Posts Tagged ‘Email’
Mobile Marketing or Social Media Marketing – Which Goes Better With Email Marketing?
Some email marketers see the rise of social media marketing and mobile communications as a threat to the dominance of email marketing. Not so! Each channel can integrate with your email marketing program to expand its reach and ROI.
But, which channel should you choose? You could opt to spread your messages via social media marketing- Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social networks. Or, should you first add mobile marketing and optimize your email messages for viewing on mobile devices?
The answer, as it is with so many aspects of marketing, is “It depends.” There’s no single solution that meets all market needs. Each one can help you build your brand, acquire and retain more customers and deepen engagement.
In the end, base your decision on the type of people you market to, (customers, subscribers, users or prospects) and what you hope to accomplish with your campaigns.
Knowing and understanding your target audience – who they are, their wants and needs, where they hang out (virtually speaking) – is your first step when creating an effective marketing initiative.
Adding Mobile to Email Marketing
Integrating mobile marketing with email marketing means your subscribers will likely see your messages faster, whether they access their inboxes from a mobile browser or respond to a well-crafted text message.
Your mobile messages can also tout the benefits of your email marketing program and help you build a bigger mailing list.
Mobile marketing is also more heavily regulated and requires opt-in, which takes care of the permission angle that’s less strict in email, at least for U.S. marketers. And consumers are becoming more receptive to it. A 2009 Juniper Research report predicted mobile coupon redemption could reach $6 billion by 2014. Redemption rates also can be higher than those for either paper or email coupons.
An example: Suppose you market to a younger and female consumer audience: teenagers and young adults who rely on texting on a continuous basis.
With this group, integrating an email marketing campaign with a strong short-code messaging system (SMS) makes sense. These consumers aren’t always near a desktop or laptop computer to read and send email, but their phones are always in their pockets.
One campaign sought to build the company brand on mobile devices, targeting it to younger office workers. Mobile users who entered a sweepstakes saw a screen that invited them to opt in for offers and newsletters by texting “yes” to a custom short-code number that spelled out part of the company name.
For more detailed information about integrating mobile and email marketing, read our new guide: SMS + Email Marketing How-to Guide.
Adding Social Media to Email Marketing
Social media marketing can extend the reach, authority and shelf life of your email marketing program. When your subscribers post your email messages to their social networks, they broaden your exposure to new viewers and indirectly endorse your message. Your messages also live longer as they spread through your subscribers’ networks.
An example: When your market skews toward professionals in a tight market vertical who coalesce around a social networking community, using social media to extend your reach to prospects makes sense.
Customers and prospects in this market niche are likely to be on their computers more often than their phones. These professionals, who often are experts or aspiring to advance in their fields, use social networking to get and give advice, share experiences and connect with their peers in highly focused groups such as LinkedIn or trade-specific forums.
Here, you can consider a strategy that calls for your company to participate in online groups, contributing valuable information rather than self-seeking promotion. (Recommended On Demand Webcast: Enhance Your Email With Social Media Marketing)
The Best Solution: “Tri-Messaging” (Email + Mobile + Social Media)
Email marketing as a channel has tremendous flexibility. That’s one of its great virtues and one of the reasons it continues to reign over all other marketing channels for ROI ($43.62 returned per dollar spent in 2009 according to the Direct Marketing Association).
However, the digital messaging world has changed in the last few years. You can miss out on lucrative opportunities if you limit your marketing program to email marketing alone, or complement it with just one channel.
Many of your email-using customers access their social networks on their mobile phones, so they’re already tri-messaging. You need to remain ahead of the game to provide the best user experience.
With tri-messaging, you can tap into the lucrative synergy that happens when you create a core email marketing program with social and mobile components.
Tri-messaging in Action: Airline Marketing
Email Marketing: An airline sends, via its regular email newsletter, an offer for a vacation package to Hawaii. The newsletter also includes prominent links inviting subscribers to become fans on its Facebook fan page and to follow the company on Twitter.
Social Media Marketing: Its Facebook fan page posts the vacation package offer, tourist information and photos of Hawaii. The Twitter account posts the offer, links to additional information and uses a hashtag and keyword (#HawaiiGetaway, for example) to extend the offer’s reach.
Mobile Marketing: The airline sends an SMS alert to subscribers letting them know the package offer is either almost sold out or has only 24 hours left.
Managing the Costs of Social Media and Mobile Marketing Integration
Both social media and mobile marketing cost time (and, in some cases, money) to set up, maintain and monitor.
- Social media marketing: You can join networks such as Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter without cost. Your major expense comes in the human resource it takes to set up your presence, joining and continuing conversations with participants, and monitoring your effectiveness with analytics programs that track your company’s reputation in the social sphere.
Solution: Ensure a specific employee has the responsibility to manage your efforts. If your marketing department is stretched to its limits now, “outsource” the work to an employee “fan” who is passionate about your company and its products and is already active in social media. Eventually your efforts will become significant and rewarding enough that you will want to formalize more dedicated ownership.
Third-party applications for Twitter and content-sharing services such as ShareThis offer free tools to help you track comments. Other monitoring applications can be integrated with your Web analytics to track effectiveness. (Recommended On Demand Webcast: Social Media Marketing: CPR for Email Marketers in a Challenging Economy)
- Mobile marketing: As with email marketing, building a mobile marketing program takes dedication and perseverance.
Although mobile users are receptive to relevant marketing offers, they’ll be just as likely to revolt against high message volume or irrelevant messages.
Also, mobile messages require even more attention to rendering. Repurposing an image-laden email message can backfire if the images don’t render or if the reader has to work too hard to find your offer or value proposition.
Solution: Offer a mobile opt in on your registration page along with email subscriptions. Use the lowest common denominator for mobile marketing: SMS (text) messaging, to ensure that any device can receive the message properly. Promote your mobile program to your current subscriber or customer base via regular newsletters, special mailings and mentions in transactional email messages. (Recommended On Demand Webcast: Using Mobile for Email Campaigns: A Primer)
By taking a tri-messaging approach, marketers can gain the maximum synergies from their online marketing efforts.
Email Marketing, Social Media & Mobile Marketing Integration
The online marketing space has evolved, and social media and mobile marketing channels present the opportunity for more personal engagement to exist between people and brands. Marketers need to think beyond a batch-and-blast email marketing mentality to a well choreographed and integrated approach that is in sync with target audiences.
Social media and mobile marketing channels combined with email marketing can help fuel this shift, enhance engagement, grow customer opt-in lists, and maximize audience touch points.
Yet, as noted by Forrester’s David Daniels, “not enough email marketers are integrating proven channels, such as social into their email marketing campaigns.” Likewise, Altimeter Group’s Jeremiah Owyang recently discussed on his blog why he believes that email marketers can no longer avoid integrating social tools.
Email Marketing Should No Longer Stand Alone
At Lyris, we define the active dialogue via email, social and mobile marketing channels as “tri-messaging.” In other words, tri-messaging encompasses marketing messages that are written, packaged, orchestrated and unleashed for email, social and mobile marketing channels. It is a methodical approach to change the way in which people interact with your company, thus creating opportunities to capture mindshare and engage in interactive conversation. The concept of merging email marketing with social and/or mobile channels may seem challenging – but is well worth the effort and will help you stand out from competitors.
Sergio Balegno, senior analyst at MarketingSherpa, advocates a multi-channel approach and recently posited in the 2009 Social Media Marketing & PR Benchmark Guide that, “an overwhelming 97 percent of marketers agree that social media will complement other marketing tactics, such as email marketing, rather than displacing them. It’s truly a symbiotic relationship – email marketing is still, and should be, targeted, but social media marketing provides an opportunity for marketers to extend reach. Add in mobile marketing, and you have a marketing campaign that is greater than the sum of its parts.”
Lyris Customers Reap the Benefits of Tri-Messaging
Alliance for the Arts joined us on our ad:tech New York video by David Spark to discuss how tri-messaging is enabling them to better nurture relationships with their customers.
Tri-messaging: Alliance for the Arts and Lyris at adtech NY 2009
Lyris clients, such as Matches (a leading fashion provider) and Eldorado Resort and Casino, have also proven how the power of integrating email marketing with mobile and social media marketing channels will increase the success of marketing efforts and create a more engaging customer experience. By orchestrating campaigns across channels and leveraging Lyris HQ’s embedded Web analytics, Matches has enjoyed a significant improvement in customer data and is benefitting from actionable insights into campaign effectiveness and the variance of online and in-store purchases. This flow of information has enabled the company to improve the quality and frequency of its online communications with customers. Similarly, by integrating email with other channels, particularly mobile, Eldorado Hotel and Casino has more than doubled its mobile opt-in list and increased revenue through improved prospect conversion.
As with other marketing and business initiatives, before integrating email marketing campaigns with social and mobile marketing channels it’s best to start with some measurable goals and clear objectives. In this regard, there are four goal-oriented topics to consider: 1) brand building; 2) customer acquisition; 3) customer retention; and 4) product launch. Once you decide where you want to focus in terms of specific achievements, it’s easier to determine your strategy, choose social networking channels, orchestrate content development, select tools, organize staff, etc. Using the Forrester Social Technographics Ladder will help you understand how your target audience (as defined by gender, age, and geography) uses social media.
To discover more about how your company can maximize its marketing campaigns by applying a tri-messaging strategy, follow us on Twitter twitter.com/Lyris and take advantage of these additional resources:
- Tri-Messaging: Maximizing the Impact of Messages and Community Touchpoints through Email, Social and Mobile Experiences
- Enhancing Email with Social Media: Q&A with Lyris and You?
- Top 3 mistakes to avoid when integrating email and social media
- Social Media Marketing On-Demand Webcast
- Integrated Marketing Communications Has Evolved
- Conversations at the Core
Best Email Marketing Company With Excellent Web Analytics
Some Internet marketing gurus will teach you different approaches to market your online business. Of course, there is a need to combine different methods and approaches for Internet marketing. However, the most effective and the least expensive way is email marketing. So you need to get the services of a well respected email marketing company Vancouver that can launch effective campaigns for you. But make sure that the email marketing service has excellent capabilities for monitoring web traffic. Marketing companies with top notch web analytics will help boost the productivity of your online marketing campaigns.
So here is a simple guide that can help you choose the best email marketing company Vancouver with excellent tools for monitoring web traffic. First of all, make sure that the email marketing service can provide you with effective bulk marketing materials. This is important in email marketing campaigns. If you can have bulk mailing materials, then there is a good chance that more customers will open your mails and see your marketing offers. The service provider should be able to give mailing materials that can be used and implemented even if you do not have a deep knowledge of computer technology.
Second, the email marketing company Vancouver should help you create a marketing strategy. Planning is a crucial stage in email marketing. You need to identify the right marketing materials for your customers and this can be done through the planning process. Another important aspect is to identify your target market. The marketing company should create custom mails that correspond to the demographics and market preferences of your target audience. Creating laser targeted marketing materials will increase the effectiveness of your campaign. That is why it is very important to choose an email marketing company Vancouver that has superior expertise in customizing your message and creating highly attractive emails.
However, the marketing company should also have the capability to track your online marketing campaigns. If you can not track your campaigns, then you will never know if your marketing techniques are effective. So you have to choose a company that has excellent tools for monitoring web traffic. Traffic monitoring will enable you to see which of your mails and websites generate hits. By monitoring web traffic, you can also identify which marketing materials attract high click through rates. Monitoring web traffic will enable you to see the specific locations of your customers. Because of these factors, you can improve your marketing approaches and further create highly targeted marketing to increase sales and conversion.
So if you are looking for an online and email marketing company in Vancouver, make sure that it has the capabilities that are enumerated above. A company that can provide such services will help increase the profitability of your business. To help you in your search for the best email marketing company, why not try the services of YNG Online. This company offers comprehensive services for all types of businesses. It can help you launch effective email campaigns and develop your online marketing strategies.
Email Marketing Freeware – Does It Really Work?
Marketing is base of every business aware among people. Depending on the facilities, place and population marketing is planned. The most cited example is village people, explain what is your business product is, make them understand he would carry forward the same to his friends and thus it spreads all over the business making your business successful. Television and other modes of advertising are also one of the best modes of advertising.
According to the interest of the people, the medium of marketing is changing day by day in this 21st century.We find few developed and developing countries use Internet as marketing medium, few countries rely on Televisions and few still rely on newspapers. Now, days have been changed to electronic medium, business man using cheap and best method of marketing.You can promote your business through few of the available resources that are very cheap at cost and timesaving and they are promoting through fax, via Emails, SMSs and through PPC. Each and every have its own advantages and disadvantages there.
Email marketing is most popular method among them all. Just because of cheap, best and good feedback from user. In email marketing bulk of email address to be collected and send email newsletter, containing services, promotions and new business strategies, to all of them in bulk. It is not possible for us to send the emails in bulk manually, there are lots of software available in the market that help us know the sender and recipient of the emails, tracking time, emails that bounced back, junk emails, whether the email sent was read or not etc.
Due to affordable price, good response from the users, promoting through emails is the one of the finest way to approach people. Excellent record of emails, best planning strategy in business is the only way to market through emails. To get the email addresses we have multiple ways, to buy the email addresses legally from the email service provider or any other or to go through RRS Feeds or subscribers. Every resource should have separate database like Electronics and Entertainment. This lets us know the feedback categorized.
But like of excess of every thing, more email marketing can be turned into spamming and in result you would be got punished by government of country. So, while doing email marketing you should also follow law too. In email marketing content of email newsletter should be targeted and length of newsletter should be less, otherwise importance of email newsletter.
Emails traced automatically is one of key factors of campaigning through emails.
The popularity of email marketing depends on the type o business you do, there are few advantages and disadvantages in the email marketing software, they rely on the type of business you do . Marketing through emails is now a developed mode of campaigning the product. We find many companies providing good services through various marketing strategies such as Short Message Service marketing, Electronic Mail marketing in different countries. In countries like US, UK, Asia and UAE we find many companies rendering their best service in email marketing.
Datadepot.biz is the most reputed organization helping online businesses with email marketing. For further information on Email Marketing Tools visit the website.