4 Simple & Effective Email Marketing Tips

Email is one of the most personal advertising methods used today. Here are four of the many ways you can improve your email marketing results.

1. Spread the Word – Get others to sign up for your mailing lists with their consent.  Spread the word about your mailing list through word of mouth.  The beauty in this is that the list of emails will be self-screened and the database will only contain the people who are truly interested in your offers.  Practice permission-based email marketing and always, always, ask before you add someone to your list. If you don’t, you can damage your reputation and you may get SPAM penalties, which could lead to the shutdown of your account.

2. Persistence – Before the Internet, they used to say it took about 7 touches to make an impression with an ad.  Today, I would guess that number has at least doubled. Therefore, you need to reach out to your clients and prospects at least once a month. Keep in mind that just because you emailed a list of people and had little or no response, it does not mean that your audience isn’t interested in your product or service. They are reading your messages and mulling over the information that you are providing them. Also, experiment with different emails, get to know which email strategy works the best, and keep using it to reach out to your audience.

3. They Want Useful Information – Emails should contain something that the customer wants. It shouldn’t be just a summary of your company or just another sale. Focus on giving more than just what you sell. Specific content, messages, a personal experience, and other targeted information that interests your customers will be well-received. For example, if you were selling makeup, you may want to include general advice on how to apply makeup.

4. Email Deliverability – Graphics, Flash animations and logos are often blocked by email filters. Although they look impressive, they may lower your impression statistics. Check to see if your email marketing provider offers the option to use both an HTML and a plain text option for sending emails. I recommend using both so that if the HTML message is blocked, the plain text message will get through.

In summary, remember to spread the word, be persistent and add useful information and you will see an increased number of opened emails!

 

If you have a thought or a question relating to this post, leave a comment below – I’d love to hear from you!

Holly

Firefox 4 Beta Includes “App Tabs”

Nice Job Firefox!

Internet Speed Test

How FAST is your Internet?

I am VERY happy to say (er, type) that my Internet is super fast now — well, it’s fast for a DSL connection.

Since we cut our land-line a few weeks ago, I am now enjoying (and I mean ENJOYING) a download speed of 9-10 mb/s and an approximate upload speed of 1 mp/s. Now, I can upload/download/blog/schedule appointments/make VOIP calls/surf/research like never before. My speed prior to cutting the landline was turtle slow compared to this. It also helps that my 5-month-old Toshiba laptop has the Intel® Core™ i7-720QM processor.

Read more about how the processor speed affects surfing here:
“How Does Processor Speed Affect Surfing the Internet?”

Below is a screen shot of a recent speed test.
I believe the 13.62 MB was a fluke as I haven’t come close to that since but I have been maintaining an average of 9-10MB.

Speed Test Results

Speed Test Results

You can check your Internet speed at www.speedtest.net.

What were your results?

A great project for your Social Media Specialist

I belong to a few groups on LinkedIn. Recently, one of the groups posted a discussion allowing members to post if they were interested in accepting invitations to connect from other members. Today, I received a digest of the group’s discussions and found that there are over 200 comments from other women entrepreneurs who want to connect. Cool right?

When I started to review other members’ profiles, I began to think that this would be a great project for a social media specialist to handle on behalf of clients. Ideally, the specialist should know the client’s business well enough to determine which connections to make out of the 200+ comments.

We specialize in working one-on-one with clients in an ongoing, collaborative relationship. By doing so, we can freely and proactively act on your behalf in many different ways. The work gets done, connections are made, communities are built, and it’s all done allowing you to focus on other business issues.

Thoughts? Feel free to leave a comment.

Your Partner on the Web,
Holly