Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Tips for the Best Email Campaigns

I firmly believe email marketing works. It keeps your clients and prospects in the know on what your company is up to and maintains top of mind awareness. But used wrongly in content, approach and just sending eblasts out without purpose can land you on the opt out list. Here are some very important tips on how to stay on top with your email marketing efforts:


REDUCE CONTENT

LESS is MORE! Big appealing headlines are in, create a headline that attracts along with an intro sentence that eludes into important information that is of interest to your clients. This way they will want to read more and in turn will drive more click throughs to your website.


FRESHEN YOUR DESIGN LAYOUT

Avoid amateur design, which will reflect poorly on your company. Make your message more visually heavy rather than copy heavy. Hire a graphic designer to set up a branded email newsletter/promotional card layout that can be easily updated. Or if your budget is tight use the most simple layouts available with your email marketing provider service. Be sure to use your company colors, fonts and always include pictures in your emails.

INCREASE FREQUENCY

I recommend sending emails once to twice a month, but again your content is important! You have to limit your message to 3 - 4 blurbs that include important facts/trends that are relevant to your business or important for your client to know. Set a schedule for your messages, whether you do a newsletter with info once a month and then a trend alert message as your 2nd email for the month and then alternate a promotional offering every other month in place of your trend alert.

THE IMPORTANCE OF SUBJECT LINES

Do NOT use your "Company's February Newsletter" as the subject line, instead your subject line should be relevant to the major story inside like for example, the name of this post- "Tips for the Best E-Newsletters". Subject lines are a major element to entice a user to open the e-mail. If the subject line is not catchy and repeats itself each issue, no one will pay any attention to your offering.

Some examples of email campaigns with fresh design, good content and branding- great inspiration for your next eblast!


With the simple above changes you will most definitely see results and higher click through rates. Although with any email campaign you are sending out, if your purpose is to drive customers to your website, your website does also need to have up to date and relevant information, as all marketing has to work in tandem for best results.

Next week it will be all about the latest trends in website design.. Stay tuned...

Monday, February 15, 2010

Marketing Around Holidays

I was inspired by one of my favorite Marketing Gurus- Seth Godin as to the importance of marketing around the Holidays. With Valentines Day behind us and now today being, President's Day, followed by the upcoming Easter holiday, these holidays give many businesses a reason to host promotional sales. Now how can the meeting and event industry take these many "Holidays" and turn them into promotional sales opportunities?

Seth Godin says "Invent a Holiday" and that is definitely a strategy to run with. Let's reflect back, many companies who tailored their promotional messages around the Super Bowl did come out winning and had many of jobs and bookings. Marketing post Valentines for the Wedding Industry is also a great approach.

So when planning for your next sales promotion, take a look at last year's business history and tailor this years promotional plan based on what holidays come up next for your clients and invent a holiday promotion around it...

XOXO
Your Event Marketing Maven