Emails are an underestimated communication platform. In most situations, they could be even more efficient than phone calls and they are well adopted by businesses as a communication channel. There is no better way to attract new customers than through email marketing. Good emails should be concise and straight to the point. They should have a clear goal and a short summary to start things off. The structure is also essential to a logically organised email. This will ensure that the email is visually scannable. With the holiday season already here, if you haven’t started sending those holiday emails, now is a great time to start! Sales during the winter season have been increasing each year and smart brands are…
email design
AeSTATic value: 5 ways to turn your info into imagery
People like stats. People like numbers. How many points have you earned? What was your total number of steps walked last week? Was your screentime up or down? Personalised, bite-sized snippets of information are well-suited to the transient nature of email. Rambling walls of text (like this article) are not. But you know what’s even better than straight-up figures? Those figures… in graphical form. A picture is more engaging, more instinctively understandable. That picture might be a bar graph or a pie chart or any other visualisation that meets your need. If you can think it, there’s probably a way to do it. Let’s take the theme of loyalty points. If your customer can see their progress – rather than…
Planning and implementing your email marketing strategy
Email Marketing Strategy Just because you can do something doesn’t necessarily mean that you should! It’s an old adage and one many email marketers would do well to consider before embarking on their email marketing strategy. If we start from what is possible the prospect of drawing up an email marketing strategy, budget, resource and timelines is daunting. I like to start from the other end, not what is possible but what does the business need. It sounds simple and the oft flippant response is more sales but that doesn’t always hold true. So start with a blank canvas and decide your business’s short, medium and long term goals, they may all turn out to be the same – sales,…
Is it time to review your email strategy?
We all have an email strategy, whether it be sending regular newsletters or sales offers or more sophisticated automation programs catering for a range of content, personalisation and triggers. The digital world is fast moving and always changing, so a regular review of how you’re using emails to communicate with your customers and subscribers can help keep engagement levels high. Here are the some of the more common email communications and processes that should be regularly reviewed. TMI on sign up If your proposition requires more information from subscribers, such as a membership or access to resources with a value, consider a two stage sign-up process – the first is a quick and easy ‘add me to your email list’…
5 ways we can solve your development headaches
Successful email marketing is more than just sending pretty emails, but to enhance it, extra resources are required. The cost, time and effort, particularly for small businesses, may be off-putting and prevent maximum potential being reached. However, at display block we have the experience and infrastructure already in place for all kinds of development projects. Here are the top 5 ways we can help you improve a multitude of development intensive email marketing elements, with very little input required from your end. Development Project 1. Create your own subscriber list and/or send automated emails Building up your own subscriber list is a must for your email marketing strategy. Capturing users that really want to receive your emails should be the…
Getting started with Email Marketing for small businesses Part 2.
Once you have started to send email marketing to your customers it’s important to listen to any feedback you get from your subscribers. You should also keep tailoring your emails based on how they perform. One easy way to do this is use a click map. This is a graphic representation of where in your emails you are getting the most clicks. Many larger businesses have quarterly or biannual email reviews, this practice could easily be adopted by a small business. These email design reviews are a great way to evaluate your emails. Use these reviews to build on successful elements within your email designs. With this knowledge you might want to make popular sections larger, more in depth or…
A collection of email best practices
Make better use of a Preference Centre Building more complete customer profiles not only helps your business but allows you to send emails to your customers relevant to their needs. By continually adding to each customer’s profile you not only learn about them but you’re better able satisfy their wants. One of the best ways to collect customer data is through a preference centre. It’s important that a preference centre functions (as the name describes) as a preference centre. Customers should be asked what their wants and needs are and they should also be able to come back and amend those preferences at any time. Basic demographic information should really be captured through sign-up forms or new customer profiles created…