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Testing Your Way to a Better Email Marketing Campaign
If you’re in the marketing, public relations or advertising industry you probably already know how important it is to run an an error-free and effective campaign. HTML e-mail marketing campaigns are one way to promote your company or clients’ services, blogs and Website.
It’s smart to do some testing before you send your e-mail campaign to your entire subscriber list. Most e-mail marketing services let you send tests to yourself, but do you know what to look for?
Here are some handy tips for testing your e-mail marketing campaigns:
- Don’t just rely on a pop-up preview. That’s a rough approximation of how your e-mail would look in the best of circumstances. You need to actually deliver your campaign to real e-mail addresses to see how it works “in the wild.”
- Setup e-mail accounts with as many e-mail services as possible (it’s usually free). Use the most common services, like MSN, Hotmail, Yahoo! and Gmail. You might also setup an account with AOL.
- Don’t change any of the default settings for the test accounts. Don’t add yourself to the address book either. You’ll want to test whether or not your e-mail campaigns get spam-filtered to a typical e-mail account.
- Set up a “test list” via the e-mail marketing service you’re using (you can do this in one click by replicating your “real” list) and import these test addresses.
- Try to recruit co-workers, friends and/or family members who use different e-mail services to become testers for you. That way, they can tell you how your e-mail looks in various types of e-mail programs. If you have the resources, setup a testing computer in the office with multiple operating systems and e-mail programs.
- On your sign-up form, are you giving users the option to receive the plain-text version or mobile version of your emails? If so, be sure to sign-up one of your test emails to receive plain-text only and one to receive the Mobile version.
- Send as many e-mails as you can to your test addresses. Knowledge is power and this will help you anticipate mistakes and fine-tune the look of your e-mails.
- Did your campaign end up in the junk folder for any of the email accounts? If so, you might want to include a one-sentence note at the bottom of each e-mail to remind your subscribers to add your e-mail address to their address book. This will help prevent your e-mails from automatically being marked as “spam.”
- Most e-mail programs leave images turned off by default (you have to click a link or button to display images). How does your email look with images turned off? That’s the first impression people will have.
- Do you have “Alt-text” coded for your images to entice recipients to click the “show images” button (Alt-text is the “alternative text” that’s displayed when an image can’t be seen in a web browser or e-mail program)? When we say “entice” we don’t mean you should resort to sales-like rhetoric such as, “CHECK THIS OUT!” Sometimes, a really descriptive alt-text is enticing enough. For example, “Screenshot of the new feature we just launched” is short and sweet.
- When you click “show images” for your e-mail, do all the images work? Do they download fairly quickly or do you need to go back and optimize them?
- Just in case people choose not to display your the images in your e-mails, do you have a link at the top of your e-mail, allowing them to view your message online (i.e. through their browser)?
- Click on as many links as possible (yes, this is mind-numbing, but necessary). Do they all work? Are there any broken links?
- Did you enable click or open tracking? If so, click and open some of your e-mails. Log in and check your campaign stats. Double and triple check that everything is working properly.
Was this helpful? Let us know if you followed these tips in your own e-mail marketing campaigns and had any success in growing your business!
You can also check out HRB’s Marketing blog or Internet Technology blog for more tips and news about utilizing e-mail marketing campaigns.
Megan Jasin
Public Relations Intern
Connect with me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/meganjasin
What Makes Apple’s Mobile Ad Platform Different
The iPhoneTM 4 has been out for over a month now. At that time, there was also a software update for older iPhones and iPodTM touches that added many features that were new on the iPhone 4. Part of the software update was the ability for app developers to display ads served up by Apple’sTM “iAd” platform. With the popularity of free applications that people download on a whim comes the desire for developers to monetize them to pay for their initial development costs and support further development.
The advertising model has now been brought into free apps, and it’s like a traditional Website that is mostly, if not entirely, supported by advertising. Apple’s iAd platform isn’t the first to offer developers the opportunity to include ads in their apps, but they do it a little differently.
The traditional electronic ad is either text, an image or a brief animation that, when clicked, will take you directly to the advertiser’s Website. iAd recognizes that most mobile devices either don’t support Flash or have a limited mobile edition of Flash so the common animated Flash ad isn’t possible. People often quote the statistic provided by Adobe that 96% of Web browsers have Flash installed, but that figure is actually representative of the percentage of Web browsers that are capable of running Flash and have it installed. That means it’s excluding millions of devices that have a Web browser that can’t run Flash, even if the device owner wanted to (this includes Apple’s mobile devices among many others).
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iAd instead focuses on the fact that 100% of all Web browsers have HTML support. Plus, all of the devices that iAd will be shown on also have CSS and JavaScript support for animation and interactivity. This method allows advertisers to show the full ad experience via CSS and JavaScript on all devices by default and shows the static version of the ad if they set JavaScript to be disabled. Using Flash will instead be shown as a blank block and will require the Flash plugin to show anything at all or requires the developer to also build the HTML version. This begs the question of, “Why not build the HTML version in the first place?” Ads haven’t been using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript until now due to the fact that CSS and JavaScript-based animations were introduced recently so Flash was the only option available to advertising / Website designers.
Click to view full size. Created by blog.monty.de
iAd’s extended ad view does include some new functionality that other ad services don’t offer. The ads expand within the current application when they’re tapped on instead of opening a Website in your Web browser. The ads are self-contained so that everything the advertiser wants to be shown can be included within the interactive ad, and can be closed at any time using a close button that is located in the same place for every ad. The expanded ad also has the ability to:
- Allow the user to submit a form (register for a giveaway / sign up to a newsletter)
- Download or purchase something from the App Store (purchase the full product / download a companion app)
- Save media to the device (wallpapers / videos)
- Access the camera (scan a barcode in a store / take a picture of yourself using the product)
- Integrate into other web services (social media / the product’s website)
- and more…
There’s the potential for a malicious advertiser to exploit some of these features or be a security risk but Apple is requiring each ad to be inspected and approved before being displayed. When iAd was announced, Apple brought up that finding a way to keep the advertising interactive while maintaining an emotional tone was very important to making this form of advertising engaging and effective. This is just another option that’s available to advertisers and developers alike and seems like a promising idea if used properly.
Kurt Zenisek
Web Developer
Connect with me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/kzeni
Mobile Marketing and Leading the Duck
I was sitting in the duck blind just north of Clinton, Iowa about 30 years ago. I had my shotgun gripped tightly with the safety on. The ducks were flying right toward our decoys in a path that would lead them within 30 yards of our blind. I was ready to shoot my first bird and take my place as one of the great American hunters of our time. When the ducks were in range, my dad said, “Now!” I quickly pointed my shotgun at the ducks and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. I pointed again and pulled the trigger again. Nothing… the ducks were now out of range. My dad sat there smiling at me and patted me on the back. “Son, you have to remember to flip the safety off before you pull the trigger.” A little embarrassed, I rolled my eyes at myself and slouched back down in blind.
A couple of hours later, the same situation presented itself again. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. The ducks flew within range and my dad said, “Now!” I quickly point the gun, flipped the safety off, and pulled the trigger. I missed. I pointed again, and pulled the trigger again. I missed a second time. The ducks flew out of range.
Frustrated, I looked over at my dad who sat there smiling once again. He said, “Son, in order to shoot a duck you have to aim ahead of them. If you aim directly at them, you’ll always miss because your BB’s will end up where the duck WAS rather than where it IS. You have to lead the duck.”
There were no more chances that day, but I learned three lessons I’ll never forget.
1. To be successful, you have to turn off the safety before you pull the trigger.
2. You have to lead the duck. You can’t shoot for where your target is today, you have to aim where they are going.
3. My dad couldn’t do it for me. In order to be successful, I had to learn the mechanics and pull the trigger myself.
Hopefully, you’ve spent the last few years leading the duck. If you have, then here’s where you should be:
- You should have an effective website design that turns a percentage of visitors into new business opportunities or sales.
- You should have a blog or news section that keeps your audience informed and positions you as an expert in your industry.
- You should have a social media marketing presence that delivers your message where and how your audience wants to receive it.
- You should have an email marketing process and system in place that is very easy to maintain and predictable for your audience.
In a recent speech, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said, “Mobile is the hottest area of computer technology…The smartest developers now are writing apps for mobile devices before they write for Windows or Apple Mac desktop operating systems.”
Have you started to think about how you can make the best use of mobile technology to offer a new service or to better communicate with your audience, or are you still sitting with your safety on and pointing your gun at the duck?
My dad was an amazing duck hunter. I can’t remember a time he pulled the trigger and didn’t hit his target. He had the mechanics down pat. He was patient, but he was also very decisive and accurate when the time came. I would encourage everyone to be a little more like my dad. Be patient, but know when and how to be decisive and accurate. Make sure you have the pieces in place, and start thinking about pulling the trigger on your mobile marketing plan.
Jeff McEachron
Senior Vice President
Director, Internet Operations
Follow me on Twitter @Jeff_McEachron
Connect with me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jeffmceachron
Building an Effective Online Marketing Approach – Part Three
In Part One of this series, I talked about the importance of getting your Web site design ready to receive visitors. In Part Two of this series, I talked about implementing a blog or news section on your Web site. Once you have these two steps completed and are happy with your internal systems and processes to ensure consistency, it’s time to start leveraging your blog content into email marketing.
As a recommendation, let’s start out slowly. Assume you are writing one blog article per week. This means you have four articles to use as the foundation of a monthly newsletter. In other words, you don’t have to write all new content for a newsletter. Simply use the information you’ve already communicated via your blog in a slightly different format.
Let’s say your average blog article is several paragraphs long. I recommend using the title of each blog entry and the first paragraph as content for your email newsletter. If the recipient of your email wants to learn more, they can click on a link that takes them to your Web site to read the full article. Here’s an example:
Question: Why would I use the same exact content in my blog and newsletter?
Answer: You have to communicate with your audience using the media they prefer or your message will not be received. Some of your audience will enjoy reading your blog. Some of your audience will prefer getting a monthly email newsletter. It will take approximately one hour or less to prepare and distribute your monthly email newsletter. The recipients of the newsletter have opted-in to receive the information, so you’re simply giving them what they have already asked for. Another reason you want to do this is to get more people visiting your Web site to get them closer to your existing content.
In the email newsletter example above, I’ve included offers in a column on the right. These are offers for your readers to engage you further or gain additional information. In the HRB newsletter, we use these areas to promote:
- Seminars or other speaking engagements
- Free White Papers that can be downloaded and might be useful to our target market
- Contact information
- Other promotions
This also provides some insight into the next area we will be discussing – offers and further engagement.
To sum up our progress to date, we have implemented a new Web site design to prepare our site for visitors and to create easy paths for these visitors to contact us. Once the Web site was built, we added a news or blog section designed to educate and inform our target audience about things they care about. Now we’ve designed an email newsletter to re-purpose the blog information for the sector of our audience who prefers reading an email vs. a blog.
If you stop right here in the process, you’ve built a decent system to be transparent in your approach and to communicate your expertise to your audience. These are all really good things that will help you build a better relationship with people who are shopping your brand. This may cause a few people to contact you and you might see a slight increase in leads or sales, but it falls short of the well-rounded approach that will truly be most effective for your business. Unfortunately this is where a lot of companies stop.
My next article will discuss the art of the offer and building a following. While I’m noodling on that, take the time to review your internal processes and procedures. Are you leveraging your information?
Henry Russell Bruce is a strategic marketing and Internet marketing firm that uses research, brand-building, advertising, media buying and planning, design, public relations, Web design and strategies to help clients grow market share, generate new business, create brand loyalty and measure marketing results to build and support its clients' brands. HRB, founded in 1973, has offices in Cedar Rapids and Davenport, Iowa. For more information, contact HRB.
Jeff McEachron
Senior Vice President
Director, Internet Operations
Follow me on Twitter @Jeff_McEachron
Connect with me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jeffmceachron
Building an Effective Online Marketing Approach – Part Two
How many times have you heard a salesperson use one of these lame lines to “push” you closer to buying from them:
- “Shall we meet next Tuesday morning or Thursday afternoon?”
- “Would you prefer to product one or product two?”
- “How about we get started next week?”
- “You’re the expert, so I know you understand why this is important.”
- “I’m not the expert on this, but the guy I work with is dynamite in this area.”
Study after study has shown these approaches are dying a rapid death and being replaced with transparency and inbound marketing. I’m not saying that there’s no need for sales in an organization, but I am saying the buyers of your product or service have gotten a lot smarter. The Internet (specifically social media) has increased transparency to a level where you can’t baffle everyone with BS. People still buy from people, but your next customers will likely know a lot more about you than what your aggressive sales person force feeds them. This is one reason why inbound marketing is the fastest growing segment in the marketing industry. Inbound marketing is when prospects seek out your company rather than the other way around.
In Building an Effective Online Marketing Approach – Part One, I talked about the importance of getting your Web site design ready to receive marketing. How you plan on marketing your Web site should be decided well before your site is even designed. In other words, are you ready to do some inbound marketing?
I have yet to find a company that couldn’t benefit from either a blog or news section as part of their Internet marketing strategy. In the natural progression of things, this is the next step. So what are you going to blog about? What should you include in your news section?
Rule #1 – Don’t do this:
Nobody really cares how cool you think your product or service is. They will judge that for themselves. Remember, the Internet has made business very transparent. People will be looking at your products or body of work to decide for themselves how “cool” you are.
It’s great your company won an award for this or that, but your future customers and clients care about how you can help them achieve their goals and objectives.
A wise man once told me, “The most boring person at the party is the one who spends the night talking about himself.” Give that a little thought… You just got an image of someone, right? Don’t be that person.
Rule #2 – Do this:
Educate and inform your audience about things they care about.
Regardless of what your company does, you are the experts. If you’re a law firm, then tell your audience about changes in the law and how it will affect them. If you’re a college or university, then tell your audience about the happenings on campus. If you’re an HR consulting firm, then tell people how the changes in health care will affect the business sector. The examples are endless. You have valuable information that can help people so share it. This simple act positions you as an expert who cares. Isn’t that the kind of organization you want to associate with?
So the decision is made. You’ve designed your new Web site and decided to start a news section or a blog. You’ve given it some thought and you have a general idea on how you can educate and inform your audience. Your next step will be to put a plan in place to ensure you are effectively delivering the content to your target audience.
As a side benefit, you know who to avoid at your next party…
Henry Russell Bruce is a strategic marketing and Internet marketing firm that uses research, brand-building, advertising, media buying and planning, design, public relations, Web design and strategies to help clients grow market share, generate new business, create brand loyalty and measure marketing results to build and support its clients' brands. HRB, founded in 1973, has offices in Cedar Rapids and Davenport, Iowa. For more information, contact HRB.
Jeff McEachron
Senior Vice President
Director, Internet Operations
Follow me on Twitter @Jeff_McEachron
Connect with me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jeffmceachron
