- Better than nothing (is harder than you think): http://bit.ly/cFiMEs
Lead Generation
Email marketing software – how to choose a system for you
This post was last edited by Alex Cohen, on the July 28, 2010 @ 9:02 am
If you’re reading this you’re probably already in the market for email marketing software and know there are many providers to choose from (with new providers popping up every week). So how do you go about choosing the best one for you?
Hopefully our short guide will provide you with a starting point:
Where is your data coming from?
This may seem like an odd question however when choosing an email marketing system, different email marketing software uses email addresses in different ways. How you acquire your data makes a big impact on which system would be best for you. For example:
- Are you building your own mailing list from a form on your website?
- Do you already have an existing database of customers and prospects?
- Have you bought in data lists from third party data houses? This is particularly important as some international laws specify you can’t broadcast to third party lists so you would need to use a UK based email software company.
How will you use your email marketing system?
How you use your email marketing system will vary from business to business. Popular ways include:
- Generating new business leads
- Staying in touch with customers (for example through a newsletter)
- Nurturing leads. Transforming prospects into customers
- Sending a series of autoresponders
- E-commerce – confirm orders, inform products are shipped etc
What features are important to you?
Most systems do offer similar features; the obvious being web based with the ability to load an email and broadcast it in HTML and plain text. But what else should you consider?
- Is your system easy to use? Try loading emails into the system (HTML and plain text) and see how you find it
- How do you know your email is getting through to your recipients’ inbox? It’s very frustrating if your carefully crafted email goes straight to your recipient’s spam box. Check what your potential software company does to ensure your email isn’t treated as spam
- Do you need autoresponders? These are when emails are automatically sent depending on recipient behaviour. It may be someone signs up to receive a series of emails or that a reply is automatically sent if and when someone responds to your initial email
- How do you tell who has looked at what? Different systems have different levels of reporting functionality. Identify what reporting you need and what works best for you
How will you be charged?
How email marketing software providers charge should also impact your decision. There are three key ways:
- Up front set up fee – some systems ask for a set up fee but then tend to charge less per email sent
- Monthly fees – some charge a monthly fee which will include an allowance; for example 5,000 emails a month
- Pay as you go – could be more expensive per email but better if you don’t want to commit to a certain price each month. Some providers will charge per broadcast and then per email, others just per email
Our picks
We’ve tested a few email marketing systems in our time and these stood out as far as we’re concerned:
- Best for autoresponder campaigns: AWeber or Mailchimp
- Best for permission based email marketing campaigns: Campaign Monitor
- Best for sending to third party lists: dotMailer or Pure360
- Best for eCommerce: dotMailer or Campaign Monitor
- Best for email newsletters: Campaign Monitor
Most email marketing systems offer an upfront trial; sign up, test it, see how easy it is to use and go from there. There’s nothing to stop you trialling every system if you have time until you find the one that is perfect for you.
We have supported many clients with their email marketing campaigns. If you’d like more information or would like to find out how we can support you in getting an ROI from your campaigns contact us here.
10 steps to writing a great lead generation marketing email
This post was last edited by Alex Cohen, on the May 14, 2010 @ 8:17 am
Email marketing is nothing new; however when it comes to writing an email to generate leads, despite all the research, businesses still get it wrong. So how do you make sure it’s your email that’s read and not sent to the trash file without even being opened?
Lead generation email marketing is sending an email to a cold list of prospects with the view of monitoring open and click through rates and following up people who have interacted with the email.
Here are 10 steps to getting great results from your email marketing:
- In general emails that work best look like they have been sent from a colleague, a plain text email that looks like it’s been sent from a colleague is more likely to be opened than one full of images that need downloading
- Give something away for free – a free guide, paper or eBook. People aren’t interested in you or your organisation now – remember your goals – measuring open and click through rates, not getting enquiries at this stage
- Target your email well – send different emails to different segments of your data if necessary; better to spend more time now and have higher open rates than blanket send and appeal to no-one
- Send your email from a real person – business names appearing in inboxes when someone doesn’t know who you are is a big turn off
- A good subject line – if this doesn’t spark an interest why would anyone open it? Subject lines can be split tested to a number of contacts to find out which results in a higher open rate. The best one can then be used for the remainder of your list. Use words such as ‘find out’ or ‘discover’ or use controversial or inquisitive subject lines
- Be careful not to use words like ‘free’ or ‘win’ though as these will hit spam filters and bypass your prospect’s inbox completely
- Start your email with ‘Hi firstname’ – anything too formal and spam filters will pick it up. Also if your contact is previewing their emails this will again make it look like it’s come from a colleague. The same applies to the end of your email – a common sign off such as ‘Kind regards’ is personal and spam filter friendly. Include your name, business, web address and contact details in a plain text signature
- Put a hyperlink in the first paragraph – this is the point of your email; to get people to click through and find out more about your business. Put as many subsequent links in the text as you can without it looking overloaded and ‘spammy’
- Keep it as short as it needs to be without diluting the message too much. No-one has time to read pages of text
- Make sure you have just one call to action – don’t confuse your prospects by inserting links to more than one webpage
And there you have it, 10 steps to writing a good email. If you need any further advice on writing or sending marketing emails then do get in touch with us, we love sharing our knowledge.
10 email marketing questions to ask in 2010
This post was last edited by Alex Cohen, on the March 8, 2010 @ 10:31 am
Email marketing has changed. It’s changed from 10 years ago, 5 years ago and even last year. Here are 10 questions to ask yourself if You’re thinking of doing email marketing this year:
- What are your goals from email marketing in 2010?
- How can you provide added value to your e-mail subscribers?
- How will you ensure subscribers stay subscribers in 2010?
- How can you make sure people stay engaged (that they actually read your emails)?
- Why would someone sign up to your email newsletter, campaign or programme?
- Within your email newsletters what is the proportion of information related to your company compared to hints, tips and resources?
- How can you segment lists so emails are highly personalised and relevant?
- What can you do to get more people to give you their permission to email them?
- How can you integrate email marketing with your other marketing, particularly social media?
- Do you have the right resources and partners to achieve your goals in 2010?
If you need any support with email marketing why not explore our lead generation or online presence propositions.
How to keep your prospects excited
This post was last edited by Alex Cohen, on the January 14, 2010 @ 2:25 pm
There is a moment when someone says “yes, I want to meet you”, when they go to your website and call you up or when they meet you at a networking event, get excited and want more information.
This can be the height of interest with that person. At that moment they want what you are offering. As time goes by though they start thinking, objections come along; do we really need this? What else is out there? Can we afford this? Time passes and they continue without your offering.
Yes, it is the job of the sales person to keep that person interested, following them up at agreed intervals. But how can marketing help? It can help by confirming to that person over and over again you are the right choice for them.
When you are in the sales process do you email your prospects; showing them what they could be missing? Telling them the longer they leave it, the longer it will take to get the benefits? These can be corporate marketing emails rather than personal ones from a sales person.
Do you write informative blogs convincing the prospect over and over again you are the right choice for them? Do you tweet regularly promoting not only your knowledge, but also new improvements to your product and service and the latest new clients to use your fantastic service or product?
If not, why not? You should. These repeated messages will help you convert prospects into customers when they need to be convinced. Create content, keep people excited and win new customers!
Don’t even think about using your direct mail letter as an email
This post was last edited by Alex Cohen, on the March 8, 2010 @ 11:03 am
More and more we’re meeting business owners who are simply taking a direct mail letter they send out (usually to introduce their company) and sending it out as an email. This doesn’t work!
The way emails and letters are written are different and therefore require the messages to be portrayed differently through the mediums.
Here are reasons why a direct mail letter is different to an email:
- Think about what you do in real life. How you write a letter versus how you write an email. Emails are more informal, the most effective emails should come from a real person and be made to look like an email your colleague would send you. Letters are more formal
- Letters are usually addressed ‘Dear someone’ and signed ‘Yours Sincerely’. Think about when you send an email to a colleague – most of the time you start with ‘Hi’ and sign it using ‘Kind regards’, ‘Regards’ or ‘Best regards’
- The purpose of a direct mail letter is usually to get someone to respond to your call to action – call you, send an email, respond to a coupon… An email is to get someone to take the next step – be that download a PDF or click through to a website. Therefore emails need call to actions (links) throughout it to try and get people to click on one of them
- The subject line. Getting someone to open an email is key – a standard direct mail letter – most people will open – with email you need a compelling, action orientated subject line to get people to open it
- When it comes to email people don’t have time, they skim read and very quickly (in seconds) decide if they should read it or not. Whilst a letter can be a page of A4 long, email can’t. It needs to be short, snappy and to the point from the first word
- Email can build relationships. Yes you can introduce your company in an email but the emails that work best provide something of use. As a marketing agency We’d get better results giving people marketing tools or marketing insights for SMEs than introducing our company
So there you have it. Next time You’re thinking of taking your direct mail letter and sending it out as an email, stop! Start from scratch and you’ll get the best results.
