TP Javeton WebNet

Category: Subscriber Lists

How Effective is Your Email Marketing?

A question of effectiveness

If you are a business owner who utilizes email marketing campaigns to promote your products or services and advertise your brand, the question of how effective your email marketing is might occupy a prominent place in your mind. In fact, questions regarding the effectiveness of any type of marketing effort should be entertained as frequently as deemed practical in order to ensure that such marketing efforts are producing desired results. Asking these questions on a regular basis and continually evaluating the effectiveness of email marketing campaigns will help to determine their effectiveness on an ongoing basis, especially in those instances when changes are made to the marketing strategy.

In view of the above, this article will discuss the importance of frequently evaluating email marketing strategies, while also providing a few tips which we hope will be helpful to you in evaluating your email marketing strategy.

First and foremost

First and foremost, it is important to evaluate your email marketing strategy on a regular basis because failure to do so might very well result in a complete waste of your time, money and efforts; and although email marketing may be a cost effective way to advertise your business the activity doesn’t get done without input from you, the business owner/advertiser. There is still some time, money and energy involved in planning and executing email marketing campaigns. In other words, if an email marketing campaign is ineffective and nothing is done to attempt make more effective your business is wasting resources by continuing to invest in this type of marketing strategy when it is not generating profit for the business or even creating interest in your products or services.

Second, and perhaps just as important, is the frequency with which a business owner or marketer evaluates the effectiveness of his/her email marketing strategy without setting goals before s/he begins the evaluation process. The importance of goal-setting is highlighted here because failure to do so might help to undermine the email marketing efforts of any business or marketer.

This is due to the fact that without goals it can be difficult to determine whether or not such email marketing efforts are effective. If, for example, you set a goal to increase the number of sales you make per month, then it will be rather simple to determine the results based on the number of monthly sales generated and therefore just as simple to evaluate the effectiveness of that particular email marketing campaign.

Deciding on method

Once you have determined how you intend to evaluate you progress you should be able to easily determine the effectiveness of your current email marketing strategy as long as this is the only marketing you are currently doing. Of course, if you have more than one marketing strategy in use simultaneously you cannot be sure which strategy is driving customers to make purchases, or attract visitors to your website.

When you decide to evaluate your email marketing strategy according to specific goals you should take care to ensure you are not currently running other types of marketing in conjunction with your email marketing campaign(s). This will help to prevent confusion about which type of marketing is producing the desired results. It will also help to prevent business owners from mistakenly believing email marketing is producing a positive results when, in fact, it is another marketing strategy that is actually generating all the positive sales and traffic activity.

Customer surveys

While on the subject of evaluating effectiveness, one strategy that comes to mind is the use of customer surveys to evaluate the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. Asking customers how they heard about your products or services have proven to be an excellent way to determine whether or not customers are making purchasing decisions based on one marketing strategy or another; so this strategy can also be utilized to evaluate the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns.

Additionally, these surveys can be used to obtain more detailed information about email recipients’ reaction to a particular email marketing campaign. Customers can, and often does, provide valuable feedback about topics such as the layout and appearance of email and the ease and readability of content included in the email. This feedback and other customer-generated information can help a business owner determine how to design future emails designed to achieve the most positive results in a campaign. Armed with such information the business owner can design subsequent emails that might incorporate many of the qualities previous customers found to be useful, and avoid qualities that were viewed to be useless.

03/23/2018
A Good Fit: Email Marketing & Your Business?!

To email market or not

If you are connected to the Internet as most of us are these days – circa 2018 – chances are that you have an email account or multiple email accounts, beginning with the one provided by your ISP (Internet Service Provider) and perhaps one or more free email accounts provided by Google for personal use (GMail) and for business use if you operate a business. For those who do not own or manage a business the decision about how you use your email account is a simple and straightforward one which need not be explained here; but for those who own businesses, big and small, the use of email account(s) creates the need to make a few critical decisions.

First and foremost, when you own a business and have to decide whether or not your email account should be used for, or dedicated to, Email Marketing (EM) and whether this type of marketing is a good fit for your business, your decision-making process can be a difficult one; because although the concept of email marketing is very simple to understand, the process of determining whether or not it is right for your business can be significantly more complicated.

Factors to consider

This is because you have to consider a number of different factors before making your decision. Such factors often include members of your target audience and their tendency (or lack thereof) to use the Internet; whether or not your message can be effectively stated in an email; and whether or not your message is likely to be misinterpreted as spam. These factors and many others are important and devoting serious thought to them can go a long way in helping you determine whether or not email marketing is a good fit for your business.

That having been said, among the most important factors which must be considered when deciding whether or not to , energy and time into email marketing is understanding the extent to which a significant percentage of your target audience will use the Internet regularly. This is important because an email marketing campaign is not worthwhile if members of your target audience are not likely to use the Internet to purchase or research the products or services you offer; and even if they use the Internet for other purposes it may not be worthwhile if they are not likely to become online customers for your products or services.

Message to the audience

On the other hand, if your target audience is comprised of significantly more members who are very likely to use the Internet when making purchases of products and/or services, including those offered by you/your company, and to research these items online then an email marketing campaign may be a very good fit for your business. In this case it is absolutely worthwhile because you will be providing information that the members of your target audience will find useful, information which they may already be looking for elsewhere.

Next you should consider the products and services you offer in an effort to determine whether or not your message can be effectively stated and delivered in an email. This is important because if you offer a product or service which is difficult to explain, the emails you use for marketing are not likely to be understood or well received by members of your email subscriber list. This is critical because you want to be able to convey to potential customers the need that exists in the marketplace for products and services you offer, instead of making them feel more confused.

Refine your subject

Perhaps the most important aspect of email marketing to consider is the possibility that your email messages will be viewed as spam. This is a mistake that you never want your audience to make because emails which are viewed as spam are not likely to be well received by recipients and may not even make it to recipients’ inboxes if their spam filters tag these emails as spam. And on those occasions when your emails do reach the intended recipients, keep in mind that many Internet users have grown accustomed to weeding out spam rather quickly and therefore recipients will likely be quick to delete your messages, without reading them since they’ve mistakenly regarded them as spam.

In order to avoid such a mistake on the part of your recipients it is important to consider the subject of your business, and therefore the emails you send out. In other words, the subject of your emails must be as closely related to the theme of your website and the nature of your business as it can possible be so as to immediately alert your recipients that the content of your message is relevant to them and consist of information which is useful and, perhaps, valuable to them. This exercise is important because certain subjects such as weight loss pills are likely to be viewed as spam more quickly than other subjects…

Diligence begets a good fit?!

Meaning that if you are in the business of marketing products/services that would likely cause your emails to be viewed as spam, an email marketing campaign may not be a good fit for your business, unless you’re willing to create and test a number of specialized promotions to cover certain aspects of your company, brand or selected professional employees that could set your business apart from the negative connotation(s) associated with certain products similar to those which you offer. But creating such promotions entail even more thought, money and time in addition to difficult decisions, so be careful.

03/16/2018
Benefits of Email Marketing to Your Business

Added benefits

Even if you are already running a successful business, you may be surprised to learn that your business can benefit greatly by launching an effective email marketing strategy which consists of targeted campaigns, digital newsletters and discount coupons along with other specialized (or niche-based) offers associated with such a strategy. Email marketing campaigns provide several advantages including, the ability to reach a worldwide audience, a variety of promotional options, and the ability to do a great deal of marketing with very little investment dollars.

In this article we will take a look at the various features and procedures your business can utilize in an effort to give you some insight into how email marketing can benefit your business.

For many business owners one of the most prominent advantages of email marketing is the ability to reach worldwide audiences with minimal effort and expense; and while traditional marketing methods (TV & radio ads, print media ads) are typically targeted to a rather small geographic area, email marketing can reach worldwide audiences.

It is possible to reach an audience of this magnitude with other marketing methods as well, but it would be much more complicated to do and would likely involve launching advertising campaigns in several countries which would require an intense coordination effort, at least a few staff members to assist you in the effort and, of course, an enormous budget.

Immediacy is a plus

On the other hand, an email marketing strategy would give you the ability to instantly reach targeted audiences with just a few simple mouse clicks after you have composed the message you’d like to transmit; even though creating the marketing materials for your campaigns can be significantly more involved. The simple fact is your business (you) stand to derive substantially more benefits via an email marketing strategy at a mere percentage of the cost to derive the same benefits utilizing other means.

Another advantage of email marketing is the multiple advertising options available to those who wish to utilize this marketing strategy, keeping in mind that the most commonly used method of email marketing is to send out group emails with product information and other promotional materials. Such product information could consist of any format or medium you choose, including a digital newsletter that you could publish and distribute to interested consumers, targeted audiences or both groups, depending on the type of promotion being conducted.

Added value

Additionally there may be some graphics, advertising and links included in the layout of such a newsletter that could enhance the message and or product being promoted. In fact, some marketers have successfully used email marketing campaigns to create and implement email correspondence courses which are typically focused on a specific niche subject and feature a few installments that provide detailed information on a specific aspect of the niche subject.

Finally email marketing can benefit your business because it is an extremely cost effective method of advertising in the sense that when you elect to launch an email marketing campaign you will likely invest money in hiring professionals such as writers and graphic designers to assist you in creating content as well as an appealing layout for your promotional emails. it is important to point out here, however, that this is typically not more than you would invest in hiring the same type of personnel for an offline marketing campaign. Unlike offline marketing methods there is not a great deal of expenses associated with implementing your email marketing campaign.

By comparison

For example, consider the creation of a television commercial where you will have to pay fees and purchase advertising space to allow your advertising to reach the public. By comparison, when you transmit your advertising via email, there is virtually no cost associated with this transmission, except the costs associated with maintaining an Internet connection and retaining employees to send these emails but these costs are minimal and can be considered part of normal operating costs which are often mere percentage points of achieving similar goals via traditional methods.

02/23/2018
To Build a List of Eager Subscribers

Business growth via email

The goal of every business (Web-based, home-based or otherwise) is to deliver great enough service that provides satisfaction among its customer base, with the primary objective being that, as each and every customer expresses satisfaction with products purchased or service delivered by the business, there is a greater chance that s/he will be transformed from just a casual customer to a returning customer and make more purchases. Better yet, they will recommend the business to other people that could generate even more sales – now and into the future – for that business and its representative website.

It is already a foregone conclusion that as more traffic is driven and attracted to your website the chances of enticing many of them to subscribe to your mailing list or opt-in list grows; and such a list will be comprised, essentially, of website visitors who agree to receive emails from you that include promotional materials such as newsletters, catalogs and other such content designed to keep them updated about your site and/or the topic or niche upon which that site is based. These promotional materials are sent via email to members of the list at different time intervals.

The low-cost marketing tool

When using email as the medium by which to broadcast your marketing and advertisement agenda, you accomplish two goals. First you eliminate the need for high costs associated with this activity, because email is free. And second, if you can manage to make your own promotional ads and content you can save a bundle there also, especially with opt-in subscribers whom you are pretty sure will be interested in what you are sending and therefore will receive it, open it and read it, instead of simply relegating it to the trash folder. All this is made possible because these subscribers have signed up for the service and have consented to receive your emails.

This means that you (your business/company) can deliver constant reminders to subscribers about all your existing products, any new products you create and your great service, as well as any promotions and special deals you are planning to introduce. There is also the chance that your emails can be forwarded to other potential customers as current customers/subscribers tell their friends and families about your business and website.

Of course, it is important to keep in mind that subscribers do have the right – by law – to unsubscribe, and may do just that when they feel that they are not getting what they signed up for or expected. This is the one aspect of list-building and email marketing that you must pay special attention to by making sure that they are satisfied with your opt-in marketing approach and overall strategy, thereby keeping them excited and eager to receive your newsletters and catalogs.

Begin the list-build process

The following paragraphs provide a few tips designed to help you build a list of eager subscribers.

Begin with the premise that most people are turned off by dull, uninteresting content – even if it is materially factual – that will put them to sleep; but by setting such a premise then you’ll find that will write in a way that makes your promotional materials interesting and fun to read. At the same time you might try to be a little creative without being too artsy; and when the extra work generates positive results and feedback you will probably agree that it’s worth putting in the time and energy to get it done. It is important, however, to build around your product or service and what your business is all about.

Building around your product(s) and service(s) should not be too difficult since you probably know more about what you do on a daily basis than something you do occasionally; so for example, if you sell refrigerators and other kitchen appliances, put some pictures of what is new in the world of appliances, like a new stainless steel unit with automatic ice maker; or a new dish washer that actually wash, dry and places dishes back into the dish rack (dish washers don’t perform all these functions…yet, but you get the idea). In other words, give your readers everything they need in order to be as informed as they can be.

Another important aspect of your email marketing should certainly be honesty and credibility; so while you’re trying to keep your content interesting and fun, make sure to do good (adequate?) enough research about what people are actually looking for in an attempt to stay one step ahead of them all the time, and by making this extra effort you will be their bearer of great new information that is both interesting and credible. Make a habit of doing these two things and your subscribers will be eager to receive what you are sending to them and they might also get in the habit of knowing that you always have fresh and new information and ideas to share with them.

Well written content pays

Keep this little tidbit in mind: Sloppy written articles can turn off readers as quickly as dull, uninteresting, dishonest content; so make sure to write good articles and never cut corners on the quality of your writing. Naturally, if your subscribers enjoy the articles you send them they will go to your website by clicking the links you include so they can read some more of what you write. You can provide articles that will connect to many people, but be diverse in your approach by inserting a little humor and then placing some informational eye-openers in the articles when possible.

Look, I understand that everybody is not fond of writing, and therefore may not be too eager to write even a paragraph of content; and if you are among this group of marketers, don’t worry too much because there are many professional and experienced article writers that can do the job for you at minimal rates. They know what they are doing and can fill the email marketing void that may otherwise exist in your marketing strategy. They can provide the content you need for your newsletters, and the money that you pay for your articles will probably be one of the best investment you make as measured by the many sign-ups and potential profit from sales will result.

The digital book

One of the many promotional tools that get overlooked by Web marketers is the ebook (what I like refer to as digital book) which can increase your exposure and boost your brand in ways that other tools cannot; so whether you write the digital book or pay to have it written, you should create and to your customers about anything that is related to your business or website. For its contents you should rely heavily on your knowledge and expertise in the field you have chosen to help other people with and those who are similarly interested.

Offer this , because you can write about anything informational and helpful to your subscribers, including how-to manuals and guides in so many different areas. Keep in mind that if you do a good enough job creating the digital book it may very well be used as a reference guide by many of your subscribers, as well as their family and friends. Share this digital book with everyone, even other sites; but make sure they don’t change the links you placed in the book that are designed to lead people to your website.

If you want, you can always mentioned earlier to write it for you just as with your articles. Your investment once again will be covered by the great marketing this will generate; and when coupled with ecoupons in your digital newsletters that help them take advantage of special discounts, subscribers will be delighted to receive your marketing emails, recommend them to others and come back for more. If your subscribers can derive benefits from your marketing emails and inclusions, they will be very eager to receive them as long as you don’t flood your mailing list with emails and annoy those subscribers.

02/01/2018
Creating Email Lists for Marketing Campaigns

Initial email marketing efforts

If you plan to do some Web marketing to promote your business endeavor, you should seriously consider email marketing as at least one tier of your Web marketing campaign. Many business owners shy away from email marketing because they believe all email marketing campaigns are purely spam. However, this is not true and not utilizing this type of marketing can cause your business to lose out on a great deal of new revenue.

By not appealing to potential customers via email, your business may lose a great deal of revenue and market share to competitors who are using email marketing campaigns to reach customers around the world. However, the first step of an email marketing campaign should be creating a subscriber or opt-in list. In this article we will discuss some popular options currently being used very successfully by other Web marketing professionals which we hope will help you to learn more about what is acceptable and what is not when it comes to email marketing.

Once you have made the decision to start using email marketing to promote your business you are likely facing the dilemma of compiling an email subscriber list. This is essentially a list of email addresses to which you will email your advertising and promotional materials. One common way to gain a list of email addresses is to purchase a list from distributors. However, this method is not very effective at all and we do not recommend it.

Avoid for-sale lists

The problem with purchasing an email list is you have no way of knowing whether or not the members of that list would have any interest at all in your products or services. This is very important because while you want to reach as many subscribers as possible with your email marketing campaigns you also want these subscribers to be members of your overall target audience. In other words, when you purchase an email list you may be sending your email messages to some users who might be interested but this is largely coincidental and is not likely to be well received since the message was not solicited.

Internet users are very quick to delete material they believe to be spam without even opening or reading such material. In fact some Internet service providers include spam filters which may automatically delete your emails if your messages are merely suspected to be spam. These filters run complex algorithms on the subject heading and content of the message to determine whether or not it is spam and are quite adept at weeding out spam and “suspected” spam. Therefore you run the risk of having your email marketing efforts result in a complete failure and an even bigger waste of time if the majority of recipients never even receive or open the message(s).

Build a list from scratch

A far better way to create an email subscription list for your email marketing campaign is to ask current customers as well as interested potential customers to register with your website to receive additional information and periodic updates about your products and services as well as other information which might be of interest to them. This provides you with a database of email addresses from current customers as well as potential customers who have a genuine interest in your products and services and who are interested in learning more about these products and services.

Once you have a list of interested customers or potential customers you can send promotional emails or create digital newsletters for distribution to the members of your email list. These documents should contain a wealth of valuable information as well as a soft sell pitch for your products and services. This is a better method of approaching email marketing, because the information you send will be valued by your list members and may help persuade them to try your products and services. You might also want to include useful links to your website as well as other websites which may be of interest to your readers. Content you provide should also contain a portion which urges readers to take a specific action such as making a purchase, or at least, learning more about a certain product or service.

01/19/2018
Digital Newsletters in Email Marketing

Email Marketing – Not SPAM

Email marketing is not about unsolicited emails with advertisements which make outrageous claims, although so many online operators actively promote products and services in this fashion without regard to the wants, needs or preferences of the recipients of such emails. Unfortunately the abundance of spam that inundates Internet users each day has caused many to formulate a negative opinion about email marketing, but savvy Internet (Web) marketers who understand how to market successfully enjoy an advantage over their competition by turning to eNewsletters (digital newsletters) to reach more potential customers. This article will discuss digital newsletters and how they can be used effectively as part of an email marketing campaign.

A digital newsletter is very similar to traditional newsletters which are printed and distributed via snail mail, newspaper inserts, supermarket racks and other such methods, whereas the most significant distance is the method of distribution. While traditional newsletters are typically mailed to the recipients or distributed in person, digital newsletter distribution is restricted to the Web. These digital newsletters may be sent either in the body of an email message or included as a link in an email which directs the recipient to a particular website where s/he can access the item. In either case the recipient can read a digital newsletter while online, or print it out and save it to their hard drive for future use.

The contents of a digital newsletter may vary somewhat drastically, depending on the type of business that particular newsletter is promoting and the purpose for which it is being published, including personal preferences of the business owner and those employees involved in its production. However, the general format of a digital newsletter should be such that it includes useful information in the form of full length feature articles or shorter pieces offering usable tips. The digital newsletter should also contain at least some subtle advertising for the products and services offered by its owner/publisher. These pieces of advertisements should not be blatant and should allow readers to formulate their own opinions regarding product or service offers.

Valuable and useful content

Any digital newsletter should be created and designed in such a way that interesting and useful content make up the major portion (bulk?) of the document. Such content may include full length feature articles that provide information for the readers, as well as shorter pieces which may offer tips and product reviews or offer advice to the reader.

The key to providing high quality content in these digital newsletters is to have it written by a capable writer who is knowledgeable about the subject matter. A digital newsletter writer should have an understanding of the subject matter or have the ability to research a topic and learn enough to write accurate and informative articles about it. In either case the distributor of such a newsletter should carefully review the content for both quality and accuracy before publishing.

Distributors of digital newsletters should also consider including in their document. Such graphics may depict product pictures, employee photos, company headquarter pictures or other relevant graphics that provide meaning to the text of such newsletters. A graphic designer can be called on to assist in this endeavor by giving advice or actually helping in the creation of said graphics, including such tasks as cropping them appropriately and placing them in a prime location on the layout of such a digitally-based newsletter.

Consider the audience

In conclusion, it is of critital importance that distributors of digital newsletters carefully consider their audience before using email for marketing purposes. The primary consideration should be whether or not the target audience is likely to be receptive to marketing in the form of emails – whether those emails contain digital newsletters or not. If they are likely to respond to this type of marketing it is worthwhile to pursue an email marketing campaign.

However, care should be taken to ensure that emails sent to a given target audience are designed specifically to appeal to those recipients, and that such recipients had previously consented – via an opt-in form – to receive emails, offers and newsletters notwithstanding. The type of specialization that must be considered when attempting to appeal to a given audience should include language (type used in the copy), layout (of email or newsletter) and graphics, if any (color and placement).

Additionally, the copy should be packed with information that recipients will find useful – if not valuable – to them; and always keep in mind that sending any kind of emails to a large group of recipients who have not requested information from you, and have no interest in your products and services is, among other things, a waste of time.

Request permission!

It is a better idea to ask customers and potential customers if they are interested in receiving more information, and having them join an email subscriber list if they wish to receive that information. Sending your emails to this subscriber list ensures the majority of recipients will have an interest in your products/services and are not likely to automatically delete your emails as spam or report you to the authorities for violating the CAN-SPAM Act.

01/07/2018