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Tips to improve your holiday email marketing
As the SimplyCast team heads into a Thanksgiving weekend (yes Canada is earlier), it seems like a great time to review some important areas to focus on when planning your holiday email marketing campaigns.
With the U.S. Thanksgiving and Christmas closing in fast, this quick list will get you going in the right direction (if you have not already started).
5 ways to improve holiday email marketing strategies
1. Identify the products you will promote this holiday season, and which months you will promote them.
2. Define your promotional offers and the time frames for the offers. Consider getting the best offers out early to reach consumers before they have spent their holiday money. I am sure my mom is not the only one who does her shopping way too early.
3. Segment your email list as much as possible. Review previous campaigns, reading over click activity and past purchasing behavior to target unique audiences with specific, relevant offers.
4. Plan and map out when you will deploy each part of your campaign. Look at the best and worst performers from last year and follow your own best practices. Setting actual dates will enable you or your creative team to work in advance and keep on schedule. Better to have things ready early so you don’t have to rush things out the door at the last minute and possibly make mistakes. The most important thing to remember is, don’t leave things until the last minute because your competitors certainly won’t.
5. Design your creative for maximum performance. Get the Call To Action above the fold of your website or landing page and include the CTA in the subject line as well so that people are certain to know what your email is all about. For more best practices and helpful checklists, you can go here.
6. (Bonus) Work with your email service provider (SimplyCast in this case) to ensure your sending reputation is in good standing. You can have the best subject line, creative, and timing, but if your IP reputation is poor, nobody will see that beautifully crafted email! Take time before the holidays to test your email deliverability and work on any issues that arise. The SimplyCast team is more than happy to work on this in detail with you. After all, your success during the holiday season (and throughout the year) is our success.
To learn more about SimplyCast please contact our sales team.
Add comment October 9, 2009
Reasons why your business should be using email marketing
Still putting off that email marketing plan you talked about three months ago? Don’t wait another day longer.
In order to grow your business, you should consider setting up an email marketing program to communicate with your growing list of customers.
For those still not sold on why you should be using email marketing, here are five important reasons.
1. Save money
These days, everyone is trying to trim budgets and get the most bang for their buck. It costs very little to create a powerful email marketing campaign compared to other forms of marketing. Once you get set up with an email service provider like SimplyCast, you can create, send and track your emails for a very low price.
2. Save time
It does not take very much time to send a few email marketing campaigns to your list every month. When it comes to calculating a return on your time investment, email marketing is going to be tough to beat with other forms of more traditional ad creation. Then you can use all of the extra time to grow your business in other areas.
3. Build trust
By sending informative and targeted email marketing campaigns, you will start to build trust with those on your list. Subscribers will come to know you as a valuable source of information, and with that trust. Once that happens, they will actually start listening to what you have to say. Once you have an email list that trusts you and your product, you have taken a huge step towards email marketing success.
4. Staying connected
Email marketing will help you keep your company brand in front of subscriber’s eyes and make them think of you when they are ready to buy. By using email marketing you can easily communicate with your audience and build your own database of interested customers and subscribers.
5. Quick to act
Email takes seconds to reach recipients on your list. Email is also not limited to any specific country or region. Just think about the opportunity to spread the word about your business to people all around the world in just minutes. That means no more waiting for items to be shipped by the post office and it gives you much more creative freedom for special deals.
Bonus reason
6. Tracking results
You can easily track your emails and measure the subscribers’ interest in near real-time. You can see how many people opened your email, how many subscribers clicked on the links and understand what part of your email people liked or disliked. Once you have this key data, you can use it to further improve the next campaign for even great success.
Email has revolutionized day-to-day business communications, and is now viewed as one of the most important corporate communication tools available. All the more reason to get that email marketing plan started today.
If you need a hand getting started, let the SimplyCast team guide you through the process of setting up your first email marketing campaign.
Add comment September 16, 2009
Similarities between college football and email marketing
With a new season of College Football ready to kick off this weekend, many of you will put aside work to watch your favourite school go to battle.
But that does not mean you have to stop thinking about the email marketing campaign you will be creating on Monday. Even watching a game of football can help point out some of the finer points of email marketing.
Here are a few similarities between college football and email marketing.
- While email marketers may not do a touchdown dance when getting a high return on a campaign, they do take satisfaction in seeing great results for something that was designed and implemented. There is nothing better than devising a big play and seeing it work out to the fullest. Just like with a football team, the end goal should be to score big on every possession or campaign.
- If you follow football, you know that players are placed strategically on the field and each one understands his role to the team. In email marketing, it is also important to understand the role of your players or in this case, your customers. You need to understand who your list members are and what they are interested in. The more information you find out from your members on the list, the better you will be able to target your emails. Just imagine if you put a rookie quarterback in the game and he had no idea who is intended receivers were.
- Teams have to play by the rules and in football, the laws of CAN-SPAM play the part of referee. Football has first downs, holding penalties, pass interference, time clocks and many other rules that have to be followed. Email marketing also has rules that must be followed or a flag will be thrown on the field. You need to have an opt-out option made available, a physical postal address listed and an accurate identification of the sender, otherwise you are not playing by the rules. Teams that don’t play by the rules often can’t overcome the penalties and end up losing the game.
- Protect yourself from big hits to stay in the game. A wide receiver would never go up against a linebacker without pads or a helmet. But that is what an email marketer is essentially doing when they hit the send button without testing and reading over every aspect of an email campaign. Before you expose your work to thousands of people, protect yourself by proofing and testing your creation.
- Every football team has a play book to track what works and what does not. Email marketers have a play book of their own, which are the reports that are gathered on each campaign that goes out. A coach spends a majority of his time coming up with the plays that will eventually lead to greater success. Think of yourself as a coach when you review the stats from your next campaign. Analyze the performance, note the items that worked well, and revise the items that did not perform well. Continually changing the email and building on the strengths will lead to victory for you and the customer.
Now that we have outlined a few similarities between college football and email marketing, let the SimplyCast team help you grow your business and continue your quest for an email National Championship (if there were such a thing).
Add comment September 3, 2009
Twitter and email marketing: A killer combo
Are you using the power of Twitter to expand your email marketing efforts and reach thousands of potential new customers?
Yes I said thousands.
Combining your email marketing campaigns with Twitter is not hard to do and the best part is you can still use the same skills you have already developed by creating previous campaigns.
Like email marketing, Twitter is in its own way, a permission-based process. People do not receive tweets unless they have elected to follow someone on Twitter which is just like opting-in to an email list.
The SimplyCast team is very active on Twitter, where we use it to engage with our customers and provide a lot of extra value to those interested in email marketing.
Once you have created a Twitter account and a profile page, try these four easy ways to combine Twitter and your email marketing efforts.
Add a link to your company Twitter account in all email communication
Add a link in the footer of your email campaign or newsletter to let your subscribers know that they can follow your company on Twitter.
In every SimplyCast promotion we always add a link to allow readers to easily follow us if they choose. By combining this with the valuable content you have already created, your list of followers should flourish.
Also add a link to your company Twitter profile in your email signature that you use for everyday communication.
Post links to your most recent promo or newsletter on Twitter
After sending out the latest email marketing campaign or newsletter, you should also post it on your company Twitter page. Add a short message similar to the subject line you have already created with a link to the actual promotion or newsletter that was mailed out.
By doing this you are also reaching potential new customers who are reading about your company for the first time on Twitter.
A simple way to do this is to use the web-based link located inside the email that was already sent out.
Remember to edit the email slightly if you set it up to include the subscriber’s name. Make it more generic and send another version to yourself to use for linking.
Add a link to allow subscribers to “tweet” your message
Another way to expand your customer base is to provide current followers with a way to share your information with their list of followers. This chain can increase the reach of your message dramatically.
On Twitter, forwarding a message is easy to do, and is called “retweeting.”
So in each email marketing campaign, make it simple for the reader to add your message to Twitter.
To do this, add a link like this one:
http://twitter.com/home?status=
After the “=” add your under 140 character message.
For example:
http://twitter.com/home?status=Twitter and email marketing: A killer combo http://twurl.nl/5uvsjn
If you want to make it stand out even more, you can add a Twitter button or logo as well.
Use Twitter as a source of information to write better campaigns
Finally, Twitter is a great way to learn in real time what your customers or subscribers think about your product or service.
This is not as much directly related with the marketing of your campaign but it will help a lot in the creation of your next promotion or newsletter.
You can take a quick survey on your newest feature or campaign with minimal set up time and chances are good you will get a very honest answer in return.
For example, was this blog post helpful to you as an email marketer?
Add us to your growing list of followers @simplycast and let us know what you think.
We look forward to tweeting with you.
SimplyCast’s Interactive Marketing Suite includes:
Email Marketing | Survey Marketing | Event Marketing
Fax Marketing | SMS Marketing | AutoResponder Marketing
9 comments June 24, 2009
Email Marketing Software or Service?
83% choose email marketing as the most important advertising media they planned to use in 2007. – Datran Media (2007)
With the ongoing increasing popularity of email marketing, there is no shortage of email marketing software and web-based services and solutions out there to choose from. So how do you choose between an email marketing software and email marketing service? SimplyCast offers both.
Email Marketing Software. This is a great option if you have a limited budget as they are usually a one time fee. SimplyCast offers an award winning email marketing desktop software Broadcast. Some of the many advantages of Broadcast are:
- You can send unlimited campaigns for a flat rate.
- Mail is sent through your company mail server or ISP’s, and the delivery options are yours to configure.
- Software is installed on your computer and the data is kept private and secure on your own computer.
- You manage everything.
Web-based Service. Using the services of an ESP (Email Service Provider) such as SimplyCast has even more advantages. These include:
- You don’t have to install any software or run a specific operating system. All you need is a browser connected to the Internet and you can get started from any computer at any location.
- Cost is usually a lower initial investment (depending on campaign size).
- You don’t have to involve your in house technical staff or ISP (internet service provider). Your ESP handles everything for you.
- Mail is sent through the ESP’s servers. They are responsible for email deliverability and reputation, ISP relations, etc.
- List management is automated. Unsubscribe and bounced emails are processed without filling up user’s inbox.
- Using an ESP ensures that you will have the most current tools available to meet the changing requirements of the industry without having additional updates to install – as required in the case of most purchased bulk email software.
Whether you choose a software or service, email marketing is crucial to the success of your effective online client communications.
Add comment June 28, 2007
