It’s an emerging debate that looks set to become more widespread in the future – which direct marketing method is most effective: traditional direct mail campaigns, or new generation email marketing?
Direct mail is sent to businesses and consumers every day and is used by a very wide range of organisations and industries. A mailing in the post, often accompanied by a letter, has become a proven and accepted way of targeting your audience, with consistent conversion rates of about 1-5%. However in recent years direct mail has attracted criticism over the environmental impact it can have, and the annoyance caused by misdirected mailings.
Email marketing using opt in data is less widely used at the moment, but is growing more rapidly in popularity than almost any other direct marketing tool. A growing range of good quality opt in, and in some cases double opt in lists are becoming available, as are a wide range of email broadcast services. But this new marketing medium has already been tainted by abuse and association with the practice of spamming or junk mailing.
So what are the relative merits of each of these contrasting direct marketing methods? (more…)
When writing your email copy throw everything you learned in English 101 out the window.
1. Personalize
There’s nothing better for a person to see their name. Use personalization in the subject line and inside the body of the email (but don’t overdo it so it looks hokey).
2. Write just like you talk
Use plain, easy to understand English. Nobody cares if you can use xenophobia and ostentatious in a sentence. Write almost like you’re talking to a buddy over a beer. So that means use contractions. Be friendly and personable in your writing.
Hands down, the most important and best way to build your online business is through creating a list of subscribers with email. It sounds very elementary, but this is one of the easiest ways internet marketers can gain their share of the market. I am assuming that you have an auto responder or are planning on using one with your marketing campaign.
Why is building a list so important? A targeted mailing list is the center of your business because it allows you to follow up with potential and existing customers. It doesn’t matter how much money you put into advertising and promotion, if you let your prospects leave your site without getting their contact information, then you are throwing advertising dollars away. You might have heard this before also – it usually takes seven to twelve exposures to a message or product before a prospect will decide to make a purchase. You just cannot allow prospects to get away from your sales message if you want to make an income.
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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.
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Viral marketing has an array of possibilities and ways to achieve your overall goals. However, just like everything else, preplanning and the right setup to create success are the things you will need to make it work for you and your e-business.
The first thing you want to be sure of is not to get over-zealous. The one thing you need to avoid at all costs is spamming. Spamming is still used widely, but with the government establishing more restrictions and fines you don’t want this to be a problem for you. The professional image of your business will also suffer if you send mail blatantly.
Spamming requires a database that contains a huge list of e-mail addresses set up so that the message can be delivered with one click. The problem with it (aside from the governmental restrictions and associated fines) is that it irritates the recipients and kills the validity of your campaign, which in turn kills the factors that would motivate someone to refer your site.
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Ezine Advertising is one of the most powerful ways to market and promote your other products and or services. There are literally thousands of electronic newsletters on the Internet with millions of people who subscribe to them. Placing ads in online newsletters is an inexpensive way to reach your target market quickly — especially when you compare it with other forms of advertising.
In 2002, ezine publishing took a quantum leap, as its status evolved from “amateur’s hobby” into becoming the most powerful marketing tool for business online. Email newsletters have come of age, and increasingly, more ezines will take this route, as subscribers prefer them to drab, lack-luster text-only ezines. In the coming year we’ll see more ezines published.
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Effective communication is crucial to connect to your audience, which is why email marketing plays such a vital role in any online marketing strategy. One of the best ways to create top quality emails or newsletters is to use a mass email solution that gives you maximum control and flexibility over your newsletter as well as your mailing lists to ensure optimal delivery and results.
Newsletters remain one of the best marketing tools to connect to your audience and keep them updated on your company’s news, promotions, new offers, new products or any other information that needs promoting. Newsletters also offer a chance to strengthen brand awareness, and used correctly, e-marketing can be a hugely powerful marketing tool that can help maintain and even grow conversion. In the past, newsletters would have to be sent through Outlook, and took a long time to create, and even longer to send ? often with many emails returned due to mistyped addresses or too many emails sent at once. These days there are a number of email solutions available that allow you to send unlimited newsletters to your subscribers through an easy-to-use interface. Newsletters take half the time, and delivery rates are better than ever before. Using an inferior email system could undo all the hard work you put into your email campaigns; however with returned emails or worse, non deliveries, how do you ensure that your newsletters are a success and what can you do to get your emails read? Here are some top tips for effective e-marketing:
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Somewhere back in the short history of email marketing someone had the bright idea of addressing each message to the person individually. By copying the mail merge function so beloved of office suite applications, so the reasoning went, we can insert a field in the salutation bit of the content and make the message instantly more personal. And the results proved the theory worked, thus spawning hundreds of pages from people all saying personalize your emails for better results. And to a point it still works.
The thing is, what was once A Good Idea is now more of a given feature. If you don’t insert the recipient’s name then there are really only two reasons why; you forgot, or the system you’re using won’t let you/it’s too complicated (and if that’s the reason then drop us a line as it’s easy with our engines) or your data doesn’t hold the details. Thinking about it, there is a third – the design doesn’t allow you the room – but if that’s the case then whoever created the template really needs a good talking to. Anyway, let’s take a look at this business of personalization as you could be missing a way to really bounce up your email stats.
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