Email marketing strategy

I now offer MailChimp training via www.mailchimptraining.co.uk which includes open courses and in-house training. Email is a highly effective promotional technique, in terms of awareness building and response rates. Key elements include your list, copywriting ability, scheduling and metrics. Email marketing is a promotional mix category.  It includes person-to-person emails, autoresponder messages, newsletters and e-shots.  Here is a list of promotional mix categories. You should send out a monthly newsletter to customers (dormant, current and prospective), suppliers and other relevant contacts.  A newsletter (sometimes referred to as an ezine) should provide useful, helpful and interesting material about your enterprise. There should be a number of links from the newsletter to your website. MailChimp and ConstantContact are popular newsletter production platforms. They include newsletter templates and metrics, so that you can see open rates, click through rates, hard bounce rates (i.e. dead email address), soft bounce rates (temporarily unavailable), spam complaints, etc. An e-shot, on the other hand, is selling something (i.e. a product, service or seminar place). Here is a...
Read More

How to write an e-shot

Email marketing includes newsletters, 1-2-1 emails, autoresponder messages and e-shots. A newsletter should provide useful, helpful and interesting material about your enterprise. If you're interested in newsletters - here is an article entitled 'How to get more newsletter subscribers'.  An e-shot, on the other hand, is selling something (i.e. a product, service or seminar place). Rule 1: Always write e-shots for specific target markets Here is an article on market segmentation  Think about the person (within the target market you are aiming at) who will receive your e-shot. If you were that person, what would your issues be (in relation to the products / services you are marketing)? Rule 2: You live and die by your headline The email subject line is the gateway to the rest of the e-shot. If it is boring / irrelevant / pushy / un-targeted you have lost the game before it starts. If you spend half your time honing a perfect headline, this will be time well spent. Rule 3:...
Read More

Website Marketing – What do you need to do?

Every year, I talk to all different types of businesses asking about a website. Years ago, the term 'website' was just that, a site on the web for your brand or business to sit. Now, the umbrella that is a 'website' has become so much more.One of the most vital parts of that umbrella is Website Marketing. What is Website Marketing? Ultimately, it's the process of getting visitors to your website - then, converting those visitors into customers. Sounds simple enough, right? It can be, if you do it right - or should I say; if you do it at all. So many customers want to spend all their budget on a fantastic looking website, with all the bells and whistles, as well as integration into a whole host of systems for selling their products, or tracking every movement the visitor takes when visiting their site. After months of development, pages and pages of bespoke code, and tons of eye catching images and...
Read More