Improve your results with email marketing
Friday, March 5th, 2010Many of us log into our inboxes several times a day to check our email. This has become an integral part of most people’s working and private lives. Email Marketing capitalises on this prolific touch-point (some may call it obsession) with the online world by placing brands right in front of their customers in their inboxes.
As one of the oldest forms of digital marketing, today Email Marketing is still a primary tool businesses use to promote special offers and to stay in contact with their customers.
There are two types of email campaigns that businesses use predominately. These are either promotional or relationship-based campaigns. Promotional email campaigns specifically drive leads and sales while relationship-based emails aim to build and strengthen customer relationships by communicating with customers about relevant events, updates, news or other information that is of use to them.
According to EliteEmail.com permission-based Email Marketing can be defined as “emails sent to recipients who have opted-in or subscribed to receive email messages from a specific company, website or individual.” Since readers have opted-in, permission-based Email Marketing is one of the most powerful marketing tools and, when utilised properly, it can increase both customer loyalty and brand awareness.
Email Marketing complements offline and online elements in the marketing mix including direct promotions, print advertisements, Search Engine Optimisation and social media campaigns. To integrate Email Marketing with current marketing activities like special offers, newsletter subscribers can be offered an additional discount to entice engagement and increase sign-ups. As part of relationship management links to the businesses’ social networking profiles (like Facebook and Twitter) can be added to the newsletter to encourage readers to connect with the business on a platform that allows interaction on a more frequent basis.
Other than acting as a customer relationship management (CRM) tool, newsletters can position your business as a thought-leader in your industry by offering valuable and informative content to readers. In order to provide your subscribers with content they are interested in, it is necessary to find out what their preferences are. The sign-up form should be kept short and only request the necessary basic information. A subscription should ideally be followed by a confirmation email. You can always gather more information about your subscribers and their preferences later through short surveys or quizzes, or by encouraging subscribers to create a profile on your site. Based on the information and options they select, subscribers will receive newsletters with content tailored to their preferences.
By including subtle calls to action in your newsletter content and linking to targeted landing pages website goals can be reached. Why? Calls to action entice readers to visit your website, request a brochure or ask a consultant to contact them for further information. Furthermore, suggesting that readers forward the email to friends if they found the content valuable can enhance your brand’s awareness and grow your subscriber list.
Based on research consumers are more likely to open newsletters they are expecting, hence it is important to send out your newsletter at regular intervals. As with all online marketing elements, Email Marketing is completely measurable and reporting data can provide valuable insights as to how subscribers interact with your newsletter. Professional email software includes a reporting interface that will indicate the number of newsletters that were opened, how many times the newsletter was forwarded, how many subscribers unsubscribed and how many readers clicked on links in the newsletter. Data collected from these reports can be analysed and used strategically to improve, among other things, newsletter open-rates and the content of the newsletter.
Optimised newsletters can enhance your Search Engine Optimisation campaign when an HTML version of the newsletter is uploaded to your website. Make it easy for website visitors and search engines to find your newsletters by organising them in archives with key-word rich and relevant titles.
In the end, an up-to-date, relevant database with subscribers that choose to receive marketing emails and newsletters from you is the best way to attain a good ROI from Email Marketing campaigns. If you think your Email Marketing campaigns needs sprucing up, contact the AlterSage team. Whether you are looking for an email software solution, a fully-managed solution or simply newsletter content creation, we will gladly assist.
Tips for achieving your marketing goals in 2010
Wednesday, November 25th, 20092009 is drawing to a close and in terms of marketing, businesses are reflecting on the year that has past and brainstorming new plans and strategies for 2010. Marketing is an essential ingredient for ensuring the success of any business.
When defined, marketing is described as the process of creating awareness for a product or service, influencing consumer purchasing behaviour and encouraging sales. Every marketing manager is constantly aiming to determine the best mix of marketing elements to further increase brand awareness, leads and sales.
Over the last few years the elements of the marketing mix have evolved to include not only traditional channels like print, radio and television, but also online channels like search engines, banner adverts and social media platforms.
In addition to being an effective marketing platform, it is important to note that the Internet also offers a new way of doing business and should not be considered as just another advertising channel. According to a Nielsen Online Ranking Report published earlier this year, local online readership figures grew by 25.2% from 4.8 million online readers in the first quarter of 2008 compared to over 6 million online readers in the first quarter of this year. The online landscape offers noteworthy opportunities, especially when tied in with traditional marketing channels to create a through-the-line strategy.
Online media offers a flexible structure and is far more cost-effective and measurable than traditional media. Depending on the goals and objectives of each business, different online marketing elements will be used. While online fundamentals like email marketing and banner placements are very effective when executed correctly, there are a few other elements to consider whilst planning your online strategy for next year.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Why should you include SEO in your marketing plan?
Even though SEO is a long-term commitment results from such a campaign are sustainable and provide proven ROI. When implementing a SEO campaign your online marketing agency will tweak existing content, create new web pages and possibly recommend usability changes. Better usability makes it easier for visitors to access your website and increases conversions or desired actions.
Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC)
PPC is a complimentary marketing element to SEO. These are the adverts seen on the top and right-hand side of search engines’ results pages. These adverts are paid for (also called sponsored links or adverts) and work on a bidding system. PPC campaigns should be conversion driven. As you are paying for visits to your website, you should aim to maximise certain actions based on your website goals. Successful completion of these actions is known as a conversion. For instance, if one of the goals is to increase leads and sales through the website the conversion action could involve a visitor filling in a contact form, enquiring about a product or downloading a product brochure.
Why should you include PPC in your marketing plan?
PPC is an excellent short-term solution to drive visitors to your website. Your online marketing agency will create targeted landing pages with the necessary calls to action elements in order to increase conversions. Another advantage of PPC is that it provides opportunity for increased brand awareness through its content network. A network whereby either text or banner advertising is displayed contextually on other relevant websites, and you still only pay per click. PPC is budget-based, completely measurable and provides ROI quicker than SEO.
Social Media Marketing
By correctly leveraging platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Zoopy social media can create brand awareness and build relationships with new and existing customers. Social media marketing has been likened to word-of-mouth, it’s about conversations. These conversations occur amongst and between your customers and yourself. Social media marketing is not push-marketing – if you use social media platforms to broadcast overt commercial and marketing messages your social media campaign is guaranteed to fail.
An integrated strategy comprising a mix of the elements above plus traditional elements will ensure maximum return on your marketing investment. When creating an online strategy the AlterSage team considers the offline channels utilised by the client and aims to create a strategy that will amplify traditional elements. It is important that online not be included as an after-thought. If you want to achieve great results, involve your online agency from the conception phase as they will be able to advise which elements will work best to achieve the specific goals of the campaign.
Can you afford to ignore online marketing channels? Follow the consumers, venture online and see the possibilities.
This article was originally published on Bizcommunity.com on 25 November 2009.
Five Ways to Get the Most Out of Email Marketing
Friday, October 23rd, 2009Email marketing is one of the oldest yet most effective ways of marketing directly online. Direct marketing has always held its place in the marketing mix, but prohibitively high costs posed a barrier for entry to many advertisers. Email has provided a far more cost-effective way to reach customers at their most common point of contact with the Internet: their inbox.
Besides the benefit of lower costs, email marketing is also a lot more effective than traditional direct marketing mailers. You’re able to segment your customers, easily personalise emails, measure key metrics and, of course, use email as a tool for effective customer relationship management.
Emails as a communication tool between yourself and your potential customers can take several forms. First, you can use emails for promotional purposes to bring attention to specific a sale, event or product. Secondly, you can use newsletters to keep in touch with your customers, and ensure that they are in contact with the brand. Finally, emails can also be used to keep customers informed about the progress of an order or their transaction process.
What follows are five tips to get the most out of your email marketing initiatives.
Get permission
Permission-based emails are by far the most effective way of communicating with your current and potential customers. Whether you are adding subscribers yourself, or they are adding themselves, make sure that it is clear to them that they are giving you permission to email them.
If you do not gain permission, or make it clear that someone is subscribing to an email list, you are probably spamming. Some countries have laws prohibiting the transmission of unsolicited mail.
If you gain permission, you know that the person you are emailing probably wants to hear about your product or service and you will be able to maintain a much “cleaner” and well-structured email database.
Segment your subscribers
To effectively implement customer relationship management and increase conversions, it’s important to segment your readership. You can segment along many lines – gender, location, language, interests, age and so forth, depending on what data you have been able to capture about your readers.
Segmentation allows you to communicate on a more personal level with your subscribers about topics or products that may interest them specifically. People regard emails which are frequently of no interest to them as spam, and if you don’t appeal to individual readers, you may find that more and more of them drag your mailer to the trash before they even open it.
Make sure it’s relevant
Part of the role of segmentation can be to ensure that your email is as relevant to the individual reader as possible. This means targeting things like specific interests and activities and a person’s location. Always aim to meet subscriber’s expectations of your email campaign. One way to give an impression of relevance is by personalising emails, because if they are addressed by their first name, subscribers already feel like they have a relationship with you.
Consider the local context
Part of engaging with your readers is to speak to them using language that they understand. Whether you are trying to drive sales, encourage sign-ups or just update your customers about what’s going on with your company or brand, it’s very important to consider the recipients’ local context.
This includes things like content (images and text), language or dialects, currency and even things like seasons. Subtle nuances like this may go unnoticed if they are correct, but will certainly put a big gap between you and your customer if there are inconsistencies or inaccuracies. Emails in which the local context has been taken into account will immediately seem more credible to the recipient.
Timing and frequency
Finally, it’s important to consider both the timing and the frequency of your emails. When it comes to timing – it’s generally a best practice to send the email at the same time of the day, and on the same day of the week with regularity, so that your recipients know when to expect email from you. Also, logic dictates that it’s best not to send emails first thing on a Monday or on a Friday afternoon as these are times when “peripheral” emails are most likely to be ignored.
When it comes to frequency – think carefully about how often you need to be contacting your customers. Too little communication and they may lose interest, too much and you might find yourself being categorised as a spammer.
