Email Marketing - Best Practices

Email Marketing - Best Practices

 

 

 

 

     As discussed in Dustin post, Email marketing is on the fastest growing forms of Internet Marketing. I will be discussing the best practices of email marketing. I have attached a video that outlines and summarizes five "best practices" to ensure your email marketing campaign is successful.

 

1.Give them clear cut calls to action - create urgency with your customers to urge them to buy, for example, click here to buy now! etc.

2.Provide money back guarantees - If your not completely satisfied return for full money back.

3.Provide a quality guarantee - if your not satisfied, return for refund.

4.Extra cost coverage such as shipping and handeling charges etc which may give you a competitive advantage

5.Added bonuses such as accessories

 

 

 

To ensure your email marketing plan is successful you should consider the Golden R's of Email Marketing;

Relevance: Content should be important to your target audience and relateable to their needs. If you use irrelevant content, it may cause your customers to misread your messages and cause them to ignore the message completely and delete the email.
Respect: Emails must be sent as a trusted source that customers will feel comfortable opening and using the links included in the email. They also must not "push the limits" that may end up aggrivating your customers if emails are sent too frequent or to consumers who are not your target audince.
Reipient Control: Give the customer the control to choose what they want and don't want to receive such as an unsubscribe button. Give them options to what content they want to view and what they don't. When they are incontrol of what they see, the information feels more important.

It is also very important to measure the success of the plan by using some sort of data base system to collect information about your consumers such as click counts, sales coming from adds, timespent on websites etc.
Customers should have a way to contact the business for any questions or concerns they may have to develop two way communiaction. This could also be covered with a link to the website where they can go through "contact us".

With all of these variables together, you can ensure that you have a very successful and profitable email marketing campaign that customers will respond positively to.

For more information, follow this link to the Industry Canada's website for Email Marketing Link. 

Brand Evaluation - Task Assignment #3

Today we discussed online customer acquisition techniques.  How does your brand use the Internet to acquire customers?  Does their competition use display advertising?  How do they compare?

Try to find out if your brand is using display advertising.  If so, what do you think the objective of the campaign is?  Do they have a clear call to action?  Are they using landing pages effectively?  Who do you think they are targeting?  How could they improve?

Look for other signs of acquisition campaigns.  Are they using event marketing?  Public relations?  Viral marketing campaigns?  If so, how do you think they are doing?  Can they improve?  If not, what should/could they be doing?

You will score 10 points for this one.  Happy ad hunting!

Email Marketing

Email Marketing

The “Granddaddy”

Email marketing is everywhere. You can’t check you email nowadays without seeing at least one random email from some company you may or may not have heard of. In our rapidly advancing and ever-changing world, email marketing is one of the fastest growing forms of Internet marketing. It has the capacity to reach a very large number of people, quickly and frequently. On top of the recency and frequency advantages of the email marketing, it is also a less expensive form of advertising/marketing in comparison to other media. Marketing emails are sent for a variety of reasons; advertising, lead generations, donation solicitations, or even to convince people to buy something immediately are only a few examples. However, the most common reason for using email marketing is to establish, build or maintain customer relationships. These reasons and benefits are what have led to email marketing being dubbed “the granddaddy” of Internet marketing.

Types of Email Marketing

There are many different types of email marketing, but we’ll focus on grouping them all into two main categories; transactional emails and direct emails.

Transactional Emails

These are emails that are usually sent to someone based on some sort of interaction with the company. When you purchase something at a retailer and they ask for your email, or filling customer surveys, buying products online, all of those situations will trigger transactional emails to be sent to your email account. Transactional emails are meant to convey information to the customer regarding the action in that caused the email to be sent to them in the first place, which is the primary reason why these types of emails have a very high open rate, 51.9%, compared to other forms.

Direct Emails

Direct emails are sent for the sole purpose of communicating a promotional message. These messages are usually sent to addresses that are acquired through a company collecting a list of emails of prospects. Sometimes this list can be rented from a service company as well.

Conclusion

In closing, email marketing is the fastest growing form of Internet marketing around because of its reach, frequency capabilities and it’s potential to be relatively inexpensive in comparison. Numerous reasons allow for a virtually unlimited amount of emails to be sent to an unprecedented amount or people. The end of this post features a video about the effectiveness of email marketing. Thanks for reading!

Quiz #1 - Wed. September 26

Quiz #1 has been saved to eLearn and is ready to go.

You must complete this quiz on Wednesday September 26 between 8:00 am and 8:00 pm.

You will have 30 minutes to complete the quiz and you get one attempt at each question. Questions are multiple choice and T/F (there is one exception).

Includes questions on chapters 1 - 5. It will give you a good taste of what to expect for the mid-term exam. If you have been keeping up with your reading and assignments you should be in good shape.

Good luck!

Flash Mob Marketing - Check it out!

As promised, I will be sharing some examples of how flash mobs are used for marketing and how you can effectively market a product or service with these fun events.

Skule Nite is a local (GTA) group who has been using flash mobs quite effectively for a few years now. Check out their videos and a recent article about their most recent performance and see if you can learn any tips!

They even made the news recently!

http://www.cbc.ca/news/yourcommunity/2012/09/engineering-students-exam-interrupted-by-flash-mob.html

Please note: I do NOT recommend you consider scheduling your flash mob during mid-term exams here at Mohawk:)

Brand Evaluation - Task Assignment #2

Today we discussed the 4 Elements of a Brand.  How would you characterise each of these for your brand? (4 points)

We also discussed video marketing in great detail.  Does your brand use video to market their products/service?  If yes, how?  Can you identify their objectives?  Are their videos being shared?  How would you evaluate their success?  Do you have any recommendations?  If no, how could they use video to market their products/services?  How does their competition use video for marketing? (6 points)

Looking forward to your reviews!

Business models






a business model Pretty much is a collection of a company's objectives. such as goals, strategies, processes, technology,  and structure. all these elements are used in a working force to entice consumers to buy services
or products. the link below describes how a business model works.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoAOzMTLP5s

to a company this is how to make money and gain customers/clients.

for a NPO(non-profit organization) its the way they raise money for the cause they represent. 

I will be talking about several business models in this blog.

the first one is the advertising model.

this is the way the company advertises through TV, internet, radio, and even print.

the most commonly used medium is internet. this is because, it generates the most traffic over the others media style. To name a few sites that use the medium the best they are: Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Yahoo. ads can target specific target audiences. so us marketers can figure out our markets and put ads on sites they are most likely on. with the other types of media its is less effective to generate lots of traffic.

the next one is the merchant model.

Is the way company's sell to their target market. their are many different types of merchant models.
there is virtual. catalog, bit vendor, click and mortar, and aggretator.

a virtual merchant solely sells on the web while still operating as a merchant. so the best examples are amazon and eBay. some others i can name would be marvel.com, 6dollarshirts.com, and mightywallets.com.

bit vendors deal with only digital products/services. they conducts both sales and distribution over the world wide web. a good example would be iTunes. 

click and mortar merchants use websites as fronts to their physical buildings. so like best buy or future shop.

catalog merchants use web catalogs, mail, telephone, and online ordering. the benefits of this are products are cheaper, less overhead expenses. it also reduces the risk of merchandise theft.

the final one will be the community model.these "communities" utilize electronic medias like blogs, forums, chat rooms,message boards as well as any social websites like twitter, Facebook, or tumblr.the internet is based on a network of principles. meaning it can connect to potential individual customer. a community model creates the image of a organization through user loyalty and repeat purchases/uses. revenue is generated through premium services or subscriptions and even advertisements.   

website source: http://ecommerce.hostip.info/pages/231/Community-Model.html

Video Marketing Strategies

Video marketing is definitely an important part of the promotion channel that we use today.  An increasing amount of companies are choosing to promote products/services by way of video, video marketing plays a big part in the buying consideration process and is an extremely useful tool to demonstrate products features and attributes. Videos also give companies the chance to bond with consumers on a more intimate and engaging level. 

There are 4 important elements to the video marketing strategy:

Publishing- this is the element that provides compelling stories, and reminds marketers that no matter how creative they are the content still needs to be relevant to their target market.

Optimising – making sure that the video is easily searched and shared.

Promoting- Companies promote on their channels as well as other publishers channel, basically trying to encompass all channel relevant to a company’s target audience.

Analysing- Reviewing stats to measure the success of the strategy 

In regards to publishing, it is very important that your video has a direct message that relates with your consumers, the main point of the video is to relay facts to the consumer by way of telling a story. Also creativity is very important in the publishing element, you must make it interesting to watch and capture the attention of your audience, and last but certainly not least you must call the audience to action. Let’s take a look at a company that has creative commercials that work well with they’re, not so ordinary, target audience.

So you see in these videos that these commercials have a captured their audience’s attention by way of humor, inspiration and usually an extreme situation that happens that keeps you watching. Also Mountain Dew almost always uses celebrities that consumers can relate to and also that are differentiated from their peers by lifestyle values or actions. Then at the end it calls the consumer to action by saying, “Do The Dew” this reminds the audience that this is a Mountain Dew commercial keeps the brand in their head.

To complete the optimizing element of the marketing strategy you as a marketer, you must do research on things like, keywords most commonly used by target audience, and incorporate this into you video so that when consumers search for things they like your video is the first to come up.

Moving on to the Promotion stage, once you have created your video, edited it, and created a title, you must promote your video. Mountain Dew does a good job of this they have, of course, a website that also supports their promotions.  Also they have a YouTube channel specifically designed for the video commercials (http://www.youtube.com/user/MountainDew?feature=relchannel). All new promotions are featured on Mountain Dew’s Twitter as well as Facebook. It is safe to say that Mountain Dew is no stranger to the fact that social media is one of the most powerful promotion tools, taking word of mouth to a new level; they pass the social media challenge with flying colors.

Of course at the end of the day we as marketers love to see what effect all our hard work has on our audience. So naturally the final stage of the Video Promotion Strategy would be the evaluation stage. Because this is done on line it makes it rather easy to collect data from our different channels in operation. Let continue with analysing mountain Dew. A quick example of one of the ways they can very easily see the result of their work on their YouTube Channel it has stats at the top and all through the videos of 1. How many subscribers 2.how many views and 3.At which point each consumer join their channel.  These numbers can make a substantial difference when predicting how consumer responded to advertisement as well as predicting future behaviour. This is a look at how companies must take into consideration all aspects of the marketing strategy when promoting by way of video, to capture and invite their target market.

Building a Brand Community Online

It is an extremely important quality in our high tech and impatient world for a business to build a community online to promote their product or service.

It is about building a relationship. This relationship with your consumers can be measured through brand equity.

What is a brand community? It is a tool for consumers to provide their own feedback. It is useful for both marketers and other consumers. It is an opportunity for publicity, and whether good or bad - well, that's how the saying goes. It may be cliché, but an online brand community really will create a brand image among young consumers and the growing number of internet users today.

The internet is a very judgemental place. Consumers are already rather uncomfortable making purchases or purchase decisions online. This is why it is important for a business to create a powerful brand image, and there is little to nothing that can make up for lack thereof in today's high tech world.

Not only important online, brand communities are what bring a group of people together. For example, Marvel comics. There is a large database of Marvel fans and opportunities for them to connect on the Marvel fan website. There are huge comic book conventions centred around Marvel and many other comic book brands. Communities such as these provide a huge competitive advantage for these companies. Consumers can interact around the brand and share their opinions and ideas. Many of these consumers also connect online.

In order to build a strong brand community, one must:

• provide a positive customer experience - this means easy accessibility, positive imagery, and smooth design, and must provide consumer experiences
• specify your target market - there are many ways different demographics look at your online community, and different ways they form opinions while doing so
• establish your online personality - this must be fluent with your brand image
• utilize the tools that are out there - many of us already know the pros of websites such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter

In following what the consumer wants online, a business already has a strong lead in marketing to today's high pace world.

Branding on the Web - by John Miles

Branding, What is it?

"Bonding brands with customers has always been about building relationships”

In the fiercely competitive and sometimes slightly impersonal world we live in today, the process of creating a level of trust in a company is extremely important for consumers and marketers alike which is where Branding plays its vital role.

 

Branding is the process in which a business creates an image / personality which appeals to the consumer, and this is first done through the consumer becoming aware of the company or brand. The next stage is to create familiarity in the brand and a level of appreciation in the products or services offered, a level of trust is built in that brand and so the relationship becomes a little deeper. The final stage is commitment, whereby the consumer has now become familiar and comfortable with the brand and so moves on to a transaction, from here it becomes a process of maintaining the friendship and encouraging the consumer to take part in repeat purchases.

The use of the internet has meant branding has been revolutionized, “we are moving beyond representing a brand to experiencing it”[1], and this has come in the form of company web sites providing games, multimedia channels (films, shows, music videos) and two way communication channels for consumers to interact with the brand itself and express their thoughts and opinions. Red Bull is a great example of effective branding, not only because of their fully interactive and engaging website but also through the variety of events and competitions they are linked to, which not only generates a greater level of consumer awareness but acts as a reassuring and positive sign to consumers with an already established friendship with the brand. www.redbull.com

According to Martin Lindstrom http://www.martinlindstrom.com/fast-company-how-many-lives-does-a-brand-have just like a cat, a brand can have more than one life in the consumer market. Experts Larry Chiagouris and Brant Wansley provide a clear and invaluable insight into Branding on the Web http://www.negocio.us/english/internetbranding.htm, and whose opinions reinforce the following “having a strong and trusted brand is essential to success as consumers are reluctant to give their money to an entity which they do not have an established relationship with”.[2]
Hopefully this has helped provide you with a clear understanding as to what Branding is and how it is being used on the internet, and it would be great to hear what brands you take particular interest in and what makes you choose this brand specifically.

 

#Brand Fact: Amazon and Facebook established their brands solely online. 

 

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[1]Caroline Riby from http://www.negocio.us/english/internetbranding.htm.  

[2] Taken from Internet Marketing Integrating Online and Offline Strategies textbook, Third edition, Roberts and Zahay

Blog Schedule is updated!

I have added everyone who signed up for their blog topic today.  Please review to find your name and date.

Let me know if I have missed you.

Cheers,
Christina

Brand Evaluation - Task Assignment #1

Let's get started!

Your first task is to identify which business model your brand is using.  Do some homework - has this always been their model?  How are they creating value for the customer and generating income from this website? (4 points)

Next, consider our discussion about the 4I's today.  How is your brand making use of these 4 I's?  How does this affect the customer experience on the site?  What kind of data is being collected?  How could they improve the use of the 4I's on their site? (5 points)

Last, what direct response mechanisms is your brand using (anywhere on-line)?  What are they trying to achieve with each call to action? (6 points)

Don't forget to clearly identify each task in your report so I can easily allocate the correct number of points when I read your findings.

Cheers,
Christina

Thinking about writing your blog post?

Here are some tips to help you get started:

1.   Review the chapter associated with your topic.  What is most interesting to you?  Is there anything that surprises you?  Look for something you would like to explore further.

2.   Do some research.  Who are the experts related to your topic? What do they say about it?  Is there anything to support your opinion?  Did you find any best practices or great examples you can share? 

3.     Share your thoughts.  Share what you have found with your peers.  Tell them what you think about the topic.  Ask them to consider a different perspective? 

Check out these 26 Tips for Writing Great Blog Posts from Social Media Examiner.

Schedule is Posted!

I have posted the schedule for you on the Schedule page of this blog.  Please take a look and make sure I have entered your name into the correct topic.  I have added a few topics as there are more students than anticipated.

If you haven't signed up for your topic yet please do so ASAP.  The topics are going fast!

I will ensure you are all added as contributors by the EOD tomorrow.

Happy Blogging!
Christina

Welcome to Web Marketing!

WELCOME!

Have you ever contributed to a blog?

If your answer is no, that is about to change. Business is blogging and so should you.

This class blog is designed to:

· Showcase the topics discussed in class
· Be a resource for you as you learn the concepts related to Web Marketing
· Help you to learn about new web technologies
· Help you shape your writing skills and create thought leadership on a selected topic

Over the next 13 weeks this class blog will be updated daily. In addition to my instructions for your self-study tasks, students will be posting interesting entries related to our in-class topics.

During week 1, each student will select a topic and post date. Students are encouraged to share their comments about each post and add value to the conversation, which will be continued in class. You will receive credit for each blog entry you write and your participation online will count towards your grade.

Happy Blogging!