|
Archive for
August, 2006
Seven tips for effective landing pages
August 31st, 2006 by
Kelly Rusk
Landing pages can be tricky — click-to-conversion rates never seem to be as good as you’d want them to be… and it could be because your landing page design is not consistent with the email, or perhaps your landing page is too complex and not focussed on one action.
Whatever it may be, ClickZ published “Seven tips for effective landing pages” full of great advice that might help!
Related Posts
Posted in
Email marketing |
No Comments »
Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about open rates…
August 30th, 2006 by
Kelly Rusk
What answers would you get is you asked 50 e-marketers about open rates? Probably 50 different answers - ranging from “opens are the most important metric in an email campaign” to “opens are inaccurate and misleading… forget about them”
Well worry no more… email-marketing-reports.com has put out a quite extensive tell-all about open rates. It’s quite long, but definitely worth the read.
Learn everything about Opens…
Related Posts
Posted in
Email marketing |
No Comments »
9 things they don’t tell you about email marketing
August 30th, 2006 by
Kelly Rusk
Found this article on the “No man is an iland” blog and it’s just great!
Here’s a quick summary(with my own comments):
- Send button stress - My favourite of them all… Even though we send out emails all the time, we still get nervous everytime we need to hit the “send” button (secret confession: I always schedule 10 or 15 min. ahead of time just in case…)
- Conflict in bars and at parties - Someone else: “So what do you do?” me: “I work in email marketing” them: “Oh so you send spam?” me: “NO!!”
- You will “spam” at some point - It’s true, no matter how flawless your opt-in process is, someone who willingly and explicitly signed up will probably think you’re spamming…
- Annoying questions are inevitable - “Why can’t you send my email to this list I purchased for 50$ ?”
- Some targets are out of reach - sad, but true.
- Your delivery rates are lower than you think - You never know if your email landing in the inbox or the spam folder…
- Vendors give you a skewed view (and not just the way you think) - Since most of the people writing articles and opinions about email marketing live and breath it everyday, we like to focus on new and cutting edge - which is not realistic or necessary for every company.
- The other emails are (more?) important -Things like welcome messages and transactional emails are usually more important to the recipient than your lovely newsletter, yet often overlooked.
- I’m not a number, I’m a human being - Don’t forget, REAL people are reading your emails, and they want to be treated like real people - by getting relevant, meaningful content to them.
Read the full article…
Related Posts
Posted in
Email marketing |
No Comments »
5 tips on writing a better subject line…
August 30th, 2006 by
Kelly Rusk
Don’t you love it when other people write great stuff so you don’t have to!
I swear I’m going to start writing these kinds of things (and getting Carolyn to as well)
but for now VerticalResponse posted a great article on subject lines - including 5 tips, examples of legitimate emails ending up in the junk folder and more!
Read the article…
Related Posts
Posted in
Email marketing |
No Comments »
Do you know your spammers?
August 29th, 2006 by
Kelly Rusk
Anti-Virus company McAfee has a short (8 question) quiz involving various sign-up sites (ie. dating, jokes, petitions etc.) can you spot the ones that will spam you?
I got 7 out of 8, let me know how you do!
Take the quiz…
Related Posts
Posted in
Email marketing |
No Comments »
Improving email deliverability: in-house vs. Outsourcing solutions
August 29th, 2006 by
Kelly Rusk
Email deliverability is more important than a lot of people will give it credit for. For example, if you are paying per recipient to have your email delivered to a database of 50,000 and 20% of those names are bouncing - you are wasting a lot of money.
Deliverability can be a challenge, but with a few succinct steps it’s pretty easy to maintain a high deliverability rate.
An article from iMedia addresses this issue and compares in-house solutions to outsourcing.
Check it out…
Of course here at card, if you have the resources to do it in house, but not the expertise, we recommend working with a provider that will work with you to pool as much as your own resources, but providing expertise where needed to get the greatest value and maximum results. but maybe that’s just because that’s how we do it! 
Related Posts
Posted in
Email marketing |
No Comments »
Who responds to spam anyway?
August 28th, 2006 by
Kelly Rusk
Ever take a look at some of the spam in your inbox and wonder “Who the heck would fall for this?”
I have. and today I found an interesting article that answers that, and also explains the “pump and dump” penny stock spam that’s becoming increasingly popular.
Check it out…
Related Posts
Posted in
Email marketing |
No Comments »
UPDATE: Windows Live includes "unsubscribe" button
August 28th, 2006 by
Kelly Rusk
A while ago I wrote about the new Windows Live (replacing Hotmail) having an “unsubscribe” button replace the “report as spam” button for certain messages.
Some new details about this:
- Not every message will have the button; it will depend on certain circumstances, for example, there must be a working unsubscribe link in the email, and having the recipient add your sending address to their address book will be the prime determinant.
- When someone hits the unsubscribe button, the ISP will notify the sender; similar to the report spam feature, but without potential penalty from the ISP.
All in all, this is a fantastic idea. My only worry is that if, for whatever reason, your email doesn’t include the unsubscribe button and you get reported as spam, the consequences from the ISP could be worse than before.
Read more about this on ClickZ
Related Posts
Posted in
Email marketing |
No Comments »
Beating writer’s block
August 23rd, 2006 by
Kelly Rusk
I found this article, and it’s especially timely for us at cardcommunications, since we’re busy in the process of writing our very own e-Book!
But e-book aside, we spend a lot of time writing for email, and every once in a while I (can’t speak for the others…) get mean writer’s block. Doesn’t happen often… but when it does it’s really bad!
So a great article for any writer to bookmark, or add to del.ici.ous or print out and stick on your bulletin board is by Karen Gedney at ClickZ:
Ten email starters to break writer’s block
Related Posts
Posted in
Email marketing |
No Comments »
7 tips to improve creative
August 22nd, 2006 by
Kelly Rusk
A good article on Media post about improving email creative.
I think often people get carried away with “things that work” overload.
Like for instance, a short, one-screen email usually fares better than a long newsletter format, however that doesn’t mean you should keep the long copy and reduce text size.
Also, use of colour tends to lead the eyes, but overloading your emails can just make it look cluttered and daunting.
I really think many of the tips are based on elements that can really boost your design, but the reality is using them excessively can only hurt.
Read the full article
Related Posts
Posted in
Email marketing |
No Comments »
|
