Thousands of companies already leveraged the power of email marketing to promote their business to a wide range of customers. For those businesses that haven’t yet introduced email marketing into their advertising efforts—and even for some of those who have—the strategy does reveal some challenges. Companies struggling to get the most out of their email marketing efforts should consider using a managed email marketing service. Let’s take a look at the challenges of email marketing and how an outside firm can tackle those issues.
Design and Editorial
Problem: Email marketing is a very effective way to stay in contact with your current and prospective customers, but you need to have effective design and editorial to gain the best response to your emails. While large corporations have the funding to hire a design and editorial team to work in-house, many small and medium sized businesses simply don’t have the resources necessary to manage their email campaigns. Web-based email marketing programs typically allow you to design emails with a template, but the designs are limited and you still need to put in the time and effort to create the images and text to drop into the template. Simply put, without a team of designers and writers on staff your email campaigns could suffer.
Solution: Managed Email Marketing firms handle all of the design and editorial for other companies. These firms have teams of experienced designers and writers to quickly produce compelling email design and informative newsletters. Every design is customized to provide companies with a unique look to match their brand. More importantly, Managed Email Marketing companies have a wealth of experience in email advertising and know the best design practices to produce results. Deciding where to place images, how to align text, and even what fonts will display in a browser can make all the difference in an email campaign. If the medium is the message, then having the best understanding of how emails work will deliver the best results.
HTML Coding
Problem: In order for an email to deliver an effective message it must render properly in a variety of browsers. The best design in the world is meaningless if no one can view it! When working with a web-based email deployment system you can enter your information into templates, but the designs can become stale and unoriginal. Plus, you might not find a template with the look and feel you’re looking for in a blast. When it comes to incorporating more advanced features
like linking multiple buttons and using information forms, a simple template just won’t cut it. Even when you’re just looking to import a few pictures you need to know the correct image dimensions to have the image render properly without stretching. No matter how simple the template, without an experienced web coder your emails could still be a guessing game.
Solution: Managed Email Marketing firms have web coders on staff to create perfect email campaigns that will render in any browser. These firms check every email deployment with inbox snapshots to test the campaign before it goes out. Each email is checked to verify the HTML, minimize content blocked by spam filters, and ensure proper deliverability rates. Best of all, with professional designers on staff Managed Email Marketing firms create completely custom email blasts and newsletters with intricate features to provide a unique email catered to any industry, any business, and any customer. Managed Email Marketing assures that every email has a great design and will show up in the customer’s inbox with that same design.
Deliverability, Opens, and Click-Throughs
Problem: Email marketing is an ever-changing game. You need to know what messages and content to use to attract your customers to your website. Knowing what images and text drives your customers to click through to your website is vital when creating your next campaign. Before your customers click through, they need to actually open your email. You need to write a compelling Subject Line to entice recipients to view the email and provide a familiar From Address so they’ll feel comfortable opening it. But even before that, you’ll need to make sure your emails don’t include content flagged by spam filters in both the subject line and body. If you don’t take the right precautions, you’re emails could never even reach their intended recipients! Staying up on the latest trends in email marketing and analyzing your results is a must.
Solution: Managed Email Marketing companies have the knowledge and experience in email marketing to create emails with compelling messages to drive customers to action. By working with a large number of clients in a wide variety of industries, these firms know best practices to help emails achieve better performance. Managed Email Marketing firms constantly research the latest trends in email marketing to stay current on SPAM regulations and what messages work or don’t work. A Managed Email Marketing company will analyze the results of every email to measure deliverability, open, and click-thru rates. The firm applies analysis of where customers clicked and the open rate of first
and second deployments to test content and subject lines. With A/B testing and re-mailing, Managed Email Marketing firms fine-tune their clients’ campaigns for optimal success for future deployments.
Website Integration
Problem: Email Marketing develops customer loyalty and drives traffic to your website. To take full advantage of the latter, your emails should direct visitors to the appropriate place on your website. While driving customers your homepage gets them on your site, it may not always be the right location for your customers. You need to provide information directly related to your customers’ interests and your promotions. Using multiple landing pages and one-way pages can improve your conversion rates on your website. Getting customers to your website is one step in the process. Getting them to make a purchase or sign up for a service is the final goal.
Solution: Managed Email Marketing companies direct emails to specific landing points on websites. These firms can link emails to existing webpages or create completely new landing pages with imagery and text directly related to the email campaign. By streamlining navigation from emails to websites, Managed Email Marketing companies help their clients’ close leads and retain customer loyalty.
Consistent Deployment
Problem: Email marketing works by creating ongoing communication with your customers. You need to send out consistent deployments to stay in the face of your customers and keep your company in their minds. They might not make a purchase on the first email, but with regular emails you’ll keep their attention for a future purchase. In addition to maintaining your customers’ interest, consistent deployment allows you to measure the results and test different scenarios. Sending emails on different days, at different times, and with different promotions will find the best solution to market your company. The day-to-day tasks of running a business can be difficult to keep up with on their own, and your email marketing campaigns can suffer as a result.
Solution: With a Managed Email Marketing firm, companies are assured regular deployment on a set schedule. Managed Email Marketing companies determine a deployment calendar based on a company’s industry, specific business, and customer base. These firms work to keep companies on a set schedule to achieve the best results out of their campaigns.
At the end of the day, email marketing is about much more than simply sending messages to your customers. Knowing the best practices, creating compelling designs, and properly directing website traffic is crucial to the success of your email campaigns. Consider what resources you have in-house to create an effective email marketing campaign and decide if using a Managed Email Marketing company could better suit your needs.
Bill Cobb is the Creative Director of DATAbuddy, a full-service Interactive Marketing company. DATAbuddy provides in-depth consulting and creative services to manage companies’ online identity across the realms of email marketing, website development, search engine marketing, social networking, and other online areas.
www.DATAbuddy.com
888.390.0188
bcobb@databuddy.com
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