9th 10 - 2009 | comment closed

Designing Effective Email Marketing Campaigns

The success of your email marketing campaign is determined by the presence of some essential factors. Keeping it simple should be your first priority. Avoid using a glitzy gripping window of opportunity in your email as it won’t help your business get desired results, good content will. Think of revamping your campaign if presently it is ‘gimmicky’ as it may be responsible for warding off people.

Try the following if you are considering a change in campaign. You can simply email a newsletter. A report by Nielson Norman Group declares that an average e-mail user reviews an Internet newsletter typically for about 50 seconds, which is the reason for suggesting this. Then again, a meager four seconds is the time for which a marketing campaign boarded by e-mail seizes the attention of the reader. A newsletter format clearly holds the attention of the average reader 10 times more than the regular email.

The actual design of the e-mail or the newsletter comes next. It’s important to create a simple email marketing design that both captures the attention but also keeps the attention. The simple truth is that most consumers and e-mail users only read a fraction of the e-mails they receive. You must master many important concepts to make it successful. An individual’s taste is the deciding factor when it comes to figuring out the advertising dynamics that they find attractive. Thus your e-mail newsletter or advertisement should have something to grab the attention of each of these demographics. Aside from simplicity, an effective email marketing campaign will utilize ASIC principles of design. By promoting contrasting colors to draw the eye and call readers to action over the amplification of certain statements. You may also want to consider the very e-mail in boxes from standard for e-mailing sources. When one wants to open e-mail for instance, AOL and Hotmail offer distinct standards. Make the most of the wide variety of colors and fonts and use those which are visually alluring in any e-mail format. Most e-mail forums have moved on to the concept that design segment should not contain more than 200 to 300 pixels. The inference drawn here is that you should have a proportionate e-mail design. Your marketing designs should be such that the content is distributed evenly and the flow is smooth. Myriad studies have been conducted on how most internet users use the web to read various documents and e-mails.

Your desire should be to gain reader attention and you can be sure to do this by using an e-mail marketing design. A five second view of any page is the basis for the construction of the most effective design. That means any information put on your page should be readable/scan-able within a five second time constraint. It is recommended to use what you have learned. Create your message in such a way that it takes up less space as compared to standard e-mail advertisements when promoting in media. If you don’t want your email advertisement to be filtered out as junk by ISPs then ensure that it takes up less space and doesn’t appear like spam. Primarily the images in your email should convey your message in a jiffy, the presence of beautiful photographs and logos is secondary.

If your email marketing campaign has only pretty pictures then you will fail to get the desired results from it. Instant response is a characteristic of the E-mail marketing industry. This means you must be certain to give your potential clients every opportunity to make contact with you. Messages embedded with your contact information will enable people to get in touch with you easily.

Be sure to include links to your site, your address information, your phone numbers, your fax number and any other information that can be used to contact you on a daily basis, in every e-mail that you send to potential clients. It’s a fact! Your email campaign is bound to fail without a proper email marketing design.

Knowledge is power. Use the knowledge you have gained here and from other means effectively and your email campaign will have a lot better prospect of accumulating revenues to your bottom line.


5th 10 - 2009 | comment closed

Building Email Marketing Lists

One of the strongest tools in an Internet marketer’s arsenal is email – and with good reason. Generating a long list of targeted prospects is a tremendous thing to have. Yet, many people stumble when looking to construct their lists because they don’t know the correct way to begin. Just how does one go about getting people to opt-in?

The first thing to keep in mind is that people are getting more and more used to marketers asking them to fill in their name and email address. In reality, it’s simply not enough to just put up your opt-in form and hope that people sign up. You really do need to “sell” the opt-in, and one of the most popular ways to do it is with a giveaway or ethical “bribe”. Put together a free downloadable report around your main subject and offer it for free to anyone that submits their name and email address. This is an effective way to convince them to take some time and fill out your subscription form.

Your bribe doesn’t have to be a report. It can be a video, an audio interview with someone respected in your industry, or maybe even exclusive access to some protected part of your website. Whatever it may be, the key is to make sure that your giveaway gives excellent value to the subscriber. This does two things:

1. The user will start to form trust with you, which means that promotions and recommendations are more likely to be accepted.
2. If the content is good enough, there’s a good chance that the user will help you spread the word by telling their friends about it.

In many cases, this giveaway constitutes a first impression of sorts, and as we all know, a first impression is critical. So, make sure that your giveaway is well done and provides real value to your subscribers.

The second point may seem obvious, but you would be surprised how many people don’t do this. Be sure that your opt-in box is in a very visible place above the fold. Above the fold is the part of the screen that is visible before you have to scroll downwards. Studies show that people are more likely to notice your opt-in box if they don’t have to scroll down to see it. To make your opt-in box more visible, try a shade that stands out from the rest of your website. You can even try to add arrows or other graphics to draw attention to the opt-in box. Of course, be sure to show the visitor your fabulous giveaway for signing up.

Finally, in your subscription box, always remember to point to or summarize your privacy policy. SPAM (or junk email) is a huge issue, and many people are turned off from email marketing in fear of having their email addresses distributed or sold. In order to get people to opt-in, you need to be able to convince them that you are worthy of trust and that you will not share their email without express permission. By doing so, your opt-in rate will noticeably increase, so take the time to ease the minds of your visitors.

As long as email exists, email marketing is not going away. By putting these techniques to use, you can also start building a targeted list of subscribers that are responsive to your messages.


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