7 Tips To Improve Your Email Marketing Campaigns.

Email marketing is by no means a new practise, but with the rise of the smartphone the way in which consumers access their mail has changed. So how exactly do you make the most out of your email marketing campaigns? Here are my top 7 tips for just that.

1. Optimise 

Smart phones have opened consumers up to a whole new way of accessing their emails. it is now much more common to check through your email on the morning commute, rather than sitting at a desktop in the evening.

In order to account for this your emails, as well as the web pages you link to need to be mobile friendly or you can bed your messages will end up in most people trash folders within a few seconds. 

2. Don’t end up in the spam folder

This one seems pretty obvious, but its important to remember, however enticing  your email may be, the majority of consumers wont see it if it ends up in their junk or spam folder, really how often do you even check yours?

Of course this can be easier said than done, however the clever people at woorank 2014 have put together a great tutorial on how to stay out of the spam folder available here.

3. Start as you mean to go on

Welcome emails give a great opportunity to inspire your customers, and most customers will open that first email, especially if they receive it instantly after signing up.

With that in mind you should be ensuring two key ideas. Firstly that your emails send automatically as soon as someone signs up and secondly that your welcome email inspires your customers. If you manage to achieve this, your chance of being one of the few emails opened on the morning commute will increase significantly.

4. Get personal

Everyone likes to feel like they matter, so it goes without saying that making your customers feel like they have a personal relationship with your brand can only be a positive thing.

There are of course many ways to do this, but possibly the most effective way is to set up a preference centre for email correspondence. Let your customers choose how often they want to hear from you, and what they want to hear about, knowing they wont be sent something they will never be interested in goes a long way.

If you cant afford this type of investment, take smaller steps. Addressing your customers by name within the email gives a personal feel and not too hard a task to accomplish, the web is flooded with guides on how to do this on all kinds of email services including Gmail and Outlook. You could also send customers discounts and gift codes on their birthdays for that extra touch.

5. Content is King

Its all well and good talking about improving your open rates, but this doesn’t accomplish much if your emails don’t convert.

Ensure you are sending your customers well-constructed and relevant emails; ensure you have a strong subject line that accurately describes its content, that your call to actions are clearly visible and that you inspire some kind of urgency in your messaging, you want customers to buy now, if they close your email without purchasing right away, you risk your message being lost or forgotten until its too late.

If your budget allows for it, consider signing up with a email marketing consultancy such as Moveable Ink. By specialising, these guys can do things you could never dream of accomplishing on your own. Giving you options to display rich content directly in your emails such as website live feeds and video content removing steps in the purchase process.

6. Keep moving forward

Testing is crucial to keeping your email campaigns fresh. Without experimentation how can you ever expect to find the most effective ways of engaging your customers?

Of course you shouldn’t change too much at once, or even send your changes to all your customers. Be sensible, set up some A/B testing. Trial changes on 10-20% of your recipients, if something works increase the percentage of users, if it doesn’t try something new. No one wins big without risking anything.

7. Add personality

Your emails are the same as any other marketing tactic, but all to often email correspondence doesn’t have the same tone of voice and personality as the rest of a company’s marketing messages.

If your company’s voice is funny, make you emails funny, if it’s cheeky, make them cheeky. Every form of contact you have with your customers should be reinforcing your brand; consumers will instantly switch off if you lose your voice.

However, you still need to ensure you get your message across; you are selling your product as much as you are selling the company.

Check out some more email marketing tips from these great sites:

http://blog.woorank.com/2014/02/boost-email-open-rates/

http://www.bizreport.com/2012/06/how-to-get-out-of-the-spam-folder-and-increase-open-rates.html

http://www.businessbee.com/resources/marketing/email-marketing/how-to-increase-email-open-rates-with-a-strong-subject-line/

http://www.copyblogger.com/37-email-marketing-tips/

Top 5 tips for managing your companies twitter account.

A Lot of companies now run their own corporate twitter accounts, and a lot of them get it wrong, twitter is about engagement and if done correctly can result in an improved brand image and the possibility of increased profit.

But how exactly do you run a successful twitter account for your business? these are my top 5 tips to get you started:

1. You are not your company.

Posting for your company is not the same as posting for yourself. Your brand should have its own personality and voice; you need to ensure this it what comes across in your tweets.

Don’t take this too far however, millions of people can access what you post, come off as insensitive and you can grantee you will end up in the mornings papers for your slip up.

Source: Baer (2014)

And most importantly…….Never use ‘I’ in a post.

2. Get a Schedule

Scheduling your tweets is a great way to keep up your share of voice, it allows you to tweet when your not at the office or even just when you are busy, no more logging on from home to spread the word about you next sale.

Websites such as TweetDeck, HootSuite and CoTweet all work well for scheduling tweets, they also allow you to keep en eye on multiple hash tag feeds so you know exactly who is talking about you, or even your rivals.

However, make sure you don’t schedule anything that’s going to cause a storm while you are offline, corporate twitter pages are a hub for conversation, don’t leave your followers without answers.

Be professional

Twitter is a hot bed for trolls and arguments ensure you don’t get caught up in any of this, twitter rows often hit the headlines causing bad publicity for your company.

If your following is growing, consider starting up a spate account for complaints and comments, managed by your customer service teams, this not only keeps negative comments and long conversations off of your main page, but also allows for quicker responses to these issues, keeping your customers happier.

The web is also full of the many mistakes made by companies on their social accounts, the most common of these is administrators sending tweets intended for their personal account.

Source: Baer, J. (2014)

If this slip up happens to you, ensure you are prepared, the rouge tweet needs to be removed as quickly as possible, but you can’t just sweep it under the rug, you can guarantee one of your followers has already screen capped the mistake and posted it to their own feed. Stay calm and post a retraction, if your company voice allows for it, add some humour and you can change a disaster into something your followers will remember positively.

Source: Baer, J. (2014)

Know your audience

Everyone likes to feel special and twitter is one way to connect with your customer base, take the time to reply to questions and comments, engagement is key. If a customer goes out of their way to send you something interesting, reward them, re-tweeting their post or offering them a prize is a great way to inspire your customers and improve your brand image.

As well as customers you will also find a plethora of bloggers and twitter personalities, don’t underestimate them, these users have huge followings and keeping them happy will most likely work out in your favour.

Remember you are not in control

Twitter is a public domain and there is nothing to stop users placing your hash tags on their tweets. You need to carefully consider what you place online, the outcome could be very different to what you would expect.

Waitrse learnt this the hard way with their #waitrosereasons campaign, which eneded up damaging their brand image rather than strengthening it when followes didn’t take the campaign seriously.

Source: Smith (2013)

For more information on what do right and what not to do wrong check out the links below.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-hilarious-ways-corporate-twitter-accounts-go-wrong/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/dailymuse/2012/05/08/5-tips-for-managing-your-companys-twitter-account/

http://www.stateofdigital.com/what-should-i-tweet-tips-for-planning-corporate-twitter-accounts/

http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-media-strategy/corporate-twitter-account-train-wreck-the-3-types-of-self-destructive-tweets/

References

Baer, J. (2014) Corporate Twitter Account Train Wreck! The 3 Types of Self-Destructive Tweets. Convenience Convert, [Online] <http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-media-strategy/corporate-twitter-account-train-wreck-the-3-types-of-self-destructive-tweets/> [accessed 25th April 2014]

Smith, H. (2013) What Should I Tweet? Tips For Corporate Twitter Accounts. State of Digital,13 November 2013 [Online] <http://www.stateofdigital.com/what-should-i-tweet-tips-for-planning-corporate-twitter-accounts/> [accessed 25th April 2014]

The epic success of the "No Make-Up Selfie", Can It Be repeated?

After the massive success of the ‘no make-up selfie’ viral campaign for Cancer Research, which has raised over £8million in just 6 days (Peacock, 2014), there is no doubt that marking departments across the globe are sitting in board rooms trying to work out exactly how to replicate theses impressive results.

But what exactly is viral marketing and how exactly can you make a viral campaign successful?

Michelle Heaton, Holly Willougnby and Kym Marsh Took Part in the campaign Source: The Guardian (2014)

What is Viral Marketing

The Collins English Dictionary (2005) describes viral marketing as  “a marketing strategy in which conventional media are eschewed in favour of various techniques designed the generate word-of-mouth publicity, in the hope of creating a fad or craze” . In simpler terms those who read it spread the message rather than this being accomplished by the company it’s self. These messages are usually in the form of pictures or videos and while viral messages used to be commonly spread via email chains, they are now far more conventionally shared over social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube.

Successful Campaigns

Many viral campaigns have succeeded in recent years, each one unique. One factor that stands out from all of these campaigns is they possess some quality that engages viewers, giving them a reason to share it with those around them. Previous successful ads seem to either; be funny, showcase amazing feats or have significant to the target audience.

Funny adds are by far the most popular option for viral ads and in March of 2012 the Dollar Shave Club released their add on Youtube. Entitled ‘Our Blades Are F***ing Great’ the ad clearly explained the company’s product whilst at the same time adding large amounts of dry humour, this resulted in shock value and encouraged viewer to share the link. The video has now had over 13 million views and the resulting worldwide demand has caused the Dollar Shave Club to post apologies on their site due to unavailability in some regions.

Impressive ads are more often than not staged, but filmed in such a way that the audience believe them to be real. The ads themselves showcase feats that are so impressive followers feel the need to share these with their friends. One such ad is the Quicksilver ‘Surfing With Dynamite’ that showcases a group of young men throwing explosives into a river and using the ensuing wave to surf on. It has been reported that this viral ad caused a grater impact than the combined remaining advertising channels for Quicksilver at the time (Altoft, 2008).

Back to the 'Selfie'

This is where we revisit the ‘no make up selfie’ which was given meaning by connecting the posting of these photos as an act of courage, comparing the deed to  living with and fighting cancer, this gave the campaign meaning and encouraged users to participate.

The unique aspect of this campaign however is that it was not created by cancer research, but instead was a growing trend spurred by author Laura Lippman in support of Kim Novak who was receiving criticism over her looks following the 2014 Oscars (Flood, 2014). From here the trend began to spread, by users posting their own pictures and challenging friends to do the same, even celebrities began joining in.

Laura Lippman in the first "No make-up selfie". Source: Flood (2014)

                                    

Even though the ad was in no way conceived by Cancer Research, they merely made the right decision at the right time, the result was one of the most successful viral advertising campaigns to date. The real reason for success is in fact purely that the campaign was something that users actually wanted to be involved in, rather than something being pushed onto them.

So, how do we get the same results?

So the truth is that it may not be possible to re create the epic success of the ‘no-make up selfie’ campaign, mainly due to the fact that it wasn’t a conceived campaign but a wise marketing strategy to attach a message to a growing trend, but that doesn’t mean we cannot learn from it.

If you want to be involved in viral marketing, and you want your campaign to work you need to create something people truly want to share, not just something you want people to share.

If you want to read more about Cancer Research's Campaign or Viral Marketing use the references below or check out the Facebook page here. Alternitivly search the web, the campaign has been heavily featured in the news.

Altoft, P. (2008) Top 10 Viral Campaigns of all time. Branded3 [Online] <http://www.branded3.com/blogs/the-top-10-viral-marketing-campaigns-of-all-time/> [Accessed 26 March 2014]

The Collins English Dictionary (2005), Dictionary.com Unabridged. [Online] <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/equator> [Accessed 26 March 2014]

Flood. A (2014) Laura Lippman's selfie 'in solidarity' with Kim Novak sets off tweet trend. The Gaurdian, 11^th March 2014. [Online] <http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/11/laura-lippman-selfie-kim-novak-solidarity> [Accessed 26 March 2014]

The Gaurdian (2014) No Make Up Selfies Raise £8m for Cancer Research in 6 Days. The Guardian. 25th March 2014. [Online] <http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/mar/25/no-makeup-selfies-cancer-charity> [Accessed 26 March 2014]

Peacock, L. (2014) £8m: The total raised so far by #nomakeupselfies. The Telegraph, 25^th March 2014. [Online] <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/10721107/No-make-up-selfie-cancer-campaign-raises-8m-in-6-days.html> [Accessed 26 March 2014]

Meeting Consumers Needs in e-Commerce: The OCHN

Meeting consumers needs has been a key focus of every business for many years. However, the rise of e-commerce has opened up businesses to a whole new section of consumers with different wants a needs.

The Online Consumer's Hierarchy of Needs (OCHN) is a framework developed by Valacich, Parboteeah and Wells (2007) in order to create a standard framework for e-commerce businesses so that they can adequately meet the needs of their customers.

Developed from Maslow's highly regarded Hierarchy of Needs, the OCHN divides online consumer's needs into three distinct categories; Structural Firmness, Functional Convenience and Representational Delight (Valacich, Parboteeah and Wells, 2007).

For each category, there is a minimum level of compliance that must be reached in order for consumers to use the website in question and this makes up the horizontal section of the framework and is named the 'Zone of Intolerance'. The remainder of the framework is divided into the same three categories, however this section is not essential to a consumer purchasing, but rather increases the satisfaction consumers have with the website or web page (see Figure 1).

Figure 1       The Online Consumer Hierarchy of Needs

Source: Valacich, Parboteeah and Wells (2007)

The theory is expanded upon further through the consideration of differing websites. These are classified as Utilitarian sites (sites designed to be practical rather than attractive), Hedonic sites (sites designed for attractiveness) and Hybrid sites (sites that require to both be attractive and practical) and the distribution of these three competencies differ depending on the type of website it is applied to (See figure 2).

Figure 2       The OCHN for differing websites

Source: Valacich, Parboteeah and Wells (2007)

While utilitarian sites are more heavily reliant on structural firmness, hedonistic sites benefit more heavily from improved representational delight. Hybrid sites, depicted in figure 2 as a even split, are in actual fact dependant on their exact positioning, which can be more closely related to either utilitarian or hedonic.

The OCHN framework, while not comprehensive, give an indication to e-commerce business on the driving factors behind their consumers motivation to use their site above their competition, and so can be a useful tool when deciding where exactly to invest when re-designing or updating their online platform.

For more information on the OCEN read Valacich, Parboteeah and Wells (2007).

Reference: Valacich JS, Parboteeah DV and Wells JD (2007) “The online consumer’s hierarchy of needs”, Communications of the ACM, Vol 50, No 9, p84-90