Author Archive

« Older Entries

The Design can make the difference

Friday, February 18th, 2011

A newssletter is a very important marketing tool and one the essential requests for it’s success is to be interesting for the target. Estethics is one of elements that can make the difference between a succesfull and an unsuccesfull email marketing campaign.

Email’s design is important and this is not only about the looks. The design can influence other indicators like deliverability.

Below you have some of the factors you should consider when composing your next email message:

Fonts

Design guides recommend using large size to underline certain message, but this you need to know that this can make your text very difficult to read.

And there is more, the size of the font is an indicator used by the anti-spam filters and can be interpreted as a piece of text that is unnecessarily underlined. A size bigger than 15 is not recommended.

Colors

The main objective you need to have in mind when you choose the colors is that you want to raise the awareness of your company or product by underlining the elements of identity.

Another objective is the message you want to send to your subscribers by using certain colors.

Positioning the elements of the email

This factor can influence the action and answering rates of your campaign. For example, it’s better to place the call to action message (to fill in a form) on the left side, rather than on right side.

Capital letters

It is recommended to avoid excessive use of capital letters for two reasons: one related to the reading difficulty, and another because anti-spam filters don’t “like” a lot of capitals.

Approaching the design in email marketing can be compared to the same matter in web design. Email should look accordingly to your purposes about it and what you want to make your subscribers do.

If you want to know some additional information from them, you build your email around this purpose. Both message and design must direct the recipient to the action you want them to take.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Email Marketing | No Comments »

How to evaluate a campaign

Monday, February 14th, 2011

Email plays an increasingly important role in all aspects of today’s marketing and customer relationship management strategies. Successful email marketing can get high response rates with very low cost, compared to other marketing media.

The impacts of email marketing are more measurable than for most other forms of marketing. So, at the end of every email marketing campaign, the evaluation is very important. During it you can determine whether or not the email marketing is effective for you, if you have reached the purposes you have established at the beginning and learn how to improve your further actions.

Reports on email marketing campaigns can provide insights by evaluating past campaign performance. You need to evaluate the following indicators at the end of your campaign: delivery rates, open rates, click-through rates, unsubscribe rates, conversion rates, spam complaint rates.

Delivery Rates

This indicator is influenced mostly by spam filters and the validity of addresses in you lists. More and more permission-based emails end up blocked or redirected because of spam filters.

The ways to improve the delivery rates are asking your subscribers to add you in their address book, keeping a clean list, honoring the unsubscribe requests and being careful with the spam complaints.

Open Rates

To make sure you get high open rates, the relevance and the recognition are very important, make sure you are sending interesting information for your subscribers and the “From” contains your company name so the receiver will recognize you instantly.

The subject line might be a problem if your open rates are low. Also a low open rate might be a sign that your newsletters are not reaching the inbox of your target, but the junk mail folder.

Click-Through Rates

The key to getting high click-through rates from your message is relevance and personalized content.

One tip is to address recipients by name. Another great way to keep your click through rates up is the way you segment, stay relevant and your subscribers will be interested in further information.

Pay attention where you put your links. Make your desired action clear to recipients with prominently displayed links and big “click here” buttons.

Unsubscribe Rates

Analyze your unsubscribe requests carefully. If the unsubscribe rate is high, maybe you should think again about the information you are sending, maybe there is a discrepancy between what you are promising and what you are delivering.

Unsubscribe requests can be reduced by letting your subscribers choose (e.g., frequency of emails and updates, choice of topics or product offerings). You need to build relationships with customers and prospects, putting them in control.

Conversion Rates

The conversion rate indicate the rate of prospects that have answered to your call to action (e.g., purchase, forward to friends, fill in a form, phone call, etc.) Your conversion rate is a measure of relevancy. Make a clear call to action and make it easy for recipients to understand.

Spam complaints

This indicates how many people have marked your email as spam. This indicator has a high influence on your reputation and you have to be careful about it.

To avoid a high spam complaints rate you need to make sure your unsubscribe link is visible and working. Many users will use the “spam” button as a way of getting rid of email they no longer want as an alternative to the unsubscribing process, if it’s too difficult to use.

People quit newsletters having different reasons: you send too many emails, the information is not interesting or they simply have changed preferences.

Many unsubscribe requests is not something you wish for, but spam reporting is much worse.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Email Marketing | 2 Comments »

How to grow your email list

Wednesday, January 12th, 2011

Email marketing is known as one of the most effective ways of reaching potential new customers and maintaining old ones.

The main advantages are the low-cost, the fact that is quick to implement, also easy to measure and it provides probably the best return on investment of any marketing channel.

Communicating effectively with potential customers is one of the biggest challenges facing most marketers. So it’s worth investing some time and resources in your email marketing strategy which means planning your campaigns, adopting best practice and building up quality lists that suit your purposes.

How important is the list?

An email marketing list is filled with customers and prospects who have agreed to receive information from you. Every marketer wants their list for email marketing campaigns to grow fast and with the right kind of information, but building a quality email marketing list takes time because it is not as easy as it seems.

Growing the list of email contacts is very important for your campaigns. The more people you can send your emails to, the more leads you are likely to generate.

You’ll also be able to segment, profile and personalize your campaigns more effectively.

This does not mean that the number is the most important factor to take in count when building your email database. Your list should be built according to what you hope to obtain from your subscribers through direct email.

Below are some tips for growing your database for the success of your campaigns.

Offer valuable information for free or a reward

This is one way to encourage customers to subscribe to your mailing list.

Instead of exclusively running direct-to-sale initiatives, try offering a free article, white paper or template once in awhile.  If the topic is relevant and timely, people will gladly trade their contact information for your knowledge. As well you can offer rewards, for example exclusive discounts.

Offer rewards for recruiting their friends and family

You can convince existing customers to recruit friends and family by offering them a small gift or a reward. This is a fast and easy way to gather extra contacts. It’s very easy, by simply asking your subscribers to pass your marketing information to a friend, colleague or co-worker.

Use social media and blogs

Use every channel available to you to make sure everyone who wants to hear about you will be able to see your offer.
Post a link to your newsletter subscription page on your facebook page,mention it once in a while in your twitter stream, post a link in the description on your youtube videos, don’t forget to mention it in every blog post when you announce an offer.

Encourage newsletter subscriptions during all sale transactions

This will allow you to have a list of consumers and previous customers who may be interested in future promotions and sales.
A checkbox for newsletter subscription is an easy way to gather more contacts on your list right before checkout.
If they don’t subscribe when they buy something , mention the availability of the newsletter in your transactional emails ( like in the order confirmation messages ).

Make it easy to subscribe

The subscription form should be easy to use and very visible on your website.
Help people subscribe through the easiest way to your newsletter, a difficult subscription process will not be very good for you.

Caution! Using purchased lists is called spam.
Although you have found a big list for little money those people did not subscribe to receive your messages. Everything you will send to such a list will be considered spam.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Email Marketing | No Comments »

What’s an email marketing plan?

Tuesday, December 28th, 2010

Email is a great tool to generate interest and sales for your business. It is a way through which you can communicate to an audience that asked for your information when they subscribed, so chances are these people are actually listening.

Successful email marketing is used to build loyalty and this loyalty is later used to increase sales. This is the final purpose and to get to it is mandatory to plan ahead.

Your email marketing plan is something that needs to be done before any other action. The main categories of your plan are the purposes, the subscribers and timeline of your emailing. You have to build your plan around them and have a very clear idea of what you would want to accomplish.

Set your goals

The most important part of your plan is what you want to achieve with your campaign. Don’t start a campaign without having a goal in mind. Goals may vary depending on circumstances.

In the beginning, you might want to increase subscribers or focus on increasing click-rates. Later on, you may want to set your goals around increasing online sales or repeat sales. Whatever is your goal, you have to determine your subscribers to do something, to take action.

After stating your goal you need to think about the next steps: how you’ll achieve your goal and how you’ll measure you goal.

Define your readers

Fill out your database with as many information as possible, get to know your customers so you can send them useful information related to their expectations and interests. A good offer sent to the wrong will have no benefit for your sales.

Knowing your list will help you segment by relevant criteria and send the right messages. You have to relate your campaign’s purposes to the specific of the segment you are targeting.

Plan the timing

You need to plan the frequency of your campaign according to your goal. In some cases you need to send an email weekly, in others monthly, it depends on the amount of information you think your subscribers need.

Don’t irritate them, but also don’t let them forget about it. It is best to establish a day of the week or the month.

For example, if you make of a tradition of sending your emails every Friday and you respect it, this is the first step in creating a relationship. They will expect your email every Friday, sending it sooner or later may be disturbing.

According to the frequency you established, you need to have a timeline that will help you work at your campaigns. The timeline means established every task you need to do and estimating how it will take in order to create a calendar of your activities. Plan it according to what you have to do and stick to it, avoid procrastination. Deciding on your timeline ahead of time can help you plan the content and delivery dates of your messages.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Email Marketing | 1 Comment »

Christmas is near, prepare your emails

Tuesday, December 14th, 2010

Any email sent is a tool made to help you attract new customers and increase sales. Christmas is near and you can use this opportunity to get to your target.

This time of the year you have to think about how to make your messages and wishes get to your subscribers. Themed email marketing campaigns can help you to activate your subscribers. The Christmas messages act like a reminder of the shopping season and this holiday period is used by many companies as a way to make more selling. So you have to find a way to differentiate and stand out from the crowd.

Find out more

Christmas is a great opportunity to get to know your customers better. You can use the period leading up to the Christmas shopping time to learn about the individual customer behind each email address. Get to know more about customer’s preferences before Christmas.

Email marketing in the holiday period is a good time to engage in conversations. Today’s consumers have the power. They demand conversations that acknowledge that you know them and their individual preferences and interests. Preparing for Christmas with two-way dialogue that listens to customers is very important. Of course, this is a good marketing practice that you should use all year round.

Plan it wisely

Since Email marketing will be widely used this season, don’t wait until the last minute to send out your offers, of course, other than the ‘last minute’ offers that you should not forget about. Have the clearest subject lines possible to make your emails stand out from all the others.

Build the list

Create targeted lists of products to help your customers complete their Christmas shopping. What someone purchased last year is not the only segment you should think about. What did your subscribers have been buying as gifts so far or segments based on demographics are also alternatives to keep in count.

Be creative

Your goal is to help you customers build their shopping lists. Send them emails they will find interesting and also be interested in sharing.

For this period you need to think of ways to stand out because everybody is selling and everybody is buying. Good copywriting can make the difference.

It is very important for engaging customers and making the sale, also for proving the essential information about the product you want to sell.

Reward the loyal ones

Christmas time is a great time for developing loyalty offers for your subscribers. Thank them for being loyal. This time of year is an opportunity to reward your loyal customers with special offers.

Segment your list and send targeted offers for products you know they are interested in.
How are you preparing for Christmas?

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Email Marketing | No Comments »

Be relevant with Segments

Wednesday, November 24th, 2010

Different groups of clients have different needs, interests or buying habits concerning a certain product or brand. If you always send messages about a product to a person that’s not interested at all, eventually they’re going to unsubscribe or report your emails as spam.

The solution for bigger efficiency of email marketing campaigns is organizing your list on relevant criteria.

Segmentation is the process of dividing customers into distinct groups based on criteria you consider relevant for your email marketing campaign. These criteria can be based on demographic data, the past behavior of your subscribers, or other information you might have about them.

A well done segmentation will allow you to send messages suited to your subscriber’s needs and interests. This is also a way to avoid spam reports and it’s good for your reputation so it increases deliverability.

Why segment?

The data base of your subscribers is not homogeneous. If you send the same message to all your subscribers, you can’t get to everyone’s need or desire.

With segmented groups you will be closer. Also, sending irrelevant messages will determine your customers to hit the unsubscribe link or the spam button.

How to create segments of subscribers

To start segmenting your list you need to gather as much as possible about your subscribers.

First step can be made as soon as they subscribe by conceiving the subscription so you can find out what you need to know.

But, be careful asking too much might lower the subscription rate. You can ask more in the confirmation email sent to the user after subscribing or in any other email sent afterwards. Any interaction with the user is a chance to find out more.

Segmentation criteria

The criteria you can use to divide your list in groups are various and you have to choose them accordingly to your communication needs.

You can segment based on the information you have about your subscribers (customer/potential customer, preferences, purchased products, etc).

The most common criteria of segmentation are: demographic data, personal interests and past behavior.

Demographic data

This is information like age, sex, location, studies.
This kind of data can be obtained at the beginning of the relationship with your subscriber through the subscription form.

Personal interests

The best way to get this kind of information is to request it in your messages. Be careful about how much information you request and how often you do it.

Past behavior

Each sending action can be evaluated by indicators about the behavior of your customer (opening rate, clicks, conversions/buys, answers, etc). Those are very important criteria you have to take into account.
For example, you can create a segment with the subscribers that opened or clicked links in your emails, these are the active ones and you have to take good care of them and reward their loyalty.

If you’re selling something you could create a segment with subscribers that bought a certain product from you. You could send offers with related products to this segment.

Another segment you should not neglect is the one of the subscribers that share your message in social media.

Are you segmenting your list? What other data you use when creating your segments? Please let us know in the comments.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Email Marketing | 4 Comments »

Customer Loyalty through email marketing

Thursday, November 18th, 2010

From the first email sent, the email marketer has to keep in mind one thing: connect with your client.
In order to do that you have to know him, find out what is he interested in and send him relevant messages.

When you are trying to build a relationship with your customers you should keep in mind that keeping an old customer is much easier than finding a new one. To make a new customer you need to find him, contact him and let him now that your company does. But if you take care of your existing customers your profit will bigger.

Keeping old customers vs getting new ones

Research shows that existing customers are known to spend more per sale, buy more frequently and recommend to friends generating word of mouth. So priority one is to keep your existing subscribers happy. Of course, every business needs to make new customers and develop and you need to focus on that part of your business too.

Direct email is a cost-effective way to maintain a relationship with existing customers, increasing their level of satisfaction and loyalty. This can be accomplished with messages that transmit useful and timely information and also show that you are interested in their needs.

Here are some suggestions that will help you to maintain and develop the relationship with your existing subscribers.

1. Personalize your messages

It is very important to customize your message as much as possible. To do this, first you have to segment your subscribers into groups based on their past behavior.

Use everything you know about them to send relevant emails. Your objective is to make customers feel special and that you know and understand their needs.

You can also segment based on important days in your subscriber’s life, for example you could send them a message on their birthdays.

2. Give them suggestions and recommendations

When your subscribers respond to one offer you sent, you can make recommendations and propose related products.

For example, if someone wants to buy skin lotion, you cand send information and some suggestions with links to skin care products. Or if someone bought a bathing suit you can give them suggestions of sunglasses.
With WomSend you can do this automatically with autorespoder campaigns.

3. Request their feedback

Listen to your subscribers opinions, suggestions and discontents.

For instance, you can send a survey asking them about their experience with the previous product they’ve bought. Do this periodically.

4. Reward them

Create exclusive promotions for your loyal customers. Keep in mind also to take good care of the subscribers that recommend your company to their friends.

Remember the offerings in a loyalty program should be better than offerings to a general email list. Make them feel special.

How do you make your customers feel special?

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Email Marketing | No Comments »

10 things to do to get out of spam

Friday, November 12th, 2010

Spam has become a daily issue for the internet user. Botnets, networks of virus-infected computers, are used to send high volumes of spam and uninformed marketers buy lists and send messages without any permission from recipients.

And this way each user receives every day unsolicited e-mail, so every message sent is suspicious to be spam. The immediate consequence is that the big Internet Service Providers (Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, etc) are trying to protect their users by setting up very exigent spam-filters.

Don’t be a victim of spam filters: take care of your e-mail

Spam-filters are more and more specialized in order to cope with the dimension of junk e-mailing. To be sure that your e-mail gets to your customer you have to know how spam filters work and adjust your email campaigns to their criteria.

1. Your reputation is crucial for your e-mails.

Yes, the ISP’s like Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail use filters based on reputation.

Your reputation is a score associated with your IP and your domain. The score is calculated based on the bounce rate, open rate, report-spam rate and other actions of your user (clicks in the message, replies, clicks on “not spam” , etc ).

2. Unsubscribe option is mandatory.

The e-mail must have an unsubscribe link which users can use when they want to stop receiving your e-mails. If you have this link and it’s visible, you are trustworthy is the eyes of your subscribers.

You have to make the unsubscribe process easy, so your subscribers won’t choose to go to report-spam button.

3. Customize your message.

You can use the name of your subscribe in the subject or the body of the e-mail.

Also use other personal data provided by the users.

It’s recommended to use this data to send relevant messages to every subscriber.

4. Be careful with the frequency of your e-mails.

If you send too often this may be disturbing and it may determine the subscriber to report them as spam.

Too rare messages may make your subscriber forget why she once subscribed to your newsletter or even forget she subscribed.

5. Use “Double opt-in” subscription.

This way your subscriber has to double check when he subscribes to your newsletter: the subscribtion request is followed by a confirmation. He will only start to receive your newsletters after he confirms by clicking the confirmation link.

This is important for the authentication, because people can put the wrong e-mail address, or use another person’s identity.

6. Encourage your subscribers to add you in their Address Book.

This can be done through various methods: on the subscribtion page, on the page they get after sending the form, in the confirmation e-mail or in every other e-mail they receive after subscribing.

7. Use the right words

Good content is one of the spam filters criteria.

The simplest way to avoid getting stuck in the Junk Mail by using certain words is to test. You can send to some email addresses test messages, if they enter the Junk folder you know you have to make some changes.

Key words are an important factor but if you have a good reputation you might get away with some bad keywords.

8. Always monitor the list

The bounce rate (messages rejected by the server because the addresses are no longer valid) of your messages is a very important indicator for your reputation.

If the bounce rate is big your IP or domain can be blocked. To avoid a big bounce rate you need to keep your list up-to-date. Monitor the openings of your messages and remove the addresses that are not active.

9. The formatting of the email is important.

A simple one will keep you far from the spam filters. Don’t use to many colors, font types, images, etc. If you send messages in HTML format, include a text alternative and check if your html is valid. For validation you can use validator.w3.org.

10. Get interactive with your subscribers.

From time to time send an email that looks more personal and try to get an answer to it.

For example you can send a message with a question for your subscribers and offer a prize to encourage many answers. This will help you activate some of those inactive addresses and at the same time it might add up to your reputation score.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Email Marketing | 1 Comment »

The unsubscribe link, friend or foe?

Monday, November 8th, 2010

A high unsubscribe rate is the nightmare of every e-mail marketer, but there is a much worse alternative: spam reporting.

It’s compulsory to offer an unsubscribe link for the recipients but are you making it easier and faster for them to want to hit spam button?

Many e-mail marketers choose to disguise the unsubscribe link or to make the process longer and harder hoping that this way users will quit unsubscribing. The truth is some people will always unsubscribe, then why to make it harder for them and endanger your entire email campaign.

A high spam reporting rate is used as an indicator for your reputation by the spam filters. Many users will use the “spam” button as a way of getting rid of email they no longer want as an alternative to the unsubscribing process, which may be difficult or not even work.

Why do people unsubscribe?

Here are some of  the most common reasons people quit a newsletter:

It’s too much!

You promised one or two email messages a week at opt-in, but now you are sending an e-mail every day.

It’s irrelevant or non-targeted email.

People who sign up to receive a newsletter on one topic do not necessarily want to get all email marketing from an organization.

They’ve changed preferences.

People’s lives and needs change. Some decide to unsubscribe because they no longer need information concerning your organization.

But it’s also possible email subscribers are leaving not because their interests have changed, but because someone else is meeting their needs better. Check out the competitors!

Improve your unsubscribe process

A friendlier unsubscribe process leads to better email list management.

Improving your unsubscribe process takes time and effort, but it pays off with fewer spam complaints and a more active list.

Here are some ideas about how you can make your unsubscribe process better:

1. Keep the unsubscribe link visible

Consider putting the link near the top of your e-mail message, especially if you are trying to reduce a high spam-complaint rate.

Readers who decide right away that they want to unsubscribe won’t have to scroll down to find the link. If you make them search for the link too much, the “spam” button is will seem easier.

2. Make them trust your unsubscribe process.

There are various ways to earn the trust of your users. You can boldface the link so it stands out from the rest of the copy, provide multiple alternatives to unsubscribing, to let subscribers know they’re in control and to address other unsubscribe drivers such as relevance and frequency.

3. Process unsubscribe requests immediately

If people have decided to unsubscribe, they will consider anything received from you to be spam and act accordingly. So make sure you don’t send any other message after they unsubscribe.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Email Marketing | 1 Comment »

When should you send?

Tuesday, September 28th, 2010

This is one of the most frequent questions email asked by email marketers.

It is known that the time when you send the messages has an influence on the open rates. Send at a time when your subscribers are more likely to check their email and your messages have a better chance to be opened.

If you send too soon your message might end up in a long list of other messages waiting to be read. We all get a bit overwhelmed when we have too many messages in the inbox so we go in “filter” mode and only open the ones we think are important. This makes it easy for your subscribers to miss your messages :)

Send too late and you have missed the opportunity to have your message opened the same day. Tomorrow it might not be so interesting, plus it will again end up in a list of other unopened messages where it has less chances to be opened.

When are subscribers more likely to open?

Some try to guess the best time to send. Some assume that it’s best to send in the morning, others say it’s best at noon, and for others it’s best in the evening.

The truth is that different people check their email at different times. Now some lists might have a majority that would open in the morning and others in the evening and if you can figure that out then it’s great.

But what if you wouldn’t have to guess?

If your subscribers confirm their subscription, open messages, click on the links we track the time when they do that and we use this information to determine when it’s the best time to send for each subscriber.

How to do it with WomSend?

When you create a new campaign you have an option to optimize the time each message is sent. Click the “optimize send time” checkbox and select to optimize over 24 hours or over 7 days.

If you chose to optimize over 24 hours the system will try to find the best hour to send for each subscriber.

If you optimize over 7 days the system will try to find the best day of week and hour within that day for each subscriber.

Why two optimization models?

Some messages are more time sensitive then others. Sometimes you want your subscribers to take action within the following 1-2 days. For these kind of messages you have to use the 24 hours optimization.

Messages that are not time sensitive can use a 7 day optimization model.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in features | No Comments »

« Older Entries
footerleft
footerbg