Effective E-Mail Marketing Step-by-Step

E-Mail Marketing is still an integral part of most successful marketing campaigns. It is an important communication tool, builds customer relationships and can help increase your ROI. But as in many other marketing fields if used incorrectly it annoys your target audience and can seriously backfire.

There are some very important points to consider while building your e-mail marketing campaign. The following 10 tips are designed to help you get your campaign on track.

1. Use your campaign to start a dialog

Start communicating with your prospects. Do not send out pure marketing pitches but aim to enhance your message with relevant information and ask your (future) customers to participate in discussions. Social media integration does not hurt either as you can divert the conversation to platforms like Facebook, Twitter or Google+. 

2. Don’t just concentrate on the Opening Rate

Of course statistics like the opening rate of your e-mails are important. But focus the overall evaluation of your e-mail campaign not just on this aspect. Look instead into where your website hits originate, the number and frequency of visits, content shared on social networks and so on.

3. Fragmentation

Try and take into account the behavior of your target audience. Who is opening your mails, who shares content, who is buying your product or service? Use this data to segment your audience even more and utilize it to specifically target certain parts of your data base in future campaigns.

4. Concentrate on your Message

Always remember that you want to convey a message with your campaign. Don’t forget to customize this message to the profile and interests of your customers.  I also advise you to tailor different messages for different segments of your audience.

5.  Automate wherever possible

By largely automating your campaigns you will save time, which can be invested in your strategy and quality content. Try to link parts of your campaign to certain triggers (for example reactions of costumers, comments and so on)

6. It’s all in the Mix

Try out different styles and techniques. Send out your mails on different days to different customers and include surveys where appropriate. Like this you can gauge the reaction in real-time and adjust your e-mail campaign accordingly where necessary

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7. Make sure that your mails are deliverable

The best campaign is useless if your message doesn’t reach the customer. Just check you junk folder and you will know how many mails do not reach you. This is why you have to test your mails before you initiate your e-mail campaign. Avoid Spam-Trigger words such as “free”, “click here”, “unique opportunity and so on. Have a look at this list: Spam-Trigger-Words-List (Thanks Karen!)

8. Testing is the Alpha and the Omega

In order to achieve optimal results with your campaign, it is essential to check it thoroughly: are all elements displayed correctly? Do all the links work? Does the automatic segmentation work properly? Also check if the mail reaches its destination - ideally, you have a ready test group from which you get immediate feedback.

9. Analyze the Results

For this you don’t necessarily need complicated charts and graphics. Use whenever possible the analysis capabilities of your Software and choose a easily readable and concise format that facilitates the analysis. Incorporate your findings into your campaign to achieve even better results in the future.

10. Integrate Social Media

By adding social share buttons to your mail, you give your customers the opportunity to transport the communicated content like text, pictures, videos, events etc to other platforms and let them spread the word for you.

Did I forget anything? Please share it in the comment section below. Thanks!

The Hectic Life of a Social Media Manager

A big THANKS to my friends at dailyinfographic

How to Build Your Wordpress Site: A Step-by-Step Guide

Thanks Pamela Wilson (www.copyblogger.com)!

All you have to know about your Social CV

There are many things you have to keep in mind nowadays when you are looking for a job. One of these things the importance of streamlining and tweaking your online presence to make it attractive for HR managers and head-hunters.

Read more about this in my post "Job-Search and Social Media Presence" and have a look at the great infographic rrom Debbie Lawrence (thanks for sharing!!)

The Best Free Social Media Monitoring Tools

Facebook, Twitter & Co. are enjoying great popularity on the web. But most people (and companies) do not really know how to monitor the impact or howto measure their social media engagement.

There are countless tools out there for this, but which are the best ones? Let's have a look!

1. Addictomatic

Addictomatic searches a variety social media sites and networks, such as Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and WordPress. Moreover, the tool lists the main search engines, including Yahoo, Bing and Ask. For some queries, however, the accuracy of the results suffer from the amount of scanned pages. Still, Addictomatic provides a good first introduction and overview. www.addictomatic.com.

2. Backtype

Backtype measures the impact of a particular online article. The user enters the articles URL into the searchfield and will get a graphical analyses and a performance analyses (clicks, tweets, comments, likes etc.). Rough data preparation is free, but there is a charge for more detailed data. www.backtype.com

3. Boardtracker

Die meisten Monitoring-Tools ignorieren Foren zugunsten von Facebook &Co. Boardtracker ist jedoch speziell für das Überwachen von Foren entwickelt worden – und funktioniert dort auch recht zuverlässig. www.boardtracker.com

4. Compete.com

Compete compares the traffic of up to three web pages. So you can quickly see where you stand in comparison to your competitors. The charts, however, are not very exact. www.compete.com

5.Google Alerts

Google Alerts is probably the best known and most widely used monitoring tool. Free unlimited monitoring of searches, blogs, websites, videos and other channels. Whenever the your search term shows up, you get an email with the appropriate link to the site.  www.google. com / alerts

6. GoogleTrends

GoogleTrends shows you the most search terms on the web.

Individual tags can be evaluated to show you annual and spatial 

comparisons. www.google.com/trends

7. Hootsuite

Hootsuite reminds layout-wise of a typical Tweet-Deck. It provides a simple introduction to the monitoring of Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare and multiple individual users can be monitored (including Facebook Fanpages). 

www.hootsuite.com

8. Socialmention

Socialmention is a cool tool that offers several search options, and a total of over 80 different networks and channels can be scanned. Despite this functionality, the tool is completely free. www.socialmention.com

These are just a few tools out there.... What is your favorite? Let me know in the comment section.

Job-Search and Social Media Presence

Looking for a job? Streamline your Social Media profiles!

A new study from the US has just revealed how HR departments evaluate their candidates. Employers turn to social media sites like Facebook when deciding to even call a job candidate for an interview. Research from a global security software company revealed that more than 90% of human resources professionals search for unprotected social media profiles in order to asses an applicant’s suitability. 

What employers find online has a huge impact on the job seeker’s chance of even getting an interview. The study was based on surveys of 230 human resource departments in the US and the UK.

Researchers found that job candidates who display inebriated photos on their social media sites reduce their chances of getting granted an interview by 84%, while 90% of HR Managers considered scantily dressed pictures a reason not to set up an interview.

Other actions seen on social media that can cost an applicant an employment opportunity include evidence of unbearable behavior, negative or derogative comments about previous employers, extremist views or political/religious comments.

Overall, nearly 50% of hiring managers have turned down potential candidates because of something they saw on their online profiles.

So much for personal data protection…. But what can you do about it?

How to ensure Privacy on your Social Media Sites

1: Make the most of built-in privacy and safety features

When you register for a social networking account, you'll be asked for certain personal details and should be advised how this information will be used - in other words, what will be public and what will be private on your profile.

If you have a public profile, it can be seen by anyone searching the social networking site and might also be available to people searching for profiles using a search engine, such as Google. On the other hand, a private profile allows only invited friends and members of chosen networks to view your content. 

To help members interact safely with their friends online, many leading social networking sites provide privacy and safety information and tools. You can stay in control by using built-in features such as ‘Add friends' (to allow only chosen people to view your profile) and ‘Ignore' (so you can block unwanted approaches from someone in particular). 

You should also review your ‘friends' list regularly and remove anyone you don't want to see your profile.

Finally, talk to your friends and family and ask them not to post or tag photographs of, or information about, you on their social network profiles without getting your permission first. This will help to keep you safe and your information secure.

2: Think before you post

Anything that is publicly available online could be seen by your students and other people so, before you post any information or images, consider whether it could cause you embarrassment or potentially damage your reputation or career.

Even if you have set your social networking profile to private, think twice before posting comments or images that could be misconstrued by anyone in your network.

Use your professional judgment when it comes to your digital space, just as you would in the real world.

3: Report any concerns you have

Don't suffer in silence if you're concerned about content on, or contact made via, a social networking site. Report it to a senior manager and your e-safety coordinator first of all.

Many of the leading social networking providers have reporting mechanisms and contact details on their websites so that you can report what has happened easily and quickly. Just look for the ‘Help', ‘Customer Care' or ‘Report Abuse' buttons on the social networking site.

4: It works both ways –Use your profiles in your favor

Be clever and give them what they want! Knowing that HR departments monitor your social media profiles, you can use them in your favor. If you for example are applying for a job in banking, post some informative articles about this sector on your blog or link some industry specific, favorable items on your Facebook page.

The Cost of Social Media Marketing

Nowadays when you talk about modern PR and Marketing, everything revolves around Social Media, the new internet. Everything and everyone hangs out on social networks, be it on blogs or in other online communities which makes it the logical choice for smart and effective marketing efforts. Until not so long ago only big and reputed organizations dared to venture into these unknown realms, but in the meantime everybody heard about the nearly endless possibilities of being present in the social web and nearly every business wants to be there and get a piece of the cake. 

Social Media is Cheap!

That is the common misconception. In the beginning this might be true, but just a little further down the road most businesses realize that that is NOT true! It is pretty easy to create a company profile or a fan p age but the constant updating and actualization requires a lot of resources.

One of the most common problems professional social media marketing providers like Foxfang Digital Solutions encounter is that companies actually think that Social Media in general is not that expensive and that the price-plans of Digital Agencies are exaggerated. A Facebook or Twitter Profile for example is quickly established they argue – but what comes next? Do the fans and followers come all by themselves? I don’t think so!

 It’s true that you can get a lot of followers in a relatively short time, but what about the quality? In the end, like any other marketing activity, Social Media Marketing is all about getting new customers, isn't it? What do you do with 10k followers but not a single lead generated?

No doubt one of the targets of a social media campaign is to work on increasing your followers and fans, but this is a long-term goal and doesn’t happen overnight. The major task is to engage and interact with your community and build a real acceptance for your brand.

We are on the Social Web - LOVE US!

Let’s say you reached 10’000 fans on Facebook and already have 1000 followers on Twitter – you think your work is over now? Wrong! Now the actual work starts! It is extremely important now that you engage your followership and don’t disappoint them. Because they expect that you offer some kind of compelling and engaging content. If you fail to do so you will see their numbers dwindle. Your fans and followers are not stupid and there are enough of bad examples out there, companies whit a pure marketing presence who lost the loyalty of their audience after a short time and wasted their whole effort.

The message is quite simple: Community Management is an intense and time consuming effort. Either you allocate internal resources or you outsource it to an external expert – in both cases it costs you. But if you opt to go with external consultants it will be significantly cheaper.