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Archive for the ‘Email’ Category



Donnie Riggs

04/13/2010

Delivering to the right audience
02:28 pm by Donnie Riggs

 

As email marketing is constantly evolving, bigger is not necessarily better. You can have a list 5 million strong, but if you’re simply hitting send with the same message to everyone, you’re just wasting time and money. Sure, there are some instances where you have a message that is strong enough to send to your entire database, but this isn’t always the case.

Having a large list to communicate with your audience is a good thing. But knowing who is in that list is even more important. It’s about getting beyond the normal demographics such as age, location and gender. Your creative team can write and design a great email, but if it’s not getting to the right audience, then it’s not a great message.

Segmenting your database into smaller lists helps cut out the clutter and gets you to those who really want to interact with your message. With today’s technology, segmenting your email list is easier than ever. You just have to figure out what it is you’re looking for. The goal of this process is to improve your knowledge or your database.

Do you have a segment comprised of those who opened your email versus those who haven’t? You should. What about a segment of those who clicked on a link in your email? You should. Starting with these very basic segments, you can begin to drill down and understand that each person is unique from the millions of others in your database.

But it doesn’t stop there.

Once you have this basic data recorded, continue segmenting the list based on your actionable data as you continue to send your email messages. As more data comes in and more segments are defined, be sure to create different messages for these unique segments and watch your open rates and click rates climb.

One simple way to further define your list is by sending an easy survey email. Knowing what you want to find out about your list will determine what the survey is about. You can ask about email preferences, their thoughts on a particular issue or product, or anything else that will get your list to where you need it. Asking your audience what types of messaging they want to receive – and listening to their responses – goes a long way to achieving your goals.

Understanding your audience and their email tendencies is essential to delivering the right message every time. Yes, it takes time to figure out where everyone fits in to your database and yes, that database will be perpetually evolving. There will be many failures along the way as you continue to test and re-test using different messages to different segments, but this extra effort now will only help later.

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Kelly Watson

03/11/2010

Mobile Email Marketing: Is it for you?
09:34 pm by Kelly Watson

As email marketers, it is our job to understand how and when people want to receive our email messaging. So, when we find ourselves tapping away on our preferred smart phones, checking our emails on the go, we begin to wonder how many other people ultimately prefer to do the same. Is the desktop email experience slipping behind us? Are hand-held phones begging for us to re-imagine the way we once knew email marketing?

According to a recent study by research firm Radicati Group, the number of consumers who access email on mobile phones is expected to soar from 200 million at the end of 2009 to more than 1 billion worldwide by the end of 2013. These past two years have introduced to us the new Blackberry and Android smartphones, both capable of rendering HTML emails. As of Q3 2009, there have been 41 million smartphones sold globally, increasing the chances that your subscribers are indeed viewing your emails on a mobile device.

The day when more people open and respond to their email on phones rather than PCs is closer than we may think. Thus the question is – when is it time to start creating a mobile version of your emails?

Here are a couple questions suggested by MediaPost to help you figure it out.

1. Does your site offer a good browsing experience when viewed from a mobile browser?
What is beyond the email for mobile users? By creating a mobile-friendly email experience for your subscribers, you set the expectation that they will be able to browse your site as well. You will want to make sure your mobile landing page does not include rich-media content for mobile users. Perhaps you will need to create a mobile-friendly website as well.

2. Is your branded content designed to be viewed “on the go”?
Consider how your subscribers engage with your content. If you typically send long newsletters, perhaps a mobile version wouldn’t be the best. Or if you want to encourage subscribers to spend a lot of time on your site, this may not be the best direction for you either. Think short and sweet. Mobile users are not going to zoom and scroll for a long read. Create a path for mobile users to make quick decisions and actions.

So, you think you have what it takes to be an email marketing maven? Here are a few design tips suggested by AWeber Communications that will put you on the right path towards successful mobile email messaging.

1. Include a plain text version of every email message
If a subscriber’s mobile device doesn’t support HTML, subscribers will still see a plain text version.

2. Optimize images
Adding alternative text, or alt-tags, to your images will prevent blank spaces if an image cannot properly render. At least your subscribers will know what the image is about and ultimately get the message.

3. Use a Powerful Subject Line and design for the “top of the fold”
In case subscribers have trouble viewing your email, keep subject lines to the point so they understand the email and perhaps are inspired to hop on to the old desktop to re-view the message. And when they do get your email on their smartphone, remember, they have a smaller viewable area – so keep it compelling at the top.

4. Don’t crowd clickable links
Have you tried touching the correct link on a touch phone? Not only is it frustrating but it doesn’t provide proper navigation to your site. Always include links to the important pages on your site so it is easier for subscribers to reach the next step of your interaction.

5. Watch your width
Make sure subscribers can view your email by scrolling down – not to the right. If you are expecting to send more content heavy mobile emails, consider both vertical and horizontal width limitations.

So, do you think you’re ready to make the next step in your email marketing strategies? This is the future friends but don’t worry, we’re here to help!

Happy emailing,
Kelly

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Kelly Watson

12/07/2009

‘Tis the Email Season
06:29 pm by Kelly Watson

It is no secret that the holidays inspire a spike in email marketing efforts, and the 2009 holiday season is no exception. This year’s email volumes are predicted to increase and even earlier in the season than previous years. Even though most of the messaging comes from retail stores offering the “best deals around,” there is something to be learned from the behavior of email recipients during this time of year.

The Experian Marketing Services posted The 2009 holiday marketer: Benchmark and trend report that includes a review of the email marketing industry’s holiday performance. It also includes a plethora of tips to help us stay ahead of the emailing frenzy that occurs in our inboxes each year. So, what will prevent your company’s emails from getting lost in this year’s messaging madness? Let’s explore.

‘Tis the Holiday Hints:

Don’t hold back. “Don’t be afraid to increase email frequency and deliver relevant messages a few times a week. Customers expect to hear from you more during the holiday season.”

Keep messaging familiar. “Use your company name or email address in the “from” label and be consistent, so your customers know what to expect. Don’t repeat the “from” label in the subject line — space is too valuable.”

Keep subject lines short and sweet. “According to the Q2 2009 Experian CheetahMail Benchmark report, all industries with the exception of consumer products and services experienced the highest open rates when using subject lines of 25 characters or less last year. Longer subject lines of 75 characters or more had the second strongest performance for all businesses except those in the retail, travel and entertainment industries.”

Send a survey. “On average, surveys and polls produce a 30 percent lift in open, click and transaction rates. Link your emails to surveys this season —they are powerful tools for fostering better relationships with your customers and gaining deeper insight into their demographics, opinions, and service and product-satisfaction rates.”

In summary, your email recipients are comfortable with their inboxes looking like the mall on Black Friday. So, keep your messaging active and take advantage of the extra attention people pay to their emails during the holiday season. Merry email marketing!

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Max Fose

11/30/2009

Kelly Watson Joins IWS
04:36 pm by Max Fose

We are excited to welcome Kelly Watson to IWS. 

Kelly joins the IWS account team and brings with her a great knowledge of email best practices and campaign execution. With IWS delivering over 150 million emails a year her experience will serve our clients well!

Previous to IWS, Kelly worked as an Account Executive at Fishbowl, an Alexandria, VA based agency and email marketing provider to the restaurant industry. In her role she managed loyalty marketing and frequency-based email programs for a variety of national restaurant chains.  

Kelly holds a B.A. in Communication Studies from Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame.  She is originally from outside Philadelphia, PA and now resides in Alexandria, VA with her recently wedded husband, Brian. 

When asked what she does when not working she replied “cheering for her beloved Philly sports teams or picking out paint colors for her new home.” 

Kelly can be reached at Kelly@workwithiws.com. 

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Brian Michael

11/30/2009

Awesome Excel Add-On
11:40 am by Brian Michael

In the email marketing world, you often find yourself inheriting lists of contacts for email delivery on behalf of clients.  Besides ascertaining the origin these lists (opt-in, matched file, etc.), it is important to do an initial cleansing of the lists.  This includes removing duplicates, filling in missing data and removing erroneous data.  If you have a person responsible for database administration he or she could probably get this done by loading the lists into a MySQL, SQL, or Access database and running a few scripts.  However, this person may not understand the specific logic that the data must follow (i.e. this type of record trumps this type), because it is often not known until someone actually rolls up their sleeves and starts digging.

So when you need to manipulate data using a fine point rather than the broad brush of database scripts, Microsoft Excel is a natural solution.  However it has its limitations in terms of sync-ing multiple lists.  Thankfully, DigDB is a useful Excel plug-in that allows you to do much of your data manipulation yourself.  Its website also features step-by-step instructions for common tasks like de-duping lists.  Check it out, it’s pretty cool and extremely useful.

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Maura DeBartoli

11/10/2009

Break Me Off A Piece! Your Social-Email Strategy
06:07 pm by Maura DeBartoli

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You can stay married to your current strategic development plan if you want the last bone. Unless the content in your emails, provided to subscribers is share-worthy, it’s probable that the content won’t leave that inbox.

Why you post information to social sites, the content within, and how frequently you engage in social media participation, all have to do with the motivation behind it. If you can apply those motivations to your audience, and provide material that perks their little ears, you’ve got yourself a social-email strategy.

The ruling motivators for social engagement include self-interest, self-expression or status-achievement. “What’s in it for me?” Include promotions, advice or interesting facts and media sources – no one will post Company XYZ’s mission statement and boring ongoing rates to their Facebook Page. Make me want to “tell 5 friends”.

Give your subscribers a way of self-expression. A brief example of this could be providing a link to a social site (Facebook is best for applications) that would allow for the creation of a personalized profile graphic to show off, and show support.

In the online world, it isn’t the brand of your shoes, or the model of your car that symbolizes your status. It’s numbers. Your audience—and people in general—want to feel like they have authority, reason to brag or just own a feeling of accomplishment. How can your brand capitalize on that motivation? Do something like this, for example… Whenever a subscriber shares the email content with someone in their social network, they get a point… or two. The more people that they share that information with, they more “points” they get. This could in turn, be used for pulling in subscribers for special events, all while raising awareness and creating a social-email strategy.

So get sharing!

Tip: Do your research. Recognizing what exactly motivates your subscriber base will help you develop email content that is share-worthy.

image: Back in the Pack

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Sarah Trees

11/06/2009

Simple Email Marketing Tips



05:13 pm by Sarah Trees

According to Forrester Research, by the year 2014 interactive marketing, will hit almost $55 billion in the US. It’s expected to grow from 12% of overall ad spend in 2009 to 21% over the next five years. What does this mean? More and more companies are adjusting their ad budget to spend less on traditional advertising, like print ads and billboards, and going online to market their company. One simple way to do this is through email marketing. Here are 6 questions you should be asking yourself when starting an email-marketing program:

1. What is the primary purpose of the emails that your company sends?

If your company is using emails to send out monthly newsletters consider expanding your message to action-oriented emails. Poll your readers to find out what messages and/or offers they would be interested in learning more about.

2. How are your company’s emails deployed?

Sending emails out manually through your Outlook or any individual email account can make you and your company look like amateurs, not to mention that you could even be sending your customers viruses. Use a third party online marketing tool specifically designed to send emails, such as Lyris, Activate Direct, Constant Contact, Campaign Monitor. These systems offer features to track open rates, click throughs, and can even integrate other applications your company may be using like a customer relationship manager (CRM).

3. How does your company design and manage email assets?

Designing emails from scratch each time you want to deploy an email can be very time-consuming, utilize a template approach. Users may lose interest if you continue to use the same template over time so design a series of templates for your email campaign.

4. Does your company utilize landing pages for your email campaigns?

There is a balance of marketers that feel implementing individual landing pages is far too time consuming, but they could not be more wrong. Directing all traffic to one specific place eliminates the ability to effectively traffic the success of your campaign. It can also be frustrating for your user if they get to a page and the page is not specific to the email they received. The most effective landing page uses a combination of the offer, making the user feel the offer is unique to them and include a call to action.

5. Does your company test offers, lists, subject lines or creative?

Your company should constantly be testing email communications to your readers. This will allow you to refine your message(s) and get rid of poor performing campaigns or programs along with segmenting your list of users. Select a percentage of your database like 10-20% and test a two different messages or offers, even test the subject line within these messages.

6. Does your company test to optimize deliverability, as well as frequency, and days in which email deployment is most effective?

Deliverability is important information for every successful email program. The time and frequency of email deployment can also be a factor in the success of your deliverability. What works for one company may not work for yours. The only way to truly know what works for you is to test, after all isn’t email marketing a game of “trial and error”? Having conclusive results will help you refine your email campaign and build a more effective outcome.

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Maura DeBartoli

10/15/2009

Predicted Social Network Users By 2013: 114.6 Million
07:56 pm by Maura DeBartoli

It seems that everyone keeps raising the question, “Is social media replacing Email? Is it? What is the next step?” Social media may be changing they way we use the medium, but we’ll still be logging into Flickr and Facebook with our work and school email addresses. Plus, Gmail, for instance, is continuously improving the features that are offered. New ways to organize, get unlimited storage, and receive Push email notifications directly to your mobile device. We’ve spoken about the value in Email Marketing before, but just as a reminder to you, it is still the most popular channel for consumers today, according to eMarketer.

The bottom line is that in an industry where new digital communications make it easier to send a variety of messages, it’s imperative that marketers not only send the right message, to the right person, at the right time, but that they use the right channel as well.

For any business people that don’t see the ROI in social media, there are tools like Radian6, that have the ability to take all the information out there that is being said about a company’s brand, and put all of it on a platform that let’s you “listen, share, learn, and engage”. Just as you would test any other marketing tool, test different social media venues and see what works best, and decide what the healthiest community is for your brand identity. Be flexible and hopefully soon you will be “suggesting friends” to your old friends and co-workers who were afraid of a “fad”. You won’t be the one scratching your head.

This YouTube video (originally published by the popular social media site, Mashable) features Virgin America’s Vice President of Marketing, Porter Gale.  She discusses how she finds social media to be a great engagement strategy and brand-builder.  Let us know your own thoughts in the comments.

Virgin America Interview

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Donnie Riggs

10/13/2009

What Marketers are Missing…
03:35 pm by Donnie Riggs

Did you know that 46% of U.S. online retailers are missing out on the best, most time-tested way to spread their message? It’s true. Based on an August 2009 survey by Smith-Harmon, 46% of email marketers aren’t asking their audience to spread the word.

Sharing OptionsWord of mouth is still the most popular way to receive information about a product or campaign. With the rise of social networking, this has become even easier, yet only 6% of the marketing emails sampled  asked their audience to share with your social network. 41% had some type of ‘Forward to a Friend’ message or feature.

This alarming statistic is courtesy of eMarketer.com.  This great service has statistics for everything. Want to know what type of information U.S. Female Internet Users With and Without Children are Most Interested in Receiving via Email? They have it.  Want to know which free email platforms have the highest open rates? Now IWS can provide its clients this service thanks to our partnership with eMarketer.

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Maura DeBartoli

10/01/2009

A Digital Trend
07:22 pm by Maura DeBartoli

According to eMarketer, social networking is one of the most important – in addition to popular – activities, both online and off. The only activity that could one-up social media was email, still. Both categories ranked above chatting and just plain web browsing. Email marketing, old and wise, done well means offline dollars for you.

Unsurprisingly, the number one activity on social networking sites was posting photos. People love it – they’re really getting engaged, with 81% of respondents taking part. People link, “like”, watch, share and love to spend their time consuming content– So no, Facebook photos aren’t solely an enabling form of voyeurism.

More over, the second highest ranked activity users take part in, is responding to other content people post. Ah yes, two, three and four-way communication.

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