Based on lessons learned, knowledge of the industry and customer challenges, we’ve identified 11 best practices to “bulk” up your email marketing program for a successful 2011.  You’re subscribers will be happy if you do.

Our suggestion on how to get started is to evaluate where you are currently then map out a process with a time line to improve your email marketing strategy.  If you need an extra hand, we’re always here to help.

1. Get permission!

Map out each customer touch point to identify opportunities for organic list growth in a comfortable environment (store front, call center, sales representative, website, social media, viral campaigns, etc.).   Compose a value statement of “why” they should subscribe and communicate that statement through each touch point.

2. Say hello.

Welcome your new subscriber to thank them, set expectations and enhance their experience.  Most email service providers have built- in automation to streamline this task.  Read More.

3. Mind your voice.

The tone or “voice” of all communication should reflect your corporate culture and your brand. I highly recommend the book “Delivering Happiness” to explore corporate culture, establish core values and create customer loyalty.  This book is excellent and easy-to-read.  I couldn’t put it down!

4. Listen.

Ask questions to get to know your subscriber to guide relevant communication.  This includes frequency.  Identify how often your subscriber would like to hear from you then honor that request.  Read More.

5. Segment.

Take the information obtained above and segment your audience to send relevant content.   Learn more.

6. Organize.

A marketing calendar and / or schedule not only makes your job easier but will keep fellow employees and vendors on task as well.

7. Set goals.

Set at least one goal for the campaign with a clear call-to-action.  Prior to send, double check that you met that goal.

8. Design.

Design goes beyond pretty pictures and performance-driven design will improve results.  Learn More.
Outlook, Yahoo and Gmail have made a few changes that challenge email marketers.   Learn More.
Incorporate social media into your email campaigns.  Learn More.

9. Test.

Test, test and retest.  Send a test to different email clients to make sure your campaign is rendering properly and your message is getting across.
Conduct and A/B Split Test prior to hitting send to enhance engagement.  ExactTarget is launching a new feature in a few weeks to simplify this important task.

10. Measure results.

Data leads to great insight that will only improve your email marketing program.  Listen to your customer.   If you add value to their lives, positive results will follow.

11 Automate.

Work smarter.Use automation to enhance the customer experience.  Automate to send relevant life cycle campaigns such as happy birthday, happy anniversary, customer service evaluations and reminders based off of purchase behavior.  Tie automation into your CRM or POS and wow!

Lisa Wester is the strategic marketing director for Inbox Orange, a passionate one to one marketing agency with offices in Kentucky and Missouri.

]]> http://www.serifgroup.com/blog/2011/01/happy-year/feed/ 0 http://www.serifgroup.com/blog/2010/09/happy-birthday/ http://www.serifgroup.com/blog/2010/09/happy-birthday/#comments Thu, 09 Sep 2010 15:15:57 +0000 Lisa Wester http://www.serifgroup.com/blog/?p=336

Yesterday I received this unique 15% off “gift” from my favorite store, Anthropologie, wishing me a happy birthday. I must say it stood out and has remained front and center on my desk since. I admire the uniqueness and relish the value of this customer touch point.

Not only was the gift timely, relevant and personal but it reminded me of the experience I enjoy each time I visit the store, and the satisfaction I’ve had with each purchase.

Next week Bill and I head to Indy for the ExactTarget Connections convention. I’m not a huge shopper, especially when it comes to clothing, however my plans for this weekend will include a visit to the St. Louis Galleria Anthropologie store. I need a new outfit for the convention and this unique gift has intrigued my interest to see what’s new. You can bet the color orange will be somewhere in the mix and I’ll be wearing my new Happy Birthday / candle necklace as an accessory.

Don’t gag, but I have to share. We were so excited to be featured in the Valentine section of the February 2010 edition of the cool skirt! Lexington magazine. You can read the copy that accompanied the photo below:

Jackie and Bill, the marketing minds behind the Lexington agency Serif Group, have been wild about each other since their Wildcat days. The two met in 1994 as UK advertising students, married in 1997, and today share life, office space, two sons (ages five and nine) and a commitment to community, volunteering their time together at Lighthouse Ministries.

Jackie: “Bill is my knight in shining armor. His chivalry makes me feel special, and his interaction with our boys melts my heart. I’m so blessed to have found my perfect match.”

Bill: “Jackie is my best friend. I love spending time with her and I’m blessed that I get to work with her. I remember the first time I met her—it was love at first sight.”

And Kelli Patrick mentioned that first meeting in her From the Editor segment on page 10:

“Jackie Powell remembers the second time she met the man who’d become her husband and how she complimented his “photogenic” memory because he remembered her name (she was mortified the next morning to realize she’d meant “photographic”).”

With a background and a passion for graphic design, I often share in the joke with other designers that knowing how to use the software doesn’t make you a designer. Sometimes you can pass as a designer because you pleased the person who hired you, but your design may not have worked effectively.

What’s a designer to do? Nothing, really. All we can do is educate our clients and the public on the value of good, professional graphic design. Although your customers may not ask for it, they react to it. And if done with good commercial sense, your business will benefit from it.

When it comes to social media, many of the arguments are similar. Using Twitter, Facebook and YouTube for business does make you a social media marketer—but it doesn’t necessarily make you an effective one. Knowing the tools will help you be an effective social media marketer.

And while knowing the tools is an important aspect of social media marketing, using good engagement practices and solid marketing principles will go much further than knowing how to upload a link to your Facebook page. Fortune 500 companies and small mom-and-pop corner stores alike are using these social platforms to reach new and existing prospects. But are they doing it effectively?

Sales Pitch

So I had to be going somewhere with this, right? Yes, I admit this is a sales pitch, but my pitch won’t be for everyone. After all, my personalized session for social media consulting is an on-site session—here in Lexington. For those reading this who aren’t willing to travel in for the on-site session, I encourage you to look for a marketing agency in your area that can help you navigate the tools of social media, and educate you on the best practices. Or, contact me and we can organize a Skype session.

And for those of you who live here or are coming to Lexington, Kentucky in the near future I hope you would consider scheduling a time I can advise you on using the social media tools effectively and introduce you to best practices. Find out more information about my social media jumpstart session.

Advertising & graphic design agency, Serif Group, has office space available. The office is located on the second floor of 207 East Reynolds Road, Suite 210—between Nicholasville Road and Lansdowne Drive.

Amenities include: conference room, contemporary décor, utilities included, convenient location, a spacious, free parking lot, lots of sunlight, kitchen area, and a private office space. See photos on our Facebook page.

It would be an ideal location for an independent professional looking to move out of their home. Rent is affordable and includes utilities. For more information, contact Jackie or call 859-271-0701.

I’m amazed at how my TV-viewing habits have changed over the years. Our first TiVo box opened up new life for us in a way that was more fulfilling than our current cable provider-issued DVR box, but that’s another story. We can now watch Survivor in 40 minutes instead of 1 hour. The Office in just over 20 minutes instead of 30. That’s a lot of extra minutes gained for housework, reading, or more realistically, surfing the web.

But what does this say about people who are supposed to watch TV for the commercials? We’re advertising agency owners, ferpetesake! However, the other night we spotted a commercial that was actually worth stopping for: the new H&R Block “Second Look” spot. The guy with one eye was too “eye-catching” to pass up.

Upon devoting 30 seconds of our lives to it, Bill and I agreed that it was great. Just what is needed these days to cut through the clutter of TV advertising. It’s not enough to sound intriguing, you must have intriguing visuals to get viewers to stop fast-forwarding.

What do you think about that spot? Disgusted like these folks? Or did it get your attention, too?

I’m not a big text person, so when I received one the other day I was curious to find out who it was. It was AT&T texting me about American Idol Season 8. Funny, I didn’t ever remember signing up to receive text alerts from American Idol or AT&T. With economic pressures mounting look out for companies Spamming via text. Although some would argue that the AT&T message was not Spam because it was free, it did ruffle some feathers.

As an email marketer, I fight the uphill perception battle that Email marketing is Spam. I figured the best way to combat this perception is to learn about SPAM and try to help others understand what they can do to fight it.

What do we do with all of the junk we get? If your Spam filter isn’t catching everything these sites may help:

Spam information resources:

Federal Trade Commission

Spamcop.net

The Spamhaus Project

Spambusters.org

Abuse.net

Spamresource.com

Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group

Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email

International Mail Consortium

Spamlaws.com

Email Sender Provider Coalition

Conference on Email and Anti-Spam

Get Net Wise

Melon Stork

Spam Blockers or Services

Spam Assassin

S-Mail

Blue Bottle

Dang, Shaun Ring made us look GOOD!

We were so excited about having a story about us in last week’s issue of Business Lexington. We couldn’t believe it when we got our copy in the mail and saw that our photo was featured on the cover and the table of contents! Talking about exposure that money can’t buy. Bill and I are grateful for the opportunity to work and live in such a wonderful community. Thank you Smiley Pete Publishing, Kathie Stamps and Shaun Ring Photography. (BTW, the week before the story came out Shaun ran a very creative promotion using Twitter and Facebook which resulted in our professional photos. I highly recommend you check him out as his photography is just as outside-the-box as his marketing.)

I guess this is the lazy way of blogging rather than coming up with interesting stuff on my own, I share with you some of the good stuff I have found around the web.

1) Before we can read, we know what a logo represents. It shows how powerful a good logo can be. Track some of them through the ages here: Evolution of Logos

2) Have you or your company gone digital yet? A good short article on the benefits of investing in digital rather than traditional. Going Digital

3) Need to find a logo to use: Brands of the World

4) Newspapers in decline. Nothing new, but worth mentioning. Bye-bye old media.

Barack Obama is a taco salad. Oh Yeah, well … John McCain is a nacho.

This according to a new web strategy by Qdoba. Tastebud politics is a great new viral tool by the folks at Qdoba. After seeing this, I wanted to send it to all my friends, because after all if you can talk to your friends about what’s going on in politics and not end up debating about healthcare or the economy its a good thing, right? Now Qdoba turns that debate into nachos and quesadillas.

Remember back in the day (1997) when we were all a little less net savvy and we would get the email telling us about how Bill Gates would give you $1000 for sending that email to as many people as possible. Even though I am proud to say that I didn’t bite on that one, enough people did to make it a classic example of how a message can spread virally.

Many people took notice of how effective this strategy would work in the land of the internet. Many others trying to duplicate this viral strategy sent out all sorts of bogus messages telling of great news or tall tales, and luckily today we have snopes.com to determine which of these is true.

Web powerhouses such as hotmail.com, myspace and facebook have grown dramatically from viral methods. Much like a virus spreads, one person tells two, those two tell two or three more and so on, before long without an FCC regulated medium, hundreds if not thousands (or millions in some cases) have heard the message.