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Nov 25

Christmas, Hannukah, New Year’s: the winter holidays are full of festive spirit, and your email campaign can reflect the joy and festivity of the holiday season.

Holiday templates are a great place to start. Change the color scheme of your emails to green and red, blue and silver, or any other holiday colors is an easy way to create an effective transformation for your emails. In addition, you can download holiday templates. ConstantContact.com has many holiday templates to choose from for all of the major winter holidays.

Also, don’t forget about highlight your products and services for gifts! An email message is an effective and speedy way to let your customers know about sales, special prices, and coupons to use for your business. Email is an important way to communicate with your customers, so do not let this opportunity for valuable holiday conversions pass you by.

Sep 2

With the kids heading back to school and Labor Day just around the corner, summer is officially coming to a close, and that means that cooler temperatures, fall colors, hay rides, and apple cider are closer than you realize. Start planning your fall email campaigns, and you will be ready for the new season.

One way to get your email campaign ready for fall is by changing the template. Find holiday and fall email templates online at Email Template Pro or other template sights, and download them and add them to your emails. You can also include fall images to further transform your emails.

In addition, you can change the products you advertise in your emails to seasonally appropriate items that your business offers, whether it is seasonal clothing or back to school items, or holiday decorations.

Transforming your emails to match with the changing seasons can be an effective way to boost conversions and provide your customers with what they need for the upcoming season.

Aug 25

Social Media use has grown by leaps and bounds in the past few years, and consumer use only stands to increase as social media and mobile devices became more a part of everyday life. What does this mean for you and your business? Traditional advertising methods may not be effective, and branching out with an email campaign may be the ticket to increased conversions.

You may not be able to rely on television advertising, radio advertising, print advertising, or having people drop into your business. Some people live their lives online, and that is where you need to meet them. Email inboxes are, for some, the primary method of communication, and they use their smart phones or other mobile devices to check their email, which is why effective email communication is so important for a successful business.

Other keys to successful marketing include ease and speed. The easier you make it for your customer to view and use your emails, the more chance of success you will have. In addition, be sure to include links to your social media pages to give your customers another way to connect to you.

Email is not the only way you can communicate with your customers, but it certainly is an affordable and effective avenue for advertising that should not be overlooked.

Aug 18

Text in emails is important because it carries the message, but plain text emails can be boring. Emails can contain a number of dynamic elements to boost the overall appeal and attractiveness of your email.

Templates are a great place to start that do not require a lot of work. Whether you download free templates, like those at Email Template Pro, or purchase templates online. Templates add a colorful and professional dynamic to your email. You can even customize your templates to look like a version of your web site.

Another way to add visual interest to your emails is by adding images and graphics. You can find images online, or you can add original pictures of your products or business. If you have a graphic designer on staff, you can have he or she create original graphics for the emails, or you can also find graphics online or choose a template with graphics to add pizzazz to your emails. Email Template Pro and StreamSend have many template options available on line.

A newer element to add that may increase in popularity in the upcoming years is adding video. Animated GIFs are some of the easiest video images to add to emails, and these definitely add interest to your emails.

Let text be the mainstay of your emails, but don’t be afraid to freshen your emails with dynamic templates, images, and videos.

Aug 11

Are your investments in email campaigns paying off, or do you have yet to see the rewards? Whether you feel like you are spending too much or too little, taking a careful look at your budget is a crucial step in evaluating the effectiveness of a campaign.

First, if you feel like you are spending a lot of money but not seeing any rewards, you should probably look at where you are spending your money. Maybe you are investing money in places that do not make your emails more effective. See where you could cut back but still have effective emails.

In addition, you could look at signing up with an email management company like StreamSend. These companies help you build successful campaigns and track statistics so you can see exactly how well you are doing. Signing up with a management company puts your money to good use. If you haven’t been spending that much money on your campaigns, a campaign management company can be a good investment.

Other areas to invest more money if you have not previously spent money include customized templates or graphics. Email campaigns have many different elements that you can either spend more on or cut back, and budget management is an essential part of a successful campaign.

Jul 28

Email marketing has two major fields of thought concerning opt-in lists versus permission-based emails. With today’s advanced technology, email carriers have junk email detectors that are more refined than ever, and priority programs like Gmail’s Priority Inbox makes it even harder to get your emails seen by your customers.

Opt-in emails have been successful in the past, but today, many prefer direct marketing with opt-out options. Both can have results, but you should research both options before starting an email campaign. Look for pros and cons for each process, and look to see where the trends are heading to make sure that your campaigns are as successful as it can be.

Email Template Pro has many Opt-In email templates for free download that provide colorful, professional, and customizable designs for your email campaign.

Jul 21

2011 will bring new trends and changes and technology, and your email campaign should adjust to remain current. Although 2011 is halfway over, it is not too late to consider how your campaign fits into these trends.

According to Chad White for Email Insider, five of the top predicted trends in 2011 include adapting to Facebook Messages, designing emails for mobile devices, Share links, reactivating inactive customers, and permission-based email marketing.

These trends require some campaign editing. Facebook Messages and mobile devices may alter the way customers see or want to see emails, so adjusting to this trend is necessary to maintain your customer base. In addition, adding the ability to “share” email content is another important way for your customers to connect to your business as well as share with friends your products, specials, and anything else in your email. The last two trends are dependent more on campaign management and making sure that you are getting your emails to all the customers you want to.

Staying current with email trends is vital if you want your campaigns to succeed, so stay up to speed so your campaign, and thus your sales, don’t lag behind.

Jul 14

Email campaigns can be more affordable than mailouts (and better for the environment) or expensive radio or television advertisement campaigns, but to get the most out of your money, you should shop around your options to make sure you choose the best package for your purposes.

If you have not been using email campaigns or templates, there are several free options. Email Template Pro offers free templates to implement on your own, and some sites, including StreamSend, give users a free trial period to try out the service. Once you complete the trial, then you can decide if the service is worth it.

Aside from free options, if you are not planning email campaigns of great volume, then per-campaign pricing may be right for you. Companies like CampaignMonitor.com offer per-campaign pricing that starts at just $5 for one campaign, with additional pricing for the number of recipients. If you only send messages out occasionally for special events of holidays, than a per-campaign pricing is an easy and affordable way to implement campaigns to see the results without making a big investment.

Jul 6

An important part of understanding how successful your campaigns are is understanding your “open” rate. According to ConstantContact.com, the open rate can be measured by how many emails are opened by how many emails are sent or bounced.

The article also goes into more detail about other open stipulations. For instance, if the email is text only, no template, no images. They also say that there is no right open number; there are many elements to consider.

You can find the article and all of the information here. If you are not receiving the conversion rates you are wishing for, the open rate could be an indicator.

Jun 23

If your email campaigns are not getting the results you are hoping for, there are many things you can do to improve your emails and get better results. The key to better results is knowing what to change, which is why carefully monitoring your success throughout is important.

Text:   Maybe you are using too much text or not enough. Maybe the font is not easily readable or large enough. Maybe the text just isn’t interesting or to the point. What you are actually writing in the email is easy to improve and test, and it can be surprising how little changes can make a big difference.

Links: Make sure that your email has enough links to connect to your business. These could include contact links (email, phone numbers, website), social media links, and links to your specific products.

Templates: Templates can make emails attractive and interesting. Play around with new templates and customizing the ones you have to give your emails a fresh facelift.

Frequency: Maybe you are overwhelming your customers with too many emails, or maybe you are not sending out emails enough. Adjust the frequency of your emails and see what kind of results you get.

These are easy areas to start with to see improvements with your email campaigns. If all else fails, consult a professional management company like StreamSend to see what kind of help they can offer.

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