LSA Bootcamp San Francisco: Email Marketing Best Practices
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This presentation was given to an audience of small businesses at the LSA Bootcamp in San Francisco 3/6/16 which was an event to help small businesses learn the fundamentals of digital marketing. For more on the event, visit: http://www.marketingbitz.com/marketing/boot-camp.aspx
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LSA Bootcamp San Francisco: Email Marketing Best Practices
- 1. © Constant Contact 2015 Email Marketing for Success GrowYour Business with Newsletters & Announcements
- 2. © Constant Contact 2015 Tracey Lee Davis Constant Contact, Authorized Local Expert ZingPop Social Media, Marketing Consultant Welcome! www.zingpopsocial.com traceylee@zingpopsocial.com www.facebook.com/zingpopsocial @traceylee47
- 3. BE A MARKETER All it takes is Constant Contact® #BeaMarketer
- 4. At its core, marketing is about getting results. 4
- 5. Agenda 5 1. What are campaigns, newsletters? 2.Email Marketing 3. Next Steps
- 6. Agenda 6 1. What are campaigns, newsletters? 2.Email Marketing 3. Next Steps 1.What are campaigns, newsletters?
- 7. 7 1.What are campaigns, newsletters? Pull response Push content What are campaigns?
- 8. 1.What are campaigns, newsletters? 8 What is a newsletter? Information – in the form of a picture, a paragraph, and a call to action.
- 9. 9 1.What are campaigns, newsletters? Cards / Announcements Information / Updates Business Letters Press Releases Types of newsletters What do you want to communicate?
- 10. Agenda 10 1. What are campaigns, newsletters? 2.Email Marketing 3. Next Steps 2. Email Marketing
- 11. OFFERINGS Education entertainment 11 2. Email Marketing expertise Products LISTS tips industry news sales Reports employees RESOURCES links TESTIMONIALS opinions community news STUDIESDATA research holiday seasonal menus Donations Fundraisers FAQs Events Surveys coupons deals TUTORIALS DISCOUNTS RESULTS Updates
- 12. Education entertainment 12 2. Email Marketing expertise Products LISTS tips industry news sales Reports employees RESOURCES links TESTIMONIALS opinions community news STUDIESDATA research holiday seasonal menus Donations Fundraisers FAQs Events Surveys coupons deals TUTORIALS DISCOUNTS RESULTS Updates OFFERINGS Updates Education entertainment
- 13. 20 lines of text or less Less is more.How much is enough? 13 2. Email Marketing Source: http://news.constantcontact.com 3 pictures or less Limit links to 1-2 More than ½ of emails are read on mobile
- 14. Source:ContentLEAD, Infographic:Anatomy of the Email Marketing Message, 2015 Source:Constant Contact Data Reveals DirectCorrelation Between Email Campaign Effectiveness and Number of Images andText Lines Featured, 2015 14 • 82% of people pay more attention to emails with pictures • Spotlight your products, services, employees and customers • 3 or fewer images for highest click through • Use alt text and preheader text: email readers may not see images by default • Don’t use images of your content 2. Email Marketing Make it engaging with photos
- 15. Source:Animoto, the 2015Video MarketingCheat Sheet Source:The Power ofVisual Content, Market Domination Media 15 • Mention your video in the email subject line • Consumers are 50% more likely to read emails that include video • Keep videos under 90 seconds • Use video for product demos, testimonials, promotions 2. Email Marketing Make it engaging with videos
- 16. 16 2. Email Marketing Give your message impact. Use visuals.
- 17. 17 2. Email Marketing But... use visuals carefully.
- 18. Repurpose everything 18 2. Email Marketing Make it easier on yourself
- 19. 19 2. Email Marketing Three words to rule your world as a marketer… [because an email that isn’t opened isn’t effective]
- 20. 20 2. Email Marketing Now, later or never 1. Who is your message from? 2. What is your subject / headline? 3. When do you send or post ?
- 21. 21 2. Email Marketing Who is it from? Winning the battle of priorities How will you be most recognizable? CAN-SPAM Act and CASL CAN-SPAMAct: www.business.ftc.gov and search “CAN-SPAM” CASL: fightspam.gc.ca
- 22. 22 2. Email Marketing Who is it from? The importance of consistency and recognition Facebook
- 23. 2. Email Marketing What’s the subject? SECONDS WORDS TODAY Winning the battle of priorities 23
- 24. 2. Email Marketing Subject lines... what would you change? March Newsletter Tomorrow: Need 3 Hammers – Can you help? Joes’ Pet Store Newsletter ALERT! Help your dog beat the heat! Children’s Classes Still time! Openings available for children’s classes 24
- 25. 25 2. Email Marketing Timing is everything.When should you send it? Monthly is most commonHow often? When is your audience most likely to take the action you want? What day & time?
- 26. 26 2. Email Marketing When to send How to test the day and time that’s best for you Time: 1.Use the same three audience lists 2.Select three times on the day with the best open rate 3.Send your email at three different times and watch for the best open rate Day: 1.Select three different audiences 2.Select three days in the week 3.Send your email and watch for the best open rate
- 27. 2. Email Marketing More than half won’t see images by default Text links get more clicks than buttons Place your logo left or center in email Include company name in text •Practical advice for your email...
- 28. Keep key action above scroll line Limit your choices to 1-2 links Make all images clickable & use text labels 28
- 29. Agenda 29 1. What are campaigns, newsletters? 2.Email Marketing 3. Next Steps 4. Next Steps
- 30. 30 Use the Share Bar 4. Next Steps Don’t be shy! Ask people to like, share, retweet & pin Add Social Media Buttons Expand your reach, add a “Social Share” bar.
- 31. Expand your reach, grow your list
- 32. 32 4. Next Steps Expand your reach, use a web-based sign up tool.
- 33. Text to Join™ Scan to Join™ Expand your reach with tools from Constant Contact. 33 4. Next Steps
- 34. Expand your reach with contact-capture apps. 4. Next Steps 34
- 35. S M T W T F S 1 2Tips for Spring • Newsletter • Facebook • Twitter • LinkedIn 3 4 5 6 7 Motivation Monday • Facebook • Pinterest 8 9 10 11 New Product • Newsletter • Facebook • Twitter 12 13 14 Motivation Monday • Facebook • Pinterest 15 16 Staff Pics • Facebook • Instagram • Newsletter 17 18 19 20 21 Motivation Monday • Facebook • Pinterest 22 23 24 Event Photos • Facebook • Twitter 25 26 27 28 Motivation Monday • Facebook • Pinterest 29 30 Newsletter • Email • Facebook • Twitter 4. Next Steps 35 Content calendar for all networks Regular Newsletter Blog Post Theme Days Multimedia News/ promotions
- 36. Resources 36 Get started today… 60-day free trial zingpopsocial.constantcontact.com Learn more... Local and online seminars www.constantcontact.com Scroll down to Seminars &Training Find help... Constant Contact Marketing Resources blogs.constantcontact.com/library Check out blog posts, guides, videos, infographics, recorded webinars and more!
- 37. Get started today… zingpopsocial.constantcontact.com 37 free 60-day trial No Contract & No Credit Card Needed TextToTrial Text Tracey to 99000 to set up your account in minutes
Editor's Notes
- Let me take just a minute to explain what Constant Contact is for those who may not be familiar. Constant Contact is a do-it-yourself online marketing system. You can use it to create and manage campaigns. The company is best known for its email marketing tools. It’s easy to create and send mass email, like newsletters or announcements and updates. You can run special promotions or offers; you can build online surveys and polls to gather feedback; and you can promote and manage your events using Constant Contact, with registration tools, payment acceptance, invitations– all in one place. All of this is all built on top of a really good contact database, so that you can load all of your contacts – your customers, stakeholders, volunteers, staff, your board – whatever lists you are keeping in various spreadsheets or in your Outlook, Gmail or Yahoo folders can be loaded and organized easily in Constant Contact, so that your people and your marketing campaigns are all together in one spot. Oh, and it costs most people between $20 - $75 a month to manage all of it. [And we have an award-winning customer service team ready to help you succeed!] You can be a marketer. All it takes is Constant Contact.
- Before we jump into the content of today’s webinar, I want to give you a simple definition, or a framework, for what marketing really is. You already know, generally, what it is – but when I say the word marketing, I mean something very specific and it’s important that we are on the same page. My definition of marketing has three parts: First, you define an audience: a group of people that you want to target. Second, you reach out to them with a message that is specific to that audience. And third, you elicit a physical and measurable response – which are the results that you want (and need) your business to get.
- Here’s what we’re going to do today… [click to build] we’ll review what exactly a campaign is, and we’ll make sure we’re all on the same page in understanding what we mean when we say “newsletter.” [click to build] next we’ll talk about Email and provide you with some tried-and-true tips for more effective email marketing. [click to build] then we’ll make the connection between Email and Social media…because they really have become inseparable. [click to build] finally, we’ll talk about some next steps you can take. I also want to make a quick note about “for” and “non” profits, and industry verticals…I’m often asked how the things I’m talking about should be adjusted or changed for a nonprofit or a services (B2B firm) or someone in a different industry vertical. I hear “I’m not a brick-and-mortar business, so how does this apply to me?” The good news is that the principles that will be discussed are largely universal…they can benefit a non-profit just as much as they can a for-profit, a B2B business can follow these just as readily as a B2C, that a restaurant can succeed with these ideas just as readily as a yoga studio, a church or a book store. Yes, you may have different considerations to make for your select audiences, but in large part what we’re teaching are best practices, and they’re best practices across the board.
- First, let’s talk about what campaigns and newsletters are.
- First, let’s talk about “campaigns” - -what does that word really mean? There are two parts to a campaign First, you [click to build] push out some sort of content to your audience – your customers, clients, supporters, members, volunteers, etc. Second, you hope to “pull” some sort of response from them – you want them to read, forward or share what you sent, show up, call, attend – you want them to take an action of some sort. Think about a campaign in terms of push/pull and more importantly do not think about it as just putting an offer out there and making the sale. This is an area where you have an advantage over bigger businesses and organizations. As a small company, you can engage in a conversation that feels and in fact IS much less like a sales gimmick and more like nurturing a relationship. If you’re doing it right, it will seem like that from both sides of that conversation.
- A newsletter is a communication you send (usually through email) to your customers, supporters, clients, volunteers sharing information and relevant insights that they want to read, and offering them an action you want or need them to take. In fact, an effective email needs just three things: A picture, a paragraph, and a call to action. Think of what you want your audience to DO in response to your email, then think of a way you can illustrate that with an image, and a brief paragraph you can use to describe it. And make sure you provide a link so your audience can do what it is you’re asking them to do – that’s your call to action. A newsletter can take many forms, but essentially it’s a communication from you to your audience. Remember that simple formula: A picture, a paragraph, and a call to action.
- There are lots of different types of communications, loosely referred to as newsletters, that you might send. These are just a few examples…from [click] sending an update to keep your audience informed, to [click] a simple card or announcement, to a [click] press release or [click] business letter
- What do you write about in your emails? This is one of the biggest questions, and the biggest hurdles, people encounter when they set out to create an email. The good news is that you know your organization better than anyone, and there’s a world of ideas out there for you! First, and above all else, you write about what you know that they don’t know. This is an opportunity to share your knowledge and raise your profile as an interesting organization and an expert in your field. Here are some ideas of types of content you can share with your audience! Take a minute to look at what’s on the screen right now, and be thinking of ways you can explore these ideas with content about your business.
- Let’s talk about a few ideas right now. [CLICK] OFFERINGS: If you have a new product, you can write a paragraph describing what it does, and use photos or video to share a quick product demonstration or tutorial. If you have an event coming up, send out all the details in a short email, including a link to register the event. [CLICK] UPDATES: Do you have a new location? Have you hired a new employee, or do you have a well-known employee retiring? If that’s the case, send out a biography and a photo to your customers and clients. Updates can go out in the form of newsletters, surveys, or even press releases. Perhaps you’re a nonprofit, and you’ve received a big grant. That’s a perfect reason to send out an email update! Did you have a recent event? Send out a survey asking recipients how it was, or send an email to share photos of the event. [CLICK] EDUCATION: You are an expert in your field. Write about what you know that your audience doesn’t. This is your opportunity to weigh in with your perspective on a study or a news story. If you sell a product, you can make a video that demonstrates how to use it. You can also share your know-how. Let’s say you own a landscaping company. You can send out an email early in the spring and lay out a good planting schedule for your clients. [CLICK] ENTERTAINMENT: Don’t be afraid to show your fun side! Have you seen a funny YouTube video that relates to your field? Or have you heard an interesting, funny or inspiring quote you want to share? Maybe you and your employees have made a cool behind-the-scenes video – that is something that could really show off your environment and personality. (if there’s time – it’s a good idea to remind people about holiday or seasonal updates) Is there a way you can incorporate a holiday or seasonal message? Let’s say you own a bed and breakfast at the beach – in the dead of winter, send a photo of your property under warm sunshine and ask your customers to think about planning their summer getaway. Or maybe you work in tax preparation – Thanksgiving could be a great time to let your clients know how to account for any charitable giving so they’re ready for tax season in the new year.
- Let’s talk about how much content you should include in your email. Think about it… How often do you look forward to reading a long, detailed email from a business? Not very often, right? You’re looking for something concise and easy to read – what’s the news, what are the details of the deal or sale, is there any action I want or need to take? – and that’s what you should think about when you create your own emails. [click to build] When it comes to email content, less is more. Always. There is no rule that says your newsletter needs to have three articles, three pictures and three links. One thing is plenty. [click to build] We did a study of our customers and found that the best practice is to limit yourself to 20 lines of text and [click] three or fewer images. Just like you, your audience is busy. You don’t need to worry about sending a ton of information every time. [click to build] Our research also shows that 1 link gets the best click-through rate. You want your audience to take an action, so use a link to make that clear. Two links are OK, but once you get to three links, the click-through rate starts to decline. Any higher than 5 links means that people are LESS likely to click ANYWHERE in your email. So try to stick with only one or two links, and keep them high in your message so people do not have to scroll down to take the action you want them to take. and don’t forget that more than half of your audience is reading email on a mobile device…who is going to scroll through 14 articles on their phone? For your mobile readers – make sure that you’re keeping your messages short, and your calls to action above the fold (meaning, readers don’t have to scroll down to get to your most important content).
- You can increase your email’s probability of getting noticed and read by how you display your email content. Images will receive a lot of engagement from your audience. Photos receive 47% more click-throughs than content without images. [CLICK TO BUILD] An image is a great way to keep people focused on the physical, measurable result you’re trying to achieve. Photos have a huge impact in the inbox. 82% of people pay more attention to emails with pictures than they do to simple text emails. [CLICK TO BUILD] So – what kind of images should you use? Think about what you’re trying to communicate. If you sell products, you should show people what you want them to purchase by using great photos. If you’re a non-profit, you could share photos of your last event or fundraiser. If you’re a B2B, you may want to highlight your employees in action with some good candid photos from your business. [CLICK TO BUILD] A few words of caution, though. I mentioned earlier that you should limit your images – emails with three or fewer images get the best click-throughs. [CLICK TO BUILD] You also shouldn’t over-rely on images to get your message across – many email providers, as a default setting, do not automatically show image. You should label your images with text that explains what the image is, in case it doesn’t display. And take advantage of preheader text – the first few lines of an email or the text description of the first image at the top – that will appear if images don’t on a desktop. This text also shows up below the subject line in the inboxes of mobile readers. [CLICK TO BUILD] Because not all email providers allow images by default, you shouldn’t use images of your content. What I mean by this is that you should not use a .PDF instead of your email marketing templates – not only will your content not display for many readers, you will not be able to track any clicks to help you strategize for future email campaigns.
- Video is also powerful way to engage with your audience. People prefer watching a video to reading long web pages full of text. [CLICK TO BUILD] When using video, make sure you mention in your subject line that your email includes a video, so your readers know about it right away. [CLICK TO BUILD] Consumers prefer watching a video to reading long text articles. In fact, consumers are 50% more likely to read emails that include video. [CLICK TO BUILD] But make sure the length of your video is within 90 seconds– that’s the point at which 58% of viewers will stop watching. [CLICK TO BUILD] You can make video work for your business – use it to show product demos, customer testimonials, promotional material or share user-generated content. We’re talking about email today, but video is becoming very prominent on social media – 84% of consumers have liked videos from companies in their social media news feeds. If you email a video link, you can also repurpose it on your social media platforms for that audience to watch and share. The example here is a great way to use video – The Pajama Program sent this email out with a link to a video thanking their donors. BUT - Make sure you’re using video in a careful, deliberate way. If you have some specific action that you want your readers to take – for example, to register for an event – you should choose text and pictures, rather than video. Using a video in that case will lessen the likelihood that your readers will take the action, because they will click on the video and be taken over to YouTube.
- Here are some examples of great use of imagery! These examples of Constant Contact customers show some great looking campaigns. They are simple, easy to absorb and make an immediate impact using strong visuals and photography.
- Images are a great way to convey a message, tell a story…create a connection. But if you don’t carefully consider how you’re going to use images, you may end up with some unintended consequences that lead, at best, to someone not reading your email. At worst they’ll unsubscribe from your list and you won’t be able to communicate with them at all. Here are some common challenges to consider: [CLICK] Notice the red “X” here? That’s there because some mobile email clients may not display images by default…so be sure that you’re using what is called “Alt Text,” or text that appears if the image doesn’t, to at least let people know what’s there. In this example, there’s a great picture of the Half Moon Yoga class, and when viewed on a desktop email client it may look great… but the problem is that on a mobile device, in order to see the full image or read the rest of the email, the reader will have to scroll both horizontally and vertically. The image has pushed the call to action all the way to the bottom of the message, making it less likely that the reader will actually click through. Be aware of where or how an image may appear. You may need to resize images as you build your email (a lot of email marketing tools have simple, built in image-editing capabilities). Before you send any message out to your customers or supporters, TEST THE EMAIL BY SENDING IT TO YOURSELF!! And then view it with your readers in mind…and make changes accordingly. A few extra minutes of testing can save a lot of headache later.
- Keep in mind at this point, as we’ve been talking about content and what to write or images to think about, is that you should be thinking about those things with more than one delivery medium in mind. That means that you can reuse and repurpose everything – one article can be used many times, on various networks. You might send a newsletter with 5 tips for cleaning out your closet…and each tip could be Tweeted, once a day for a week You could show before and after pics in a press release about the benefits of your service, and then you could post those pictures on Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram. If you’ve sent an announcement about something of interest to your readers via email, you can get some mileage with that announcement across your social networks as well. You don’t have to write something new every day. Take that pressure off of yourself. Keep it very simple. You can use content more than once on various networks – here is an example of this from the Boys & Girls Club in Austin. They issued a press release with an email…. [CLICK] Posted the piece on their website [CLICK] added a notice in their newsletter [CLICK] posted several times on twitter with quotes, and [CLICK] shared a link on Facebook …You can do this too.
- We’ve talked about marketing today, engagement and the types of campaigns that you can send out as part of your email marketing efforts. [CLICK TO BUILD] But an email that isn’t opened just isn’t effective, so now I want to talk about three words that you need to keep in mind as you go about building those emails…
- Look at these three words: Now, Later or Never. These three words rule your world as a marketer and as a consumer or business person. Every email or social media post that you get and every one that you send or post falls into one of these three categories. Now. Later. Or Never. Think about this morning when you checked your email. Whether you were aware of it or not, you were sorting your messages into these three categories automatically. And now that I’ve brought it up, you’ll be saying to yourself “now, later, later, never, never, later” whenever you open your email. But it’s important that you recognize that behavior– you need to know this both as a recipient and as a sender or poster. How do you make sure that you are a now? You don’t want to fall into the “Never” category – obviously. And a later, let’s face it, is a well-intentioned never. Right? You flag it or tell yourself, “oh, I’ll come back to that” but you probably won’t. There are three fundamental things that factor into whether someone notices and reacts to your campaigns [CLICK TO BUILD] Who sent it [CLICK TO BUILD] The subject line, or the headline [CLICK TO BUILD] And your timing – meaning when you sent it or posted it.
- So how do you win the battle of priorities and get more people to stop and open your email or to stop and read your Facebook post or your tweet or to share your pin on Pinterest? Think about how you sort your email – or if you’re on Facebook, think about the newsfeed. Typically when you open up your email – think about it this morning – you start at the top of the list and you go down, sorting by who it’s from. WHO the email or the social media post came from turns out to be the most important part of winning the battle of priorities. You do it based on WHO, so it’s important for you to [click to build] be recognizable… You do need to exercise care [click to build] and consider how you’re identifying yourself across the channels you’re using. If you send your emails as “Jane Doe,” but your Facebook page shows up in people’s newsfeeds as “Famous Cookies,” people might not make the connection. Just be sure that you’re consistent with the name you use – and ensure that it’s the one that you’ll be recognized by, so that ultimately your readers and followers will stop and open your email, read your posts – because they know they’re going to get something of value and relevance from you. Now, there are some important considerations that shouldn’t be overlooked, and they relate to something called the [click to build] “CAN-SPAM” act…which is a law that sets the rules for commercial email, establishes requirements for commercial messages, gives recipients the right to have you stop emailing them, and spells out tough penalties for violations. The law makes no exception for business-to-business email. That means all email – for example, a message to former customers announcing a new product line – must comply with the law. One provision of CAN-SPAM is that the “from,” “to,” and “reply to,” names “must be accurate and identify the person or business who initiated the message.” Therefore if I signed up for an email from Joe Pizza the from address should be “Joe Pizza” and not “Joe Smith.”
- When your email matches the look of your brand, your audience will have an easier time recognizing you in their inbox. The same concept works on social media! When you use consistent branding and images, your followers will take notice, because they know you have valuable information to share. Be sure to make them “your own” with your own logos and photos and links. It doesn’t have to be hard to look professional and sharp! Use great images of your business, products and people, so that your audience can easily connect what your organization does with who you are. And make sure you use consistent language across all of your marketing so that people will not be confused. For example, the nonprofit Strong Women Strong Girls does a great job of being consistent with their logo and images across their email, website and Facebook page. Don’t be afraid to use the same content and images across your email, website and social media posts – the more your organization meets your audience where they are, the more likely your audience is to keep you in mind.
- When you’re up against the Now, Later or Never game, your subject line on an email – or the headline of your social media post – can make a big difference in the response. Here is a simple method for writing more powerful subject and headlines. It’s called the 2-2-2 principle. The first two is for the 2 seconds you typically have to compel them to pay attention. The second two is for the first two words of your subject line or headline. That’s really all they read before making a decision. And not a decision about whether to read your message, but as to whether or not they will bother to read the rest of the subject line. Consider how you’re reading emails these days. How many of you are reading emails on mobile devices like a tablet or smartphone? I know I am reading on all three. So when it comes to reading email on a phone, keep in mind that if you’re subject line is too long, part of your message can be cut off or truncated to fit the screen size, so plan for that, test for that when crafting your subject lines and you’ll have a better chance of grabbing the attention you need ‘today’. The third to is for “TO-day”, “why does this email or message matter today”– today is the third two. If you can answer that question in your subject line or headline, as close to the first two words as possible, more people will stop and at least open your message. So – how do you do it? How do you write one of these subject lines or headlines that grab your audience? Be specific, tease the important, relevant information in your message, and give a sense of urgency. I’m sure you’ve received an email invitation to an event that announces “Only 10 seats open,” or a sale event that expires in two days... Subject lines like that draw in your audience and can give a sense of exclusivity to your event or offer – but make sure you’re telling the truth! Don’t say there are only two seats left for a conference you’re hosting when there are 25.
- Here are some examples of subject lines – first, some ways not to write them, and then some more compelling ways to let people know what your message is. A subject line like “March newsletter” is a bit vague, and doesn’t speak to what’s inside the message. Instead, write a headline that gives a sense of the content in your email or social media post and draws the reader in. The question to the reader indicates that you’re looking for their response. With this pet store newsletter, the only information you’re getting is the sender. Why not demonstrate in the subject line that you’re going to provide your recipient with important information they need? Think about what’s timely and will grab attention. And just announcing that you’re hosting “children’s classes” doesn’t tell your reader much. Convey a sense of urgency by stating that there’s still time to register kids for the classes you offer.
- The last piece in winning the battle of priorities is timing - When to send is another very common question. Both for how often to send and also when in terms of the time of day and the day of the week. [click to build] For newsletter or email marketing frequency, monthly is the most common but it’s also a good idea to add unexpected messages every once in a while, especially if they relate to an exciting announcement about your organization. [click to build] As you start trying to determine when is the best time to send your newsletter or announcement, the question you want to answer is “When will my readers be most likely to take the action I want?” When will they be most likely to click through to the article I’ve posted, come into my store after reading, register for an event, etc.? Use that as a starting point. But now I want to describe some simple steps you can take to really zero in on the best day and time to send your newsletter.
- Here’s a two-part test that you can use to determine the best day of the week and time of day for you to send your emails We call this an ABC test. It’s a simple method to narrow down when you get the best response and then you can adjust accordingly. [CLICK TO BUILD] First, take your list of contacts and divide it into three equal lists. So just take the whole list and break it into thirds. [CLICK TO BUILD] Next, choose three days of the week that you want to test. So – Monday, Wednesday and Friday? Or it could be Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday – whatever days you want to try. [CLICK TO BUILD] So you have three lists, and you want to test on three different days of the week. So you send your email – the same email – to each of your lists. The first group on Monday, the second group gets it Wednesday, and the 3rd group gets it on Friday. And then you measure your results. You can do this as long as you are using an email marketing service. They tell you who opened, who clicked, what they clicked on, how many times and when. So you look at the stats and you will know which day was best of the three you tested. [CLICK TO BUILD] Now you’re ready for the second part of the process: finding out the best time. [CLICK TO BUILD] Use the same three groups of people and now you will choose three different times of day you want to test. So, a morning, midday and afternoon or evening. The next time you are ready to send out an email, [CLICK TO BUILD] Send it on your best performing day from the last test. Send the first group their email in the morning, the second group gets it midday and the third group gets it in the afternoon or evening. [CLICK TO BUILD] And look at your stats. You will know which time of day did the best. So now you will know the best day and the best time of that day to send your emails for the best response.
- This slide is a great reference for after you’ve left the program today, almost like a checklist for your email marketing – it’s just some simple, practical advice for getting better responses from your emails. I’ll go through them quickly. Many readers will not see images in their emails, because their email client, like Outlook or Yahoo, does not allow images by default. Because of this, text links get more clicks than buttons. If you choose to use a button, just make sure your link is also somewhere in the text of your email. Make sure your logo is at the left or center, not right, of your email – because people often see email in small windows that eclipse the right side -- and make sure your company name is in text near the top. If your name is only in a graphic of your logo, all those people who don’t see images in their email will not realize the message is from you at first glance.
- The action you want people to take should be above the scroll line – most people will only take a few seconds to read their emails, and will not scroll down through longer messages. Do not give too many choices, one or two at most -- People do not have time to window shop and make decisions in your email. If you want them to take action, reduce the number of choices. In fact, Constant Contact’s research shows that 1-2 links are the maximum that should be included. Once you get up to three links, your click-through rate starts to decline, and using five or more links drastically decreases the chance that your readers will click on ANYTHING in your email. Make sure your pictures are clickable links, this is easy to do with our tools and test your message on yourself, send it to yourself and if you can, test it on your cell phone or tablet too -- just to know it looks good for everyone. I’ll repeat this because it’s VERY important …be sure to test your newsletters on yourself! Tools like Constant Contact make it easy to send a test email to yourself or someone else so you can view it on a desktop, and on your mobile phone, so you can catch any formatting issues, typos or anything else you might want to change.
- Now, let’s talk about the next steps you can take.
- If you’re a Constant Contact customer, you can share your email across your social networks with a click of a button. This makes it easy to push your email campaigns, events, surveys and offers out on multiple platforms. [click] A “Social Share bar,” at the top of your emails, will make it as easy for your readers to share your message with their social media followers. You should also include [click] social media buttons in your emails, which make it easy for your email audience to click and follow you on your various social media profiles. Don’t be shy about asking people for follows, likes and retweets! Every time someone interacts with your organization on social media, their followers and friends might see it – giving you important social visibility.
- Don’t forget to make it easy for people to join your list… and I’m going to give you a few ways to do that. First, have a sign-up sheet at your business or organization, or at your events. You can do this by asking people for their email addresses at the point of sale, having them write them down on a sheet of paper, or having them enter their own email addresses on a tablet or computer at your location or an event.
- Use a web sign-up tool – links and buttons for this can be added to your website or your Facebook page. Once you have those set up, share them everywhere – in the signature of your regular emails, any page of your website or blog, in PDF documents – wherever you communicate with someone and can share the link to sign up. Here are examples of two customers offering sign-ups. Activity Rocket makes signing up for its email very easy – with a prominent orange bar at the very top of its website. Anyone who visits their website will immediately know how to receive communications from them. And Orange Cycle has added the “Join My List” app to its Facebook page, a Constant Contact service that allows Facebook users to sign up for email lists without having to leave the social network.
- There are also a lot of apps out there that can help you grow your list. Two of them are from Constant Contact, which allow you to collect email addresses and other information through a QR code “scan” or a text message.
- We also have an extensive collection of apps that have been created specifically to extend the capabilities of our products…here are just a couple that help with the collection of email addresses: iCapture and Shoeboxed.com very helpful apps. iCapture allows you to set up a questionnaire for potential contacts, and gives you a unique code to store and manage your contacts. You can then load those contacts into Constant Contact, or another email management system. And Shoeboxed.com allows you to scan and save data from paper receipts and business cards, as well as track your travel mileage.
- I hope you leave this presentation with some ideas for what you want to write in your emails, you may use some of the ideas you already wrote down. Part of the challenge is thinking about when to push all of this stuff out across your email and social networks. We talked about how you can test to find the best day of the week and time of day to send your emails. What I’m talking about now is putting all of your planning into one calendar. This is just one example of what I mean – notice that it includes the regular newsletter you might send (on the 30th), a blog post (on the 2nd), and some more irregular or “just in time” announcements (11th and 29th). Also included here are some social media posts…we didn’t go into depth on social media planning today, but if you’re interested in learning more about social media, you can visit the events page on ConstantContact.com and see our schedule of webinars, or you can visit our blog, which has a lot of great resources for small businesses and nonprofits. The real benefit of a calendar like this is in taking a look at the month ahead – there are some things you know are coming up. What kind of content would you create for them? Each day, make a note of what’s happening, and then list the networks you want to share it on. This will help you plan ahead and give you some things you can talk about and create multimedia for, and reach your audience through all of your regular networks. You can also use your email marketing tools to schedule your newsletters in advance, and save lots of time! If you combine this with the tips we’ve shared with you today, you’ll be well on your way to improving the effectiveness of your newsletters and announcements.
- If you want to learn more about this or other marketing subjects, you can visit our website to learn more about events in your area, sign up for a free trial of Constant Contact, and access tons of helpful marketing resources on our blog.
- You can use