Who “likes” your email-marketing newsletter?
You’ll find this in your account under >> Setup and Options located in the >> Header/footer settings.
Tuesday, 14 December 2010
Who “likes” your email-marketing newsletter?
Labels:
Best Practice
,
Email Tips
,
Facebook 'Like'
We’re making it possible!
Who “likes” your email-marketing newsletter?
We’ve
now made it possible for you to insert a “like” button in the header of
your email newsletter. So now, when one of your readers clicks on the
displayed button, your newsletter will automatically appear in their
Facebook news feed – which will tell all their friends that they “liked”
it too! And because (of course), their friends will also be able to
click on the link and read your newsletter, you achieve the perfect
addition to ( or the first step on the ladder to ) your viral marketing
campaign - and your email marketing.
You’ll find this in your account under >> Setup and Options located in the >> Header/footer settings.
Who “likes” your email-marketing newsletter?
You’ll find this in your account under >> Setup and Options located in the >> Header/footer settings.
Monday, 13 December 2010
Synchronise between your Outlook contacts with your GraphicMail account
Labels:
data collection
,
mailing lists
,
outlook
,
synchronise
Check out our new plug-in ! See how easy you can synchronise your GraphicMail contacts with your Outlook mailing lists and vice versa.
How does it work ?
When you add a new contact or edit an existing one in Outlook or your Graphicmail Account, the other will be automatically updated to reflect the same changes. ( You will be able to synchronise all of your contacts in one sweep, but remember that recipients have to opt in to your email marketing emails, so it’s important to keep a separate email marketing contact list as well as your general contact list in Outlook.)
So, if you’ve been using Outlook to do your email marketing and you’ve decided to sign up with GraphicMail to achieve a more professional approach with your email campaigns, you can now convert your existing list into your GraphicMail account very easily, with no need to do it manually.
What do I need to do?
Because it works just like any other program on Windows XP/Vista or Windows 7, downloading and installing the plug-in is simple -and it can synchronise with Outlook 2003, 2007 or 2010. You can download the plug-in from http://www.graphicmail.co.uk/downloads/outlooksync.zip
If this weren’t enough excitement for one email…….. you can also synchronise your Gmail or Hotmail contacts to your GraphicMail account.
How does it work ?
When you add a new contact or edit an existing one in Outlook or your Graphicmail Account, the other will be automatically updated to reflect the same changes. ( You will be able to synchronise all of your contacts in one sweep, but remember that recipients have to opt in to your email marketing emails, so it’s important to keep a separate email marketing contact list as well as your general contact list in Outlook.)
So, if you’ve been using Outlook to do your email marketing and you’ve decided to sign up with GraphicMail to achieve a more professional approach with your email campaigns, you can now convert your existing list into your GraphicMail account very easily, with no need to do it manually.
What do I need to do?
Because it works just like any other program on Windows XP/Vista or Windows 7, downloading and installing the plug-in is simple -and it can synchronise with Outlook 2003, 2007 or 2010. You can download the plug-in from http://www.graphicmail.co.uk/downloads/outlooksync.zip
If this weren’t enough excitement for one email…….. you can also synchronise your Gmail or Hotmail contacts to your GraphicMail account.
Tuesday, 23 November 2010
New Addressbook arriving on 25th November
Labels:
address book
,
datasets
,
interface changes
It may be thanksgiving in America on 25th November
but we are hoping you'll also be thankful for our changes to the
Addressbook that are due to go live on the same day.
With all the lists, datasets, addressbooks, contacts, records, segmentation etc it may be that it all gets confusing and some may lose track of what does what and where to upload what, where and how - and what is the difference between a mailing list and a dataset anyway??
Well we've decided to simplify the whole process and improve the look, feel and navigation of the addressbook
So what have we done? In a nutshell we have
simplified the way that the Mailing list and address books work. We've
combined them both into one section within your account. This new
section will be called "Lists and Contact" and you will be able to
manage all you mailing lists and subscriber details from this single
section within your account
We've also added a default dataset that will be extremely easy to use and will be pre-populated with the most commonly used fields, like Name, Job title, company etc. However if you are one of many advanced users you will still have the ability to tailor-make one or more datasets to your specific needs.
Why have we done it? To make it easier to mange, manipulate and navigate all your lists and contacts
What does it all mean? Mailing lists + address Book = "Lists and Contacts"
What do I need to do? Nothing!
When will I see these changes? Thursday 25th November
With all the lists, datasets, addressbooks, contacts, records, segmentation etc it may be that it all gets confusing and some may lose track of what does what and where to upload what, where and how - and what is the difference between a mailing list and a dataset anyway??
Well we've decided to simplify the whole process and improve the look, feel and navigation of the addressbook
We've also added a default dataset that will be extremely easy to use and will be pre-populated with the most commonly used fields, like Name, Job title, company etc. However if you are one of many advanced users you will still have the ability to tailor-make one or more datasets to your specific needs.
Why have we done it? To make it easier to mange, manipulate and navigate all your lists and contacts
What does it all mean? Mailing lists + address Book = "Lists and Contacts"
What do I need to do? Nothing!
When will I see these changes? Thursday 25th November
Nobody likes receiving Spam - especially at Christmas! Here's a gift from GraphicMail - Email Christmas templates and free credits
Labels:
christmas
,
double credits
,
Email Design
,
offer
,
promotion
Jeff realized the hard way that he should have gone with GraphicMail
Ready to unwrap?
Grab the sensational images!
Our designer Elves have been busy again in
the run up to this Festive season and have created a complementary
template especially for our GraphicMail clients. What could be better
than a free template? The fact that it also comes with a range of custom
images. So, you select the template and then get to choose which of
our seasonal images you’d like to insert in the image placeholders. You
can take a sneaky peek at all the available images here.
Simply copy the code or the URL of the image and insert it into the template. How simple is that?.
If you are a new user of GraphicMail we'd like to give you a little something special this festive season, Sorry there's no virtual mince pies and sherry but how about...
Simply copy the code or the URL of the image and insert it into the template. How simple is that?.
If you are a new user of GraphicMail we'd like to give you a little something special this festive season, Sorry there's no virtual mince pies and sherry but how about...
Double credits this season!
GraphicMail trial users get double credits
if they upgrade to a subscription account by 24 December 2010.* So if
you are considering signing up with one of the World's Leading
newsletter software packages now is the time to do it! Check out our subscription options and low cost pricing.
*This offer is not valid for trial users who sign up to a Reseller or Corporate account and only valid when paid by credit card.
*This offer is not valid for trial users who sign up to a Reseller or Corporate account and only valid when paid by credit card.
Wednesday, 22 September 2010
Check out these improvements to your Graphicmail Interface
Labels:
graphicmail features
,
interface changes
,
new
Tomorrow,
if you visit your Graphicmail Dashboard ( User Interface ) you'll see
that it's a bit more user-friendly! Yes, without any change to the
functionality of the application, we’ve changed the design and menu
structure and on the way, added a few useful features.
So What’s going to change?
Well, for a start, the new Tips section; when selected, this displays tips relating to the particular section of your account that you're navigating
So What’s going to change?
Well, for a start, the new Tips section; when selected, this displays tips relating to the particular section of your account that you're navigating
Another useful tool is our new Account dropdown.
When you click on the dropdown menu you’ll see a display of how many credits are left in your account and when they expire. If you're getting low, you can simply click on the 'Buy More' button and in seconds your send credits are topped-up.
Hope you enjoy these time-saving improvements!
Have any questions? Feedback? Email us at info@graphicmail.co.uk
Wednesday, 8 September 2010
Gmail’s Priority Inbox – how this is going to affect your email marketing
Labels:
advice
,
Best Practice
,
Gmail
As a regular user of email, you will, by now be aware of Gmail’s new Priority Inbox feature.
Still
in its BETA phase, but available to all Gmail users, it automatically
sorts your inbox into (1) Important emails and (2) everything else. A
‘service’ which has been met with mixed reviews by email marketers.
Whilst my own thoughts were pretty negative at the start, I have done
some checking within the industry and am beginning to see the positive
side. Mainly it will separate the wheat from the chaff and make it
easier to focus on quality client leads and client-relationships.
So, how do you proceed to ensure that you gain from the process?
1) Emails, by their very nature, are direct and personal, which is why it is the ‘weapon of choice’ for building customer relationships. The benefit of a priority inbox means that for those of your customers who interact with you and your brand campaigns, your emails will be given a higher ranking, further enhancing their trust of your brand in their inbox.
2) The long term effect being that Generic messages simply will not get through which makes it even more important that the content of your newsletter is personalised and relevant to your readers and loaded with value. Use the available tools to test, segment your lists and to set up autoresponders for your campaigns.
3) The Gmail subscribers who are recipients of your email will need to be able to identify your emails very easily if you want them to keep opening. So your business name and/or brand will have to be highly conspicuous in the ‘from’ name, the subject line or the pre-header. That will ensure that, if you’re campaigns are already successful your Gmail subscribers will be quickly aware if your emails are being marked down and re-set you as an important sender.
4) You will need to concentrate some effort to ensure regular response from your subscribers to prevent your emails from slipping into obscurity. Encourage them constantly to interact and engage with your email newsletters. Make sure that all of your emails carry a very clear call to action, preferably one that encourages engagement, such as clicking a link, replying, or submitting a comment.
Put simply, Gmail’s priority inbox has changed the email marketing landscape, whilst the benefits of email marketing remain as solid as ever. It will force you to be better at email marketing which should reward you with an even greater ROI as quality campaigns will be the ones that bubble to the top of Gmail inboxes.
So, how do you proceed to ensure that you gain from the process?
1) Emails, by their very nature, are direct and personal, which is why it is the ‘weapon of choice’ for building customer relationships. The benefit of a priority inbox means that for those of your customers who interact with you and your brand campaigns, your emails will be given a higher ranking, further enhancing their trust of your brand in their inbox.
2) The long term effect being that Generic messages simply will not get through which makes it even more important that the content of your newsletter is personalised and relevant to your readers and loaded with value. Use the available tools to test, segment your lists and to set up autoresponders for your campaigns.
3) The Gmail subscribers who are recipients of your email will need to be able to identify your emails very easily if you want them to keep opening. So your business name and/or brand will have to be highly conspicuous in the ‘from’ name, the subject line or the pre-header. That will ensure that, if you’re campaigns are already successful your Gmail subscribers will be quickly aware if your emails are being marked down and re-set you as an important sender.
4) You will need to concentrate some effort to ensure regular response from your subscribers to prevent your emails from slipping into obscurity. Encourage them constantly to interact and engage with your email newsletters. Make sure that all of your emails carry a very clear call to action, preferably one that encourages engagement, such as clicking a link, replying, or submitting a comment.
Put simply, Gmail’s priority inbox has changed the email marketing landscape, whilst the benefits of email marketing remain as solid as ever. It will force you to be better at email marketing which should reward you with an even greater ROI as quality campaigns will be the ones that bubble to the top of Gmail inboxes.
Thursday, 2 September 2010
Inbox Preview – view your newsletters in various email clients before you send them
Labels:
Best Practice
,
graphicmail features
,
interface changes
,
new
We welcome the BETA version of our Inbox Preview.
With
such a wide range of email programs to choose (Outlook 2007, Hotmail,
Gmail, Yahoo, etc.) - do you know if they render your campaigns
correctly ? To add to that list, what about all the range of
smartphones and the iPad? Well, to test this question, you could have
setup a myriad of email accounts and servers to check this for yourself.
You could go to the expense of buying a bundle of smartphones and an
iPad too Alternatively, you can now click a button in GraphicMail and
all the testing will be done for you. How? Well, we have just launched a
BETA version Inbox Preview tool !
Introductory Offer
To help you to test it – we are giving you your first 3 tests free of charge!
Once you decide which bundle suits your best for you – we offer them in 10, 25, 50 and 100. So if you’re need is to preview 10 newsletters, you simply buy a bundle of 10, if you want to preview 100, get a bundle of 100 and so on – it all depends on what you want ; how often you send and how many tests you want to run.
Once you decide which bundle suits your best for you – we offer them in 10, 25, 50 and 100. So if you’re need is to preview 10 newsletters, you simply buy a bundle of 10, if you want to preview 100, get a bundle of 100 and so on – it all depends on what you want ; how often you send and how many tests you want to run.
Get a bundle of
• 10 for £10
• 25 for £23.75 (5% discount)
• 50 for £40 (10% discount)
• 100 for £80 (20% discount)
These
rates are once off – meaning that you only buy the amount of previews
that you need, then, if you want to test more newsletters at a later
date, you just buy the additional bundle from within your account ; 10,
25, 50 or 100. You will very quickly agree that this is the best
investment that you can make for your email marketing campaign.
As the saying goes……..”You only get one chance to make a first impression”– so use the Inbox Preview to make sure all of your subscribers get an impressive newsletter.
As the saying goes……..”You only get one chance to make a first impression”– so use the Inbox Preview to make sure all of your subscribers get an impressive newsletter.
How does Inbox Preview work?
It couldn't be more simple...
1) Go to “newsletters” in your GM account, then the ‘Inbox Preview’ menu
2) Select the email that you want to run your test on. (It will take a few minutes to run the test, as GraphicMail sends emails and takes snapshots of the inboxes for you.)
3) View the thumbnails of the various email clients. (To view in greater detail, just click on the thumbnail. This will allow you to see if any changes are needed.)
4) Make the necessary changes and test again.
2) Select the email that you want to run your test on. (It will take a few minutes to run the test, as GraphicMail sends emails and takes snapshots of the inboxes for you.)
3) View the thumbnails of the various email clients. (To view in greater detail, just click on the thumbnail. This will allow you to see if any changes are needed.)
4) Make the necessary changes and test again.
Remember this tool is there to help you to save time on testing your emails, but you are responsible for fixing them. We do offer troubleshooting services or we can build templates for you, but this is not included in subscription costs.
Any questions? Comments? Issues? Contact our support team at info@graphicmail.co.uk
Wednesday, 11 August 2010
New Help Centre voting icons
Labels:
advice
,
assistance
,
FAQ
,
feedback
,
support
Whether
you are new to email marketing or are a seasoned pro, GraphicMail will
have, at some point, been a new piece of software to you and there were
no doubt questions you had about how something in your GraphicMail
account worked, or how to increase proficiency. It's common, and
totally understandable when you’re working in a technical application
with as many features as ours.
When you're not sure about something in GraphicMail the easiest way to rectify the potential problem is to visit our Help Center. The Help Center covers a range of topics and categories, offering step-by-step instructions on how to solve some frequently asked questions. We offer help documents, video tutorials and FAQs.
When you're not sure about something in GraphicMail the easiest way to rectify the potential problem is to visit our Help Center. The Help Center covers a range of topics and categories, offering step-by-step instructions on how to solve some frequently asked questions. We offer help documents, video tutorials and FAQs.
However,
although we try to make these answer ALL your questions and direct you
to the answer quickly and effiently we’re not sure how helpful the
answers are to you as an individual user. So to solve this issue, and to
assit all our users with any future issues or questions that may arise,
we need your feedback so we can continuously improve on our help
centre.
Tuesday, 10 August 2010
Back to school was never so easy
Labels:
Email Design
,
email marketing
,
free templates
Kick off the new school year with the right gear:
our FREE back to basics email marketing guide AND…
New back to school templates!
These are perfect for all your back to school promotional mailings. Simply log into your account and find them in our template library.
Happy mailing!
our FREE back to basics email marketing guide AND…
New back to school templates!
These are perfect for all your back to school promotional mailings. Simply log into your account and find them in our template library.
Happy mailing!
Free Back to Basics email marketing Primer
Labels:
advice
,
Best Practice
,
Email Design
,
graphicmail features
To kickstart your email marketing for the new school year we’ve included our FREE back to school email marketing primer.
Swot up on the basics for a successful email marketing campaign – it
includes how to increase your mailing list, design a top-marks
newsletter and your test cheat sheet, we’ve even included tips to boost
your campaign.
It’s easy to follow and childs-play to implement – download your free Back To School Email Marketing Primer here.
It’s easy to follow and childs-play to implement – download your free Back To School Email Marketing Primer here.
Friday, 4 June 2010
Target your subscribers using TriggerMail and get a greater ROI
Labels:
advice
,
autoresponders
,
return on investment
,
roi
,
segmentation
,
targeting
,
triggermail
A few months have gone by since our 6-part series of blogs highlighting the launch of our TriggerMail feature and our recent case study about the benefits available, I thought that we should maybe take a look at the usefulness of autoresponders (AKA TriggerMails).
If you’re unsure what TriggerMails are, checkout our video or the blog series.
If you’re unsure what TriggerMails are, checkout our video or the blog series.
The
benefits of sending automated emails are very clear; timesaving,
strengthening customer relationships with such things as an annual
‘Happy Birthday’, but there is something else which was shared with you
in our segmentation blog article ; Triggered (or Prompted) emails provide a way to target your readers – much the same as segmentation.
So, where do I start ?
If
you’ve decided to give it a try, and I strongly recommend that you do,
begin by setting up a couple of triggers; if you’ve captured the dates
of birth for your subscribers, simply setup an email to be sent to them
say, 3 or 4 days beforehand giving a list of items that you will happily
discount during the week in which their birthday falls. It is a fact
that Birthday email messages generate a very good response and
conversion-to-sales ratio.
Basically
you are able to integrate your segmentation and TriggerMails, allowing
you to monitor a customer’s past purchases, their account anniversary,
any reviews that they may have posted on your site, payment reminders,
even their wedding anniversaries and then set TriggerMail to
automatically send them an email relevant to that occasion. It can be
anything from congratulations and best wishes, to product information or
discounts on something they might find of interest.
If
the response from your subscribers is positive you can always find more
ways of integrating evermore TriggerMails into your campaigns.
What reason would I have to set these TriggerMails?
What reason would I have to set these TriggerMails?
Think
of this as just another way for contacting your customers and develop
the relationship between them and your brand, it tells them that you
understand them and their interests. The result is that you email them
more often and, because your emails have more relevance, they respond in
a more relevant manner.
Isn’t this likely to result in my readers thinking that I’m bombarding them?
No,
although you will be keeping in touch with more frequency, it’s a more
relevant contact and these contacts are prompted by your subscriber’s
response to a date or product specifically relating to them. Not all the
contacts in your list will have received the email, as you only sent
the emails to small proportions of your list. Also, because these
emails are more targeted, the result will be a greater ROI than your
untargeted bulk email sends.
But doesn’t this mean that I should stop sending out mass emails and newsletters?
Of
course not! Bulk sending your newsletter is the way to spread your
message and to gather more subscribers. After all, it is the one that
all your subscribers initially signed up to receive. Using TriggerMail
is your way of refining those relationships more and pushing potential
customers into becoming actual purchasing customers, or existing
customers to make further purchases. Autoresponders are there to
complement your email campaigns by balancing your bulk broadcast emails
with relevant, targeted emails sent to a specific, small portion of your
subscribers and, because they’re automated it releases you to focus on
other things – be it a reviving cup of tea or an in-depth promotional
strategy.
Put simply, TriggerMails added to your campaigns help you to send the right message at the right time to spur your subscribers to action.
Put simply, TriggerMails added to your campaigns help you to send the right message at the right time to spur your subscribers to action.
Thursday, 3 June 2010
What is the best time to send your newsletters?
Labels:
advice
,
Best Practice
,
delivery time
,
FAQ
,
mistakes
One
of the most-often repeated questions I get is “ What is the prime
sending time for my email newsletters; Monday? Wednesday? Friday? ”
I suppose the REAL question is………… is there a ‘BEST’ time ?
One of the most important components in your email marketing campaign is controlled by your subscribers – the part where they DO or DON’T open your email. So much of your time and effort has been put into the creation of your a newsletter – the images, text, layout, the research for information and yet, all of that could be valueless if the recipient just simply deletes it, or dismisses it as junk.
One of the most important components in your email marketing campaign is controlled by your subscribers – the part where they DO or DON’T open your email. So much of your time and effort has been put into the creation of your a newsletter – the images, text, layout, the research for information and yet, all of that could be valueless if the recipient just simply deletes it, or dismisses it as junk.
This is the time to consider timing your sends! Give some thought to what your subscribers would be doing on your scheduled send days. Will they be have the time to open and read your email?
Many
studies have shown that the most beneficial days to send are the middle
of the week, mainly because this tends to be the busiest, so it would
follow that your email has the most possibility of being opened and
reacted to on those days. This is an observation but not a rule.
Monday
and Friday should also be in your thoughts. As far as Monday goes, with
plenty of week-ahead planning meetings, colleague catch-ups etc., it’s
best to plan your email to arrive in the afternoon so that your
subscribers have more time to read it.
Friday being a day when business people receive less email and, if they are able, they may invoke the ‘Poet’s Day’ rule (Push Off Early, Tomorrow’s Saturday) so send your message earlier in the day – or later if your mailings are B2C and you expect them to read it at home in the evening or over the weekend. So, what about the weekend? This is a bit more risky and you should only send if your stats have shown that sending (maybe to selected segments) at this time gives you a good response. If they do not show as active, it may be that they have been received and not checked and then lost in the Monday Mass of emails and possibly consigned, along with most of them, into the recycle bin.
As
you can see from this, each day has its own benefits and disadvantages.
The rule here is Research and feedback (check reports &
statistics). Experimentation is acceptable and could be considered part
of the research. It’s important that you send to suit your subscribers
in preference to your own preferred schedule.
Monday, 31 May 2010
Use of segmentation increases email marketing revenue by 322%
Labels:
Best Practice
,
email marketing
,
marketing industry
I recently posted a blog article
about subscriber segmentation and how, using it thoughtfully can
greatly benefit your email campaigns. I have since come across this
excellent case study on Marketing Sherpa. It highlights how
TicketsNow.com, a US company specialising in online ticket sales, has
increased their email marketing revenues by 322% -directly through segmentation!
The case study describes how the company changed their email marketing
strategy to draw their customers more closely to the brand with the aim
of optimising those of its subscriber/ customers with a history of being
bigger spenders.
They
segmented their customers by spending habits and their interests,
making them able to aim the newsletter in a much more focused way.
They
also introduced three customer loyalty programs: Named ‘Preferred
Customer Clubs’; customers gained automatic membership dependant on
their annual spending $1,000+, $3,000+ or $8,000+. Upon gaining
membership they were sent consumer incentive offers such as free
shipping or use of an exclusive customer support line. Members of these
clubs received emails which were directly targeted to their membership
level and even past click-throughs. In addition, they received more
personalised emails reminding them of upcoming events that they had
purchased tickets for, plus extra, related information, such as
discounts available from restaurants close to the event. Following each
event they sent out an email with reviews from other customers and
offering the chance to submit their own revue, giving their customers
the ability to not only engage with the brand on a more social level,
but also to become part of a ‘community’ of loyal customers who
interacted with each other with individual recommendations and reviews.
So,
what began as a segmentation exercise resulted with enviable
customer-relationships and loyal & interacting customers – plus that
322% increase in sales conversions! All achieved through their email
marketing campaign and, as if that weren’t enough, their subscriber list
grew by 87% and their complaint and unsubscribe rates fell too.
Mark
Hodes, Senior Vice President of Customer Marketing for TicketsNow.com,
said of the campaign: "I think it proves that more (targeted) email can
only help keep people engaged and keep them more active as repeat
customers.”
When it comes to the subjects of segmentation and targeted email
marketing, campaign stands out as a perfect example of how to put it
into practice. Although it may sound intricate, all the tools to
achieve this are sitting in your Graphicmail account just waiting to be
used. Just refer to my previous article for the 1st
step – subscriber segmentation which shows you how to customise your
subscription form and set the automated subscriber segmentation tool.
Then, using TriggerMail you can setup event reminders such as those sent out from TicketsNow.com.
With
a little thought you can combine both TriggerMail & segmentation to
engage your customers within a campaign which they feel a part of and
is relevant to them, making them more likely to respond to it
Friday, 28 May 2010
Email marketing gets twice the conversions of social media
Labels:
email marketing
,
marketing industry
,
social networking
,
socialmedia
Remember the blog article
that I posted about the power of social media? Well maybe, as a result
of that and the speed at which social media has grown in the online
marketing world; you’re wondering ‘If that can be accomplished with just
Facebook and Twitter, why do I need email Marketing?’
eMarketer recently reported that social media usage is on the increase and the new Marketing opportunities that are presented go a long way to explaining the attraction of Social Marketing. That said, it was less than a month ago when Marketing Sherpa’s weekly chart was indicating that marketers are still impressed by email marketing and believe it to be as rewarding as ever. Which begs the question; ‘Which is the most effective?’
Some find that it’s not the easiest question to answer, but this case study by MarketingVox, illustrates perfectly the effective differences between email and social media marketing.
Email marketing has the ability to convert twice as many sales as social media.
Email marketing has the ability to convert twice as many sales as social media.
When
all is said and done, the benefits gained from marketing a healthy
brand and keeping it highly visible and well-recognised across all
marketing channels, are not as useful as converting that interest into
sales – that, after all, is where the money is!
How do they compare?
Mary
Spio is a partner in Gen2Media, an agency in the music industry working
with such big names as John Mayer and The Black Eyed Peas. She studied
two of their music artists, (she referred to them as A and B, so I’ll
stay with that). She compared their different marketing approaches and
how that effected their individual sales.
Artist
A, got over 20 million views on the social network, YouTube - but
showed no real interest in email marketing campaigns. Artist B began by
implementing an email campaign to enable direct contact with fans.
Using a list of 2 million subscribers he launched a personalised email
campaign over a full weekend which offered his subscribers exclusive
tracks through iTunes. In just those two days his email campaign raised
$ 700,000.
When
it is properly managed, Social media is a fantastic tool for attracting
an audience of existing and potential customers to your brand but it is
a mass-communication tool. Yes, it’s also true that email is a
mass-communication tool, but it is more personal! With email you take
your communication to an individual follower, addressing them by name
and through their own inbox.
Which
is the winning strategy? As a firm believer in ‘Having your cake and
eating it’, I prefer to have the best of both worlds. The art is in
knowing the strengths and weaknesses of each tool and using them so that
they complement each other.
As highlighted by this case study, it’s great to broaden your reach using social media but we must never lose sight of the fact that consumers respond much better when they are treated as individuals.
With email marketing you can target
your subscribers individually, creating the foundation to build your
own loyal customer base. Not to mention, converting those sales.
Wednesday, 26 May 2010
We may be Football Crazy & Football mad but we're also newsletter clever
Labels:
Email Design
,
football
,
free templates
,
world cup
Whether
you are a casual follower or an ardent fan, you cannot fail to be aware
of the forthcoming WORLD CUP in South Africa. That also goes for your
readers and you know us, ever on the ball ( yes, that pun WAS intended )
so we asked our Design Team to join our enthusiasm and create some
themed templates to help us out – see below……..
So kick-off ( ! ) your past designs and set your goal ( oops, there we go again ) to engage your readers in your own version of soccer fever.
So kick-off ( ! ) your past designs and set your goal ( oops, there we go again ) to engage your readers in your own version of soccer fever.
Thursday, 20 May 2010
Social share: Integrating your social & email marketing
Labels:
advice
,
email marketing
,
facebook
,
graphicmail features
,
newsletter
,
socialmedia
,
twitter
Are
you one of the many Graphicmail users who diligently follow the links
to our blog that we post on Twitter and Facebook? If you are, you may
have already seen the blog article about the online revolution. If not, it’s worth checking out as is this video
which contains some social media statistics that you may find
interesting. It’s becoming more obvious every day that email is
recognized as the top performing direct and online marketing channel
so, it makes sense that combining email and social media is going to
have a massive impact and to help with this we have released a new way
to compliment them both.
Social share
This
tool lets you publish your email newsletter straight to your Twitter
account. The newsletter title together with a link to your full
newsletter will then automatically appear as a tweet – with no manual
intervention form you!
As Twitter each Tweet to 140 characters, you will be delighted to hear that The Graphicmail Development Team have created another helpful gadget called GMtiny which is our very own URL abbreviator – it shortens your newsletter link, reducing that overlong and unsightly URL to just a few characters. How handy is that?
Not content with that, we have already begun work to extend this feature so that you will be able to publish across even more social networks. Next one; Facebook! Keep watching, we’ll notify you when this happens.
But, if you’re not already involved, don’t wait for that, start now by using our new social share tool to enhance your brand exposure online. Expand your subscriber audience and give your sales a boost by engaging more fully with these potential customers.
And, don’t forget – Graphicmail is also on Facebook and Twitter. Go there now, be a friend and follow us. We really enjoy reading about what our followers are doing.
Whilst you’re at it, check out the Graphicmail tools which you can use to insert social widgets in your footer – then, after your newsletter goes, check the social widget statistics section in your reports.
Social share
As Twitter each Tweet to 140 characters, you will be delighted to hear that The Graphicmail Development Team have created another helpful gadget called GMtiny which is our very own URL abbreviator – it shortens your newsletter link, reducing that overlong and unsightly URL to just a few characters. How handy is that?
Not content with that, we have already begun work to extend this feature so that you will be able to publish across even more social networks. Next one; Facebook! Keep watching, we’ll notify you when this happens.
But, if you’re not already involved, don’t wait for that, start now by using our new social share tool to enhance your brand exposure online. Expand your subscriber audience and give your sales a boost by engaging more fully with these potential customers.
And, don’t forget – Graphicmail is also on Facebook and Twitter. Go there now, be a friend and follow us. We really enjoy reading about what our followers are doing.
Whilst you’re at it, check out the Graphicmail tools which you can use to insert social widgets in your footer – then, after your newsletter goes, check the social widget statistics section in your reports.
Wednesday, 19 May 2010
Why should you integrate your email with social media
Labels:
advice
,
reporting
,
social networking
,
socialmedia
,
tips
For
those of you still unaware or unconvinced about the benefits of Social
Media, here’s a really good article by Chris Moerdyk of BizCommunity
reviewing Erik Qualman’s book; Socialnomics.
Chris does an excellent job of summarising many of the important
aspects regarding the development of social media, some of which will
maybe make you consider, as they did me………………..
Social search has grown to become the new online phenomenon: Search engines are now giving preference to companies based on their social mentions. In Qualman’s opinion we will not, in future search for products or services as they will find us using social media.
But how does this link with email marketing?
Graphicmail have for some time now, been providing a variety of ways to integrate your email marketing with social media because we want to help you and your business to be prepared for each new wave of online expansion. Last year we provided social widgets for your email footer, allowing your subscribers to share your newsletters through their social network accounts. Now we’ve added a new social widget reporting tool allowing you to track those who shared what with who and through which network they shared it. Finally, we released our new social share feature in our newsletter
Read More
If
Facebook gets more traffic every week in the US than Google - and
YouTube has become the second largest online search engine, then it’s
more likely that your customers will locate the product they are seeking
on a social site like Facebook or YouTube than they will on Google. Which begs the question………..” What happens if they can’t find your product when they are searching their social media? ”
Social
media is the online version of what has traditionally been referred to
as ‘word-of-mouth’ : Qualman states that, “whilst 78% of consumers trust
recommendations from their peers, only 14% place their trust in
advertisements”. So what happens when your peers aren’t recommending you through their new word-of-mouth (social media)? Social search has grown to become the new online phenomenon: Search engines are now giving preference to companies based on their social mentions. In Qualman’s opinion we will not, in future search for products or services as they will find us using social media.
But how does this link with email marketing?
Graphicmail have for some time now, been providing a variety of ways to integrate your email marketing with social media because we want to help you and your business to be prepared for each new wave of online expansion. Last year we provided social widgets for your email footer, allowing your subscribers to share your newsletters through their social network accounts. Now we’ve added a new social widget reporting tool allowing you to track those who shared what with who and through which network they shared it. Finally, we released our new social share feature in our newsletter
Thursday, 13 May 2010
Gmail recently changed the way they interpret the code for displaying images
Labels:
advice
,
Best Practice
,
Email Design
,
fixes
,
Gmail
,
images
Why does this matter?
It matters because it causes unwanted spaces to be added to your email marketing messages potentially breaking the layout of your HTML. Code that used to render perfectly may now render incorrectly.
It matters because it causes unwanted spaces to be added to your email marketing messages potentially breaking the layout of your HTML. Code that used to render perfectly may now render incorrectly.
The
change appears to be affecting email marketing messages in Gmail
webmail when viewed in Firefox, Opera, Chrome and Safari. However it
does not appear to have any effect on HTML emails in Gmail webmail
viewed in Internet Explorer.
The solution
This issue is similar to a long-standing Hotmail bug. However, although you can fix this by adding ” img {display:block} ” at the top of your email marketing messages in Hotmail, Gmail ignores this code so that fix will not work.
This issue is similar to a long-standing Hotmail bug. However, although you can fix this by adding ” img {display:block} ” at the top of your email marketing messages in Hotmail, Gmail ignores this code so that fix will not work.
To
ensure your HTML emails render the way they should in Gmail the
following needs to be added to every image tag in your email marketing
messages: ” <img style=”display:block” src= ”
There
is one exception: when you are displaying images directly alongside
text, such as when you are wrapping text or putting images inside
paragraphs.
Don’t forget your triggered and transactional messages
The change will not just affect new messages you create, it will also affect any triggered or transactional email templates you have already set up
The change will not just affect new messages you create, it will also affect any triggered or transactional email templates you have already set up
Find out who has forwarded your eNewsletter using Facebook, Twitter etc
Labels:
advice
,
email marketing
,
facebook
,
footer
,
graphicmail features
,
socialmedia
We’ve added to our reporting tools so you can now see reports on your Social Widgets activity
As you are by now aware, you can add social widgets to your email footer and link to social networks so your subscribers can now share your newsletter with their friends and connections using their own social profile – just by clicking on the widget.
So what’s in the social widget report?
The decision by your subscribers to share your newsletter within their profile on any of the social networks means that all of their friends and followers can view it too. This means of course that your newsletter and your brand are gaining exposure within an entirely new contacts network.
The report tells you the number of your subscribers who have clicked the widgets to share your newsletter, who they shared with and which network it was – providing you with an easy way to track the level of exposure that your campaigns are getting through social media and this media gets more and more in the spotlight, it is definitely one ‘bandwagon’ to climb aboard.
After you do, let us know your thoughts
As you are by now aware, you can add social widgets to your email footer and link to social networks so your subscribers can now share your newsletter with their friends and connections using their own social profile – just by clicking on the widget.
So what’s in the social widget report?
The decision by your subscribers to share your newsletter within their profile on any of the social networks means that all of their friends and followers can view it too. This means of course that your newsletter and your brand are gaining exposure within an entirely new contacts network.
The report tells you the number of your subscribers who have clicked the widgets to share your newsletter, who they shared with and which network it was – providing you with an easy way to track the level of exposure that your campaigns are getting through social media and this media gets more and more in the spotlight, it is definitely one ‘bandwagon’ to climb aboard.
After you do, let us know your thoughts
Tuesday, 11 May 2010
Best advice in acquiring your list of email addresses
Labels:
acquistion
,
address book
,
advice
,
Best Practice
,
email marketing
,
first steps
,
targeting
One
of the main factors in achieving a positive result from your email
marketing campaigns is the quality of your mailing list. So the art is
to acquire the email addresses of those people who will consider your
email to be of value. This “Opt-in” list will, of course, increase your
response rate which enhances your reputation and prevents you being
labeled as a spammer and, having a positive reputation is a sure pathway
to increased business. The alternative, buying an “Opt-out” list which
is comprised of people who receive a mailshot which they have not asked
for with the ‘excuse’ that if it is unwanted they can “Opt-out” meaning
they unsubscribe. As users of this “Scattergun (let’s pull the trigger
and see if we hit something) Approach” have discovered; the vast
majority of recipients DO NOT want to receive the message, the
recipient’s ISP is NOT IMPRESSED and the sender waits an indeterminate
period in the misplaced hope that some of those ‘hits’ will respond by
buying ‘something……… anything ! ’.
So how do you go about complying with “Best practice” ?
First - spamming should be looked upon in a similar way to theft because, if someone gets an email that they have not opted-in to receive, this amounts to their email address having been ‘stolen’. As someone who is sending marketing emails, it makes sense to have a working knowledge of international spam laws – this, together with knowledge of local legislation helps to maintain your credibility. Whilst some countries legally require ‘Affirmative Consent’, in the USA the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 demands that all recipients have given their Express Consent to receive the message. According to this act, all bulk emails are considered to be SPAM when containing material which may be offensive to the recipient, it displays no unsubscribe option, the [from] address is not visible or not correct, has a subject line which is misleading or the recipient email address has been stolen from other websites or online locations.
Second - It would be pointless to spend hours creating an email newsletter without a list to send to which makes it essential to create your own ‘houselist’. The very best and safest way to gather new subscribers is to create a signup form and direct people to it. It is very acceptable to incentivise this, which can be done very cost effectively if you offer one of your own products or services which has a much lower cost to high retail value. It is recommended that you go for the double opt-in ( DOI ) process. This means that the subscription application will generate a confirmation request email which they need to click to activate their subscription and by following this simple system you will avoid falling foul of the ISPs. Another good idea is to add a { signup to our newsletter } link in the email signature of everyone in your Company, also have it printed on the bottom of your quotes and invoices and posted to a company blog. Why not collect email addresses over the phone to add them as subscribers ? If you do this, put a column in the data specifying the date, time and who took their details, in case you need to provide the “ OPT-IN “ proof
Third – as more than 80 percent of participants prefer to do business with organisations that use the opt-in, permission-based system to send them emails it is essential to provide a clear link to the privacy policy in your signup form. This optimization can be further enhanced by use of a ‘thankyou’ page or a pop-up displayed to new subscribers – it can also be used to welcome them and point them toward the newest release or tell them when to expect their first email / newsletter. If you are using double opt-in, this page can supply the link to click and confirm their subscription and once subscribed you can direct these confirmed subscribers to a ‘confirmed page’ to see incentives such as a promo-code, corporate gifts and vouchers.
What to avoid when gathering email addresses - 5 DON'Ts
1 – Don't opt-in to the opt-out approach
Financial pressures can convince otherwise law abiding marketers to consider sending bulk emails to those who have not agreed to receiving emails from them. This is a big mistake as the emails are usually not relevant or valuable to the recipient. Big lists do not mean good lists. The problems that this ‘opt-out process’ causes are not immediately obvious but they can have a very long-term detrimental effect on your company’s brand and deliverability. Recipients of emails that they have not agreed to may not make their complaint directly to the sender but may make their complaint directly to their ISP or, even their social network; Facebook and Twitter are great platforms for posting such complaints.
2 - Don't buy lists of email addresses
The list you are intending to buy may have been collected from a Market Research Exercise, from financial institutions or even obtained from websites by ‘automated crawlers’. These bought-in lists most often result in SPAM complaints which damage your reputation with both the ISPs and prospective clients. Email marketing is all about building up long-term relationships not just one blast, so it’s imperative that you have the patience to build up a quality list.
3 – Don’t overlook those non-active addresses
It’s after your houselist is compiled and you have sent out your first couple of campaigns that the real fun of tracking begins! As you check your reports & statistics you will notice a number of recipients who haven’t ‘joined in’– no interaction; no purchasing, no opens, no clicks. Doing this task regularly will highlight those in your list who haven’t taken any action over a long period, so it’s important to be aware of them and to take action; it’s important that your list is maintained and kept clean as some of the older, inactive ones may lead to blocking or filtering by ISPs, so best to act before you are labeled a Spammer. In a recent survey by the Messaging Anti-abuse Working Group, 22% of users admit that emails that they once asked for but no longer want, they now treat as Spam. Your action can be to either remove them or start some retention marketing which could result in reactivating them, so send them a quality ‘special offer’, a survey or a specially targeted message. Maybe don’t email them as often and spend a bit more time personalising the content for that particular audience. The secret is to segment your database so that you can easily contact active and/or inactive addresses as required.
4 – Don't expect instant results
Your list is comprised of subscribers who have agreed that they want to hear from you but don’t expect a flood of activity from day one! Your list is not a target for a major sales drive, it will need to be tested constantly to cement your customer’s loyalty to your brand. Seek advice from experts, pay attention to what your peers have to say and check what the competition is doing. Sending a generic message could give a response of 0.3% whereas a well thought-out message sent to a highly-targeted, segmented niche list could score in the region of 50%.
5 – Don't separate your email campaign from your overall marketing strategy
When considering growing your database and online community it’s best to integrate your email campaign within your overall marketing strategy. Pull together all the alternative marketing opportunities; press releases, competitions, event sponsorship and attending trade shows.
In conclusion; it is always worth remembering that it is more costly to acquire new customers than it is to look after the existing ones. It always makes sense, and much more so in the current economic climate, to encourage your existing customers to remain loyal to your brand
So how do you go about complying with “Best practice” ?
First - spamming should be looked upon in a similar way to theft because, if someone gets an email that they have not opted-in to receive, this amounts to their email address having been ‘stolen’. As someone who is sending marketing emails, it makes sense to have a working knowledge of international spam laws – this, together with knowledge of local legislation helps to maintain your credibility. Whilst some countries legally require ‘Affirmative Consent’, in the USA the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 demands that all recipients have given their Express Consent to receive the message. According to this act, all bulk emails are considered to be SPAM when containing material which may be offensive to the recipient, it displays no unsubscribe option, the [from] address is not visible or not correct, has a subject line which is misleading or the recipient email address has been stolen from other websites or online locations.
Second - It would be pointless to spend hours creating an email newsletter without a list to send to which makes it essential to create your own ‘houselist’. The very best and safest way to gather new subscribers is to create a signup form and direct people to it. It is very acceptable to incentivise this, which can be done very cost effectively if you offer one of your own products or services which has a much lower cost to high retail value. It is recommended that you go for the double opt-in ( DOI ) process. This means that the subscription application will generate a confirmation request email which they need to click to activate their subscription and by following this simple system you will avoid falling foul of the ISPs. Another good idea is to add a { signup to our newsletter } link in the email signature of everyone in your Company, also have it printed on the bottom of your quotes and invoices and posted to a company blog. Why not collect email addresses over the phone to add them as subscribers ? If you do this, put a column in the data specifying the date, time and who took their details, in case you need to provide the “ OPT-IN “ proof
Third – as more than 80 percent of participants prefer to do business with organisations that use the opt-in, permission-based system to send them emails it is essential to provide a clear link to the privacy policy in your signup form. This optimization can be further enhanced by use of a ‘thankyou’ page or a pop-up displayed to new subscribers – it can also be used to welcome them and point them toward the newest release or tell them when to expect their first email / newsletter. If you are using double opt-in, this page can supply the link to click and confirm their subscription and once subscribed you can direct these confirmed subscribers to a ‘confirmed page’ to see incentives such as a promo-code, corporate gifts and vouchers.
What to avoid when gathering email addresses - 5 DON'Ts
1 – Don't opt-in to the opt-out approach
Financial pressures can convince otherwise law abiding marketers to consider sending bulk emails to those who have not agreed to receiving emails from them. This is a big mistake as the emails are usually not relevant or valuable to the recipient. Big lists do not mean good lists. The problems that this ‘opt-out process’ causes are not immediately obvious but they can have a very long-term detrimental effect on your company’s brand and deliverability. Recipients of emails that they have not agreed to may not make their complaint directly to the sender but may make their complaint directly to their ISP or, even their social network; Facebook and Twitter are great platforms for posting such complaints.
2 - Don't buy lists of email addresses
The list you are intending to buy may have been collected from a Market Research Exercise, from financial institutions or even obtained from websites by ‘automated crawlers’. These bought-in lists most often result in SPAM complaints which damage your reputation with both the ISPs and prospective clients. Email marketing is all about building up long-term relationships not just one blast, so it’s imperative that you have the patience to build up a quality list.
3 – Don’t overlook those non-active addresses
It’s after your houselist is compiled and you have sent out your first couple of campaigns that the real fun of tracking begins! As you check your reports & statistics you will notice a number of recipients who haven’t ‘joined in’– no interaction; no purchasing, no opens, no clicks. Doing this task regularly will highlight those in your list who haven’t taken any action over a long period, so it’s important to be aware of them and to take action; it’s important that your list is maintained and kept clean as some of the older, inactive ones may lead to blocking or filtering by ISPs, so best to act before you are labeled a Spammer. In a recent survey by the Messaging Anti-abuse Working Group, 22% of users admit that emails that they once asked for but no longer want, they now treat as Spam. Your action can be to either remove them or start some retention marketing which could result in reactivating them, so send them a quality ‘special offer’, a survey or a specially targeted message. Maybe don’t email them as often and spend a bit more time personalising the content for that particular audience. The secret is to segment your database so that you can easily contact active and/or inactive addresses as required.
4 – Don't expect instant results
Your list is comprised of subscribers who have agreed that they want to hear from you but don’t expect a flood of activity from day one! Your list is not a target for a major sales drive, it will need to be tested constantly to cement your customer’s loyalty to your brand. Seek advice from experts, pay attention to what your peers have to say and check what the competition is doing. Sending a generic message could give a response of 0.3% whereas a well thought-out message sent to a highly-targeted, segmented niche list could score in the region of 50%.
5 – Don't separate your email campaign from your overall marketing strategy
When considering growing your database and online community it’s best to integrate your email campaign within your overall marketing strategy. Pull together all the alternative marketing opportunities; press releases, competitions, event sponsorship and attending trade shows.
In conclusion; it is always worth remembering that it is more costly to acquire new customers than it is to look after the existing ones. It always makes sense, and much more so in the current economic climate, to encourage your existing customers to remain loyal to your brand
Wednesday, 28 April 2010
What is the expected time period for the delivery of HTML emails to get delivered?
Labels:
Best Practice
,
deliverability
,
delivery
,
spam
,
videos
Most users of email marketing
software will experience at some point that their emails can reach
their subscribers’ inboxes faster or slower than with previous sends
which is the reason that we often are asked how long it takes for an
email to be delivered.
To provide the answers, we asked our delivery expert, Sean Swanepoel who advised us ….. ‘The speed of our sending is dictated by how fast the recipient server can accept . Because of these limitations, caused by network issues, full mailboxes and invalid addresses, there is a strain created by retrying. Without those, delivery would be almost ‘light speed’! ‘
As Shawn highlights and as we have stated in past blog articles emails go through many steps to reach their target consequently affecting the delivery time of your campaign and here we list a few of them :
• How busy the ISP (Internet Service Provider) is
• How fast the recipient email server is able to accept it
• The anti-spam techniques employed by the recipient server to block SPAM from getting through to the recipient.
As with all other services, ISPs have their peak periods and slow periods and it is at the really busy periods that email sends are likely to be delayed. It may be useful to keep this in mind when planning your sends.
How fast the recipient Server can accept the incoming email
Every email is dispatched from the sending server to the recipient server. It is not, however simply a matter of getting from one end to the other. With Spam being everyone’s major annoyance, ISPs are being ultra-serious in their attempts to ensure that their users don’t receive hundreds and thousands of SPAM messages to their in boxes, so they set up certain rules that every email must go through in order to be delivered to the inboxes of that particular ISP’s clients. The settings can vary widely from each ISP although they will all usually include a limit on the number of recipients for each message or connection, or a rate limit, such as a limit on the number of messages permitted to be sent out over a certain period of time. This is their outline of how many emails they are willing to accept over a given period.
If your sends do not comply with these specifications, your emails are more likely to bounce. This is not a big worry however, because bulk email service providers call upon the assistance of Mail Transfer Agents (MTAs) whose task it is to arrange their sends according to the various specific limitations of each individual ISP, thus ensuring that their sends are in compliance with these regulations.
Anti-spamming techniques
ISPs apply a wide range of anti-spamming techniques as a strategy to combat spam. (Sean suggests that you read more about them here). A common example of this is Grey Listing; This is when emails are required to retry over a specific period of time before they will be accepted by the ISP. This is a really efficient anti-spamming device, as spammers do not generally retry sending their messages. However, it does have an impact on you, as your legitimate bulk emails also have to undergo this process before they can be delivered.
So there you have it - predicting an exact delivery time is a highly technical ‘piece of string’ – and, as there are so many factors involved, nearly as impossible to estimate. However, As members of ReturnPath, the EEC and Truste, GraphicMail does try to ensure timely delivery. To find out more about deliverability issues, read this blog article or watch our video.
To provide the answers, we asked our delivery expert, Sean Swanepoel who advised us ….. ‘The speed of our sending is dictated by how fast the recipient server can accept . Because of these limitations, caused by network issues, full mailboxes and invalid addresses, there is a strain created by retrying. Without those, delivery would be almost ‘light speed’! ‘
As Shawn highlights and as we have stated in past blog articles emails go through many steps to reach their target consequently affecting the delivery time of your campaign and here we list a few of them :
• How busy the ISP (Internet Service Provider) is
• How fast the recipient email server is able to accept it
• The anti-spam techniques employed by the recipient server to block SPAM from getting through to the recipient.
As with all other services, ISPs have their peak periods and slow periods and it is at the really busy periods that email sends are likely to be delayed. It may be useful to keep this in mind when planning your sends.
How fast the recipient Server can accept the incoming email
Every email is dispatched from the sending server to the recipient server. It is not, however simply a matter of getting from one end to the other. With Spam being everyone’s major annoyance, ISPs are being ultra-serious in their attempts to ensure that their users don’t receive hundreds and thousands of SPAM messages to their in boxes, so they set up certain rules that every email must go through in order to be delivered to the inboxes of that particular ISP’s clients. The settings can vary widely from each ISP although they will all usually include a limit on the number of recipients for each message or connection, or a rate limit, such as a limit on the number of messages permitted to be sent out over a certain period of time. This is their outline of how many emails they are willing to accept over a given period.
If your sends do not comply with these specifications, your emails are more likely to bounce. This is not a big worry however, because bulk email service providers call upon the assistance of Mail Transfer Agents (MTAs) whose task it is to arrange their sends according to the various specific limitations of each individual ISP, thus ensuring that their sends are in compliance with these regulations.
Anti-spamming techniques
ISPs apply a wide range of anti-spamming techniques as a strategy to combat spam. (Sean suggests that you read more about them here). A common example of this is Grey Listing; This is when emails are required to retry over a specific period of time before they will be accepted by the ISP. This is a really efficient anti-spamming device, as spammers do not generally retry sending their messages. However, it does have an impact on you, as your legitimate bulk emails also have to undergo this process before they can be delivered.
So there you have it - predicting an exact delivery time is a highly technical ‘piece of string’ – and, as there are so many factors involved, nearly as impossible to estimate. However, As members of ReturnPath, the EEC and Truste, GraphicMail does try to ensure timely delivery. To find out more about deliverability issues, read this blog article or watch our video.
Sunday, 25 April 2010
Those Reports & Statistics – what should you be doing with them?
Labels:
advice
,
Best Practice
,
deliverability
,
reporting
It is a matter of fact that email marketing
is a highly effective and low cost direct marketing channel and because
it is, you put lots of thought, time and effort into your email
marketing.
But, how do find out how effective it is? Can it be improved?
The way to find out is to monitor your email marketing campaigns!
As you contemplate the design layout, or reconsider the ‘correct’ subject line to increase the appeal of your newsletter, do you ever wonder “How many of my subscribers are actually going to read this and how many will just delete it ?” It’s exactly that type of questioning which provide the first steps to monitoring your email campaigns.
Many email service providers can supply you with reports on all the
campaigns that you send – these are available to Graphicmail clients
free of charge. Our comprehensive email marketing report allows you to track all this :But, how do find out how effective it is? Can it be improved?
The way to find out is to monitor your email marketing campaigns!
As you contemplate the design layout, or reconsider the ‘correct’ subject line to increase the appeal of your newsletter, do you ever wonder “How many of my subscribers are actually going to read this and how many will just delete it ?” It’s exactly that type of questioning which provide the first steps to monitoring your email campaigns.
- How many emails were sent
- How many were actually delivered successfully
- Why the unsuccessful ones failed to be delivered
- WHO opened the email ( not just numbers )
- Which links those readers clicked on
- Which of them forwarded it to a friend
- Which of those unsubscribed
- Which were treated as spam
Using all this information you can calculate the relevant rates
and, once you know them, you can take action on them to improve future
results. Try a different design or subject line, check the content,
conduct an A/B split test
prior to each send in order to measure what has the most appeal to your
readership. This is an invaluable way to research them and their
habits. Check the click through rates as these show who showed interest
in the products and/or services within your promotional email how much
traffic was directed onto your website
Thursday, 15 April 2010
Case Study: Raise your stats by tweaking your email newsletters
Labels:
a/b testing
,
Best Practice
,
design
,
email marketing
,
socialmedia
As
we are regularly providing you with hints, tips & features which we
hope you will use to enhance your email campaigns, we thought you may
be interested to see a case study from a major media company who
optimised the entertainment email that they send out every week, with a
series of small changes that they found showed incremental lifts in key
metrics, including four tactics that were aimed at simplifying the
overall template look and clarifying the calls-to-action.
• They reduced the number of articles in the newsletter.
• They moved the images and the calls to action so that they displayed above the email fold.
• They added a navigation bar so that it appeared at the top of their newsletter.
• They applied A/B split testing so that they could test the effectiveness of differing subject lines – one against the other.
If you would like to see how they implemented these changes and the results that were yielded for their campaign click here. Once you have done that, why not try implementing some of the changes yourself using the GraphicMail tools and features?
Here are some ideas to help and inspire you:
• Conduct A/B split tests
• Read the blog article on forward-thinking email design
• Create a call to action by adding social widgets
• Learn how to become an email marketing pro
Click here to read the full article
• They reduced the number of articles in the newsletter.
• They moved the images and the calls to action so that they displayed above the email fold.
• They added a navigation bar so that it appeared at the top of their newsletter.
• They applied A/B split testing so that they could test the effectiveness of differing subject lines – one against the other.
If you would like to see how they implemented these changes and the results that were yielded for their campaign click here. Once you have done that, why not try implementing some of the changes yourself using the GraphicMail tools and features?
Here are some ideas to help and inspire you:
• Conduct A/B split tests
• Read the blog article on forward-thinking email design
• Create a call to action by adding social widgets
• Learn how to become an email marketing pro
Click here to read the full article
Tuesday, 13 April 2010
10 useful email marketing tips gleaned over 10 years of trial and error
Labels:
advice
,
Best Practice
,
email marketing
,
Email Tips
,
learning
,
social widgets
It’s been 10
years since email marketing came on the scene, popularised by the growth
of online communication. It was a very different entity back then with
mass emails being sent out on the on the expectation that ‘with all
these, someone is bound to reply!’ only to find that they were easily
sidelined into spam boxes.
In the intervening period of trial and error, message based marketing efficiency has greatly increased with respondents being much more thoughtful. Email marketing has consequently become a highly valued way to reach consumers.
Some of the changes in the email marketing industry can be read in this article by Wendy Roth which will, no doubt yield you some big results when allied to the following tips from the past 10 years :
1. The way to measure success is by the activity of your mailing list and NOT the number of subscribers. So the thing to consider is how productive your list is - not how large it is.
2. Every messages should be personalised. You will find that recipients respond to a personal message - so always use targeted e-mails as this will encourage interaction. Invite feedback from your subscribers and ensure that you always act upon that feedback to create a dialogue with your readers.
3. Be respectful of the wishes of internet service providers. Be responsible when e-mailing – honor all recipient requests, act on complaints, obtain addresses in an honest and fair way. If you do these things, ISPs will respond by being more likely to cooperate with your email marketing campaigns.
4. Always remember that there are many different ways of viewing email. There are many different users with many different browsers. There are also a myriad of personalised settings - some of those do not allow graphics, some of them peak at your newsletter through their preview pane, some will disable HTML. It’s a good idea to keep this in mind when creating and delivering your message.
5. There are a plethora of Smart-phones giving the ability for their owners to check their e-mail from almost any location and as these download and display messages much differently from computers, it is wise to design your e-mails accordingly.
6. Before you send your message, give some thought to what you want to achieve - the purpose of the message! Make your subscribers appreciate the value of belonging to your mailing list.
7. Target each of your customers! Gather data on every e-mail recipient then tailor your messages to fit those preferences.
8. Measure success not by the number of people who have read your message, but their reactions after reading it. Do they just delete the message, or do they take some time and maybe click through to your website? gaining the involvement of your recipients is paramount.
9. Involve yourself in social media - but do it productively give your readers some incentive to become followers. Why should they follow you on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook? Offer discounts, downloadable coupons, special offers or breaking news to the ones who show their loyalty through social media.
10. Ensure that all of your marketing channels are working in cooperation. The most rewarding marketing departments are run like well-oiled machines with all e-mailings, websites, printed material and broadcast marketers working in unison. Coordination leads to greater profitability!
In the intervening period of trial and error, message based marketing efficiency has greatly increased with respondents being much more thoughtful. Email marketing has consequently become a highly valued way to reach consumers.
Some of the changes in the email marketing industry can be read in this article by Wendy Roth which will, no doubt yield you some big results when allied to the following tips from the past 10 years :
1. The way to measure success is by the activity of your mailing list and NOT the number of subscribers. So the thing to consider is how productive your list is - not how large it is.
2. Every messages should be personalised. You will find that recipients respond to a personal message - so always use targeted e-mails as this will encourage interaction. Invite feedback from your subscribers and ensure that you always act upon that feedback to create a dialogue with your readers.
3. Be respectful of the wishes of internet service providers. Be responsible when e-mailing – honor all recipient requests, act on complaints, obtain addresses in an honest and fair way. If you do these things, ISPs will respond by being more likely to cooperate with your email marketing campaigns.
4. Always remember that there are many different ways of viewing email. There are many different users with many different browsers. There are also a myriad of personalised settings - some of those do not allow graphics, some of them peak at your newsletter through their preview pane, some will disable HTML. It’s a good idea to keep this in mind when creating and delivering your message.
5. There are a plethora of Smart-phones giving the ability for their owners to check their e-mail from almost any location and as these download and display messages much differently from computers, it is wise to design your e-mails accordingly.
6. Before you send your message, give some thought to what you want to achieve - the purpose of the message! Make your subscribers appreciate the value of belonging to your mailing list.
7. Target each of your customers! Gather data on every e-mail recipient then tailor your messages to fit those preferences.
8. Measure success not by the number of people who have read your message, but their reactions after reading it. Do they just delete the message, or do they take some time and maybe click through to your website? gaining the involvement of your recipients is paramount.
9. Involve yourself in social media - but do it productively give your readers some incentive to become followers. Why should they follow you on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook? Offer discounts, downloadable coupons, special offers or breaking news to the ones who show their loyalty through social media.
10. Ensure that all of your marketing channels are working in cooperation. The most rewarding marketing departments are run like well-oiled machines with all e-mailings, websites, printed material and broadcast marketers working in unison. Coordination leads to greater profitability!
Monday, 12 April 2010
Reconsider your HTML newsletter - rethink the design
Labels:
advice
,
Best Practice
,
content
,
design
,
email marketing
,
first steps
,
free templates
Design means far more than just the visual
I’m sure you will agree that companies send out emails with the object of marketing their company. They then get a designer to create the email without consulting the marketing guys. So we recommend that they (and you ) get those two people together and, with their different ideas, pull together to create a newsletter that is not only visually appealing but one that is targeted to your readers.
The visual:
Whilst looks are important, they are not the be-all and end-all. Looks are only important to recipients who OPEN your email. More important is what they see before they reveal your email - the [from] and [subject] lines that display in their inbox! If it doesn’t appeal they may not reveal – in fact they may delete it altogether.
When designing your newsletter we recommend that you consider the reader – what you think is current, exciting or easy to use, may not be their opinion. It’s important to consider what makes them tick. Getting that right is the difference between having your email read in detail or assigned summarily to the deleted items folder.
Best Practice:
It’s always best to follow industry best practice with all your marketing campaigns, but as these are guidelines, not rules, you may find yourself on an odd occasion wanting to do something really different with your design. Who knows…… maybe it will grab the attention of your readers and make them think that you have the best design team around. And even if it generates a drop in readership you’ll notice that in your stats as well and maybe go back to the ‘old’ design. Handy things those stats!
Here’s a handy article by email marketing guru Mark Brownlow who recommends taking a further look at changing that rule book – it’s well worth a read.
Targeting:
For an email marketing campaign to be effective we need to research our subscribers to discover what is of interest to them. Questionnaires and A/B split testing both help in the research but the best way is to contact them directly; talk to them and bear in mind as they answer, that they are not email marketers and their answers may be geared toward pleasing you rather than giving you honest appraisal
The BIG Picture:
In an ideal world our subscribers open, read and are driven to action and click the links. It’s important then, that the landing page destination reflects the same high visual standard that you’ve set in your newsletter. This attention will enhance your company image and encourage your readers to become customers as they come to appreciate the entire experience.
On the point of experiences, we’ve repeatedly mentioned social media integration – and you’ve no doubt been seeing more about it in other media. If you are now, or are thinking about using social media it’s important to remind yourself that not everything that you share is relevant to your emails and also how clear is your call to action in your email going to be. Taking time to decide on such things as the placing and prominence of the social media icons in order to reflect your presence there.
These are only a small number of pointers to help maximise the impact of your newsletters. Keep them in your mind when designing future newsletters.
Whilst this may have given you more to think about regarding the creation of your newsletter, the actual design need not be so time consuming - check out our super drag-and-drop editor.
Take a few minutes to check out our template library . From classic to trendy - from sophisticated to funky. Check them out, you’ll find one for every industry or occasion.
I’m sure you will agree that companies send out emails with the object of marketing their company. They then get a designer to create the email without consulting the marketing guys. So we recommend that they (and you ) get those two people together and, with their different ideas, pull together to create a newsletter that is not only visually appealing but one that is targeted to your readers.
The visual:
Whilst looks are important, they are not the be-all and end-all. Looks are only important to recipients who OPEN your email. More important is what they see before they reveal your email - the [from] and [subject] lines that display in their inbox! If it doesn’t appeal they may not reveal – in fact they may delete it altogether.
When designing your newsletter we recommend that you consider the reader – what you think is current, exciting or easy to use, may not be their opinion. It’s important to consider what makes them tick. Getting that right is the difference between having your email read in detail or assigned summarily to the deleted items folder.
Best Practice:
It’s always best to follow industry best practice with all your marketing campaigns, but as these are guidelines, not rules, you may find yourself on an odd occasion wanting to do something really different with your design. Who knows…… maybe it will grab the attention of your readers and make them think that you have the best design team around. And even if it generates a drop in readership you’ll notice that in your stats as well and maybe go back to the ‘old’ design. Handy things those stats!
Here’s a handy article by email marketing guru Mark Brownlow who recommends taking a further look at changing that rule book – it’s well worth a read.
Targeting:
For an email marketing campaign to be effective we need to research our subscribers to discover what is of interest to them. Questionnaires and A/B split testing both help in the research but the best way is to contact them directly; talk to them and bear in mind as they answer, that they are not email marketers and their answers may be geared toward pleasing you rather than giving you honest appraisal
The BIG Picture:
In an ideal world our subscribers open, read and are driven to action and click the links. It’s important then, that the landing page destination reflects the same high visual standard that you’ve set in your newsletter. This attention will enhance your company image and encourage your readers to become customers as they come to appreciate the entire experience.
On the point of experiences, we’ve repeatedly mentioned social media integration – and you’ve no doubt been seeing more about it in other media. If you are now, or are thinking about using social media it’s important to remind yourself that not everything that you share is relevant to your emails and also how clear is your call to action in your email going to be. Taking time to decide on such things as the placing and prominence of the social media icons in order to reflect your presence there.
These are only a small number of pointers to help maximise the impact of your newsletters. Keep them in your mind when designing future newsletters.
Whilst this may have given you more to think about regarding the creation of your newsletter, the actual design need not be so time consuming - check out our super drag-and-drop editor.
Take a few minutes to check out our template library . From classic to trendy - from sophisticated to funky. Check them out, you’ll find one for every industry or occasion.
Tuesday, 6 April 2010
What the header can tell you about deliverability
Labels:
advice
,
deliverability
,
delivery
,
email headers
,
email marketing
,
reporting
Are
you experiencing problems with your deliverability? If so, the header
can often shed some light on the issue. The header is basically a
tracking record of all the route the email you sent took and all the
stops it made along the way to get to the inbox.
Just like sending something across the country by post emails also need to stop off at various points, the headers show you this exact route and reveal these stops. They also show the details of the sender and the recipients. Headers also reveal more about the different ISP's through the information they chose to include.
Every email landing in an inbox is given a header. So why haven't you seen one? This is more than likely because each email client (that's the service or program you use to read you emails - like Outlook, Hotmail, Googlemail etc) hides these headers in a different way. They are hidden from view because unless you're an email marketer trying to find out more about your email deliverability, the header is not that interesting to see. So with each email client hiding them differently and being tricky to find we thought we'd ask our own deliverability guru, Shaun Swanepoel, to assist you in the search. True to form, he immediately pointed us in the direction of this guide to finding the headers in popular email services, clients or programs.
If you’re still in the dark as to what deliverability is or how it works, you can watch our YouTube video.
Just like sending something across the country by post emails also need to stop off at various points, the headers show you this exact route and reveal these stops. They also show the details of the sender and the recipients. Headers also reveal more about the different ISP's through the information they chose to include.
Every email landing in an inbox is given a header. So why haven't you seen one? This is more than likely because each email client (that's the service or program you use to read you emails - like Outlook, Hotmail, Googlemail etc) hides these headers in a different way. They are hidden from view because unless you're an email marketer trying to find out more about your email deliverability, the header is not that interesting to see. So with each email client hiding them differently and being tricky to find we thought we'd ask our own deliverability guru, Shaun Swanepoel, to assist you in the search. True to form, he immediately pointed us in the direction of this guide to finding the headers in popular email services, clients or programs.
If you’re still in the dark as to what deliverability is or how it works, you can watch our YouTube video.
Thursday, 1 April 2010
Tracking for your SMS marketing campaigns
Labels:
graphicmail features
,
marketing industry
,
mobile marketing
,
reporting
We are regularly told that one of the very best features of Graphicmail are the free, comprehensive reports available in our reports and statistics as
it allows users to track & optimise their email campaigns. Now,
guess what……? Our Development Team have been burning that midnight oil
again and the fruits of their efforts means that you can now monitor the
performance of your SMS/Text campaigns as well!
The SMS delivery statistics are very similar to the reports and statistics currently available to analyse email sends. So now, each time you send a mass SMS/mobile text message, you will be able to access a report to show you how many of your SMS sends were sent, how many are pending, how many were delivered and how many bounced. It also supplied a reason when your SMS doesn’t get through. It's just one other reason to use Graphicmail to ensure that your communications and campaigns work for you.
The SMS delivery statistics are very similar to the reports and statistics currently available to analyse email sends. So now, each time you send a mass SMS/mobile text message, you will be able to access a report to show you how many of your SMS sends were sent, how many are pending, how many were delivered and how many bounced. It also supplied a reason when your SMS doesn’t get through. It's just one other reason to use Graphicmail to ensure that your communications and campaigns work for you.
Friday, 26 March 2010
A/B testing empowers your marketing strategy
Labels:
a/b testing
,
advice
,
Best Practice
,
email marketing
,
graphicmail features
,
reporting
,
segmentation
Everyone
tells us that using Graphicmail is as easy as ABC – well here’s another
slant on that …… it’s called A / B testing. It’s here to help remove
most of the guesswork out of “What to say, what to send “ and to get you
some feedback BEFORE you send – how’s that for a great feature ??
Before A / B testing you had to send out your mailing, then check your reports & statistics in order to analyse how the opens/ click throughs compared with previous sends so you could work at improving your next mailout. After all, your newsletters are all designed using a similar template layout aren’t they? Well you now have a friend in Graphicmail = the split test feature
A/B split testing has been developed to help you to assess which strategies and techniques work best for your email marketing campaigns, which, roughly translated, means that you can now test what your subscribers like best.
It works like this; you draw up different variations of your newsletter, then you send each of these different newsletters to separate percentages of your contacts. This allows you to see how each of those percentages reacted to the different newsletters. You can then select the one that worked the best and send that particular newsletter to the remaining subscribers in that list.
So, A/B split testing gives you two options: The first one allows you to select 5 newsletters to compare – maybe they have the same content, but each having a different image or subtle changes in the layout/design or content. (You don’t need 5 different newsletters in fact, you can just do a couple if you prefer.) You can, as an alternative, test up to 5 different subject lines for the same newsletter – using different tones or varying the length.
So, if you choose to send the test to 10 % of your mailing list and you want to compare 2 newsletters, then 5 % will receive Newsletter-A and 5 % will receive Newsletter-B. When you’ve checked which one was most effective/successful, that’s when you send the ‘winning’ newsletter to the remaining 90% of your mailing list and, as the system keeps note of those who received which version of the test, nobody receives your newsletter twice!
Wondering how to assess which one worked the best?
It’s really easy, and it’s also your choice! You decide what is most important to you and to your business: You just check how many recipients clicked to open your newsletter, or how many clicked the link to your website. The A/B split test automatically assesses according to your settings and you receive a report showing the statistics and the status of your send.
There are no restrictions, you can use A/B split testing as often as you like, in fact, the more you use it to test and improve, the better will be the results of your campaigns, increasing the likelihood that you will stay on top of subscriber trends. The more, the merrier!
Before A / B testing you had to send out your mailing, then check your reports & statistics in order to analyse how the opens/ click throughs compared with previous sends so you could work at improving your next mailout. After all, your newsletters are all designed using a similar template layout aren’t they? Well you now have a friend in Graphicmail = the split test feature
A/B split testing has been developed to help you to assess which strategies and techniques work best for your email marketing campaigns, which, roughly translated, means that you can now test what your subscribers like best.
It works like this; you draw up different variations of your newsletter, then you send each of these different newsletters to separate percentages of your contacts. This allows you to see how each of those percentages reacted to the different newsletters. You can then select the one that worked the best and send that particular newsletter to the remaining subscribers in that list.
So, A/B split testing gives you two options: The first one allows you to select 5 newsletters to compare – maybe they have the same content, but each having a different image or subtle changes in the layout/design or content. (You don’t need 5 different newsletters in fact, you can just do a couple if you prefer.) You can, as an alternative, test up to 5 different subject lines for the same newsletter – using different tones or varying the length.
So, if you choose to send the test to 10 % of your mailing list and you want to compare 2 newsletters, then 5 % will receive Newsletter-A and 5 % will receive Newsletter-B. When you’ve checked which one was most effective/successful, that’s when you send the ‘winning’ newsletter to the remaining 90% of your mailing list and, as the system keeps note of those who received which version of the test, nobody receives your newsletter twice!
It’s really easy, and it’s also your choice! You decide what is most important to you and to your business: You just check how many recipients clicked to open your newsletter, or how many clicked the link to your website. The A/B split test automatically assesses according to your settings and you receive a report showing the statistics and the status of your send.
There are no restrictions, you can use A/B split testing as often as you like, in fact, the more you use it to test and improve, the better will be the results of your campaigns, increasing the likelihood that you will stay on top of subscriber trends. The more, the merrier!
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