Category Archives: Get Schooled

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3 Tips for Marketing to Tablet Users

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Oh, the mysterious device no one quite knows how to use. Tablets are undoubtedly a cool, breakaway phenomenon. But, they straddle this uncomfortable position between productivity and media consumption.

The debate continues further, when some tech luminaries make the claim that tablets will replace smartphones and personal computers as our primary devices. That’s an interesting concept, until you try to write a blog or business proposal with the touchscreen keyboard.

While I (and my back) hope that I may only have to lug a tablet to work in the near future, my gut says that tablets’ primary use will be media consumption for some time. Windows Surface may alter that paradigm, considering that MS Office is still the most widely used suite of office tools.

But, when viewed in a media consumption context, tablets present a unique opportunity for digital marketers. Here’s how you can market to tablet users.

Optimize for Touch

While some tablet users may take that extra step and connect a Bluetooth mouse to their tablet, most users will stick with the touch interface. That means optimizing landing pages, sites, and email for mobile users. But that optimization differs from smartphone optimization.

Tablets give you more screen real estate, and oftentimes, tablet screens have higher resolution than smartphones. This means you have more room to present content, images, and calls to action. But you still need to remember to space links appropriately, use larger than normal buttons, and limit your form fields so you’re only asking for essential information.

Offer Timing

Tablet users are browsing the internet, checking email, updating social networks, and playing games all from their couches, kitchen tables, and beds. So, time your offers to align with when people are in those locations and doing those activities. That means morning, but more likely early to late evening.

Sometimes, delivering an email at just the right time is all it takes to convert a lead. You can also time your social, search, and display ads to align with the times that your prospects or customers are on their tablets. Many tablet owners are using their device while also watching TV. You could see increased conversions if you can coordinate your digital offers with any DRTV or other TV ads you may be running.

Rich Content

Tablets present an opportunity to wow your customers with rich content. Consider using videos to market your product. You can also use videos on any landing pages and/or thank you pages you might use. If you have the resources, considering building an app for your ecommerce store, or build one that delivers a branded, interactive experience.

At the very least, optimize your site for tablet users. That means striking visual appeal. Navigation should also be simple. Space your links appropriately, and be careful with drop down menus and other navigation elements. Include CTAs that are noticeable and easy to act on. Make it simple for people to complete a purchase.

Tablets are a new channel that’s growing fast. Right now, the ground is fertile for testing a variety of marketing strategies aimed at capitalizing on these users. Remember to use analytics to measure and test various marketing strategies until you find the combination that works best for your audience.

Segment Your Database to Replace Spray-and-Pray Immediately

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Spray and pray baby – that’s how email marketers get the job done. Yea, maybe that was acceptable in 2001. But despite all the evidence to the contrary, many email marketers still use this strategy. What a mistake.

As a channel, email gets a bad rap. Many marketers see it as antiquated and intrusive. But I have a feeling those sentiments directly correlate to the spray-and-pray mentality.

See, marketing is changing – in many cases for the better. Data gives marketers the ability to serve up highly targeted offers to their leads on a consistent basis. Not only that, but marketers can track and measure engagement and conversions across all their channels to ensure that prospective customers receive the most relevant offers through their preferred channels. It’s a win-win.

The above philosophy, when applied to email, creates a channel that is less intrusive and better tailored to individual preferences – which is why every email marketer should segment their database. There’s no easier – and more effective – way to deploy content and offers that align with the preferences of those segments.

So, how do marketers develop their segments? Analyzing a number of factors is key to effective database segmentation. Those factors include:

  • Demographic data
  • Behavioral and psychographic data
  • Geolocation
  • Past purchase history
  • Website engagement

There are also services that will analyze your house list, and then provide profiles of your various customer segments. At Marketfish, this service is complimentary.

What results can you expect from a segmented database? To start, your subscribers will generally find your marketing emails less intrusive. You can also expect to see more opens, clicks, etc. Increased ROI should follow as well. Not to mention that improved engagement only does good things for your sender reputation and the constantly moving target that is deliverability.

I encourage all email marketers out there, whether you work at an SMB or a Fortune 500 company, to embrace segmentation. At the end of the day, it’s one of the best strategies for driving ROI from your email marketing.

P.S. Please share this article with your colleagues. If you have any tips or tricks to add, please do so in the comments. Thanks for reading.

Do You Know How to Create an Email Marketing Offer?

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Don’t worry. If you don’t, we’ll get you on your way.  

Let’s start by leaving puffery aside. In all likelihood, your prospect’s inbox is filled with marketing emails. Don’t deny it; it’s a simple fact. This begs the question, how can you hope to stand out?

Well, begin with a killer design that incorporates acquisition email marketing best practices. Follow through with clever copy. And lace her up with a tantalizing offer.

We’ve discussed design and copy before, so let’s dive into email marketing offer creation. Here’s how we break it down.

Determine the Audience You’re Looking to Target

You should have a general idea of who your customer is already. What they look like, where they live, and how often they buy, etc. Understanding your audience is step one in the email marketing offer creation process. This information will help you decide the content of your actual offer, as well as who receives your offer.

If you only know bits and pieces about your audience, check out our Customer Insights feature. It allows you to upload an encrypted file of your customers’ email addresses in exchange for a free report detailing their demographic attributes. You can use these attributes to enhance the targeting of your email marketing offer.

Study what has worked in the past

If you’re in the email marketing game, you’ve sent out an offer before. Take a look at what worked in the past. Historical data is an excellent resource for guiding offer creation. Examine the areas that need improvement. Was it the subject-line? Maybe your CTA was poorly placed. Did you include a time-sensitive element to the copy? These areas can all affect the performance of your email marketing offer.

Personalize the email

We’ve written a lot about personalization in the past. We think it’s a great way to add a human element to your marketing. Acting like you know and remember a past customer is critical to making that customer feel valued. Personalization can take place in the subject-line, the body or CTA copy, and even in the design/images you choose. Just be sure to avoid overtly creepy personalization. That is a definite turnoff to potential new and repeat customers.

CTA Placement

The location, design, and clarity of your CTA are all critical to the success of your offer. Again, we’ve written about this in the past. But it merits a recap. Don’t place the CTA below the fold. Make sure the button or text you use is clearly visible. The copy should directly state what happens when that button or link is clicked.

Include a Bribe

This isn’t the same bribe that you read about in the news. It means the product, service, or information that the potential customer receives if they act on your email marketing offer. It could be a reduced price on a product, a whitepaper explaining the latest IT strategies, or some kind of industry report. Whatever you choose, ensure that it’s unique and something that the recipient will find valuable.

Landing Pages

Your CTA should always link to a landing page. It should never go to your homepage or to some other page on your site. Landing page design best practices are many and varied. But some general tips include keeping your form fields to the bare minimum to prevent form abandonment, and using images and copy that reinforce the original offer message.

Use Analytics

Analytics are one of the primary benefits of a digital channel like email. Use tracking cookies to gain real-time insight into your email marketing offer performance. Take a look at when conversions happen, and the type of customers that are doing the converting.

How many make it to your landing page and then abandon your offer. What were your open and click-through rates? How many of your emails actually made it to the recipients’ inboxes? Tracking and analyzing this data will give you valuable insight into the areas of your email marketing offer that you can improve with your next campaign.

The Finale

Ideally, you’re running several offers at once, testing and analyzing performance as you cruise along. This testing and measuring process is one of the better strategies for determining the offer that performs best for your product and target audience. It’s an overarching digital marketing principle that you should use every chance you get.

How do you create your email marketing offers? Are there any strategies or best practices that you use regularly? If so, please share them in the comments.

 

P.S. If you found this post helpful, please share it amongst your colleagues.

3 Copywriting Tips for Email Marketers

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The internet has radically shifted the way products and services are marketed. Cost-effective digital solutions mean that potential customers are bombarded with ads from all angles. This audio-visual assault creates a time starved-public that’s wise to the ways of marketers.

If we want to make an impact, especially in the ever-crowded inbox, we have to turn to the weapons at our disposal. Copywriting is one of those weapons.

To help you along the way, I’ve provided some copywriting tips that you can use to craft razor-sharp copy that shows how cleanly your product cuts through the meaty morass to cure a real market pain.

Use short, direct sentences

Short, direct sentences help you share your message in a quick, impactful way. They also help with readability. In copywriting, every word has a function. The reader shouldn’t have to waste time deciphering your message. The point should be obvious.

Nothing is worse than an email that beats around the proverbial bush. Long winded and artistic copy isn’t an effective strategy for email marketers. This is especially true when more and more email is read on mobile devices. But that doesn’t mean be boring. Instead, try to persuade and add value with each sentence.

Break copy into smaller paragraphs

Readability guidelines dictate that paragraphs should be no more than 6 lines in length. Think about it. How intimidating is a wall of text? Don’t do that to your readers.

Instead, use smaller paragraphs to create an easily digestible message. This also helps with skimmers, as they can quickly jump from paragraph to paragraph and still retain the overall thrust of your message.

Use subheadings

Subheadings also help with skimmers. The reader should be able to glance at your subheadings and still catch your drift. Copywriting necessitates economy as far as word count. Subheadings are a great way to say more in a small amount of space.

These are just a few simple tips for email marketing copywriters. But it always pays to be mindful of the basics. Digital marketing is a tough gig. It’s a crowded space that doesn’t show signs of slowing. Copywriting is just one of the many powerful tools that email marketers can use to penetrate the abyss and deliver their message to the right audience.

How do you use copywriting to improve your messaging? Have you found that one strategy works over another? Have a copywriting tip that I missed? Please share your thoughts in the comments. We love hearing from our readers!

7 Pros and Cons of Email Marketing with Marketfish

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Our intern, Mikayla Chicquette, is back with another blog post. This time she dives into the benefits of using the Marketfish platform over traditional list marketing methods. Keep reading to find out more about how the Marketfish platform helps you overcome these common acquisition email marketing challenges.

1. Con: Isn’t email marketing dead?

Pro: Many people believe that email marketing is dying due to social networking. But email is still an important part of our day-to-day lives. Even social networks send email!

Email is a much more reliable and professional method of communicating and marketing to your target audience. It may be easy to send a tweet to all of your followers announcing your 50% off sale, but if they’re more focused on tweeting their friends about how their dog is chasing its tail, or about the latest celebrity breakup, your very important message will be drowned out.

Plus, email marketing campaigns through Marketfish’s record purchase and list rental marketplace allow you to gain new customers that were not yet followers of your social networking profiles. With a professional and polished email campaign, you can grab your readers’ attention long enough to get them interested in what you have to say. Once your email campaign is out the door, feel free to remind them throughout the day of your products or services with tweets and Facebook messages on your own.

2. Con: Doesn’t lead generation take forever?
Pro: With list rental or record purchasing through the Marketfish platform, you can search millions of records to find your target audience in real-time. It only takes 30 minutes to build and deploy a complete campaign!

3. Con: I have no idea what to write for my campaign.
Pro: First, figure out why you’re writing the campaign, and who you’re targeting. Content ideas will come swimming to you after you answer those questions. If you’re still stumped, we have several posts to help you along the way, check them out here, here, and here. Now get creative!

4. Con: I cannot find an email template that works for my brand, what now?
Pro: Marketfish Creative Solutions is a full-service creative team that can help you build effective email marketing creatives. They’ll even design and build your landing pages, and help you develop a successful lead generation strategy. If you’re interested, contact Marketfish Creative Solutions today!

5. Con: I want the ability to send multiple campaigns.
Pro: Marketfish now offers the ability to purchase over 50 million B2B records that you can use to send multiple email marketing campaigns, without re-renting lists. Head on over to our post and learn more about how you can use this feature.

6. Con: I want to send postal campaigns instead of/as well as email campaigns.
Pro: Marketfish allows you to rent records for sending email and/or postal campaigns, as well as purchase records for launching email, postal or teleprospecting campaigns. Just choose the option that works best for you. Be sure to test and refine your campaigns so you can continually improve performance.

7. Con: I don’t understand why I should use Marketfish instead of going the traditional route, or using another company.
Pro: The conventional method of list marketing could take several weeks and tons of paperwork before your campaign even reaches your target audience. Save yourself the headache and check out The Marketfish “Why” to see that Marketfish was created for clients just like you.

As you can see, Marketfish offers a number of cutting-edge solutions to common list marketing challenges. If you’re curious about the Marketfish platform, and want to know more, just set up a free account today.

 

P.S. If you found this post helpful, please share it with your colleagues or leave a comment.