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…
email for business
Getting the most out of your email marketing
Working in email can sometimes seem like a thankless task sending out millions of emails to millions of people in the hope a small fraction of the receivers open them and then a small fraction of those openers actually click and buy something. Yes you can simplify email marketing down to something as basic as blast and pray but understanding your campaign report information allows you to make informed changes and decisions to improve your email it not only makes your job easier but makes your time as an email marketeer more rewarding. Start with what you know Email marketeers should be using campaign reports to make informed decisions about their campaigns. If you’re not making decisions based off your…
Sender best practices
In February, the M3AAWG (Messaging, Malware and Mobile Anti-Abuse Working Group) released version 3.0 of their “Sender Best Common Practices”, the first time this document has been updated since 2011. This document is primarily aimed at delivery and compliance professionals at ESPs (Email Service Providers), but there’s a lot of important information and guidelines which I hope to summarise here for a broader audience looking to improve their email marketing practices. Who? The M3AAWG is a consortium founded in 2004 to bring the messaging community together to fight against abuse of the various messaging platforms, specifically things like spam, malware, bots and denial of service attacks. The group’s leaders and members represent some of the largest network providers (Comcast, Time…
Research piece on what email marketers are focusing on
We are pleased to announce that email industry heavy weight Jordie Van Rijn from Email Monday among many other well respected email marketing events, blogs and websites like email vendor selection has agreed to write a series of blogs for display block. The first of which, a research piece, is below. Please make sure you register at the bottom of our home page if you want to be informed when Jordie’s next piece is available. This is what Email Marketers will be focussing on There has never been a better time to start with building out your email marketing plan than right now. With that in mind it is interesting to gauge what marketers say are the top focal points…
Gmail changes the game for email (again!)
Some of you will have spotted a trial of a grid-style (almost Pinterest-like) visual inbox for the Promotions tab in Gmail. The Promotions tab (where all marketing emails now generally end up) now displays thumbnails allowing users to see elements of your marketing emails. As a trial, Google needs to determine its success prior to a full roll-out and this success looks like it will be based around ad revenues as the first image is actually an ad, not an email (as is the existing differently coloured first listing in the current Promotions tab format). The appearance of the ad in the grid format is more subtle than the current listing format and will be contextual based on the emails…
The Future of Email
Anytime and anywhere Everywhere you look people are engrossed in smartphones and tablets – public transport, coffee shops, parks and open spaces – even walking down the street. We use them over lunch, we use them to compare prices whilst out shopping, we use them whilst at home watching TV – where a massive 81% of us ‘stack’ (conduct unrelated media tasks while consuming media content) and ‘mesh’ (use multiple devices simultaneously to enhance a media experience) so our attention is constantly divided. We use our smartphones and tablets to consume media, tell friends what we’re up to on social networks and, of course, we use them to check our emails. In fact, the number of mobile e-mail users is…
Quick Tip Guide: 5 Basic Tips to a good landing page
There is an art and a science to making your landing page stand out from the crowd. It is imperative that you do something to capture your audience and ultimately make them follow the call to action that you have established. It is so much more cost effective to capture and engage your target market time and again that it is to buy them with SEO, Banner Ads, PPC or any other paid for advertising. Your brilliantly designed landing page can have all the results that these marketing tactics can do and more. Here are our 5 basic tips to designing a good landing page: Headline It You used to have just two seconds to make a good first impression…