Building Customer Loyalty with Email Marketing Segmentation Loyalty-targeted emails can result in open rates as much as 40 percent higher than bulk mailings. That’s a statistic worth noting. If you don’t currently use segmentation to cater to subscriber preferences and build loyalty among existing customers, now is the time to start. Thank-You Notes A simple “thank you” for subscribing, purchasing,... [Read more]
The Personalized Email Experience Personalization doesn’t start and end with your subject line. There’s quite a bit of content that you can dynamically display if you get more personal and store added details about your subscribers, other than their email address, in your address book. The result provides a relevant and personalized message for each subscriber and increases response... [Read more]
Email Marketing Co-Registration: The Nays Have It! Strong opinions abound on both sides of the co-registration debate. Co-registration, or the practice of subscribing to multiple newsletters simultaneously, walks a fine line when it comes to ethical list-building practices. Let’s take a look at both sides of the debate. Co-Registration is the Answer to All Your List Building Woes! Adherents to this... [Read more]
The Email Marketing Unsubscribe Experiment Back in December, we tasked one of our staff members with an unusual job: to practice some serious email triage and observe the results. I don’t mean the kind of early morning email triage most of us practice, where you delete all the unwanted emails from your BlackBerry before you even get out of bed, saving you from dealing with them later when at your... [Read more]
Why You Shouldn’t Fear the Email Marketing Unsubscribe (If You Maintain the Health of Your List!) As an acquisition email ad exchange, we get asked a lot of questions. One of the ones we hear frequently is, “Is my unsubscribe rate an acceptable one?” There’s a short answer and a long answer to that question. Short Answer: Done right, acquisition email should have an unsubscribe rate... [Read more]
Why Two Databases Are Not Better Than One I love answering questions about email marketing. It’s what I’ve been doing for over 7 years now, and I’ve formed some fairly strong opinions along the way. But there is one question that still has me sitting on the fence: “Should I manage my contacts within a single database, or across multiple databases?” It’s a great question, as database... [Read more]
By: AWeber Last month, we talked about the email subscribers you don’t want and how to prevent them from signing up to your list. Now, it’s time to think about how to get and keep the subscribers you DO want. To help us with this, we talked to Johhn Four from Gamer Lifestyle. He left some impressive comments about how to prevent zombie addresses, so we took a look at the site’s email campaign.... [Read more]
Are you looking to increase your opt-in email subscribers list? After hearing so many positive comments about lightboxes or pop-ups we decided that we would test one. We chose PopUp Domination since it came highly recommended to us. It has great features and supports most mailing list services – including AWeber, iContact, GetResponse, MailChimp, and Constant Contact. We plugged ours into ExactTarget. This... [Read more]
George Bilbrey of Return Path wrote a thought-provoking piece for MediaPost on how marketing objectives interact with deliverability objectives. The article takes on the question of whether deliverability tactics are at odds with marketing best practices. The response, to paraphrase, was that improved deliverability increases revenue, reduces the chances of damage to sender reputation, and improves... [Read more]
It’s easy to focus exclusively on the content of your messages when it comes to creating engaging emails. But all too often, it’s the interactions at a more fundamental level that will make the most difference. If you’re not considering these four engagement opportunities, you could be missing out on the chance to earn or keep the attention of your subscribers. The Sign-Up Process Because it’s... [Read more]
Successful email marketers recognize the importance of building relationships with subscribers. But how exactly do you do that? Well I believe that relationships are built on trust. And trust is gained by delivering on clear expectations. With email marketing, this means making promises to new subscribers up-front and then delivering on these promises time and time again with all of your emails. So... [Read more]
As an email marketer, your ultimate goal is to create conversions. And what’s the easiest way to do that, repeatedly and successfully? Develop customer loyalty. You’re probably aware of the escalating stages of customer loyalty: Prospective à First-time subscriber à Customer à Advocate Occasionally, your subscriber won’t make it to customer (they’ll unsubscribe first) or your customer will... [Read more]
By: Constant Contact When someone opts-out of your email list, it’s hard not to take it as a personal insult. But, it’s not always the slap in the face you think it is. Rather, an opt-out is an opportunity to learn, and to improve your email marketing. I won’t go as far as to say it’s a gift, but there definitely is value. To start, know that you are not alone. Opt-outs happen to everyone.... [Read more]
The world of email marketing is ever-evolving, as are consumers’ expectations. Email subscribers are expecting increasingly tailored messages that speak to their unique needs and interests. As an email marketer, you’re looking to meet these needs, but consumers and messages are not one size fits all. Only through increasing the relevancy of your messages with more targeted marketing can you stand... [Read more]
By: Infusionsoft A common question we hear from small business owners is what to do with their rather old list of email subscribers, especially after not emailing them for a while. This is a tricky answer – there is a lot to consider before you import that list and start sending emails. Here’s the scenario: A business owner has a list of 2000 people who they did email in the past, even with... [Read more]
By: Email Marketing Reports A lot of email marketing “best practices” aim to get subscribers to salivate when you ring the bell. The bell, in this case, is made up of those recognition elements that tell the casual inbox browser that this email is from YOU. They alert the reader to the promised treasures within your message. So we use a consistent, recognizable sender name. We feature brand names... [Read more]
(First published by Matt Vernhout at www.emailkarma.net ) Last week while Canada was busy Celebrating it’s 144th Birthday the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) gave the Email Marketing world a little gift! There draft regulations for the Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation (aka CASL). These draft regulations address a number of items around the required content of a commercial... [Read more]
A preference center is the hub of subscriber personalization and an important means to improve your deliverability and ROI. Each customer or prospect sets up his or her preferred email address, frequency, content type, and mode of delivery in the preference center. It is the place where users can opt-in, opt-out, opt-down, or take a break from emails. A preference center is the best learning tool... [Read more]
Lots of factors play a role in your success as an email marketer. From your offer to send window to email frequency, there is a special recipe for your industry and even your brand. Perhaps the “Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!” of email marketing – what seems to hog the spotlight – is our list: quality of prospects and customers on the list, size of the list(s), growth and attrition rates, list cleanliness.... [Read more]
By: Practical eCommerce Email marketing is one of the most potent promotional tactics available to online retailers when, in fact, those merchants have customers to send emails to. Email can boost site traffic, drive conversions, and help build strong relationships with shoppers. The hard part is getting those shoppers to subscribe to your email list in the first place. In this article you’ll... [Read more]
