How To Build Your Email Marketing Momentum In 2015

Email marketing strategy for 2015

Email marketing strategy for 2015

2015 could be your small business’ year to make email marketing one of your best sales avenues. With an increase in email marketing results you will see an improvement in revenue and profits without spending a significant increase in costs.

If you want your email marketing to be a triumph this year, then you need to be prepared and build your marketing processes for success. Here is a process to do just that and create momentum that will carry you through 2015 and beyond.

1. Segregate Your Email Marketing List

The first thing you should do is to split your current email marketing contacts list into several sub-lists. Not everyone who is interested in receiving mail from you will be interested in the same thing: some will be new to your small business, others will be old customers or some will have bought certain products that have potential add-ons.

You need to establish which sub-groups your email marketing strategy could utilise and then place members into these groups. This doesn’t mean that you can’t send an email to everyone, but this should be rarely done as you target your contacts based on their behaviours and their position in your sales funnel.

2. Plan What You Want To Publish

Email marketing is not something that you can just create quickly and send off. It takes careful planning and strategising. You don’t want to be sending too many emails with the same subject or topic in a short space of time; nor do you want to be leaving off popular topics.

To avoid this, you need to plan in advance what topics you are going to publish and when. It should also include which sub-list you would like to send the content to.

3. Create Content

To ensure you don’t fall behind on your email marketing campaigns, your content should be created at least two or three weeks in advance. This gives you time to strategise, create, edit and schedule in your emails. It also lowers the stress from having a tight deadline and allows your creativity to be better.

You can start to create content in Microsoft Word or another word processor and then edit it. After this, drop it into your email marketing management program and create the template.

4. Create A Template And Schedule Emails

If you haven’t already, creating a template is really important. It creates a sense of consistency with your email marketing list and this can be more beneficial than you realise. Consistency will instil a professional image for your small business and people will become accustomed with your email’s design. Eventually they may look forward to receiving your content.

Once you have designed your email template, you can create your emails in advance and schedule them to go out at a specific time.

5. List Generation

Next you need to maintain the momentum by continuously growing your list. There are several ways you can do this including using a static form to requests details when visitors land on your website. Alternatively, you can use a pop-up to appear after about 15 seconds to request details from your visitors.

Finally, there is the option to offer your visitors a free gift in exchange for their contact details. The gift can be anything from free content on the website, a downloadable e-book, a free review or something else. For this you can be really imaginative. As long as you are providing something of value, and generating traffic, you will have new contacts to your list.

6. Maintain Your List

At the same time as generating contacts for your list, you should be maintaining those already signed up. This might mean moving them to a different sub-group or removing them because they haven’t responded or interacted with your email for some time.

Removing contacts isn’t a bad option as it allows you to concentrate on those who are really interested and provides better statistical analysis of whether your email content is desired by your email marketing list.

Conclusion

These processes will help you supercharge your email marketing campaigns for 2015. Then you can better process your email marketing leads to achieve good sales, high revenue and better profits.

Read post   Post a Comment. Tagged in: , , , ,


5 New Ways Small Businesses Can Spice Up Email Newsletters

 Image courtesy of jscreationzs at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of jscreationzs at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Email marketing is one of the best ways to connect with your target audience. The only problem is that the majority of businesses online are now using email to contact and sell to the same people you are contacting. These can be direct competitors or businesses offering substitute goods. This can be bad news for your email marketing campaigns as it limits the effectiveness of your message; unless, you find a way to stand apart from these competitors and spice up your email newsletter.

There are several ways you can do this. Here are five options for you to consider.

1. Using A Preview Image For A Video

Videos are very intensive to send via email. To avoid this, most businesses use a simple link to a video on YouTube or another video sharing website. This can often lead to a poor video viewing numbers. Yet, videos can be highly effectively in the sales process. Therefore, use an image from the video that looks impressive to entice your audience to click on it and find out more.

You should also consider hosting the video on your website. This way you can set up better monitoring to see how effective the video was at increasing page views.

2. Keep Your Text Short And Snappy

If you really want your audience to read your emails and then click through to your website, don’t place all your content within the email. This only encourages the audience to read the email copy and then either click off your email or delete it. You want them to visit your site and therefore, the best option is to get them there to read the content.

Use teaser paragraphs or descriptions of the content on your email copy and then link them to the full article on your blog or on a landing page.

3. Humour

Comedy is not used frequently enough within the online marketing realm; yet it is one of the best tactics for engaging your audience. Emails containing humour are often shared more via email and social media than those without. This can grow your brand’s online footprint and email marketing list.

Ensure all jokes are clean, short and funny. They cannot be sexual, sexist, racist or in any other way offensive – otherwise you may grab headlines, but not for the right reasons.

4. Competitions

People love to win and entering a competition is one way to achieve that. By offering them that chance through your email marketing campaigns is a way your brand can satisfy their need to compete. The prize doesn’t need to be expensive as long as it something that will have value to the customer.

Ensure that your competition isn’t just related to one email. Promote it over several emails and encourage people to share the emails with their friends and family to gain more tickets or chances to win the prize.

5. Quotes To Inspire And Motivate

Whether you are engaging customers who are already buying or attempting to attract new customers, using quotes from famous people is likely to grab their attention. Quote sites are very popular and are often categorised by industry and type of quote, so finding a good quote for your business is not going to be difficult.

Don’t go overboard, but if you include one good quote from an inspirational person you will be sure to grab some attention. Experiment with where to place the quote as different audience may prefer different placement.

Conclusion

The email marketing landscape is becoming a very busy place. Many of your competitors are likely to delivering their content to your target audiences at the same time as you. Therefore, you need to create content that is highly effective and a little different. One of the best ways: use techniques that will add a little spice to the content and allow your emails to look different to your competitors’.

Take Action:

  • Add a new element into your email marketing design.

What do you use to spice up your content? How effective has it been?

Let us know in the comments below.

Read post   Post a Comment. Tagged in: , , , ,


5 Places To Get Better Email Marketing Images

Image courtesy of Boians Cho Joo Young at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of Boians Cho Joo Young at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Email marketing is more successful if you are able to include a highly relevant and professional photo. Research has shown that the majority of consumers prefer receiving emails that contain mostly images rather than text. It isn’t just including images that are important; the image has to be highly professional, relevant and interesting while being quick to download.

To get an image for your email marketing campaigns you will probably need to find a reliable source.

There are many places available to obtain better email marketing images. Some of these are free, others will provide the image for a credit and many will charge for the best images. Here is a list of options where you can obtain email marketing images.

1. Taking Them Yourself

Sometimes this can be the best option for your small business. This would mean buying a good quality camera and a tripod as a mobile phone or simply camera will not produce ideal results. You’ll also need to take your image in the right environment. Here are some suggestions:

  • Use a white background.
  • Use a room with a lot of natural light.
  • A large room where you can take images from different angles.

Taking the images yourself can be cost effective in the long term, but is really only sensible if you are selling products. Taking images for a service could be complicated and you might need to have the permission of any clients that are also in the shots. In addition, achieving the correct environment while delivering a service can be tough and this could lower the quality, and therefore the impact, your images would have.

2. Professional Photographer

If you want to have professional images on your site that are completely unique but do not have the skills to take them yourself, consider hiring a professional photographer. This can be an expensive option but it can give you excellent images for your email marketing campaigns.

You can tell your photographer exactly what you are after; whether this is action shots of your service being delivered or a product and they should deliver them without a problem. These images can then be delivered directly to you in digital and print – demonstrating exactly how the images will look in many formats.

One of the biggest problems with this method is that there may be a long lead time between requesting and gaining access to the images. Therefore, you either have to do them in bulk and be well planned or pay a premium rate for quick delivery.

3. Graphics Artist

Sometimes you don’t need a photograph but would like an illustration. This can be provided to you by a graphics designer or artist. Sometimes these individuals can be expensive, however they can provide unique images that can be tailored exactly for your needs.

If you have not used a graphics artist before, you can find some on elance.com, odesk or People Per Hour. These sites also allow you assess the quality of the images being created by the graphics designer before you sign a contract with them. Therefore you can be more assured you are getting quality images.

4. Strategic Business Partners

This can be a highly effective way to gain access to quality images and is particularly useful if you are selling products manufactured by another company. Always ask your partners if there are images which they would be happy to share and consider offering an artist credit and a link to their site, if it is applicable.

5. Stock Image Sites

There are hundreds of stock image sites where you can buy images for small one off fees per image, on a subscription basis or for free (providing you credit the artist). These sites can be good because the images will nearly always be high quality and there are thousands of options for every topic.

However, product images are not often on the site and it can be hard to find the most relevant image for your email marketing message. Also, sometimes the images have specific restrictions on them such as; limited impressions, placement or usage. Therefore, check the terms and conditions before buying or downloading the image.

Here are some of the best places to obtain new email marketing images:

Conclusion

Getting the best images for your email marketing campaigns is easy with the numerous options available to your business. With the right image you can increase the interaction your readers have with your small business emails and the revenue each message can generate.

Take Action:

  • Take some images of your products.
  • Hire a graphics artist for some images.
  • Look at some stock image websites.

Read post   Post a Comment. Tagged in: , , , ,


How To Get More Email Subscribers Offline

Image courtesy of stockimages at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of stockimages at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Most businesses concentrate their entire email list building activities online. These, for example, can include using ebook downloads, pop-ups or sign up forms.  However, you don’t just have to concentrate your efforts on the internet. Most people in the world have an email address, but not everyone actively read blogs or use social media.

You need to consider other ways to sign up potential customers to your email marketing list. Here are some of the ways to subscribe potential customers to your email marketing list without the need to be online.

1. Business Cards

Business cards are still very popular, especially with small business owners. They are a great way to pass on contact details and provide information to the receiver as well as a medium for collecting email addresses for your list. There are two ways you could get people to sign up to your small business email list with their cards.

The first option is to include a URL on the card where they can directly sign up to the email list. This might have a very small uptake as your potential list members will have to manually enter the URL and look at your site. This creates a second barrier for your potential customers, something which facilitates abandonment.

However, if you do use this option, you can find that you can increase your list quickly, as long as you hand out a significant number of cards. Leave your business card with new people you meet and even when you use services like restaurants, health clubs, etc.

The other option is collect business cards and ask those giving you their card is if they are willing for you to add them to your mailing list. Some people will refuse, but often people don’t want to seem negative so will accept. To remember who has said yes or no, place a simple tick or cross in the corner of the card.

2. At Networking Meetings

Another way to grow your list is to attend business networking events. These events are held locally and nationally and can be a great help for you to discover new suppliers and potential clients. They are also good for increasing your small business email marketing list.

There are several chances for you to collect email addresses at these events. The first option is for you to hand out and collect business cards as described above.

The second option is to take a sign-up sheet and ask people to fill it out. These can be good as you can collect further information which can then support your segregation of the email marketing list.

This can have a high uptake, but your new contacts might not be very active. That is why your sign-up sheet should have additional questions so you can ascertain if the contact is worth your attention.

3. Offline Competitions

Hold a competition offline and ask your entrants to include an email contact address. Make sure you are informing your audience you are going to include their mailing address to your database, otherwise you could be breaking CAN SPAM and other regional laws.

4. At Conferences

If you attend several conferences or trade shows a year then you can use those to gain new members for your small business email marketing list. To sign up people at your next conference take several of your business cards with the email sign up page URL printed on it and / or a sign-up sheet.

You might also want to run a competition or raffle, for example: win some free products or online shopping vouchers.  These can attract people to your stand or to converse with you. The more you talk to your audience, the more knowledge you gain. You could potentially make a sale immediately as well.

Conclusion

Signing up new contacts to your email marketing list is often done online. However, you can grow your list quicker by using offline events and strategies. The biggest piece of advice, no matter how you go about signing up offline members of your community to your email marketing list is to ensure you have a thick skin. Some people will reject you, but those that don’t are highly interested in your products and will be easy to market to.

Take Action:

  • Design some business cards that include your email sign-up form.
  • Take some email contacts from your next networking meeting.
  • Organise a raffle or competition and ask for the contents’ email addresses when they enter.

Read post   1 Comment. Tagged in: , , , ,


Where Should You Put Email Signups On Your Small Business Website?

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Growing your email marketing contact list should be one of the main focuses of your website. Research has demonstrated that 70% of your website visitors will never return to your site unless you subscribe them to something. You can see the evidence of this statement through your own website by opening up your visitor statistics and viewing how many visitors to your site are new and how many are returning.

With email marketing you can change that and turn those new visitors into continuous, loyal visitors. The more times an individual visits your website, the greater the chance they will make a purchase.

So, where can you place your email signup form on your small business website? Here are some of your options:

1. Pop-up

This is probably one of the easiest and most successful ways to build your email subscriber list. The popup window can be designed so it displays to your visitors immediately after they have arrived, after a time delay or as they click off your site or a specific page.

Experts recommend you delay the appearance of your popup so there is at least 15 seconds from when they land on your page to the signup form displaying. You also want to make sure that you don’t have the popup appear every time a particular individual visits your site or for each page they visit. Your web designer should be able to ensure this is programmed in.

2. On The Side Bar

Consider placing the email sign up on the sidebar of your page. It must be at the top of the side bar for it to perform well. Research has shown that placing it even slightly lower on the sidebar significantly reduces the number of subscribers you can sign up.

This is actually a mistake that is fairly common; even for the biggest website brands on the market.

3. At The Top Of The Page

Placing your email sign up form at the top of the page is one way to ensure it is noticed. Some of the big online marketing firms like Social Triggers, have attempted to use this method to grow their email marketing list. Some of those who have tried it out have reported success, while others have reported that their rate for subscriptions declined.

The best option for this is to test for your own website and see what works.

4. Social Media

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ all offer options for an email signup form to be on your profile. Social media is a great place to include your signup form because you have already developed a trusting relationship with your followers. This will make them more willing to sign up to receive more promotional information.

It is important to consider this as an option as only 4% and 0% of Facebook and LinkedIn users respectively want to receive promotional content through social media. However, over 80% of email users like to receive news of special offers via email.

5. Your Footer

If your visitors read your entire page, this could be one of the best places to locate your signup form. Your readers will be highly engaged and be looking for more information from your brand; which is what your email list will offer them.

However, this way may suffer from poor signup numbers; but, those who do will be high quality leads.

Conclusion

Your signup form is an important part of your online marketing sales process. If you place it in the correct location, you will see an increase in the number of new subscribers. Then you can see a significant return on your email marketing investment.

Take Action:

  • Test the location of your signup form to see what provides you with the best results.

Read post   Post a Comment. Tagged in: , , , ,


3 Potential Changes For Small Business Email Marketing In 2015

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

As 2015 fast approaches there is going to be a need to look at what trends will start or will be continued into the New Year. Being ahead of these trends and implementing them in your small business email marketing campaigns is more likely to generate results that will succeed.

So what are the potential changes that will affect your email marketing campaigns?

1. Quality Content Will Require Professional Writers

As brands continuously develop so they become an online resource for potential and current customers, they will need to generate content that matches their customer’s expectations. To match these, you will need to ensure the writing is of the highest possible quality.

Research has shown how professionally written content can improve the leads and the number of sales generated. Currently, it is reported that two-thirds of the writing produced by businesses is done by product managers. Yet, with so many tasks already their responsibility, they have little time to create a well crafted sales message.

Therefore, some forward thinking businesses will outsource the majority of their writing to professional writers. These writers will be able to create content that is high quality and able to deliver results for your business. This will improve the results that your email marketing campaigns achieve.

Also, because you aren’t relying on an individual who has a significant number of responsibilities already, and may place email content low on their priority list, you will ensure your business is always producing new content, on time. This will allow consistency and improve the trust your email contacts will have in your brand.

2. Video Email Marketing

Video is a rich form of communicating with your audience. The human brain is designed to be attracted to moving images and the changing facial expressions that can be produced and used within your videos.

As technology develops and Smartphones and other mobile technology become more advanced, mobile devices will be better able to display rich content. Therefore, your email marketing campaigns will need to include videos within their content. These will need to be short, approximately two to three minutes and contain high quality information to engage your audience.

In addition, you will need to host the video on sharing sites like YouTube, which is the second largest search engine after Google, to gain better reach and attract new audiences for future email campaigns.

3. Email Contacts Are Short-Lived

As more businesses start to develop their digital marketing channels, the amount of content that is online for your target audience is going to reach a critical point. At this critical point, the amount of information available is going to be too much for the customers to read in their limited amount of time.

Therefore, what is going to happen is readers will choose which brands deserve the majority of their attention. To ensure your brand has their attention you will have a limited amount of time to grab it. If you are unable to convince them of your industry authority or expertise, they will either leave your mail unopened or unsubscribe from your email marketing contacts list.

Use valuable information and carefully written content to keep their attention.

Conclusion

Email marketing is a constantly evolving digital marketing channel that can be highly successful if it is employed in the right manner. With the New Year approaching, the latest trends will need to be used in order for your brand to achieve the best results from your email marketing campaigns.

Take Action:

  • Examine the changes that are going to happen above and consider what your brand needs to do to make the most of your 2015 email marketing campaigns.

How successful have your 2014 campaigns been so far? What changes are you going to make for 2015?

Let us know in the comments below.

Read post   Post a Comment. Tagged in: , , , ,


How To Find A Designer To Handle Your Small Business Email

Image courtesy of jscreationzs at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of jscreationzs at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Creating an email design to sell your products can be a difficult task; especially if you have limited computer and graphic design skills. A well created email can sell your services effectively. Therefore you will need to find an email design program that can create perfect small business emails.

The problem with finding a good design program is that there are various options on the market and not all offer the perfect combination of features. A good design program needs to have several functions for it to be highly effective for your small business email marketing campaigns.

So what should you be looking at with your small business email design program?

Examples

The first thing you need to do is to look at what others using the program have created for their email marketing campaigns.

You might be able to see some of the designs in your inbox. Some companies manage email marketing campaigns using free accounts. Free accounts normally include a link to the provider of the email marketing service. This is purely for a marketing point of view, but it is useful to identify what email designs are possible with their email designer.

Secondly, you could go to the website and look at their current clients or example designs. You can find Fluttermail’s through our features page.

This method could be time consuming, but as the overall design of the email is so important, investing your time into this process could be very profitable.

Ease Of Use

You want to ensure your email marketing design program is fairly easy to use. If you do not have any coding skills, then you won’t want an email designer that can only create emails in HTML code. Many modern email designers feature a click and drag interface. This is fairly simple to use and offers great results as long as your internet connection is strong enough.

By checking how each email is built; you can be confident that you can generate the look you are excited about publishing.

It might help your creativity if there are templates included with your email design package. A great template will allow you to tailor the images, colours and what is in each element box. These templates can greatly decrease the amount of time it takes to build a single email.

Save Designs

One of the most time saving processes with creating further email campaigns is the ability to use previous designs and editing some of the smaller details. This is really important because your contacts will want to know that you are being consistent. Using previous designs as a basis for future campaigns does this perfectly.

A template also allows you to A/B test your email marketing campaigns. This can be achieved by designing the email once and editing it for the second version or resending it if you are testing optimal timing.

Preview Settings

You need to know your email will display effectively on the different email clients your customers are likely to use. The best designers will allow you to see the results before you send off the email. This can allow you to make changes so your email looks perfect no matter what device or email client it is viewed upon.

Remember to preview the mobile display as well as the desktop as more emails are being opened via mobile devices than ever before. You might also want to see if the feature to test your email is available.

Conclusion

Choosing your email marketing design program can be a difficult process. There are many different functions and features that you will want to ensure the success of your email marketing campaigns. Be certain that the design program you choose contains the above elements for running your successful small business email marketing campaigns, growing your business and achieving better profits.

Take Action:

  • Review the Fluttermail email design program.
  • Create a trail account for $1.

Read post   Post a Comment. Tagged in: , , , ,


New Trends In Holiday Email Marketing For 2014

Image courtesy of photoexplorer at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of photoexplorer at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Christmas is just a couple of months away and as with every winter holiday season the time for giving and receiving is becoming a hot topic for customers.

According to business advisors, shops are starting to stock popular seasonal items, children are writing their present lists and restaurants are taking in Christmas dinner bookings. This all leads to one thing, businesses vying for the attention of consumers and every year new trends appear in this constant battle.

Here are some of the new trends for 2014 which businesses are starting to use.

1. Spreading around the Christmas joy

Unlike with previous years where one day was the major focus, there are 24 potential days for your business to create special offers for customers. These days range from Halloween at the end of October to Martin Luther King Jr. Day in mid-January.

As a result, the average small business will send an estimated 19 promotional emails to each subscriber in October, 22 in November, 28 in December and 19 in January. This is a lot of copy to create for your campaigns and some businesses have turned to different content strategies to make their email marketing tactics unique.

So what content is in some of these emails?

The most common content is suggestions on what gifts consumers should buy for friends and family. However, this typical content strategy will only be highly successful for those brands who have a very loyal following and low competition.

The new trend is for advice emails where small businesses provide tips on anything from ‘how to host the perfect party’ to ‘what to do with unwanted gifts’. These are highly valuable to the reader and receive more interactions.

2. More Consumer Spending

This year, it is expected there will be an 8% increase in the consumers spend on Christmas gifts. This increase is much higher than the inflation rate and therefore provides evidence there is a strong economic recovery happening. What is fuelling this increase in spending? The number of special offer days available for consumers to buy products at a reduced price is one reason.

In November, there is Black Friday and Cyber Sunday (perfect days for promotional e-mails). In December there will be Cyber Monday, Cyber Tuesday, Free Shipping Day and Super Saturday – again all great days for promotional emails. And after Christmas there will always be the January sales, which can always yield good returns for a well crafted email.

So, unlike with previous years, there are a lot of times where you can send special promotional emails to your email list to gain their interest and provide them with offers available through your website or in store.

3. Small Businesses Have Focus

In the past, the focus has been on larger organisations with their nationwide offers. In 2014, there will be a day set aside to promote buying products from small business. This day is about actively encouraging customers to choose smaller businesses and is supported by business federations and governments.

But don’t just sit back and allow for your customers to find you. Become proactive and create an email campaign that will draw audiences to your website on the Saturday right after Black Friday in November. Start sending out a couple of emails before the day and remind your followers on the day. As the onus on the day will be about buying from small businesses, your website should perform well.

Conclusion

This holiday season is likely to be good for small businesses who are using email marketing to connect with their audience. Using their lists and sending high quality content and promotional emails at the right time, businesses can expect to see a rise in email interactions, website traffic and sales.

Take Action:

  • Plan your seasonal email marketing campaign, sending out emails for all the important dates.
  • Use a mixture of promotional emails and some providing advice for your customers.

Read post   Post a Comment. Tagged in: , , , ,


The Best Day To Send Small Business Email Newsletters

Image courtesy of hywards at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of hywards at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Your email list could be the most valuable marketing asset your small business owns. Email marketing is one of the biggest contributors to online sales and is a great platform for relationship building with your audience.

There are a number of different elements to increase the open rate of your small business emails. We’ve discussed some of the more advanced tactics to increase your email marketing success including:

These tips are brilliant for creating a sleek email marketing strategy to drive visitors back to your site and increase interaction with your content. In addition to optimising who receives and how often they receive your emails, you can also optimise when to send your emails.

Optimising Your Sending Time

There have been numerous studies researching the best time and day to send your emails. One study of over one billion sent emails found 7% of all emails were opened between 2pm and 3pm and approximately 28% of all emails were opened between midday and 5pm. The study found very few emails were opened in the morning with only 12% opened between 8am and 12 noon.

The evening was far more productive than the morning with approximately 23.5% off the emails opened between 5pm and midnight. This study however only looked at when the emails were opened and did not identify when they were sent.

An Experian study on the other hand did look into the sending time. The research found the open rates for emails were higher when they were sent in the evening. Those sent between 8pm and midnight had an average unique open rate of 21.7%. It is generally considered this is because the number of emails received at this time is lower and therefore there is less competition.

The same study also found the late evening emails had a slightly higher than average revenue per email.

Which Day Of The Week To Send Your Small Business Email?

Sending your small business email on the right day is also important. It is generally considered Monday and Friday are not the best days for your email to be sent.

This is because Monday receivers are generally recovering from their weekends and are looking to get a head start on their week’s main tasks. Therefore, their focus is away from their inbox. Friday is seen as a bad option because your contacts are likely trying to finish off tasks for the weekend and don’t want to start something new.

Generally, people think that this leaves Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday as the main options for sending emails. While these days do receive a higher amount of email traffic and generally 17-18% of emails are opened on these days – research would seem to suggest there is a better option.

Weekend Readers

Data from Harland Clarke suggests emails sent on a Wednesday have an average open rate of 15.6%. In contrast, an email sent on Saturday is likely to be opened by nearly a third of receivers.

Harland Clarke suggests the reason for this is competition. While the majority of emails are sent on a Wednesday (26.9%) only a small proportion are sent on Saturday (5.5%).

Testing When Your Best Send Time Is

However, the best time for your email marketing may be different and the only way to know for sure is to conduct a test. Try doing a split test and send half your list an email on one day and the half on another day. Do this for several weeks and then swap the poor performing day with another day. Repeat the process until you have a day which consistently performs well.

You can also do the same with the timing of your emails.

Take Action:

  • Test when your email marketing campaigns should be sent.
  • Let us know how your testing has gone in the comments.

Read post   Post a Comment. Tagged in: , , , ,


5 New Ways To Make Your Small Business Email Stand Out

Image courtesy of renjith krishnan at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of renjith krishnan at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The success of your email marketing campaigns will often depend on how you design your content. There are several elements you can implant within your emails to make them stand out from your competitors. An email which is unique and captures the imagination or interest of the reader will lead to a better click through rate.

So what could you include in your small business emails to make them stand out and achieve success?

1. Videos

Videos are very effective when it comes to marketing. Audiences feel more connection to moving images and a voice providing information and are more likely to take action when included in emails. According to studies, videos in emails can increase the click through rate by up to 300% and the conversions by an estimated 45%.

However, only 58% of your audience can see videos embedded in your emails. The other 42% will be shown a “fallback image”, which has to be manually linked to a page hosting the video.

2. Animated GIF Images

Animated GIF images are a collection of images which create a slideshow creating the illusion of moving images. They can look very attractive and are accepted by most email viewing software. Most animated GIF images are created to showcase entertaining clips. However, Sprout Social used a GIF slideshow to demonstrate how to use their new mobile interface.

If used sparingly, customers react very well to GIFs and will share your emails with their peers. You can also experience a significant increase in interactions. Using only one animated GIF per four emails is probably the recommended level.

3. In-email calculator

Include a calculator within the body of your email to increase interaction with your audience. This calculator can be designed to measure how much your business can save the potential customer in a year or how much a project might cost.

You can set the calculator to send you a notification when the calculator has been used, who used it and what the results were. You can then use these to contact the customer with specific sales information to close the deal.

4. Audio

There are very few email marketing campaigns which have audio. The general consensus is that audio has no place in a visual based marketing avenue. However, audio can be powerful. Recent studies demonstrated certain songs can make people feel good. Audio is also known to encourage interactivity.

Good ideas for including audio are:

  • If you are musician and want to include an example of your latest release.
  • If you are a public speaker and want to include a sample of a speech you recently made.
  • If you have recently released a podcast and want people to download it.

5. Infographics

Infographics are a brilliant marketing tool and are often used on blogs and social media to draw attention to a brand. Take it one step further by including it as an email. Infographics are so successful because they can contain a wealth of information and are easy to read for the audience.

You do need to ensure that your infographic still contains all the basic elements of a successful email campaign such as a good call to action and inviting title. However, you may find shares and interaction are greatly increased when an infographic is used.

Conclusion

There are significant options for your marketing team to create innovative and interesting email campaigns designed to inspire your audience.

Take Action:

  • Design an infographic, GIF animation or video and insert that into a future campaign.
  • Create and send a calculator into the body of your next email.
  • Release a sample of your latest public speaking event or podcast.

Read post   Post a Comment. Tagged in: , , ,


What is Fluttermail?

Fluttermail is Email Marketing for small businesses. We are the fastest and easiest way to send beautiful emails and profit from the results.

Create a $1 Trial Account