Are you a NewBee to Email Marketing?
These 14 great posts will help you on your way to becoming an Email Marketing Ninja!
We know just how confusing email marketing can seem when you are new. The eMail Guide was created to help you get started, become proficient, and keep current with the trends in email marketing.
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Using Outlook for Email Marketing
Email Marketing Laws
Buying or Renting an Email List
Email List Building and Growth
Email Reporting and Stats
Email HTML Creative Resources
Email Marketing Scalability and Growth
Email Marketing Support and Accountability
Email Marketing Tips & Tricks
So, you’re new to email marketing! We know how confusing that can be. Helping people get started in email marketing is why we created The eMail Guide! Have any questions? Send us an email: questions@TheeMailGuide.com or post a comment and we’ll be happy to respond!
So, what are we waiting for? Let’s get started!
Our friends at EmailBrain have put together a comprehensive glossary of eMail marketing terms. It’s a living document and we’ll keep adding to it as needed.
Takeaway: Knowledge is power but, sharing is wisdom.
Please feel free to post any additions you think we should add!
A/B Split
A mailing list is divided into two equal segments, and each is tested for different offers in order to determine which is more effective.
Above-the-fold
The portion of a web page that you first see without scrolling. “Above-the-fold” is generally the more desirable location on a Website because it is the most readily visible. Any opt in links, tags or banners are better placed at this location.
Relationships are not cheap – just ask any dating teenager. For some reason though, we often seem to forget that truth in business. Kenny Van Beeck ponders this issue as it relates to eMail marketing and the use of “noreply” addresses.
In many email marketing campaigns a noreply email address is used.
Why would you do that?
- Do you want to miss the deal of a lifetime, because they can’t reply?
- Do you want to enter the spam lists, because people didn’t want to hit the unsubscribe link?
- Don’t you want to get feedback of your readers?
Just starting out in eMail marketing? Do you feel as if you’re in the middle of a crime scene, trying to figure out who done it or should have? Maybe you need some inspiration from the 19th century’s great problem solver: Sherlock Holmes. There’s a lot we can learn from “The Great Detective”.
Always think 3 steps ahead
The brilliant Sherlock is well known for his intellect and deductive reasoning. But that is not enough. He always keeps the big picture in mind — a great trade to have as an eMail marketer. And although it doesn’t always look that way, Sherlock plans his moves carefully. Thinking about the goals he wants to achieve and the best way to get there. It’s easy to get sidetracked when taking your challenges (campaigns) one at a time. So think ahead and make a plan for at least the coming half year.
Even the best of us take for granted the simple things you need to include in your email marketing campaigns we send out on a regular basis. So here is a list of things you must have that will help you grow your list, get more opens and clicks for your emails, and have a super successful campaign.
1. Write A Compelling Subject Line
Make sure you take the time to think about what’s going to get your email opened. Look at your past campaigns, see which ones got the highest open rates and try to emulate the type of subject line you used. Try one of our 50 All Time Great Subject Lines and see if one works for your business.
6 email marketing design tips for recognition, trust and engagement
Thankfully, the days of silo-ed email marketing run by two techies hunched in a shared cubicle wedged into a forgotten corner far from the marketing department are largely over at most companies. However, marketing email can still suffer from “forgotten stepchild syndrome” when it comes to design.
It’s a fair enough question: “Should my email creative match the design/look/feel of my company’s website?”
Editor’s note: For a complete glossary of email marketing terms, check this out!
As an email service provider we are constantly throwing around terms that sometimes our customers may or may not know. So I decided to pick 11 email marketing terms and give you the low down on what they mean. Don’t be offended if you know some of these, I’m trying to cover a lot of bases here. Here goes!
ROI (Return on Investment) – Your ROI is the measure of the profit you make and/or costs saved at your business. For your email marketing campaigns you calculate cost of sending email plus time.
On any email list, there will be a percentage of subscribers who signed up and never again showed signs of life. They may have opted-into a specific offer, and once they obtained the coupon, free content, or other benefit you promised, they disengaged.
Or, they joined your list while in the market for your product or service but soon afterward their needs were met and they never bothered to unsubscribe.
5 steps to succeed in email marketing without really trying
I recently got to see the play “How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying.” The play is set back in 1962 and seems to have held true to so many business stereotypes even today. The plot follows a young window washer’s rise up the corporate ladder to become Vice President with the help of his trusty guide book outlining the steps needed to succeed. It’s a cute and witty satire on the realities of the business world. It got me thinking- can we apply the same easy to follow steps into a no-fail guide to email marketing? I think so.
Last week, a friend of mine called in a favor. He was prepping for a big job interview and while he had great experience in interactive, he was begging me for a “crash course” in email marketing. As a true EMN (Email Marketing Nerd-ess), I couldn’t wait to impart some of what bounces around in my head all day.
After about 15 minutes, I’d already used the word deliverability 50 times. I wanted to be sure my friend understood that shooting emails out and delivering emails wasn’t the same thing.
What is the marketing value of an out of office reply?
What is an out of office reply worth to an email marketeer? Most of us filter them from the “real” replies as soon as they come in. Or we even block the replies altogether. But that doesn’t do justice to the nature of that automated reply message. So what is the value of an out-of-office reply?
If you want to accomplish anything more than sending out eVites for a wedding or birthday party then you should be looking beyond Outlook as your marketing solution. As attractive as Outlook with an add-on such as Microsoft’s Business Contact Manager might be, it simply does not meet the primary needs of any email campaign. Why? Because email marketing is NOT about the info you send out. It’s about the info you get back. If you can’t track that data, know what is working and what is not and use it to plan future strategies then why are you doing it in the first place?
VerticalResponse is always being asked for examples of great email marketing subject lines, so I thought I’d offer some really great and proven-to-work subject lines that you can test out for your email marketing campaigns.
Nobody is perfect. In our personal and professional lives, we all make mistakes.
As email marketers we are not immune to mistakes. Below is a list of 14 email marketing mistakes.
Mistake #1
Purchasing an email list
Mistake #2
Sending an old email list
Mistake #3
Waiting until the last minute to send your email