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Posts Tagged ‘Internet Marketing’

Spring clean your newsletters

Saturday, March 13th, 2010

By Carl Da-Costa-Greaves

Whether you’re creating your own email newsletters or writing for someone else, if you’re anything like me, you will always be looking for ways to improve, even going right back to the drawing board. With growing competition online and new technologies emerging every day, the last thing you want to do is get left behind by your competitors.

Why reinvent your email newsletters?

You‘ve been writing email newsletters for your business, publishing them and distributing them for years so why change now? A few reasons might be because: • Your users are reading the same newsletter, making the message monotonous as there’s not much more to read that they don’t already know about you. • In the age of the digital era there is so much more information that can be collated quite quickly, such as product profiles, feedback reviews, testimonials etc. If this type of information has got you the reputation you have today then you should share this pride with your readers so they know exactly where their suppliers brand stands in market. • Think big and think different. Why do the same things others are doing?
How to be different

Now you know why your newsletter may need changing, it’s time to work out how you can make it different. Writing good email newsletters requires absolute creativity that you need to put in from the start. Some areas to think about are: • Interest your readers by tapping them into the wider knowledge base of your industry. By doing this you are showing a willingness to educate outside of your own products, adding innovative generic industry information. • Change the design of your newsletter. Why stick to the same boring way of presenting your newsletter? Play with colours and design styles. Use other interesting newsletters that catch your eye for ideas, design patterns and choice of colours. • Add some reviews and testimonials about the products and services of your business. This will help your readers gain faith in your brand. • Keep your readers regularly updated; once a day is too much, once every 6 months and they will forget you. • Leave your readers in anticipation for the next publication. You can do this by dropping some hints about upcoming offers in your next editions. If you haven’t changed your email newsletter in the last 2 years then the chances are it’s going to look a bit outdated. Leverage the power of email marketing and try incorporating some of the ideas above the next time you publish.

Tags: creativity, email newsletters, Internet Marketing, spring clean
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Internet marketing emails that work

Wednesday, December 9th, 2009

newsletter

If you’re going to spend your time setting up permission based newsletters, then it’s worth making a few checks to ensure your emails are delivered correctly, with the message as intended. Here are a few pointers to get the best out of your internet marketing emails.

Clear Stylisation of Links
Blue underlined text is the preferred option for identifying your hyperlinks. However, if you can’t sacrifice the design then make sure all links are easy to pick out from the page.

Provide a Clear One-Click Unsubscribe Link in your HTML newsletter
When users unsubscribe make this process as easy as possible, preferably with one click via the email. Use bulk mail handling software to automate the subscribe/unsubscribe functions. Also take advantage of the double opt in methods and professional introductory, auto generated emails, which these systems can provide.

Encourage Readers to Forward to a Colleague or Friend
Readers don’t need a button or link to let them forward your email, however a little encouragement will never hurt.

Use a Strong Call to Action
Using a strong call to action will dramatically increase your click through rates. Do not use “click here”. Instead, use intriguing text or an unmistakable button to drive your main call to action.

Stay Around 600 Pixels Wide
A good majority of email clients will limit the width of an email. Because of these limitations the most optimal width falls within or close to 600 pixels wide.

Check Preview Panes
A lot of popular email clients, Microsoft Outlook specifically, provide a preview pane from which readers are able to see the beginning of an email. When designing your email make sure that the top of your mail is captivating enough to get readers to want to view the rest.

Make Sure Your Email is Legible with Images Disabled
It’s important to make sure that the message in your email can still be understood even if the images are disabled by the email client, such as outlook or hotmail.

Use Plain Text to Accompany HTML
If you decide to send your emails in HTML you need to make sure that you also attach a plain text version as well so that readers without HTML support are able to view your email.

Utilise CSS Carefully
Only use CSS to stylise the text and some of the minor elements of your email. When doing so, you are better off, if you decide to use CSS, with using as an inline style. Do not use CSS for the layout of an email as most email clients will not support a CSS layout.

Use Online Version for Support
Provide readers with an online version of the email for support in case their html version cannot be read by their email client.

ALWAYS Test Before Sending
Each email client will render your email a bit differently. Check as many email clients as possible before sending.

Tags: Design, html newsletter, Internet Marketing
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Evolution in Internet Marketing

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

By Carl Da-Costa-Greaves

Three key perspectives have emerged indicating the real potential for the Internet as part of market strategy:

• Multi-channelling – The Internet provides a direct marketing and sales channel which sits alongside conventional channels. The issue here is managing the mix of channels so they’re effective from a business point of view and value-enhancing from the customer‘s point of view. Increasingly we see the role of the salespeople to direct some customers towards Web sites; saving the customer time and money and freeing up the sales force time to focus on new customers and large accounts.

• Bricks and Clicks - The combination of the Internet with existing physical resources is incredibly powerful. Tesco Direct has created the most successful Internet grocery business in the world. Not only is Tesco clear that their Internet business is an additional channel that supplements conventional retailing, but the Tesco Web site mirrors the consumer‘s local store experience, and it’s the local store that picks the products from the shelves and delivers them.

• Knowledge Sharing – The Internet itself provides an unprecedented capability for sharing information and knowledge. On the one hand, reviews of online exchanges provides customers with the ability to compare products and prices across all sources of supply, not just locally but throughout the world. On the other hand, the Web supports knowledge sharing globally too – the technician trying to fix a part to a machine in a factory in Brazil can have instant access to the supplier‘s personnel in China who have solved the same problem (it usually involves a hammer).

This piece is based on Nigel Piercy‘s book: Market-Led Strategic Change: A Guide to Transforming the Process of Going To Market (Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2002).

Tags: direct marketing, Internet Marketing, market strategy
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