The success of your email marketing campaign depends on putting the right information in front of your subscribers using the right format in order to solicit engagement. And while mainstream testing plays an essential role in determining what form that information should take, there’s another option you should consider, one that could take your marketing effectiveness to a new level: heat map analysis.

What is Heat Map Analysis?

Heat map analysis uses eye-tracking software to determine what areas of the page viewers tend to look at most. Heat map studies enable you to more accurately determine where the most important elements of your email creative should be placed in order to attract user engagement. If your call to action is hanging out in a low-visibility corner, for instance, a heat map can not only point out the problem, but also show you where to place that call to action for better results.

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Today’s consumers have moved beyond being impressed with social media marketing efforts. Nowadays, it’s not impressive; it’s expected. But that’s old news for most marketers. If you don’t have a solid social media strategy in place, you’re a step behind. For those of you that do, the next step is integrating the various aspects of your marketing approach so that they work together.

Far from being competitors in the marketplace, email marketing and social media should be viewed as allies in your broader marketing approach. To accomplish that goal, start by integrating some of these popular email apps:

Social Sharing

This is a broad category that includes sharing buttons for a variety of popular networks including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, email, and more. Create a copy of your email to share with your social media contacts with the click of a button.

Facebook Share/Like

Even if you don’t include a variety of social sharing buttons, you’ll want to at least make it possible for your subscribers to share your email content on their Facebook pages. Include a share/like button and recruit your loyal followers to help spread your message among their friends.

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We know that your popular but there’s a limit to how often your email subscribers want to see a message from you in their inbox.

Have you ever thought about sending a follow-up email just a day after the initial email? Think again. There are two words you should consider deeply when you’re thinking about how often to send emails.

Inbox Exhaustion

Inbox exhaustion may sound like a serious problem, but you can totally avoid it. Inbox exhaustion occurs when you send way too many emails to your subscribers, wearying them with emails and making them unsubscribe, or even complain that you’re sending spam.

Now there isn’t a convenient guide telling you just how often you can email your subscribers. It’s just common sense. Even so, a lot of marketers ignore their common sense, especially near the holidays. Really, who wants to get an email from your company, or any company, every day for days on end? It’s annoying. And it’s inbox exhaustion – when the subscriber is worn out and frustrated by frequency.

How can I tell when often becomes too often?

Keep an eye on your stats. When you send out more frequent emails do your opens and clicks stats remain steady? Or do you see them drop? If they’re dropping, change your habits accordingly. Or, here’s an even better idea: ask your subscribers how often they want to hear from you. If you can, give them the options of yearly, quarterly, monthly, or bi-weekly emails. We live in an on-demand society. People will appreciate your emails more if they feel like you’re giving them just what they want.

When you’re trying to avoid inbox exhaustion, here’s the golden rule: use common sense. If you don’t like to get multiple e-mails from the same company, day after day, then don’t send them. Avoid filling someone’s inbox with multiple marketing messages within a day. Be patient rather than overbearing. If you have a good offer and clear message, those who want to will take action.

Recently we talked about why co-registration is a bad idea when it comes to building your subscriber list. Along with purchased and rented lists, co-registration falls into the category of questionable or downright unethical list building tactics. This month, let’s take a look at some creative and legitimate ways you can beef up your subscriber numbers and make sure your email reaches as many inboxes as possible.

Obvious ideas such as asking for registration during a purchase and including a registration page on your website still rank among the most effective tactics for increasing your email list subscriber numbers. But beyond that, in order to reach the less reachable segments of your audience, try implementing one or more of these ideas:

Pair sign-up requests with fabulous online content.

A webinar, YouTube video, or embedded video demo on your site can all provide enough incentive for someone to sign up for your newsletter. Just be sure to follow-up with equally engaging and informative email content.

Experiment with off-line events.

If you own a brick-and-mortar store, put a fishbowl at the checkout counter where people can enter to win a drawing. Make sure it’s clear that they’ll be signing up for your email list by doing so, however.

Refer a friend.

Include a “forward to a friend” button in your emails and on your blog or website content pages. Make it easy for people who already love what you have to offer to share the love with their contact lists.

Implement social media sign-ups.

Place a sign-up option on your Facebook registration page and blog registration page, and consider adding social media sharing options within your email campaigns and blog content.

The bottom line is if you’re following the cardinal rules of list building (provide great content, be memorable, and get permission) you can let your creativity drive your list building efforts. Don’t be afraid to step outside the box and try something new. You can use testing and analytics to determine which efforts are the most effective, and then keep tweaking your approach for maximum results.

At eConnect Email – a full service email marketing agency, we’re all about helping you get your email content in front of as many eyes as possible. We’ll help you build your subscriber list, manage your contacts, and optimize content in order to ensure the success of each email campaign you design.

Do you have some creative ideas on how to build your subscriber list?  If so, we’d love to hear them, please share them below.

Despite the proven benefits of welcome emails in building your brand and connecting with your subscribers, plenty of businesses still don’t take advantage of them. If you’re among those who have yet to implement a welcome email as your first point of contact with a new subscriber, take a look at these reasons you should add one to your email lineup.

It boosts open rates.

Most people will be more likely to open a welcome email than a standard marketing email. And if you can demonstrate superb value with that initial contact, you may see a difference in your open rates for future emails as well.

It increases deliverability.

Asking subscribers to add your email address to their address book right from the get-go can ensure better deliverability rates down the road.

It gives you a chance to show appreciation.

Whether the subscriber is a new customer, a business contact, or just someone interested in your company, they deserve a sincere thank you for signing up. And while just saying the words can go a long way toward building a relationship, you can also sweeten the deal by offering a discount or other gesture of appreciation.

It’s automatic.

When you use automatic triggers or email auto-responders to generate your welcome emails, you don’t have to worry about adding any extra steps to your email campaign. Just set up your trigger/ auto-responder to send an email upon completion of a purchase or registration.

It reinforces the opt-in.

That first email can act as a reminder to the subscriber that they’ve opted in to receive communication from you. This is a smart move when it comes to decreasing the number of subscribers who hit the spam button or opt-out when they receive your messages.

It gives you a chance to up-sell and cross-sell.

If your welcome email is responding to a purchase, you can suggest other items of interest or highlight special deals the subscriber might be interested in. You can also remind customers of items they may have added to the shopping cart without completing the purchase.

These are just a few of the benefits a welcome email can bring to your online business. Can you think of any others, please share them with below? As you start work on the design of your welcome email, you’ll find all the tools you need in your eConnect Email account. Set up automatic triggers, monitor open rates, and use our custom design templates and tools to make sure your subscribers receive compelling messages from the very first day they register.

As you probably already know, or maybe are just noticing, changes for your brand’s Facebook page have just rolled out as of this past Friday, March 30^th.  All Facebook brand pages have now been converted to the Timeline layout that most of us have seen on many of our friends’ personal pages.  With this conversion come many changes your company should be aware of; there are pros and cons.

First, notice that the images and application thumbnails have been resized so these graphics should be updated to fit the new dimensions; new icons may be needed. The Timeline cover photo should be 851 x 315 pixels, while the new application tab thumbnails are 111×74 pixels.  I’m sure the Graphic Designers Association (if there is one) must have lobbied for this change.

In designing your cover photo, be aware that it CANNOT contain any links, deals or any call to action.  Doing so could result in a visit from the Facebook Police.  The ability to select a default landing page is also no longer an option; so keep this in mind when creating the cover photo.  Get creative, but follow the rules.

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Hello again!  In our last installment, we told you about Yelp’s business model, their online and in-person presence, their users and growth.  In this installment, we give you concrete advice on how to leverage Yelp to add value to your business.

How you can harness the power of Yelp

1. Claim you free business listing on Yelp

This is so incredibly easy and free.  It gives you the opportunity to put your business out there and not wait for a good Samaritan (or Yelper, in the case) or the dreaded D&B to list your business.  Your business will come up when people search either on the mobile app or the actual website.  You have the ability to post photos, give a detailed business description, list the business history, and your specialties.  Also, Yelp has free business tools associated with the business accounts, like how many page views you’re gotten or how your business comes up in searches.  Pretty cool.

2. Host or sponsor a Yelp event

If your business is in a city with an active Yelp community, consider hosting a special event for the Yelpers.  This is a great way to get Yelpers in your business and introduce yourself to the community at large.   Contact your local community manager for more details about this.

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Worried about the response rate to your email campaign? If so, you’re not alone. Over 90% of email subscribers have unsubscribed from a list they initially opted into. Of those, the majority have done so because they felt the content was boring or irrelevant.

Did you see those numbers? Go back and read them again. That’s a lot of people who are dissatisfied with the way businesses are marketing themselves. Most likely, those unsubscribes started out as non-responses. If you can reach the non-responders before they opt out, you may be able to salvage some valuable contacts. For everyone who has ever sent out a boring or irrelevant email (let’s just all admit that we have), it’s time to consider these strategies for keeping your subscribers engaged.

• Value, Value, Value

Why should anyone read your email? Does it provide useful information, special offers, discount codes, or other incentives? Is it personalized? Do you use list segmentation to target your offers even further? If you don’t know what your audience considers valuable, try sending them a brief survey asking what their expectations are.

• Optimized Subject Lines

Subject lines that appear cutesy, overly clever, or use gimmicks to grab attention (exclamation marks, all caps, strange punctuation) will often be viewed as spam. Keep your subject lines clear and straightforward, incorporate your keyword, and try to communicate the overall value of the email.

• Other Communication Channels

If certain subscribers don’t respond no matter what you do, try reaching them through other communication channels before you purge them from your list. Direct mail and social media can provide opportunities to entice subscribers back with special offers or incentives.

• Set Frequency Expectations

Another reason people unsubscribe from email lists is that messages arrive too frequently. Communicate up front how often you’ll be sending your messages and stick with it. If you plan to change the frequency (around a holiday or before a big sale, for instance) let readers know so they won’t feel deluged.

• Credible From Address

If the from address looks spammy, your message may not make it to the inbox. Be careful with abbreviations and try to stick with a from address that is immediately recognizable.

eConnect Email can help you at each stage of the process, whether you’re improving the design of your email, segmenting your list, tracking user behavior, or testing alternate versions of a particular message element.  If all else fails and you can’t re-engage the non-responders on your list, it may be time to let them go, clean up your list, and move on.

If you are unfamiliar with Yelp.com, as I imagine many people are, given the percentage of times I tell someone I am an Elite Yelper and they say, “What’s that?,” it is time to get familiar.

On March 2, 2012, Yelp hosted their IPO with shares closing at $15 a share, 64% higher than anticipated.  Nearly 6 million people use Yelp’s mobile app to find businesses near to them and 66 million unique users visit the website per month.  Some of the top Yelp communities in America are in San Francisco (where it was founded), L.A., New York, and Austin (of course!).

Why is this important to you?  If you are a small business owner, Yelp can be used to add value to your business by leveraging social strategies to increase visibility of your business in your community.  That is, unless you have poor customer service or are peddling a poor product, then Yelp can be your worst enemy.   Let’s assume you have a nice small business, be it a restaurant or food trailer, day spa, clothing store, salon, day care, gym, or what-have-you.

Why Yelp is Good for Your Awesome Small Business:

1. Yelp is Mobile

Both dedicated and casual Yelpers look up businesses on the mobile app.  I found it especially useful when traveling since the app allows you to look for places meeting your criteria within a certain distance (2 blocks, 6 blocks, etc).  One author called this “enabling hyper local neighborhood searches” and this is the reason that many people prefer Yelp for local business searches to Google.  Yelp’s directions to your business are also superior to any I have seen on the web or on apps.  In New York, it even told me which subway to take since I was on foot.  That’s pretty cool.

2. Yelp is Trusted

66 million users per month and growing 80% per year.  Mm-hmm, people trust Yelp.

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Loyalty-targeted emails can result in open rates as much as 40 percent higher than bulk mailings. That’s a statistic worth noting. If you don’t currently use segmentation to cater to subscriber preferences and build loyalty among existing customers, now is the time to start.

Thank You Notes

A simple “thank you” for subscribing, purchasing, or providing feedback goes a long way toward building rapport with your audience. Let subscribers know you appreciate their business and offer them a special discount or coupon code to be used toward a future purchase.

Shopping Cart Recovery

Use shopping cart recovery software to remind customers of unfinished purchases. A timely email letting them know the cart is about to expire or that the items are now on sale may be enough to bring them back to your website.

Redemption Reminders

If you use a loyalty program that incorporates points, coupon codes, or e-dollars, send subscribers an email when these incentives are about to expire. They’ll appreciate the reminder and the tactic could boost your sales.

Feedback

Solicit customer feedback in the form of interest and opinion surveys, product reviews, and social sharing buttons. Customers appreciate knowing that you care what they think.

Shopping Preferences

Use previous subscriber behavior to target emails toward their individual shopping preferences. By tracking what users click on, what they search for, and what they ultimately buy you can create emails that cater to their needs.

Demographics

Send offers that relate to the subscriber’s location, age, profession, or gender. You don’t want your senior citizen market to receive emails about college savings or your Los Angeles subscribers to receive information about discount flights from New York to Miami.

Purchasing Volume

Customers who spend significant money with your company should receive special offers such as free shipping, platinum status, or early notice of sales. On the other hand, one-time spenders may also be encouraged to shop again if you offer them a special deal.

Repeat Customers Vs. Prospective Customers

Both repeat and prospective customers deserve special attention, but in a different way. Offer special deals or discount codes to repeat customers, and make sure they aren’t turned away when they notice that your prospective customers get seemingly better offers than they did. You can entice both these markets by creating email messages tailored to their needs and purchasing habits.

eConnect Email offers stellar list segmentation options that allow you to send emails designed with a particular audience in mind. Use custom fields to manage subscriber data and then segment your lists based on the criteria and user behavior of your clients, customers and subscribers.