Email Marketing Tips Blog

With more pressure than ever to maximize marketing budgets, a recent survey indicates that marketers still regard email as one of the top performing methods in generating ROIs.  (Survey conducted by Ad: Tech and Babcock & Jenkins.)

Email came in second only to pay-per-click advertising and beat out nine other methods, such as search engine optimization, affiliate marketing, and rich media ads.

The article stresses that inbox competition would intensify in 2009 and it was more critical than ever to “be careful not to wear out your house lists with repeated messaging and offers”. Set up a reasonable communications timetable and always include valuable information.  (See previous blog posts for ideas on this topic.)

In addition, you should take advantage of marketing opportunities anytime you are in touch with your customers. Include a special with receipts, shipping notices and any follow-up emails from Customer Relations. (You can even program your cash register receipts to encourage your customers to sign up to your notification list. Call your register company for details.) The cost to include such a message is negligible and can easily result in additional purchases or referrals.

MarketingSherpa’s 2009 Email Marketing Benchmark Guide reported that transactional emails, as described above, have high open rates. The best part is that customers accepted brief marketing messages in these emails, as long as they were pertinent and brief. For instance, if you were confirming shipment of a new plasma tv set, your email could offer insurance or a DVD recorder for use with your new tv.

These were the top areas to be tested, according to the survey:

27% – Landing Page Content
26% – Landing Page Design
25% – Subject Lines
17% – Email Offers

Email continues to rank as one of the top marketing methods and biggest bargain in your marketing arsenal in 2009.  And GetResponse continues to rank as one of the best companies to provide email marketing services!

Debbi Bressler
GetResponse

Wouldn’t it be great if your customers couldn’t wait to tear into your latest email message? When you add value in the forms of time-sensitive offers, discounts, specials and giveaways, you can “train” your subscribers to open your emails first.

This can work in any type of business. Information product marketers can offer free chapters, videos or teleseminars for download or registration by a certain date.

Restaurants can advertise their special of the day.

Retail clothing stores can offer in-house discount coupons available during a short window or offer an extra 15% on select merchandise.

The beauty of email marketing, as opposed to direct marketing, is that you can laser-point your offer to pump up your sales on slow days or reduce prices on merchandise that needs to be cleared fast.

But don’t limit yourself to coupons and downloads. Make your email interactive by allowing your readers to forward a discount coupon to their friends.

Restaurant.com held a promotion leading up to the holidays, wherein their subscribers could offer free gift certificates to three people every day. A friend was emailed the gift certificate information but, of course, needed to opt in and provide their information in order to receive the coupon. This is an excellent example of providing value while at the same time building a subscriber list.

Interactivity can also be introduced through surveys and the ability to occasionally ask questions or make suggestions. Many teleseminars use this format by answering questions submitted by subscribers during the call.

Customers can respond like Pavlov’s dogs by always providing value and including limited (time or quantity) offers.

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

A recent study published by Marketing Sherpa reported that marketers are returning to email in droves. The low cost of email deliverability combined with the ability to laser-target prospects, while inexpensively building loyalty and sales with current customers, made it one of the best techniques for all types of businesses.

When polled, 44% of the respondents planned to increase their budgets for email marketing, up from 29%. In total, 75% of the companies were prepared to spend the same or more than last year.

The potential downside of this increase in email expenditures means greater competition in your customers’ inboxes. It is more important than ever to communicate effectively and responsibly, and keep value uppermost when designing your campaigns.

If you haven’t planned your 2009 campaigns, you’ll want to get started immediately. A small increase in frequency during these economic times is fine as long as you are providing information, reviews, or coupons that your reader will find of value.

What are your email plans for 2009? Share them below!

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

Stephan Polland at Click Z recently talked about the correlation between email deliverability and being added to your readers’ address books.

Here are a few things you can do to increase address book listing:

1. Put a whitelist request on your subscription and thank you pages. Even better, take screen shots or a video of the process in the most popular email clients, so everyone can follow along.
2. Add whitelisting instructions to your confirmation email page and prominently mention it in your first email which welcomes readers.
3. Your first two or three emails should have a whitelist reminder with a link to the web page with instructions and screen shots.
4. You might even talk about whitelisting in an article, especially if your messages are directed at other marketers. By educating them on the importance of their readers whitelisting them, it points out the need for them to whitelist you!

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

The ROI of any email marketing campaign is determined by the size, quality, and responsiveness of your list.

But what if you don’t have a list? Or your list is nothing to brag about?

If you aren’t a prolific writer, a blank sheet of digital paper is a scary thought. If you are creating well-thought-out, original content, word will spread. Your blog, forum post, or article posted at a directory will catch the eye of people looking for answers and they will want to learn more.

The traffic increases. Your opt-in list builds.

Life is good.

The downside is that it takes a lot of time to research, outline, and write good content. That’s where repurposing content comes into play. Repurposing allows you to make slight modifications so you can re-use your content in another form or directed to another group.

Here are a few examples of where and how you can repurpose content:

Develop a PowerPoint presentation. Take your article and expand it into some slides with bullet points and graphics. Add audio and you have a completely new item.

Yahoo Answers allows you to search keywords for specific questions people have asked about your area of expertise. By reworking your content, you can not only answer a question or two, but direct them to your website for even more on the subject!

Similarly, forums are a great place to show off your expertise. Pull a few items from your content to answer questions, generally followed by your signature file.

Expand your content by interviewing an expert. Have the interview transcribed, thereby creating another product.

Post the audio on iTunes and an entirely different demographic will find you.

Create a video (many videos are no more than the PowerPoint and audio mentioned above) and post to video sites like YouTube.

Choose a few Social Networks and be available to answer questions and post information, directing people to your site for more in-depth information.

Post on your blog or add it to your website.

Expand your FAQ’s. If you are answering questions that others may ask as well, add them to this section of your website.

Rewrite your content into short, easy-to-digest nuggets, and build an email marketing campaign.

Look at your work as a reporter and turn it into a Press Release which can be distributed to the PR services as well as added to your website’s Media Center. For even more attention, tie it into an upcoming holiday, current event, or news item. Make the connection with the current buzz and you’ll get noticed!

Rework your working and paragraphs so it’s  not a duplicate, then submit it to Article Directories.

Break it up. For instance, you could break this blog post into many separate subject to expand upon, creating entirely new content.

Pull it together. Find 10 articles that synergistically work together and – voila! – You have a Free Report!

Rewrite your content for different target markets. For instance, I could write a base document about email marketing and then sub-niche it by gearing it towards doctors, dentists, house painters, etc.

By using your creativity (and having a thesaurus handy!) you can repurpose the same content multiple times.

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

I’ve got good news and bad news.

The bad news is that, according to a report recently released by Cisco, approximately 90% of all email is spam.

The good news is you’re not crazy after all!

Spam accounts for about 200 BILLION messages a day, and the United States is the biggest source with over 17%. Turkey and Russia tie for second place.

The hackers are using botnets to take over legitimate email accounts, where their spam messages are sent out with the email owner’s name. Unfortunately, this is easily accomplished because many businesses and individuals use weak passwords that can easily be cracked.

Now’s a good time to review ALL of your email accounts and upgrade your password if necessary. I’ve been the victim of crime and, believe me; you never want a customer emailing you to ask why you are sending out fake PayPal links! If you don’t think it can happen to you, think again.

It only takes a few minutes – check your accounts today.

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse