Ideas to improve email marketing response rates by NOT following subject line "best practices"
I've found through testing that in some cases, click rates can be doubled by creating the right subject line. More typical click rate uplifts through use of better subject lines are still a very welcome 25%. So it's well worth being creative to get a better response to your campaigns.
What you want to avoid is bland, repetitive email subject lines like these called out by James Hart in his post showing these Email subject line examples.
But with so many myths around do’s and don’ts in subject lines, your creativity can be limited, so here I'll reveal some common myths that will help you create more engaging subject lines.
Myth #1 Don’t use CAPITALs in subject lines
I believe this myth stems from the idea that capitals are shouting…
5 reasons why SWOT analysis is still relevant to marketing strategy development
Over the last few years, it sometimes feels like the SWOT analysis is under attack. Only a few years ago I remember the contrarian views of Mark Ritson in his column for Marketing Week when he started knocking SWOT analysis, a technique that I continue to use and recommend for creating digital marketing strategies.
Here's a flavour of his views, from the post for Marketing Week which was expanded on in a post for Australia's B&T titled the utter pointlessness of SWOT, Ritson said:
"The big clue to the utter pointlessness of the SWOT approach can be gleaned from its total lack of value to any marketer".
He was talking about the application in the real-world and bemoaning why it is still taught in universities and colleges. I'd certainly agree - if it doesn't work in the real world, it shouldn't…
Improving EdgeRank factors for a Facebook company page updates
Last week we looked at how Facebook's EdgeRank alogrithm works for marketing. This week we look more specifically at how to improve a page's Edgerank. So, let's get straight into it... I'll review the three factors of Facebook update affinity, weight and decay that I introduced previously.
Improving Affinity
As I explained in my previous post, affinity refers to how interested a friend is in a brand’s page or how much of an online friend you are. Facebook gathers this data based on the clicks you have made in the past to that page /friend’s feed plus the number of likes, shares and comments you have made.
Affinity can drop off relatively quickly so the challenge is to continually be building affinity with your fans. Think about posts more like a dripping tap than a single big splash.
"If you haven’t had the dripping tap…
A mobile development dilemma
We know instinctively the time is now to take mobile seriously. But as your prepare have you considered what exactly you're preparing for?
A mobile app or mobile site?
Though mobile site browsing outnumbers app users, those app users consume 2.4 times more impressions! So what do you do? This infographic is useful if only to reinforce how serious you need to take it the question.
We'd suggest that the answer may be around what are you using mobile for - recent research suggests that apps are more about accessing data and connecting with others, especially where leveraging the phones native services (like geo-location) are important. Mobile sites on the other hand are proving more popular for shopping and entertainment, for now.
Also remember that from a pragmatic perspective, it's going to be cheaper to try and test via a mobile site. Food for thought!
…
Analysing link effectiveness using web analytics tools
This is part 2 of a post advising on how to identify quality domains for SEO Link-building. In Part 1, I introduced an approach for identifying domains using specific link analysis tools. In part 2, I'll look specifically at using Google Analytics. Since it’s also important to turn your eye inwards and use your web analytics data to identify which domains are providing valuable links.
If you aren’t already, consider start using campaign tracking codes to ensure that you are measuring the impact of each link and not just reliant on domain level information. If you rely on the referral data, you can only see landing page level detail, not individual links.
Use a taxonomy for your campaign tracking (and make sure everyone in the team knows about it) so you get consistent data. For example, consider the following:
utm_medium = seo
utm_source= links
utm_campaign = domain name
utm_content =…
Tips to remember when creating an animated video for your business
In Part 1 I showed some benefits and examples of using animations for online marketing.
In Part 2, I will look at some tips to help make your animations effective for marketing. This is what I've found from the ones that worked well and not so well.
Tip #1 Remember - it’s not live action video. Be imaginative!
One of the benefits of using animation over live action video is you can create something engaging and high impact.You can make things happen that would be outside the realm of a typical corporate video production budget.
Many people approach an animation thinking they will need a main character who talks to the audience about the company in a setting consistent with what the business does. If you want to be this literal, you may as well hire a film crew to do a live…
Ideas to improve the effectiveness of your AdWords creative
In a traditional advertising sense, your AdWords text is your creative, your broadcast to the world aimed at helping (or is that interrupting) people on their journey as they use Google.
As you'll know, copy in AdWords is so important since it affects several factors that all relate to your return in investment. If you make your ads relevant to the audience searching, it will:
Boost clickthrough rate giving more visits to your site and better quality score
Reduce cost-per-click through the way quality score works
Reduce bounce rate and increase conversion through relevance to the landing page
It's a delicate balance since you want to maximise quality score and minimise cost-per-click through maximising clickthrough rate, but at the same time you don't want to pay for irrelevant clickers. So, to an extent your ad should attract and repel (those not likely to purchase) at the…
New infographic shows what your email must deliver to keep subscribers
All email marketers are keen to keep their unsubscribe rate a minimum, although it will never be zero.
Here's interesting new data on the reasons why unsubscribes happen in this infographic from Litmus. It's down to Relevance and Frequency as you'd expect. The main learning for me, is suggesting how you should go beyond the email broadcast stats and finding what your audience want from your content and their preferred frequency. That means asking them through focus groups or additional
I always think "spam is in the eye of the beholder (ouch)" - if you're not relevant, then a subscriber will think you're a spammer, even if you're an established brand.
The infographic also takes a look at engagement filtering behaviors for Gmail and Hotmail which is increasingly an issue for getting your emails in front of your audience…
