Email Marketing Best Practices – Page 10

Best Practices in Action: A Look at Our Contest Entries

Posted by Miller Ramoson February 26, 2013April 16, 2014in Email Marketing Best Practices

Our Best Email Design of 2012 contest saw so many more entries than we had anticipated. Our panel of email expert judges had to square away some serious time and focused attention to properly evaluate them and give them all a fair shake. By February 1st, some really impressive submissions made it to our contest inbox and, in looking things over, it has become apparent that the entire pool of submissions we received provided a very insightful look into how you all out there were doing in regard to email marketing best practices. Because, let’s face it—it’s one thing to be aware of what constitutes recommended and proven methods with regard to email. It’s another thing entirely to see them in action.

Here are a couple great things we saw you email-sending folks out there do:

Data Collection Tips to Improve Deliverability

Posted by Marianne Celluccion January 3, 2013April 8, 2015in Email Delivery & Deliverability, Email Marketing Best Practices

The key to an overall data collection strategy is to ensure your data collection methods are sound. The quality of the prospect and
customer data being used to target and personalize your email messaging efforts are only as good as the data used to power them.

There are several actions that your organization should take at the point of data collection to ensure that best practice is achieved in the collection and use of data, including:

Gaining positive consent by using an “Opt-in” checkbox (where the box is unchecked) is preferable to a passive opt-in practice (where the box is pre-checked).
While single opt-in (no confirmation email) remains the most commonly used permission-based mechanism, double opt-in (where a confirmation email is sent to the new subscriber with a link to activate the registration) provides 100% assurance in terms of the validity of the email address and reaffirms that a recipient does want to receive your messaging.

The Power of a Good Subject Line: Monitor Your Own Inbox for Inspiration

Posted by Marianne Celluccion December 13, 2012April 16, 2014in Email Delivery & Deliverability, Email Engagement, Email Marketing Best Practices, Marketing Strategy

The goal of subject lines is to encourage readers to open your email and take action. For this reason the subject line is one of the most important components of successful promotional emails and newsletters.

Consistently coming up with subject lines that are engaging can be tough. But you don’t need a creative mind to build the perfect subject line. You can get inspiration by monitoring your own inbox and assessing newsletters and promotions that others send to you. More than likely you’re marketed to nearly every day. Take notice of the emails you’re personally opening and why. You can save a lot of time by learning from others. No need to reinvent the wheel! Many of the companies sending you marketing emails have already tested their own subject lines and you can learn from their research.

Making it into the inbox isn’t guaranteed

Posted by Marianne Celluccion December 7, 2012April 8, 2015in Email Delivery & Deliverability, Email Engagement, Email Marketing Best Practices

As email deliverability has become heavily weighted on user engagement, it’s not enough to ‘spray and pray.’ The importance of creating highly relevant and valuable email content has become the key to keeping subscribers opening, reading and clicking through your emails.

Since engagement metrics have become the leading determinant of whether an email message reaches your target’s inbox or spam folder, consider the following 3 tips when putting together your email marketing plan for 2013:

Win $250 – Enter Your Best Email Design of 2012!

Posted by Net Atlantic Marketingon November 15, 2012April 8, 2015in Email Marketing Best Practices, Email Templates, Design & Layout

You worked hard in 2012 designing email templates that produced high conversion rates, generated traffic to your site and maximized your email marketing ROI. If you think you have created an award winning email, enter to win a $250 American Express Gift Card.

The rules are pretty simple. Send us your design by February 1, 2013. A panel of email marketing experts will review and score the entries. In March, we’ll announce our winners! Read our official rules below and enter today.

Good luck!

Testing the Waters of Email Marketing

Posted by Net Atlantic Marketingon August 6, 2012April 16, 2014in Email Marketing Best Practices, Marketing Strategy

With any advertising approach that involves a mailing strategy, campaign testing is a vital component in getting the best return results with the resources you have available. Direct mailing has been the foundation of companies’ marketing strategies for generations, and still remains a dependable and reliable source of getting your message sent straight to the mailboxes of your customers. However with the expansion of the ever popular social media methods, DM is often the first thing to be eliminated. Because of this, it is important to adapt and expand your methods and focus on email marketing and the right type of campaign testing to prove that the physical piece alongside online mailing is still bringing in returns.

Test This, Not That: Email Campaign Testing Beyond the Subject Line

Posted by Net Atlantic Marketingon June 18, 2012April 8, 2015in Email Marketing Best Practices

Test This, Not That I’m sure you’ve read it before: employing testing as an optimization tactic has been proven to be an extremely efficient means of increasing email marketing performance. What you may not have read is that the most widely used testing strategies are not always the most effective.

Top 10 Things to Test to Boost Email Marketing Results

Posted by Net Atlantic Marketingon June 7, 2012April 16, 2014in Email Marketing Best Practices, Email Templates, Design & Layout, Marketing Strategy

Email marketers often see their results slipping–fewer opens, a lower click-through rate and a dropping conversion rate–and panic. That’s understandable when the bottom line is at stake, but panicking won’t help you figure out what’s wrong with your email marketing strategy or how you can fix it. The only thing that can help is to test, test, test … and then test some more!

Remember that all 10 things to test below are meant to be tested over time. Don’t try to test too many things at once or too quickly, as you’re results likely won’t be accurate. Here are the main parts of your email marketing to focus on when you decide something needs to change:

Increase Retention, Engagement and Sales with a Special Edition

Posted by Net Atlantic Marketingon May 24, 2012April 16, 2014in Email Marketing Best Practices, Email Templates, Design & Layout, Marketing Strategy

In my former role as an email marketing manager, I was in charge of publishing a daily email newsletter to more than 200,000 readers. When I started in the job, we were publishing about three times per week, but over the years increased that to mailing nearly every day. Most of our readers were happy to have more content from us, but some felt overwhelmed by the amount of and frequency of the information coming in our email newsletter.

After noticing a drop in retention rates, we decided to create a special weekend edition of the newsletter with a special format and its own opt-in. I authored the issue, writing a topical, timely column each week In addition to the section that I wrote, the newsletter included several special features that only occurred in that issue on the weekend. Over time, readers realized the value of the weekend edition and it eventually became the issue with the highest number of subscribers, highest open rate and highest conversion rate of any that we sent all week.

5 Ways to Keep Your Email Newsletter Content Fresh and Engaging

Posted by Net Atlantic Marketingon April 16, 2012April 17, 2014in Email Marketing Best Practices

I recently wrote in this space about five simple steps to improve the look of your email newsletter and today, I want to follow up on that with a post about how to improve the content of your email newsletter in five more simple steps. Implementing these suggestions will keep your email newsletter content fresh and get readers’ attention so they’re more engaged for longer.

1) Inject personality.
No matter how serious your business is, there’s always room to make things personal. People respond to people (which is why photos are so effective, as I discussed in my last post). So don’t be afraid to let people get to know you. Provide real-world anecdotes that relate to your larger point, discuss a problem you had and the solution you came up with, even talk about your family if it’s relevant. You’ll be far more memorable and better able to connect with readers if they think there’s a real person on the other end of your email.

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