Showing posts tagged with: audience
If yours is like the majority of companies reliant on email marketing to nurture leads, generate sales and grow revenue, you’re not sending fewer messages, you’re sending more. As programs become more sophisticated, they also become more complex, and that complexity bleeds over into both planning and scheduling. Which campaigns and messages deserve top priority? What’s more important – broadly targeted one-to-many foundational programs or automated, triggered 1:1 campaigns? What about the mix of promotion vs. content over an extended period? These questions and more are just the tip of the iceberg email marketers face when building their annual plans.
The answers aren’t always easy and are different for every industry and marketer, but there is a process for success
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You probably know by now that
segmentation improves email marketing performance significantly, so if you’re still operating primarily in “batch and blast” mode it’s time to start slicing and dicing your subscriber file.
Marketers who practice list segmentation see better open and click-through rates, fewer unsubscribes and better deliverability. The reasons are obvious: segmentation creates discreet audiences we can laser-target with offers, creative, and information crafted specifically for them, at just the right time. This in turn improves relevancy and
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Inspiration from the 2015 Email "To-Do" Lists of Leading Brands
I'm just back from the MediaPost
Email Insider’s Summit at Deer Valley in Utah ski country. Boasting record attendance and the active participation of big brands, the event is always a nexus for email marketing growth, expansion and innovation ideas. With attendees from
Wendy’s, Office Depot, Amazon, Bank of the West, Angie’s List, American Airlines and countless other marquee brands, this time didn't disappoint. In short: everyone’s excited (and in some cases a little daunted by) the email marketing goals they aim to accomplish in the coming year.
Here’s what’s on the 2015 “to-do” list of top marketers and should be on yours as well: See more
If you take them aside in confidence and buy them a drink or two, most people working in email marketing will eventually admit there’s a hungry beast they have to deal with that is never full and always has an appetite for more. No matter how much or how often they feed it, it’s a bottomless pit.
What is this monster? It’s none other than your email list! Actually, if you’re treating it right, it’s more like an elite athlete than a monster. Chances are, no matter how many subscribers you already have, you hunger for more. The simple truth: the care and feeding of your email list is a job that’s never done (and shouldn’t be).
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This month I thought I'd share a webinar I recently presented for BrightTALK: 4 Content Marketing Approaches Every Email Program Can Profit From.
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Unless you overhear a conversation about porn spam, the words “email” and “sexy” don’t get used in the same sentence very often. Email, the loyal silent workhorse of social media, steadfast driver of e-commerce, overshadowed stepsister of search, is more often likened to Martha Stewart – reliable, conservative and past her prime – than Angelina Jolie – slinky, seductive, and unpredictable – although both have built sizable empires of wealth and influence.
That is, until now. Oh yeah, we’re finally bringing sexy back to email marketing.
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In Part 1 of this series you learned about transparency and authenticity. Part 2 explained why creating resonance and cultivating magnetism are essential to generating emotional connections that are real and enduring.
Now in the last of this three-part series, let’s look at the final two ingredients that strengthen the emotional bond your market has with you AND each other: community and consistency.
In online marketing, making emotional connections is especially important because the digital world is immediate, urgent and can seem impersonal. It doesn’t give us the time or intimacy to know and trust people like face-to-face interactions do.
But there’s good news – the online world also offers an expanded ability to connect with others and develop communities beyond the boundaries of our physical worlds. That’s why community is one of the final essential ingredients to creating emotional connections in your online marketing.
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photo credit: Berto Garcia
It’s no secret that in the United States at least, we’re obsessed with size. Perhaps stemming from our pioneering roots we equate bigger with better, have a preference for more vs. less (even if it’s far more than we need), and value limitless expanse. Whether it is due to this mentality or other reasons, a similarly pervasive way of thinking has been the mindset in direct marketing for decades.
Yet in an age of awareness about how unfettered human expansion has negatively impacted the environment, times are changing. Sustainability and austerity are in, conspicuous consumption is out. There’s a clear quality over quantity movement underfoot and already visible in social media. I for one say it’s high time this shift made its way fully into email marketing.
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When I teach email marketing, I always explain that there are two main “flavors” of messages: broadcast email – a uniform message sent to everyone on the list, and triggered email – a message triggered by an event, time or action sent to a specific person for a specific reason. Although you can segment your list and version your broadcast campaigns to specified groups with different offers and creative for say, men vs. women, the real power of personalization and relevance lies in trigger-based email.
Jupiter Research* found that behaviorally-targeted trigger email campaigns get 30% higher open and click-through rates and three times the conversion rates of broadcast email (this is even higher response than tightly-segmented broadcast campaigns receive). And if that’s not enough reason to get on board, eMarketer just reported that
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It’s been said before and it bears repeating; when it comes to those traditional three pillars of direct response marketing “the gold is in your list”. So, it pays to treat it like the treasure it is.
In Part 1 of this series I explored ways to attract new prospects to your list. Still, the reality for many marketers and business owners is that the majority of their email list subscribers are customers, not prospects. They are people with whom we have an existing (and hopefully, positive) business relationship. All the more reason to protect your treasure.
Yet that Achilles heel of email customer lists remains: it seems impossible to get the email addresses for 100% of your customers. With few exceptions, (say, you sell only online and email address is required on every sale) some customers are just never going to hand over their closely guarded email address (or the specific address you want). Others now prefer to communicate with you on social media (largely Facebook and Twitter). Still more are happy to stay old school – they want phone and direct mail communication. Send ‘em their catalogs and coupons and they’re content.
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