Advice on Redesiging a Newsletter
Posted on | January 24, 2012 | No Comments
Thinking about redesigning your e-newsletter? Get some tips from reading how Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens redesigned theirs.
Phipps, a great steel and glass Victorian greenhouse, has been inviting visitors to explore the beauty and mysteries of plants since 1893. Since part of their mission statement is to, “advance sustainability and worldwide biodiversity through action and research,” it’s pretty much a given that they would reduce their use of paper. That’s part of the reason Phipps started using an e-newsletter many years ago. Unfortunately, without the limitations that come from a finite number of pages, over time the e-newsletter morphed into something quite large. Phipps realized they needed to produce a smaller e-newsletter that would make a stronger tie to their social networks and find a fun way to appeal to all of their audiences. Sounds pretty daunting, so they turned to Ennect’s email newsletter software for help.
Redesign Aligns with Conservatory’s Business Goals
Before Liz Fetchin, director of marketing and communications at Phipps met with Ennect, she did her research. “We looked at what other gardens were doing and picked out elements we liked,” said Liz. “Ennect analyzed our choices and was able to draw parallels and create something unique.”
The result is a clean template featuring large photos that’s visually pleasing and is a quicker read. Phipps also decided to separate the information they share about sustainability into a new e-newsletter called, ecoInsider.
“Our members frequently ask about behind the scenes tours so we thought the ecoInsider would serve both our mission to advance sustainability and our members’ desire for insider information,” explained Liz.
Now, parents looking for classes for their children, homeowners looking for sustainable gardening tips and everyone looking for details on Phipps’ many special events all have easy access to the information via the standard tree-free e-newsletter and the new ecoInsider.
The Social Network, Email Connection
Since Phipps wants to grow their social networks, Ennect moved the social icons on both e-newsletters into a more prominent location.
“We are using email to build social networks and using social to get people to sign up for our newsletter,” said Liz. By strengthening the ties between both their email and social network marketing efforts, they are positioned to develop deeper connections with both members and non-members.
Prepping Internal Team Essential to Success
Old habits can be hard to change. Liz knew she needed to take the time to educate the other managers so the new design would be well received. “I printed out the old newsletter and it came to 12 pages. Once it was a visible document, it was easy to make the case for a more streamlined design.”
A Personal Connection Improves Clickthrough Rates
Posted on | January 10, 2012 | No Comments
Happy birthday to … me! This is the day I left the comfort of my mother’s womb a few decades ago for a wonderful career in marketing.
Of course, my family gave me cake and presents. But, I also got emails from three restaurants enticing me to come eat for free on my birthday. One of these emails was from a restaurant I had completely forgotten about. This made me realize that other businesses and organizations should use email as a way to reach out to inactive customers.
If your inbox is like mine, you probably see how companies abuse email marketing. For example, at least twice a week I receive emails from a company that sells pet products. Yes, I love the little ball of fur that lives with me. However, a constant barrage of generic emails does little to prompt me to purchase more stuff. Instead, they should segment their list so they know who owns a dog, a cat, a hamster etc. and make specific offers based on this information. What if they sent me an email at the beginning of winter with a coupon to save on doggie coats plus their wish that my Shih Tzu stays warm this winter? With that type of personal connection, I would be more inclined to open the email and make a purchase.
The secret to a successful email strategy is to segment your list, personalize the message, keep it relevant and refrain from sending messages too frequently.
A New Year Means a New Approach to Research
Posted on | January 3, 2012 | No Comments
Yay! It’s the start of 2012! People are usually optimistic at the beginning of a year. It’s a fresh start, a clean slate, and a new chance at reaching your goals.
On a personal level, defining your goals for the New Year can happen over dinner with a good friend. When it comes to business, though, a little research is usually necessary. Be honest, did you just cringe when you read the word research? Are you sitting there thinking research always has to take a long time? If the answer is yes, then you haven’t considered using a sweepstakes as a research tool.
One of our clients recently ran a sweepstakes to gauge their customers’ interest, knowledge and adoption of interactive strategies. In exchange for answering a short questionnaire, the respondents were entered into a sweepstakes to win a Kindle Fire. It was an unbelievable success; 93% of the click throughs completed the questionnaire.
Are you sure you know what motivates your clients and customers? When is the last time you asked for feedback? Do you wish you knew more about how people interact with your products and services? Now is the perfect time to find out.
A sweepstakes makes it a little more enticing to complete a survey. Think of what you need to learn about your market, then decide what you can afford to use as the prize. It’s simple. It’s effective. And, it’s a fun way to start the New Year for both you and your customers!
Q – What should I do with my bouncebacks after my broadcast?
Posted on | December 20, 2011 | 1 Comment
A. First, you need to evaluate why it bounced back. Is it a hard bounce, a soft bounce or an auto-reply? Ennect has a bounce management feature, which makes this easy to do since it separates the bounces into different categories. Here is what to do for each type of bounceback:
Hard Bounce – The server was unable to deliver your message. Sometimes this is due to human error, such as a typo in the email address but often a hard bounce will never be delivered. However, due to the large amounts of spam, some email administrators are returning messages as hard bounces if they are suspected spam messages. The reasoning is that if they code it as a spam message, the spammer will keep trying different ways to get through the server, if it is coded as a hard bounce, they will generally give up and delete the address. So, before you delete or edit the email address, go through these messages to determine validity.
Soft Bounce – There are three different types:
o Transient – The server could not temporarily deliver your message.
o DNS Error – A temporary DNS error.
o Soft Bounce – Unable to temporarily deliver message, mailbox full, account disabled, exceeds quota, etc…
Most soft bounces are temporary and may be delivered with your next broadcast. If the same email address bounces back in this category three times, then you should investigate further. For example, did the person leave the company and that is why the mailbox is full? The general rule is to remove an email address if it bounced back three times or more.
Auto Reply – There are two types. You need to read these messages to learn what you should do. Obviously, if it’s a temporary thing you do not want to change anything.
o Auto Responder – Automatic email responder, Out of Office, On Vacation, etc…
o Address Change – The recipient has requested an email change. To find the current address, you need to go through the from address on your email template to find the new address. Or, you could send a message from another email address to receive the bounceback with the new address.
Blocked – Sometimes your email will be incorrectly classified as spam. To prevent this, be proactive and ask your recipients to white list the Ennect IP address (66.179.100.126.) Most spam notifications will have to be dealt with individually and you can even call the recipient for assistance.
o Spam Notification – The message was delivered, but was either blocked by the user, classified as spam, bulk mail or had rejected content.
o Challenge Verification –Typical challenges are made by Spam Arrest or similar product, so find the challenge email that was sent to you and follow the appropriate instructions for the challenges.
New list or update old? Which is best?
Posted on | December 2, 2011 | No Comments
Everyone knows the value of a good list. But, once you have a list of email addresses, how do you manage the actual list? Should you create a new list for every broadcast? What about opt-outs?
Obviously the answer depends on your unique situation. However, there are a number of reasons why creating a new list for every broadcast is not the best strategy. Here are two good reasons you might want to update your master list instead of using a new list for every broadcast. First, it will save time. Do you really want to spend the time going in and managing your opt-outs? Second, you can see trending data over time. If you use an email tool like Ennect, you can check the ‘Hottest Prospects’ and see who consistently opens your emails.
What is your current list process? We invite you to share your ideas!
Emarketing tips & tricks
Posted on | September 23, 2011 | 1 Comment
It’s practically impossible to find a marketer who complains about having oodles of free time. It’s usually just the opposite – your days are packed and you’re looking for ways to increase your productivity. One of the easiest ways to be more become more efficient is to learn what others have done.
So, in an effort to ‘pay it forward’, we invite you to share your emarketing advice. We welcome questions as well. We’ll gladly help you figure out how to use emarketing tools to do more for less.
Q. When is the best day and time to send out a newsletter?
Posted on | September 23, 2011 | No Comments
It depends on your business and your audience. We suggest you do a test to evaluate when your newsletter is viewed the most. Send the newsletter out at different times and dates. Then, use the tracking tools in Ennect to look at the click thrus and the open rates for the different days and times. It is easy to build a spreadsheet comparing the number of click thrus and open rates. By spending the time analyzing the data, you’ll get your answer. Just last week eMarketer published an article on this very topic. Flash sales – the kind that last for just a few hours – are the new hot thing in retail emails. According to eMarketer, the time of day these emails are sent impacts the open rates. Those sent in the evening had 9% higher open rates, 33% higher total click rates, 20% higher transaction rates, and 27% higher revenue per email compared to lunchtime messages. What can you take away from this research? Probably nothing! These statistics are specific to the type of email and the particular audience. The only way you can answer this for your business is to spend a little time researching the habits of your audience. The Ennect tracking tools make it easy to do this, and by fine-tuning when you send your email, you’ll be rewarded with an impressive ROI.
Survey Predicts Electronics for Dad This Year!
Posted on | June 17, 2011 | 2 Comments
The results are in from Ennect’s 2011 Fathers’ Day Survey. We’re predicting a big year for electronics gear for dads this year. Looks like some dads will be surprised or disappointed to not receive a tie on Fathers’ Day. You can check the results out below.
According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), consumers spent $9.8 billion on dads last year. Moms received $16.3 billion in gifts — nearly double! In fact, Mothers’ Day is second only to the winter holiday season in retail value, beating out Valentine’s Day, Easter, Fathers’ Day, and Halloween.
What did fathers receive last year for gifts? According to the NRF, $1.9 billion in restaurant repasts, $1.3 in clothing, $1.2 in electronics, and $578 million in tools/appliances. Can’t wait to see if our Ennect Survey prediction comes to fruition. Sure hope so for dad’s sake: all that food must be doing some damage to the waistline. No wonder dad needed new clothing last year!
What’s Dad Getting for Fathers’ Day?
Posted on | June 14, 2011 | No Comments
Fathers’ Day is just a few days away. We were wondering what the popular gifts will be for this year. To help us predict what Dad’s might see this coming June 19th, take our ONE QUESTION survey.
Or click here: http://elliance.ennectsurvey.com/fathersdaysurvey
Social Media Expands Awareness of Protective Security Council Event
Posted on | May 24, 2011 | No Comments
When you think about ways of promoting a gathering of top level security professionals, using social media isn’t the first tool that comes to mind. Unmarked direct mail. Late night phone calls. Encrypted email, maybe. But social media? Not on the list.
Yet, that’s exactly what the Protective Security Council has turned to to attract the types of professionals whose jobs very often require them to stay in the background: Think Kevin Costner as a former Secret Service agent playing security detail for Whitney Houston in The Bodyguard. Would agent Frank Farmer tweet? He didn’t have the option then, but so much has changed since 1992 when the movie came out.
Today, even security professionals use Twitter and Facebook and other social media sites… if only to keep up with the clientele. So, for the Protective Security Council, staying in touch with their own customers and prospects through social media made sense.
“Much of the media coverage around security today is related to information technology. The idea of protecting people – which is just as important if not more so – often gets left out of the discussion,” says Michael Nossaman, president of the Protective Security Council. “Using social media is another way for us to extend awareness of this important topic.”
Nossaman’s core marketing tool is his event website which he created using Ennect Event and which includes complete details on speakers, sessions, location logistics, and allows attendees to conveniently register online. To promote the registration portal, Nossaman relies on a marketing mix of traditional and emarketing activities such as direct mailers and opt-in email marketing. A broad scope of social media efforts complement these activities. They range from Twitter and Facebook updates to LinkedIn group promotions and efforts to engage bloggers who cover security in the blogosphere.
“This is our first time experimenting with social media, but we want to do it right,” says Nossaman. “At my core, I’m a community organizer. When I think about social media, I think of it in terms of interacting with our ‘community.’ We want to share things that will interest and engage them. We’re still looking for the right balance.”
Measuring the organization’s success with social media is something else Nossaman is interested in: “We plan to do the analytics on this after the event is over and things calm down. There are a lot of moving parts when you’re putting on an event like this. And as we get closer to the first keynote, things move even faster. Having social media adds a whole new level of activity we haven’t had before. So it will be important to evaluate the results of our efforts.”
Now in its third year, the Protective Security Conference is an intensive two and a half day event comprised of in-depth seminars, panels, and roundtables conducted by leading authorities in the field. It targets security professionals whose responsibility it is to ensure that the people in their organizations are operating in safe and secure environments whether at their headquarters or in a hot spot half way around the world.
For information on the Protective Security Conference go to:
Call: 1-913-385-2034
Email: info@protectivesecuritycouncil.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/ProSecCouncil
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Protective-Security-Council/169125529796800
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?mostPopular=&gid=1801635
Tags: Ennect-Event > online event software > social-media