Posts Tagged email campaign
Email marketing calendar ideas for June
Now that the warmer weather is here, it is only natural to spend more time outside and less time on coming up with ideas for your next email marketing campaign. Not to mention the kids being out of school and summer vacations eating up extra time. What to do, what to do?
Well stop the worrying and slap on the sunscreen because SimplyCast is here once again with an email marketing calendar update for June.
Below is a list of real holidays, wacky holidays, sporting events and pop culture happenings in June that you can create timely and relevant email marketing campaigns around.
June 1st – Donut Day
Time to make the donuts. Start June off with everyone’s favorite breakfast treat and create an email marketing campaign around this not-so-healthy day. Granted it will be easier if you have donuts to give but that is why you have to be creative. Many American donut shops offer free donuts on this day, so maybe you can also offer something for free to your customers. Homer Simpson would be proud.
June 6th – Yo Yo Day
A day to celebrate the yo yo and a chance to show your subscribers that you have a sense of history and a sense humour all at the same time. You could simply run a campaign that has a lot of ups and downs but maybe that is too obvious. Just be careful around your coworkers, you don’t want to get hit in the eye with a stray yo yo.
June 15th – Power of a smile day
It is always easy to find a day or event that you can tie in to saying thanks to your subscribers. This day is perfect as the whole point is to smile at everyone you see all day long. If you offer a service or product, why not offer a special deal if a customer emails or posts a photo on the company Facebook fan page of them smiling.
June 20th – Father’s Day
Did you have a successful Mother’s Day campaign? If not, don’t worry because Father’s Day is coming soon. Now it is not as popular as Mother’s Day but Dad’s do tend to enjoy the bigger ticket items like electronics, power tools and car accessories. I just gave you three no brainer areas that can do well. Just as we said for Mother’s Day, help shoppers decide with gift suggestions, appeal to last minute shoppers with “final days” offers and make it all very easy with special shipping and delivery incentives.
June 21st – Start of summer
This is one of the best days of the year if you ask me. The official starting day of summer which means longer days, BBQ events, swimming pools and generally taking it easy. If you can’t come up with a way to create an email marketing campaign around this day, then maybe you prefer living in an igloo or ice fishing.
June 30th – Superman’s birthday
On this day, fans from around the world celebrate the original super hero. Market your company’s strengths or super powers and ask your readers what special powers or features they would like to see added to your product. Or just for plain fun, ask readers to submit a funny photo of someone dressed as superman for a discount of some kind.
All campaigns don’t have to be super serious. In fact, the more fun and creative they are, the better. In case you are wondering, SimplyCast’s super power is industry leading customer care. There is no kryptonite for our team.
Other notable events
June 11th to July 11th – The World Cup of Soccer – This global event only comes around every four years, so it is a perfect event to focus on.
June 19th – World Sauntering Day – Take your customers on a leasurely stroll through your features and products. Remind them why they are using your service.
June is National Candy month – For those who love sweets, June is the month for you.
June is National Dairy Month – Ask all your readers to say “Cheese”.
Know of a fun day on the calendar that we missed and think it would make a great idea for a campaign theme? Let us know on Twitter @simplycast.
SimplyCast.com is a leading provider of interactive marketing software and services for organizations worldwide. The company’s multi-channel marketing platform is a feature-rich solution used by thousands of customers in over 175 countries, including many of the most recognized brand names around the globe in retail, non-profit and hospitality industries.
2 comments May 14, 2010
Get a dedicated IP with a SimplyCast plan
As a leading provider of email marketing and survey solutions for organizations worldwide, SimplyCast.com is dedicated to providing our customers with the best service possible.
That is why we are now offering a free dedicated IP address to all purchased customers.
Sign-up or upgrade your account today and not only have the option to switch to a free dedicated IP but also save 20% OFF one month of our email marketing service.
Go to SimplyCast.com and use Coupon Code FREEIP at point of purchase.
Act now, this special opportunity will end on Friday, Oct. 23rd at 4PM EST.
To read more about what a dedicated IP address is and to learn a few best practices to follow, please click here.
The SimplyCast team continues to work very hard for you. If you have any questions, comments or concerns, don’t hesitate to contact our customer care team.
Thank you,
The SimplyCast Team
1.877.312.4979 ext. 1
sales@simplycast.com
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**The above offer is only valid on single month purchases made after October 19th, 2009 and cannot be combined with multiple coupon codes**
Add comment October 20, 2009
What to do when email mistakes happen
Humans are not perfect. We all know that.
Mistakes are bound to happen from time-to-time, even for email marketers.
It could be anything from a misspelled word, an invalid link or even a broken image.
It seems easy to avoid making these mistakes by doing a lot of testing and then testing again. But bad days and slip-ups happen even if you have everyone at the office read it over.
So what do you do other than cringe and feel like crawling under the desk to hide?
Since time travel has not been developed yet, here are a few things email marketers can do to correct mistakes when they happen.
First of all you have to take action. Quickly determine the scale of the mistake by examining the reporting metrics. How many subscribers received the email, and how many opened it? If only a handful of people were affected, consider sending them a note to explain what happened. Being proactive will help the relationship between you and your subscribers in the long run.
Determine if a correction email is necessary. If so, it is a good idea to send the original email so subscribers can reference what you’re talking about. Tweak the subject line so they know which email is the updated and correct version.
The bottom line is you know your subscribers (or should). It’s up to you to determine what actions to take when sending a correction email. The real key is to make the correction email a timely one. You want to remain credible in your subscribers’ minds, and there’s no point in sending an apology a week later as they may have forgotten by then.
Depending on the mistake that was made, an apology may be necessary in order to maintain a positive relationship with your subscribers. Let them know you messed up and how you will fix it.
The best way to avoid all of this, is of course to test, proof read and never send anything out until it is 100% correct. But that is easier said than done sometimes.
Making a mistake in your campaign is not the end of the world and a successful email marketer will not only learn from the mistake, but will take a proactive approach to turn the situation around.
Has this ever happened to you? Tell us about it by commenting below. Your fellow readers will appreciate the advice and the honesty.
Add comment September 28, 2009
Option to add and delete a “From” address
The SimplyCast team wants to create the best user experience possible for our customers and that means adding simple functions to help manage your account. Once we launch Version 5.0 of SimplyCast’s email marketing solution on August 10th, you will be able to add and delete a “From” address from within your account. Now, if you need to change the address that your emails are being sent from, you can quickly add it to your account and delete the one you do not use anymore. It may seem like a small addition but anything that helps keep a tidy account is great in our books.
As excitement builds towards next week’s launch, we want to share with you a 10% discount for signing up today. Go to the SimplyCast website and use coupon code LAUNCH4 at point of purchase.
Make sure to check in tomorrow and over the weekend as we share with you the remaining features we are adding to Version 5.0.
1 comment August 6, 2009
Checklist: Planning your first email marketing campaign
The team at SimplyCast wants to make life a little easier during these lazy days of summer by providing a handy checklist to use when creating your first email marketing campaign.
For those who create email marketing campaigns on a regular basis, think of this post as a quick refresher that could improve your efforts even more.
The list below will outline some of the most important factors to consider when planning your first message.
By focusing on these questions before creating a campaign, you will avoid many of the common pitfalls that email marketers can fall into.
Who is the message for?
• What are the particular characteristics of your intended group of subscribers and how are you going to interest or engage them?
• Where are you going to get their email addresses from? We highly recommend growing your own list and here is why.
• Does your list comply with current regulations? (CAN-SPAM compliant)
• Is your list up to date? Hence, when was the last time your cleansed your list?
What is the goal of the message?
• Do you want people to click through to your website/landing page or to call you on the phone.
• Do you want to create customer loyalty?
What is the content of your message?
• What title will you give the email to ensure as many people as possible open it? (see post on subject lines)
• How are you going to word the message to ensure that the most important parts get read? Remember you don’t have long to draw a reader in once they open the email.
• How are you going to attract your recipients to click through to your website or landing page? Call to Action phrases or images?
How should your message look?
• Are you going to create a HTML message, text only or both? How should you decide?
• How can you make your message visually attractive to your target audience?
How are you going to measure the success of your message?
• What are your targets in terms of clickthroughs, open rates and other metrics?
• What information will you need in order to determine how successful you have been and where are you going to get this information?
How often are you going to mail out to your list?
• Are you going to send out a regular email campaign or newsletter and if so, how often?
• Are you going to send out company updates, and if so, what kind of information will you send?
By asking yourself these questions before sending out your first campaign, you will avoid many of the common pitfalls that other email marketers can encounter.
Contact your SimplyCast account manager for more information or help with your campaign.
SimplyCast’s Interactive Marketing Suite includes:
Email Marketing | Survey Marketing | Event Marketing
Fax Marketing | SMS Marketing | AutoResponder Marketing
3 comments July 15, 2009
Think mobile when email marketing
How often do you check your email on your BlackBerry or iPhone instead of your desktop computer?
If you are like me, probably quite often.
Does that ever make you wonder how many of your subscribers or potential customers check their email on a mobile device? It really should.
Did you know that users who open your email with a mobile device cannot be tracked in your open rate metrics? Keep that in mind if you happen to see a dip in your totals.
By focusing on how your email marketing campaigns relate to mobile users, you can drastically increase opt-ins and grow your business in a hurry.
Different things could impact your email campaigns in different ways. If they are complex in code, they could easily trigger many items to not show up on a cell phone.
Now you do not have to change your entire campaign strategy but there are a few simple tweaks you can do in order for mobile viewers to be able to read your emails easier.
Deliver brief, interesting messages
Long sentences in long paragraphs force more and more scrolling. This also can be a barrier for converting or another source of frustration for readers.
Include a text version
Provide a link at the top of the message that sends mobile users to a text-only page. This will help out anyone who is having problems viewing a HTML email that contains images.
SimplyCast’s email marketing software will automatically generate a text version of your email when it is sent out.
Don’t put links to images at the very beginning of your email
Depending on the device’s settings, the recipient may only see a bunch of links. Then they either have to scroll down forever or more likely, they will just delete your email.
Image heavy email campaigns or newsletters have the most difficulty to be viewed correctly. Try to have more text and less graphics in order to increase the chances of the email being read when someone is on the go.
That doesn’t mean that you want to sacrifice your companies branding but it is important to keep any eye for what type of graphics you are planning on applying to your email campaigns.
Revise the goal of the message
Since Executives using a mobile device are usually skimming and not clicking on links, you have to make sure the message is concise, clear and uncluttered.
Enticing the reader to review the email in greater detail when they return to their desk should be the goal.
Test on your own mobile phone
This is the easiest way to make sure you are taking advantage of the ever-growing technology. Send a test email to yourself or a friend and see how it looks on different mobile devices.
Does the subject line get cut off before it tells you what the email is about?
Do you have to scroll down or go to a second page? If you do, then it is a good idea to teak the message until everything can be read quickly and easily.
Keep in mind that mobile email users don’t generally click on links from their BlackBerry or PDA, again saving it for later when they are at a computer.
Also consider that users may not want to make online purchases or sign up for your service via these devices either.
The mobile world is only going to continue to grow, meaning the sooner you start utilizing it, the sooner your own business will expand even more.
6 comments July 8, 2009
