Category: Email Marketing Best Practices

Mostly every person works in an environment where communication is completed through email. Often times, an email is the first impression of a person or business. This article could have been named, “Stop Using These Words in Emails”, but what message does that give? You want to give the best first impression of yourself or your business always, so here are some strategies to avoid using negative verbiage.

Strong Subject Line

This is the most important part of an email to not include a negative tone. This is the first part of the email that is read and sets the reader’s attitude toward reading the email in it’s entirety or not reading it at all. Do not include words that can bring negative emotions, but words that makes a reader excited to dive into your email.

Negative Replies

When replying to an email, there are many responses to be avoided. “Fine”, “hopefully”, “unfortunately”, “sorry”, and “no” are just a few examples. Put yourself in the shoes of the reader; would you enjoy receiving responses like this?

“Sorry”

…should never be used in an email. If a situation is truly worth an apology, it should be expressed over the phone or in person. For everyone’s benefit, express solutions to the situation and what actions you will complete to fix it.

Do Not “Cancel” a Meeting

If you find yourself cancelling a meeting or event, do not use the word “cancel”. This word has a disappointing and defeated tone. Instead, use “postpone” or “reschedule”. Even though the effect is the same, this lets your reader down easier.

Capital Letters

DON’T USE ALL CAPS! It appears to the reader that you are “screaming a message” at them. It appears aggressive and users do not respond to that.

Read the Email Out Loud

Speaking your emails out loud or to a friend will help you understand how your reader will interpret it. The negative words will pop out and you will know exactly what to edit. Plus, a good proofread never killed anybody.

 

Read about subject lines that get results here:

https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/how-to/useful-lists-short-words-strong

https://blog.netatlantic.com/2013/06/28/first-impressions-subject-lines-that-get-results/

 

Have you ever had a major blunder because of email tone? Share your story below.

 

 

One of the biggest challenges in email marketing is choosing and using an appropriate database for proper management of your client and lead base.

After all, if your company already has a robust in-house database solution, why create another one outside the company?

In fact, high levels of efficiency and automation can be gained by connecting your in-house database with an outsourced Email Service Provider (ESP) that offers database connectivity.

Gone are the days of manually updating and refreshing your data just before every email send. With a database connection, the data synchronization is automatic and seamless, and runs at predetermined scheduled intervals (hourly, daily, weekly, etc.).

The challenge: IT Managers want to manage and oversee their in-house database, and they should. Yet Marketing Managers want to use external ESP marketing tools to create and deliver effective email campaigns to the freshest list of clients and prospects that the company has. The synchronized automated import and export of database to ESP accomplishes just that.

This data synch can occur using API (application programming interface) integration, where the ESP pushes your data out to you, the way you want it. It can be done through ODBC (open database connectivity) where your database member information (name, email address, etc.) gets imported into the ESP platform and synchronized automatically. And other tasks can be accomplished with custom reporting, giving you exactly the kind of highly detailed and relevant information you need when you need it.

ESP database synchronization saves a tremendous amount of time over manual methods, increases accuracy, and allows the marketing team to proceed whenever ready with important email communications, knowing that the subscriber data is always up to date. All the marketing team needs to do is create and send their campaigns. The rest is automatic.

If you need help running your email operations more efficiently by adding automation to your enterprise, contact Sales at Net Atlantic to speak directly with an engineer who can help solve your database marketing and connectivity challenges. Net Atlantic flagship products ListManager and StrongView both offer powerful and extensive database synchronization, automation and API capability.

by Matt Sambito, Net Atlantic Support Specialist

In order to provide their users with exceptional search engine results, Google has been constantly honing their search prowess to deliver the best search returns compared to their competition.

They do this by dictating to webmasters and web designers around the world exactly how they want to spider and index their web sites. Get it right, and you have a chance of doing well in search. Get it wrong, and your site will not come up well on Google search results. We show you how to get it right below.

Remember that there will be a direct and positive impact to results of your next email campaign if your web site ranks high in Google Search, and you use and refer to your domain in your email marketing message.

OVERVIEW

There are hundreds of factors that search engines uses to determine the search results and ranking of a website. One particular factor that has taken on great importance over the years is the domain authority of a website.

The higher your domain authority is, the more likely you are to earn a higher search engine ranking and to receive more and better web site traffic. In fact, your domain authority is the most important consideration when Google decides where you come up on their search results.

GOOGLE TOOLS

Maintaining and monitoring your website is an important task that can help you increase your domains authority. Factors such as back links, search words, and email campaigns can be monitored with Google Analytics while Google Search can help you understand how Google reads or “Crawls” your site.

Here are two of the most important Google tools to use when creating the most search friendly web site with the highest domain authority that you can:

1) Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a free website analytics service offered by Google that gives you insights into how users find and use your website. With Google Analytics, you can track ROI for your online marketing.

You can sift and sort your visitors with dozens of dimensions. You can seamlessly integrate Google Products like Google Search Console or your Google Ads account. You can also use tracking codes to tag and track any advertising, social, PR campaign or any kind of campaign on any platform/website.

https://analytics.google.com

2) Google Search Console

SEO (search engine optimization) is a competition between your site and other sites to show up on the top of the search engine results when a searcher uses any particular search keywords.

Search engine algorithms have changed quite a bit over the years, so if your organic search engine rankings are low, it could mean it’s time for an update. At one time, the key to SEO success was to plug your content with as many keywords as possible. That strategy led to poor search results for search engine users. Thanks to Google’s recent updates, today, it’s all about having original high-quality content on your site, which is why sites with blogs perform so well.

Use Google Search to add pages to the Google Index, rate keywords, and monitor search terms used by people to find your web site.
Also use the Google Search Sitemaps tool.

Creating your site with SEO in mind will ensure that potential visitors can find you online.

https://search.google.com/search-console/about

3) Tracking Email Links with Google Analytics

Tracking your campaign in Google Analytics allows you to measure your email marketing campaigns and compare them with results from any other online marketing you are doing.

By adding campaign parameters to the links you use in your ad campaigns, you can collect information about the overall effectiveness of those campaigns, and also understand where the campaigns are more effective. For example, your Summer Sale campaign might be generating lots of revenue, but if you’re running the campaign in several different social apps and emails, you want to know which of them is sending you the customers who generate the most revenue. Or if you’re running different versions of the campaign via email, video ads, and in-app ads, you can compare the results to see where your marketing is most effective.

When a user clicks a referral link, the parameters you add are sent to Analytics, and the related data is available in the Campaigns reports.

4) Free Online Tracking URL Builder

Here’s a free online “Campaign URL Builder” that will help you generate and use codes to track the source of your inbound marketing leads:

https://ga-dev-tools.appspot.com/campaign-url-builder/

There are 5 parameters you can add to your URLs:

utm_source: Identify the advertiser, site, publication, etc. that is sending traffic to your property, for example: google, newsletter4, billboard.

utm_medium: The advertising or marketing medium, for example: cpc, banner, email newsletter.

utm_campaign: The individual campaign name, slogan, promo code, etc. for a product.

utm_term: Identify paid search keywords. If you’re manually tagging paid keyword campaigns, you should also use utm_term to specify the keyword.

utm_content: Used to differentiate similar content, or links within the same ad. For example, if you have two call-to-action links within the same email message, you can use

utm_content and set different values for each so you can tell which version is more effective.

Example:
https://www.netatlantic.com/emailmarketing/email-marketing-overview?utm_source=Summer%20Sale%20News%20Letterandutm_medium=emailandutm_campaign=Summer%20Sale

These parameters would tell Google Analytics
a. The Source of the click is from the Summer Sale News Letter
b. The Medium is a “email”
c. The Campaign name is “Summer Sale”

5) Conclusion

It’s not enough anymore to create a great web site and hope people come to it. Your web site needs to have great content, be properly registered at google, have proper page structure, use accurate conventions, be responsive (render properly on all devices), load quickly, and especially have strong domain authority.

Additional resources:

Google Webmaster Tools https://www.google.com/webmasters
Google Webmaster Guidelines https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769
Google Webmaster Central https://webmasters.googleblog.com/
Google My Business https://www.google.com/business/
YouTube Channel for Google Webmasters https://webmasters.googleblog.com/
Big List of Google Webmaster Resources https://www.koozai.com/blog/search-marketing/big-list-of-google-webmaster-resources/
Google Structured Data Testing Tool https://search.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool

by Matt Sambito

To excel in business, you need to focus on your strengths, the things that make you money, and the things that are core to your business value proposition.

But it’s also important to know what you don’t want to become an expert at. Some of the most commonly outsourced business functions are:

1) Bookkeeping
2) Payroll services
3) Graphic design, web site design
4) Legal services, contracts, etc.
5) Social media marketing, marketing
6) Remote desktop computer management (outsourced IT)
7) Human Resources, recruiting
8) Blogging, press releases
9) Taxes
10) And anything else you know you are not good at

A good accountant, webmaster, or lawyer fills in the gaps in anyone’s skill set.

If you are busy with activity like the tasks above that are not parts of your company’s core value proposition, you have a great opportunity to improve your business by outsourcing. But what about some of the less obvious yet critical areas of your business that lend themselves to an outsourced strategy such as email marketing?

At Net Atlantic, we’ve found that many businesses that we speak with on a regular basis do not have the time or resources to hire and manage an in-house multi-functional marketing staff, and manage their email marketing campaigns. Do you find yourself not sending email campaigns regularly when you know you should?

Outsourcing your email marketing sending is a great way to ensure that you are keeping your message fresh, relevant and top of mind to your clients and prospects. Realize that if you are not in front of your customers, certainly your competitors are!
Outsource your Email Marketing to WeSendIt.

Now you can have experts prepare and send your next email marketing campaign for you. Outsource your managed sends email to the email experts at WeSendIt.

Connect, engage, and relate to every customer on a personal level with smarter digital marketing automation

Learn more at:
10 Quick Reasons to Outsource Your Email Marketing Sending

A division of Net Atlantic, WeSendIt has 23 years of experience with email. In fact, since inception, we’ve delivered 85 billion email messages to subscribers worldwide.

As a marketer, you’re sending out dozens of communications a week to your subscribers. Have you ever quickly written an email and not had time to test it? Let’s face it, sometimes we make mistakes. Most of the time those mistakes are forgivable typos, but other times those mistakes can cause serious implications.

Below you’ll find the biggest mistakes we’ve come across in our 23 years of sending emails out for our clients, avoid these mistakes to ensure your brand’s credibility isn’t destroyed:

Mistake #1: Including inappropriate content in your test messages
Make sure that the content in your test emails are appropriate and something your clients wouldn’t find offensive if you accidentally sent it to them. Even if you’re just testing out a triggered mailing for an upcoming campaign, keep it professional. We have seen clients send personal or even offensive messages to their clients by accident when they test their campaigns.

Mistake #2: Not including working hyperlinks
You’ve probably all received an email that said “click here” sending you to a landing page to receive a discount offer or coupon. We’ve seen clients not include links when they set up their buttons, or forget to take out the placeholder link when they send their emails. Make sure to double check your links so you aren’t wasting your customer’s engagement on sending them to irrelevant or inappropriate landing pages.

Mistake #3: Using your personal free email account instead of your business address
Keep your personal and business email separate! You don’t want to email your clients from your middle school email address. We’ve had clients mistakenly enter their personal email address as the “from” address. Customers most likely won’t want to buy from companies sending from addresses like: TeenStud2000@hotmail.com or CutiePrincess97@aol.com. Make sure that the “from” address is coming from a professional business email rather than a personal email, and that all aspects of the email are professional and relevant to the recipient.

Mistake #4: Not spell-checking, proof reading or fact-checking your work
In personal communications it might not matter if you misspell some words or use abbreviations, but professionally, your customers expect more.  Bad grammar and poor spelling signal to customers that your business isn’t on the up-and-up. Additionally, make sure to fact-check your messaging. Flat out lies and misrepresentation of facts will cause you to lose the respect and trust of your audience.

Mistake #5: Awkward or suspicious subject lines
The most important aspect of your emails is the subject line. Some of the subject lines we’ve seen have amazed us! Subject lines that start out with something like: “this is not spam” or “ACTION REQUIRED” are huge red flags. Other red flags include words in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS, or unnecessary punctuation, for example: “NEED HELP?!?!?!? GET THIS PRODUCT FOR FREE!!!!!”

Your subject line should be a short description of the email message. The line should be engaging, not something that scares readers away.

Mistake #6: Not removing standard filler text from an email template
If you’re using an email template, make sure to take out lines such as “insert text here” or “add image above”. No matter what the email message is, filler text needs to be cleared from the email before it’s sent out to your recipients. Otherwise, it looks unprofessional and it is clear that you were not putting your best effort to make the email template look professional.

Mistake #7: Copy and pasting from Microsoft Word into your HTML editor
Word or other document editors are great for drafting your content (spell check!), but if you copy and paste that content directly into your template, you run the risk of causing formatting errors. Make sure to paste as plain text or use the “copy from word” feature found in most editors to avoid issues. Also make sure to always test your messages using a product like Email on Acid to make sure that your messages can be viewed properly no matter how your clients choose to read your email.