Top 5 Smart Email Marketing Tips

Many of us use email in our marketing campaigns, but not all of us are seeing the returns from the effort we'd like. Not everything (or maybe even much) of email marketing is intuitive. Need a hand? Take a look below at our top 5 email marketing tips and see your success skyrocket!


1. Don't Use Too Many Images

It's very, very important to understand email is not print advertising. Most people who receive your emails will not see your images. This means you are not only wasting time and energy designing images for your email marketing campaign but if these images are vital to your message this will be totally lost to a great many of the people receiving it. This is a very bad idea obviously. It's much better to focus your creative energy on great ad copy than on images that will likely go unseen, isn't it?


2. Highlight Your Links

The whole point of your email marketing campaign is to have your targets click through to your landing page, sales page or web page right? The best way to do this within your email is to include your link at every point you think your potential customer could be inspired to click through. In this case more is definitely better! One link per paragraph is a good guideline as well as, of course, at the very end of your email message as well.


3. Don't Hide Your Unsubscribe

One of our essential goals is to avoid having our email marketing campaigns labeled as spam. Make it easy for even the dimmest light bulb in the hallway to unsubscribe from your list and you'll be grateful later. When people have difficulty unsubscribing they will mark your message as spam, adding strikes against your sender reputation. You want unsubscribing as uncomplicated and upfront as possible.


4. Short and Sweet Text

The truth is most of your recipients are only going to scan your message for highlights that catch their eye. Bullet points and very short paragraphs work to your advantage as does bold text to highlight points and varying your font colour. Keep your messages very short and if in doubt make them shorter. The idea is to get sales, not send out books that no one will read anyway.


5. Clean Up Your Email List Frequently

Between messages remove undeliverable addresses, full in boxes and others that bounce back to you. This is not optional, but required if you want your email marketing campaign to succeed. Otherwise you'll be working with bad data as far as keeping track of responses to your campaign and greatly increase your chances of being labeled a spammer by your email provider. Stay on this - if you let it get out of hand it will equal much more work in the long run.

Smart email marketing is as much a science as it is an art. Once you lay down some foundational rules you can go crazy with all your creative savvy to hit home with your message with a much greater chance of success! Following these email marketing tips will get you off to a good start. Let us know if you have a favorite tip you'd like to add!


About The Author: Danny Duric is a blogger from Australia. He is blogging mostly about business and internet marketing.

Did you find this article helpful? Do you have any email marketing tips to share? Please let Danny and myself know by leaving us your valued comments.

Would you like to guest post on the blog? Please use the Contact tab above to get in touch if you write business-related articles or articles on the topics of Internet Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Social Media Marketing/Optimisation (SMO), Blogging, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) or Search Engine Marketing (SEM).

Related articles:
Five Reasons Why Your Company Needs Professional Email Marketing Templates
Why Choose Email As A Marketing Tool?


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© 2013. This article is DMCA protected. Republication is prohibited.

Five Reasons Why Your Company Needs Professional Email Marketing Templates

In order to take their first steps with email marketing, all companies must take of three key areas: content, contacts and design. Without content you don't have a message, without contacts no-one to reach... and without design? Without design, you lack the professional touch; which is the key to converting leads.

Now, any company so much as approaching this marketing platform should have an idea of what they'd like to say. Newsletters can be packed with a combination of blogs, company updates, videos, images; whatever suits them. With who they'd like to reach it could be a certain type of consumer or business, although "the more the merrier" applies in most cases. With design it becomes a little more problematic, as this belongs to entirely different field - requiring an entirely different range of expertise.

You can try getting your head around Photoshop for a couple of hours every day, tweaking thousands of filter dials until your mouse eventually gives up. Alternatively, you could take a short-cut around the design route and outsource your email marketing templates. Here's what's in it for you.


1. A quick solution

Just think about all the time you could be spending on your brand messages while you're dragging yourself through editing tools, and for what? Just so you can say that your company made everything in the email newsletter when asked? People don't particularly mind about who designed the template, mainly because they view design on a subconscious level. The design entices them into the message which then becomes their main point of focus. Dedicate your man hours to the content and let the experts take care of the rest.


2. Cost effectiveness

Aside from all the time spent in their realms, have you checked the price of editing tools? Email marketing templates provide a cost effective solution for your company, often negotiated at a monthly rate. Rather than buying software and hiring specialist support, you can part with a fixed cost and get creating your messages right away. It is services like this that make email marketing such a cheap activity to maintain.


3. Made for all manner of companies

With often hundreds of templates to choose from, you'll always be spoilt rotten when it comes to selecting the right template. These will then be able to feature any pictures, text and video you need to make your message complete.

Not only this, companies with a bit of technical know-how can apply the custom touches to their email with a bespoke HTML editor tool - these are offered quite often to subscribers of a premium email marketing software package.


4. The professional touch

While your competitors are enjoying a healthy return thanks to their professional templates, you could be left with a shrinking email list due to your amateur-looking messages making people decide they want to unsubscribe. People won't give your content a single thought unless they're inspired to read on. It's through professionally designed templates that people are drawn into not only reading through a message, but clicking on links to visit your site. Their mailboxes are flooded with email messages every day, so you should always be looking to make yours stand out.


5. A rapid turnaround

So, you've designed your very first template and an internal survey says it doesn't work. Then what? The best thing about investing in an email template service is you can turn such events into a learning curve, rather than a disaster. All you'll need to do is pick a new design for your message and send again. The other option is to spend more hours attempting to come up with a second attempt, only to find that your email list does not like that one either!


About The Author: Stuart Wooster has been learning about digital marketing since 2007 and writes on behalf of Mailing Manager who provide email marketing templates. In his spare time he likes furthering his knowledge with personal projects.

Did you find this article helpful? Please let Stuart and myself know by leaving us your valued comments.

Would you like to guest post on the blog? Please use the Contact tab above to get in touch if you write business-related articles or articles on the topics of Internet Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Social Media Marketing/Optimisation (SMO), Blogging, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) or Search Engine Marketing (SEM).

Related articles:
Why Choose Email As A Marketing Tool?


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Until my next post on Monday on how social media is replacing traditional customer service, have a wonderful and relaxing weekend!

© 2013. This article is DMCA protected. Republication is prohibited.

Why Choose Email As A Marketing Tool?

Email marketing is one of the least costly marketing methods around. It is no wonder then that many companies consider this method be outmoded and over-performed. In reality, however, there are number of strong arguments for encouraging prospects and customers to opt-in to an email marketing campaign. Not the least among these is the fact that email marketing works when it comes to its ability to improve your bottom line.


You Can Structure Your Campaigns To Reach Consumers Through A Number Of Different Devices

One of the greatest benefits of implementing an effective email marketing campaign is that it your information can be transmitted and accessed through a number of different communication devices. Given the proliferate use of mobile phones and tablets, you no longer need to wait for your prospects to reach a computer in order to get in contact with them. Your emails can be read over the phone, on a tablet, laptop or any other device with internet connectivity and email access. Thus, as long as your transmissions remain current, the very evolution of technology itself helps to keep email marketing from every truly becoming outmoded.


Email Marketing Allows For A Much Higher Conversion Rate Than Almost Every Other Marketing Method

Apart from video marketing and your social networking efforts, email marketing can outperform all other marketing strategies when it comes to improving your conversion rate. When your transmissions are carefully and ideally devised, you can provide your prospects with everything that they need to successfully traverse the entire purchasing process, even as you focus your efforts on other things. Keeping everything in one place helps you to avoid losing sales to your competitors as prospects search online for any additional details that they need before buying. You can insert links to your company website into every marketing transmission that you send, in order to ensure that your prospects stay connected to you throughout the entire process.


The Increase Can Be Exponential

As far as marketing materials go, e-newsletters may be among some of the easiest to share. When you make certain to include valuable information, the likelihood of your emails being forwarded on to others can dramatically increase. With a click of a button people can share the transmissions that they are most impressed with, with their colleagues, their family members and their friends. Good information and strong products and services can sell themselves. The very value of your email marketing campaigns can inspire your readership to literally build itself.


Keeping The Relationship Strong

There is no real way to calculate the worth of your existing customers. Due to this fact, businesses must do everything that they can do to keep their existing customers connected and aware of new product developments or limited savings opportunities. Your email marketing efforts will help your products or services to stay at the forefront of shoppers' minds so that your business is the very first company that they think of when it is time to reorder. Building a strong readerships of existing customers is easy to do as you can include an opt-in form right on your sales page.


Email Newsletters Have A Better Expiration Date

Your fliers, business cards and the like will often wind up in the trash once clients grow bored of sifting through them or stumbling across these. While your marketing transmissions may be digitally discarded as well, they represent much less of an eyesore than all of the physical clutter that is generated by typical outbound marketing campaigns. More importantly, your electronic transmissions are still accessible even after they have been thrown away as it is much easier to restore an unread email from a trash file than it is to dig through a filthy physical waste receptacle in order to retrieve a rumpled business card.


Getting A Good CRM System In Place

Another benefit to consider is the ability of email marketing to help you easily generate customer relationship management techniques or CRM techniques, without having to invest a tremendous amount of money, energy or time. The increased connection between you and your prospects and customers allows for a greater transfer of information, especially when you make certain to design seamless transmissions for your message recipients. More importantly, the use of white label email marketing software and resources allows for greater organization and increased efficiency in both your marketing and your relationship management. These processes allow you to glean a lot of the details that will help you to polish your products and services to perfection.


About The Author: This article was written by Phill representing NetEffekt - the trusted provider of email marketing solutions for leading agencies and enterprises worldwide.

Do you like this article? Please let me know by leaving me your valued comments.


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Are You Speaking The Right Language With Your Customers

I'm delighted to introduce you to a guest post from Sylvia Rosen. Sylvia is a web content writer who uses her journalism background to connect with industry professionals to write articles on the latest trends in health, technology and business industries.

Thank you Sylvia for guest posting on Derek's Home and Business Blog and I'm sure my readers will thoroughly enjoy your post.


Are You Speaking the Right Language with Your Customers

Here's some interesting food for thought: Did you know that in spite of the current state of the downturned economy, customers are actually willing to pay more for great customer service?

According to the 2010 Customer Experience Impact Report by Harris Interactive, customers are willing to pay top dollar to have a great customer experience.

• 82% of customers stopped doing business with a particular company because they had a bad experience.
  
  
• 55% of customers chose a company because of their good reputation for customer service.
  
  
• 40% of customers purchased from a different brand because of their reputation for great customer service.

The bottom line? 85% of customers are willing to pay more than the average price for a product for a pleasant customer experience.

So where do you begin?

Here are three basic communication channels to consider to improve customer communication and to provide your customers with a memorable experience:


Social Media

Social media is a booming channel for customer service today. More people are plugged into social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn than ever before. When your business has a presence and a voice in social media, you can reach customers exactly where they are at.

You can speak their language. You can listen in on their conversations. You can answer customer questions and deal with problems before they become a bigger issue. On top of that, social media provides the perfect environment to reach out to customers in neutral territory and form long-lasting relationships, proving to them that you are a business they can trust.


Customer Service

Customer service is a basic component of any business, but its value should not be overlooked. When a customer calls you regarding a question or issue, they are looking for genuine support.

Having a well-trained staff that is knowledgeable enough to quickly answer customer questions and deal with customer issues over the phone will make a great impression on behalf of your business. Make no mistake that if a customer has to call again and again or has trouble reaching a representative, they will not likely do business with your company again.


E-mail Marketing

E-mail marketing is the modern approach to direct mail marketing; even better, it is incredibly inexpensive to run an e-mail marketing campaign. Instead of paying to send out flyers, postcards, or brochures to customers that will likely be thrown away as junk mail, you can create a dedicated e-mail campaign with valuable information that your customers are looking for.

In order to see the greatest success with e-mail marketing, pay attention to what your customers are talking about in social media. You can then provide content that answers questions and concerns in an e-mail newsletter and offer special deals and coupons to your subscribers. This is one easy, effective way to keep customers coming back for more and to reward loyal customers for their business.

Speaking the right language to your customers will do wonders to improve their customer experience. And when you're able to improve the experience of your customers, you can guarantee that they will pay more for your products - and choose you over your competitors every time.


About The Author: Sylvia Rosen is an online writer who connects with business professionals to write articles on a variety of industry trends and products. You can connect with Sylvia on Twitter @SylviaRosen.

Do you like this guest post? Please show Sylvia your support by leaving your valued comments.

Would you like to guest post on the blog? Please use the Contact tab above to get in touch if you write business-related articles or articles on the topics of Internet Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Blogging, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) or Search Engine Marketing (SEM).


If you found this or any of my other posts helpful, don't forget to +1 or share the posts to your favourite networks using the toolbar below or by using the "+1" and "Share" buttons located at the bottom of each post.

As ever, if you want to stay up to date with the latest blog posts, don't forget to follow via Google Friend Connect (button on sidebar), on NetworkedBlogs, via Email (maximum of one email per day), on Facebook and Google+ or by subscribing to our blog feed at:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/DereksHomeAndBusinessBlog

You can also follow me on Twitter @djones1509, Google+ and on Facebook at:
http://www.facebook.com/djones1509
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Until my next post, have a fabulous week!

30 Proven Internet Marketing Strategies

As a savvy business owner, you know you should tap in to social media, ramp up your SEO efforts and work on your website and email marketing. But how do you grow your business online while still managing everything else in your company?

Plus, where do you even begin? What if you've never tried PPC ads, Google Analytics or article marketing? How do you start? Easy...

Infusionsoft, the Leader in Marketing Automation Software has created a simple Guidebook to help business owners navigate online growth. Download this FREE Internet Marketing Guidebook and discover:

• How to instantly improve your website effectiveness
• Simple ways to improve your search engine rankings
• Where you should spend your online advertising dollars
• The easiest ways to engage in social media
• And much more

Ultimately, you'll learn 30 fast and easy ways to grow your business online...and you can do it all without having to become an expert on every topic! Click here to download your free guidebook.

To compliment the guidebook, Infusionsoft have compiled a Free Email Marketing 2.0 Report. In this free 5-page report, you'll discover how to close more sales, get repeat business and build lasting, profitable relationships with your contacts using email marketing. Click here to get your free report.

To Your Success!

Top 5 Traffic Sources

Here's a great article from Titus Hoskins, explaining what are the top sources to drive traffic to your site...

5 Top Traffic Sources For Your Site

I believe if you asked any webmaster or online marketer what their most important aspect of running a site would be, you would get an answer that's some way related to traffic. Mainly because traffic is your site's lifeblood, actually without traffic you really don't have a site at all.


Traffic is King

Traffic brings in the leads and the sales. Quality traffic is what produces your online revenue, whether from advertising or from sales on your site. Now, I have sites which get less than 50 visitors a day, I have a few sites which get around 200 visitors and I have one site which gets around 2,000 visitors a day.

Don't jump to any conclusions, some days the site getting 50 visitors can make just as much as the site getting 2,000 visitors. It all has to do with the quality of the traffic and how well it converts into a sale. And of course, it all depends on what you're selling... an LCD cleaning kit for $20 bucks or a gaming laptop which sell for $2000+.

Regardless, you have to get that traffic in the first place if you want to earn an online income. The more traffic you have, usually, the more you will make; at least this has been my experience. Since traffic is very important to me, I keep a lot of records and stats on where my traffic is coming from on the web. I have to know what produces the quality traffic and how to get it.

So below I have listed down my 5 most important traffic sources and/or the marketing techniques I use to get that traffic. This list might also help you with your traffic and how you can grow it. Here are my 5 main traffic sources...


1. SEO and the Search Engines

The majority of the traffic to my sites comes from the search engines, mainly Google. It is my high rankings for my targeted keyword phrases which brings in the most and the best quality traffic to my sites. Get the SEO right and build a lot of quality one-way links from related sites and you will get the traffic. Another tactic, don't just create a website with only 10 or 20 pages - create one with 1000 to 5000 pages. I know this takes time but consider your site like a long-term business which you will keep building for years. Produce plenty of quality content and you will get plenty of quality visitors in return. Works for me.


2. Article Marketing

Another very effective way to bring in quality traffic to your site or sites is article marketing. Just write short articles related to your site's keywords and place your keyworded links in the resource box. Distribute these articles all over the web. Right now, what is working for me, is writing unique articles which I only place on one important site. I am using this technique with sites like SiteProNews, Buzzle and many more. Article marketing is still one of the most effective ways to get quality traffic, just try it.


3. PPC - Pay Per Click Advertising

I know, I know, this can be very expensive, but PPC can be the quickest way to get quality traffic to your sites. Just be careful and approach it with kid's gloves until you find campaigns which work for you - then scale them up. Microsoft Adcenter and Yahoo Marketing have now joined forces and I find this is producing good traffic for me. Google Adwords is probably better, but they are a real pain to work with and have become too expensive, at least for my keywords. But if you have the resources, don't rule out Adwords or any of the PPC programs.


4. Social Media Sites

From Facebook to Twitter to LinkedIn, social media sites can provide a lot of traffic and word of mouth advertising for your site. For me, even though I haven't worked these sites to their fullest potential, I still get traffic from them. Getting your pages bookmarked in some of these sites can bring in a flood of traffic overnight, while most of this traffic will be temporary, you can get a lot of sign-ups to your newsletter and different follow-up lists. While not exactly in the same group, I have had some success with YouTube videos which also bring in targeted traffic. Don't ignore these social media and video sites in your traffic strategies.


5. Email Marketing and Follow-up Lists

This is another one of my major sources of "repeat visitors" to my sites. You must be constantly building up your different contact lists for further follow-up. This will bring in more visitors than you would expect, especially if you put some simple viral messages in your emails. If you supply valuable information, people will recommend your content to friends and co-workers; again word of mouth can bring in a lot of traffic especially in this age of Facebook and Twitter.

Of course, there are other traffic sources such as Press Releases, Banner Ads, RSS Feeds, Off-line Advertising... and if you have your products to promote, affiliates and joint ventures will be your most valuable source of traffic. Over the years I have picked up a lot of information on traffic and traffic tips... some of the best places/people for this has been:

freetraffictip.com - run by Tinu Abayomi-Paul, one of my best sources for free traffic tips. Excellent.

trafficology.com - this site and newsletter gives you off-beat ways to build traffic to your site. Highly Recommended.

trafficsecrets.com - if this one is still open, John Reese has a few very good products on traffic. Recommended if you can afford it.



About The Author: Titus Hoskins is a full time online affiliate marketer who operates numerous niche sites, as well as two sites on Internet Marketing: internet marketing tools or try here free marketing courses.

Free Internet Marketing Guidebook

While online, I'm always on the lookout for good marketing resources and freebies to offer my readers. Recently, I discovered a Free Internet Marketing Guidebook from Infusionsoft which I think you'll find extremely useful. Here's a bit more info...

Infusionsoft have been in the small business world for quite some time and they know what it takes to grow a business. So, to help fellow entrepreneurs, they've compiled a guidebook of things you can do to improve your Internet marketing and get your business on the path to business growth.

As you read the guidebook, you'll discover:

• How you can make your website more effective
• Easy ways to drive traffic to your site
• How to capture and target-market new leads
• Strategies to perfect your email marketing
• And a whole lot more

Everything you learn from the guidebook can be implemented today. This is a great resource for anyone hoping to capture more leads, close more sales and get repeat business. Click here to get your free guidebook.

To compliment the guidebook, Infusionsoft have compiled a Free Email Marketing 2.0 Report. In this free 5-page report, you'll discover how to close more sales, get repeat business and build lasting, profitable relationships with your contacts using email marketing. Click here to get your free report.

Enjoy!