Mmb workshop storm_newmedia

Merton Means Business Is a Merton Council service managed by Merton Chamber of Commerce

Email Marketing Workshop10 October 2012


Email Marketing• Email Marketing strikes many as old-fashioned

• More fashionable venues like social media and mobile marketing get allthe attention ???

• reality doesn’t agree. In fact, with a strong content marketing approach, email is more powerful than ever thanks to social media.

• Why? Because it moves the conversation about your business or information product to a more personal environment — the in-box.

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Email Marketing – What are the Benefits

• It reminds your users about you

• it can inform users about new products or services

• it can tell them what you have been up to

• it helps you build a unique relationship with them

• It’s extremely cost effective

Users like email newsletters if the newsletters bring them value.•


Benefits• Repetition

• Prospects need to see emails around 3 times before they start interacting.

• Name Recognition• Great way to build your Brand, build up trust and recognise you as

expert in that field.

• Trust• Building loyal customers means repeat buyers of your product/

service.

• Feedback• Get valuable feedback from your readers

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Your email marketing campaignStep 1: Define Your Readers

Example: Storm wants to gain more recognition in their industry- Come up with your own

• What are their readers looking for?

• Information about online marketing trends• Research in the market gathered from consumer research• Industry news and gossip• Latest products and services

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Step 2: Determine your Purpose

• Why does this audience want to hear from me?• What useful information can I provide to this audience• What do I want to accomplish with my email marketing

• Defining these questions will determine the content on your e-newsletter

The purpose of Storm’s e-newsletter is to report on marketing news, trends and research and to promote their own products and services

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Step 3: Outline your Goals• Do you want to increase subscribers in the first year?• Do you want to increase click-rates and traffic to your site?• Do you want to increase sales or repeat sales?

Brainstorm what you hope to get out of email marketing over the next 6 months

Write down these 3 things;1. Your Goal2. How you’ll achieve your goal3. How you’ll measure your goal

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Step 3: Outline your Goals ..Cont

Example; Storm’s goals could be:

1. Increase list size by 20% over the next year2. Achieve goal by marketing the newsletter at all industry events and

conferences. Making newsletter signup form available at events and on website, social sites, etc.

3. Measure success by analysing subscriber list reports.

•


Step 4: Determine Frequency• What frequency makes sense for your audience

• Monthly is a good start, but don’t feel the need to commit to that to start with.

• You don’t want to go too long without contact as you don’t want your subscribers to forget about you

• You don’t want to send too frequently either as this may make your subscribers feel ‘overloaded’

• Your specific product or service may also determine you sending times and frequency. i.e. (monthly/weekly discounts, new product or service, general market information, seasonal)

•


Step 5: Create a TimelineHere’s an example of steps you might include in your Timeline

• Day 1: Write down the topics you want to include, and some ideas for images.

• Day 2: Write out what you want to say about each topic, and pull the pictures you want to use into one folder on your computer.

• Day 3: Create the email campaign in your newsletter program. Test it and send it to yourself and a colleague who could read over the email and check for errors and typos.

• Day 4: Send your campaign

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Which came first: Chicken or Egg?• You need subscribers!

• Tell users what they will get

• Keep this process easy and intuitive as possible

• Not too many fields

• All you really need is email address, and possibly their name for personalisation.


Who Should be on your list?

• You may find you need multiple lists

• Existing customers• Potential customers

• Have bought from you before• Have not bought from you before

•


How to build your list?• Must be permission based marketing

• Ie: they have opted in, or you know they want to receive your emails

• Existing clients• Great way to keep in touch

• Prospective clients• People you have met or have been referred on to you as leads and

you feel you could offer some value to.

• Your website• Networking events

• Last resort!!! – Buying a list – not recommended

•


Good Signup Example


Subject Lines No matter how big your brand, people are not sat waiting for your newsletter. Yet subject lines like these pop up every day:

• June’s newsletter• Weekly alert 9 May• Offers of the week

Try a more enticing subject line, like these ones that suggest the content is bite-sized and interesting:

• Five French films everyone should see• The best of independent breweries

• Avoid unhelpful subject lines like this one from TFL “New travel information”• Change to “Will the Olympics affect your travel?”

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E-Newsletter Quick Wins• Keep subject headings fewer than 35 characters and make them inciting and

to the point.

• The majority of your key messaging should appear within one screen

Common spam sins to avoid:• WRITING IN ALL CAPS• Using too much punctuation!!!• **Using $pecial characters**• Not naming the person you're writing to (e.g. Dear Customer instead of

Dear Mr. Simpson)• Hyperlinking the words Click here (a big mistake to make on a website

too!)

•

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Wording – Call to ActionsWhether a standalone text link or text on a button, words drive action. And the right words drive more actions.

• “You should follow me on Twitter here” increased CTR by over 75% when compared with “Follow me on Twitter”.

• When ESP Campaign Monitor sent out a customer survey by email, the link text “Tell us what we can do better” scored 51% more clicks than “Give us your best Campaign Monitor ideas!”

• Obox reported a 200% increase in sales after changing their button CTA from “Visit our theme shop” to “See Options and Pricing”.

• Soocial added the words “it’s free” next to the main CTA button and saw conversions rise 28%.

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Email Newsletter Design• Keep it Simple and Straight forward

• the average reader skims a newsletter for 51 seconds. • People never read: they scan for content that is of interest to them.

So, don’t overwhelm them by squeezing too much information on the page.

• Make sure your content gets straight to the point, and write short

paragraphs and bullet points.

• Use clever call to actions and imagery

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Email Newsletter DesignBad newsletter designThe main purpose of Flybe’s newsletter is to present an exclusive offer on family trips to Disneyland. The value of this deal is lost among the long paragraphs.

The message could be conveyed more effectively in bullet points for quick scanning.


Sample of a good simple design!

• Main info in top left for maximumEmail program exposure

• Short description with image to encourage click through to site

• End of newsletter call to action for new product


Practical Workshop Tasks1. Determine email marketing campaign 2. Build subscriber form and gather subscribers3. Determine content topics4. Collect images5. Create user friendly subject line6. Build email newsletter template in MailChimp7. Test Newsletter8. Send Newsletter9. Monitor Reports

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Resources• Newsletter Programs

• AWeber - very powerful - www.aweber.com/?402656 • iContact (30 Days Free Trial) – www.icontact.com/UK• MailChimp (free for up to 2000 subscribers) – www.mailchimp.com• Constant Contact - www.constantcontact.com/uk/index.jsp

• Content Sources• Marketing Sherpa (search for great relevant articles)

http://www.marketingsherpa.com/#• Mark Brownlow has posted hundreds of useful email-marketing

articles and links here. http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/

• Online Image Editor - http://pixlr.com/

http://www.aweber.com/?402656



http://www.icontact.com/UK

http://www.mailchimp.com/

http://www.constantcontact.com/uk/index.jsp

http://www.marketingsherpa.com/

http://www.marketingsherpa.com/

http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/



http://pixlr.com/


Thank you!

James SymeStorm New Media Ltd.

Http://www.stormnewmedia.com

Email: [email protected]: 0208390 0100

mailto:[email protected]

Mmb workshop storm_newmedia

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