Join me this Wednesday at 3pm GMT as I take you through what you need to know to increase personalisation in your emails (including why it's worth doing!). I have some great examples - you're sure to have take away ideas you can apply to your own email marketing campaigns.

When:  Wednesday, 1st February 2012, 3pm (GMT)
Duration:  45 minutes including Q&A
Host:  denise cox, Lead Email Consultant, Newsweaver

During this informative free webinar, denise cox, lead consultant with Newsweaver will take you through the steps needed to personalise your emails. You will also learn why you should personalise, what data to use and which are the most powerful elements of your email to personalise.

Register now

Are you reviewing how your email marketing campaigns are performing? I call it "doing a CSI" on your email marketing. Instead of just saying that you're not getting the opens and clicks you expected, you actually get stuck into by conducting forensic examinations into every aspect of the campaigns - from template, content, subject line and from field.

This is not a formal list, but just a few top level thoughts so you can get an idea of the process you should go through.

Have you stated what results you want from your mailings? Are you measuring conversions to understand if you are getting these results?

If you feel your results are very low, first take a look at your bounce, complaint and unsubscribe rates. Combined these can give insight into whether your subscribers are pushing back and treating your emails as spam - which in turn impacts delivery.

Are you trending your metrics? Rather than micro-managing your email marketing issue by issue, trend using your metrics reports your open/clicks across more than one issue to get a bigger picture of reader engagement. For example, for a monthly publication look across three issues, for a weekly publication look across two months. You'll most likely find a huge increase in your percentages of engagement - that's because most of subscribers don't open every single one of your emails. But they will have opened at least one of three that you sent.

It's important not to focus only on what people did - but also on what they did NOT do. Keep track to find out how many haven't opened any of your emails over a defined period of time, such as six months. Target this very inactive group with a special offer to see if you can activate their interest.

Are you testing to find out what works best for your audience? Don't assume the day and time you've always been sending is best - test all seven days of the week, and also time of day. Test the subject line, test the offer, etc. You want to keep working on targeting your emails (as in who receives what and when), crafting the offers and working to ensure you use the best subject line to entice and open.

The end of 2011 is in sight, and a fresh year looms large. I've pulled five posts from over the last twelve months that highlight what is essential to an email marketing campaigns' success:

1. Streamline your process Online newsletters banish the long lead times of print publications. But you should take advantage of the approach print editors developed over the centuries to make your own regularly published email newsletter fairly pain free. (read the article)
2. Optimise engagement in your layout Is your email newsletter template reader friendly? Here's a 5-point checklist to use when reviewing your finished design, and include image tips. (read the article)
3. Think beyond the written word In today's online world, content is your digital currency. When your content gets shared you are reaching beyond the inbox. You are now reaching new readers - and possible subscribers. We live in a digital age and expect to select not only where we want to get content, but how we want to absorb it. When creating content, think beyond the written word.  While the 'traditional' written article still has a firm place in your online newsletter, you need to think about offering your content in other forms to increase your chances of engagement. (read the article)
4. The house list is at the core of your success  A recently published MarketingSherpa chart offer interesting insight into what your peers in the industry are saying about various aspects of their email marketing efforts. This new chart shows what B2B Marketers are finding to be most effective tactics: Emailing to house lists is by far the most commonly used email marketing tactic, as nearly ALL of the B2B organisations participating in this year’s study indicated that they currently practice it. Past surveys have indicated that marketing to house lists get the best results.  (read the article)
5. Use your metrics reports for business intelligence Marketers are beginning to look to click through rates as a more significant indicator of engagement than the 'open' rate. While the open rate on its own has never given the complete picture of engagement, it has up to now been the most popular benchmark of the success of a campaign. In the last several years, opens have become a less accurate measurement. If a reader opens the email, with images turned off, it doesn't get counted as an open. But it will register as an open if the recipient goes on to click on a link in the email - or turns on images. (read the article) 

Social networks have put ‘social’ and 'sharing' into every aspect of business. This includes sharing content from your emails. 

You should have a content sharing strategy in place because it will extend the reach of your message beyond your own subscribers. There are two aspects of this: 1) to share your email content within your own social networks, as well as 2) give your readers the ability to share your email content within their social networks.

Here’s another ‘shareworthy’ idea for you ... share your email content within your own organisation. Since sourcing content remains a top challenge for marketers (68% according to a recent MarketingSherpa survey) the side benefit of doing this means you’ll be helping your co-workers source relevant content. First, conduct an audit within your organisation amongst those who are creating and sending email marketing campaigns. This will identify who might benefit from sharing content. Articles might need to be tweaked with personalisation or a different call to action to make it relevant to their audience, but that’s easily done. Don’t forget to review both written and all rich media content sources - such as videos, podcasts or images. 

To aid this idea of “sharing”, we’ve just introduced a feature called LibraryLink. This function makes it easy to implement content sharing within your organisation.  LibraryLink enables Newsweaver clients with multiple accounts to share content such as articles, images, videos, logos and podcasts etc. across the entire organisation’s account. The built-in Monitoring Dashboard provides shared content activity metrics, helping stakeholders determine the most popular and effective content to share going forward.

Template design and delivery into the inbox certainly play a role in the success of your email marketing campaigns, but it’s your content that will engage your readers.

Content is a company's digital currency and can play a huge role in customer retention. Content is how a potential customer evaluates a company. It is essential to have a well thought-out content strategy that engages your readers and is considered valuable enough to be shared - giving you a reach far beyond the inbox.

I’ll be conducting a webinar giving you tips and insight into how to create and implement a successful content strategy ... hope you’ll join me

Creating a successful content strategy for email marketing: 8 Easy Steps

Time and Date:  Tuesday, 22nd November 2011, 3pm (GMT)
Duration:  45 minutes plus Q&A
Presented by:  denise cox, Lead consultant, Newsweaver

During this webinar, denise will take you through 8 easy steps on how to create a successful content strategy.  Learn about where to source content, how best to use it and various types of content.

What you will learn:

•  Setting goals for your content and creating schedules for your content strategy
•  How to identify great sources of content within your organisation
•  How to distinguish the most compelling types of content to get shared and engage audiences
•  Engaging ways to present your content
•  What are the benefits and business intelligence achieved from a great content strategy which can be used to increase opens and clicks

To view the Webinar, Click Here

 

I've covered this before - but I'm asked so often about it, I'm visiting this subject again .....

Ideas for building that most valuable of assets to a company with lead generation goals: The in-house mailing list.

1. Offer incentives such as a whitepaper for download, a money-off voucher or such.
2. Remind them to "forward to a friend". Sixty-five percent of newsletter subscribers take it upon themselves to do this (and it is a powerful referral), but it doesn't hurt to invite them to do this.
   
3. When you advertise offline or online, include a shortened link to sign up or email address to sign up to the newsletter - both should be easy to remember so they can do it after seeing the ad.
4. Events: Webinars, tradeshows or conventions - take time to ask attendees' to sign up to your newsletter.
5. Take advantage of networking. If it's an in-person event, ask new contacts for  permission to opt them into your newsletter. For online networking, such as discussion forums and LinkedIn, embed information in your created profile for that outlet.
6. Include a link to the newsletter in your email signature file.
7. Include a link to the newsletter in your business card.
   
8. Post your newsletter on your social networks - there's a good chance you are reaching people who are not subscribers, and it's an opportunity to get new sign ups.
9. Give your readers the tools to share your newsletter to their own social networks - again reaching potential new subscribers.
10. Provide an opt-in form for your newsletter. Make sure it's featured prominently on your website, and as a permanent link in your newsletter design - as well as on your social networks.

Language can be a barrier to engagement

The current AMAS digital trending report noted results of a Eurobarometer report on user language preferences, including:

• 90% always use a website in their own language if available
• 49% feel they are missing out on interesting information if it isn't in their language

 Offer language as a personalisation option in your emails

Thinking about the stats above, and how people like to absorb information in their own language, email newsletters offer an excellent opportunity to engage your readers in their own language.

By sending the same content to all your readers, BUT in the language they'd like to receive, you have suddenly doubled relevance. You are acknowledging the needs of your readers and making them feel like they aren't missing out on information. It's important to note that the content must be professionally translated, otherwise this personalisation option will backfire.

The snapshot to the left (click on thumbnail) shows two of versions of customer newsletters - US English and Simplified Chinese.

In addition, your newsletter template design can be customised by language as well. By the way - if you're not sure what language your subscriber would like to receive - ask them in the opt-in form.

I've just published the latest issue of the business of email - and it's all about content. I’ve chosen that topic because great content is an essential ingredient in successful email marketing.

What makes great content? In the most recent Email Newsletter Usability report by Nielsen Norman Group, the following content types were identified as of most value to a subscriber (both B2B/B2C):

• Informative and keep users up-to-date (mentioned by 63% of respondents).
• Offers timely information
• Provides work-related news or company actions (mentioned by 63% of respondents)
• Offers reports, prices, sales
• Gives interesting content relating to their personal interests, hobbies
• Gives details and easy-to-do action points on events, deadlines, important dates
• Requires no further action beyond a simple click

This is not a huge revelation - people receiving information they have requested by subscribing are going to be interested in your products and/or services to begin with... BUT what you provide about the products and/or services will be essential.

These types of content listed above should prompt you to dig deeper into your content war chest to ensure you are pulling in and generating content from all the sources of information available to you. For example: internally generated, on your website or on your blog. Don't forget to use written content AND visual content (eg video, pictures) and audio content (eg podcasts, webinars).

I'd also like to point out that people want things to be easy - so make sure you provide simple action points in your newsletter, and that the design of your newsletter makes it easy to navigate.

If you'd like to read more about this topic, here's an article to read before you assemble your next email newsletter to ensure you are providing the most valuable newsletter possible to your readers:

Four steps to follow when creating written content for your newsletter

The DMA UK has just released their annual DMA / fast.MAP “Email Tracking Study”.

(Sponsor AlchemyWorx is offering a free download of the report for a limited time)

• One of the key findings in the study is that consumers are not feeling overwhelmed by marketing messages they want to receive. The number of people who find "50% of their emails relevant or interesting" has rocketed from 9% to 30%.
• Also, the majority are happy to enter email relationships with brands they trust - and are happy about the frequency, when the information is relevant to them.
• Interesting to note too that survey responders indicated they “hold on to emails to refer to for later use” – a significant percentage mentioning returning a week later to retrieve a commercial email.
• It’s clear that email can drive traffic to websites - 22% of consumers are inspired by emails to go to the company's website via provided urls (So, don't forget to design your newsletter template to feature an embedded link to your website!)

Very encouraging news - it shows how valuable permission-based list building is - but reminds us that the information sent has to be timely, targeted and relevant.

If your challenge is to engage with internal audiences across your organisation - both locally and globablly - then you'll want to join me next Tuesday. I'll be leaving plenty of time for questions ...

What: Engaging internal audiences using email: 7 strategies that work
Time and Date: Tuesday, 11th October, 3pm BST
Duration: 45 minutes, including Q&A session

Register Now For Webinar

During this 45-minute webinar, denise cox, lead consultant at Newsweaver, will focus on how you can engage internal stakeholders with email using 7 strategies that work.

Why is email an essential tool for Internal Communications?

• Streamline communications
• Get the right information to the right employee at the right time
• Decrease print costs, drive traffic to the intranet
• Incorporate  two-way communications for editorial guidance
• Reach employees' inbox – desktop, laptop or smartphone