Communicating regularly with your client list is important. According to Forrester Research, it was suggested that open rates for email marketing has picked up again by the end of 2010. So it is time to revisit your strategy.
Before we get into it, let’s get one thing straight. This popular marketing channel also takes on average about 16+ hours per edition. You need to research topics, write copy, upload to email engine, proofread, monitor open rates, maintain your database and source out relevant images. That is too much time not to do it well.
Here are some top tips for improving the performance of your campaigns.
Consider the target audience
Provide useful, relevant information for your members. Ask yourself how helpful is this information to the people we are trying to engage? Not just sell your latest offer.
Keep the design really simple
Nothing else to say really but I will provide some examples at a latter date! Re-design it today!
Add links
This generation, particularly digital natives love being able to source the latest information really fast. The more links you provide on your newsletter, the better. Research shows that the more links are handed out, the more activity happens and higher the click – through rate. It is just another way for you to be helpful.
Are you trying to get them out too often?
Not because your audience will get feed up, but purely based on the amount of hours it takes to publish. Do a great job less often!
Early Bird catches the Worm
Get the newsletter email out, well before the people get in the office. Have a look at what that does to your open rates!
Be personable
I have seen open rate triple based on this principle alone. Splash a few smiley faces and personal stories written in the first person from time to time and check out the click – through rates. Think newspaper columnist and the personality behind the words. This includes populating sending the email from a real person.
Timing
There are different times of the week and day that impact your open rates. Click – through rates double on the weekend, and unsubscribes are highest on Tuesdays. Think about when you try and call somebody on a Tuesday morning compared with Thursday? You will get a completely different response.
Spam AKA sending it to people who haven’t subscribed
It is against the law and does the perception of your brand no favours.
Segmenting
Customising an email piece for different groups of people, two times a year is better than sending out 10 emails to your entire list.
Tracking sales
16+ hours to collate a meaningful newsletter is expensive when it comes to your time. It is costing your company to get that information out. You must know what results it is yielding. Trace leads by setting up unique landing pages, web analytics ‘goals’ or specific forms straight into your sales database.
Consider an alternative format
There are other ways to get your information out there e.g. Facebook Business Page as people can interact with it immediately.
Testing
Split your database up and send different versions out all the while tweaking. Changing very simple things like a call to action can change the response rate dramatically. We would love you to get to a point of best practice for your industry. Wouldn’t it be great if you could work out exactly what triggers sales for your unique industry?
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When marketing your business, you must continually keep with all things digital marketing including Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). There is simply soooooo much contradictory information out there about SEO. It is hard to find the truth and what really works.
This week Kalena, who heads up Search Engine College, has written a piece about SEO after receiving several question submissions from webmasters who were struggling to optimise their sites.
Kalena has created simple steps as a series of 10 weekly articles outlining how to improve the search engine visibility of your site straight away. I like the diet analogy.
Kalena has provided a terrific deep dive curriculum on and has a broader understanding of related information than any other practitioner. Click here to use my affiliate link.
Technology has always changed the way we operate our businesses. Cloud Computing is a general term for anything that involves delivering a service over the Internet. It means you don’t have to purchase a system outright and it doesn’t become redundant the day you buy it. The right tools and processes are essential to roll out an successful marketing strategy. What are our favourite marketing tools for the practical day to day marketing tasks we use here at Pollen?
All are free or can be scaled to your budget;
- Mail Chimp – Email Marketing
- Highrise – Customer Relationship Software (CRM)
- Basecamp (or Minivan iPhone App)
- Google Analytics
- Wufoo – Form Builder
Mail Chimp
Business email marketing at it’s best. What we particularly like about this monkey boy marketing tool is the analytics components. You can also see who opens what email and what links they click. That is priceless information.
Google Analytics
This is a web analytics solution that gives you rich insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness. If you don’t track the traffic and hotspots on your website, you’re dead. Learn to set up goals and funnels too!
Highrise CRM
You need to track your sales enquiries and know what stage they are at. This is also the place to note down key information they gave you through initial meetings or phone calls so you can make sure you provide them with what they need. Your database is gold and Highrise uses simple tags that ensure you split your database for appropriate marketing activities. This is better than the machine gun spray, likely to fall on deaf ears.
Wufoo Forms
Grow your marketing list and capture important contact information for marketing your products, services and events. This form feeds straight into your Highrise CRM.
Basecamp
We always have a hive of activity around our marketing campaigns, with multiple people with various skills sets involved at different stages. Managing a project often has loads of intricate steps. Before every project, we step through the process, including assigning tasks and setting important milestone and to-do lists.