The most wonderful time of year is upon us! This goes for business as well…so let your client/customers know how much you appreciate them with an email. As things get hectic it’s best to map out a well planned campaign for the next couple of months and keep your brand in people’s minds as they dream of sugar plums and candy canes 😉
Happy emailing, and have a safe and warm Thanksgiving!
As the average person’s email habits have evolved over time, the goals and strategies of email marketing have had to evolve as well. People no longer open and read every email they receive and they often maintain two or more accounts to help them filter out promotional messages from personal ones. In order to continue reaching their target audience via email, savvy email marketers must keep up with rapidly changing strategies while maintaining tried and true best practices that win reader loyalty.
Considering the irritation and even anger with which most people view spam, it’s puzzling why so many companies still attempt to send unsolicited emails. If a subscriber asks to be removed from your list, remove him and don’t send additional messages. eConnect Email’s list management options allow you to stay on top of reader preferences and build trust by respecting privacy.
You can build a list of subscribers who are tuned in to your messages by being up front about your email intentions and then by asking them to forward messages to their friends or share it via facebook, twitter, etc. If you provide compelling information, you’ll be able to organically build your subscriber list as newsletters and articles get passed along. eConnect Email offers a social sharing option that allows readers to pass messages along, while also allowing you to track user activity.
Before a subscriber ever clicks through your email, he’ll make a decision about whether your message is worth his/ her time based on your subject line. Avoid clichés and over-the-top claims that readers will ignore. Instead, focus on building well-crafted, concise subject lines that entice the reader to find out more. For additional tips on how to write a killer email subject line visit the link provided.
One newsletter I received included a statement at the very top that instructed the reader to ignore the ads, explaining they were just there to pay the bills. You know what? I did ignore them. I never bought anything from the company and when I changed email addresses, I didn’t bother to re-subscribe. The company undermined their goal of selling a product by apologizing for the ads in the hopes that subscribers would continue to read. The lesson? Don’t overwhelm readers with ads, but don’t let them off the hook by foregoing a call to action altogether. eConnect Email can help you craft dynamic content for your emails in order to achieve results for your email marketing campaign.
Keep it Interesting
With so much competition in the inbox these days it’s even that much more important to compose great content with catchy subject lines and impressive graphics. This process is made easier with professional email marketing companies like eConnect Email. Just remember to have fun and deliver campaigns that you would like to receive because most likely your subscribers will have similar tastes and interests as you. As always, if you have questions along the way we are here to help!
First impressions make up a huge percentage of the overall impact you will have on any given reader of your marketing emails. Experts estimate that in a face-to-face first contact, you have seven seconds to make your first impression and that 93% of that impression will be based on non-verbal factors. In the email world, this translates into how your presentation makes the reader feel as a he looks at your email, even if he doesn’t read a word. If you want to develop an email marketing campaign that compels readers to find out more, you’ve got to pay attention to details of presentation and appearance.
Let The Preview Pane Work for You
Many email programs provide readers with a preview pane that shows them a snippet of the email before they open it. The good news is that this gives you a chance to reach people that might not actually click on your message if you know how to use that snippet of space effectively. The preview pane is the most important piece of real estate within your campaign so design accordingly. eConnect Email provides templates to help you design an effective email as well as inbox previews so you can see how your message will look in a variety of different email programs.
Keep Important Information as Text, Not Graphics
Another quirk of many email applications is that they often block images by default. To make sure the largest percentage of readers see your message, put your most important information in text format rather than incorporating it into a graphic image. Then use eConnect Email’s image manager to upload images that support the information you’ve already communicated through text.
Make Your Messages Mobile Friendly
As more and more people check email on their mobile devices rather than from their computers, the need for mobile friendly formatting has become essential. If subscribers can’t clearly read your email, they’ll likely delete it before you have a chance to make that vital first impression. Start by using succinct subject lines with the most important information first and make sure your sending name is recognizable. Incorporate alt tags for your images so viewers can still see text even if images are blocked. You can also include a link to a mobile version of your email.
Choose Your Colors Wisely
Choose colors that work together and that promote the emotions you want to convey. In addition, use dark text on a light background to make your messages more readable. Take advantage of eConnect’s custom design services to help you choose colors and a format that will best convey your intended message.
Let Us Help You
While eConnect Email provides you with a great selection of email templates to choose from, you may want to think about a custom template that will incorporate your brand more professionally and seamlessly. We can help you design a custom template for your monthly newsletters or design a campaign for a specific event or promotion. For more information on our custom email template design services click on the link provided or call us at (866) 596-9997.
Purchasing an email list can sound like an easy solution to the problem of how to begin a new email marketing campaign or how to breathe new life into a campaign that’s not performing well. But the truth is that email lists are more likely to undermine your marketing efforts and your company’s customer relations reputation. If you’re trying to justify a list purchase with any of the following arguments, it’s time to rethink your strategy.
“I’ll get a brand-new list of fresh contacts for just a small outlay of cash!”
Sure, you may get a new list of addresses, but how many of those addresses can truly be classified as “fresh contacts?” Most of the addresses in a purchased email list have been gathered by malicious software of automated scripts and haven’t been checked for deliverability. A high percentage of those addresses will be non-existent, expired, or otherwise undeliverable.
“I’ll get 10,000 new viewers”
Average open rates for email lists hover between .01% and .1%. That’s anywhere from one to ten viewers out of a list of 10,000 email addresses. An email list comprised of targeted, high-quality subscribers who opted in specifically to receive your communications, on the other hand, can yield open rates of 50% or more. Was the $300 you shelled out for that list really worth it?
“They opted in to receive third-party offers”
This may be technically true, but most of those opt-ins consist of fine print buried in a user agreement that rarely gets read. For your company, this means that those readers will still hit the spam button when they see your message or worse, your email sending IP’s could be blacklisted.
“The seller promised a well-targeted list and proof of permission”
The reality of email marketing is that it takes a lot of time and effort to build a high-value email list in which subscribers will open and read messages. For this reason, no self-respecting company would ever sell a high-value list because the moment it’s sold they lose customer loyalty and the list loses its effectiveness. No matter how well-targeted the list is, even if it technically has the permission of senders through fine print agreements, people will still consider messages they didn’t know they were signing up for to be spam.
“I don’t know how to build my own email list”
That’s where eConnect Email can help you. We are always working hard to ensure the highest deliverability possible and will closely monitor your account for blacklisting. If you’re ever blacklisted, we’ll work to correct the problem as quickly as possible. Build your list with our built in social sharing feature and monitor user activity with statistics tracking, testing, and suppression lists. With the help of eConnect Email, you can organically build an email list that supports your marketing campaign and increases sales without the negative associations that come with purchased email lists.
Conclusion
Slow and steady wins the race. There’s no point in sending emails to an uninterested market. No matter how compelling your text or offers might be, if it’s not in front of the right audience, it’s a waste of your time (and theirs). There are many creative ways to get opt-in subscribers who are interested in what you have to offer; I would explore some of those options and stick with marketing to individuals who are interested in what you have to say.
We’ve all experienced the feeling of time rushing forward when we step into a retail store in October and see Christmas decorations for sale. While October may be way too early to start setting up your Christmas tree at home, it’s the right time to start planning your holiday email campaign. By keeping these basic principles in mind, you can plan for a successful holiday season long before you 
hear silver bells ringing.
Each holiday email you send will need a compelling call to action and a subject line that grabs the reader’s attention and a creative presentation of information. eConnect Email can help you design a template that will carry you through the holidays!
Your email schedule shouldn’t differ significantly from your past sending habits. If subscribers are used to hearing from you once a month and suddenly start receiving daily emails, they might bail. At the same time, however, it’s important to have a plan in place that reflects the urgency of the holidays. Know what you’re sending and when each message should arrive in subscriber inboxes. Make the deployment process easy by scheduling your email from within your eConnect Email accout.
Give your readers something different and unexpected that they won’t receive from other retailers. Remember the Office Max Elf Yourself campaign? Office Max received lots of exposure through that campaign because it gave viewers a chance to do something fun and different. You can bet they forwarded those emails to their friends, as well. If you’re not into dancing elves, with eConnect Email you can try giveaways or linking to funny videos to draw people in.
Inboxes overflow with promotional emails during the holidays, so you’re going to need to be extra attentive to the personal needs of your customers. If you have a deadline for ordering in order to receive an item by Christmas, let them know that. If they have purchased from you before, use that information to suggest items that might interest them. Don’t forget that not all of your customers celebrate Christmas, so be inclusive of other holidays without estranging your loyal Christmas customers.
As much as possible, let your customers know that you care about them as people and not just as buyers. Use eConnect Email’s triggers/ autoresponders to make contact with each customer who takes the time to interact with your company. In addition, reach out to those who have opened your email but haven’t clicked or who have clicked but haven’t purchased. eConnect Email report options will help you determine which customers have demonstrated interest but haven’t followed through with the desired action.
There was a time in the recent past when email was king of the mountain in terms of online marketing. Nowadays, email has to compete with Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and RSS feeds to even get noticed, much less to capture attention and direct action in a meaningful way. Even so, the question “Is email dead?” is rather simplistic. Of course it’s not dead. People still use email and they still sign up for e-newsletters and promotional emails. But that’s not really what most people want to know when they ask the question. They want to know whether email marketing is still a good investment for their company.
A better way to consider the effectiveness of email marketing is to ask “How have the habits of my target market changed with regard to email and can email still help me accomplish my marketing goals with that market?” Of course, any great question opens up the field to follow-up questions. Some that you should consider include:
How Does Today’s Market use Email?
I have two separate email accounts. One I use primarily for business-related communication and personal communication. The other I use for promotional emails and newsletters. However, if there’s a particular company whose emails I think I’ll read more than the average e-mail ad, then I’ll switch them over to my personal account. The majority of your target market probably thinks the same way. The goal for your business, then, should be to move from the “check once a month” account to the “daily” account. eConnect Email can help you do this in several ways:
By understanding the email habits of your target market and by building an email campaign that respects their privacy while providing value, you can achieve success with email marketing.
In a climate dominated by social media services, it’s more important than ever that your email marketing campaign is targeting the right audience with the right message. In order to avoid getting lost in the shuffle of RSS feeds, Twitter posts, Facebook updates, and blogging, you need to know that your email recipients are opening your emails and that they’re being impacted by the information contained in your messages. You can monitor the email activity of your subscribers using the reports functions available through eConnect Email, but the information will only be helpful if you know what you’re looking at and how you can use those results to modify your strategy.
What is the Significance of Open Rates?
When most people checked their email by sitting at a desk and opening each message they wanted to view, you could take open rates pretty much at face value, using the percentages to determine how many people were reading your emails. These days, however, a lot of factors can affect your open rate percentages. For instance, an email might not be recorded as opened if the subscriber checks it on his mobile phone, if he checks it 
without HTML turned on, or if he views it only in the preview pane without downloading images. Also, a person might keep an email in his inbox and open it several times to review the information. Or he might open it and immediately dump it. The point is that while open rates should definitely be considered in your email marketing campaign, it’s important to understand that they provide only relative information, not hard data.
What Should My Open Rate Goal Be?
While open rates can’t be relied on too heavily in terms of recording user behavior, they can still be used as a springboard to determine the effectiveness of your email marketing campaign. Using the reports features offered by eConnect Email, you can use open rates in the following ways:
Track how many times each recipient opens your email so you can tell if a 30% open rate means 30 out of 100 people opened your email or if only ten people opened it, but read it three times each.
Opens don’t mean much unless they persuade the viewer to take the next step and click. eConnect Email allows you to see who is clicking, on what links and how many times.
Bounces and unsubscribe requests can be categorized as failed contacts since the recipient either never received your email, or they decided they don’t want to hear from you again. Keep track of these numbers and use them to determine whether your email marketing strategy needs to switch things up.
Sales are down. Money is tight. You need to increase your bottom line. But you don’t have the money to launch a full fledge marketing campaign. In the past, you would’ve had only a few options: buckle down and spend the money, launch a mediocre campaign, or simply go without and pray for the best.
In today’s market, technology has changed the playing field. Businesses now have an inexpensive and extremely effective solution–email marketing. To launch a successful email marketing campaign, consider the following tips first.
Get Subscribers
To actually start your campaign, you’ll first need subscribers (people who want to hear from you). An easy way to start building your subscriber base is to reach out to the people you already interact with professionally and personally and ask if you can add them to your contact list. Be ready to give them reasons for subscribing though. No one wants more junk mail. Also, don’t think you’ve arrived once you have an email list. Getting subscribers is easy. Keeping them, however, is the key and getting them to engage is the golden egg.
Make it Professional
Consider your design. Remember, your subscribers have no obligation to read your email. If they click on your email and find it cluttered, ugly, or disorganized, they likely will delete it without reading. Setup an account with an email marketing company (like eConnect Email ). We can provide our users with a library of professionally designed email templates that can be customized to fit your existing branding.
Say Something
Make sure your newsletters actually say something. Your customers don’t want another pointless piece of mail. In addition to alerting them about your specials and promotions, keep them informed about your industry. Set yourself up as an industry expert your subscribers can trust. Once you build a rapport with your audience, they’ll want to be in the know.
Respond to Criticism
Finally, be willing to respond to criticism. Criticism can come directly or indirectly. Direct criticism may come as a customer responding to your newsletter with things he or she disliked. Take their comments seriously but don’t overreact. Indirect criticism could come by monitoring how many people are viewing or possibly unsubscribing from your contact list. This is where we can help. Our software keeps track of the number of times an email is opened and by whom. If overall readership starts dropping, it’s time to start making some adjustments to keep your subscribers engaged.
Of course, these tips only skim the surface. Be willing to make changes and adapt to the ever-changing market place. If you have questions or need help getting started we’re happy to give you a helping hand.
Getting subscribers to open your emails can sometimes be a challenge, especially when they are subscribed to numerous email lists. This month’s newsletter will help you rise above the inbox competition and move subscribers to open and read your emails.
With the sheer volume of email that piles into inboxes these days, it is interesting to note how different individuals choose to handle the onslaught. Much like different personality types, inbox management styles reflect a certain aspect of a person’s individual character. Most likely, the way that you manage your inbox will have direct comparisons to the way that you manage your life.
Have you ever met a perfectionist who micromanaged every detail of his life? Imagine that person’s inbox. Is it likely that he would allow even one email to slip through the cracks and get lost in the depths of his filing system? Not very. Instead, he carefully observes each email that lands in the box, quickly responds, deletes, or categorizes it, and returns to his lengthy list of daily responsibilities. Obviously, this individual’s personality is reflected in his inbox management style.
On the other hand, consider the compulsive procrastinator. Surely you know one or two of these – you know who they are – people who can’t seem to keep dates straight, living life by the seat of their pants, finding information only as they need it. Now imagine this person’s inbox. Most likely he has not deleted an email in over a year, 98% are unopened, and 90% are spam. His life and his cyber world happily replicate each other as he goes on with life unbothered by the disorganization.
The majority of people will fall into neither one of these extreme categories. Instead, they land somewhere in between them, likely leaning more toward one extreme than the other. What can be learned from this person’s inbox? More than you may realize. From his inbox you can learn if he is a packrat, archiving every email that isn’t spam. You may find out that she prefers more direct forms of communication as you observe that she replies to one in every twelve emails that she receives. It is even possible that you may discover an individual’s bad habit of ignoring important information. Just like personality differences, the differences in inbox management strategies can be astounding.
Personality quirks are certainly reflected in how a person manages their email inbox. Want to learn a few things about your employee? Your girlfriend? Your spouse? Take a quick peek over their shoulder while they check their email. That momentary glance may shed quite a bit of light on how the individual approaches managing their life.
