Chances are, while you're reading this, your inbox is overflowing with marketing emails for scores of different products and services. What makes you take the first desired action of opening the message? What makes you actually read what's inside, and what drives you to click a call to action? If you're not certain, that's okay, because many people are unable to explain exactly … [Read more...]
5 Ways to Protect Your Site When Sending Mass Mailings
A while back I talked about 12 elements each email campaign must include. Now, let's talk about how to properly prep your emails and your website to decrease chances for user frustration, including website overloads. Hopefully your next campaign will send a slew of visitors to your website. If it does, thought, there are chances the server won't be able to handle all the … [Read more...]
Study Shows Marketers Having Difficulty Reaching Target Audiences Properly
A recent study by Curalate reveals that, as a whole, marketers are failing when it comes to generating the right creatives for each channel. While 86% of marketers agree that the type of channel (social, email, online ads, etc.) dictates which image to use, 78% say they wind up using the same graphic across nearly all channels. That means they're using the same image to hype a … [Read more...]
7 Email Marketing Myths [INFOGRAPHIC]
Many argue about the health of email marketing. Some think it's been replaced by social media, while others try to point out that recipients are trigger happy with that spam button. Unfortunately, plenty of reports are based on skewed data, or studies that include only a handful of test subjects. This infographic from Alchemy Worx points out some of the most common myths of … [Read more...]
Always Be Building Your Email List
I'm in awe whenever I come across an online business that doesn't send marketing emails to current and potential customers. Even worse? When an established business launches its first email marketing program with zero subscribers. These businesses are not alone in the decision not to collect email addresses until they are ready to connect. But it's a wrong way of thinking. I … [Read more...]
Will Purchasing Via Email Take Off?
Are online shoppers ready for one-tap buying within an email? If Chicago, Illinois firm Modest has anything to say about it, yes. Founded in 2012 by four engineers from President Obama's reelection campaign, the Modest mobile platform works with some existing shopping carts to create a shopping app. The company's latest feature, Email Buy, eliminates more steps one needs to … [Read more...]
6 Ways to Manage Unsubscribe Requests Properly
Earlier this year I subscribed to dozens of mailing lists in a quest to learn what value they actually add. Though many were hosted by for-profit companies, they all claimed to be newsletters rather than sales pitches, and most of them were. After several months I ran a test by unsubscribing from all of them. I was curious which ones would remove me immediately, which ones took … [Read more...]
12 Elements You MUST Include in Marketing Emails
I receive tons of email - plenty from service providers and online stores. I can tell within seconds if an email is going to appeal to the widest possible audience. While your subscribers may not be able to tell you what made them ignore or immediately close and delete your mailings, chances are your emails are missing one or more of these key elements. 1. An accurate, … [Read more...]
This $10 Solution Will Get You More Email Subscribers and Shares
Ask any small business owner for his top ten hurdles and these two will rank: Getting more email subscribers Getting more people to share content SumoMe addresses both of these issues in a slick and affordable way. I've been testing SumoMe's apps for the past few weeks and the results? Rewarding. Free to use, the SumoMe store includes some key functionality for … [Read more...]
Why I’m Loving the Constant Contact Toolkit
I've been working with email marketing for a decade. I've used nearly every professional tool out there - Constant Contact, MailChimp, Aweber, to name a few. Several years ago I settled on Constant Contact for my own marketing, and several clients followed suit. I'm aware that many professionals rely on other systems, but the bulk of my client base are online stores and … [Read more...]