Just as we think we’ve seen all the Email Marketing mistakes

Spelling & punctuation clangers. You’d think having built-in spell checkers would mean better spelling, punctuation and grammar, unfortunately that doesn’t seem to be the case (as Sam found out recently). A well written email marketing message is more likely to be read and speaks volumes for the professionalism of the sender.

Boring Subject Lines. These are so often treated as an after thought and written in a hurry before hitting ‘Send’ – big mistake! The Subject Line is the text that is seen in a list of unread emails and can be what prompts the recipient to open your message. It can also be the only thing that stops them from pressing the ‘Delete’ button.

Mystery ‘From’ Field. If I don’t recognise who an email is from, the likelihood of clicking to open it and find out is much reduced. For example, contact@ or info@ aren’t very friendly are they? As for noreply@ – personally I find this most off-putting!

Lack of or Confusing Call to Action. Every piece of your marketing needs to have a purpose and a clearly defined ‘Call to Action’ (CTA). Email Marketing is no different. Not including a CTA is a waste of your time and effort. Almost as bad is to provide so many options of things to click on or look at that your reader becomes confused – and does nothing as a result. That’s a waste too.

Collecting Email addresses and then not making contact until you want to sell something. This is a crazy phenomenon I’ve noticed recently. I signed up to receive updates on a couple of blogsites and weeks later was still waiting (I did check my spam filters). Then suddenly, BAM! Email after Email promoting a webinar or product launch. No thank you. This practice is just plain bad manners and, as I’m likely to have forgotten who the sender is after such an interval, their messages run the risk of being reported as spam.

We’re certainly not immune when it comes to making mistakes in our Email Marketing campaigns, but we do try our best to keep them to a minimum.

Further reading:

How not to do Emails

7 Basic Email Newsletter Mistakes (and how to avoid them) 

How not to send out Email Promotions

What Email howlers have you come across? Please share in the comments below.

So we hope you’ve moved on from some of these very out of date methods

1. Keyword Stuffing
I still see sites where keywords have been stuffed in, in a number of ways. Long lists in the meta keywords tag, which search engines don’t use to rank sites, so not worth it. Keywords included in text at every opportunity, so the content on the page sounds stilted and unnatural. Even keywords in greyed out text at the bottom of pages. These out of date keyword stuffing techniques won’t get you anywhere in the rankings and make for a bad visitor experience.

2. Bad Site Design
As the design and architecture of a website is one of the most important parts of SEO, a badly designed site will hinder any hope of gaining good rankings. This is still a common sight with services all crammed into one web page with lengthy text, products so many clicks away from the home page you wonder if you’ll ever get there! Or just no thought as to where content should go. If your site hasn’t been redesigned for a number of years and content not updated, then now’s the time to tackle it!

3. Outdated Link Building
Having quality links pointing to your site is a very important part of SEO – and this isn’t going to change. However, the old fashioned way of going about link building doesn’t really work anymore. Gaining quality links is getting harder and harder, and should be done by a link building expert – someone who knows how to approach other websites in the right way. Submitting sites to random directories isn’t going to make much difference, nor is swapping links with whoever will agree to link back. There’s still a place for online directories, but generally getting listed in those within your industry sector will make more difference. Having decent, up to date content will attract readers, which in turn will help you to gain links naturally, whether it be from other websites or via link sharing on the social networks. Good PR can still go a long way towards quality links too.

We’ve written about all of the above before on Savvy Marketers, but we still see the same mistakes time and time again. If you’re still dabbling in these outdated techniques and wondering why you’re not getting the results you want from your website, then now’s the time to update your SEO!

No matter how many followers you have on Twitter, friends or fans on Facebook and connections on LinkedIn, Email Marketing is still a more direct way to get people’s attention. That isn’t to say you can afford to ignore social networking, because you can’t. But the different media will complement each other and work well together.

There are many ways to build a list of email subscribers, although we would strongly advise against buying a list as we covered in previous posts. Building your own list needs to be a priority objective if you want to take advantage of this very cost effective method of online marketing.

Try different ways to encourage people to subscribe to receive your Email Newsletters and marketing messages

Business Card – Use the reverse of your card to promote the free give-away available when people go to your website and fill out the sign-up form.

Email Signature – Add an invitation to get your free give-away to your standard email signature. This is easy to do both in Microsoft Outlook and if you use a service like WiseStamp (for GMail, Hotmail, etc.) Here’s a screenshot of mine:

Article Marketing – When you submit articles to other sites and to article directories, use the link in your Resource Box to take people to a page that tells them about the benefits of signing up to your list, and has the form there too.

Blog Posts – Within the body of your blog post, occasionally make reference to an article which is only available to subscribers and provide a link to the sign up box. Take care not to overdo this tactic as you don’t want to upset your blog subscribers!

Facebook Page – Don’t forget to provide a sign-up page linked to your Email Service Provider (as we have – see below) for fans to subscribe to receive your email newsletters and messages. If they already like your page, they’ll want to get more of the good stuff you share!

Here are a couple of general points to bear in mind when creating the sign-up forms, that have been proven to increase willingness to subscribe.

Keep your form as short as possible: just email address and first name are really all that’s needed in most cases. If you make the form unnecessarily long with lots of ‘required’ fields, people are less likely to sign up as they may be reluctant to provide too much detailed information about themselves.

Also, reassure them that you will store their contact details securely. State your privacy policy and link to it as well. Here’s a link to ours, feel free to model it.

There are more tips on list building and Email Marketing in our Guide.

Email marketing campaigns work well for some, less well for others

So how do you get your newsletters opened by more people?

Sender or ‘From’ field – make sure you use a recognisable name here, either your own name or business name. Don’t use your email address or a vague name such as ‘contact’ (yes I get a newsletter that just has ‘contact’ in the from field). If the recipient isn’t sure who the newsletter is from, they’ll probably view it as spam.

Subject line – this has to be one of the most important aspects of email marketing and one of the main reasons that people will choose to read or not read your newsletter. If your subject line just states ‘February newsletter’ or something equally uninspiring, then it’s not going to get many opens, however interesting the content is inside. You need to arouse curiosity, make people want to open it and this is where the subject line plays such an important part. Take a look through your email newsletters and see which subject lines have made you open and want to read more. A subject line such as ‘why your granny is better at social networking than you are’ is more likely to make people want to click and read the contents, instead of an alternative more bland subject such as, ‘top tips on social media’ for example. Whatever you do, don’t be vague either, your subject line needs to be to the point and convey what the newsletter will be about, what your readers will expect when they open it.

Over enthusiastic spam filters – I check my spam filters most days for the odd genuine email that may have ended up in there and this is a problem for email marketing campaigns. Asking people to white list your newsletter helps, if they remember to do it, but there are times when for whatever reason, your newsletters may end up in spam filters. It’s definitely worth reminding your subscribers to white list your newsletter from time to time.

What tips do you have to get more people opening your newsletter? Please share them in the comments!

When you go to all the trouble of crafting word perfect, interesting articles for your newsletter

With so many beautiful templates available from popular Email Service Providers such as MailChimp (aff), Vertical Response, Constant Contact, AWeber, et al, it can be difficult to know which to choose. Especially as, with most providers including the free ones, you can easily customise colours to your brand and add your business logo.

It can be tempting to go for every bell and whistle – just because you can! But depending on your audience, that might be a step too far, and leave you lamenting a trail of unsubscribes. While a more technically savvy audience will happily explore as many new bells & whistles as you can throw at them, a more traditional reader will be happier to simply find familiar features in each issue.

The complexity of design of your email newsletter is also going to depend to some extent on what device your audience is using. You’ll need to consider the growing number of people who will be reading on their mobile phones for example; their needs will be different to someone reading on their desktop, laptop or tablet. Fortunately the professional providers take care of that for you by offering a mobile friendly subscription option.

But no matter what device your readers are using, or their level of tech savvy-ness, there are a few basic design considerations which will make reading your newsletters a good experience for them, and so that they look forward to future issues.

Design Checklist

Your Email Newsletter is not the same as your website so it shouldn’t look like a web page. This style of template shows too many options, some of which look like tabs to click, and are generally too busy and confusing.

Should you use one column or two? Think about how you read on the screen – one column is easiest without a doubt. But two columns do look attractive and can be useful. Just make sure your most important messages are in the left hand (fatter) column, and keep items short in the right hand (skinny) column.

Provide a brief list of contents. This lets readers see at a glance what is included in each issue and gives them a chance to go straight to the content that piques their interest. Otherwise they may well consign your email to the ‘read later’ folder – which is basically a staging post to the delete folder….

Divide your newsletter into clear sections and keep these consistent in every issue as readers will have their favourites. Some will look out for your ‘Quick Tips’ to take away and apply immediately, or book recommendations, events, etc.

Use their first name two or three times in the newsletter. This is a good relationship building tactic, but don’t over-use the personalisation feature to the point that it comes across as smarmy and false. Inject a little of your personality by uploading one or two of your own photos in each issue; your readers will enjoy seeing them and learning about the person behind the newsletter.

The template and design should reflect the visual elements of your brand (logo, fonts and colours), in other words be easily associated with your business. While refreshing the design periodically is a good idea, changing it out of all recognition every month probably isn’t.

Make your page easy for your readers to navigate and keep the overall appearance simple, with lots of white space between columns, sections and paragraphs.

Consider font size and overall readability. Larger headlines will help to clearly define the sections, keep those fun and funky fonts to use as section headers. As a rule of thumb, don’t use anything smaller than 10 point font (HTML Size 2), and 12 point (HMTML size 3) is even easier to read.

Be sure to include graphics because they will enhance your publication, be pleasing on the eye and help break up the text. As I already mentioned, do consider including your own photos which are easy to take and upload using your smartphone.

What design features do you like to see in your favourite Email Newsletters? Please share them in the comments below.

Autoresponders are something that not many small businesses use

If you’re not sure what an autoresponder is, it’s generally a series of automated email messages sent over a period of time. The autoresponders are set up in advance, and can be used, for example, when someone signs up to your newsletter and you want to follow up with a series of tips – this could be a great add on to a free report you’re giving away. Perhaps you’ve written a short course and want to deliver it by autoresponder so the people who sign up to it get their weekly instalments.

There are lots of things you can do with autoresponders and we’ve been using them for a while alongside our Savvy Marketing Tips newsletter. Until recently, subscribers received a series of tips delivered a few days apart when they signed up, but we’ve now created a new e-course. When someone subscribes to our newsletter, they’ll receive a copy of our guide ‘Content Marketing…what it is and why you need to do it”. After that the subscriber will receive a short course delivered weekly over a 10-week period to help them implement the tips in the guide.

You may wonder why we would want to give such a course away for free?

Well, it’s a great way of showing off our knowledge, helps our subscribers understand more about what content marketing is and how it can improve their online marketing, adds value to our free giveaway, plus it keeps us in the minds of our subscribers, particularly when it comes to online marketing!

Most email providers such as Mailchimp (who we use), Aweber & Contant Contact have this facility. If you use any of these providers, you can easily set up autoresponders to go out to new subscribers to your newsletter, or deliver an online course.

For small businesses these features are a great way of growing your business and can be used effectively to deliver training and add value to a free report or giveaway.

If you’d like to find out how autoresponders work, then click here to subscribe to our newsletter, receive our guide and 10 week e-course on content marketing!

It’s almost 4 years since I started blogging, using social media and other “technology” apps and tools to further my business. I’ve been thinking about it as Sam asked me to write a blog about my experiences with social media and I pondered about a variety of things.

It’s not just at New Year that one should revise their strategy, update their thoughts and perhaps even change their game plan – business wise. I do it on a regular basis – and with the help of social media and all the applications I have come to use, rather quickly. I guess that’s the beauty of all of this – as a small business I can change my marketing, change my strategy or update my website in the blink of an eye! Or can I?

Well yes, it means I am more in charge than ever before, instead of relying on people to do something for me, pay them and hope to god they do it right, I can now just get on with it myself. But of course this all takes time – nothing ever gets done with NO effort – people seem to forget that! And I have had to spend time learning about the technological ins and outs – and as time goes on brain cells do struggle! But I do enjoy it and I feel very good that at the ripe old age of 45 I was an “early adopter”!

I do think that people do think this takes no effort – and when they find out this does work they still think it’s a waste of time.

On one side you have the “twitter scorners” as I call them. They know nothing about it or might have just tried it for a few weeks and just don’t get it. On the other side you have the “new evangelists” – the ones that have tried it, stuck with it and now feel it’s their confessor and best friend rolled into one.

I went through both those stages – I think we all do. I thought I was way too old to mess with the kids on Twitter until someone explained the business strategy behind it and gave me a case study. The same with Facebook and LinkedIn – didn’t know how to really use them although had been on them for years and years, but I was sceptical and thought them a waste of time. But I have always prided myself on being open minded, so the case studies gave me a light bulb moment. That’s how I function, I need examples. Many people aren’t shown examples, so they become “Twitter scorners” forever. Some people of course use social media purely for fun and that’s ok.

I did not quite get into being an evangelist – I always thought telling the world your troubles and being negative was never a good thing for anyone, least of all me. But I did wax lyrical about social media because I did have some rather early wins with it – I was introduced to famous people in my industry, I even blog for one now. And I got £37,350 (T/O) worth of business in my first 6 months. Rather exact right? That’s because even though these are “newish” technologies, applications and business tools, it doesn’t mean you should not apply old world style business processes – like measuring ROI.

So almost four years into it and I have made some strategic changes to how I put myself out there.

For me, social media is part of my business toolbox – it’s marketing, PR and strategy rolled into a bundle that gives me direction to develop my business. It takes time, it takes effort and it takes dedication. But then if you want your business to succeed – doesn’t everything? I still don’t know it all, no-one ever does. The best part though and the one thing that makes me chuckle, is that I get approached by “Twitter Gurus”, “Social Media Supremos” and people that I met 6 months ago who knew nothing about it then and all of a sudden are giving social media workshops for £500/day and would I like to come along?! These people want to help me develop my social media – but first things first – check me out and see what work I do and how active I am before you start promising a myriad of wonders for me. And can I just say that most of these people did not even start out as marketing professionals. You can tell I have a bit of a bee in my bonnet about this!

Well I do, because it’s a learning process that takes time, and to begin with you really need to understand business and business development, marketing and brand development. Old fashioned business adages, but they do apply – they are the foundation to your business. It’s not about just sending out a few tweets and a few blogs out into the ether. I come from a business background and so feel very comfortable with all that stuff and having nearly 4 years of active non-stop social media work behind me, I feel rather confident about the things I have learnt. The good and the bad.

So a few tips and they’re FREE by the way!

Do not broadcast non-stop about what you do. It’s boring, it’s arrogant. Who wants to listen to anyone drone on about how good they are or about their products and services.

You want to be seen as THE voice of honest good reputation on your speciality – so share industry information you have found with others, showcase other people’s work. This makes you look like an authority – people start to trust you.

Meet the people (for real!) you have formed a good relationship with – collaboration is exponential, it feels good, it brings money in and gets your name out there.

Do show off your work or share your blog, but not every 5 minutes. For every one of your own work share 5 others. It’s a good balance.

Do create a strategy – what do you want to achieve in social media? Brand recognition? Get more clients? Meet other industry professionals? Whatever the goal is – develop it as you would offline.

Never ever comment on a client’s work – as sure as night follows day, they will read it and they may not like it! So keep negative comments to yourself.

Enjoy yourself – stay focused – stay positive – because oddly, online chats give people a very good idea of what you are like!

Lastly, remember – think twice about what you put out there – if you hesitate, don’t post it. A thoughtless or nasty comment will get out there and stay there!

Françoise Murat is a degree qualified Architectural Interior Designer and Garden Designer. Eco but not Loco! She specialises in: Architectural interior design for domestic clients, bars and restaurants and a garden design service for the domestic market, property developments and urban landscapes. Visit Françoise’s blog, Rendez-Vous Deco & Jardin. 

Email Marketing is one of the cornerstones of online relationship building

Things have moved on a bit (about a million miles actually) since the days of rainbow coloured text emails and using the BCC field for your list while sending the message to yourself, although unbelievably some of these still occasionally drop into my inbox (bless!).

There are many excellent Email Service Providers (ESPs), including Mailchimp (we are fans & affiliates), Constant Contact, Vertical Response and AWeber. Which provider you choose is down to personal preference, but there are compelling reasons why you need to choose and use a professional ESP for your business Email Marketing.

Get More of Your Emails Delivered

Many people think that pressing ‘Send’ is all that’s needed to get their email message to its various destinations. Not necessarily so. For people still using their computer email packages, deliverability is unknown and open & click-through rates are unmeasurable.

Using your web domain host or shopping cart email service isn’t a guarantee of getting delivered either. These are OK for occasional mailings but messages are less likely to get through spam filters, so it isn’t a good idea to use as your main ESP, if you’re serious about Email Marketing.

The number of people reading their emails on SmartPhones is growing rapidly, so making sure your Emails are mobile friendly is becoming increasingly important. The main ESPs have this covered with special templates for the publisher to use and options to receive emails in a mobile friendly format for the reader.

Benefit from their Good Reputation

The best providers have a good reputation they’ve worked hard to establish. Not only for deliverability (over 99% is their proud claim), but also, importantly, for their adherence to the CAN-Spam Act, which they take very seriously.

I was chatting with an Email Marketing colleague recently and he told me the sad story of two clients who had their email accounts suspended as a result of using their computers to send out campaigns. This could have been as a result of the large number of emails going out, or because they fell foul of the Spam filters.

I don’t know about you, but the thought of being without email in my business sends icy shivers down my spine. It’s one of my primary communication channels and I’d really struggle without it.

Professional ESPs use a ‘double optin’ process to further protect their reputation – and yours by association! This process replaces the practice back in the ‘bad old days’ when you simply added all your contacts’ email addresses to a spreadsheet and sent out uninvited and unexpected promotional emails to them. “But wait,” I hear you say, “I still have some of those emails arriving in my inbox.” Yep, me too – and I report them as ‘Spam’ because that’s what they are. I didn’t ask for them.

A Double Opt-In is when you enter your details (usually just Name & Email address) onto a web based form, press Enter and are then taken to another screen with a message telling you to look out for an email which you need to act on. The email usually arrives within seconds and has a link you have to click in order to confirm that you really did fill out that form and want to receive the emails from that person.

The above are just a couple of reasons why using a professional Email Service Provider is so important for the small business owner. Check out our Guide for more information on Email Marketing, and please ask your questions in the comment box below.

If you’ve used plugins, please share which ones you like below – it’s always useful to know the good ones out there!

Although Facebook introduced the Subscriber feature last September,

Intended primarily for ‘public figures’ like celebrities, journalists and political figures, the Subscriber feature is also a boon for those small business owners who ‘are’ their brand. Indeed when I joined Facebook back in 2007, I used my personal profile for business as well as private contacts because there wasn’t another option. Until Pages came along.

I believe one of the reasons for business owners’ understandable reluctance to set up and manage a Business Page is the extra task of keeping it regularly updated, attracting people to ‘Like’ it and the effort involved in building a community. This is all additional time to try and find in an already full day.

In the past we’ve always advised against using a personal profile as a business marketing channel, not only because Facebook frowns on it, but also because using a Business Page provides so much more visibility (as a unique web address which can be easily found by the search engines as well as on the newsfeed of all ‘Likers’).

Another advantage of having a Business Page is that you can have multiple ‘Admins’ to help maintain the page, post updates and respond to comments, so for our Savvy Marketers page this is the best option.

However now, while a personal profile should still be set up as a personal account, enabling the Subscriber function means you can be more selective about who you connect with as a ‘friend’, keeping to only close friends and family. What’s new is that you can now also connect with more casual business acquaintances, for example fellow networkers, by inviting them to become Subscribers to your personal profile instead. One benefit of this is the increased reach of your profile updates which can be seen by all subscribers in their newsfeed (and on the ticker).

You do have to turn the Subscriber button ‘on’, the default is ‘off’.

So, should you enable ‘Subscribe’?

It’s certainly worth considering if you’re nearing or over the 5000 friend limit, because there is no limit to the number of Subscribers you can have.

It may be a good alternative to a Page if you are the only person in your business, and have already connected with other businesses via your personal profile.

A few points to consider before you click to allow the feature

Subscribers will be able to see everything you share as ‘public’ or to ‘everyone’ so it’s important to check your privacy settings BEFORE turning the feature on. Make sure you’re happy for all your photos (or albums) to be seen by everyone and make any changes if you aren’t.

Look through the privacy settings of your contact details carefully. For example, is your mobile phone number set to public? That may be fine for close friends, but do you really want everyone to know it? I don’t mind who contacts me on Facebook but deliberately keep my other email addresses and phone numbers private, as you can see by the little padlock symbols in the screenshot below.

Once you enable ‘Subscribers’ you will automatically be subscribed to all your friends as well. You can choose between receiving ‘all’,‘most’ (the default setting) or ‘only important’ updates to avoid being bombarded with too many.

Anything you post as ‘public’ on your personal profile wall will be seen by your Subscribers in their news feed. The screenshot below shows that ‘public’ is my default for sharing updates but you can opt for ‘friends’ or ‘custom’ by clicking through and changing your privacy settings. You also have the option of selecting who you share individual updates with too.

Do you have the Subscriber option turned on? Do share your experience or opinion in the comments below – we’d love to know what you think of it!