What Works Best?
June 17, 2009
I literally receive hundreds of emails each week from emarketing businesses all over the world with their take on how to get the best results from your emails, sms, facebook and Google Adwords campaigns. There are a lot of similarities from the different nations and platforms, but what works best?
Is it database segmentation? Is it your subject line? Is it the time of send? or is it any of the other hundreds of factors that go into a successful campaign? Though what works best for ‘Jenny the Florist’ will not necessarily work well for ‘Tom the Butcher’ because their needs and target audiences are different.
This is where we are finding the DIY campaigns on generic platforms can fall behind and start costing your business or organisation more money than its making you. What you really need to do is work out what your customers are wanting to hear and when they want it, then schedule them in to receive the information that suits them at a time that suits them. i.e ‘Jenny the Florist shouldn’t keep sending out quarterly emails to her database around key dates in her businesses calendar (Valentines Day, Mothers Day, etc), they should come a week or two before and with large a call to action like ‘Buy online now!’
If you’re sending emails, sms’ or changing promotional content on your website and would like to sit down with us and go over a schedule of your key dates for free, please don’t hesitate to contact us, we would love to hear from you.
Click here to email us or call 1300 503 404 to arrange a time.
James McDonald
YourConnection Australia
This is a great article posted late last year on BtoB online by the Director of Strategic Services for American based ESP Strongmail that, in the current economic ‘crisis’ is very relevant. Here at YourConnection Australia we provide the end to end service of costing, producing, managing and measuring the results from each campaign to ensure a ROI.
At a time when economic concerns are forcing companies to look carefully at marketing budgets across the board, e-mail is still an attractive option given its extremely high ROI. (According to the Direct Marketing Association, e-mail will generate $45.65 for every dollar spent in 2008.) To achieve that ROI however, you must look at allocating your spending so that every dollar is working to drive the maximum benefit.
The first step is to categorize and analyze the expenses associated with your e-mail programs, including the money being invested in database development, customer profiling and segmentation, strategy, e-mail creative, e-mail deliverability, e-mail production and e-mail deployment. Because highly targeted, tested and well-crafted e-mails almost always generate better results, you’ll want to make sure that you’re investing properly in these areas.
If you find that a lot of your budget goes to e-mail deployment, you should ensure that you’re leveraging the right solution to meet your needs. While many companies have historically outsourced e-mail marketing to e-mail service providers for lack of a viable alternative, the latest generation of in-house e-mail marketing solutions can enable companies to lower their costs by eliminating CPM fees, which increase alongside e-mail volumes.
The bottom line is that reducing your e-mail deployment costs will allow you to allocate more of your budget to strategic areas that can actually lead to increased conversion rates, such as A/B testing, dynamic content creation, database enhancement, transactional e-mail optimization and Web analytics integration. Spending your money on the areas that can make the most difference is always a smart decision, but even more so in a slowing economy.
Ryan Deutsch is director of strategic services at StrongMail Systems (www.strongmail.com), a provider of e-mail marketing solutions.
4 predictions for e-mail marketing in 2009
December 18, 2008
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This year, the hot e-mail marketing topics were segmentation, personalization and deliverability. As we head into 2009, battling a recession and the associated drop in overall marketing budgets—MPG North America (a unit of the French advertising group Havas SA) predicts a 5%-to-8% drop in overall ad spending—those buzz words will make way for new ones. They have to, said Luc Vezina, head of marketing for e-mail marketing solutions provider Campaigner, a Protus IP Solutions company. “E-mail marketing is going to become even more important than it’s been, but companies are going to need to take e-mail relevance even further,” he said. Here are Campaigner’s four predictions for the New Year—and suggestions for how e-mail marketers can benefit.
1) Automation heats up. Everyone in 2008, it seemed, wanted to personalize and better target their campaigns, which led to better segmentation. However, human beings were still overwhelmingly pulling the trigger on so-called “triggered” campaigns. Next year, as companies start to take advantage of the avalanche of data sitting in CRM programs, triggering will happen automatically. “The difference between this year and 2009 is that now people have CRM in place, the data is there, and e-mail tools are integrated with the CRM system and its data,” Venzina said. And some CRM solutions even have e-mail marketing modules built in.
2) Marketers tap integrated marketing programs more often. E-mail marketing used to be relegated to the Web marketing team or to someone hired specifically to do e-mail marketing. This coming year, as head counts shrink and companies realize the value of controlling the entire message, integration will take a bigger role, Venzina said. “At conferences now, all people talk about is how important it is to think multichannel,” he said. “The results when you do that are greater when someone sees your ad online, gets an e-mail from you and sees a print ad—all with the same message.”
3) List hygiene becomes a must. “As marketers’ budgets are more constrained, people will realize how quality is so much more important than quantity,” Venzina said. “People will become less concerned about how big their lists are or how many people are opening their messages, and more concerned that the people who are opening them are finding that message relevant and are receptive.” To that end, companies will integrate individual e-mail lists into a single, manageable list, he said, which will also make it easier for companies to comply with CAN-SPAM. “You must be able to opt out from all of an organization’s e-mails,” he said.
4) Mobile e-mail marketing becomes a standard option. “There are tens of millions of BlackBerry phones, and people are checking e-mail from everywhere—at the mall [or] driving in their cars,” Venzina said. “People are often surprised at how poorly their e-mail renders on smart phones, and that’s when they make a change.” By offering a mobile e-mail option, marketers will make sure messages are deliverable and readable.
Original article published
Brisbane Online Business Seminar 15th & 21st Oct 2008
September 18, 2008
Professional Email Marketing production, management and consultation.
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Speak to local experts and find out everything you need to know about e-commerce, e-marketing and websites at one of the free business seminars coming up in the Brisbane suburb of The Gap or at Brisbane Technology Park in October.
It’s free and you will even have the chance of winning an e-marketing package to the value of $5000, simply by coming along.
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“Are you happy with what you’re getting out of your business?”
September 11, 2008
Surprisingly, very few people claim they are content. However, nearly ALL the people I speak with agree they need to follow-up with customers and prospects more. And, most claim TIME is the #1 factor for not following-up with prospects and customers to grow their business.
Here is my suggestion to you: if your business is not where you want it to be…change it! Technology has given entrepreneurs the power to both grow their business AND have a life. However, too many business owners get caught up in putting out fires and holding the fort down to look for real solutions.
If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got.
If you’re not satisfied with your results, then it’s time to make a change. You really can have it all. But, you must be willing to let go of the old ways and embrace today’s solutions.
Call us on 1300 881 245 if you want and ask us how we can help or click here to email us.
The 80 / 20 Rule
September 4, 2008
Im sure most of you reading this, as business owners or managers would be familiar in some way with the 80 / 20 rule. That is, as a general rule 80% of the income for your business comes from 20% of your customers. Now i can hear you already saying ‘no way that’s not true’ and for some of you that may be the case, though as i mentioned it is a ‘general’ rule and generally you will find that 20% pay their accounts on time, return regularly, purchase often and aren’t bothered too much with your prices…. and you like them!
With that said, many business experts and marketing professionals will then tell you to go out and spend money on different, often expensive advertising campaigns to get the other 80% of your customers…. BAD idea! Why spend all that money, and im talking thousands of dollars to potentially get you 1, 2, 10 more clients that want to haggle on price, give you grief and waste your time.
So what then do i suggest you do? well i am a ‘practice what you preach’ type person, so with that I suggest an active review of your current marketing practices and review of who your client’s are. Easier said than done though what kind of person would i be if i didn’t at least give you a few questions that, when answered honestly will automatically start you thinking of ways to implement them, just make sure you have a pen and paper handy, because when they come, they keep coming.
Ask yourself
- Who are my best clients? These can be specific names of people or businesses or a group or demographic of clients.
- What are they buying? Keep your answers general, to categories of products or services
- What are my most profitable products? highest profit margin NOT most expensive!
WOW simple questions I know though ones that may not have been specifically thought about in detail. This will give you a rough guide to who your clients are and their buying habits are and where you want them to be. Armed with this information your now more capable of promoting these products or services.
Now, how to get them to come back? You know who they are, what they buy and what you want them to buy so there are 2 things that i want you to do
- Collect their details, First name, last name and email address (as a minimum, the more info you get without being obtrusive the better)
- Ask them to come back!
Easy isn’t it! You can ask them to come back in many ways from using a targeted email marketing campaign to offer incentives, up sell, cross sell with other products / services. Tell them they are important with VIP treatment, make them feel special by offering them something free (high perceived value, low actual cost for you), get to know them personally… the list goes on and im sure your able to think of at least another 10 if you really try.
For a FREE 30min consultation with one of our marketing professionals to get one-on-one help with creating more profit in your business using level headed, consistent, trusted methods contact us here.
Why Email Marketing?
August 19, 2008
As the use of email in business to customer communications becomes more and more popular with the big businesses, we take a look at why the small businesses can do just what their big brothers are doing at the top of the food chain. Below are some of the reasons why, as a small business owner you should use email marketing…
Make your website work for you.
• Promote your products, services and information with professional high quality graphical e-mails.
• Stand out in your customers in-box with your professional, valuable messages
• Direct customers to specials or new products on your website
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Respond to your customers actions
• See the statistics of who opened, un-subcribed or bounced your emails
• View the products, services or information they have read by viewing your click-thru statistics
• Segment your databases for various client types
• Create surveys for quick feedback on your services or products
• Profile your customers and target them with specific campaigns.
Create extra revenue streams
• Clear old stock
• Promote up-selling / cross-selling
• Offer your premium customers something special
James McDonald – YourConnection Australia
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5 Reasons why you need a client database
August 4, 2008
1. Identify who your clients are
Identifying who your customers are and collecting basic yet vital information from them will pay dividends for your business as soon as you start to capitalise on the information. By simply gathering your customers name, age, sex, and purchase this is the beginnings of a database that can become a goldmine in the future.
Benefit: The information tells you who you should be targeting.
Professional Email Marketing production, management and consultation.
2. What your clients purchasing habits are
How well do you know what your customers spending / purchasing habits are? You may know what your best selling item is, but what else is bought at the same time?
If you have ever purchased a book from the world renowned Amazon.com, I can guarantee you that you would have received an email asking you if you had thought about buying a similar book. If you bought a cookbook, chances are they have offered you the latest Jamie Oliver or Gordon Ramsay cookbook.
Benefit: It increases the up sell and cross selling possibilities,
3. Gives you an instant rapport with your customers
Do you know every customer that enters your store by name? Some do, some have no idea. We can easily become blinded by the routine of the day to day operations of selling our products or services. A database will give you a reference point to greet and service your customers much better.
The number reasons why your customers will buy from you can be many, though think about when the last time you went to a restaurant, the place was decorated beautifully, the food was excellent, the bill wasn’t a surprise, though all night the waiter was obnoxious and staff were rude! Would you go back?? I doubt it. Because, they hadn’t built a good rapport with you. You love to buy from the small local shop because they take the time to get to know you, remember your name and are generally interested in you, and you repay them for their fantastic service with your repeat patronage.
Benefit: Increased repeat clientele = increase revenue.
4. Allows you to market you your clients more effectively
If you know what your customers are buying regularly, what they’re interested in and what they could use. Would you have more of an idea of how to sell your products or services to them? I think so.
Armed with your magnificent client database with all the information you need, your marketing possibilities open up, no more throwing an ad into the local paper and hoping for the best. You know who your clients are and what they want, now think where do they go, how can I be there? Do your budgets and find out your ROI (Return on Investment) to ensure you don’t just throw away your money. Find a cost effective medium (think outside the box), target your audience with an offer they can’t refuse and thanks to your database you have capitalised on your database.
Benefit: Targeted advertising saving you money and bringing a measurable return.
5. Significantly increases the ‘Good Will’ value of your business.
Your business is doing great, and your competition wants to buy you out, you have your premises (if you own it), your profit and loss statements to show how well the business is doing and your stock.
You value your business with these in mind and then throw in your massive, targeted, organised database of customers that you have got to know, build rapport with, know their spending habits and know what they want to hear. Now how much do you want for your business?? More I bet, because you have the key to what make your business grow, your clients.
Benefit: Higher value of your business.
So with that in mind, do you think that if you have a database already you can make it bigger, better and more specific? If you don’t, do you think you could get one started?
For more information about Email marketing production, management or consultation please contact us.
Written by James McDonald
YourConnection Australia.
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July 31, 2008
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