Successful email2013
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Your email is a tool that helps you stay engaged with your customers and prospects as well as helping you grow your business. You can strengthen your relationships and customer loyalty with an effective email. Do you have an effective email? Do you have an email at all? Join the VerticalResponse marketing experts as they discuss how to build a valuable newsletter. • Learn ways to create quality open and click rates • Find out tips on avoiding the spam folders • Explore the content you should be sending in your newsletter • Receive design tips to make your newsletter reader friendly • Learn from other VerticalResponse customers as we show off some of our favorite emails
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Successful email2013
- 1. How to Create a Successful Email Jill Bastian VerticalResponse Marketing Team Hashtag #VR4SmallBiz
- 2. Agenda • Why have an email • Keys to a successful email • Design tips for your email • What you can learn from your email • Resources
- 3. Why Have an Email • Emails build relationships, retention and loyalty • An excuse to talk about your company • Stay in front of your audience • Educate/entertain • Establish yourself as an expert • Sell your products & services
- 4. Keys to a Successful Email • From label • Subject line and Pre-Header • Content ideas • Call to Action • Images
- 5. From Label • Let your audience know who you are • Be consistent
- 6. Subject Line • Stick to 40-50 characters • Let people know what to expect • Don’t repeat your from label • Don’t use all caps • Avoid overusing punctuation
- 7. Pre-Header text Pre-header text: A message supplementary to your subject line that gives more information, hopefully further compelling your recipient to open your email. • The preheader and subject line should be different. Saying the same thing doesn’t add any additional value.
- 9. Content Ideas • What is up with your business? • Testimonials – don’t overlook their power. • Promote Webinars • Holidays • Social media • Questions & surveys – improves engagement
- 10. Content Ideas • Include a link for a good cause – it feels great! • Special offers • You or your employees' smiling face • Tips or ideas for your customers • How to – Are great for B2B! • Awards you’ve won • Related articles
- 11. Content Basics • Keep readers coming back for more • Limit to 3 to 5 topics/articles • Short blocks of copy • Include lots of links • Personalize your message • Assist in scanning • Bold headlines and keywords • Bullets • Whitespace is a good thing • Columns
- 12. Content Basics cont. Design for quick downloading – not too many images Make it easy on the eyes •Arial, Times New Roman & Verdana fonts •Use reverse text sparingly Don’t do this! •Avoid text over distracting backgrounds •Emphasize with bold •Italics are hard to read online •Underline text often mistaken for a link •Less is More, Keep it Simple •Use Black or Grey font. Avoid using light or bright colored fonts.
- 26. Remember to Link • Give your recipients lots of opportunity to get to your website • Allow your recipients to read long articles easily • Make them social by including a link to post on Twitter or Facebook • Use Call-to-Action buttons (Buttons.Verticalresponse.com)
- 29. Call to Action • Urge the reader of a message to take an immediate action. • Clear and concise • Send people where they would expect to go • CTA Buttons – Increase click throughs – Increase sales – Stand out • Buttons.verticalresponse.com
- 32. Images • Engage your audience • Think about your audience • Link your images! • Always add Alt Text • 80/20 rule (text/images)
- 34. Page 34 | VerticalResponse, Inc.
- 35. Alt Text
- 36. Blocked Images
- 38. Learn from Your Email • Reporting • Tracking • Feedback
- 39. Reporting Tools
- 40. Summary • Emails build relationships • Best practices for emails aren’t all about selling • Represent your brand • Think about what your audience will see • Learn from every email
- 41. Resources & Links • How to Do Everything http://help.verticalresponse.com/ • VR Marketing Blog verticalresponse.com/blog • Customer Support support@verticalresponse.com 866.683.7842x1 • Buttons.verticalresponse.com • Marketing guides: www.verticalresponse.com/marketing-resources • 8 Email Marketing Basics to Remember • Email Checklist • Email Marketing Reporting Basics
Editor's Notes
- Jill
- GuestNewsletters build relationships, people buy from people so you want to keep the relationship going with emails. Stay in front of your audience. By mailing at least once per month your company will stay your recipients minds, so when they do need what you offer they will come to you first. Establish yourself as an expert, you know your company products better than anyone so tell your recipients you are an expert and provide the info they need.
- JillSome important things to go over to make sure you have a great email.
- GuestThe From Label and Subject line are probably the most important parts of your email, these are what get your recipients to want to open it. The From label should be your company name, that is generally what they will recognize to know who is sending the email to them. You can use a persons name if your recipients will recognize that over your company name, if you are realtor for example they may know your name more than your company. Our system will automatically pull in your company name from the Account section so that you don’t have to fill this in, but you can change it if you like.
- GuestOnce your recipients know who is sending the email, the subject line will be what makes them want to open it. You want to make sure its something that will make them want to open, maybe something like Spring Specials, up to 50% off or Don’t miss this special savings. You also need to make sure it has something to do with the content of the email, this is required by the CAN SPAM law.
- GuestHere we have the three main components that work together to get your email opened: From LineSubject LinePre-header textThis image is an example of what these parts look like when an email is opened.This is important to keep in mind when designing your email and writing your subject lines. You want to know what your recipient is going to see, and consider how it will compel them to open your email. From Line: Automatically populated from your account profile. You can change this, but we don’t recommend you do so because of consistency and recognition. This is where you build credibility, and how your recipients recognize the sender (you or your company) and think to themselves, “this is something I signed up for” or “I know this company.”Subject line: Primary message, offer, CTA that makes the reader decide “This is something I am interested in” or “I would like to know more about this” or “this is cool!”Pre-header text: A supplementary message that gives more information, hopefully further compelling your recipient to open your email.
- GuestHere we have the three main components that work together to get your email opened: From LineSubject LinePre-header textThis image is an example of what these parts look like when an email is opened.This is important to keep in mind when designing your email and writing your subject lines. You want to know what your recipient is going to see, and consider how it will compel them to open your email. From Line: Automatically populated from your account profile. You can change this, but we don’t recommend you do so because of consistency and recognition. This is where you build credibility, and how your recipients recognize the sender (you or your company) and think to themselves, “this is something I signed up for” or “I know this company.”Subject line: Primary message, offer, CTA that makes the reader decide “This is something I am interested in” or “I would like to know more about this” or “this is cool!”Pre-header text: A supplementary message that gives more information, hopefully further compelling your recipient to open your email.
- GuestWebinars You probably use case studies and customer quotes in traditional e-mail marketing. It can work just as well in webinar promotions. You can include links to previous webinars in your current invitation and call out the benefits of attending one of your events by letting a recent attendee explain what he or she got out of the experience.Holidays"Use Your Refund" Sale - Encourage your early-bird filers to use their refunds for a great discount, or even entice anyone with a refund by giving a discountMothers day IdeasSocial media A local bakery/ deli recently sent out an email to celebrate their 20th anniversary. They asked their email recipients to go to Facebook and friend them, and they would then get a coupon for a free cookie. A great idea not only to promote their anniversary, 20 years is long time! But also to drive people to their Facebook fan page. And they have really great cookies, so that email was forwarded a lot, especially here at VR. But a viral email like that is great for getting your company name out there, get new sign ups for an email list and for social media.
- GuestAmber Cleave our Marketing Specialist here at VerticalResponse brought it to my attention that a number of businesses are doing just that: using their regularly scheduled newsletters and including links to donate to the Red Cross and other organizations to help. At VerticalResponse you may have noticed a link in our newsletters to donate directly. Since we're already communicating with our recipients, it seemed like a no-brainer to use our list to help out. Do we get a benefit from it? You bet, knowing we could have helped out in any way was enough for us. Including a picture of your self or your employees makes for a more personal email, and your recipients will like knowing who is at the other end of the emails. Some more ideas for contentAsk for Referrals from your current customersPromote new releases, products or listingsSend coupons or discountsSay thank you!Announce up coming eventsIn the next few slides we will go over some of these ideas in actual emails that have been sent out.
- GuestKeep readers coming back for more Make sure you have content that is relevant to your recipients and the content you promised when they signed up. Limit topics You want your email to be readable and easy to scan, by limiting the topics or articles your recipients will have an easier time reading the email and finding the info they want. A really long email is hard on you to write and hard on your recipients to have to read. Most people won’t make it to the bottom of a really long email, so keep their interest with short but specific articlesInclude links Links will help your recipients find your site or a particular product at your site. Include lots of links to make sure they can get to your site easily
- Not too many images – will slow down loadingUse easy to read fonts- san serif- Arial, verdana, – serif try: Times New romanText Size: avoid too small – hard to read or too LARGE- affects deliverability 11 -12 pt fontLess is More- don’t try to use every font, color and style in the book- too distracting and looks unprofessional
- GuestThis is a great testimonial! In addition to the written testimonials the pictures of the people enjoying the tour speak volumes. Customer photos are a great way to keep your audience engaged. People will love looking to see if they, or someone they know, are in the email, and its great to show real people with your product.
- Guest Great testimonial email. They are also encouraging people to write a review and get free products on orders of $35 or more. Its at the bottom though so you can’t see it.
- GuestWhat’s up with your biz plus other great contentThis shows that you don’t have to have all the content of your email be from your company. If you find other articles that relate to your business, products or company include that info in your email. Just be sure to credit whoever wrote or published the article as you can see in the red circles.Again, short articles, easy to scan, links to read the rest of the stories
- GuestThis email is showing a table of contents at the top of the email. If you have a long email, or even special sections in your email a TOC will make it easy for your recipients to get to the articles they want. Also, love the intermission! Great way to call attention to social media links above the fold. Short articles, easy to scan
- GuestGreat example of personalization and special ‘holiday’ like content. Fun way to bring people into a shop too, a little outside the box
- Jill
- JillThis one has some of the points that we’ve made in the webinar so far. They have a great cause they are supporting included on the right side of the email, the main article is what their subject line referred to so their recipients are getting what was promised.
- JillThis one is very easy to scan, the sections are broken up to make it easy to see what is in the email. And they are using personalization to make their readers feel the email is directed to them.
- JillThis was was a great idea on incorporating current events or holidays in an email. This was sent out around Girl Scout cookie time and they paired the cookies with wines that would go with them. They also have a poll in the corner, a nice way to interact with your recipients. This is a did you know kind of poll, but you could also do something like frequently asked questions or even ask your recipients questions.
- Include a "social call to action" in every email newsletter. Don't rely solely on social media icons and buttons to get readers to visit your social media outposts. Entice readers with a link to a hot conversation you want to continue on Twitter (or another discussion destination), or to an exclusive contest or survey you're featuring on Facebook.
- JIllCall to action, we’ve mentioned that a few times so far and its basically what you want your recipients to do. Click Here! Sign up now! Are examples of CTA’s that you can use in your email.
- JillCall to action buttons at the bottom and top, they are definitely making it easy for their recipients to get to their site. The ones on the bottom say click here to learn more, and the one in the middle says Explore our exclusive selection, easy to add in the email and clear what the recipients need to do. The one thing I would probably change is the black background, its very hard on peoples eyes to read with the white text.
- JillThink about your audience include images of things they want to see, products, people, something relevant to your email. Also think about the size of the images. Not everyone has a high speed connection so if you have a lot of images or very large ones it can be tough for slower connections to wait for them to download. Link your images Most people know that they can click an image, so use that as yet another way for your recipients to get to your website, or see your products. 80/20 rule Not really a rule but a good idea, we will go over this in an upcoming slide as to why you want to follow this.Alt text Alt text is added to the back of your images. If the image is being blocked instead of seeing just a broken image icon your recipients will see what you add here. You can call the image what is, but you could also have it as yet another place to add a call to action. You can call your image Specials up to 50% off, to help encourage your recipients to turn on the images to see what is on special.
- JillThis is a nice example of have a balance of image and text. Its easy to scan, easy to see what the call to action is and the images aren’t too big and there is even a picture of the owner. They would want to make sure that the alt text goes with the text, so for the first one cruelty free brushes would be great. The column is great and has links to more articles in the email. The one thing I would probably change is color of the column, the peach with the white text is really hard to read.
- JillThis is the same email with the images blocked. You’ll notice that you can still read all the important info including contact data. The only thing that they could change is the alt text for the images. At top shows amazing use of Alt Text
- JillThis is the same email with the images blocked. You’ll notice that you can still read all the important info including contact data. The only thing that they could change is the alt text for the images. At top shows amazing use of Alt Text
- JillThis is an example of what not to do in an email. You want to make sure your message gets across without the images loading. Why? As you can see here, most email clients will block images until the recipient allows them to show. This means if you have an email that is made of just images like this one your recipients see broken image icons and an unsubscribe link. You definitely don’t want to encourage them to unsubscribe! You work too hard to build list to have that happen. And they don’t have alt text for the images, if they had that at least the recipient would have some idea what this was about. The other reason not have just images is because of spam filters. They are specifically looking for this type of email, and will filter it out. Think of the emails that end up in your spam box, usually they are one image of some pharmaceutical you have no interest in. Which is why the filters are set up for this type of email. So always make sure you have a balance of text and images.
- GuestThis just shows the text backup for the email. They make sure that the text version has just as much info as the graphical, for anyone who has an older email client, or maybe using certain handheld devices.
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