How To Find A Designer To Handle Your Small Business Email
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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.
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5 New Ways To Make Your Small Business Email Stand Out
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.
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Keep the Clutter Out of Your Email Content
The difference between a salesperson and a savvy marketer is the way they deliver their message. The ultimate goal is the same across the board – to sell product, or promote the company – but the way each department ends up going about it can be quite different, or at least that’s been the case in my experiences.
Last spring, the retail sales division of the company I worked for approached the marketing department because they wanted to start a biweekly email campaign. That’s an excellent idea, I said. And all was well and good until the two departments sat down to discuss the contents of the email.
“We were envisioning an email that features about 20 different products, with pictures and complete descriptions, every two weeks. And a 700-word or so article. And a coupon. And maybe a video of a dancing cat.”
Several jaws hit the floor. One of our designers actually passed out. Many heads tilted in confusion.
“Well…we just love our product so much and we know our customers do too, so we want to offer them as much as we possibly can!”
Ah, and therein lies the issue. Being passionate about what you do is so important. Loving your company and what they offer is a great thing, and for certain something to be proud of. But if you try to show your customers too much at once, you will scare them.
Think about the last marketing email you opened in your personal inbox and actually spent time examining. Did it feature a multitude of images, three page scrolls worth of text and about 15 different fonts? Or did it feature a clean, dominate image, a small amount of catchy copy and worthwhile links?
There’s no real rule about the limit on the amount of email content. But, think about the things going into your email as actual objects on your desk. A few nice, well placed and helpful items are pleasant, and probably tools you’ll utilize (since they’re on your desk and all). However, the more items you add the more cluttered your desk becomes, and the less you’re able to prioritize and sort out everything that’s there.
If you feel like you have too much to say and not enough room to say it, make a list of everything you want to include. Read through it, and try to prioritize one by one. Is there anything that is timely and needs to be mentioned right away? Is there anything that relates to a current news item? What can I put into a blog post instead of this email (because links are your friend!)?
Don’t worry, you aren’t the only one who loves your company and wants to hear everything you have to say about it. But think of this email marketing relationship you have with your consumers like a real relationship – if you spill everything on your first date, there’s a good chance they won’t stick around for too long.
Photo: Puuikibeach, Flickr Creative Commons
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