Words to live by…
“Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.” — Plato
Simply said, but not followed enough. If you don’t have something relevant to send to your subscribers, don’t send it. First off, you’re wasting money to send the broadcast with unimportant information. Second, you could cause people to ignore you when you actually do have something relevant to send, or worse, they could mark you as spam or remove themselves from your list. Consider the damage that could be done by sending irrelevant emails, and PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE follow Plato’s words.
4 comments March 27, 2009
What’s in your preheader?
You only have a few seconds to make an impression on your subscribers, so do it right! Most subscribers use a preview pane in their email client, so you’ve got to be clever with how you grab their attention. Try adding in a preheader to entice your subscriber to keep reading rather than passing on your email. Personalize it, add in a call-to-action, or tell them about what you’re featuring in the email.
Should your preheader be left adjusted or centered? Remember that some subscribers have a vertical preview pane set up, so they might not see the centered message. Test different ideas to see what your subscribers react most to.
Do you have a great preheader suggestion? Share it with the TailoredMail community.
1 comment March 12, 2009
Difficult Times? Need a Hand With Your Email Marketing?
Has your marketing team slowly dwindled down to nothing due to the drastic changes in the economy?
Do you have marketing content to email your customers/prospects but don’t have anyone on staff who knows how to create and send HTML email campaigns?
Are you looking for some expert help with your email marketing campaigns?
Do you need an email marketing solutions provider that offers services to help you create professional email campaigns with the top deliverability and sophisticated reporting without paying a fortune?
If you answered yes to one or more of these questions, then take advantage of TailoredMail’s Stimulus Package.
Reap the benefits of being a TailoredMail client!
Get in on our TailoredMail Stimulus Package. (more…)
1 comment March 5, 2009
Do You Have the Right Email Marketing Mix?
Should you do more drip campaigns or newsletters? Will order confirmations and “thank you” offers bring add-on business? Should you mail more often (or less) to prospects?
How many renewal notices before rock-bottom pricing? What? How many? How often? When? To whom?
The correct answers to these questions would yield increased sales and profits. But, unfortunately, there are no totally correct answers — only informed guesses.
What’s a marketer to do? (more…)
4 comments February 25, 2009
TailoredMail Email Campaign Checklist
There are so many things to think about as you’re preparing your email campaign and getting it ready to send. We wanted to put together a thorough checklist so that you can be sure you didn’t miss anything.
Subject line:
- Is it between 50-60 characters long (or less)? Make sure the first 15 characters can draw them in (for recipients reading it on a BlackBerry or other mobile device).
- Does the subject line relate to the content that is in the email campaign without looking like spam?
- Have you used any spam-filter words or punctuation that could send it to the junk folder? (Note: the TailoredMail application will automatically notify you by a pop up of words that you may have used that could cause the email to get caught by a spam-filter).
- Have you written down or tested multiple subject lines to determine which one would be most effective?
- Does your brand/company name appear in the subject line or “From” address?
Add comment October 1, 2008
Organic or Purchased?
You want to start doing email marketing but you’ve got a small list. Your boss wants you to send to as many subscribers as possible. How do you quickly grow your list so that you’re reaching more people? Should you purchase the list or just build it organically?
Organically build your list: If you want to build a positive relationship with your subscribers based on trust, then be patient and build your list organically. Here are a few suggestions of how to build your list:
- Add a “sign up for our newsletter” button/link on your website pages, blogs, social media pages, and email signature.
- Add an option on the checkout page on your website for consumers to sign up for the newsletter/updates from your company.
- Ask staff to collect email addresses at the retail location, or have a computer set up for customers to add their info in. Make sure to let them know how often they’ll be receiving it and that you won’t be selling their information. Build the trust up-front.
- Promote your newsletter in other media outlets as a free incentive to keep notified of important updates/promotions. Give them a quick link that they’ll remember to go to when they are ready to sign up.
- Add a “forward to a friend” button/link in your newsletter.
- Tell everyone you know to sign up, and ask them to tell everyone they know to sign up.
A helpful way of showing the value of your newsletter, is to give an example of an actual newsletter. Once they see the perceived value, they’ll know what to expect from you. Right after they sign up, make sure they get a welcome/thank you email. And now that you have them, keep them interested by staying committed to sending out your newsletter in a consistent and timely manner with relevant information – this is the easiest way to build the relationship.
Purchasing a list: Buying a list can get you (and your email service provider) into trouble, and we don’t recommend that you do so. A purchased list contains subscribers who have typically signed up to receive information from a particular company and then checked the box that said they would be interested in receiving information from third-parties. They don’t know who you are when you start sending to them, and will most likely hit the spam button before they even open your email. So now not only have you just paid for an email list, but you’ve also paid for a broadcast to send to this email list (and basically paid for them to hit the spam button and lower your reputation). If you do decide to purchase a list to send to, we advise you consult with your email service provider and understand their policies and procedures on sending to purchase lists.
Add comment September 9, 2008
The Email Standards Project
Here’s a funny video for all of you desperately trying to get your emails to render correctly in all email clients – especially Gmail.
Add comment September 3, 2008
How do my email campaigns compare to someone else’s?
Generally, campaign performance should be gauged against prior campaigns to the same audience. How have your recent broadcasts performed versus your prior broadcasts using your old system?
When clients ask me for benchmarks, I say it varies by audience. When a client has purely opted-in readers their open rates are much higher than one who is sending to a) old subscribers or b) a list gathered from other sources, such as loaded from business cards gathered from a conference.
Generally speaking, open rates above 8% are good, anything higher than 15% is excellent.
Retailer’s broadcasts to consumers generally hit the 3% to 5% mark. Business to business is usually double that. Again, a fully opted in list should expect opens above 10% or higher.
When I look at who is opening, I also check those who are showing unusually high opens, like over 20 times because that indicates that this person is either a) very interested or b) forwarding the information on to their friends colleagues and THEIR FRIEND’S opens are registering under the original person’s userID.
Finally, opens and views are counted every time the email message loads (with images), so that includes each time you preview your newsletter.
1 comment August 29, 2008
