Hi ,
This month we will be covering email marketing best practices and share some ideas on how you can better leverage this incredibly powerful marketing
tool. Plus, we'll share a little secret that most small businesses don't know about, but should (hint: how to conduct marketing research on the
cheap). Here's what you can find in this month's Marketing Ideas!
As always, I hope you enjoy this month's newsletter. If you have an idea for an upcoming Marketing Ideas! Newsletter or would like to contribute an
article, please contact us at info@aperiomarketing.net.
Best Regards,
Matthew Parente
President/Founder
Aperio Marketing
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Understanding and Improving Open Rates
Did you know that email open rates are on the decline across industries? As the chart below illustrates, there has been a steady decline in open
rates
since 2004. However, this is not necessarily an indication that people
are
not opening emails at the same (or better rate).
The reason why "open" rates are potentially misleading is inherent in the method of
tracking open rates. Most email systems track "opens" via
graphics; when a reader downloads the associated images of an HTML email, the "tracking" graphic is activated, indicating that the email was
opened. Therefore, reduced open rates are not necessarily an indication of
a
reduction in readers. Instead, it could indicate that many people have figured out they can simply read a lot of content
without having to download images, thus flying under the radar of many
tracking
methods.
Therefore, one great way
to uncover your "actual" open rates is to include images that are integrated into the content,
such as charts and graphs. Over time, this should give you better open rates and a better indication of your active readership (and perhaps uncover
some of your more tech-savvy customers!).
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Embedding Video Clips to Increase Conversions
Video has recently been the rage of viral marketers, with its obvious ability to deliver sight, sound, and emotion more powerfully than virtually any
other experience outside of a physical event, such as a show or conference.
However, embedding video into emails has been difficult, mostly because of the proliferation of email clients and the correlating problem of ensuring
that the video can be properly displayed in any given email client.
Recent technological advancements have provided marketers better access to embedded video in emails than at any other time. And the results have
followed. According to MarketingSherpa,
embedded video lifted the conversion rate for one organization by 50%.
EmailFilm, a business that specializes in the production and delivery of
embedded
video in email, has seen similar results. Below is a sample of an
EmailFilm embedded video.
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The Federal Trade Commission's new regulations on the CAN-SPAM Act was enacted as of July 2008. Anyone who uses a reputable email marketing
system (such as ours) is generally CAN-SPAM compliant via the best-practices of the system (however, you are still responsible for some things, such
as how you generate your lists). For those of you who are managing your own lists and opt-outs, or want to delve deeper into the world of the federal
government, here's an overview of the major updates:
- There are new unsubscribe requirements (Aperio Marketing clients are automatically covered
by this).
- There's a more articulate definition of the term "sender."
- P.O. Addresses are now okay to use to verify the sender.
- CAN-SPAM laws apply to Forward to a Friend features
For a more comprehensive understanding of the new aspects of the CAN-SPAM act, check out Larry Bodine's blog; he's a marketing expert in the field of
law.
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Keyword Research as Marketing Research
All good marketing is built upon is good data. Getting good data is difficult and usually costs
a lot of money. If you were to follow the best practices of the theories from B-school, you'd pay hundreds of thousands of dollars and wait
several months to years for results that you could take action on. So where does the resource-strapped small business turn to find good data to run
their successful business?
The savvy small business owner is turning to keyword research, which can be a very fine stand-in
for gathering information about an industry and what its customers need.
Interested in learning a step-by-step process on how you can make this happen? Check out The Illusion of
Communication, Matthew's blog, to read his post on this topic, and to view a snippet of his presentation from the conference.
