1.      Target Audience

The most effective variable is your Target Audience. Although context is still (and will always be) king, it does not matter what’s in your email or how it looks if it’s sent to the wrong audience. If your  message isn’t relative to the reader, then all the personalization in the world won’t save you.

2.      Landing Page

The second most-effective variable isn’t even part of your email and is your landing page. Your conversion rate suffers anytime the landing page does not reinforce the email’s message or style.

3.      Subject Line

By far, the most popular variable, the subject line is the most tested variable yet it is not as effective as the previous two variables. Consider using relevant, eye-catching subject lines that do not mislead the recipient. The last thing a recipient wants to receive is an email that is titled, “Get a free puppy today” and opens it up and sees sales information on pet supplies.

4.      Call-to-action

Instead of using links or buttons that say “submit,” “download,” or another generic phrase, I recommend using a value-based phrase to increase the effectiveness of your call-to-action. For instance, consider using “get your free whitepaper” or “get instant access.”

5.      Personalization

With FireDrum’s ‘insert member’ dropdown feature, you are able to personalize your message by adding recipient related information such as their name, company, interests, etc. If you are going to personalize the message with the recipients first name, open the message with “Hello [FirstName]” instead of “Dear [FirstName]” incase you do not have the first name of everyone in your database.

If you haven’t tested one of the top-five variables listed above, and you’re bogged down testing something else, then consider shifting your focus for a test or two. And if you’ve tested only subject lines for months and months, try stepping out of your comfort zone. You might like the results. And don’t forget, FireDrum is here to help you every step of the way.

• Blacklist - This is a list that organizations put together of IP addresses that belong to certain organizations or people who send numerous SPAM e-mails.
• Click Through Rate – This is a percentage of clicks your recipients actually click on a link you send them in the e-mail.
• Conversion Rate – When sending out an e-mail, there is usually a desired action you are asking your recipients to do. The conversion rate is the percentage of people who actually do the task asked compared to the people who do not.
• Opt-in – The recipient of the e-mail has given permission (i.e. opting-in) before you send the e-mail.
• Double Opt-in – Double opt-in is the action of someone who opts-in for your e-mail, and is then asked one more time to confirm they are opting in.
• E-mail Service Provider - These providers are equipped to help you send out mass amounts of e-mails with a single click. They usually will also have templates for you to pick from to help you design the layout of your e-mail.
• Hard Bounce – A hard bounce is when you send an e-mail to an address that no longer exists.
• Soft Bounce – This is what happens when you send an e-mail, but the e-mail is sent back due to an inbox being too full. You can send these messages later on if need be.
• Open Rate – This is the percentage of people who actually open the e-mail. It is counted by an invisible image that is inside the message. A downside to this metric is that if a person is blocking your images they won’t be counted in the rate.
• Unsubscribe – This is a link that allows your recipients to opt-out of your e-mail list without reporting you as SPAM.
• SPAM – SPAM is considered anything that is sent to you that is unsolicited. Because SPAM became so popular in the early 90’s, there are now laws against SPAM and there are more strict filtering techniques used by e-mail clients.

If you are interested in learning more about these terms or any others that I left off the list, please contact FireDrum today at 480-699-1524 or leave a comment.

Sending holiday email campaigns is an excellent way for you to stay connected with your customers, clients, donors, or whoever is on your list. In this month’s article, we will start with a few tips for everyone, then explore some creative ways that retailers, B2B businesses, and nonprofits can incorporate email marketing into a holiday communications plan.

Three quick tips

1. Get started now – Your competitors aren’t wasting any time getting started with their holiday promotions, so why should you? Most businesses that benefit from the November/December season start sending their holiday communications the first half of November. Starting then gives you the chance to sell to the early shoppers and build awareness with the ones who will buy later.

2. Send throughout the season – You may have noticed that most large companies (retailers in particular) communicate frequently during the holiday season. Some send two or three different versions of a catalog, or multiple email promotions highlighting different products and specials. While you don’t want to communicate too often with the people on your list, sending consistent communications during the holiday months can increase sales, attendance, or donations. Make sure to be sensitive to the expectations of your audience.

3. Schedule it and forget it - Think through what products, promotions, and events you want to highlight (there are more pointers on promotions below) and then create a plan that includes what you will send and when. Pick a holiday template you like (we have plenty of free ones!), create a series of campaigns, and schedule them to go out on the appropriate days.

By planning, creating, and scheduling your email campaigns during November, you can put your promotions on auto-pilot and focus on your customers during the busiest time of the year.

What are you waiting for? Get started today! Sign up here.

Happy Veterans Day from the FireDrum Team

I’m interested in hearing your thoughts on the topic so please leave a comment here.

Since Google’s search algorithm change will probably be old news by the time this is read, I’ll be sure to post it on our Facebook page also so you can comment on this topic in real time. 

Want to find out how this will affect your search engine rankings? Contact FireDrum for an SEO consultation.

(Discounted prices are good through 12/31/11)

As I’m sure you are aware (and if not, you are now), it is best practice to use the least amount of images as possible while still producing an aesthetically pleasing newsletter. You may be thinking, ‘But images look so pretty, why wouldn’t I want to use as many as possible?’

Reasons for limiting the amount of images:

1. Many email clients have images turned off by default, requiring recipients to click ‘display images.’

2. Some email clients have images turned off permanently.

3. Some corporate email clients have images turned off permanently.

4. Images of “text” will not benefit your SEO goals (If you don’t already know, text that you type out in your newsletter can be “crawled” by the search engines and help drive traffic to your site)

5. Microsoft’s Word rendering engine causing page breaks in images and is known to chop off the top of images.

That said, if you still want to use images for the majority of your newsletter, the height of your image must not be greater that 1728 pixels. If, for example, your image is 250 pixels longer than 1728px, 250 px will get chopped off the top. A work around is to create multiple 1 row, 1 column tables (one on top of the other) and slice your image up into smaller pieces.

Please contact the FireDrum support team at support@firedrummarketing.com with any questions regarding your newsletter being displayed differently in Outlook 2007 and 2010.