About Julian Wellings

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Email marketing – how a minor change to content can have a big impact

September 2, 2013 by Leave a Comment

The position of links in your email newsletter or e-shot can have a big impact on your click through rates.

Here’s a brief case study from our client British Bespoke Auctions.

Their monthly newsletter is a preview of the following week’s auction, and includes links to the various auction categories as well as photos and links for selected items.

We usually achieve a 40% click through rate which is pretty good. However we assumed that all subscribers simply wanted to be able to home in on categories and items of interest.

For last month’s newsletter we said,”what if someone just wants to go straight to the catalogue and have a good old browse?”

So we added a prominent View Catalogue link at the top of the newsletter. you can see the result below – see the red ring.

A massive 38% of clicks came from that single link thus proving our theory that all some people wanted to do was view the catalogue! We also increased the overall click rate from 40% to 51%.

Conclusions

Try new approaches and put yourself in the shoes of the recipient. Then test to see if that approach has been successful, by monitoring trends for opens, clicks and unsubscribes.

Tip

The screen shot below from Campaign Monitor uses a clicks map, which is a very powerful way of working out which links and which link positions worked well. You could use this to repeat the same links in different positions in a campaign, and then analyse which was the more popular. Mailchimp also has this functionality.

Link Activity for British Bespoke Auctions next Thursday s Sale Catalogue Expertise on Tap Email Marketing Reports System

 

Filed Under: Email marketing Tagged With: , , , , ,

How to massively increase clicks for videos in your email marketing

August 30, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Here’s a really quick and simple tip.

If you’re including video in your email newsletters and e-shots, you’ll know that at the moment, most email clients don’t support embedded videos.

So you might be thinking your only option is some hyperlinked text saying “Watch the video…”.

Wrong!

The best way to massively increase clicks for your video is to embed it as a screen grab and overlay a play button onto it, so it looks like an embedded video.

Yes, you need to have a text link as well, for people whose email clients are blocking images, but the screen grab will get many more clicks.

Below are two examples from a client e-newsletter I produce, which prove this.  The percentage of clicks the image got is shown at the  bottom, and clicks for the the text link are at the top.  As you’ll see there’s a big difference.

How to take a screen grab of a video

In Windows you could use the built in snipping tool, or if you’ve edited the video yourself most editing programs will allow you to take a screen grab of a video frame.

To overlay the play button you can do this in most image editing software. You can find a good selection of play button images on iconfinder.com.

Do contact me if you get stuck!

How to massively increase clicks for video in email marketing

How to massively increase clicks for video in email marketing

Filed Under: Email marketing, Video marketing Tagged With: , , , ,

5 email marketing mistakes and how to avoid them

August 15, 2013 by 4 Comments

I subscribe to lots of email newsletters. Whilst some of them are well designed and produced, many make fundamental mistakes.

Here’s my latest roundup of mistakes which businesses are making with their email marketing, and how to avoid them.

1. Too long

This week I received an e-newsletter which was six pages long, with masses of content which the sender probably found interesting.  Sadly his/her readers probably didn’t see it the same way. Imagine trying to wade through six pages of content on a smartphone.

Tips

  • Keep it brief and relevant. It’s only relevant if it adds value for the recipient.
  • Unless you’re a professional copywriter, write your content and sleep on it. Refine it the next day.  Here’s why…

2. Using a No Reply address

Big businesses often use a No Reply address such as no-reply@ABCWidgets.com.  They do this because they don’t want to be inundated with thousands of Out of Office replies.

Using a No Reply address says “We don’t want to hear from you, so please don’t even think about replying”

Tip

  • Always use a real email address and actively encourage people to reply. Yes, you will get Out of Office replies, but if you sort your inbox by subject you can group all these together and mass delete them.

3. Using two columns – one wide and one narrow.

columnsThis used to be ok when everyone was reading on a desktop computer.  But these days more people are reading on small screens such as iPhones.  Sometimes this can be over 40% of recipients.

The problem is the text in the narrow right hand column becomes very difficult to scan with the human eye. Most people won’t bother.

Tip

  • By all means have two columns, but I’d recommend using the narrower column for images not text.

4. Links become illegible on Apple devices

screenshot_40What I mean by this is the iPhone, for example, turns anything which looks like a date, a time or a phone number into a hyperlink. This means text, which might appear to be visible, becomes illegible when viewed on an iPhone. See the example on the right.

Tips

  • Test your emails on an iPhone and other mobile devices if you can.
  • When designing always consider which text the iPhone will turn into a hyperlink and choose your text and background colours accordingly.

5. Sending your email when everyone’s asleep.

Sigh. I get several e-newsletters every week which commit this deadly sin. There’s no point sending your email when people are unlikely to be online, because when they next logon your email will be downloaded amongst all their other emails. That means it’s less likely to get noticed.  I frequently receive B2B (business to business) emails sent at 11pm at night.

Tips

  • Send your email when most of your recipients are likely to be online. That means it will be fresh when they receive it.
  • Remember with more people using smartphones, the time period when they’re likely to be online is longer than it used to be. These days, business recipients are more likely to check emails outside of 9-5. Read more about this here…
Filed Under: Email marketing

How to use email more effectively in your business

August 14, 2013 by Leave a Comment

emails

Before starting Expertise on Tap in 2007, I worked in companies where email had ceased to be effective. Employees were suffering from extreme email overload, affecting their productivity. 

If you can reduce email overload in business, then it becomes a more effective communication tool, as it was initially intended to be.

Here are my tips to help business owners use email more effectively.

1. Understand your clients’ and suppliers’ preferred communication method

I have some clients who are frequently in meetings; when you phone them, it often goes to voice mail. They prefer to receive emails rather than phone calls.

Conversely, I have clients who prefer phone calls (as do I), so I use email only if I need to send them a link or a file.

2. Work out when your clients and contacts usually check their emails.

That could be anything from 6am to midnight in the SME world! SME owners tend not to work 9-5. If you send your emails when your client is most likely to be online, it will land in their inbox as a new email, and they’re more likely to deal with it. If you use Outlook, one way to do this is to write your email and then set it to send at a later time.

3. If you’ve decided email is the best option, here are some further tips.

  • Use the cc function sparingly. Do the people copied really need to see the email?
  • Avoid Reply to All unless everyone really needs to see your reply.
  • State in the subject line the classification of the email. That helps people prioritise. E.g. “for action”, “for review”, or “for information”.
  • If the email is for action by more than one person, explain who needs to do what.
  • Don’t expect that because you’ve sent an email, you have a right to an instant reply!
  • Use a descriptive subject line to help the recipient prioritise the email. Don’t just say “Meeting”. Instead, put “Our meeting 16th August 2pm – just checking you can come”
  • Be concise and to the point. No one wants to read an essay.
  • Lay out the decision you want from that email and the ideal date you want it completed by.
  • Use numbered bullet points rather than lengthy paragraphs. That also makes it easier for the recipient to respond to, e.g. “Regarding point #3”.
Filed Under: Email marketing, Tech tips

On location with former Dr Who actors

July 16, 2013 by Leave a Comment

The BBC show Celebrity Antiques Road Trip recently visited our client Bespoke Auctions in Winchcombe.

The celebrities for this edition were former Dr Who actor Colin Baker, and former Blue Peter presenter Peter Purves, who also acted in Dr Who in the 1960s.

Bespoke Auctions asked us to shoot some behind-the-scenes footage, which you can see in the video below.

Nick Granger from Bespoke Auctions comments:

Such a professional video, you delivered way more than I was expecting. Thank you.

Filed Under: Gloucestershire Business, Video marketing

On location at the Cornish Cricket Festival

July 15, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Cornish-Sporting-Club-LogoWe’ve been producing videos for four years for Birmingham-based Gala Hospitality. We were therefore delighted when they asked to produce an event video for their new brand, Cornish Sporting Club at the second annual Cornish Cricket Festival.

The brief was to capture all aspects of the event including the corporate hospitality on offer, to enable Cornish Sporting Club to promote the cricket festival in future years.

Alan George, Director, Cornish Sporting Club comments:
Having worked with Julian Wellings of Expertise on Tap for four years, there was only one producer to put together our Cornish Cricket Festival video. We had a wide brief, but as usual Julian just got on with this, and put together a fantastic video. We also had some post event requirements to add to the video, which Julian was quite happy to help us with at short notice. We will definitely be using him for our next video.

Watch the Cornish Cricket Festival video below…

Filed Under: Video marketing

Why sending your B2B email newsletter overnight is a bad idea

June 7, 2013 by Leave a Comment

moonlight

I see far too many businesses sending B2B* emails overnight. By overnight I mean after normal office hours. *Business to business

Why this is bad

1. If you send after 5pm your email will most likely land in their inbox the next morning. That means it won’t be fresh. It will be stale. This is because when the user downloads it the next morning it will appear amongst all the other emails that have come in overnight, including spam. It will also be amongst non actioned emails from the previous afternoon.

There’s more chance of a busy recipient missing the email whilst he/she settles into the day’s work. You could argue that some people work beyond 5pm, or check emails on portable devices, so what’s the problem? But many do not.

2. An even worse scenario is to send your email over a weekend. When it’s downloaded on Monday morning it’s even less likely to be read.

The solution is to send your email to arrive during working hours

That way there’s more chance of the email dropping into the recipient’s inbox whilst at their desk. In other words it’s a fresh email and more likely to be read. You will find many articles on the web about best time of day to send and often these articles contradict each other. I recommend testing different send times and then picking the time which gets the best open and click rates.

Filed Under: Email marketing

Why you should include a subscribe link in your email newsletter

April 24, 2013 by Leave a Comment

SubscribersAdding a prominent subscribe link to your email newsletter is a great way of growing your list.

This is where you might well say “Why do I need one? They’re already subscribed aren’t they?”

Not necessarily.

If someone has received a forwarded copy or read the newsletter on social media, by including a prominent subscribe link will enable them to do just that. Most people won’t go hunting for a sign up form on your website so this is all about making it easy for them.

 

Filed Under: Email marketing Tagged With: , , , ,

Be careful when pre-scheduling your email marketing

April 3, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Using an email service provider such as Mailchimp or Campaign Monitor is the only way to do your email marketing properly. A useful feature is the ability to prepare your e-shots in advance and schedule them to send on a particular day.

This can be useful if you’re going to be out of the office on the day of send, or if you want to optimise your workflow by preparing content in advance.

However, there is one potential downside to pre-scheduling. By the time your content is sent, it could have become be embarrassing, or at worst insensitive.

Here’s an example from TomTom which proclaims:

Spring has finally sprung! It’s time to head outside and make the most of the warmer weather.
It’s complemented by a nice picture of a car driving past a spring meadow!

The only problem is it was sent on Friday 22nd March 2013, a weekend which saw snow and freezing temperatures across the UK. My guess is it was prepared some time in advance and pre-scheduled.

TomTom email example

The red highlighting is mine, for emphasis.

 

Now, I’m a fan of TomTom’s email marketing, and I’m sure this weather faux pas won’t have done their reputation too much harm!

However, I recommend:

If you are going to pre-schedule your e-shots, check whether there is any content which could potentially cause a problem for you. If so, then it’s worth making a diary note to double check the day before the scheduled send.
Here are some examples:
  1. Weather related content, like the TomTom example above.
  2. Topical content. For example, something relating to the economy where the situation might have changed by the time the email goes out.
  3. Natural disasters or political unrest. For example, a travel company promoting a destination where an earthquake or an uprising has just taken place.

 

 

Filed Under: Email marketing Tagged With: , , ,

Email marketing: Why your From Name will affect your open rate

March 27, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Choose your “from” name carefully and you could improve your open rate

A quick survey. Which of these emails are you more likely to open?

Set A

Set B

The correct answer (according to me!) is Set B.

inbox screenI receive a lot of e-shots and email newsletters these days with only a person’s name in the “from” section of the email like Set A  above.

The problem with this is, if you have a large list many of the recipients might not know who the sender is.  This increases the risk of them deleting the email without reading it.

Another big issue is these days spammers are using real names in their spam messages, to try and make the email look like a personal communication. This means spam savvy email recipients are even less likely to open your e-newsletter, unless they know you personally.

My tip: Unless you’re so well known that your name alone will suffice (eg. Richard Branson, Alan Sugar) , always include the company name. You could just use the company name on its own, or if you want to add a personal touch, add the sender’s name as well. The examples in Set 2 above use both these approaches.

Bonus tip:  Use a real “from” email address not a “no reply” address.

I often see larger companies using a “no reply” email address meaning the address cannot receive replies.

The problem with this is, what happens if a recipient replies with a question or complaint? Their email just gets ignored!

I recommend always using an address which can receive replies.

Yes, it means you’ll also receive all the out of office replies but you can easily sort all the emails by subject line and delete these, leaving genuine replies to be dealt with.

Filed Under: Email marketing Tagged With: , , ,
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