Email marketing is profitable

October 31st, 2011

Email is one the most powerful marketing tools. Many wonder if email is being replaced nowadays where the possibilities of online technology are every day more competitive, if email has not been replaced by blogs or social media.

According to a study by Direct Marketing Association, email is at the top of marketing tools as being the most profitable. An email makes over 40$ for every dollar invested, comparing to catalogue – 7.3$ and online advertising 19.72$.

Why is email an efficient marketing tool

  • Allows precise targeting
  • Generates direct sales
  • Builds relationships and loyalty
  • It is measurable

Offers and promotions in email generate sales or subscriptions. Informative newsletters help offline sales by sending people to the stores, building awareness and a relationship and setting the basis of customer loyalty.

Email is a very profitable marketing tool, and using it in communication can be done with little costs and great benefits. With email marketing you can obtain remarkable results with little time and even fewer money.

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How to monitor subscriber activity

October 7th, 2011

If you are using Womsend,  it’s very easy to keep track of your subscribers activity. You can see which are the active subscribers and which are the inactive ones. This way you have the possibility to reactivate the inactive ones. They are an important resource and you don’t have to neglect them.

Our system calculates a score for every subscriber depending on his activity. When opens a message the subscriber receives some points, for a click he will receive more and for a purchase even more points. The subscriber will have more points if his activity in your newsletter is recent. The more time it passes since his last action, the fewer points he has.

Subscribers will have activity scores from 0 to 100. The most active subscriber will have the highest score (100) and the others will have scores according to his. For example, a subscriber with the score 100 is twice more active then a subscriber with the score 50.

If you have a Womsend account, you will be able to see the quality score of your subscribers entering the section Subscribers ->All subscribers and at every contact you will see a value named “Quality score”.

Segmenting list according to subscriber activity

You can use this feature to segment subscribers according to activity criteria.
You can create a segment based on a higher and lower limit of the quality score. This way you can have a segment with the most active subscribers to repay them and you can have a segment of your least active subscribers to you can come up with ways to reactivate them.

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The difference between lists and segments

September 29th, 2011

Relevance is one of the most important things that you have to keep in mind to optimize the results of your email marketing campaigns. To raise the relevance of your sent emails you have to do an efficient segmentation of your list.
In email marketing you need segmentation because your list of subscribers is not an homogeneous group, and sending one kind of message will not meet the expectations of the majority. Still you don’t have to confuse lists with segments.

Lists and segments

The list is a group of contacts that changes only when you add or remove some of them or when someone subscribes or unsubscribes for your newsletter. Lists are useful to organize the subscribers.
And also, a list can be made with confirmation from the subscriber or not. This means that when someone subscribes to a newsletter will not receive it until he will confirm his subscription by clicking on a link in the email received right after he subscribed.

With Womsend you can create and edit lists by going to the section Subscribers->Lists.
When you create a subscribe form, you have to associate where the people that subscribe to your newsletter to be registered.

The segment is a group of contacts based on a specific criteria. For example, you can make a segment with all the male subscribers, age segments (between 25 and 35 years) or subscribers from a specific city, according to want you want to communicate. A segment can be static or dynamic, you can set the segments to update automatically. For example, if you segment by age, when a subscriber no longer meets the criteria he will be eliminated from the segment.
To create segments using Womsend go to the section Subscribers->All subscribers. First you create a filter (the criteria by which you wish to sort subscribers), the you will be able to see all the subscribers that meet that criteria. Then you need to save all of them as a segment.
To edit the name, description or “Update automatically” option go to the section Subscribers->Segments.

The lists are group of contacts in which users are registered when they fill in the subscribe form and the segment is a group that you can set as an administrator of the lists, according to some filters. The subscribers does not have the chance to see or choose in which segment he is.

Preference page

Through the preference page your subscribers will tell you alone which information they want to receive from you. On this page you will put the lists and they can choose which is the list they want to be included in. Be careful: on the preference page they will not see the segments of your list, they will only see the lists and a short description. Subscribers aren’t able to see the segment they are included and neither have the possibility to choose between segments. To find out more about adding the preference page to your emails read this article.

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Using a preferences page in emails

September 16th, 2011

According to the domain that you are in, you may want to communicate various information in your email newsletter and you can’t know for sure what specific information want your subscribers. If you have a sports site and you don’t know which of the subscribers want information about football and which about tennis, it’s time to come up with a solution to this.

Womsend has a new feature through which the subscribers can choose themselves what information to receive. You have to set up a preference page addressed to your different lists, based on the different information you to communicate  to the users in those lists and put the link to this page in your emails.

The preference page is very useful when you have a large range of products and services and a subscriber isn’t interested in all of them. And receiving emails with irrelevant information may determine them to unsubscribe. This page will allow you to personalize your communication and give information about their specific needs.

Set up a preferences page with Womsend

In your Womsend account, you enter the menu Configurations  - My account and you choose the tab Preferences page. There you add the your lists. Users will see it as a list where they can choose the one list they want to be a part of.

There you can also set the banner that will appear on the page’s header, with your identity elements, a title that will appear at mouse over and a link to a landing page from that banner. If you will not put a banner and link that area will remain blank.

How to add the preferences page in an email

After you set up the page in your account, you have to add a link to it in your emails. It’s very simple. You ca do it adding directly the tag {PREFERENCES_LINK} in the email body, either you select in the message editor  “Womsend utilities> Add preferences link”.
When a user will click on the link the system will generate a unique URL for each subscriber to be able to track each user that subscribes or unsubcribes to a list on the page and what is the message he came from.

Encourage subscribers to set their preferences

Using the preference page you will have lists very well targeted and you will be able to send relevant information in your campaigns. But just to make sure of the efficiency of the preference page you need to encourage your subscribers to set their preferences.
An idea is to send an email to present the new feature and say that they can enter the preference page to choose a segment relevant for their specific interest.

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Email marketing and social media

September 12th, 2011

Social media plays an important role concerning gaining and maintaining clients. In the same time, email stays one of most important communication tools in marketing. Integrating the two means having more chances to get where your clients and potential clients are.

The real potential of integrating social media and email comes from their capacity to engage the target in a conversation, it’s the opportunity to determine people to talk about your business in social networks. Still, the two tools are different, emailing means individual communication, while social media targets more people at once.

How to integrate the email and social media

1. Links in newsletters
First step in integrating the two tools is offering links to your profiles in social media. This way you can use your email list to build up your presence in social media. Invite the subscribers to follow you on twitter and like you on Facebook or any other social networks you are on. You will have a starting point to share your content in social media. Sometimes it’s not enough to just put the link in your newsletter and expect people to click on them. You need to attract them with a reason to enter your profiles. For example, you can invite them to click to participate to a contest you are organizing on Facebook.

2. Invite fans to subscribe to your newsletter
In the same way that you use your email list to attract fans in social media, you can do it the other way around – use your presence in social media to determine users to subscribe to your newsletter. For example, on Facebook you can develop a tab that contains the subscription form to your newsletter.

3. Links on the unsubscribe page
This is a feature of Womsend and it can help you in the situations when your subscribers don’t want to receive your emails anymore. If you use Womsend you can put links to your social profiles on the unsubscribe page for the ones who want to stay connected to your news in another way. More about this feature you can read here.

In conclusion, email and social media don’t eclude each other, on the contrary they can be integrated very well to serve the same goal: promoting your content and enlarge your reached audience.

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How to send efficient birthday emails

September 7th, 2011

Sending birthday emails to your list is pretty usual practice in email marketing because it helps building a relationship with the subscriber. Birthday emails are one of the best ways to show your interest for each and everyone of your subscribers.

You can send birthday emails if you have a space in your subscribe form that requires this information from the users. If you don’t have it is best not to add unless you plan to use it. otherwise you are just making it harder for the user to hit the subscribe button.

Why should you send birthday emails

1. They are personal: this is better way to start a relationship with a subscriber, it an opportunity to speak directly to him and send personalized messages.
2. They have good results: chances to obtain higher conversion rates are bigger when you are sending personalized emails.

The efficiency of birthday emails

With the birthday emails is also neccesary to follow the golden rules of email marketing: value, relevance and interest for the subscriber.
1. Value. Birthday email has to bring a benefit for the receiver. make an offer that you don’t give away with other occasions.
2. Relevance. Use the information you have about the subscriber, like data about the links the clicked on in your last newsletters and make an offer that you really think he would be interested.
3. Interest for the subscriber. Show him that that message is for him and about him. Don’t make too much of a deal of you offer and don’t force him to buy. After all it’s his birthday.

Do you think birthday emails are a good idea? Did you send such emails to your subscribers?

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Why you should not use “no-reply” adresses

August 31st, 2011

Even though email is a form of communication that has the purpose of creating a relationship with the subscribers, in email marketing practice there is a habit of sending emails from “no-reply” adresses. This is not recommended because it shows that you are unavailable to receive an answer from them about your message.

Communication based on dialogue

Email is a two way communication. If you start it you need to be ready to receive some answers. You can’t pretend to have the right to send a message, if you are not open also to receive feedback from your subscribers.

Another problem is that not being available to talk with your subscribers you can compromise your email marketing campaign. Because every email sent should be an opportunity to raise the subscriber’s interactivity. Even if the interactivity you want from them is to click on your links or to give you the information you requested through a form, don’t deny their chance of writing back to you the way they choose to. If they gave you permission to send them emails, you should do the same for them.

In conclusion, using the “no-reply” adresses it’s not recommended in email marketing, either is for newsletters or other messages that you send.

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How to increase subscribers’ loyalty?

August 18th, 2011

The goal of every successful email marketing program is to obtain better indicators with every email sent. The loyalty actions are a way to obtain better reports on your emails and, even more, they are a way of having and keeping a relationship with the subscriber.

Generally, the efficiency of a loyalty program is measured in their capacity to determine the client to make at least once again the action you desire (most of the times it’s about buying).

Email communication allows getting data about the subscribers to create their profile. You have ways to monitor their actions, what emails they have opened, the links they clicked.  If, according to this data, you manage to give them relevant information and to create offers they really need, your loyalty program will be succesful.

In email marketing a loyalty program is very important, but it has to be done right. The important thing is to know your subscribers. This way you will be able to make good offers, to people that don’t really need them and you will ask yourself why click rate and conversion rate are so low when you gave a 30% discount.

Test!

In order to be convinced of the efficiency of the loyalty tactics that you what to apply, you need to test them. You can test on a smaller segment of your active subscribers, the ones that most probably will answer positively to your emails.

Then, according to the results of the tests, you can optimize the tactics and you can send your emails to a bigger segment as you go adding similar subscribers.

Loyalty isn’t only discounts

Loyalty surely means to treat differently your clients and your potential clients. A client is more valuable and you have to show him this. It means that you need to have better offers for clients, but why stop here. The relationship you are building is very important and loyalty tactics mean not only discounts. Try to personalize the best as you can you message, try to have a two way communication and to invite your subscribers to dialogue. A loyalty program only with discounts it’s impossible to sustain on a long term and it isn’t sure that those people who use the discounts will remain loyal when you try to sell with no discount.

In conclusion, loyalty defines mostly the relationship with the subscriber and it’s not only discounts. On the long term, discounts must be offered together with relevance, personalization and value.

How do you repay your clients?

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Another four mistakes to avoid in email marketing

July 15th, 2011

This article is the second part of the series Common email marketing mistakes. To read the first part click here.

Subscription forms that require too much information

Analyze before asking too much information from a subscriber. The more information you require the fewer people will subscribe.

Is it necessary to required both the name and the first name? If you require them you should use them. Will you really use the birthday? (Yes, you can send an offer or a congratulations message, but don’t forget that.) Do you need to ask them to fill in a verification code (captcha)? Why would robots subscribe to your newsletter? Is it necessary to require them to accept Terms and Conditions? Do you really think someone really reads these terms. It’s a newsletter, nobody would think they would be obliged to buy. And if the terms and conditions have conditions like “You agree with us to give your data to our partners” or “You can unsubscribe with a written request and we will answer you in 30 days” you are already mistaken.

When you start an email marketing program you think that the most information you have, the better and you are tempted to ask a lot of information so you can segment efficiently, but often this is not happening and you will only lose subscribers for asking too much. And also, you can create complete profiles of your subscribers after they sign in, with surveys or by analyzing the evaluation indicators.

Don’t hide the unsubscribe link

Maybe you think it’s a good idea to make the unsubscribe link a little less visible so the subscribers won’t get the idea to unsubscribe. Wrong! They will figure out on their own if they want to unsubscribe and it will be a big problem when they don’t find a way to do it. They will directly hit the spam button and that will affect your deliverability. So you should not put the unsubscribe link with a smaller font, less visible or at the end of the message so the subscribers won’t find it.

Sometimes it’s recommended that the unsubscribe link would be the first thing in a newsletter, so if a user want to unsubscribe, he would not think about using the spam button. Maybe you will have a higher number of unsubscribers, but you will have a lower spam complaint rate.

Don’t send from fictitious email adresses or from ones that nobody checks

The email is not an unilateral communication, it’s not like the radio or TV. When you send a message you have to be prepared to receive an answer (not only a click or a conversion).

Even if you will give explicit information in the message about how you want to be reached, it’s possible that some users will reply to your message. They will be very dissapointed if they will get an undeliverability notice or they will receive no answer. Don’t use “noreply” adresses in order to not make it difficult for them to contact you.

Don’t use domains in the links

How not to do it: <a href=”http://exemple.com”>exemple.com</a>

Why?

- In the first place, because if the visible text and the destination (href attribute) are different, the message will be blocked by the anti-phishing filters.

- Also, when you send a newsletter you will want to know to clicked on your links and you will activate “click tracking” in the application that composes the messages. This application (including WomSend) will modify the links (the destination – href attribute) in order to keep count of the clicks, so you will end up in the same situation you wanted to avoid. Some filters are more permissive and they don’t make that change if the domain of the link is the same and the rest of the URL is different. But it’s impossible to know which ones do use this criteria or not and the safest is not to use domains in the link, use it only in the href attribute.

- It’s better to put something better there, a call to action that will make people click on your links.

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How to improve the open rate of an email newsletter

June 30th, 2011

The open rate, the click rate and the conversion rate are three indicators that measure the efficiency of an email marketing campaign. These are there indicators that you have to observe constantly and find ways to optimize them in order to manage to raise these values.
Opening is the first step – the first action a user has to do to get in contact with the information from you. Below we detailed some recommendations to improve this indicator. But you have to be aware of the fact that the open rate is not an independent factor, so to have a high open rate you need to have a high deliverability rate, your emails have to get to your subscribers inbox to be opened.

1. The subject line and the “From” line

The subject line is one of the most important elements when it comes to determine a user to open or not an email. The subject is the most visible and the first opportunity you have to offer a reason why your email should be opened. The subject has to be a message that offers your subscribers an idea about what he will discover opening the email, something to tell them if the information is relevant for them or not. A good subject line is specific, not too long and attractive.
You have to pay attention to the “From” line also. Subscribers are not likely to open your emails if they don’t know who’s the sender.

2. Targeting and relevance

The interest of the readers in the information you send depends on how you segmented your list. The segmentation starts right when you collect the adresses. It’s recommended to set correctly the expectations of the people when they subscribe to have a list interested in what you want to communicate. The better you segment, according to the information you have about your subscribers, the more chances you have of offering relevant content, so of getting their attention and a higher open rate.

3. Frequency

If you send too often people will be irritated, and if you send too rarely they will lose their interests. What is the right amount? That depends on your product and on your list. To not disturb the best is to give your subscribers the possibility of choosing the right frequency for them, either when they subscribe, or later by other means.

4. Build a relationship

One of the most important factors that will bring you openings is trust. Deliver what you promised, don’t deceive your subscriber’s expectations, don’t promise unreal offers. Don’t abuse that permission they gave you when they subscribed.

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