Social Media vs Social Email

As marketers continue to evolve their social networking strategies, it is important to remember that e-mail remains one of the most cost-effective and, if executed properly, the most beneficial tools within their marketing toolboxes. Marketers can use e-mail to increase the effectiveness of their social channels and as a way to identify their most engaged and vocal customers and recipients. Combining the reach of e-mail with the power of social networking helps to achieve that marketing sweet spot—the right offer to the right individual at the right time.

Social programs are developed for exposure and interaction solely within the social networks and blog space. Programs often include some outlet for interaction that a user can experience and then share with contacts within their network. The interaction can be via a survey, quiz, game or other online, interactive component.

Socialized e-mail requires marketers to look at both their e-mail strategy and their social goals to find the perfect blend of content to meet both objectives. Earliest iterations of socialization have included Bookmark and Share “SWYN” (share with your network)  links tied to offers or newsletters, resulting in an advanced forward-to-a-friend type feel. Over time it has evolved to get marketers thinking of ways to include components that are going to inspire sharing behavior and, in some cases, even motivate it without being too overbearing.

When applying socialization components to b-to-b efforts, it is important to realize that recipients may choose to share with a professional network like LinkedIn, within industry or vertical-specific environments or even with in-house colleagues. So make sure it is easy to execute, otherwise the halo effect of that share behavior will not be realized (or at least not as greatly as it could have been).

But the most important thing to walk away with is this: The content needs to be worth sharing. Whether you are building a social program or socializing your e-mail, if the content or detail isn’t something you would associate with publicly, it likely won’t go social.Social Media vs Social Email

Is Facebook as important to your strategy as Google?

Re-post from Chris Crum, from SmallBusinessNewz 16 Feb 2010.

According to data from Compete, Facebook has surpassed Google as the top source of traffic for major portals like Yahoo, MSN, and AOL. In December, 15% of traffic to these sites came from Facebook and MySpace. 13% from just Facebook. They say it’s among the top traffic drivers for other types of sites as well. Is Facebook as important to your strategy as Google? Let us know.

By Facebook’s most recent stat counts, the site has over 400 million active users. Half of them log on each day. Over 35 million upate their status each day, with over 60 million status updates posted each day. Over 5 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) are shared each week, over 3.5 million events are created each month, and there are over 3 million active Pages on Facebook.

Over 1.5 million local businesses have active pages. Over 20 million people become fans of Pages each day, and Pages have created over 5.3 billion fans. The average user has 130 friends. These last few stats say a lot about the power of Facebook for businesses.

Facebook pages can be found in Google (often near the top of results pages), and there are things you can do to make them more powerful. I discussed this in more detail here. Basically, it comes down to participation, integration with other online presences, not being annoying to your fans, and hosting events (which can also lead to participation).

Promotion of your page is key as well. Use prominent links on your site(s), use the Facebook Fan Box or something like it. You can promote it in your author bio on articles/blogs, in email newsletters, on other social media profiles, in your Google profile, on your business card, in your signage, in your email signature, and in your ads, to name a few.

For more help with your digital communications, contact us at www.yourconnection.com.au, email us here or call 1300 503 404

Boost your open rates

We are seeing a great increase in the open rates of our email news and our clients emails, this is due to a few things;

1. From Line
This is ‘who’ sent the email, someone you know and are expecting a communication from.

2. Subject Line
This is the key to whats inside the mailout, attractive, straight to the point and enticing.

3. ‘Above the Fold’ content.
The content that is visible in a preview pane of your email browser (Outlook, Hotmail, Entourage, etc.)

All these and more techniques engage the customer, member or reader to pay attention and interact with your email on a higher level than just “Oh, there’s another email from so-and-so….. delete”

If you have any stories about emails you have recieved that lack in any of these areas let us konw or forward them to us at info@yourconnection.com.au
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FYI…

We have simplified our website, there is now only one page with links to our blog, DIY signup, pricing guide and contact us. As we provide a clean, simple and effective service, our website should reflect that, we would like to hear your feedback and thoughts, so feel free to email us.

If you’re sending promotional or in house communications via email or sms’, changing promotional content on your website or co-ordinating a marketing strategy 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.

10 Must-Haves To Dress Up Your Email Marketing Campaigns

Original Post by VR Marketing Blog – Dec 29, 2009

Even the best of us take for granted the simple things you need to include in your email marketing campaigns we send out on a regular basis. So here is a list of things you must have that will help you grow your list, get more opens and clicks for your emails, and have a super successful campaign.

1. Write A Compelling Subject Line Make sure you take the time to think about what’s going to get your email opened. Look at your past campaigns, see which ones got the highest open rates and try to emulate the type of subject line you used.

2. Ask to Get Listed in Your Recipient’s Address Book If the email address that you send your email campaigns from is listed in your recipient’s email address book, your email goes directly into the inbox and your images are automatically displayed. You’ll want to get as many of these as possible.

3. Include a Forward-to-a-Friend Link You don’t know what it’s going to take to entice your recipient to forward the email to a friend of theirs so your message gets out to a wider audience. So even if they don’t click on a “forward to a friend” link you include, it may make them remember to simply forward it using their email client.

4. Use Images to Illustrate Your Point If you’ve got images of your product, go ahead and include them. Like they say, an image is worth a thousand words. Just remember, some email readers strip out images so make sure your copy that you write also tells the story.

5. Prominently Display Your Logo Nothing works on your recipients like a familiar logo of a company they do business with. Remember to include image “alt tags” that will show the name of your company or product in the event your images don’t display properly.

6. Include Your Postal Address This is simply the U.S. Federal Law, so be sure to include your postal address in each of your email campaigns. Even if you’re emailing from outside the U.S. many times you don’t know where your recipients are.

7. Display an Unsubscribe Link Even the best email marketing campaigns get unsubscribes, but bottom line is you don’t want to continue to send emails to recipients that don’t want them. Not only is this included in the federal CAN-SPAM legislation, but it will end up tarnishing your company reputation with negative word-of-mouth.

8. Use Customer Testimonials Make sure you constantly solicit testimonials from your customers and recipients. Then feature them in your email campaigns. You’ll get two things from them; 1) They’ll likely forward it to all of their friends and 2) Nothing sells better than a customer selling your products or services for you.

9. Insert Lots of Links If you think you’ve got too many links…add more! You never know what link your readers will be compelled to click, so make sure you’re linking words and images and you’re linking often.

10. Use Your Social Media Links If you’ve got people following you on Twitter, or people who are Facebook fans, make sure you include these links in your email marketing campaigns. You’ll spread the word to a wider audience from within these campaigns.

Creating Effective Newsletters

Hopefully you’re not like most business when it comes to your email marketing and newsletters. Most business just punch out mundane un-informative sales pitches over and over without looking at their stats or asking for their members feedback. Here are a few tips for turning your newsletter into a powerful marketing strategy.

Get your mailouts managed by professionals

1. Determine what your readers want- too many newsletters are used simply to boast. Although your newsletter should promote your business, it’s also a time to build your relationship with your prospects and customers. Be sure to discuss topics of interest and value for your customers and prospects.

2. Personalize your newsletter- there are hundreds of newsletters circulating on the Internet and in the mail. You need to make your newsletter stand out from the crowd. Making your newsletter uniquely you will make a difference. So be real. Feel free to include personality and emotion in your newsletter.

3. Make it look good- the visual aspect of your newsletter can make all the difference. Make it brief. (You only have the reader’s attention for a few minutes.) Use bullets and appealing headlines. And include graphics.

4. Let your readers give you their opinion- ask your readers to comment on the newsletter. They will tell you what they liked, disliked, or want to see more of. Additionally, the interaction with your readers draws you closer to a sale.

5. Include your contact information- the ultimate purpose of the newsletter is to get more customers (through name recognition, relationship building, and promoting your products). However, without your contact information, those potential customers will never appear.

Create a newsletter worthy of your company and you’ll drive your readers to future sales. Make it simple, make it short, and make it a powerful tool that reflects you and your business.

Written by Clate Mask from Infusionsoft

Dont have time to produce and manage your own communications? Let us do it! You will get better results and save money on wasted campaigns and staff time. Go to www.yourconnection.com.au

New e-communication pacakges

We have three Fully Managed packages that provide different levels of service for YourConnection Australia clients to choose from as well as a DIY package. We believe each of these packages provide the best value for money for the client while minimizing the time input from their staff to help create and approve the campaigns.

Each new managed account requires an Account and Template set up.

Account and Template Set Up – $165 incl. GST
• Gets you started, includes
• Account Set Up
• A HTML and Text template designed for your business.

DIY (Do It Yourself) – $ monthly hosting fee.

• Add your own database, choose your template, create your mailout, send and track your own campaigns.

Get started now!

Basic Package – $165 / mailout incl. GST

• Info sheets How to build a database and Database acquisition form
• Content generation from completed online form
• Mailout schedule creation, production and proofing
• One amendment per send
• Sign – up box code for your website
• Database management and segmentation
• Prompted access to Reporting page to view results

Benefits – Very quick, all done online, very low input required by you, fully managed by YourConnection Australia, Access to reports for further development and review of mailouts.

Contact us

Download our Full Price List Here as a PDF

How can marketers best use e-mail marketing to build brand loyalty?

Check out below this very good article that outlines clearly what you should be looking at in relation to builting brand loyalty. when emarketing.

Original post by Dave Lewis Story posted: August 13, 2009 – 6:01 am

Marketers should view e-mail marketing as a valuable channel that can help build a long-term relationship with a brand-loyal customer (as opposed to reducing upfront marketing costs or driving immediate revenue). As much as possible, attune your outreach to your customers’ needs and tailor communications to their particular preferences.

As a guideline, consider the following issues when it comes to customization of digital messaging:

• Transparency: Do you explain to your customers exactly what they are signing up for?

• Privacy: Do you make your privacy policy explicit so that your customers know they can trust you with their information?

• Confirmations: Do you send a welcome message to new customers in a timely fashion after they’ve signed up, and do you use that opportunity to deliver information?

• Relevancy: Do you segment your lists according to customer interests and past behavior?

• Frequency/Timing: Are you being careful about how often you e-mail your customers, and are you sending your messages at times that are most useful or practical for customers to act upon them? More is not always better—marketers that indiscriminately flood their customers with e-mail run the risk of eroding brand loyalty and losing subscribers to e-mail fatigue.

• Channel: Are you asking your customers which communications channels they prefer (e.g., e-mail, Facebook, IM, RSS, SMS, etc.) and making use of those preferences in your outbound campaigns?

Examples of email marketing by YourConnection Australia

In addition to considering these questions, marketers should follow the four golden rules of engagement:

1. Continually refresh permission in order to keep pace with the ever-evolving needs and preferences of the customer. The best way to do this is to build an interactive component into your mailing in which you prompt the customer for a response to continually solicit and eventually fine-tune your messaging just for them.

2. Periodically survey customers to determine if they’d like to continue to receive e-mail communications or if they’d like the frequency of e-mail communication adjusted.

3. Deploy an e-mail technology solution that allows you to segment your messages to a number of different audiences and reach them according to their expressed preferences.

4. Pay attention to the metrics of e-mail campaigns—e-mail affords the unique ability to look at deliverability rates, click-throughs and actual sales. Marketers should look at these metrics and instantly act upon them. By making a dedicated effort to attune to customer needs and leveraging the right technology solutions, marketers can deliver against their immediate revenue objectives while building brand-loyal customer relationships for the long term.

Dave Lewis is CMO at Message Systems

Keep up to date with YourConnection Australias e-news by signing up @ http://www.yourconnection.com.au/

Email Suffering

Although email marketing is acknowledged to have the highest ROI among marketing activities, the channel continues to suffer from under-investment, lack of staffing and resources and a focus on volume over relevance…

Doing our bit to change break the cycle… YourConnection Australia

What Works Best?

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

4 predictions for e-mail marketing in 2009

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.

www.yourconnection.com.au

Original article published by Karen J. Bannan

Story posted: December 11, 2008 – 10:06 am EDT on http://www.btobonline.com