There’s no doubt that e-marketing is the “it” way for businesses to communicate – especially in tight economic times. And, it’s hard not to argue for the cost effectiveness, reach and super-accessibility of digital media, from social networking to email, RSS, blogs, wikis, webcasts etc. With a seemingly endless array of digital marketing options, is there still a place for print media? Absolutely. read more »

Smart marketers maximize every dollar with messages and media that are simple, direct, affordable and measurable. What tops the list? Email marketing.

Email marketing is a cost-effective alternative to direct mail and advertising, with the benefit of results that can be easily tracked. However, if you plan to invest in e-marketing, your usual tactics need an update for best results. Whether you use email for newsletters, sales and promotion information, news items, event invitations, thank-you notes or purchase follow-up, 10 simple rules lay the groundwork for success:

1: Give Them What They Want
Check your web stats to find out where your customers are looking and what they are interested in. Do you have popular pages and topics or frequently asked questions that can guide your content? Are there new products and services that can be explained or promotions to announce?

2: Tailor the Fit
Email campaigns offer the enormous advantage of being able to quickly and easily group recipients. Identify customer profiles and group those with similar spending patterns, transaction sizes, geographical relevance and relationship with your business. Tailor emails to each core group so recipients will more likely take action.

3: Just the Facts
Keep it simple, and stick to the facts. Don’t send large attachments or long, complicated explanations. Readers respond best to short, simple messages and bulleted points. If you can’t be concise and deliver the relevant details of your message quickly, provide a link to a web page that offers more complete details.
read more »

From a marketer’s point of view, nothing beats e-marketing for tracking
results and refining programs to continually beat a “personal best”. Measuring
the success of your search engine optimization (SEO) campaign is simple, thanks
to the myriad of website tracking and measuring programs available. They provide
the data you need to analyze results and re-work e-campaigns to continually
increase response rates.

These analytics programs provide data you can use
to track site visitors: where they come from, where they go when they visit your
site, most popular pages, the page they view the longest and the one from which
they typically exit. That lets you know the effectiveness of web page content as
well as that of banner ads and mini-sites designed to drive site traffic.

These elements of visitor tracking are key to understanding online
marketing performance:

• Activity Tracking – You should be able to track site
  visitors’ actions when visiting your website. Did they complete a form?
  Subscribe to your e-newsletter? Respond to a survey? Complete an e-commerce
  transaction? By tracking these and tying them back to specific campaigns and
  keywords you can determine which ads, links, terms, and campaigns are bringing
  you the best visitors.
• Campaign Tracking – By applying specific URLs to ads, links
  or e-mails and tracking the results you can measure campaign success or failure
  immediately after the campaign is launched. Measure again in subsequent days or
  weeks to determine whether the campaign had longevity.
• Page Popularity – Knowing which pages attract the most
  visitors is vital, as well as which pages hold their attention the longest. At
  the same time, knowing which pages cause people to abandon your site is an
  opportunity to address content needs.
• Referral Tracking – Where do most of your visitors come
  from? Understanding which search engines generate the most traffic to your
  website, and learning which key words and phrases visitors used to find your
  site will allow you to continually refine and improve your choice and use of
  keywords for specific targets. Knowing which URLs and domains are generating the
  most traffic is a clear measure of the effectiveness of mini-sites and
  links.
• Who’s Coming Back? – What percentage of your visitors
  return to your site? Tracking this statistic will tell you how engaging and
  interesting your site is, and whether or not it is a value-added destination.
• Route Tracking – What route do visitors take once they
  enter your website? This analysis can help you determine better ways of
  organizing information to help visitors more easily find what they are looking
  for.

Web statistics make it easy to determine the keywords, referral sources and
visitors that are most valuable to your business so you can tailor your online
marketing program and continually improve results.

If you think your e-marketing is getting lost in the mass of emails in your clients’ inbox, you’re not alone. Competing for the attention of time-starved business people is a challenge, but there are ways to cut through the clutter. How? Start by getting personal! Transform your email marketing into effective, personalized communications your clients want to receive. These 7 tips will help you develop an e-marketing campaign that will help strengthen business relationships and drive sales:

1. Get Permission!The difference between spam and permission-based email marketing is that the recipient has asked to receive the information, thus giving you permission to send it to them. To get that permission, you need to offer something of value – an informative newsletter or promotional offer, for example – in exchange for the customer agreeing to receive your messages and, often, to provide valuable personal information and preferences.Always include a way for people to unsubscribe in all email campaigns. Be sure to monitor unsubscribes as well as the number of new subscribers, so you can to gauge the effectiveness of different subject matter, offers, etc.
2. Don’t Reinvent the WheelA valuable strategy is to research what others are doing. Subscribe to e-newsletters from respected organizations in your industry and beyond, even competitors, where possible. Make note of the things that make you want to open some, but delete others. You can also use these publications to suggest ideas for subject matter you may want to cover in your own publication.
3. Give Your People What They Want! Start with a subject line that captures immediate interest, and add article headlines that make people want to read more. Then, make sure to customize your messages so they appeal to clients’ needs and interests. You can also ask them what they want to hear about! Are they interested in product news? Special offers? Tips and how-to guides? Once you know what interests them, give it to them consistently and watch your response rates soar. Finally, keep it short and simple – your e-communication should require minimal scrolling to keep readers engaged.
4. How Much is Too Much?While it’s important to stay in front of your customers and prospects, it’s equally important not to be an annoyance. In most cases, emailing once a month strikes a balance between keeping your brand and company name top of mind without irritating your subscribers. Emailing more frequently may turn off recipients and increase your unsubscribe rate.
5. Something for Everyone Once you’ve got a compelling message, you can offer it in a variety of ways to suit different audiences. You might accompany your communication with audio, video and/or animation to create more excitement and visual appeal. That said, it’s always a good idea to have a plain text version for those recipients that prefer it.Look for upcoming issues of 5th Insight for new audio and video components.
6. Testing 1-2-3Test the effectiveness of each email campaign by using different subject lines, different wording, unique offers, a different colour/design etc. Through testing you’ll be able to find the winning combination that works for you.
7. Measure Your Success! Measuring the results of your email marketing efforts allows you to understand what works – and what doesn’t – so you can maximize the effectiveness of each campaign. Select an email marketing software that automatically manages and tracks results so campaign analysis is quick and easy.