be something simple, such as: ‘Dear Ms Smith or Dear Susan’.
8. Make sure your company logo is easy to see and recognise. Many spammers use fake transactional emails as their weapon of choice and if your customer can’t or doesn’t recognise the email immediately, it may well get deleted.
9. Include any data that the customer might require to complete the transaction. This might include billing information, or details they would need if they want to change an order or update their profile or preferences.
10. Include a privacy statement. Make sure that it’s detailed and inform your customer about what you intend to do with the details they have divulged to you (hint – keep them to yourself)
11. Clearly state all terms and conditions of their purchase. This should include any information regarding payment, exchanges, returns, shipping etc.
12. An easily located link to your website, in case they would like more information from you.
13. Maintain an HTML format; nearly 60% of all transactional emails are created this way. While you want your email to be easy on the eye, the copy is what’s most important so keep that in mind. Include one or two relevant images but make sure the email still downloads quickly and is easy to read.
14. You can include promotional content in your transactional email, as long as the latter is the most prominent and remains Above the Fold. The transactional information is of course the objective of your email so don’t lose focus and be tempted use it as a platform for a full on promotion. Having said that, according to Ecommerce Benchmark Guide, 57% of consumers have a positive view of marketing content in transactional emails as long as the transactional component is readily seen and the marketing content provides information that is relevant.

In conclusion, it’s important to bear in mind that because transactional emails are so highly anticipated, they get opened more often. Therefore each one is an opportunity for you to create awareness, reinforce your brand and drive deeper customer relationships.

B2B Marketing is the practice of facilitating the sale of a product or service to other companies or organizations that in turn resell them; use them as components in products or services that they offer, or use them to support their operations – thanks Wiki. As with most marketing drives, the purpose of B2B marketing is to bring in new business and generate qualified sales leads. As in real life, your B2B email campaign needs to mirror the same behaviour as your face-to-face meetings with a potential client. Keep the tone sincere and professional and state clearly and simply what you are offering and what benefit it has to the recipient.

Examples of B2B email campaigns might include trying to coax your subscribers to sign up for a free trial, invite them to an event, participate in a conference or webinar or offer expert advice and tips on relevant marketing strategies. Even though what you are offering may genuinely be a great deal or opportunity, if your recipient ignores or deletes your message immediately, then what’s the point? As with any email marketing campaign, a B2B subject line needs to grab your reader’s attention and encourage them to open it and take action. Once they do, it’s especially important that you follow all forwards and new opt-ins, which count towards your sales leads.

We’ve outlined 5 of the most popular B2B email marketing best practices and followed them up with 5 examples of great subject lines, so that you have an idea of what works and what doesn’t.

1. Know who you are targeting: You can get a lot of valuable information about a company just from viewing their website. Is it full of graphics? Then go ahead and include a few relevant images in your campaign. Is it mainly composed of text? Then follow a similar style with your message. Customizing your email according to the business you are targeting won’t go un-noticed by your recipient and you are far more likely to start seeing the results you desire if you do so.
2. Keep content relevant, specific and concise: State your offer openly and without reservation right from the beginning of your email message, and certainly keep it Above the Fold. Maintain a professional tone at all times and as always, don’t forget to include a strong, clear call to action that is easily visible. By keeping the content short and ensuring that it opens and downloads quickly, you also appeal to those who are likely to view their email on a mobile device. This option is fast becoming very popular and is worth taking into consideration.
3. Know how to reach the level you want: Quite obvious, but often ignored. If you want your email to get to the CEO or MD then don’t send it to the most junior employee. Here, your ‘from’ name is incredibly important, one that is recognized and relevant will correspond to an email that is relevant and therefore important. Realize that a ‘from’ name is more likely to resonate with a person in power if it’s from a person in power.
4. Know what your B2B customer wants: Because your customer is a business and not a consumer, their interests are different and bombarding them with the latest offers, discounts and sale items is probably not going to get their attention. This is because the B2B audience don’t generally spend their own money so an offer for a coupon off their next purchase is wasted. You need to give them something they can use and something that adds value. Open access to a VIP event or an upgraded status on a favoured networking site are just two unique ideas you could try.
5. Create a follow up campaign: By tracking and using your analytics, you can get a much better idea of who to re-target and how to devise a more relevant strategy. Be sure to only send out one follow-up though. Be respectful of a person’s time, especially if they are a busy corporate, and don’t send countless emails telling them that they are missing out. If they are interested, they will respond. If they haven’t after the second email, then let it go.

Right, so now you have an idea of which best practices to follow, take a look at these 5 top performing subject lines, as given from numerous marketers who count them as their most successful. We’ve chosen these particular lines because they are descriptive, clear and professional in tone.

1. July home sales increased 12 %; median home price declined 19.6 %
2. Complimentary Webinar: (insert webinar name and details)
3. Success Tip: # Ways to a Better (XXX)
4. Save Money and Look Like a Start to Your Boss
5. Event Registration Today: (name of event) (date)

And here are a few that weren’t successful, note the ‘spam’ words and long, boring text.

• Free Evaluation of ABC Encrypted Portable Drive
• Data Company Adds Cascaded Replication to DR Infrastructure
• EFG Company: Request for Meeting
• Meeting Request: Introducing our new product
• XYZ data centers: High density collocation & Managed Server / Storage Solutions

These days, all good email marketing solutions come ready quipped with a campaign builder that helps you put your email message together from start to finish. This of course takes much of the hard work out of the equation and is particularly useful if you are a ‘newbie’ and have never done anything like it before. However, while an email marketing service can do a very good job of creating a beautiful looking campaign, what it can’t do (yet) is optimize it for you.

Optimizing your email is one of the best ways to increase conversions, traffic and interest and you should look to optimize each new campaign that you send out. Look at it as a ‘refining process’, and continuously assess and make small, yet valuable improvements that will drive ever better results with each new email.

What we’ve outlined here are 5 ways that you can optimize your email campaign to help ensure that you reach those desired results.

1. Let’s start with your ‘subject’ and ‘from’ line.

We could dedicate an entire article to this topic alone. To sum it up though, the ‘subject’ line should immediately capture your reader’s attention, and the ‘from’ line needs to come from an existing, valid email address and should be easily identified by the recipient. You should aim to personalise each of these lines. With the subject line, you can include the person’s name and you should specify clearly what the reader can expect when they open your email, all in less than 50 characters. Creating an effective subject line is actually quite an art and there is a fine balance between choosing SPAM safe trigger words and those words causing your email to land up in the junk/spam folder. With the ‘from’ line, you should include your name or the name of your company or both even. If people recognise or are familiar with who is sending the email, they are more likely to trust it and open your message.

2. Secondly, keep your copy relevant, succinct and punchy

Just because this forms the main part of your message, it’s no reason to go overboard with overly long, boring content. Ideally, aim to include all vital information on a single screen Above the Fold and keep the purpose of your email in mind, are you offering, promoting, selling or getting people to sign up? Your copy needs to be relevant, valuable, short and succinct, with the benefits clearly stated. You’ll also want to make sure that it’s easy to scan so use bullet points if necessary and avoid overly sophisticated language. Now is not the time to try and impress them with your lexical range. If you do have a lot of information to convey, rather create a link to your website or landing page so that if your subscribers want, they can read more about your company there.

3. Next, make sure your landing page takes readers exactly where they need to be

If they have just clicked on a ‘sign up here’ button, then take them directly to that page on your website, not just to your home page, where they can become distracted and exit without making any conversions. Studies have shown that if a headline directly reflects on the landing page, it has a favourable boost on conversions.

4. A strong, clear call to action

It might seem like an obvious point, but is your call to action clear, bold and easy to locate on the page? You can test different placements and have this button at the bottom, middle or top of the page and see which results in a higher CTR. Join Now, Sign Up Here, Call Us, Email Us – your call to action needs to be short, sweet, easily understood and quick to locate.

5. Graphics and images add value to an email

Now that your reader has been tempted to open your email after reading the hard to resist subject line, don’t bore them to death with text heavy copy. Short paragraphs interspersed with clever, relevant images add to the value of your message and can elicit emotional and psychological responses that complement your email and keep your readers interested. Having said that, ensure that your pictures have been compressed and resized for email and that they load fast. Also, don’t assume that everyone is on broadband and take into consideration the fact that some of your recipients might choose to open their emails on mobile devices – iPhones, Blackberry and Android to name a few. To be on the safe side, use Alt text to describe an image, in case it doesn’t load. You won’t gain any friends with an email that takes 10 minutes to open correctly and there aren’t many second chances in the email marketing game.

Once you have optimised your email along the lines of the suggestions mentioned, it’s important that you do extensive split A/B testing, which can be conducted on every component of your email. Testing your newsletter has many benefits and will, amongst other things;

• Determine which email version is most user friendly and accurately meets your subscribers needs and expectations.
• Improves the overall performance of your campaign in terms of opens, clicks, conversions and sales

In conclusion, remember that optimization doesn’t finish once you have sent out your campaign. You need to constantly assess your results, see what’s working and what can be improved on. You’ll soon find that the more you polish your campaigns, the more positive results you can expect to get.

There is a much to be said for implementing ‘best practices’ in email marketing. Many practitioners adhere to them religiously; others choose to ignore them completely and further still, there are those who claim that so-called best practices have become obsolete and are no longer relevant. As with most things in life, best practices evolve over time and can be adapted to suit your specific requirements as and when you need, so you can see why people are divided in their opinion.

In the e-marketing industry almost everyone has their own list of what they deem ‘best practices’, in other words, what has worked for them in the past and what is working for them right now. We’ve summed up some of the best of these, here they are:

1. Don’t buy email addresses. It will do nothing for you in the short or long term and chances are the people on the list aren’t even your desired target market. You are  much better off developing and building up your subscriber list the good old fashioned way – by diligently collecting data from people who have signed up to your newsletters via the sign up form on your website.

2. Make signing up simple and straight forward. This goes for the actual sign up link, which should be clear and easy to find on the page, and the sign up form.  Remember initially, all you need is a name and email address to get the ball rolling. Be very cautious about sending potential customers to complete a full registration form. It can put them off quickly and this can affect your opt-in rate drastically.

3. Tell them what they can expect to read in your newsletters and how frequently they will receive them. Also let them know if they can expect to receive other campaigns from you that might be of interest to them. If you let them know exactly what your intentions are, they are less likely to become irritated – and possibly unsubscribe – from an email they weren’t expecting or don’t know they signed up for.

4. State your privacy policy clearly. All too often this is simply a link right at the bottom of the page that lays out the terms of the policy in fine print that no-one can read. All you really need to state is that you won’t sell, disclose or pass-on their details unknowingly, so make sure this information stands out. Remember, this is your personal guarantee and failing to deliver on this policy may have very negative and irreparable consequences for you.

5. Send a welcome email after someone has subscribed. The internet is a rather ‘faceless’ medium, so this gesture goes a long way to making people feel that their email has been received and their action was successful. Sending a welcome email has numerous benefits. Besides building trust, it often carries a ‘double opt-in’ link, so you can be sure that the person who has subscribed really is interested in what you have to offer.

6. Keep your content relevant. People will unsubscribe immediately if what you have promised them is not what they are opening in their inbox. Have a look at our article on ‘Keeping Content Relevant’ for interesting ideas you can use to help ensure that your newsletter appeals to your subscribers and keeps them opening your emails.

7. Know when to send your campaign. Do your research and find out when it’s the best time for your email to be received. Obvious times like Monday morning or Friday afternoon are out of the question. Think about it logically and practically. When are you more likely to open and act on an email that prompts further response from you?

8. Don’t spam, ever. This is a sure fire way to lose your subscribers trust, loyalty and valued email address. Check your campaign for spam before you even think about hitting ‘send’. Spam filters are a welcome prerequisite and a quick check is all it takes to make sure you are abiding by the CAN-SPAM act and that your email marketing strategies fall well within its regulations.

9. Test, Test, Test. Just because your campaign looks absolutely fabulous when you send it to yourself, doesn’t mean that it’s going to come out looking the same on everyone else’s email. Is it going to be opened using Outlook, Yahoo or Gmail? Test as many options as you can and adapt it accordingly. A great way to ensure that your subscriber opens your email the way you intended is to ask them what format they would like to receive it in. You can then go about segmenting your list depending on what they requested.

10. Lastly, track and take note of everything. Delivery rates, open rates, click through rates and conversions all offer vital data that you can use to improve your campaign and techniques.

A landing page or squeeze page is, in marketing terms, a specialized page that visitors are directed to once they’ve clicked on a link. This usually comes from an outside source such as a PPC ad but could also come from a banner or link that you have included in your email marketing campaign.

The reason for your landing page is to convince the visitor to continue reading your website or make a conversion, such as signing up for a mailing list, completing a form, buying a product or forwarding your email to friends. For these reasons, it’s vital that this page is eye-catching, succinct and follows on directly from the link. Remember that your landing page is what many first time users are going to see of your web presence, so you want to make sure their interest is peaked and maintained.

It’s important that the structure of your landing page corresponds to that of the PPC ad, link or banner that your visitor clicks on. All too often a link will take you to the homepage of a website, which isn’t where your visitor wants or needs to be.  If they are already at the stage where they want to buy a product, the link should take them directly to a page where they can complete their billing information. Any deviations could cost you that conversion or sale, and any future sales for that matter.

We can distinguish two types of landing pages – the instant access form and the mini sales letter form. The instant access form does exactly what you think it would – it informs your visitors that the action they are about to take will allow them instant access to a great content website, interesting information or the opportunity to download e-books, software etc. All they need to do is fill in the form and submit it. The mini sales letter form encourages people to subscribe and focuses more on the benefits of what you’re trying to get people interested in.

When creating a landing page there are a few basic but revealing questions you need to ask yourself that will help you plan and target accordingly.

• What product or service are you offering?
• Who is your target market/audience?
• Why should they be interested in your offer?
• What will they need to do to participate or purchase your product?

Once you have considered these questions you can start thinking about the actual content and layout of your landing page. We’ve outlined a few tips for you to follow:

• Have a strong, clear-cut and visible call to action. ‘Sign Up Now’; ‘Sign Up Here’; ‘Call’; ‘Email Us’; ‘Contact Us’; ‘Find Out More Here’. Make sure it’s big and bold and hard to ignore or miss.
• Keep your content short and succinct. Ideally you want everything above the fold. Your visitors don’t want to scroll through pages of text and information that can easily make them forget why they are on that page in the first place.
• Offer a bonus or incentive. Everybody wants and enjoys something for free – a report, relevant document, software and discounts on your products or services are guaranteed to get results.
• Write in the 2^nd person – ‘you and your’.  This goes a long way to making your visitor feel special, like they are the only ones you are appealing to.
• Remove any clutter and unnecessary content or links from your landing page. You need to keep the focus on your offer and make sure your visitor stays on track until they’ve made a conversion.
• Don’t push them for anything that you don’t need at that moment, this being enough information to conclude the sale or the desired action.
• Be consistent with the design and colour. The PPC ad, banner, link and the landing page itself all need to follow the same concept and style. This is necessary for two reasons. Firstly it looks professional and secondly it helps the visitor visually identify you and know for certain that the link has taken them to the correct site.
• Use images and pictures that are relevant and show the product in context. For example, a man downing a cold beer in a beer commercial, a baby having its nappy changed in a diaper commercial – you get the idea. This offers the visitor a real life perspective and gives them something to take away from the situation. Bare this in mind though: tests have shown that if an image is placed on the right hand side of a page it makes it harder to draw the eye to the content on the left hand side of the page.

There is a lot of advice out there on the internet to help ensure that your email campaign is beautifully created, sent out successfully and most importantly well received. What many people tend to forget, and this goes for seasoned email campaigners and newbies alike, are the common mistakes that are all too often made when you are caught up in developing the perfect campaign. We’ve summed up a list of 10 of the most common email marketing blunders which, if you avoid successfully, will go a long way to ensuring that your content is relevant, good to look at, grammatically sound and entirely logical. Here they are;

You want and/or expect instant success. Banish the thought from you head immediately. With email marketing your aim is to develop a relationship with your customer and this takes time, sometimes more time than you think you have. You’ll need to have patience and a strong resolve. You and I know, understand and accept that Rome was most certainly NOT built in a day so don’t be in such a rush to get that campaign out ‘like yesterday!’ Make sure you are 100% happy with it and it’s been 100% tried and tested before you send it out. You won’t regret it.

Your message isn’t clear. You want it to be powerful, concise and with a strong call to action. If there is any doubt in your mind that it lacks these points then you need to reassess it, even if it sets you back time wise. It will be worth it in the long term, believe me.

You aren’t entirely sure you have permission. If in doubt, here’s a quick question you can ask yourself to check: ‘Have they specifically requested to receive my emails?’ If the answer is ‘no’, then you have to back to the drawing board and work on building up your subscriber list. It’s a simple enough task and will ensure that your emails aren’t deemed ‘SPAM!!’

You have subscribers on your list that haven’t heard zip from you in 6 months. Do yourself a favour and delete them from your list. They probably won’t remember you and will therefore report your campaigns as spam immediately. Rather go through the process of getting them to remember you again. Send a friendly ‘remember me?’ email and guide them to sign up to your newsletter again. It’s the best way to ensure that your subscriber list remains entirely ‘opt-in’ and therefore more valuable.

You BUY an ‘opt-in’ list. I have one word for you here and that’s ‘unscrupulous’. Your target audience is specific and so is the product or service that you are trying to market, so sending your campaign out to 20 000 people who you don’t know and who certainly don’t know you is rather pointless and not really a very good idea. Neither is getting blacklisted for spamming, which is what would probably happen if you went this unsavoury route.

You use your personal ‘Yahoo’ or ‘Gmail’ email address in ‘reply to’. From your side it’s very unprofessional and it certainly won’t instil a sense of respect and trust in your readers, which should be your long term goal. Your (legitimate) company has a website and domain name and should have at least a couple of email address’ set up already, use them.

You use all 101 font types available to you. Keep the focus of your campaign on your brilliant copy, images and clever layout. Don’t let your readers get distracted by your creative use of French script MT. It looks busy, reads badly and if you’re honest, it doesn’t really have the effect you were aiming for, does it?

You don’t check your reports and stats regularly enough. Did you notice your open rate has decreased and your subscriber list is shrinking each month? Take note, make changes accordingly and do what you can to win back your readership.

You underline non-links. Underlining words to draw emphasis is a sure sign of poor writing and it won’t have the compensating effect you think it will. Added to that, web readers will inevitably think that it is a hyperlink. Remember good, strong, clear writing is your key to success, so brush up on those fabulous writing skills and use that to draw attention instead.

You write overlong copy and don’t include images. Don’t be scared to break up your copy with a few images (read FEW, it shouldn’t look like a promotional flyer.) Too much text can be incredibly monotonous and gets boring quickly, even if your subject matter is the most interesting thing since sliced bread. Also, remember that you can include a ‘read more’ link to your website if you want people to get more information about your company. That way, your newsletter, campaign or product promotion remains just that and not a platform for a complete company profile.

Right, so there you are. Take this information, absorb it and go create that brilliant campaign that will land up exactly where you want it, in your recipient’s inbox.

So, you have taken the first step and realised that an email marketing campaign is one of the best e-marketing tactics you can use to promote your company and product. What now? Before you start putting your campaign together there are a number of questions you need to ask yourself to help you ascertain exactly who your target audience is and what you ultimately want to achieve with your campaign.

A few points to consider:

1. How can I build up my subscription list? The most obvious way to do this would be to have a ‘sign up’ link on your website, which will ensure that all your subscribers have genuinely opted-in. It is also necessary by law to have an original opt-in list, so try not to take short cuts here.
2. What type of content would my customers like to receive? Newsletters, promotions, discounts, price changes, special offers, updates, latest product information,editorial, entertainment, quirky offbeat news etc.? Do a bit of research, ask questions on forums, join different focus groups and look to feedback from previous campaigns for guidance.
3. What is the purpose of my campaign and what would my customers read and respond to? Your call to action needs to be clear and enticing. ‘Call’, ‘subscribe’, ‘join’ etc. People need to be told exactly what to do.
4. How frequently should I send out my campaigns? Daily, weekly, monthly? Whatever you choose, you need to be consistent about when you send it out, for example, every Thursday afternoon. Ideally you want your customers to recognise and look forward to your emails, at the same time every week.
5. How do I make sure my campaign doesn’t end up in the spam folder of my intended recipient? This can happen even if you have an opt-in list. Be aware of the CAN SPAM ACT – the U.S. law that regulates commercial email. Mail Blaze’s email marketing solution includes a special feature that puts your email campaign through a spam filter before it gets sent out, so you can see the results of the check and amend your campaign if necessary.

Once you have given some thought to the above, you are half-way there. Now for your first email campaign! Of course your objective is to get a decent response right from the outset but how do you go about this? Follow these tips to maximize your chance of success right from the word go.

1. Always send your email from a valid address, not from a non-existent one. People will want to reply to your message, so make sure that it gets to you.
2. Keep your original aim in mind when creating your campaign. It’s easy to get distracted along the way. Promoting a new product; offering a special deal, increasing your readership? Keep your focus and ensure that your email works towards this. Once again, don’t forget a strong call to action.
3. Correct grammar and spelling. It can’t be over-emphasised enough. The amount of emails that get sent out with bad grammar and typos is mind boggling. SPELL CHECK, double check and then and get someone else to proof read it.
4. Keep your content short, sweet and to the point. You have a very short period of time in which to grab your reader’s attention. Use it wisely. Remember people usually skim over text so try to make it as eye catching as possible. You can always have a click-through link to your website so people can get more information if they need to.
5. Make sure your HTML and plain text message are equally well composed. Don’t assume that your readers can or even want to open an HTML only document.
6. You want your customers to act fast, so it’s a good idea to put in a time limit / expiry date in your email. People generally do not like missing out on a great deal and you can use that to your advantage.
7. Make it easy for your readers to unsubscribe to your emails. It’s a good idea to have a quick link posted in the footer of your email and also a link in the header so that they can view the email in their browser.
8. Always, always test the compatibility of the campaign on yourself before you send it to 20 000 people. Send it to your own email address first and then to that of a friend or co-worker. You need to be able to see if your text and images have come out correctly and make any adjustments if necessary.

It’s all very well putting together an email campaign and sending it to all your clients, but remember most of your clients get hundreds of emails every month. They have to be selective with the emails they read otherwise they’re not going to be able to do anything else with their day.

Here are 3 steps to ensure that the campaigns you’re putting together are going to be viewed by your subscribers.

1. Ask before receiving – you need to ask their permission before you can receive their business. There is nothing more damaging for your brand than sending marketing material or even newsletters onto a client who hasn’t willingly agreed to receiving content from you.

So how do you get their consent? There are different methods of doing this. The best is to provide a form on your website where they can sign up or opt-in to receiving campaigns.

It’s by no means a quick process, but you’ll find if you provide good quality newsletters and truly valuable content people will look forward to receiving your campaign. If they feel as though it’s on their terms they will also be more likely to forward your emails onto friends and family. A naturally grown list is a healthy list.

2. Respect your subscribers – respect their time, their interests and their intelligence. Make sure your emails are not filled with waffle about how your board meeting went and how your company acquired a new coffee machine. Determine what your clients are interested in, give them something intriguing to read (think: if my client reads this is he going to want to tell his friends about it?) and make sure it’s covered in the first paragraph of your campaign.

Quality content is everything. If you’re selling a service or product make sure your content stands out from the rest. Sell yourself on quality rather than quantity and/or price.

3. Don’t corner a wounded animal – provide your clients with an easy way out. In other words don’t make it excessively difficult for your client to unsubscribe. If they don’t want to read your newsletter, and they can’t stop receiving them this can be very detrimental to your brand.