Email marketing; Scourge or Saviour?

Today email has changed the face of modern communications. We have the ability not only to open and read our emails at our desk or on our laptop but with mobile technology, our email accounts (and we’re sure to have more than one) can live in our pockets. Smartphones and netbooks mean we can take our email wherever we go. And who knows what the new iPad will do for it!

So how has all this affected the power of email marketing? Well, firstly there has been a significant change in the way smart marketers are using email. There will always be the spammers, happy to spew out millions of emails a week with completely non-relevant subjects to every possible address on the planet. However, new technology and greater access to it now allows everyone the opportunity to harness email as it should be used, following that well-worn marketing mantra of Right Message – Right Person – Right Time.

With a stronger move towards the powerful concept of Permission-based Marketing, good marketers out there are looking for ways to get appropriate messages in front of potentially interested customers. More than this, we can learn about our customers too.

Email marketing, used properly, can become a cornerstone of a solid marketing strategy. It can be used to attract new customers, as well as maintain effective contact with existing ones. It allows us to deliver the right message in a timely way and, most importantly, to the right individual.

Other reasons why email marketing is still among the top tools for SMEs include:

Speed; there really is no other way (with the exception of SMS Marketing perhaps) of getting a marketing campaign running faster. You can release a campaign in the morning and start making sales in the afternoon. You also get very fast (real-time) statistics that allow you to fine-tune your marketing campaign as you go.

Split-testing; I can’t believe there are still people out there who continue to run the same adverts week after week, month after month, with no plan to test them. This really is CRITICAL and split testing is the easiest way to achieve this. If you’re not aware of how to do this, FIND OUT and stop wasting your money (look out for a blog on this soon!).

Return on Investment; because email marketing can be so much cheaper than other forms of marketing, if you USE IT PROPERLY, you’ll see an amazing ROI. It’s no longer about ‘spray and pray’ it’s all about getting the mix right and being highly targeted.

So what is the magic mix? Well I’m going to give the game away at my next seminar on Email Marketing but here’s a sneak preview of the elements that I’ve found have a massive impact on results:

Get good data – This really is rule number 1. You will want to collect and source data in the right way and if you’re buying/renting data then use good suppliers, there are many out there. Quite simply, no other factor will increase results as much as good/relevant data.

Use a good email system – Forget about trying to manage your emails through standard applications like your Outlook account, you’re wasting your time and money. A proper email marketing tool will give you amazing power and control over your campaigns and help you to build progressively. Try the PUSH Email Marketing System (see www.nialadams.com)

Know how to play the game – Understand how email marketing works and what the ‘rules’ are. These are really quite simple (when you know them!) and will help you double, treble or more your campaign results.

Get strategic as well as tactical – Ensure that you build your email marketing into your overall sales and marketing plan. It will never work effectively for you if you just do it occasionally and with little thought or attention.

And lastly…

Always remember to use email to appropriately – It will help you to build your community and maintain contact with it. Stick to the guidelines and you’ll ensure your emails are seen as positive communication, not intrusive and annoying.

written by Brian \\ tags: Best, Email, Email Accounts, Email Marketing, Fine Tune, Interested Customers, Ipad, Marketing, Marketing Campaign, Marketing Solution, Marketing Strategy, Mobile Technology, Modern Communications, Move Towards, Netbooks, Permission Based Marketing, Relevant Subjects, Saviour, Scourge, Smart Marketers, Smartphones, Solution, Time Statistics, Top Tools

Sports Organizations Are Using Email Marketing Solutions

Whether you operate a baseball league in the summer, a hockey league in the winter, or any other type of sports organization, you know that communication is of paramount importance. In order to facilitate the smooth operation of your league, it is vitally important to communicate with coaches, players, sponsors and other organizers. In the past, this may have been a laboring activity. But now, with the power of email marketing solutions, it’s easy to create professional and effective email marketing campaigns with just a few clicks of the mouse.

One of the most common uses of email marketing solutions for sports organizations is to send out important announcements to coaches or team managers. In most leagues, if the coach/manager doesn’t know what is going on, then there will be chaos, which is obviously something the league organizers want to avoid. With the right email marketing solutions, the league organizers can send out a mass email to all the coaches, complete with maps to various venues (baseball diamonds, hockey rinks, swimming pools, etc), detailed schedules, links to websites like MapQuest for directions, and more. Through the power of email marketing solutions, leagues are no longer constrained to just plain-text emails. These communication messages can be jazzed up with graphics, which not only make them more eye-catching, but also more informative. As the cliche goes, “a picture says a thousand words”, so including a couple images can go a long way towards ensuring your coaches and team managers know everything you need them to know.

Email marketing solutions can also let you send captivating emails to all the players or participants in your league. Many leagues around North America have found it very effective to send out monthly, bi-monthly or quarterly newsletters to everyone in the league. This helps maintain a high level of interest because the participants are constantly being updated with all the latest news affecting the league. Most email marketing solutions will allow you to create a long or short newsletter, so there is no pressure to come up with a certain amount of articles to include. Sometimes newsletters during the off-season only have one or two articles, while newsletters sent out in the middle of a season may be packaged with five to seven articles. You can even ask players and coaches to submit stories and successes they’d like to share with the league. Your email marketing solutions will adapt to accommodate your needs so whatever it is you want to communicate, you will be able to do so easily.

Sending out newsletters with your email marketing solutions is also a great way to encourage enrollment for upcoming seasons, events or tournaments. Also, due to the viral nature of email, you can use your email marketing solutions to encourage current players to forward the email to their friends, which just takes one click, to further spread the word about your league and encourage additional enrollment. Ultimately, the more people you contact, the more people will be able to sign up for your league, and your email marketing solutions can put that communication on the fast track.

When you are running a sports league it is important that you know your message isn’t just being sent, but that it is also being read by your audience. With email marketing solutions, it is no longer a mystery as to whether your email is being read or not. Within minutes of sending your email campaign, most email marketing solutions will let you view real-time reports to see exactly who is opening your email and who is not. In most cases you can even see the date and time each person on your contact list opened the email. This lets you put your mind at ease because you will know that your communication was effective.

Email marketing solutions is an affordable and effective way to boost the communication efforts of your sports league. Regardless of the age or skill level of your league, being able to distribute information is always vitally important. With email marketing solutions in your arsenal, you will be better equipped to handle that challenge. Have a great season!

Find More Email Marketing Solutions Articles

written by Brian \\ tags: Baseball Diamonds, Baseball League, Best, Communication Messages, Couple Images, Effective Email Marketing, Email, Email Campaigns, Email Marketing Campaigns, Important Announcements, League Organizers, Mapquest, Marketing, Marketing Solution, Marketing Solutions, Mass Email, Organizations, Quarterly Newsletters, Smooth Operation, Solution, Solutions, Sports, Sports Organization, Sports Organizations, Swimming Pools, Team Managers, Text Emails, Using

Effective Email Marketing with Integrated Technology & Measuring for Business Success

Introduction

Many organizations are utilizing email marketing as part of their internet marketing strategy.  There are numerous email marketing services provided that support all types of businesses such as: Emma, ConstantContact, Aweber, etc.  In today’s environment, businesses are sending emails to promote products & services, cross-sell additional services, inform customers, and provide discount coupons.  The question is: Are businesses leveraging email marketing to support multi-tactical internet marketing campaigns?

In most cases, businesses are not leveraging email marketing to drive successful campaigns.  Marketers continue to see email marketing as a single tactic that has a limited impact on the goals of their campaigns.  The biggest example of this is the lack of integration between databases, website, and email marketing campaigns.   A local business owner has a limited amount of hours in a day and a limited amount of resources.  However, most of them do not streamline the lead acquisition process to work together.  If the systems were integrated, a similar scenario can be applied to large corporations that employ or utilize 3 different employees to do the job of a single email marketing professional. Simply put, the website form does populate to the database, and neither of these automatically feed to the email marketing system.  In general, this is a manual process that costs businesses time, resource, and money. 

How can effective Email Marketing Help Your Business and Drive Results?

How you ask?  Well, let’s start with efficiency.  The ability to integrate your website with your business’s database, website forms, and email marketing services tools may cost additional money upfront; however, in the long-run you will not need to use manual processes that require more resources.  At DaBrian Marketing Group, we provide businesses will the tools to connect website forms to an email marketing system and eliminate the database itself.  In our client’s case, the email marketing system or email marketing service is the database.  In addition, you can use event or email triggers to confirm opt-in email addresses after receiving a contact submission form.  In less than 30 seconds, you have populated your form into a specific list with the email marketing tool, confirmed an opt-in email, and responded to a prospect with relevant content.

 Email triggers can be a useful and impactful tool for customer acquisition & lead generation.  We live in a society of instant gratification so being able to deliver relevant information or set the expectation to receive a response to a question is critical.  This can help to separate your business from the competition.

The ability to reduce the resources used for an email marketing campaign will reduce the campaign cost.  If implemented effectively, email marketing can position your business to be on your customers’ minds and reduce your overall acquisition cost. The bottom-line is Return-on-Investment. 

 Testing to Drive Results & Revenue?

Once you have become proficient with your automated process, it is time to start testing your email campaigns.  There are a number of different tests you can do with a single email campaign.  These tests include A/B, A/B/C, and multivariate testing of headers, subject lines, layouts, landing pages or calls-to-action.  The more successful your business is at getting customers to open emails, the greater the probability that the customer will respond to your call-to-action. Usually, better open rates and click through rates translate to better ROI. 

Conclusion

The truth is that just about every business uses email marketing to communicate with customers.  Unfortunately, not every business takes the time to evaluate opportunities to integrate technologies, test, or measure their results.  These are simple fundamental businesses practices that should be gone.  The ability to establish internal processes and best practices are critical to every business’s success. 

 The fact that you have an email marketing tool does not mean that what you are communicating is relevant to customers, or even driving results.   It is our recommendation that businesses start to take a holistic approach to all internet marketing strategies & tactics.  Continue to push the envelope for maximum results that will lead to maximum returns.      

written by Brian \\ tags: Amp Services, Best, Business, Business Success, Constantcontact, Database Website, Discount Coupons, effective, Effective Email Marketing, Email, Email Campaigns, Email Marketing Campaigns, Email Marketing System, Environment Businesses, integrated, Integrated Technology, Internet Marketing Campaigns, Internet Marketing Strategy, Large Corporations, Manual Processes, Marketing, Marketing Services, Marketing Solution, Measuring, Services Tools, Solution, Success, Tactical Internet, Technology, Time Resource

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No man is an iland

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I’d like to buy a one time email blast as a gift for my brother who is a realtor. Anyone know of a legitimate and effective email marketing company out there I should look into?

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I’d like to buy a one time email blast as a gift for my brother who is a realtor. Anyone know of a legitimate and effective email marketing company out there I should look into?

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