Email4Thought

Back to basics: Designing for Today's Inbox

The last edition for the year of EzeNews was sent out last week with the main article discussing designing for Today's Inbox:

Today's inbox is filled with less than desirable looking emails. This can be attributed to two main causes:

1: Email as a marketing medium has been thought of too long as being 'cheap'. If a company thinks this way of email, then chances are they're not going to invest time and finances into designing a great looking email. Can you imagine if we were to carry this thinking into print ads and TV commercials? We'd be seeing print ads designed by MS Publisher and TV commercials being recorded using with handy cam's. As a marketing medium, email gives one of the best ROI out there - so make the most of it and make a well-worth investment into your creative...

Read the newsletter

Infobox - The Art of Segmentation

The November Issue of Infobox was published yesterday.

This month we have Stefan Pollard on the art of segmenting and the beautiful and creative Lisa Harmon on designing effective Holiday Season creatives.

Dela Quist asks are we discriminating against our best customers and Simone Barrett looks at how to protect your brand from phishing.

Read November's Infobox

Back to Basics: Before You Mail

Read the latest EzeNews newsletter here. I deal with the 2nd part in my Back to Basics series: 'Before You mail' as well as looking at whether your email creative ready for Outlook 2007....plus a heap more.

Read EzeNews

Long Time No Send?

The beauty about email newsletters is that due to their regularity in your subscribers' inbox, they lend themselves greatly to allowing you to build a good, sturdy and steady relationship with your subscriber.

When it all goes well, it's a beautiful thing - but unless you're committed to the process it can fall down.

This week I received 2 emails from companies who I signed up to recieve monthly newsletters from over 2 years ago. How many emails have I recieved from them in the past 2 years? From Company A - none at all and Company B - 2 in the first year and none in this past year.

And what did their opening sentences say? "It's been awhile since you last heard from us" or " Missed us?" - no - nothing at all about the absence of newsletters in my inbox from themselves...

The problem with this type of lack of re-introductions as such, is that most of the time you've forgotten that you signed up and so they appear to be unwanted and unrequested emails. So, if this situation happens to your newsletter, then you need to bite the bullet and 'fess up'. Additionally, if it has been longer than 6 months since you contacted them OR you have been collecting addresses via your subscription form on your website but never actually sent out a newsletter,it would be advisable to ask the subscriber to re-subscribe.

Of course avoiding the problem from happening in the first is the preferred option, and this can be easily achieved by planning a schedule in advance. When creating a newsletter schedule I find it easiest to work backwards so ask yourself the following questions:

1: What date/day of the month do I want to send out? Do you want to send every 3rd Tuesday of the month? When do your competitors end their newsletters out? If at all possible, try and avoid these times so you're not sharing the inbox with your competitors.

2: How long will it take to create the newsletter once I/my agency/my ESP has all the information? This will determine the start date for creating the newsletter. If you are doing it inhouse, don't forget you need to include time for testing and approval.

3: The above 2 questions will determine the 'due by date' for your newsletter content. If other people are providing all or some of it, then give yourself some room to breathe and ask them to deliver the content a couple of days (or more!) before the due by date.

4: Organise the content schedule at least 6 months in advance and remember to include relevant dates such as your Company events, Christmas, major Trade Shows etc in your schedule so you can incorporate these in your newsletter if relevent. For example you may want to do an interview of a presenter at one of your Company events or an Industry Tradeshow. Or if you're in retail then the holiday periods will all be relevant to your newsletter. Of course if you're about to release a product or service then this also needs to be planned into the schedule.

Also  when organising your newsletter schedule, don't forget to involve other internal departments who  send out marketing or sales information either by email or mail. You don't want your subscriber/client to be swamped by communications by your company all in the same week -try and space them out.

The main idea is to be as regular and as prepared as possible. Newsletters don't just happen overnight (unfortunately) - they need planning and committment ....but they're worth it!

Originally Posted: DMA Email Blog

Newsletters, Blogging and SEO: How They Work Together for You

Originally Published: B2B Marketing

Are email and Web functions such as blogging and search marketing sworn enemies in your marketing department? It's time to call a truce.

Email and search, the No. 1 and No. 2 most popular Internet applications (via 2008Pew Internet and American Life Project study), can work hand in hand to give your customers, readers and prospect the most timely and relevant information, delivered in the channels that work best for each of them.

When you use email in partnership with blogging and search, you'll build newsletter circulation as well as blog traffic, and both together will help boost your organic search engine rankings without stealing even an extra penny from your search-marketing budget. You can't lose!

I see this every day, as I edit two newsletters, for Ezemail http://www.Ezemail.com/ and the Direct Marketing Association's Email Marketing Council. I also manage blogs for Ezemail http://blog.Ezemail.com/ and the DMA's Email Marketing Council: http://www.dmaemailblog.com.

No Blog? No Problem!

Many marketers complain to me that they don't have access to their companies' Web sites to post their articles and announcements. Enter the blog.

Once you incorporate it into your Web site, you can post your latest information there without waiting for someone in design or IT to do it for you or knowing much about Web design or coding.

Another benefit of having a blog is that the Search-engine spiders love them because they provide new and updated content, all highly relevant and filled with keywords.

How Newsletters and Blogs Work Together

Both newsletters and blogs deliver information, but they have different purposes:

The newsletter lets you reach out to your readers and attract them to your Web site with content that can remain fresh for days or weeks. The blog is the late-breaking news source for updates and announcements that happen between newsletter publishing cycles.

Your blog and newsletter audiences overlap some, but you also have readers who seldom or never cross over to the other channel. Blog readers might get updates via email in lieu of your newsletter, for example. When you coordinate your newsletter and blog, you extend your reach toward both audiences.

Tying newsletters and blogs together:

1. Announce new products, features and company news in the blog.
Even news stories that would affect your readers or product users have a place and also can build link popularity, which benefits SEO.

2. Link to your blog in each newsletter and include the most recent blog postings (title, link and brief summary) in the newsletter.

3. Promote your newsletter in your blog as soon as you send it out. Comment on the theme or top stories, publish article titles and summaries and link either to the Web version of your newsletter, if you have one (and you should!) or to the archive page where your article will live on after publication.

4. Include a subscription link for the newsletter on your blog and vice versa. Also, if you use a service like Feedburner http://www.feedburner.com to send blog posts through email, include a link to that sign-up page in the same section where you publish blog posts in your newsletter.

10 Easy Ways to Boost Organic Search

As Tesco's tagline says: "Every little helps."

First, remember that organic search (search-engine optimisation, or SEO) is different from search-engine marketing (SEM). SEO is free and involves creating content that is search-engine friendly, rich with fresh content and marbled with keywords and search terms. SEM is paid search, buying keywords that boost your rankings or placing paid ads that appear alongside organic search results.

SEO and SEM together can help you rank higher in the search engines when you optimise your Web content for your keywords or relevant search terms.

These strategies make your newsletter, blog and Web site work together to build circulation and traffic and to boost your search efforts:

1. Write newsletter content (articles, bulletins, special offers, etc.) to reflect your keywords or search terms.

2. Archive newsletter content on your Web site in spider-friendly locations. If you use a third-party email service provider, it gives you a Web link for the newsletter. Post this link.

3. Link to your blog and Web site in the newsletter, which in turn will then be archived on your blog and Web site.

4. Link to your newsletter archive and blog from your Web site's homepage.

5. Post articles on the blog and link to the original publication.

6. Write brief but relevant blog posts (typically 500 words or fewer; 300 or fewer is optimal). They'll get better readership and draw more comments than longer articles or whitepapers.

7. Consistency is key to both SEO and reader loyalty. Use the same writing style to avoid reader disconnect. If your newsletter appeals to senior-partner types, don't make your blog sound as if the office boy wrote it. Work in keywords as appropriate, but don't overdo it.

8. Use Feedburner or a similar product to add the most recent blog content to your Web site. This fresh content, optimised for your keywords and search terms, will improve your organic SEO. Another service, FeedBlitz http://www.feedblitz.com/, collects your current blog posts and emails them to subscribers who sign up for them separately from your newsletter. This gives you a second email contact and route back to your site.

9. Link to your email program on your landing pages. Even if someone doesn't bite on your offer, they might sign up for your email.

10. Add icons that link to social-networking and content-sharing sites such as Facebook, Digg and StumbleUpon in your email messages. These allow users to post your material on their personal pages and include links back to your site.

Newsletters, Blogging and SEO: How They Work Together for You

Are email and Web functions such as blogging and search marketing sworn enemies in your marketing department? It's time to call a truce.

Email and search, the No. 1 and No. 2 most popular Internet applications (via 2008Pew Internet and American Life Project study), can work hand in hand to give your customers, readers and prospect the most timely and relevant information, delivered in the channels that work best for each of them.

When you use email in partnership with blogging and search, you'll build newsletter circulation as well as blog traffic, and both together will help boost your organic search engine rankings without stealing even an extra penny from your search-marketing budget. You can't lose!

I see this every day, as I edit two newsletters, for Ezemail  and the Direct Marketing Association's Email Marketing Council. I also manage blogs for Ezemail and the DMA's Email Marketing Council.

No Blog? No Problem!

Many marketers complain to me that they don't have access to their companies' Web sites to post their articles and announcements. Enter the blog.

Once you incorporate it into your Web site, you can post your latest information there without waiting for someone in design or IT to do it for you or knowing much about Web design or coding.

Another benefit of having a blog is that the Search-engine spiders love them because they provide new and updated content, all highly relevant and filled with keywords.

How Newsletters and Blogs Work Together

Both newsletters and blogs deliver information, but they have different purposes:

The newsletter lets you reach out to your readers and attract them to your Web site with content that can remain fresh for days or weeks. The blog is the late-breaking news source for updates and announcements that happen between newsletter publishing cycles.

Your blog and newsletter audiences overlap some, but you also have readers who seldom or never cross over to the other channel. Blog readers might get updates via email in lieu of your newsletter, for example. When you coordinate your newsletter and blog, you extend your reach toward both audiences. 

Tying newsletters and blogs together:

1. Announce new products, features and company news in the blog.
Even news stories that would affect your readers or product users have a place and also can build link popularity, which benefits SEO.

2. Link to your blog in each newsletter and include the most recent blog postings (title, link and brief summary) in the newsletter.

3. Promote your newsletter in your blog as soon as you send it out. Comment on the theme or top stories, publish article titles and summaries and link either to the Web version of your newsletter, if you have one (and you should!) or to the archive page where your article will live on after publication.

4. Include a subscription link for the newsletter on your blog and vice versa. Also, if you use a service like Feedburner to send blog posts through email, include a link to that sign-up page in the same section where you publish blog posts in your newsletter.

10 Easy Ways to Boost Organic Search

As Tesco's tagline says: "Every little helps."

First, remember that organic search (search-engine optimisation, or SEO) is different from search-engine marketing (SEM). SEO is free and involves creating content that is search-engine friendly, rich with fresh content and marbled with keywords and search terms. SEM is paid search, buying keywords that boost your rankings or placing paid ads that appear alongside organic search results.

SEO and SEM together can help you rank higher in the search engines when you optimise your Web content for your keywords or relevant search terms.

These strategies make your newsletter, blog and Web site work together to build circulation and traffic and to boost your search efforts:

1. Write newsletter content (articles, bulletins, special offers, etc.) to reflect your keywords or search terms.

2. Archive newsletter content on your Web site in spider-friendly locations. If you use a third-party email service provider, it gives you a Web link for the newsletter. Post this link.

3. Link to your blog and Web site in the newsletter, which in turn will then be archived on your blog and Web site.

4. Link to your newsletter archive and blog from your Web site's homepage.

5. Post articles on the blog and link to the original publication.

6. Write brief but relevant blog posts (typically 500 words or fewer; 300 or fewer is optimal). They'll get better readership and draw more comments than longer articles or whitepapers.

7. Consistency is key to both SEO and reader loyalty. Use the same writing style to avoid reader disconnect. If your newsletter appeals to senior-partner types, don't make your blog sound as if the office boy wrote it. Work in keywords as appropriate, but don't overdo it.

8. Use Feedburner or a similar product to add the most recent blog content to your Web site. This fresh content, optimised for your keywords and search terms, will improve your organic SEO. Another service, FeedBlitz, collects your current blog posts and emails them to subscribers who sign up for them separately from your newsletter. This gives you a second email contact and route back to your site.

9. Link to your email program on your landing pages. Even if someone doesn't bite on your offer, they might sign up for your email.

10. Add icons that link to social-networking and content-sharing sites such as Facebook, Digg and StumbleUpon in your email messages. These allow users to post your material on their personal pages and include links back to your site.

 Originally published: B2B Magazine

Labels: blogging, newsletters, seo