More companies are looking toward email to execute their marketing campaigns. However, with all of the bulk email providers out there, it can become too easy to make simply strategic mistakes that will hurt your campaign. Not having a strategy. There must be a plan behind every marketing campaign you launch. Detail the exact reasons for sending out each email, the content you will have, the audience you are targeting, the key messages, and what you consider a successful campaign. Using an old list. If you have an old list, not only will your information be out-of-date, but you may be wasting ...

Segmenting your the email list for your email newsletter is the easiest way to improve the conversion on your email marketing campaigns. The more engaged a subscriber is, the more committed they are to your company. They would require a different message than someone who never opens your message. There are three general categories you can use to segment your email list based on engagement. Engaged Subscribers These are people who click on your emails recently and frequently. These people want your emails and will respond to offers. This should be your main focus. Semi-Engaged These are people who do not always open ...

Having inactive subscribers on your email lists can often throw off your data. These are people who have never opened a campaign, or people who haven't been active in a long time but haven't unsubscribed from the list. Segment these people into a separate list called "nonresponders" and start seeing if you can get them active again. Email a link to your opt-in form and have them sign up again. On that page, give examples of your emails so they can see what they are signing up for. Email them with a coupon for your company. The more extreme the coupon, the more ...

Are you driving away customers with your email campaigns? By sending out mass emails to all your subscribers, you could be deterring potential customers. Almost half of people who have ever unsubscribed from an email said that it was because the emails weren't relevant to them, according to a survey from the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council. Also, 41% said they would consider ending their relationship with a company because of irrelevant email or mailing campaigns and 22% said they would definitely end their relationship. About 3% of opt-in emails for subscribers in the US and Canada were sent to “junk” or ...

With people getting bombarded by more and more emails every day, it is important to keep your emails relevant to the people who are receiving them. If they aren't relevant, then people will quickly delete, unsubscribe, or mark it as spam. To make your emails relevant to subscribers, consider segmenting the recipient list. This way, the information you send out will only reach the people who need it. Pay attention to not only what services and products people are buying, but also what people are looking at on your website. This could help give you an idea about what they are interested ...

Make Strategic Marketing a Priority for 2010 Another decade has passed, I’m not sure how 2009 was for you, but I’m guessing if you are the average person, you have much to consider for the New Year. What resolutions did you make this year? Were any of the ones made last year successful? What about your business resolutions? Do those even exist, apart from the fact that you want to make more money? The great thing about a new year is that you have 12 fresh months to make things happen. Learn from the past and push forward to the future. Maybe ...

While it is important to have eye-catching and relevant content in your email marketing campaigns, it is also important when you send out emails to your subscribers. Research from Pivotal Veracity shows that the average time between when emails are sent to when they are seen has grown from 23.2 hours in January 2009 to 25.9 hours in August 2009. This means that if you have special deals or offers that require your subscribers to act in less than 24 hours with no additional warning, it is unlikely that they will respond. When sending out email campaigns, it is best to think ...

Having a website and a presence on cyberspace doesn’t mean you’ll succeed, not in today’s competitive world of marketing.  While an online presence is key, you have to do more than just have a web address to keep your edge. Once you have a web address, you need to market yourself on all fronts.  This involves optimizing your website through either Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or by using Pay-Per-Click (PPC) technologies to drive more traffic to your site.  Yes, this is the equivalent of putting up a banner or awning outside your brick-and-mortar store telling a passerby who you are. SEO requires ...

If your e-mail marketing campaign seems to be in a rut, it might be time to look at your e-mails and see if it is time to make a few changes. Here are a few quick steps you can take to help increase your turn around rate. Change the content layout. By varying where your content is normally placed in each e-mail, it'll force people to pay more attention to what is going on and not just casually glance through. Segment the list based on customer habits. By creating more specific e-mails that go out, customer interest is more likely to increase ...

Having an e-mail marketing campaign for your business can be an easy way to keep in touch with clients and other businesses. There are a few steps you can take to make sure that your campaign stays effective. Make signing up easy Getting subscribers is the first step to making sure your campaign works. Make sure that people who are interested in your company actually know how to sign up for your e-mails. Have a clear link to subscribe on various parts of your website. If you have a lot of offline clients, have flyers and marketing campaigns that include directions on ...

Epsilon released their study on email marketing, which, among other things, show that worries about security and spam are forcing marketers to change the way they marketing themselves through their email. The Global Consumer Email Study 2009 (pdf) reports that the definition of spam has changed from not just emails they have not subscribed to, but "now encompasses irrelevant messages and contact saturation." North Americans deal with the most spam emails and the top reasons for unsubscribing are irrelevant content, email frequency and concerns about addresses being shared/sold and other privacy issues. The study also shows that while both the "from" and ...

You've gotten people to sign up for your e-mail newsletter, but now it is time to make sure you keep them and utilize them. Here are 5 common mistakes made that can hinder your e-mail marketing campaign. Obscure From Label - Keep your "from" label recognizable and consistent. If subscribers don't recognize your "from" label, they won't hesitate to delete your e-mail and mark it as spam without even opening it. Bad Subject Lines - Not only will a good subject line catch your readers attention, but it'll also make sure you stay out of the Spam folder. Avoiding too much punctuation, ...