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02 Oct 11 Email Marketing – Which Email Element Do You Track Regularly

When seen as a whole, a piece of marketing communication appears to be one single unit, which means either the communication is a success as a whole or a failure as a unit. This has been the way in which marketers of previous generation though about marketing campaigns, but things have changed, for good, and now no serious marketer will see a marketing communication as one unit, and even success and failure of a marketing communication is not seen as a success of failure of one unit.

This has given rise to the analysis of marketing communication items, now organizations measure each item carefully to see which one works and which one doesn’t. This has given an increased control on the various elements of a marketing communication.

MarketingSherpa, one of the leading online marketing research companies has conducted a survey in the expert guidance of Jeff Rice, Senior Research Analyst, to find out the elements of email marketing campaign that marketers analyze. The result of which has been given below.

For many marketers, testing subject line, message body, and call to action would intuitively have been among the top 5 email elements to test. This study, which was conducted with a sample size of 1,115 marketers, has proven the gut feeling right. 90% respondents said they test subject line, whereas, 64% said they closely observe the body, whereas, 61% said its call to action that they test.

Which element do you test? Or testing is something you do not believe in? Send in your views using the comment box given below.

08 Aug 11 3 Mistakes to Avoid When Doing Social Media Marketing for a Brand

These days everybody is on social networking sites, especially Facebook and Twitter. And so are the brands. Every brand wants fans, followers and millions of online prospects. So these days, brands rope in digital marketers to popularize the brand further on internet, and make the most of social networking benefits. But at times marketers themselves try hand on the same and commit few common mistakes, as discussed below.

Too many pages for a single brand

At times marketers wish to draw more and more followers and create multiple pages, to reflect omnipresence. Imagine Mc. Donald’s having 10 Facebook pages, how many of them will you follow? One or two at the most and that too if it is localized, suppose it says Mc. Donald’s (Japan) or something like that. But soon you may start getting too many updates from both and eventually stop following one of them. Thus to stay on the safer side, create only one page for your brand, people are not on social networking sites solely for you. You will have more number of followers in such case.

Too often updates

At times being a beginner and too excited about the whole thing of social networking brands end up doing too frequent status updates, like changing status message every couple of hours. Don’t forget such things are always annoying for the followers who find their home page cluttered with your messages, and if they end up liking or commenting for any of them, then they may get endless number of notifications from the same. Do not do this. No one wants a cluttered page and full of brand messages. Remember, that person added you since likes you, not to get annoyed with you. So instead of torturing with brand messages, keep updates not more than twice in a day.

Do not talk just for the sake of talking

It is often seen marketers fail to think what to talk on a particular day and eventually end up talking senseless things and write updates just for the sake of writing like ‘Hello, Good morning. How are you all’. How many people will be interested in such a message coming from a brand? A handful may be, since they may have nothing else to do in life. So instead of writing rubbish things, write something which adds value, draws interest and attracts the followers. You may write a status message talking about special discount or latest achievement or the new advertisement you are coming up with or the new outlet you are about to open. You can also conduct polls and contests. Ask for suggestion on some products which always draw lot of attention. If there is a good incentive people are all the more interested in such activities.

These are some major mistakes brands often commit. Stay away from these.

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07 Aug 11 Why Newsletters are Often Marked As ‘Spam’ by the Receiver?

Newsletter is an effective tool for brand promotion, which people effectively use to reach out the regular and prospective customers. But at times, such newsletters are not warmly welcomed, rather are thrown to the trash by marking as ‘Spam’. Have you ever thought what makes a newsletter destined for the spam box? Here are some reasons.

Too often intrusion

A newsletter which keeps coming to the subscribers’ inbox frequently is a sheer disturbance for them. No one wants sales messages every day. Do not send newsletters so often. Keep a nominal gap between two consecutive newsletters.

Forced newsletters

At times desperate marketers send out the sales newsletters randomly and intrude into privacy. At times, if a person visits a website for some purchase or registers for membership, the website holder counts the person as interested in newsletter and keep sending newsletter even without due permission. Such acts are highly annoying and the recipients do not hesitate to mark such newsletter as ‘spam’ and throw to the trash bin.

Nothing so special

At times marketers assume a newsletter is good enough to induce sales and does not need any added attraction. If you are planning releasing monthly newsletter for your brand to the target group of customers, make sure your every newsletter induces prospects to buy. It can be certain amount of discount or free gifts or offers like ‘Buy 2, Get 2 Free’ etc. Or you may send out newsletters in case of a new launch or some occasion or festival related offer. If there is no such festival approaching, you may simply connect with the season and make the best of it. People open newsletters to find a new offer, not to find ‘Buy from us’ kind of messages. Thus a good newsletter is always thematic, based on some central theme or idea.

Too chaotic

A good design is very important for a newsletter. Even if you need to inform the prospect or educate about something, you can’t afford to bore him or frustrate with a long newsletter, with too much information and cramped breathing space. Keep words minimum, crispy yet attractive. Use good combination of color as per the theme. Layout should be neat with enough white space for the eye to move around easily.

These are the few common mistakes that newsletters carry at times and therefore are destined to be in spam box. Don’t let these silly shortcomings spoil destiny of your newsletter.

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