Archive for Creative
Five things you can do to improve your email before 2012
Source: Jeanette Brown, Marketing Strategy Manager at Informz
2012 is just around the corner and it’s time to fill those email marketing resolutions you created for yourself a year ago. With the few days we have left, here are five quick things that can be done to bring results.
1. Insert the “view online version†link – With mobile readership on the rise, take advantage of easily inserting a link to the web version of your email into your template. Informz provides an easy way to do this while creating the email, just simply choose this option from the hyperlink tool.
2. Send at the right time – Remove the guess work and activate send-time optimization when sending an email. This will schedule your email to be sent over a 24-hour period based on the subscribers past behavior. We learned in our 2011 Email Benchmark Report that there is no magic day or time that will work for everyone.
3. Discover your mobile readers – There is no need to survey your subscribers when you can quickly view what they are reading your emails on directly from your mailing activity report. Once you see what types of mobile devices are mostly used, you can better design for these subscribers. View our tips on designing for mobile.
4. Get social – Social networking sites were a hit this year across the board. Take advantage of easily dropping in the logos from your sites into your newsletter, providing readers a way to share on their network or quickly visit your site to continue a conversation on a certain topic. Take it a step further and cross-promote your e-newsletter on your social sites to grow your brand and subscriber list.
5. Write less – Emails are not brochures or a website. Content in an email needs to be shorter than both of these items. When you think you are done, cut out more copy. Readers on a PC should not need to scroll more than once to see the content, and for mobile readers, four times is the max. Same goes for subject lines. Count the characters, including spaces, to make sure it is under 50 characters. Better yet, keep it under 30 characters to make sure mobile readers can see the full meaning!
Try these tips out and you’ll set yourself up for success in the new year!
image credit: Idea go
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posted in: Creative | Social Media | Targeting & Planning | Trends | Writing Effective Copy 5 Tips for Writing Effective Email Copy
Contributor: C. Galbornetti, V12 Group
Content development is a critical success factor to creating effective email campaigns. Your target audience needs to immediately comprehend your message and understand the benefit of taking action in the first paragraph of copy. Email marketing programs that pair compelling content with a specified frequency helps drive revenue and strengthens customer relationships, as well as improves branding efforts.
To achieve these goals, your email messages should be:
Concise: Get to the point quickly using brief, strong copy and remember…less is more. Nobody is reading long drawn-out paragraphs about what you have to offer, but subheads are an ideal way to make readers focus on the important details. Use short, bulleted lists to highlight features and benefits so readers can get a quick idea of what you are selling. Using subheads and bullets let readers know what you are selling by just glancing at your email.
Direct: One of the most important tips is to highlight the benefits of your offerings right off the bat, preferably above the fold, or top 250 pixels of your email. This is where you present your unique selling proposition and ensure these advantages are clearly spelled out. Use strong calls to action and add text links and optimized graphics to provide a visually pleasing experience.
Immediate: You only have a 3 to 5 second window to grab the reader’s attention so make it worth their while. Try to make the email a quick experience using the techniques above and drive them to a landing page for more information. Call-to-action url links and icons need to tell the user exactly what the next step is in the selling process. (ie. Buy Now, Shop, Order, Browse, etc.)
Personalized: Be sure to communicate clear reasons why the recipient is getting the email. Put yourself in the shoes of your target audience. Imagine how they spend their day, what’s important to them, their demographics, what they would actually considering buying from you and their reasons for doing so. Speak in a friendly tone and avoid formalities. This type of role playing will help make your copy more relevant and targeted.
Compelling: It’s important to feature limited-time offers and incentives to motivate the user and create a sense of urgency. Remember, it’s all about the offer! Pay special attention to the subject lines and headlines to convey urgency and keep it short and sweet. The headline drives the reader to read on so make it as enticing as possible.
The ultimate goal in crafting any email campaign is to get the reader to open and act so they need to clearly understand your message, your offer and you need to provide them a clear way to complete the sale (or the sign-up). There is no set formula in crafting good copy in any medium, but these simple tips can get you started with effective and proven strategies that better engage email recipients.
If you need help writing online copy for email, please contact V12 Group at 866.842.1001.
(image credit: renjith krishnan)
The 6-Step Secret Sauce for Awesome Email Subject Lines
Subject Lines become one of (if not the only) most important element in a successful email campaign. It’s the first line of offense that will establish a click to open, a click to delete or a click to (gasp!) SPAM. This post has some vital information to help marketers write more effective subject lines.
Source: Corey Eridon, www.hubspot.com
How many emails do you receive every day? And across how many accounts? The Radicati Group reported that 1.9 billion non-spam emails are sent every day. Most people aren’t reading every one of those emails (do you?), and the way people determine which ones to open and which ones to trash is by looking at the email subject line. It may be one of the smallest components of your email marketing strategy, but it’s the keeper between the reader and your message. That’s a pretty hefty 50-something characters.
As one of the most crucial parts of your email message, you should dedicate serious time to crafting that copy. But if you know the secret sauce for writing an awesome email subject line, you’ll find you need less and less time as you practice and learn what resonates best with your audience. Next time you draft an email message, use this recipe to formulate a great email subject line that will help you get your message in front of more eyes.
The Ingredients
- Deliverability
- Actionability
- Personalization
- Clarity
- Brevity
- Consistency
The Recipe
Step 1 – Check for deliverability. There are two kinds of filters you need to get past: actual SPAM filters, and your readers. Readers have a BS detector up when checking their inboxes, and it’s as sharp as a bloodhound’s nose. Avoid spammy words like “free,” “act now,” and “limited time.” Don’t yell at the reader by using all caps, like “REMINDER,” which is another spammy word that should be avoided. Also, steer clear of excessive use of punctuation marks such as dollar signs and exclamation points at the end of sentences.
Step 2 – Make it actionable. To have an actionable subject line, ask yourself one thing: does the reader know what he or she can do in the email? An email subject line is similar to writing a call-to-action; using verbs helps create the sense of urgency and excitement you want them to feel when reading your subject line. For example,
Read more here: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/29591/The-6-Step-Secret-Sauce-for-Awesome-Email-Subject-Lines.aspx#ixzz1fxrtuej9
Image credit: Stuart Miles
B2B: 7 Tips for Writing E-mails That Won’t Get Deleted
The Email Resource Center focuses on prospecting email for the mass consumer market, BUT here’s a post that helps one to one communication for sales people to use for their B2B lead generation campaigns. It’s got key points on how to write emails that get noticed…and not deleted.
Crazy-busy people read their e-mail with their finger on the delete key. Sales strategist and author Jill Konrath shares her guidelines to increase your e-mail prospecting success.
1. Eliminate Delete-Inducing Words
Get rid of all verbiage that activates the delete response. Here are some serious offenders: exciting, state-of-the-art, solution, partner, leading edge, passion, unique and one-stop shopping.
2. Keep Your Message Simple
Your email needs to be less than 90 words. Use 2-sentence paragraphs so it can be scanned. Stick with common black fonts (no colors) and never include more than one link or attachment.
3. Align With Their Objectives
Research your prospect’s specific company, industry or position. Make sure your e-mail mentions an important business objective, strategic imperative, issue or challenge. Relevance is essential…
The Do’s and Don’ts of Using Media in Prospecting Email
By: Christina Galbornetti, Director of Creative Services | V12 Group
The digital space is paving the way for marketers to better communicate with their customers like no other medium today. Videos, like those seen on YouTube have become a top tool and technique for engaging an audience online. It’s as close to a television ad you can get, without the big investment, not to mention it’s a more engaged interaction since viewers take the time to actually click on digital media to take action. Now, we’ll cover some of the do’s and don’ts of integrating digital trends into email…
DO: Use videos in email to engage consumers
Online videos can provide viewers with key information to help educate consumers, spread a message, or build a brand. Avoid the temptation to build a video just to launch a series of emails, but rather plan on implementing a video strategy that has a reason, benefit, or other intriguing promotional spin to engage and interest customers on a deeper level. Think of a one-to-one conversation you’d most want to share with a consumer and you’ll end up building a thoughtful video campaign with purpose. Then, you can weave that into upcoming email campaigns.
Using video clips within an email is a trend that many marketers will find useful in 2012, however most email service providers will not support embedded videos within an email. Additionally, embedded videos add a lot of back-end coding that is likely to get blocked. So, the alternative is to use a screenshot image of the video so that when the reader clicks on the ‘play’ button, they will be directed to a new landing page to watch the hosted video. This actually gives you the added benefit of tracking click activity.
The first step is to post your video to YouTube. Copy the full URL of your video page, and this will be link to be used in the email. Then you’ll want to create a static screenshot of your video to use as a .jpg or .gif image. Next, insert the image with the video url into the html creative.
Lastly, DO keep the videos short and sweet.
DO: Use videos to tell a story
Marketers today strive to make a connection with their customers to instill brand identity, value and loyalty. Campaigns that go viral which are passed and shared from consumer to consumer are by far the most successful. (AKA, the Super bowl commercial everyone is talking about the next day) So find a story within your brand, and tell it well.
Kmart recently did a video series on their entire denim line with a behind-the-scenes look at how Kmart fashion execs choose the design, the fabric, and overall fit. This tactic is a perfect example of how you can sell jeans without selling jeans. It also reinforces the fact that there are actual people behind the company who care about how you look and feel in your clothes. That personal level of attention fosters brand loyalty and can easily turn a prospect into a customer.
You can watch a sample here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Tugr4jMbVI&feature=autoplay&list=PL87D5EDC8AB9ED73A&lf=results_video&playnext=2
DON’T: Use Flash in emails to make them more appealing
Flash animation provides a visual appeal that looks sharp and cutting edge and we’d suggest using it on a landing page. BUT, email is not the place for Flash content since email clients will not support it. Not to mention that a good portion of the population using iPhones and iPads will completely miss out on your message since it’s a well known fact that those devices do not support Flash technology. Keep it simple and provide your recipients with relevant content in an easy-to-read format.
DON’T: Use animated gifs in prospecting emails
Animated gifs are described as files that flip two or more images to display a simple motion. They are a popular way to grab the reader’s attention and are more widely used around the holiday season in an attempt to stand out in a crowded email inbox. We’d firmly agree for CRM based-email campaigns that animated gifs, when used properly, will surely lift engagement and boost response.
However, animated gifs should be avoided in prospecting campaigns. It’s widely known that Outlook will not render them at all and more importantly, they add to the overall file size of the email. Many email clients will filter and block excessively large emails so using animated gifs raises the likelihood your email may never be delivered…so the risk is not worth the reward. Not to mention, animated gifs are slow to load on mobile devices. IF, you can minimize the file size and it makes sense to use an animated gif within a creative, it’s worth testing usage and performance.
Conclusion
Marketers are constantly looking for cutting edge technologies to boost email response, unfortunately the ISP’s keep pace with those trends making it more difficult for prospecting emails to overcome filters. Using digital media is one tactic to test, but the goal of enhanced targeting is first and foremost in delivering relevant and effective campaigns that users find valuable.
Survey Incentives: Response Rates and Data Quality
Many clients are interested in conducting surveys to gain knowledge and insight into not only customers, but potential customers. The most cost-effective way to conduct a survey is through the email channel. But, just like emails designed to sell a product or service, the offer will be important for a survey as well. The recipients time is valuable so they should be rewarded as such. This post outlines survey incentives and how they relate to response rates…
Source: www.nbrii.com
Offering incentives for a survey respondent’s time is one way to increase customer survey response rates. Some people feel a sense of civic duty when approached with a survey, and it is enough motivation for them to know their input will be used to help others. However, the use of a monetary or gift incentive has been proven to significantly increase response rates in many customer surveys. The question is not whether incentives will increase response rate percentages, as this remains true throughout many examples. Instead, what kind of effect does the incentive have on data quality? Are the survey results positively or negatively biased because respondents are given an incentive to participate? How much incentive do I need to include with my survey for it to be effective?
Several studies have indicated that the use of incentives reduces to some extent item non-response and “bad answersâ€, such as “don’t know†or “no answerâ€. It was also noted in a study published by Public Opinion Quarterly that respondents who received incentives have (read entire post here)
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posted in: Creative | Metrics & Testing | Stats | Targeting & Planning | Trends | Writing Effective Copy The 5 Critical Components of Fantastic Lead-Capture Forms
Landing Pages are a critical part to not only lead gen, but also email marketing. This post covers some of the critical requirements needed for building a successful landing page including positioning, length, form fields and more…
Posted by Sarah Goliger, HubSpot.com
This article is an excerpt from BlogSpot’s new ebook, An Introductory Guide to Building Landing Pages. To download your free copy of the complete ebook, click here.
On any given landing page, the lead-capture form is the most crucial element. Without the form, lead generation simply wouldn’t be possible.
Therefore, the form is the main focus of your landing page, since the ultimate goal is to get your visitors to complete it. Because the formatting and design of your form have a direct impact on conversion rates, it’s absolutely critical that you approach them wisely. Here are the five most critical components of fantastic lead-capture forms.
1. Positioning
First of all, you should make sure your form appears above the fold, or in other words, that the viewer does not have to scroll down the page in order to see it. Immediate visibility is important, since you want
Read on here: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/28472/The-5-Critical-Components-of-Fantastic-Lead-Capture-Forms.aspx#ixzz1dEHt418c
In Email Marketing, First Impressions Matter More Than You Know
Here at V12 Group, we specialize in email acquisition, but it’s imperative for our clients to think about converting those prospects into longtime customers with lifetime value. This post opens dialogue on how marketers can make the best first impressions using email preference centers and welcome programs. A great read…
Source: Ryan Deutsch, Sponsored by Blue Hornet (Posted on www.clickz.com)
Email marketers invest millions each year to achieve relevance, working to integrate transactional and behavioral data into email templates in the hopes of delivering the right message at the right time. The problem is that the right message at the right time does little to benefit the brand if it’s never opened.
To deal with lackluster open rates, many email marketers look to subject lines and subject line testing. This is a defined best practice and if executed correctly will almost always result in at least a short-term lift in engagement. I would argue that the issue, though, goes well beyond subject lines to the initial perception a subscriber develops regarding your email program.
While no study exists that I am aware of, I would argue that brands have one to three emails to set a tone of value with their subscribers. Once that sense is lost, so is engagement, and getting it back is nearly impossible. Email marketers need to reinvest in the front end of the customer lifecycle and focus on setting the tone for the ongoing email relationship.
Data Capture and Preference Management
Marketers are mixed as to the importance and practicality of preference centers. Everyone agrees that the collection of data from a subscriber detailing their interests is valuable – especially at the beginning of a relationship where transactional data is limited. However, arguments against implementing preference centers are common. The primary two reasons being that consumers are unwilling to provide brands with meaningful preference data or that putting control in the customer’s hands will limit a brand’s ability to monetize the email channel. In my opinion, both objections are misplaced.
The first argument, that customers are unwilling to provide data, is ridiculous. Customers regularly provide businesses with personal information. Banks and insurance companies maintain a huge amount of personal information. Why? Because the value trade-off is easily understood by the consumer:
Fill out information for my bank = get a line of credit.
Provide information to my insurance company = get coverage for my family.
Where is such a clear value proposition made between brands and subscribers in the email channel? The answer is simple; there isn’t. Brands need to make preference centers more valuable to the subscriber than to the brand. Today, they are built and executed to help the marketer. If this approach is flipped and preference centers are built to benefit the subscriber, participation will increase and relationships will deepen. In exchange for providing profile information, subscribers should get exclusive access to content and offers, be invited to participate in focus groups, or earn loyalty points and rewards for their commitment to the relationship. If brands communicate these concepts at the front end of the subscription process, they will reap the rewards of deeper consumer-set preferences.
The second argument is that, if given the choice, consumers will ask the brand to decrease message frequency. While many brands have already dialed down frequency or have rules in place to do so, they still want to maintain control over these decisions. Tests have repeatedly shown that frequency declines can help drive higher conversion rates. More importantly, the entire social web movement is about increased transparency and control. Brands should embrace this trend, not fight against it. I have seen several preference centers that not only enable frequency control, but allow users to initiate new communication opportunities. FTD, for example, allows subscribers to input customer dates to remind them of personal events that require flowers or select holiday reminders via checkboxes. Consider how putting increased control in the subscriber’s hands could help drive a deeper relationship and more meaningful communications, even at a decreased communication frequency.
The Welcome Program
Most email marketers have implemented a welcome message, but unfortunately they stop there, with a single message. It’s like meeting a person for the first time, shaking hands, and suddenly turning tail and walking the other direction – all the while feeling that you have planted the seeds for a deep, personal relationship. A welcome message is just that, a message, and it is only the first piece of the welcome program. The welcome program is the brand’s opportunity to establish the value of the digital relationship and credibility in the email program as a whole. Brands cannot simply accept a subscription, deliver a welcome communication, and insert the subscriber in the general cadence of communication. Each subscriber should be indoctrinated in a way that reinforces the initial subscription.
The welcome program should accomplish all of the following:
- Confirm subscription: The welcome program is an excellent confirmation opportunity. Weed out non-responders before they have a chance to create a negative reputation for your brand with ISPs.
- Explain cadence and value of upcoming communications: Show actual examples of future communications, explain the frequency of delivery, and stress the value of each communication in the stream.
- Educate on brand’s engagement opportunities: Email is not the only way a subscriber can engage with a brand. Explain other opportunities to get connected to the brand on the web, in social media, or on mobile devices.
- Ask for and reward referrals: There is never a better time to solicit referrals than on the front end of a relationship. Ask for and reward your subscribers for referring their friends to your brand. Social media has made word of mouth scalable. Make sure your brand is taking advantage of it.
Triggered Reengagement Capabilities
Once subscribers become unengaged, it is very difficult to reactivate them. Build rules into your welcome stream that recognize disengagement and attempt to reengage in real time. Too many brands wait until subscribers have been non-responsive for months before trying to reengage.
Email marketers should remember that our channel is subject to the same psychological realities as general human interactions. The bottom line: first impressions mean more than they should. Remember that and invest in making it the best possible.
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posted in: Metrics & Testing | Subject Lines | Targeting & Planning | Writing Effective Copy B2B: 13 Awesome Headlines for Business Blogging Success
It’s like the purple squirrel…B2B marketing advice that’s actually effective?! This post got my attention since this copy advice for blogging could absolutely convert to email. Use these tips and samples in your subject lines and see if they boost your clicks.
Posted by: Kipp Bodnar
Blog content gets shared across all types of social channels. So for a blog post, the headline is its call-to-action. The headline determines how your content will be shared and spread more than the content of the post itself.
Great headlines can take time. Personally, I’ve written dozens of headlines for an article before finally deciding on the one that made the final cut. To save you some time, we wanted to give you a jump-start on succeeding at this critical aspect of business blogging.
13 Awesome Headlines for Business Blogging Success
1. 5 Things You MUST Know About [Insert Business Topic]
2. A Guide to Understanding [Insert Business Topic]‘s Recent Changes
3. Best Practices for [Insert Business Topic]
4. Learn How to Do More [Insert Business Topic] With Less
5. 6 [Insert Business Topic] Secrets Revealed
6. The Truth About [Insert Business Topic]
7. 7 Instant Improvements for [Insert Business Topic]
8. 101 Statistics About [Insert Business Topic]
9. 9 Amazing [Insert Business Topic] Videos
10. How to Be the Best [Insert Business Topic]
11. An Insider’s Guide to [Insert Business Topic]
12. What the Experts Won’t Tell You About [Insert Business Topic]
13. 10 Unexpected Ways to Rock At [Insert Business Topic]
Five Reasons Why Websites Still Matter
Just back from DMA2011: The Direct Marketing Association’s Annual Trade Show Event and I’m fresh with ideas for marketing for both the email and social arenas…and then I stumble upon this article (which I thought was a given industry law) that…WEBSITES STILL MATTER!! Don’t overlook the core selling feature of your entire business, the website. All the email, social, online, print, etc. dollars your companies are spending mean nothing if your website is not up to snuff. Here’s why…
Original post by Mikal E. Belicove, (excerpt taken from entrepreneur.com)
You know you must leverage Facebook, Twitter and word-of-mouth marketing to increase awareness of your brand. But the fact is, websites remain infinitely more popular with consumers than all of the business pages on social media sites combined.
Only 22 percent of those of us online in the U.S. visit a branded social networking page such as those found on Facebook, while 62 percent of us regularly visit branded websites, according to the latest Global Web Index report. If you were starting to let your site become outdated or haggard, consider a refresh. After all, as these figures note, websites still matter.
Here are five reasons why you shouldn’t ignore yours:
1. Branding: Since it’s your site, you set the design, which affords you the flexibility to optimize the user experience in ways that directly support your business model and brand-related goals. There’s no competition on your website, just a branded experience that you direct yourself.
2. IT and Engineering Jurisdiction: When you control your own site, you have complete jurisdiction over its code, hosting environment, page count, content, plug-ins and more. Just as I mentioned above with regard to branding — here too you have the elasticity required to make small or sweeping adjustments at will, an advantage you don’t get with third-party websites. With sites like Facebook, you can change minor graphics and some content but not code, navigation scheme, server speed or the graphic user interface.
3. Content: Speaking of content, more of it can be found on your own website than on a third-party utility or platform, and none of it competes side-by-side for your visitor’s attention. Create compelling and useful content that speaks to why someone is visiting your site and you stand a higher chance of that visitor taking action with respect to your products or services. And since inventory (i.e., web pages) is virtually unlimited on a site under your control, you have ample opportunity to add additional content and calls-to-action in the format you deem most appropriate.
4. Search Engine Optimization (SEO): If garnering multiple, relevant and highly positioned placements in the SERPs (search engine result pages) is part of your sales and marketing strategy, a website is a must. When properly coded and managed, your site delivers natural and sustaining search results that drive qualified traffic to the exact pages on your site where you want visitors to be.
5. Analytics: While many social utilities, platforms and networks provide access to data related to demographics associated with who accesses your profile and how often they do so, website analytic tools go much deeper. They can provide you with the type of business intelligence you need to determine in real-time how your online marketing performs and stacks up against the competition.
Don’t think for a moment that I’m suggesting you drop social in favor of your own website. What I’m advocating is that you lead first with your website, followed by leveraging social, email marketing, point of purchase, mobile, apps and other forms of marketing and outreach to drive traffic to your website where you can generate qualified leads who convert to paying customers.
Image credit: Idea go
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posted in: Industry | News & Articles | Social Media | Targeting & Planning | Writing Effective Copy