Email Marketing Effectiveness is Still Strong is a post from: Need Help Marketing?

In a recent MarketingSherpa study, 1400 marketers reported strong email marketing results. What is probably most interesting is the percentages year over year. With the bulk of participants stating that email marketing effectiveness is increasing a little.

What are you seeing? Please leave a comment below with your thoughts.

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Best way of using Links in Emails is a post from: Need Help Marketing?

When you are sending out your next email campaign you should take a moment to review how you are using links in your email message. Remember when we are talking about links we mean the text links and not images or buttons within your email content.

Here are some useful tips to use in your next newsletter or announcement:

Links should be obvious and clearly marked meaning they should follow standard colors so they stand out from the actual content. This way you make sure if readers are just scanning they will see them.

Try to avoid the “click here” variety so links can be more relative. Example: Do you need help marketing? links to: http://www.needhelpmarketing.com
Using this technique will definitely lead to more clickthroughs, because you are asking the question and then linking directly to the answer this way.

Link to your website or blog content to promote different websites and different resources you may have available. Sometimes your website and blog will be on two different websites. Such as www.companyname.com and blog.companyname.com  If you want to promote these resources you can cross link them. For example within your email newsletter you could list Top Articles or Most read articles X,Y, and Z.

Anaylze which Content or Links were most Popular to better understand your readers and their interests. In fact you might be able to get a lot of feedback from this exercise and determine which information is more valuable. Whether that be product information, company press releases and announcements or even industry news. When armed with this information you can create better and more read content on your next email message.

Permanent links add consistency for your standard contact us, unsubscribe link, share with your network, contact us on twitter. etc. Make sure they are always located in the same place in each of your emails to make them easier to find.

Some readers will be reading on their mobile phone – with more cell phones being able to read email messages this practice is becoming far more popular. So try not to use too many links but also try to add text for those reading the email with no images. You could include teasers to provide an intro to the content you are linking to. Example: “Top Brands recently revealed their marketing secrets” and then provide a link.

Links can be shared with others by either referencing your email message by forwarding it to someone else. Or perhaps the online version of your newsletter will be shared on Twitter or Facebook with others. Also if another website copies your material you will also see back links (links back to your site) to your website from theirs if you include embedded links so it can have its advantages for generating more click traffic. Ultimately leading to more website visitors on your site.

I am sure their other great ideas for using links in your emails so please do share some ideas in the comments below.

Photo Credit: knitsteel

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Small Businesses still prefer Vendor supplied Business Advice is a post from: Need Help Marketing?

Despite social media hype, SMBs still prefer resource centers and email newsletters as sources of business management advice

A recent study conducted by Bredin Business Information (BBI) concluded that small businesses  are still responsive to their vendors’ business advice. So that got me thinking. How many email newsletters do I receive that contain good business advice? Versus a lot of marketing and promotional material. And what is a good balance of advice that should be in your company’s newsletter.

We are talking about How-To-Articles here that convey market knowledge to your newsletter audience and customers. It really made me think about how many How To Articles are sent in our company emails. And I came up a bit blank because newsletters usually include company announcements and case studies but nothing that are actionable in terms of a “How To” type article. Definitely something to consider for 2010 newsletter content submissions. I better get started writing now.

The other key takeaway was the mention of industry news and how Small Businesses prefer to receive this information from their vendors. After all that is the industry and business we are in. So something to think about for future newsworthy topics. In fact 86% of the responses indicated industry related content was of utmost important when hearing from your suppliers. After all your customers expect you to have the pulse on your industry and the new trends.

Read more about the key results in the press release.

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Higher Growth Businesses Spend More on Marketing and Shift Marketing Online is a post from: Need Help Marketing?

Recently Hurwitz & Associates released a new survey of north American small businesses defined as 1-20 employees.

There were a few key takeaways, including growing businesses were increasing spending on marketing. And marketing online was a growing trend for new areas of investment. Although this is not probably surprising because for small businesses marketing online and marketing locally really helps the bottom line.

When asked about their marketing practices a high percentage said they were using online tools including social media and email marketing. In fact more than 70% use social media (blogs, social networking, online communities/forums) and just less than 50% use email marketing.

“Email marketing is one of the best ways for small businesses to attract and retain customers while also growing revenue, which were two of the top business challenges identified by small businesses in the survey,” said Steve Adams, vice president of marketing for Protus, the provider of Campaigner.  “The survey also showed the growing importance of email marketing and other Web-based tools in driving business growth.”

Download the full report: “Small Business Marketing Health Check”

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Make sure you send welcome Messages to new Subscribers is a post from: Need Help Marketing?

Question: Do you currently send a confirmation email message to new email subscribers?

Return Path an industry leader in the email marketing space, released a June 2008 study revealing that an alarming 60% of marketers surveyed don’t send welcome e-mails to new subscribers.  For newsletter type and customer list email marketers it is important to start off on the right foot with first impressions. Subscribing to your mailing list starts a new relationship with your company and your brand. You want to make sure that the first experience with your company is a positive one.

So if you are convinced that you need to send welcome emails to new subscribers, what do you include in this first communication?

New subscribers might also be interested in:

1. Knowing their subscription request was received and processed correctly.
2. The frequency of your communications; daily/weekly/monthly
3. Archived versions of your newsletters to judge for themselves if the information is relevant and they wish to continue receiving more information.
4. Perhaps a link to your privacy policy
   A privacy policy will indicated how the opt-in email address will be used or possibly shared with third parties if at all.

Interested in more ideas for increasing email marketing relevance?
Read more at DM News, Tools you can use to your e-mail marketing advantage

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