Spread Valentine’s Day love with email marketing
Are you ready for the one of biggest retail days of the year? Yes, Valentine’s Day is getting closer so get ready for a lovefest when it comes to promotional messages showing up in your inbox.
Do you plan on spreading the love with email marketing this Valentine’s Day?
Here are 10 tips you can use to influence your recipients or in this case, your Valentines.
1. Use or create a Valentine’s Day template. By using a nice balance of Valentine-specific copy and imagery it will get readers in the mood and thinking about the day.
2. Create a special email message for people who bought from you last year around Valentine’s Day and this time make it an even better offer. Great way to build and keep customer loyalty.
3. Segment your list by gender. There is no better day than Valentine’s Day to do this. Send female oriented offers to the guys and male oriented offers to the ladies. Keep in mind that this sort of segmentation may not be appropriate for all audiences or all products.
4. Use customer testimonials and reviews in your email marketing campaign. Most people will buy if they know another person has had a positive buying experience with your product or service. Think of it like a movie. Most people put more stock in a friend’s review than what an advertisement says. At the same time you are showing some love to the person who took the time to leave the glowing review.
5. Coupon Codes are the perfect way to generate traffic to your website or service and convince potential buyers to make a purchase. Make the coupons very easy to use and make sure you mention all terms and conditions clearly.
6. If your business has a blog, Facebook page or Twitter account, mention the Valentine’s Day promotion there as well. The more love you spread, the more that will come back to you (hopefully). Many potential leads may just need that extra incentive to purchase your service and let’s face it, there are a lot of eyeballs using Facebook and Twitter these days.
7. Make sure it is super easy for people to take advantage of your offer. Nothing will make a potential customer discard your message faster than if they have to work hard to act on it. Do as much of the work for them by making contact information prominent, coupon codes that are easy to read and give clear directions on what they have to do.
8. Thank loyal customers by sending them a Happy Valentine’s Day email postcard to show customer. This supports customer retention and will keep them from even thinking about looking elsewhere. This is also a great time to ask customers to make sure their account information is up to date.
9. Mention shipping cutoff dates in your emails. It can be a great call to action strategy to remind people they don’t have much time to ship gifts to loved ones if they want to get it by February 14th.
10. Have fun and be creative! The more enjoyment you and your coworkers have when creating your email marketing campaigns, the more it will resonate with the reader. There will be thousands of emails flying around the Internet between now and Valentine’s Day and you want to get noticed. Unleash Cupid and all his arrows of love and appreciation.
Got a tip to share with your fellow email marketers? Want to be our Valentine? You can interact with the SimplyCast team on Twitter and Facebook.
Add comment February 4, 2010
Complying with Can-Spam – A must read!
An important reminder direct from SimplyCast’s Compliance department!
The Can-Spam Act of 2003 is a law which applies to “commercial electronic mail message(s)”. As an email marketer it is important to comply with this act to avoid penalties and fines.
How does SimplyCast ensure compliance?
1. Ensures an “opt-out” option is included and functional.
2. Ensures there is a physical address included.
3. Processes unsubscribed recipients.
4. Investigates suspicious accounts which may be sending to non opt-in lists, and immediately terminates accounts if they violate our anti-spam privacy.
How can the client ensure compliance?
1. Include a valid physical address.
2. Do not use purchased or harvested lists.
3. Keep your mailing lists clean.
4. Only send to recipients which have “opted-in”.
5. Include a good subject line. Do not mislead the recipient.
6. Have a valid “from address” – do not use donotreply@ addresses, or email addresses that misrepresent you.
By complying with the Can-Spam Act, ISPs, ESPs and recipients will be exceptionally happy. This will please you as well because there will no longer be frightening messages from recipients or ISPs blocking your mail. That all adds up to a more positive return on deliverability.
If you would like to learn more about compliance and the Can-Spam Act, feel free to email deliverability@simplycast.com.
Add comment February 2, 2010
Email marketing calendar ideas for February
We have all been there. Monday morning rolls around, the brain is still stuck in Sunday mode and you have to come up with a killer idea for the week’s email marketing campaign.
That is why planning ahead is so important for those creating new campaigns each week. Sometimes if you are not planning a week or two ahead, you are too late or even worse, you waste valuable time trying to come up with something.
We have mentioned it before on the blog and will say it again. Let the calendar be your friend and use special days to base your emails around.
Below is a list of real holidays, wacky holidays, and pop culture events in February that you can develop a timely and relevant email campaign around.
Tuesday, February 2nd – Groundhog Day
You know how this one goes. If a groundhog fails to see its shadow, winter will come to an end much sooner. If the groundhog sees its shadow, winter will continue for six more weeks (Nooooo). If weather is a driving factor in your business, more winter or less winter is most likely something to take advantage of.
Sunday, February 7th – Super Bowl XLIV – New Orleans Saints vs. Indianapolis Colts
One of the few sporting events that pretty much everyone marks on the calendar. Many subscribers or potential leads who don’t even watch football take part in this day in their own way. Be careful however because of strictly enforced trademark infringements, you can’t use the words “NFL,” “Super Bowl,” or “Super Sunday” in your marketing campaigns. However, you can use terms such as “The Big Game,” or other generic descriptions for Super Bowl XLIV.
Monday, February 8th – Boy Scout Day
Your company could have some fun with this one. Something based on trust, honesty and providing great service. Display to your customers the “Boy Scout” in your company.
Friday, February 12th-28th – 2010 Winter Olympic Games
The Winter Olympics only come around every four years so it is a great event to incorporate into your email marketing. Everyone in Canada has had Olympic fever for months and we can’t wait to share the Vancouver games with the World. Take advantage of people’s excitement about a particular sport or the Games as a whole.
Sunday, February 14th – Valentine’s Day
If this is a big day for your company, hopefully you already have a plan in motion. Valentine’s Day is 2nd largest retailing event of the year. Though men are expected to spend the most on Valentine gifts and are stereotypically procrastinators, don’t wait too long to share your special deals and promotions. This is also a great day to share some love with your subscriber base and maybe even ask them to update their user information.
Tuesday, February 16th – Mardi Gras aka Fat Tuesday
Now this is a day you could really have some fun with. Everything about Mardi Gras is party-related and about going big. The opportunities for fun and creative ideas don’t get better than this. Stop thinking of pancakes for a second and create your own Mardi Gras related event.
Wednesday, February 15th-21st – Random Act’s Of Kindness Week
Random Act’s Of Kindness Day is an unofficial holiday in order to encourage acts of kindness. This is an opportunity to give something back to your loyal audience of readers. Maybe it’s just to say thanks. Maybe it is a no strings attached coupon for something free or at cost.
Saturday, February 20th – Love Your Pet Day
This one is a stretch, but I am a huge pet lover so I had to add it in. Create a theme, contest or some kind of interaction with clients that are pet related. Deep down, we all love our pets so this may be a connection you never knew you had with your subscribers.
The calendar on your wall or desk can spark all kinds of great ideas for your next campaign. The best part about using this concept is that each month you get a whole list of new holidays to use.
Let us know what special days or themes you are using in your email marketing campaigns on Twitter or Facebook. Can’t wait to read them.
Add comment January 26, 2010
FAQ review – Copy and pasting from Microsoft Word
At SimplyCast we have one of the best customer care teams in the industry and they do a great job of answering all your questions on a daily basis.
To help them out and allow them a chance to have lunch and sleep at night, we also have a powerful Frequently Asked Questions page (FAQ) that holds over 400 of the most asked questions from you.
From time-to-time we want to highlight a common problem users have when using SimplyCast’s email marketing service, while highlighting the strengths of the FAQ.
This week’s question is:
Can I copy and paste content from Microsoft Word into SimplyCast?
If you copy and paste content from Microsoft Word into SimplyCast, formatting may be lost because Microsoft Word uses a different format than the HTML format used in the SimplyCast message editor. The copied content may also render incorrectly when displayed in the SimplyCast message editor.
There are two ways you can approach this problem – remove the Word formatting before you paste the content into SimplyCast or convert the Word document to HTML format:
How to clean the content before you paste it into SimplyCast:
1. Copy the content from Word and paste it into Windows Notepad or any other plain text editor, which will remove the Word formatting.
2. Copy the content from your plain text editor to SimplyCast. You will need to format the text through the SimplyCast.
How to convert the document to HTML format:
In newer versions of Microsoft Word, there is more than one option for saving HTML files. To choose one of these options, start by going to the file menu within Word and choose to “”Save as Web Page”". A new window will open up. You will see a drop-down box at the bottom of the window that says “”Save as Type:”". You can choose two formats: The first option is the standard “”Web Page”" option. This should be avoided, as it adds the extra code that is not compatible with most HTML editors.
The second option is called “”Web Page, Filtered”". This will remove all the extra coding that is added by Microsoft Word to keep the web page as clean as possible.
Here are the steps once again to properly copy and paste from Microsoft Word.
1. Choose the Web Page, Filtered option to save the file in HTML format.
2. Open the HTML file using Notepad or a text editor.
3. Copy the HTML code from the editor.
4. Go the SimplyCast Message Editor and click on the HTML button in the bottom left corner of the editor in the Compose Body area.
5. Paste the html code into the html view.
6. Save the message or click on the “”normal”" button to edit it further.
For more helpful answers remember to bookmark SimplyCast’s FAQ page and if you still need to talk to a live person, our team will help you out by phone, email or live chat.
Add comment January 21, 2010
Go organic with email marketing
The trend of eating organic food and buying organic home products has grown tremendously over the past few years, being both beneficial to your health and the environment.
Did you know you can also go organic with email marketing? This will also be beneficial to you because it will increase deliverability rates, increase click through rates, lower complaint rates and much more. So how can you be organic with email marketing?
To start, create lists by using opt-in (preferably double-opt in) to make sure the recipient wishes to receive your email. Then they will likely do their part and whitelist you in their address book allowing your mail to go directly to their inbox.
Next, it is a good practice throughout the year to keep your lists clean of soft bounced emails. Check out this link for helpful tools to show you how to clean your lists.
Finally, once a year send an email to have your recipients confirm that they still want to be on your mailing list or to be able to change the frequency of emails. For example only sending one newsletter per month rather than two or three per month so that you do not end up receiving unwanted complaints.
Start 2010 by going organic with these three simple steps and experience a great year of increased deliverability!
Add comment January 13, 2010
SimplyCast special – 30% savings for one year subscription
The SimplyCast team is starting the new year right by offering you a 30% discount when signing up for a one-year subscription to our email marketing service.
Don’t delay as this special offer expires on Friday, January 15th @11:59pm EST and won’t return until next January.
We understand that everyone needs to manage costs when planning the next 12 months, so we are doing everything we can to deliver the best prices to our customers.
To take advantage of this offer visit SimplyCast.com to sign-up or renew your current package for the full year. Once you are logged in, all you need to do is go to the “Manage Subscription” page under “My Account” and select the 1 year package from the drop-down menu (it will say 30% next to it).
Not happy with your current email service provider?
Here are a few reasons to make the switch to SimplyCast:
Over 1000 free HTML email marketing templates.
Simple and elegant interface.
Every account is assigned to a dedicated account manager.
Option to upgrade to a free Dedicated IP address.
Ability to remove the SimplyCast logo from the bottom of emails.
Access to create Email, Survey and RSVP campaigns.
Compatible with IE, Firefox, Opera and Safari.
A cross-browser, cross-platform WYSIWYG online HTML editor.
Ability to import HTML from Microsoft Word.
Industry leading customer care team that can be reached by phone, email or live chat.
And many more.
The SimplyCast team is working hard for you. Email our customer care team today with any requests for new features and enhancements.
Thank you,
The SimplyCast Team
1.877.312.4979 Ext 1
sales@simplycast.com
Join our Facebook fan page for more special offers and email marketing tips.
**The above offer is only valid on single month purchases made after January 11th 2010 and cannot be combined with multiple coupon codes**
Add comment January 12, 2010
