How can email marketing help your b2b startup succeed?
original post by Megan Feltes, Content Specialist, Emma Inc. January 19, 2012 – 6:01 am for BtoBMagazine
Timely, direct and effective communication is essential to the success of any startup. Email marketing fits the bill unlike any other marketing tool. The email channel has evolved beyond the typical e-newsletter. Now campaigns with videos, surveys and other rich media content give burgeoning companies the edge they need. It is also relatively inexpensive—something that is always important to a new company. If you’re launching a new venture or just looking to make the most of the email channel, use these five tips to make the most of your email marketing efforts.
1. Devote time to your email marketing.
Email allows you to create messages quickly, distribute them for pennies and see a possible return of $43 for every $1 dollar spent (that’s the industry average, according to the DMA.) I say possible because effective email marketing takes forethought. Be prepared to invest some time in planning and executing campaigns. Sit down and draw up a calendar to plot your first few months—and keep an eye on the stats. You can always adjust as needed. Then, plan for a more thorough review of your program after six months or so. Dig into the response numbers to see what’s working, what needs to be adjusted and what should be kicked to the curb.
2. Build an engaged audience.
Since no business wants to be stuck with a big announcement and no one to tell, you’ll need to build a permission-based email list. You might think it would be easier to buy a list, but this can lead to complaints, poor delivery and even blacklisting—something a startup definitely wants to avoid. Create a strong signup form and link it to all your customer touch points (website, transactional emails, social media, sales counter, email signature, etc.). Tie your form to an automatic welcome email, and thank new subscribers right away. Studies have shown that these can net four times the average open rate and five times the normal click-through rate. Plus, you’ll immediately cement a new relationship.
3. Showcase your brand.
Don’t skimp on design. Maintain consistency with your branding components, including logo, brand colors and font. You want recipients to recognize your brand at a glance. Keep things simple. Inboxes are crowded so your email needs to make an impact right away. Lead with an enticing subject line, followed by eye-catching brand graphics and well-edited copy.
4. Tell your story.
As a startup, you likely have a lot to say, but have you put much thought into how to say it? Before you launch an email program, think about what information you want to get out there. More important, figure out what information your audience actually wants to receive. Take time to figure out the tone, voice and style that you want to use in your communications. Strategize ways to intentionally tell your brand’s story to the right people at the right time and place. Don’t abuse the inbox. Relevant, timely emails will perform much better than a hodgepodge of content sent haphazardly.
5. Don’t reinvent the wheel.
Startups are notoriously strapped for time. Once you’ve developed your main story lines, figure out what content you’ve already got and reuse it. Email is a great way to share video, recycle blog posts and highlight product descriptions—all things that might have been created for other platforms. Conversely, consider posting email content to your social media sites to get more mileage. Plus, your casual social followers can read, click and become engaged email subscribers as well.
Megan Feltes is a content specialist at Emma Inc. (MyEmma.com), an email marketing and online communications company.
Hire the right email service provider
Below is an example of why the system and people you hire to do your email marketing need to understand your requirements and provide a solution… not just a piece of software.
In 2008, leasing and finance company First National Capital Corp. decided to employ an email service provider to help with its marketing program. Unfortunately, the company, which offers funding and debt syndication services to a variety of industries (including aviation, construction, manufacturing, retail, and energy) found its provider to be “expensive and difficult to use,” according to Mike Curtis, First National Capital’s VP-marketing and sales operations.
“We spent about $69,000 during the first year,” he said. “While I was impressed with the benefits, I felt for that kind of spend there had to be other solutions out there. I wanted to do what we were doing more effectively and spend less money.”
In the second quarter of 2009, Curtis decided to hire ESP Pinpointe—mostly, he said, because of reduced costs. But he quickly discovered Pinpointe provided more flexibility than his old system.
For instance, since First National Capital has many different customer segments, Curtis wanted a way to segment the company’s contact database so targeted emails could be sent. Using Pinpointe, he’s been able to create segments of several hundred people just as easily as several thousand, and he can create one-time segments without having to do too much leg work. The switch also allowed First National Capital to be more “hands-on,” something that’s important since the company’s marketing department is Curtis himself. “I can concentrate on hyper-hyper-personalization and be very targeted and very specific,” he said. “I’m not stuck using templates or sending to specific, preformatted segments.
The email program touches customers on average three to four times per quarter, including a quarterly email newsletter and other segment-specific offers and messages. Content is designed to build the company’s reputation as a thought leader and raise overall brand awareness, Curtis said. All emails are personalized and come from individual sales representatives as well as the corporate office.
For example, a recent email went out to 11,000 people who own airplanes. “I pulled an article out of an aviation magazine about the fact that the federal government wants to eliminate the tax break and depreciation [related to owning a private jet]. We got a lot of emails back thanking us for educating [our customers.]”
The segmentation also lets Curtis send out email to clients based on past behavior. “We sent a message out this week to people who bought planes three years ago,” he said. “The message was very targeted—”Regarding your Learjet 450 three-year anniversary.’ That went to 400 people. I sent out the email this morning, and we’re averaging a 21%-to-24% open rate so far on that one little campaign.”
Curtis doesn’t rely exclusively on templates, sometimes opting for plain text messages. Another email, sent right before the July 4 holiday, was extremely simple; it contained clip art of a flag and text wishing recipients a “great Fourth of July.” That email generated five leads sent directly to sales reps, Curtis said.
Since moving from its old marketing automation system to Pinpointe, Curtis has saved a lot of money, but the real benefits are the business results, he said. The company grew 40% during 2009 while the rest of its industry was flat or losing revenue.
“While it was more than just email, of course, it’s made me say, “Wow, that’s the real power of email marketing.’ I can finally be more hands-on and communicate effectively the way my customers want to hear from us, and it shows in our sales.”
Where is your client data hosted?
Can you answer the following questions with a high degree of comfort?
Is your organisation mishandling customer data?
If you are using the web then where is your customer data currently hosted, in which country and how is it stored?
Have you ever contravened Australian Trans-border data laws?
News Corporation has bought Privacy issues to the forefront in the most unpleasant way but it is a reminder as to your obligations with respects to your client data.
We see so many Australian companies sending email campaigns using Mail Chimp, Campaign Monitor, Constant Contact and several other systems.
- But have they thought about where that data is being uploaded to?
- Which country are the servers in?
- Who has access to the information?
Have you ever wondered just how unsolicited emails hit your accounts?
Platform Direct is hosted in Australia, for Australian organisations that take their customer data seriously and want local support with data access guarantees.
Our guarantee is that our staff will never access your customer information without prior permission for support purposes only.
We take privacy and security seriously in this ever more connected Web World.
Call us or Platform Direct at anytime to discuss Privacy and Security matters and we’ll be glad to help you solve these questions.
Just be sure to mention YourConnection Australia when you call Platform Direct so they know about this offer.
Stop being lazy.. you’re wasting your money!
It still amazes me how many business think that just because they are using an EMS they don’t have to use any best practices when sending their emails.
I subscribe to a lot of email newsletters, from all different business and organisations and see these great looking emails with no functionality. In the past they have been hesitant to even pay for a professional service, now I see all to often them happily (or maybe not so) wasting their time and money on sub-par email newsletters and promotions.
There has probably been a lot of thought put into these campaigns, though sadly not a lot of knowledge. Don’t be one of them, even a professional appraisal of how you conduct your email campaigns, all be it a cost upfront, will be the difference between making money or getting a return on your email marketing investment.
If you would like us to appraise your current email sending, please don’t hesitate to contact us!
Proficiency Now Upgrades
This coming Wednesday the following improvements and new features will be updated on the Proficiency Now software.
Improvements
- We have enabled drag and drop for the reordering of content and tests within lessons, and lessons within modules to make it easier to manage information
- Users are now locked out of individual modules not the entire system.
- Department listing is now listed in a hierarchy list
- We have added the ability for assessors to provide written feedback to students who submit written responses to tests – via the internal messaging system
New Features
- Upload External Verification documents for Offline Modules (contact us for activation)
- You can now assign individual modules to users from the admin console (contact us for activation)
- Email Notifications per Department (specify an email to be sent notifications for individual Departments)
- Email Notification per Module/Course (specify an email to be sent notifications for individual Modules/Courses)
For more information or a Free Pilot of the systsem, please contact us
Consumers unimpressed by email marketing on mobile phones
Survey shows marketers need to get their message right for the medium.
By MarketingMag – 14th Feb 2011
Experian surveyed 240 Australian marketers and 1000 Australian consumers, and found that consumers are using mobile devices for email more than ever, but marketers have not adapted their email strategies to create better experiences across different platforms.
“Smartphones have changed the landscape by converging our phone with what is fast become the primary device for accessing the Internet,” Experian’s marketing services asia pacific marketing director John Merakovsky tells Marketing magazine. “This means that messaging on mobile is growing rapidly as consumers embrace the channel.”
“The challenge for marketers is to understand that any campaigns or communication with consumers must be optimised for mobile devices to allow them to respond effectively to a call to action,” Merakovsky advises. “Marketers need to address this growing need as very few consumers today are prepared to click on an email link from their mobile device.”
Key findings from the study
- Calls to action – mobile email readers are reluctant to click on a link due to bad user experience for non-mobile optimised websites (less than 10 percent would click on a mobile link vs. 61 percent if done through a PC)
- Marketing gap – 78 percent of marketers place a high importance on mobile marketing in the future, yet only 18 percent have taken steps to amend their strategies to meet consumer needs (mobile-friendly microsites, tailored email content)
- Location – consumers are reading emails anytime and anywhere – marketers need to adapt their email strategies to indentify the best times to send out their email if targeting mobile users
- Future trends – mobile apps are a relatively new technology but there is broad interest across all consumer age groups for engaging with them in the future – there is a clear opportunity for Australian marketers, and
- Customers miss out – only one quarter (26 percent ) of Australian consumers consider the design of emails received on their mobile device as ‘good’ – a communications breakdown for retailers trying to engage with customers who have ‘opted in’ to receive news updates.
Here at YourConnection, we pride ourselves on getting your message right and making it work for you.
Learn what uplift modeling can do for email marketing
Original Post: Tips for Improving Your Email Campaign By Abby Johnson – Wed, 01/05/2011 – 3:59pm.
Have you ever heard of uplift modeling? If you do email marketing, it is definitely something you want to be familiar with. It is, essentially, a technique that marketers can use to segment their customer audience to see if their email marketing campaigns are effective.
Uplift modeling also explains to marketers how their email campaigns influence subscribers, which is pointed out in the above video. This concept is especially important because marketers often heavily rely on email marketing since they can reach their entire customer base at once. However, marketers need to realize that untargeted, mass emails could actually result in harmful effects on their business.
Multiple emails, irrelevant offers, and impersonalized messages will, most likely, turn customers away. Uplift modeling, on the other hand, is an analytical approach to email marketing that examines the different levels of customer data. This data then identifies which customers will buy, which customers will never buy, and how they will react to the email message.
One of the intellects behind this concept is Mark Smith of Portrait Software. He recommends dividing email subscribers into 4 segments including Sure Things, Persuadables, Sleeping Does, and Lost Causes.
Sure Things are the subscribers that do not need an incentive to buy. They don’t need to be sent discounts or promotions since they are going to make a purchase even without the prompting.
Persuadables are slightly different since they will buy, but they have to be pushed a little. In other words, they take action after they receive a discount or promotion.
Sleeping Dogs do not want to be bothered by a continuous stream of emails. They act only on their own terms. If marketers constantly prod this segment, chances are these subscribers will unsubscribe or take their business elsewhere.
Lost Causes are the last segment and will not budge at even the best offer. In this case, marketers should probably take this segment out of its campaign since it will not offer any benefits. So, now does uplift modeling make sense? It not only helps marketers better target its customers, but it also helps them improve their ROI.
Are you taking advantage of uplift modeling to boost your email marketing campaign?….. www.yourconnection.com.au
Email revamp helps law firm boost open rates, engagement
Original Post by Karen J. Bannan for www.btobonline.com
Proskauer Rose is a New York-based international law firm with practice areas in corporate law, healthcare, labor and employment, and real estate, among others. Getting the message out to so many different customer segments would be difficult if it wasn’t for the company’s email program, which generates about 15 different weekly communications for a combined total of about 300,000 emails per month. “For the most part it’s what you need to know about the latest developments in the law,” said D. Greg Polk, the firm’s creative services supervisor.
The company sends out newsletters as well as client alerts—one-topic communications that focus on, for example, a Supreme Court decision or a new law. Other emailed content includes event announcements and press releases about the firm. Previously, attorneys wrote their own copy and turned it over to the marketing department to handle the logistics. The stories were then emailed, posted on the company’s website and blasted out via its RSS feed.
The program has historically been well-received, garnering an open rate of about 11%. However, Polk and the marketing team thought metrics could be even better. To improve the program, they turned to email service provider Concep, which revamped the firm’s email strategy and took the changes live in June.
The biggest change, Polk said, is the firm’s expanded use of metrics. Now, instead of measuring just opens, Proskauer Rose can track clicks and forwards, which makes it possible to see which topics are the most popular. One of the things Polk and his team discovered was that the headlines the lawyers were writing were too long and complex, he said. “We saw that if something was very dry and long—three sentences—it didn’t get opened,” he said. “We started focusing more on creating good headlines and intro paragraphs; and as soon as we did that, our response levels started getting better.”
Polk and his team began using search engine optimization strategies when writing headlines. “We learned that we needed to make sure that certain keywords are in the headlines,” he said. “We realized that putting keywords and better headlines [into emails] got us increased traffic.”
Combined, those small changes added up to a big jump in Proskauer Rose’s open rates. Today, the firm’s email marketing messages are getting a 15%-to-17% open rate, about a 50% jump. But more important, the email program is helping the firm better communicate with clients. “It’s giving us a better foundation in the conversation that’s going on,” Polk said.
For a solution like this for your business or orgaisation, contact us here
The e-Training Revolution
We’re getting daily take-ups of our free pilot offer and the system is in a state of constant evolution. As a result, we thought it might be nice to give you an insight into one of our best clients; how we were able to provide a complete training solution for them; and how their dynamic requirements help drive the development of Proficiency Now!
This client, (sorry we can’t name names) currently manages about 900 contractors and staff at one of their Melbourne locations.
Before they had heard of Proficiency Now! they were managing the training of these 900 staff via one offline excel spread sheet. They lacked a centralised, online facility to manage their training records and as a result, new versions of their spread sheet were being created and stored in various locations. Inevitably it got to the stage where it was difficult to establish which staff had completed the various legally required training modules.
As with all of our clients, our account managers and developers sat down with the management and HR team to discuss their specific requirements for an online training environment. In the case of this particular client, their needs included a badge that is automatically printed upon completion of training. The badge acts as an indication as to the varying levels of compliance the inductee has completed to date. If the inductee doesn’t have sufficient compliance training, they are then directed to sit the appropriate training module using Proficiency Now!. Upon completion they can then print off a new badge.
Once we had a clear understanding of the clients requirements, we developed a free pilot of the Proficiency Now! system. This process included the conversion of their training content into Proficiency Now! Then after the modules, lessons and tests had been uploaded, the client was given a quick over-view of the system before they were let loose. Having seen the vast benefits of an eTraining system as advanced and intuitive as Proficiency Now!, the management team understood that the days of managing their staff training in excel spread sheets were well and truly over.
As the requirements of this client and all of our other clients evolve, so too does our software. As a client of Proficiency Now!, you are instantly provided access to any updates that are made to the system, whether that be for a multi-national corporation or a local Not-For-Profit organisation.
Upgrades that we are developing at present for some of our other clients include:
- Storage of offline training records
- Online Training Calender
- Online Marking for RTO’s
- Enhanced Reporting
So get online today and sign up for a free 60 day pilot of Proficiency Now!
Getting it right will make you $$$
Hi
Getting your email message right will make you money. Don’t keep sending the same specials or deals, that may not be bringing in the $$$. Know your audience and segment your database accordingly to send the right message to the right people.
If your looking to send emails that make your business money, it needs to be done right.
So many times we see business’ and organisations try to do it themselves, miss some crucial points that may do them out of making good money just to save themselves a few hundred dollars.
If you are currently sending emails and not getting the results you want (or need) we are offering a free consultation for your business or organisation to get the emails you send, working for you.
Call 1300 503 404 or email us now and we will come to you FREE and help you get it right, and you don’t have to change anything!
Below are just a few of the things we can help you with!
