Of 192.2 billion mails sent daily, does your email campaign stand out?

Behind every successful email campaign is a smart marketer…are you one of them?

Do you know…

When it is the right time to send a mail?

Through which device are emails read the most?

If you’re ‘white listed’ by your subscribers?

Emails should tell a tale to engage readers and create a connection. Storytelling is a powerful tool in getting your message across. No matter how compelling your message may be underlying tactics need to be used to boost email engagement, readability, and deliverability.

Email marketing provides the ability for readers to instantly access free information offered. If you have linked emails with resources such as white papers, case studies or research reports, all they have to do is click on the link, sign up and access what is offered. The fact that readers can directly gain valuable information makes this channel preferred over others.

However, many marketers think sending emails are free. The fact that email marketing is inexpensive makes it an advantage as well as a disadvantage. Billions of email accounts are opened worldwide and the number of emails an individual or business sent and received every day has led to the biggest challenge yet, spamming.

Based on a USA survey, “over half of all emails are deleted within 2 seconds without ever being opened”

With inundation of emails to readers, they have short attention spans, are fickle and have very little patience. In order for emails to reach an inbox, for them to be opened and clicked, they need to be relevant, customized and creative. People today don’t read emails today, they scan through it. All those colorful and long messages with complex offers are surely not going to get you anywhere. Keeping emails short and simple has more impact.

Email marketing is one of the most effective channels for any kind of business, especially, small and medium-sized businesses. It is cost-effective and considered to be one of the best marketing channels to increase conversion rates, engagement and customer loyalty.

So what’s your brand’s story?

Are you sharing it or selling it to your audience?

Connect with Your Target Market Relevantly

ACCESS AN EMAIL DATABASE WITH EXCLUSIVE LEADS

Your True Spirit, Our Support, This Memorial Day!

Memorial Day in today’s day and age may be about a long 3 day weekend or the annual beach house rental tradition, or the rush to get out of town before the traffic congestion begins. In essence, Memorial Day is about commemorating and remembering those brave comrades who sacrificed their lives to defend our country.

HuffPost DC published an interesting article on how Memorial Day has been celebrated in D.C. through these years beginning from the first “Decoration Day”. Take a look…

On days like this, it is very easy for people to overlook the essence or meaning. However, we are not going to offer unsolicited advice on how people like that need to change their perspectives. Instead, we propose a campaign to spread the word, to let people understand what it means and to educate people on the reality of the situation.

Take for instance, the story of Rachael Hill, a survivor. If you read her post, you will get a glimpse into what Memorial Day actually means. Another glimpse of what Memorial Day means is the drawing by 18 year old Sabrina Brady who won the Doodle 4 Google contest. We need to hear more voices like this, to understand the essence of our celebrations.

Let this Memorial Day be memorable

Shout out your true spirit with our support

Let your campaigns reach a wider audience

We at Info CheckPoint would like to extend a warm and compassionate embrace to the family members and friends of all veterans who have served our country.

“Freedom isn't free!” – Thank You Comrades

Personalize with Personality, Make Emails Click Worthy!

59% of B2B marketers say email is the most effective channel in generating revenue, according to BtoB Magazine. Why is email marketing, still a preferred digital marketing tactic by marketers worldwide?

• Because it will be profitable - For every $ spent, email will bring $35.2 and revenues worth $2.5 billion by 2016 - Direct Marketing Association (DMA)
• Because emails are accessed more now through various devices - 98% of adults online use email, 96% of the US market are on mobile phones, 64% send or receive SMS messages, 44% of the US market are now on smart phones, 29% of the US market own a tablet or use an eReader - Forrester Research, The New Email Messaging Mandate, eMarketer, US Digital Media Usage Report, & Pew Internet Report
• Because mobile optimization is the order of the day - 85% of U.S. adults own a mobile phone, 56% of U.S. mobile phone owners access the Internet, more than 50% of them access emails on their phones, 88% of them check emails on their phones daily - The Pew Internet and American Life Project, Knotice

29% of consumer inboxes comprise of e-newsletters and 60% of spam trap hits comprise of marketers - Return Path, EmailIntelligence Report. “Over half of all emails are deleted within 2 seconds without ever being opened” - A USA survey

How do you plan to "Stay Connected, Above All the Noise"?

Personalize with Personality 

Send Emails to Readers than Inboxes 

Remember the R Word - Relevancy

Earn Email Campaign ROI! 

Why EMAIL MARKETING is STILL the Preferred Digital Marketing Tactic from InfoCheckPoint

Remember the R Word - Relevancy in Email Marketing

Email Marketing is a preferred marketing channel,
Not because it is the easiest, because it works,
If you want it to!

Boost Email Marketing ROI with Power Packed Databases! 

Sources: -

·         "The Truth About Email Marketing", a research study by Simms Jenkins

·         Epsilon, Q1 2012 North America Email Trend Results

·         Yesware Research: Email for Sales Open Rate Findings

·         IBM’s Email Deliverability benchmark study

·         Radicati Group (A technology research firm)

Characterize your Email Campaigns!

The protagonist in email marketing is of course, The Email!

Focus has to be on messaging, visual appeal and relevancy. They are essential characteristics of a good looking email. The objective of an email campaign is to first capture attention, and then convey the message.

The Perfect HTML Email Prototype

Here are few pointers to ensure your HTML email newsletter is perfect 

1. Who is the email from? 

Ensure your name or your company’s name is evident in the ‘From’ address tab in order to clearly state your identity to your recipient 

2. Whom are you sending to?

The ‘To’address tab should contain the name of the recipient and not just the email id, as this will personalize your message.

3. Make your subject line crisp

Recipients need to know what the mail is about before reading it. The subject line should be direct and not too ‘spammy’, however it should instill interest.

4. What if the recipient cannot view the message?

Provide a link to enable recipients to view the newsletter / message in a separate browser, in case the message is not view able in the email.

5. Always give the choice to opt-out

Provide a one-click option to unsubscribe from receiving mails. By allowing recipients to choose whether they wish to receive messages or not indicates your respect to their privacy and preferences.

6. Show that you care

Ensure you add a link to your Privacy Policies to provide recipients with information about you intend to protect their privacy and utilize their details.

7. Display your credibility

Providing a complete physical address and contact details of your company will add credibility to your email

The Perfect Plain-Text Email Prototype

It may be plain but it has to be pretty too! Don’t make your plain text mail an afterthought. A helpful tip is to use ‘plain text editors’ like Notepad for Windows and TextWrangler for Mac. 

1. The ’60 Character’ Visual Ruler - A good way to keep your message aligned is by adding a “visual ruler”. Most email applications wrap your sentence after around 60 characters. Therefore a trick that you could use is to type a letter 60 times and use that as a reference for a margin.

2. Divide to Capture Attention – Making a plain text email attractive is a challenge. Creating dividers by using ‘visual markers’ or bullet points helps divert attention to important parts of the email. 

3. The ’60 Character’ Hard Return – As email applications usually wrap the message after every 60 characters, typing in a hard return after every 60 characters ensures the formatting stays in place to the maximum extent possible.

4. Type the Complete URL – you cannot rely on email applications to automatically add a clickable link to the URL you add. Ensure the complete link is typed to enable readers to copy and view the website.

Now that these prototypes give you an idea of how to create that perfect email, get a power-packed database to give due credit to the message!

How Well Do You Know Your Customer?

We all know that email marketing is one of the preferred channels B2B marketers use to connect with customers and promote their brands. However, email marketing is also a tool through which you can know your target market better.

How many of us know:

• Why customers join our email lists?

• What customer expect from business emails?

• How customers read, relate, understand and treat emails?

Basically how many of us know the ‘Why, What and How’ of our customers? 

To find out how much you know your customers, try out this simple checklist, the ‘Email Engagement Evaluator’ 

Answers to these 10 questions will give you a basic idea of your customer persona. Utilize email marketing as an intelligent tool to gain insights, let your email database facilitate better B2B marketing!

118 Seconds Is All You Have!

In an article on the HBR blog, global celebrity Jeffrey Hayzlett stated that you get only 118 seconds to “grab attention, convey who you are, describe your business and explain what you can offer.”

Your elevator pitch should be conversational, it should be real and it should most definitely make the listener want to know more. An ideal pitch would not be a sales spiel; it would quite literally be like sharing a story with another person in an elevator.

When creating an elevator pitch, you need to focus on:
• What your business offers your customers, rather than what you are selling.
• What customers benefit, rather than how your business can help them.
• Keeping conversations interesting so that your prospects lean in to hear the rest of it.
• How your story is different from others and how it helps prospects.

As thought leader Seth Godin explicitly mentioned, “It's not a practiced, polished turd of prose that pleases everyone on the board and your marketing team, its a little fractal of the entire story, something real.”

Creating an email campaign, whether it is an elevator pitch or not, compliments communication with prospects through various touch points. Moreover, when combining it with new channels such as social media, the impact of the campaign is twice fold.

And if you are wondering why email marketing is still the preferred marketing channel? Get to know why.

Email Marketing is preferred not because it is the easiest because it works!

The New Avatar of Email Marketing

Although social media has become the most popular channel, email marketing is still used in combination. This way businesses engage with customers is different ways. While email marketing has been around for a while, it has evolved over the years.  What has changed?

• Quality Over Quantity – Email marketing is no longer about obtaining a huge lists, it is about using quality email lists and relevant content. Focus is given more on the email experience than on the number of emails sent.

• A Complimentary Channel – Although new channels such as social media are becoming popular, email marketing is still a preferred choice. Marketers are now combining social media and email marketing campaigns. In that way, they engage customers through different voices and enable them interact with the company through different channels.

• Mobile Email – With increase in number of smartphone users, emails widely accessed through mobile phones. Emails now are being designed to be compatible to various devices, making it easier for the customer to obtain information anytime, anywhere through any device.

• Targeted Campaigns – Email marketing has evolved from creating general campaigns and using general email lists to targeted campaigns and segmented databases. Email marketers today are using segmented databases to connect with target audience relevantly through customized messaging.

Email Marketing from InfoCheckPoint

As email marketing has grown organically, it is an important medium marketers and businesses use to identify, contact, sell, connect and engage with their audience. And no matter what new channels emerge; email marketing will be evergreen. Check out this infographic to know why Email Marketing is Here to Stay!

Get to know how you can roll out successful email campaigns with segmented databases. Ask us How

Can you hear the Inbox groan?

Can you hear the Inbox groan? by rachelgreen2605 on GoAnimate

Video Maker - Powered by GoAnimate.

• The average open rate of B2B email campaigns is only 24 percent!
• And the click through rate is just 13% 

Source: B2B Marketing’s Benchmark Report

Seems like a dismal state of affairs, doesn't it? Considering email marketing typically eats into a quarter of the marketing budgets!

Overloading business buyers with marketing messages is only going to lead you to the junk folder! When your email campaign is ‘sketchy’ even a power packed database will not help get results. 

B2B business buyers are busy people. They more often than not tend to ‘scan’ through marketing messages. To stand apart, you need to create email campaigns that sell themselves while providing value and capturing attention. 

To create relevant email campaigns that click, you need to know the ‘Why, What and How’ of Your Customer. Here’s a simple checklist that will help you gain a better understating of your customer landscape.  

1.	Do you know Why customers join email lists?	□
2.	Do you know What customer expect from business emails?	□
3.	Do you know What makes your customers tick and click?	□
4.	Do you know When customers read emails the most?	□
5.	Do you know Why customers delete emails without reading?	□
6.	Do you know How customers look at poorly designed emails?	□
7.	Do you know How customers read their email, through which device the most?	□
8.	Do you know How customers treat emails that are not readable on mobile phones?	□
9.	Do you know Your customers’ touch points and is your email campaign integrated?	□
10.	Do you know Your target audience and different segments they fall under?	□

Besides developing effective email campaigns, utilizing a segmented database is another way you can increase conversion rates. Based on a study done by Jupiter Research, a segmented list can increase revenues by 781% and conversion rates up to 355%.  Access segmented databases with Info CheckPoint.

Is ROMI Your Redemption?

Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI) is a metric every B2B marketer, CMO or CIO resonates to. In email marketing, choosing the right vendor is as important as segmentation and personalization.

What email marketing vendors provide is a 360 degree view of your target market. They have the knowledge, technology and power to make or break your campaign. The fundamental factor should be not in selecting the lowest bid, rather in choosing the provider that best meets your business requirement. 

• Know What You Want - Before you set out to shortlist email service providers (ESPs), you first need to know the objectives your campaign needs to accomplish. This involves identifying business goals, budget and timelines.

• Be Open – Knowing what you want is good. However, being too specific leaves no room for vendors to propose ideas and solutions that will eventually boost your campaign.

• Make Relevant Selections - Considering every possible service solution or feature is only going to disorient implementation. It is better to drill down on features that are relevant to your today and in the next 12 to 14 months. Be clear of what you need and make sure features you choose to use actually work for you as you expect.

• Get Some Groundwork Done – You need to evaluate and assess various providers in order to be able to negotiate. The lowest bid is not necessarily the one that will work best for your requirement.

In the end, the fate of your campaign and ROMI lies in the hands of your email marketing provider. Find not just an email marketing vendor; choose an end-to-end digital marketing service provider. Get to how with ‘The Art Of’ Series.

List Buying - “Don’t Give Marketers a Bad Name”

Thinking of purchasing a list to increase leads?

Think twice!

Marketers and sales professionals, who still treat email marketing like direct mail marketing, need to get a reality check. They need to upgrade their tactics to make marketing relevant in this millennium. 

Why do you think list buying is a deadly tactic for marketers?

• Because you purchase a list that your company does not have any relationship with.

• Because your email response rate will deteriorate, as recipients have not explicitly stated interest in receiving mails.

• Because when you send them an email, you run the risk of being blocked by ISPs by sending unsolicited spam.

• Because when recipients see a mail from someone they do not know, it is automatically sent to the junk folder.

With email marketing, relationship with your recipients is the key to a successful campaign. The ideal method is to build your own list. In that way marketers can also adopt best practices such as segmentation and triggered campaigns based on behavioral patterns.

The main issue with list buying is that it contains inactive email addresses that invariably will be detected by spam traps and honey pots. By maintaining a house list on the other hand, regular data cleaning can be conducted to remove inactive email addresses and reduce bounce rates.

Email marketing campaigns should ideally have:

• Recipients that have a relationship and association with you and your company.

• Emails that refer to previous correspondence and past engagement.

• Emails that offer something more than what the recipient received in the past.

There is no shortcut to marketing, brand building and promotion, you have to nurture prospects and customers and eventually a relevant relationship and database can be developed.

As Mike Volpe, CMO, HubSpot rightly quoted, “Doing marketing right, building relationships and creating love for your company requires some work. Suck it up and do your job, and please stop giving marketers a bad reputation by cutting corners.”

We respect people’s preferences and privacy; if they not opted-in, we do not have them in our databases. Sign up to try out our white-listed databases; see how it fits in implementing your targeted campaigns!

Personalize with Personality, Send Emails to Readers than Inboxes!

With email marketers, the focus invariably is on successful email campaign execution. It is all about how many mails reach the inbox, open rates, click through rates and conversion rates. 

Addressing the recipient by his / her first or last name is surely not enough a practice to count as personalization. We all know this is automated. What can be done to make your email message personalized and at the same time get your message across? Some helpful tips are:

Address on a first name basis – Yes, addressing recipients by their name is the first step in capturing attention. Mails without personalized greeting tend to get discarded and forgotten faster.

Make it crisp – Don’t stop with personalized greetings. People receive more than hundred mails every day; nobody has the time to read long messages. Keep it to the point. State your message, your objective of mailing and purpose concisely. Beating around the bush is only going to lose the attention of the reader.

Personalize with personality – Do not underestimate readers. They can identify mails designed for mass mailing and they instinctively send such message into trash. Your message should have personality that creates a connection with two people, the reader and your company. Nobody likes to receive messages written by ‘bots’.

If recipients get a feeling that there are being sent “form letters” written from a template, they will be disinterested in reading with future correspondence.

While personalization through email messages is one way of executing successful campaigns, the other key factor is in utilizing opt-in email databases. Get to know how it works for you, and let us know as well!

What’s Your Story? Share It Not Sell It!

Storytelling is a powerful tool in getting your message across. Emails should tell a tale to engage readers and create a connection. However, no matter how compelling your message may be there are underlying tactics that help boost email deliverability, readability and engagement. Questioning is a good way to get answers:

When is the right time to mail?

In order not to get lost in the inundation of emails received by a person daily, time is of essence. Depending on the industry you function in, your customers have specific behavior. 

• Is there a best time to push the send button to optimize Click through rates (CTRs)?
• Some say Monday mornings is best time to send emails, others say Tuesday or Thursday is.
• Some say persona based campaigns drive higher results others say trigged campaigns work better.

Click through rates (CTR), is one the main email metrics used in measuring success of email campaigns. Industry experts say using a segmented database improves CTR by 16%. 

No matter what kind of statistics and suggestions, what works best is what Actually works only for you! The mantra should be to “Experiment, Analyze, Adapt and Execute”. 

You need to know your target market, analyze their behavior and preferences, adapt them into your communication and connect with them personally. 

Through which devices are email read?

It is important to design emails based on how majority of your customers view their mails. Keeping in mind the torrential introduction of new devices, emails need to be developed to cater to specific gadgets.

Has permission been obtained?

Marketers need to understand that obtaining permission before sending a mail is not an option, it is mandatory. Besides ethical aspects, permission based email marketing ensures better deliveriblity, response rates and increase in brand affinity and confidence.

Are you on your subscribers’ ‘white list’?

Wholesale buying of lists is a solution of the last decade. It is important to ensure that you are added to address books of everyone on your emailing list. Getting on their white list makes sure your emails do not end up as spam.

While these are some of the factors in ensuring successful implementation of email campaigns, there is one keyword that says it all…Relevancy! It is the difference why people choose to open an email or choose to ignore it. 

The core of an email campaign is an email, and it has to be right! Get to know how you can create that perfect message with Part IV: The Art of Developing the Perfect Email Message

Email Marketing Is Still Alive and Kicking!

Email marketing has been around for ages and it now shares space with social media and digital ads to influence customers. Irrespective of new marketing channels, hard stats published by two authoritative organizations CMO Council and Direct Marketing Association (DMA), reinstate why email marketing is still alive and kicking!

In May 2012, email marketing was rated as “the most successful digital marketing tactic” by marketers worldwide.

In June 2012, for house lists there was a 2.6% improvement in average open rates and 1.1% increase in clickthrough rates (CTR) of U.S. emails as compared to 2010. House lists is defined by DMA as a list of emails from present and past customers from a company’s in-house database. For prospect lists, there was a more than double increase in percentage in click through rates.

What’s the reason behind such a robust channel?

With the introduction of new implementation tactics such as data segmentation and marketing automation, targeted, personalized and relevant communication is possible therefore increasing engagement rates. 

The ‘elephant in the room’ however seems to be the fact that increase in engagement rates need not necessarily translate to higher sales. The slight decline in conversion rates says it all.

The reason behind this is observed to be other channels grabbing conversion share. Customers who converted through email earlier are now finding new ways to connect such as through social media, search or retargeted display ads. 

No matter what new marketing channels emerge, email marketing will be the preferred medium. Not because it is the easiest, because it works.

And don't forget the 'R' word. Make it Relevant. Keep your ROI rocking!

Target your ideal customer profile with personalized marketing campaigns. But first get organized and sales ready with a segmented database. Ask us how!

5 Actionable Tips for a Better Email Template

Emails are not just about writing and sending. As a marketer you need to watch what you are presenting your readers. The way you present your emails can determine success of your campaigns. Here are a few best practices related to using a proper template for sending emails:

 

 

Do You Know the ‘Why, What and How’ of Your Customer?

You have a power packed database, then what?

You create an email marketing program?

What kind of campaign do you adopt?

Credit: Don Bishop

Customers are inundated with emails everyday consider these statistics:

•  89 billion is the number of business emails sent and received everyday in 2012!
• 143 billion is the estimated figure of emails that will be sent and received everyday by 2016!

Source: The Radicati Group, Inc. (A Technology Market Research Firm)

So how do you stand out? How do you create an impression without being too promotional? ‘Bulk blasting’ and selling surely is not the tone your email marketing campaign should have. The ‘buzzword’ here is personalization. Create emails that you wish to read as well!

The first step in creating a personal email campaign is to know the ‘why, what and how’ of your customer.

Why do customers join email lists?

What do customers expect from business emails?

How are customers accessing emails today, through what devices?

Once you establish answers to get to know your customers better, only then will it be possible for them to relate to what you are trying to tell. The bottom line here is to develop emails that sell, engage and personalize equally.

Create conversations, develop dialogues, make emails customer centric!

How do you do it? Let us in on your thoughts, they translate to interesting insights! http://bit.ly/JArva5

5 Basic Elements of Email Marketing

Present day, email is one of the most imposing channels of marketing. It is a well-known fact that successful marketers have erected their business on email marketing by implementing certain values. While so much effort is put in creating and launching an email campaign, most people tend to ignore some basic but significant elements of email marketing. Let us discuss some of those essentials.

1. Evade spamming at any cost

By following the CAN-SPAM code of procedure and by sending mails only to targeted recipients who have agreed to receive them, you can avoid your emails being considered as spam. You can get opt-in email lists from a reputed service provider.

2. Personalize your emails

The response rates from recipients increase drastically when you address by their names. A study on customer behavior says a reader tends to respond positively while seeing their names on the mails, making them feel important. A group mailing software can help you do this easily.         

3. Introduce yourself

Most of the time, in a hurry to sell your service or product, you forget to let them who about your company. It is always advisable to introduce yourself in a few words before you actually pitch for your purpose.

4. Send a welcome email

Acknowledging a subscription request from a reader is very important by sending out an email to welcome them. This can show that their interest is of great value and it gives us a good opportunity to tell them about us.

 5. Process opt-out requests

Do not forget to include a choice to refuse to receive mails from you. If they chose to unsubscribe, respect their wish and take their email addresses out of the list. Send an acknowledgement letter to them that their opt-out request id processed. Data management software, which can also be hired from a service provider, can automatically keep out the email addresses of those who opted out. 

Find the Right Contacts for Your Email Campaigns

Building a rich contact list is indispensable for online marketers today. Email marketing is definitely the most important ways of online marketing these days – however, it is effective only when it reaches out to the right people.

Spamming everyone else’s inbox with unsolicited emails can take the shape of a serious legal issue. A targeted list of prospects can tap the potentiality of email marketing to the fullest and by generating quality leads for your business.

Here are a few ways you can employ to build the right database of contacts:

Collect Data Strategically - Devise wise ways to figure out which sources of data are capable of taking you to your prospects. Generate effective ways to gather relevant information about visitors on your site. This will certainly take you a step closer to your prospects.

Consider Appending - Avoid using the same database of contacts every time you launch a campaign. While you may not reject the entire list at one go, consider timely appending of the data. An online marketing vendor can help you achieve do this in very less time.

Use Websites - Make your website extremely visitor friendly. This will help in extracting data about the visitors’ preferences and needs. Have easy-to-fill forms on your site that would persuade browsers to leave their information voluntarily.

Integration of Social Media Can Do Wonders to Your Business

Everyone these days talks about social media, and how it can affect your business for the better. Social media integration helps you to network with professionals, colleagues and business prospects, and share vital information about your business.

Combining social media to your business can help you:

• Increase the reach of your content to drive actions and sales
• Capture leads and build your database
• Collect data and segment your list
• Incorporate social content into email campaigns and promote it
• Add email signup form to Facebook page
• Post links to email newsletters on social sites
• Identify and treat your influencers
• Give people special offers and use sharing options strategically
• Measure conversions, test and retest strategies and provide authenticity to your business

You can change the way people perceive you by the help of social media as it brings admirable transparency and genuine honesty to your business. Infocheckpoint now allows you not only to target your key prospects, but also know about their social lives. (Read the press release: Info CheckPoint Ushers a New Era in Social Networking with LinkedIn Integration now.