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 strategy
Your email open rates are changing
Unless you’ve been living on a remote island somewhere you’ll know that on September 20th Apple’s iOS 15 update was launched, containing a feature call Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) which – amongst other things – will eliminate the ability to accurately track email open rates. For the uninitiated, email opens are recorded using a tiny image in the email code. When the email is opened, that image loads, which tells the sender an email was opened, by whom, when, where and on what device. What Apple have done is add a ‘middle man’ into the mix, first routing emails through their own proxy servers to pre-load email content – including the tracking image – before serving the email to the…
Planning and implementing your email marketing strategy…part 2
Following on from last week’s blog I am taking a look at how you go about implementing some of the ideas mentioned and try and flesh out the opportunities afforded by the medium of email marketing. List Growth How do you go about growing your list? You can do this in many different ways, each one having their own level of effectiveness. The standard tools available are: Newsletter Sign Ups: Have a clear and obvious way of letting people sign up for emails, hiding your newsletter sign up at the bottom of the contact page is almost apologetic. You’ve paid for the eyeballs, now try and capture them. Place the sign up somewhere obvious. Also, look at using downstream popups…
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’…
Getting started with Email Marketing for small businesses Part 1.
Starting out with email marketing for small businesses can seem like an impossible task. You have to make time to create content, you need to update your list of subscribing customers and many other tasks. All these tasks take time out of your work day. Marketing with email can also seem like a legal minefield with GDPR legislation to consider as well as all the laws governing spam email. Email marketing does not need to be difficult, however. It is easily the cheapest and most effective form of Marketing. 73% of marketers rate email as the number one digital channel for ROI (Marketing Week). It is also more often people’s preferred method of receiving marketing communication. Litmus’ 2016 State of…
Get back to the top of the pile
Emails come in thick and fast these days, with companies competing fiercely for people’s attention. It’s so easy to slip down to the bottom of the pile under a deluge of emails if yours isn’t spotted right away, but there is no reason to leave it there. Why not have a second bite of the cherry and simply resend to anyone that hasn’t opened the email? As the old adage goes, if at first you don’t succeed… Aren’t I just doubling the work? With so many email platforms geared towards automation these days, it should actually require very little work on your end to set up a resend. A duplicate of your template with a shiny new subject line and…