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That’s right, some of you have already noticed a few things changing in mailingmanager.
We’re updating the system, and there’s some great new features in there. Not only have we got great little gadgets like multi-inbox viewers and some really handy list segmentation and filtering options now installed, but behind the scenes is running a whole lot smoother now.
We’re pleased as punch with it and hopefully you will be too.
Well it’s another one of those helpful tips blog posts again. Though I will be using mailingmanager as the loose basis for this example, this can be adopted by anyone.
I think laying the groundwork of your email marketing campaign is really important in the long-term health of your campaign. Now this could be a bit of extra work at the beginning but once you’ve got it set up and running, it’s effortless.
As I have mentioned previously, contact your new sign ups early on can really help to build up a good, long lasting interaction between you and the subscriber. Interest is at a maximum in your company at the point of sign up. The best thing to do is set up an initial autoresponder to reply to them almost instantly after sign up. So in the inbox they should receive a confirmation that they are added to the subscriber list, then the first autoresponder message that you’ve created.
This first autoresponse message should just be a welcome message and should back up what content they should be receiving from you. This should also confirm what you promised to send them on your website. For instance, if you promised a fortnightly email with tips and tricks, then re-iterate this in your opening autoresponse. You could even link back to online versions of previous newsletters to show them what they should expect.
So now they know when to expect the newsletters and know what to expect as content. This doesn’t mean that the autoresponders job is done. You can now queue up the following autoresponders to maintain interest in your company. Offer them loyalty bonuses after a couple of months, or free gifts to re-ignite the interest of those people whose might have waned a little (I’ll leave the creative inspiration to you guys on how you go about doing this).
For all of you on mailingmanager, firstly, may I congratulate you; now I’ll show you how to set it all up.
Just go to the autoresponders tab in mailingmanager. You’ll then be asked to choose your list to create the autoresponder for. If you just have one, pick that, otherwise choose the one that is linked through to your subscription form.
Once you’ve chosen the format and name of the autoresponder, you will be prompted to start setting the time for when the autoresponder is to be sent out after subscription. You can choose in hours or can set it up for a longer period (up to 3 years). After that it’s just the same as any normal campaign; just create and save.
Voilà! You now have an autoresponder campaign set up. Of course, this is just the basics and if you get stuck along the way feel free to email us.
| Following on from my last post and a post I read on Mark Brownlow’s blog, I’ve started to wonder if we really are going to step back in terms of design and content, and do what we want again.Certainly, the idea of it seems to be very plausible. We’re getting to a stage where spamming is getting clamped down on, with some success it seems. Now the sender has to have authentication and a good sending reputation to hit the inboxes whilst the rest of them languish in the spam box. I now rarely get an email I haven’t asked for in my inbox.
So I’m going to say something crazy here….I like all-image emails. In fact I’m all for them in B2C email marketing. Here’s an example… |
The campaign puts some reliance on the subscriber having them whitelisted. But they managed to do this with me by swiftly responding to my purchase from them with an opening campaign. I was pleased with what I bought, so added them. Okay, so the first time I opened the email it was a blank page as it was one block image with clickable links within it; so had been blocked from showing. But is that really a bad thing? I don’t know about you but when I open an email that has text and images in (which have been blocked) I’m considerably less likely to actually unblock the images as I can get the general gist of the email without doing it. But this will actually harm the email viewing experience that I was intended to receive from the sender. Now take the whole block image email into consideration. The subject line has drawn me in with a promise of some offer (probably) so I’m already committed to seeing what’s on offer. I see a blank email with an option to unblock the image, so I just click the button and there it is; the full email with no rendering problems, and without any fiddly restrictions that come from creating html newsletters. I bet this email doesn’t have rendering problems in gmail either. But being able to send out image rich emails isn’t something that every company can enjoy. Chemical Records did a lot of groundwork to start with. Firstly, they’ve set up a decent autoresponder campaign that contacts new subscribers quite quickly after signing up; when the recipients interest in the company is still at a high. Secondly, they have paid attention to the first hurdle that so many email marketers fall at; they’ve actually put some decent effort into their subject line. They also managed to deliver what they promised in the subject line, meaning that I was happy to open any future mailings from them. If you would like to be in a position where you could send out an email like this, follow the proposal that Mark Brownlow has outlined in his blog, and adopt the work ethic that Chemical Records put into their campaign. |
Ok so we all know about the text vs HTML debate that has gone on forever (If you don’t know about this, the answer is to send it multi-part), but when can text emails be a hands-down, more effective form of contacting your recipients?
I read an article recently (there’s a link in my “back from the dead” post) that had a good point about using text-only campaigns to get a fast turnaround response. In the example it used a baseball (rounders) team that managed to sell a massive amount of tickets by sending out a text-only email to their mailing list. Apart from the fact I was massively shocked at how big little league teams’ stadiums are (size of championship teams!), I was impressed to see the use of text campaigns and how successful they could be.
By using a text email campaign you are less likely to get picked up in Spam filters (no HTML coding to get caught in the content folder). This also means that delivery rates will increase somewhat as your emails will bypass the majority of filters (just make sure you avoid those “spammy” words).
So you see, a good campaign can be constructed by using text-only emails. Now don’t get me wrong here. Don’t go crazy and delete your html template and convert to text just yet. I think the best thing to do is combine both of them; HTML for long term branding of your company and text emails for short-term turnover offers.
mailingmanager is a full e-marketing solutions company that also offers spam filter analysis on its customers email campaigns. Visit the website or contact the company on info@mailingmanager.co.uk
I just realised I hadn’t actually introduced this blog. Basically, I’m writing primarily for the users of our systems, to try and help them improve their campaigns. Though that doesn’t mean anyone else can’t help themselves!
Basically, I’m going to trawl through the blogs and articles each day and write up on the topics that are being raised. I’ll link through to each article i read so if you want to read more you can see the full story. I understand that a lot of you aren’t going to have the time (or patience) to read through all these things so I’ll just highlight the points made and then show you how you can integrate the findings into your own campaigns.
Also, if you want me to look into a certain subject regarding email marketing, just contact me at alex@ihm.co.uk and i’ll look into writing something about it.
