A Dinner Conversation

Posted on February 22, 2012 by aaromanov

Image

A couple weeks ago I was celebrating a good friend’s birthday over at the Capital Grille – by the way if you’re looking for a good gift idea, a sizable gift card to a steak house could be the way to go. Sitting next to me where 4 gentlemen in their 50′s still in their work attire – business suits.

Through out the night I overheard snippets of their conversations. It was clear they were from a nearby financial firm. Their topics ranged from the new hires at the office (who wouldn’t put in the tame any of them did back in their youth) to certain financial regulations that were in the works.
However at one point in the night the topic shifted to a discussion on the current marketing budget and allocations for the next quarter. One of the individuals brought up the company e-newsletter and what a great tool that was. They talked about how quick and easy it was to generate and send out, they talked about it’s minuscule cost compared to other advertising, but most importantly, they brought up the fact that it was one of their best sources for new business.
See, what would happen is they would send out their financial newsletter to their clients. They’d have some good, interesting articles and other content in the email that their clients would then forward to their friends. Often times, their friends would also be high-net worth individuals and, from having seen the professional, informative newsletter several times, would reach out to the firm itself for more information on their products and services.
It was strange to hear a group of non-email marketers acknowledging all the benifits of email-marketing we constantly preach. On one hand, it was very vindicating, but on the other it also made me realize that we almost take some of these benifits for granted and fail to realize how they fit in within our customers larger business strategy.
As much as I enjoy being around other web-marketers and online media experts, sometimes it drowns us out to the very real and relevant conversations people outside our industry are having. Perhaps, we should take them out to dinner and just listen, instead of always trying to talk.

Filed under: First Impressions, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

Top Ways to Grow Your Email List via MarketingSherpa

Posted on February 22, 2012 by lindsaymvp

One of the most frequent questions we receive from our clients is asking for tips on how they can grow their email list. List growth is huge for email marketers, and growth of engaged subscribers is especially key. So what are the best ways to do this, without trashing your reputation or list quality? MarketingSherpa recently published this amazing chart on their blog taken from MarketingSherpa’s 2012 Email Marketing Benchmark Report on the most successful ways email marketers have increased their list size. Here are some tips on the top 5:

From MarketingSherpa’s 2012 Email Marketing Benchmark Report at http://www.meclabs.com/training/publications/benchmark-report/2012-email-marketing

Registration during purchase. A customer buying one of your products is already interested in your brand and merchandise, so its no surprise that this is the top list growth tactic. Make sure you have a signup form prominently placed during your purchase process, but don’t be sneaky and pre-check the box to signup for your emails. This can lead to higher complaints, backlash, and is overall against best practices.

Online events. If you are holding a webinar, roundtable or online discussion you are probably already capturing email addresses for your registrants. Therefore, give them the option to also be added to your email marketing newsletters during this process as an easy approach. However, don’t just automatically add registrants to your email marketing list. These people signed up for your online event- don’t ruin that relationship by opting them in to something they have not requested.

Website registration page. Hopefully you already have a newsletter signup form on your website, but here is another great reason to as its the third highest list growth tactic. Go a step further and place it on most if not all the pages on your website. Keep it in one consistent place, like the upper right corner, to remind your website visitors to subscribe.

Paid search. Paying for sponsored advertisements in search engines (such as Google Adwords) is the fourth mot successful way email marketers have found to grow their lists. Instead of driving traffic to your website with these ads, be more specific and link it to your newsletter signup. This can also help you stand out from your competitors who may just be linking to their homepage and see visitors only spend a short time on their website.

Offline events. Rounding out the top five are offline events such as in-store signups, trade shows, festivals, networking events, etc. Where ever you take your brand make sure to bring along a signup sheet for interested people to signup for your newsletter. Have your employees and colleagues encourage everyone they interact with to signup for your fabulous newsletter to keep in contact with your brand and receive updates.

Thanks again to MarketingSherpa for compiling this information, and you can discover more ways to grow your email marketing list by downloading our aptly titled whitepaper 101 Ways to Grow Your Email List in our Resource Library!

Happy Emailing,

Lindsay

Filed under: Email Marketing Tips, Email Marketing Trends, List Building | Leave a Comment »

Favorite Valentine’s Day Email Marketing Subject Lines

Posted on February 8, 2012 by lindsaymvp

Love is in the air, and especially for email marketers! Whether you love or hate Valentine’s Day, you can use the upcoming holiday to expand your email marketing by creating campaigns with catchy subject lines that will get your emails opened. Here are some of my favorite subject lines that landed in my inbox this past week, as well as how you can create the same effect:

Valentine’s Week at Yoshi’s: Pete Escovedo, The Manhattan Transfer and more via Yoshi’s Nightclub

This email from a local San Francisco jazz club lines up some great date ideas for Valentine’s Day, and also give a snippets of some of the acts in the subject line itself. Give your readers a hint, but don’t give away the whole enchilada in the subject line. Also, if you send a weekly email with upcoming events make sure to tailor emails to upcoming holidays.

Gift Yourself Lingerie for Valentine’s Day: Our Top Picks via Shopbop

Hmm, you’re right- I do deserve to treat myself! This subject line from women’s online shopping website Shopbop appeals to all women looking to feel extra special for Valentine’s Day. Don’t forget to focus on a broad demographic with your subject line (while still staying focused to the point of the message) and make your subscribers feel extra special.

Sweet Deals, Steamy Date Nights, and Spicy Valentine’s Recipes via Parties that Cook

I think “saucy” could have also worked as well! Local cooking school and recipe collection Parties that Cook used repeating “s” words that appeal to romance and food to pique their readers’ interest. (Psst- repeating the same consonant sound in words is called alliteration. High school writing class FTW!) Using repeating sounds and similar words can create memorable subject lines that will get your emails opened more than once.

NEWSFLASH: Last-Minute Romantic Valentine’s Day Deals, up to 60% Off via Travelzoo

I love the urgency of this travel deal site’s emails- makes me want to drop everything and board a plane right this second! And that’s exactly what Travelzoo wants their readers to do. Also playing to the upcoming holiday, they grouped together deals specific for Valentine’s Day with the urgency to book now and threw in how much you will be saving. Be relevant, timely, and enticing.

Share the Love with Valentine Classics – Online Only! via TOMS

TOMS shoes is all about sharing the love, and they are using their unique message “One for One” to also play towards gifts for your Valentine. I also like this subject line as its exclusive to online shoppers, making their readers feel special and in the know on these exclusive designs. To go even further, gift your subscribers with a coupon or code exclusively to get them even further in the gifting spirit.

Happy Emailing and Valentine’s Day,

Lindsay

Filed under: Email Creative, Email Marketing Tips, First Impressions, Subject Lines | Leave a Comment »

Email Marketing 201 Webinar: Key Takeaways

Posted on January 30, 2012 by lindsaymvp

Happy Monday, email marketers!

Last month you may recall we held a fabulous webinar on Email Marketing 201. Presented by 3 of Topica’s best email marketing gurus, we presented an hour long discussion on email marketing topics going beyond the basics and how to continue the conversation across all levels. With real life examples from one of our own clients, Claire Murray, mixed in we gave attendees an in depth look at best practices and ROI growth tactics. Missed our webinar? No worries- you can download the slides here and keep reading for some of our favorite webinar key takeaways!

Email is Not Dead! Despite the nasty rumors out there, email is in fact growing instead of shrinking away. Spending on email marketing is expected to grow 60% in 2012 (Strongmail), and the number of email messages sent has increased 19% between 2010 and 2011 (royal.pingdom.com)

Importance of List Quality: The best subscribers with the highest ROI are still those that come from your own website or social media page. These subscribes are already engaged in your content and primed to make a purchase.

Capturing Names: Make the signup process painless and easy for your new subscribers- place your form in a prominent position on your website and don’t ask for too much information right off the bat.

Double Opt- the Gold Standard: Double opting-in your subscribers, the process of sending them an autoresponder with a link to confirm they do actually want to receive your campaigns after signing up on your website, not only helps with deliverability but is a great way to officially welcome your subscribers to your list and setup expectations for what they will receive.

Welcome Message: Some expectations to set in the welcome message is the frequency of sending, the content, the from name and address you will be using and how a subscriber may unsubscribe from your mailings or update their profile information. Think of this as your first impression!

Sending: Make sure your messages are targeted to you subscribers needs (use profile information!) and personalized. Not every subscriber needs every single one of your emails, don’t burn out your list with too many unspecified messages.

The Code Behind your Content: Emails are not webpages, and should not be coded as such. Don’t use page titles, headers, or external documents and try to avoid CSS, scripts, and attachments which can all increase your SPAM content score.

List Management: Besides separating out your non-openers, hard and soft bounces, you also need to manage your list by nurturing the subscriber/sender relationship. Don’t try to sell with every message, and offer incentives to your best, most loyal subscribers.

Deliverability: Because ISPs don’t publish their rules for getting into the inbox vs the SPAM folder, keeping up on best practices gives you the best chance for optimal deliverability. Stay knowledgeable on industry standards, honor your unsubscribes and only send to those who have opted-in to your list.

Questions about any of this content or have a general email marketing question? Drop us a line at cs@get.topica.com to speak with someone at Topica today!

Happy Emailing,

Lindsay

Filed under: Best Practices, Deliverability Days, Do's and Don'ts, Email Marketing 101, Email Marketing Tips, Marketing Tips | Leave a Comment »

Join Us for this Special Webinar- “Email Marketing 201: Taking your Campaigns to the Next Level”

Posted on December 21, 2011 by lindsaymvp

We know the holidays are right around the corner and everyone is dying for a few extra days off, but remember that your marketing initiatives for Q1 are just around the corner as well! To get you started on the right foot, Topica is presenting a special webinar to refresh your email marketing goals and make sure you are following best practices.

Join our hour-long complimentary webinar, Email Marketing 201: Taking Your Campaigns to the Next Level, to learn how to go beyond a speculative approach to email marketing and how to create best practices driven email campaigns. Register Today!

Webinar Details

Date: January 11, 2012

Time: 11am PST

You’ll Discover

• Email marketing best practices

• How to achieve the best ROI possible from your email marketing efforts

• And much more!

Join Us for this Special Webinar!

About the Speakers

Walid Ezzeddine, VP, Customer Success Walid has been with Topica since 2006 and is responsible for managing the Customer Success team.

Kevin Curtin, Director, Customer Success Kevin has been with Topica since 2010 and works on the Customer Success team. Kevin provides marketing consultation and technical support for some of Topica’s largest clients.

Andrei A. Romanov, Director of Business Operations Andrei has overseen Topica’s deliverability team since 2007. Making sure Topica’s thousands of clients are seeing their highest possible rates.

Space is  limited, be sure to reserve your spot today.

Happy Holidays and Emailing from all of us at Topica!

Filed under: About Topica, Best Practices, Email Marketing 101, Email Marketing Tips | Leave a Comment »

“Are you like me? Or do you have discipline?” via KevinJCurtin.com

Posted on September 30, 2011 by lindsaymvp

Happy Friday, friends!

Since it’s Friday and we’re all ready to get our weekend on, we’d like to take a break from email marketing and share this recent post by one of our own bloggers and Customer Success All-Stars, Kevin Curtin, on the frustrations of starting a new project ans having discipline:

ARE YOU LIKE ME? OR DO YOU HAVE DISCIPLINE? by Kevin Curtin, via his blog at KevinJCurtin.com

From his post:

“If you are anything like me, you’ve started more things than you have finished. 

We’re innately curious about the things around us and inspired when we come across people who have mastered their trade. We see people create cool and beautiful things and think, “Man, that looks easy, if I put in a little time I can do that in no time.” What follows is a few days or weeks of focused and dedicated learning. During this time we make some progress, but not much. In fact, the progress that we do make only gets us to a point where we can truly begin to understand the complexities of the task we are undertaking. Things that look so easy as an outsider begin to take on odes of complexity that we never knew existed. We realize that this is actually going to take work to accomplish! It’s at this stage that we usually lose interest  and let ourselves get lost in the gap between where we are and where we want to be. Soon after, we stop finding time for our new project and almost forget we ever started.”

Sound familiar? You can read the rest of the post here, and don’t forget to leave Kevin some love in the comments of his own blog by either sharing your own experiences in discipline or the best way to overcome starting a new project.

Enjoy the weekend + happy emailing,

Lindsay

Filed under: About Topica, Topica Community, When You're Not Managing your Email Marketing | Leave a Comment »

“How can I achieve perfect deliverability?”

Posted on September 22, 2011 by lindsaymvp

Happy Thursday, friends!

Today we want to address one of the top questions we receive from Topica clients: how to improve deliverability. Deliverability refers to many different aspects of your email marketing- the total number of emails successfully delivered, low bounce and unsubscribe rates, and inbox penetration versus the dreaded junk or spam folder. Deliverability is hardly ever 100% perfect as email addresses are always changing, but how to make it the best it can be as a sender? Keep reading for our quick tips to do just that.

Ask recipients to add your from name and address to their address book. I’m sure you’ve seen it before if you aren’t doing it already- simply add a line in the header or footer of your email campaign asking your subscribers to add your email address to their safe sender/address book so they receive your messages in the future. However, since most email marketing messages have this message don’t be afraid to be creative and switch it up a bit and make your message industry specific.

Honor unsubscribe requests. If you are using an ESP such as Topica, those that click “unsubscribe” in the footer of your email will be automatically unsubscribed. But there are cases in which a subscriber will just hit “reply” on an email campaign and ask to be subscribed that way. Therefore, be sure you are monitoring the reply-to email address you have linked with your email campaigns and respond to any requests that come through to that email account.

Avoid misleading subject lines. Along with receiving unsolicited emails, a misleading subject lines is one of the top reasons that subscribers will complain or unsubscribe from an email list. Don’t over promise or lie in your subject line just to improve your open rate. Instead use the subject line to introduce your message and be creative accordingly.

Check your content score before sending. When sending an HTML email campaign your content score is always going to be at least a 2.0 when using Topica’s content checker tool. However you should still be keeping it as low as possible by sending text with your HTML, breaking up large, postcard-like images into smaller panels and keeping your HTML clean of errors or excessive coding. What’s a good score to keep it under? We usually recommend at or around a 3.0,and definitely below a 5.

Pay attention to your most active subscribers. These are the subscribers who have opened or clicked a link in your campaigns. You already know these individuals are interested in your messages, so why not follow-up with an autoresponder containing an extra discount code or further information about a specific product or promotion? It is becoming more and more common for ISPs to look closely at their users’ behaviors to determine whether your message should go to the inbox, junk, or important folder.

Happy Emailing,

Lindsay

Filed under: Best Practices, Deliverability Days, Email Marketing Tips | 2 Comments »

Come Meet Topica at the BAARC Fall Fest Event tonight!

Posted on September 19, 2011 by lindsaymvp

Looking for a way to chase away those Monday blues?

Come hang out with us tonight at the BAARC (Bay Are Advertising Relief Committee) Fall Fest Event at the Autodesk Gallery located on the second floor at One Market Street! There will be yummy food and drinks, along with plenty of friends and marketing/advertising professionals looking to mingle and donate to BAARC’s great cause of helping those in need in the marketing/advertising world.

You can check out the event website here, and don’t forget to buy your advance tickets at $35 each which go up to $50 at the door.

Hope to see you there!

Happy Emailing,

Lindsay

Filed under: About Topica, Topica Community, When You're Not Managing your Email Marketing | Leave a Comment »

The First 3 Steps of Email Marketing

Posted on August 25, 2011 by aaromanov

Email marketing is a powerful and proven tool. Thousands of businesses rely on it daily for it’s efficient and tractable results. However few people realize that when setting up your email marketing operation, taking some very simple steps at first can have a tremendous impact on your long-term success:

  • Placing a subscriber form on your website to allow visitors and potential customers to become new subscribers.
  • Setting up an auto-responder to double-opt-in all your new subscribers in order to provide optimal deliverability.
  • Sending out a welcome email that will familiarize the new subscriber with your campaigns to improve relevancy.

Today we’ll look at each of these 3 steps, and the best way to implement each of them.

Placing a Sign-up Form

Find a prominent spot on your homepage. Usually people pick the upper right corner, as this is where the eye is naturally drawn, and place a sign-up form there that will allow visitors to join your mailing list. You can also place a link that will take them to a sign-up page, however the rule of them is the less steps you have a visitor take to complete a certain action, the more likely they are to do it.

Sending out an Auto-Responder

Once the individual signs up, let them know that they will be receiving an email message asking them to confirm their subscription. Inform them of what from address you will be using. Also tell the new subscriber to keep an eye on their inbox as well as their junk folder, as sometimes new messages from unknown receivers can end up there.

Confirming and Welcoming the Subscriber

In your welcome message to the new subscriber, you want to accomplish two things. First, have them confirm their subscription to your mailing list, and second, thank them and give a brief description of what to expect. People tend to be most receptive to email campaigns if their expectations are set from the start. Thus, if you intend on emailing the individual on a weekly basis to promote your products, let them know. Introduce the new subscriber to as many elements of your email campaigns (from address, friendly from, subject line, etc) as possible. The more familiarized they become with you and your campaigns, the more likely they will be to open them in the future.

Are you using these 3 steps above to grow your subscriber base? Let us know what works for you in the comments below!

Happy Emailing,

Andrei

­

Filed under: Confirming Subscribers, First Impressions, List Building, Using Autoresponders, Using Forms | 4 Comments »

Time- Is it on Your Side?

Posted on August 11, 2011 by lindsaymvp

The actual time of campaign deployment is a huge topic amongst email marketers, and rightly so. It is one of the factors that can be easily tested and tweaked,  and every marketer strives for that perfect send time that results in the highest number of opens, clicks, purchases every time they send. However, what is the perfect send time? Is there only one hour of send time that can give you optimal results, or is time of deployment more lax than we thought?

You may remember a while ago we posted some of the top findings from an awesome webinar hosted by the folks over at Hubspot called The Science of Email Marketing. Hubspot compiled statistics from over 9 billion email newsletters as well as information from surveys and focus groups to bring us some key takeaways about how subscribers react to email marketing. You can view the slides from the webinar here, but one of the hot topics was obviously send time and this takeaway:

Try sending earlier in the day. The first thing most people do in the morning is to go through their email inbox and you want your message to be in those emails that get read. Data shows that the click through rate spikes between the hours of 6am and 7am (EST) and starts to dwindle from there with the largest drop off happening between evening and night (when people have left the office for the day).

Makes sense, right? Most people including myself clear their inbox first thing in the morning, then become more busy with meetings, lunches, distractions as the day progresses and may be less likely to sit and actually read through your message. But 6am to 7am EST is quite a small window- is this the only time you as a marketer should be sending email? This recent post by Tim Watson at Email Vision begs to differ, and rather takes the stand that send time is not as strict as we thought. In the aptly titled post “Campaign send time isn’t important” Watson takes a look at 3 different email campaigns with varied sending times and found that the time of day had little effect on campaign success.

So should we be throwing time of send completely out the window, and start pulling the trigger at all hours of the night? Not necessarily- ideally your message would be at the top of the inbox when your subscribers are checking their mail, but of course this isn’t very feasible to predict. Also with mailbox settings such as Gmail’s priority inbox timing doesn’t really dictate what’s on top anymore. Instead, focus your efforts on the variables you can control such as creating a witty and catchy subject line, relevant and notable content, and a clear from name and from address. All these factors will increase subscriber opens and clicks now and in the future. (Psst- for more tips on getting your message to the top check out our blog post 3 Strategies For Sending to Gmail’s Priority Inbox)

What do you think- how much consideration do you put into send time versus subject line or content? Have you found a send time that works best for you? Let us know in the comments below!

Happy Emailing,

Lindsay

Filed under: Email Marketing Tips, Email Marketing Trends, Subject Lines | Leave a Comment »

Next Page »
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 990 other followers