7 Steps to Improve Your Email Marketing A successful ecommerce marketing strategy is an ever-changing blend of techniques and tactics aimed at achieving specific, predetermined goals. If executed well, email marketing is often one of the most effective means of achieving those goals. But what does it mean to execute an email marketing campaign well? What techniques and choices make one email better than another. The Email Case Study Recently, a regional retailer in a niche market conducted a campaign to build a list for a new texting initiative. To build this list, the retailer employed five marketing tactics: display sign advertising, radio advertising, social media marketing, event marketing, and email marketing. The retailer invested about $250 in display advertising; $3,750 in radio promotions; and less than one hour of labor in social media and email marketing combined. It is also important to mention that the social media part of the campaign amounted to a single post on Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
YUI Graded Browser Support About the Browser Test Baseline and Operating Systems The Browser Test Baseline provides a baseline set of browsers that should be tested. It is designed to maximize coverage with limited testing resources by testing the smallest possible subset of browser combinations and leveraging implicit coverage from shared core browser engines. At the very least, all listed browsers should be tested in one operating system, in order to provide "baseline" coverage. Testing on multiple operating systems should be accommodated after all browsers have been verified with baseline coverage and should start with features that have known platform-specific issues. The Browser Test Baseline defines the current set of browsers that should receive a verified, usable experience. Graded Browser Support: What and Why In the first 10 years of professional web development, back in the early '90s, browser support was binary: Do you — or don't you — support a given browser? What Does "Support" Mean? Identified vs.
Constant Contact to Help E-mail Marketers Track Social Behaviors [EXCLUSIVE] On Monday, e-mail marketing behemoth Constant Contact will release an important update for its clientele interested in better understanding how, when, where and why customers share the e-mail newsletters they receive on social sites. Constant Contact will be introducing Social Stats as an integrated feature for its small business customers. The new e-mail marketing tool will offer a complete social snapshot around e-mail campaign performance. Social Stats tracks Facebook "Likes," tweets, LinkedIn posts and e-mail pageviews originating from social media channels. The social media analytics will be presented as part of the e-mail details page, and add another layer of insight to the pre-exisitng data on e-mail and click-through stats. Analytics will include individual counts per social site, as well as a graphic presentations of shares and page views. Image courtesy of jek in the box, Flickr
5 Marketing Emails from Leading Online Retailers Even a cursory review of other retailers’ marketing efforts can spawn ideas to drive your next campaign. Modern marketing is dynamic, multi-faceted, and competitive. On the one hand, marketers seek to build lasting customer relationships with social media, useful content, and brand recognition, while at the same time trying to get immediate sales in response to offers in an environment wherein a potential customer might get dozens of offers a week. In this context, here are five, recently sent email marketing campaigns from HauteLook, Gap, Williams-Sonoma, Cost Plus World Marketing, and GNC. Example 1: HauteLook HauteLook is a membership site offering deeply discounted premium items for short duration sales. In an email sent on January 31, HauteLook took a newsletter-like approach to offering products. The email from HauteLook showed no prices. The email’s subject line, below, was ridiculously long. Key Takeaways: Example 2: Gap Gap’s email emphasized a clean design and a clear message.
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How Are Email, Facebook and Twitter Audiences Different? With marketers engaging with consumers across multiple channels, messages must be tailored to resonate with audiences on email and social sites. But research suggests a look at simple demographics does not give a clear indication of how audiences differ; engagement in these channels is personal and depends more on psychographic characteristics. According to ExactTarget’s “Subscribers, Fans and Followers” report, there is little cannibalization among the three channels—instead, there is significant overlap. Most internet users studied in April 2010 engaged with brands only via marketing emails, but nearly a third subscribed to emails in addition to being fans of brands on Facebook. “Consumers don’t silo their engagement with brands to a single channel, instead they tend to ‘layer’ marketing channels on top of one another to meet their different objectives,” said Morgan Stewart, principal, ExactTarget’s research and education group, in a statement.
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Coupons Boost E-Mail Open Rate The recession has had its effect on consumer behavior online, and the watchword is frugality. Whether or not shoppers go back to their spendthrift ways, for now coupons are cool and deal-seeking is the norm. That mindset has consequences for marketers across the board, and e-mail marketers are no exception. There is a pronounced difference between open rates for e-mails that include a coupon offer and those that do not. Open rates of around 24% to 25% for coupon e-mails dropped to just 16% to 18% for noncoupon campaigns, according to Experian. Higher open rates for coupon offers translated into higher click rates as well, though the difference was much smaller. Experian also reported that 80% of online coupon mailings saw higher transaction-to-click rates and transaction rates than noncoupon campaigns. Overall, two-thirds of US households use coupons, according to Experian, and the number using online coupons has grown 46% in the past three years. Keep up on the latest digital trends.
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