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:

• Differentiate Total Opens from Unique Opens

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.

• Track Clicks Per Open

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.

• Monitor Failed Email Contacts

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.

For This Month’s Tips & Tricks – CLICK HERE

View Your Email Marketing as a Conversation

Imagine you’re having a face-to-face conversation with a friend. You’re talking about something that fascinates you but you want to judge the interest of your fellow conversationalist. You analyze facial expressions, body language, and verbal response in an effort to see if your friend is interested, distracted, or entirely tuning you out. By monitoring their responses, you can adjust your conversation as needed and hold their interest. In the same way that watching your friend’s reactions helps you carry on a better conversation, monitoring email response rates help gauge the interest of your subscribers.

Keep Track of Interested Subscribers

First, take a look at how many people are reading your emails. Sending your emails through an email marketing application (like eConnect Email) will provided the statistics needed to fully understand and track the interest of your subscribers.  Once you’ve fully analyzed the reports of your campaign you can begin tailoring your marketing efforts based on the things that interest your subscribers.

Reach Uninterested Subscribers

Consider that friend you’re having a conversation with. If he or she seems uninterested you might try changing your tone, reevaluating your subject matter, or addressing your friend specifically, even asking, “Am I boring you?”

With your email marketing reports, look at who consistently ignores you. Isolate this group. Consider what might be turning them off. Look and see if you’re writing about topics that they may find uninteresting. If the recipient signed up to receive emails about snowboarding but you’re sending them emails about water sports this could be a reason for the disconnect. Finally, consider sending out an email asking for the group’s input. But remember, you’ll have to use an enticing subject line to make sure they actually open the email.

Know When You’ve Lost a Subscriber

Of course even the most careful and concerned conversationalist will always have people who don’t want to listen. By using an email service like eConnect Email, if someone chooses to move on and unsubscribe from your contact list, this will be automatically handled for you.

Remember, response rates are one of your most powerful tools for improving upon your email marketing efforts. Use these tools and you will find that your subscribers are more engaged which will have a positive effect on your bottom line.

While the conveniences of modern technology have certainly simplified the marketing process, these days some of our most useful tools can end up causing the greatest amount of frustration. Chances are you have experienced this yourself. You open up your inbox, only to find that you have 57 new emails, when just last night, there were two. After an hour of irritated sorting, deleting, and replying you have to ask yourself how email has taken over your life. There’s a name for this kind of frustration: inbox exhaustion.

Inbox exhaustion can occur when someone is bombarded by daily emails from well-meaning companies that can’t seem to find a balance between too much and not enough. You can be guilty of this, if you are not careful. The danger is that too much emailing will not only frustrate subscribers, but actually turn them off completely. For some people, the problem gets so severe that they declare email bankruptcy and permanently deactivate their email accounts!

So how do you know if you are exhausting your subscribers? Take a look at your stats. Are they dropping? Are people unsubscribing? Odds are good that if you are sending daily emails, your subscribers are feeling overwhelmed. Try cutting back to weekly or bi-weekly, and see what happens. Backing off on emails does not mean that you are less committed to email marketing. It’s a strategy for avoiding email exhaustion and keeping your subscribers happy.

Finding a balance is the key. Instead of focusing on quantity, focus on quality. When you send an email, make sure that it’s exactly what your subscribers need to know. Succinct, to the point, and well-spread-out emails will keep people on board without them feeling like they’re in the middle of a game of email dodge ball.

Certainly, you do not want to lose touch with subscribers. Halting your entire email marketing scheme is not the answer. Fail to send enough emails, and your readers may forget about you or mark you as spam after a month or two of no communication. Email exhaustion can be avoided if you carefully balance the amount of emails you send, the length and quality of the content, and the overall approach you take to email marketing.

Most people like email communication. Use it effectively, and the tool will prove invaluable for your business. Exhaust your readers, and you will almost certainly lose them.

Are you tired of mediocre open rates from your email campaigns? What if you could eliminate the frustration of guessing at subject lines and content that will gain the attention of your subscribers? Imagine getting great results the first time you send out an email. When it comes to email marketing split testing is a no brainer.  Using this powerful tool, you can put your marketing strategies in overdrive.

Split testing sounds like a complicated procedure, but it is really quite simple to understand. The first step is taking a look at the information you are seeking to convey to your subscribers. You take that information and create two similar emails that are almost (but not quite) identical. Perhaps you slightly change the subject heading or alter the phrasing of a campaign slogan. The split comes when you send the two different versions of the email to a small sampling of your mailing list to see which campaign performs the best. Once you know which email receives the most favorable response you send the best performing campaign out to the remaining recipients.

The novelty of split testing is that you can take the results from your tests and evaluate which strategies were the most effective.  Let’s say you varied your two emails by including a graphic in one that you did not include in the other. If the email including the graphic receives the most favorable results then you know that your readers respond to the graphic. You can then go on to include more graphic elements in future emails.

The more you split test, the more effective your email marketing will be. Don’t stop with just one test. Once you receive the results of the first one, immediately begin a new test that builds on the information you gathered. The more you learn about your subscribers’ tastes, the more your marketing will reflect the strategies that cater to them. This will increase traffic and encourage more effective marketing.

Today, split testing is being used in more ways than just email marketing. It is so effective that now people use it in website design and online advertising, as well. The usefulness of being able to test out different strategies before fully launching a campaign is invaluable.  Don’t be left behind, eConnect Email has built split testing into our application so make use of it.

How do you go about split testing within eConnect Email 3.0?

1)    First create the two variations of your email campaign which you would like to test

2)    Now select “Create Split Test” from the “Email Campaigns” tab

3)    Give you Split Test a name

4)    Choose the two versions of the emails campaigns to use for testing

5)    Select how a winner is chosen

6)    Finally, select what kind of test to run

7)    Now sit back, kick your feet up and let technology work for you.

Questions?  Give us a call, we’re here to help!

At eConnect Email, we want to help make our customers look smart and save time with their email marketing. We have put together a list of some of our sweet features that will help you with short cuts and tricks to making you a better email marketer…your subscribers will be impressed!

To view our August Newsletter – Tips & Tricks – CLICK HERE!

Given the amount of spam constantly battering inboxes, ISPs are understandably cracking down. And while most people are thrilled to have less spam, the 20% of legitimate emails that never make it may be cause for concern. If you are an email marketer you have a vested interest in practicing habits that will increase your sending reputation and place you in the 80% success category.

Five things determine sending reputation: volume, complaint rates, bounce rate, spam trap hits, and correct authentication. When it comes to monitoring these all-important categories you have two choices. You can either do it yourself or have professionals (like us!) do it for you.

So what if your score is already sub-par? Here are several steps you can take in repairing your reputation.

Take Action on your User Count
Want to prevent complaints and resolve your unknown user count? Stick to emailing active users who want to get your emails, and always use double opt in for your registrations. Using old contact lists is a sure-fire way to injure your user count. The unknown recipients may either delete the email or send it to spam. Bounce rates always drop when you contact people you know are interested, and spam traps will be much less likely.

Prevent Complaints
The first step in preventing complaints is understanding why you’re getting them. New users often complain when they do not receive the information that they thought they’d get. If the source of your complaints is users who have received your emails for a long time, you may simply need to delete them from your list. If they don’t want your emails and continue to get them, they will complain.

Set up Feedback Loops
If you have all of your feedback loops set up for your sending IPs it is unlikely that you will resend to complaining users. If complaints are still high after setting up the loops, the problem may be the frequency of your emails. Even interested users hate getting too many emails. Back off on your frequency and see if complaints fall. If they do, you can then slowly increase your mailings until you find exactly the right frequency. What you want to achieve is your top ROI without lots of complaints.

Authentication
SPF and domain keys can be a great tool, depending on your list sizes. If you are using an ESP in your email marketing, they can help with authenticating the sender to organize and send emails on your behalf. If interested, ask your ESP for more information about the usefulness of SPF and domain keys.

While underappreciated, deliverability is crucial to the world of email marketing. If you need help in improving your deliverability, eConnect Email would be happy to assist you.

When it comes to writing the subject line for an email campaign all email marketers struggle from time to time.  It’s a struggle because you know that no matter how relevant, compelling and irresistible the content of your email may be, if it doesn’t get opened, you’re not going to get results.

Below we will give you some tips and solid advice based on many years of email marketing experience, to help take the struggle out of your subject line composing, and help you maximize your open and response rates.

Anyone involved with email marketing will find this study of interest. Whether working in a B2C, B2B or Non-Profit organization, marketers, designers, developers and technicians will find both inspiration and hands-on guidance in the results and recommendations provided.

Rules:

1. Rule number 1 is… there are no rules.  The way a group of recipients reacts to a given subject line will depend on who those individuals are, what their motivations are, how busy they are, how frequently you email them, etc.  Any number of variables may be in play, which leads us to rule number 2…
2. TEST, TEST, TEST. There is no better way to learn and hone the most successful approach to subject lines for your target audience and your campaigns than by split testing them.
3. Get the key elements of your subject line into the first 50 characters. There has been a lot of analysis and reporting into subject line length and what works best.  There certainly is no hard and fast rule that your subject lines should be short or should be long. But what they should do is deliver the key message or proposition within the first 50 characters.  That doesn’t mean they should only be 50 characters long – split test different subject line lengths.
4. Avoid the ‘mysterious and oblique’.  Generally speaking, mysterious or vague subject lines that are designed to entice recipients to open out of curiosity, will not deliver you the metrics you want to see, i.e. high click through’s and conversions.  There are exceptions to this rule, but beware.  Focus on the objectives of your campaign before you choose this approach.
5. Make the content of your subject line specific and single-minded.  Focus on the key message, offer or proposition in your email and spell it out clearly and succinctly in your subject line.  Specific, relevant subject lines are more likely to generate not only opens, but click through’s and conversions too.
6. Tell – don’t sell. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t put an offer in your subject line if it’s your key message.  It does mean you should keep the subject line factual and avoid those ‘Power Adjectives’.  If the offer is ‘20% off’ then state it, but avoid the ‘amazing 20% off’ in your subject line.
7. Write your subject line AFTER you’ve written your message.  Many marketers do this the wrong way around. This is not a chicken and egg story – your content should come first.
8. Test your email through a spam checker. This will highlight any issues within both your subject line and your content that may channel your email into junk boxes.  To ensure your subject line is spam filter friendly, make sure you avoid the use of capital letters and exclamation marks.  You can use the word ‘free’ but never use ‘FREE!’
9. As with all your copywriting, you should know who you are writing your subject line for – who your target market is, who they are as people, what they do, what motivates them, how busy they are.  Put yourself in their shoes as a recipient of your email when you write your all-important subject line.
10. Lastly, find inspiration in your own inbox.  It’s always worth signing up to your competitors’ emailing lists and those of other organizations relevant to what you do. Use a separate email account and check it regularly for subject lines that stand out and make you want to open the emails.  Save them in a word file and you’ll have ready-made inspiration when staring at that dreaded blank subject line field.

Testing your email subject lines

Subject line split testing should be an integral part of your campaign process.  Split testing simply means you take 2 different subject lines and send them to 2 samples of your target audience and measure which is the most successful – then use that subject line when you send to the remaining bulk of your list.

How do you measure success?

This depends on what you are aiming to achieve with your email campaign.  If you are spreading awareness or a branding message or running a teaser and you have no direct call to action, then your open rate stats could be your measure of success, i.e. what percentage of those who received the email, opened it.

If (as is more likely) you are driving traffic to your website or landing pages using links from your email, then you might choose to measure the ‘click to open’ rate of your split test, i.e. what percentage of those who opened the email, went on to click through.

If your email campaign has a final goal, i.e. to drive recipients to buy a product online, or to register for something on your website, or fill out a contact form, then you might want to look deeper at the conversion rate of the split tests.   Any of these measurements have their value – your choice depends how much detail you want to measure on and how much time you realistically have to invest in testing.

Your subject line testing shouldn’t be a one off.  What works in one month may not work in 3 months time.  That’s the nature of the game, so you need to test for each campaign on an ongoing basis.

One interesting facet of email marketing is holding contests—this isn’t exactly a novel idea anymore, but it can add interest and involve your customers.  But if you decide to run a contest, beware of how you post the winners!  Some sites have opted for using a mix of email marketing and other media such as Facebook and Twitter.  If you decide to post pictures of your contest winners in your emails, beware of the pictures you choose to use.  Don’t use pictures that make your winners look bad.  They probably won’t appreciate it, and it won’t exactly make you look like you have a respectable customer base.  And if you don’t have their picture, request it from them—don’t post a default image.  It’s better to request pictures up front from your contestants and let them know that you’ll be putting them in your email.  You’re more likely to get decent pictures that way.  If you decide not to go with pictures, a clever logo or design can be just as creative.  Remember, your customers have used your business and are participating, so do them a favor and present them in the best possible light.