A concise list of the most popular email marketing systems

With a multitude of email marketing systems readily available, it can be hard to find the right one. Your email system needs to benefit your goals! 5 steps to selecting a new email marketing service: Review your current situation Know your requirements for a new vendor Research the market Test/ request demos for your shortlisted vendors Make a decision and start the migration process Before switching you need to determine your requirements. Have you outgrown your current provider? Do you need extra features that they do not provide? When choosing a new vendor you need to make sure their features will help you achieve your business needs, now and in the future. Do you need more robust reporting and analytics? Integrate SMS messaging into your content strategy? Or, do you need greater capabilities in segmentation and personalization? When choosing a new vendor, think about : Integration Functionality Usability …

Can Handwritten Communication be relevant The Digital Age?

Social network usage is growing at an unprecedented rate. With the number of worldwide social networking users expected to reach 2.5 billion by 2018, around one third of the Earth’s entire population, Skype, email and text exchanges have become commonplace. However with this comes an influx of digital marketing; of spam-like emails and mailing lists, which head straight to junk or delete. It is, therefore, becoming recognised that perhaps this is not the best way for companies to market their products. Statistics show that 95% of emails are never even opened. Does this suggest that handwritten marketing communication is making a comeback?

Past: Internet Marketing and its Issues

Since the beginning of the digital age, the internet has been exploited by companies who are looking to project their service or product to the world. It is a simple way by which businesses can reach out to…

Chart of the Day: Do you get your emails approved? How many are involved? (Approval process) - Part 5 of 6

This week in our series, we will be looking at the approval process for our emails. (Catch-up on previous episodes.) Email approvals are fun. Well, for the people approving the email. For the email marketer, it can be torture. If there was no brief, it will result in many changes. And the majority won't have a brief for each and every email created because only 18.5% do.

How many people generally have to approve an email before it's sent?

In the chart below, we can see that the majority have '3' people included in the process (32.2%), and second has '2' involved (30.8%). Scarily 8.6% have to send each email to '6+' people to gain approval.

6+ people!

You will find that the majority of those who have…

How mobile devices are serving a wide range of consumer needs

We all know that the majority of web traffic is now on mobile devices, and consumers around the world are using their mobile devices for a wide range of tasks, including the all-important task of making key purchasing decisions. But how does the use of mobile vary when it comes to fulfilling different needs? And how does the use of mobile vary between countries? It is important marketers understand the answers to these questions, so they can understand how best to reach and connect with their target audience. This infographic from ComScore can help you understand how consumers are using different mobile technologies to fulfil various needs. …

Use these steps to maximize your email outreach

It is difficult to argue against the benefits of automated email outreach when it comes to online marketing, be it for promoting your blog posts, software or conducting general sales pitches. However, the biggest challenge is to make them look personal. Sending emails is the easy part. The challenge is to get responses from the people we send the emails to. With the sheer number of emails that reach a person’s inbox, you really have to find a unique way of standing out in your recipients’ inbox. To give you an idea how small tweaks can change the way your campaigns perform, here are some stats: Research conducted by MailChimp indicates that adding both, the first and the last name of the recipient in the subject of the email can double the open rate when compared to adding just the first or last…

Chart of the Day: Exclusives, rewards and a sense of achievement drive people to purchase

Visit any ecommerce company website and you'll likely find you can sign up for a free account or a free trial of the product/tool/service, with which the company hopes to entice you enough to become a regular customer. For example, the office favourite Graze will send you your first box of goodies free, Amazon Prime offers your first 30 days free even here at Smart Insights your can sign up for a free account and access over 20 of our resources. This freemium model has become the defacto model for most brands online. The issue? You have to try and convince your audience who use your free service how do you convert them into paying customers. This is where new research on the mobile gaming industry from Facebook could help.

The most important benefits for high-value payers in developed countries…

White labeling your surveys will build trust when collecting data and help increase response rates

Protecting your brand identity in today’s digital world is of paramount importance, especially if you are engaging with customers and asking for their feedback. Consumers are savvy and something as simple as a bona fide branded domain can build trust and increase response rates to your online surveys. Does it really make a difference when so much data is collected every day? Consumers today can be reached in a multitude of different ways but respondents are wary of handing over personal data unless they know it is a legitimate request and the data will be handled and stored securely. Therefore, it’s helpful to all concerned when sending a survey invitation to be able to identify immediately who has sent the request. A simple way to ensure this is with secure domain branding. Something that can only be done with…

4 examples of omnichannel changing the retail experience

The numbers don’t lie: the days of consumers visiting their local general store to satisfy every shopping need are long gone. It’s no secret that there has been a shift in shopping preferences moving to the online world, with 67% of millennials preferring to shop online. But in recent years, even the meaning of “online shopping” has evolved. A once-simple buying journey on a retailer’s website has rapidly evolved to a complex situation, for shoppers and retailers alike. With so many shopping options, today’s consumers are often loyal to a variety of retailers and websites, including online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay, large retailers like Target, and category-specific stores like REI and Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams. And it only gets more segmented from there. Consumer touchpoints are increasing with astounding velocity — and…

How content marketing has evolved over the last decade

Content marketing has gone through a transformation over the past 10 years. As the pace of content marketing has grown exponentially, so too has the number of content marketing pieces being published online. This has led to a shift in the approach to content marketing and a continuous change of best practices. Taking cues from Google’s constantly changing algorithms, content marketers and SEO experts have changed their opinions on keywords, platforms, and the definition of quality. What started as a way to provide useful information to users slowly became a platform for link building and monetization. This has led to oversaturation and a generally lower standard of quality.

The current state of content marketing best practices advises against shallow and valueless content for the sole purpose of having content, opting instead for creating a content strategy which works towards…

Social Media Essentials: Snapchats Power Editor, Instagram hit a milestone and Facebook launch Watch

To finish your working week off here are 6 updates we saw happen this week that could help inform your social media strategy and keep you up-to-date with what's happened in the world of social media.

Spotlight Story: Snapchat look to attract more advertisers with their new ad platform 'Advanced Mode'

Snapchat have announced an update very similar to Facebooks Power Editor, 'Advanced Mode'. This feature has been designed for Snapchat advertisers within its Ads Manager. The new platform allows advertisers to efficiently target, test and update their ad campaigns. With the aim of encouraging advertisers to spend more money.  It should also help give them a competitive edge against Facebook and Instagram. Find out whats new and how it will change how you advertise on Snapchat.

Instagram…