Driving Sales

Designing Emails for Inquiring Eyes

A quick look, a snap decision, and your email either gets read or rejected. Welcome to the zero-tolerance world of email marketing where relevance is in the eye of the beholder and stating your case clearly and concisely is your only chance of survival.

The Five Stages of Email Viewing

According to a whitepaper by ExactTarget, a provider of email marketing solutions, customers and prospects typically view emails in five stages: looking at the "from" line, the subject line, the preview pane, the opened but not-yet-scrolled message, and the full email.

So how do you turn a skeptical eye into an eager eye? By using proven design tactics at each key stage, you can quickly build trust and lead your reader deeper into the details of your offer.  Here are four that make a difference:

Design for common email clients. Depending on which email client your recipients are using, your design is going to look different. About 75% of all business-to-business recipients are using Microsoft's Outlook or IBM's Lotus Notes. The most common business-to-consumer clients are Yahoo, which brings in 25% of email recipients, Hotmail, which accounts for 20%, and AOL, which accounts for 18%.

Keep it consistent. Don't make your recipients guess about the legitimacy of your email or its contents. Make sure they instantly recognize your emails by standardizing messages with your company or brand name or the name of someone they will recognize at your company. The "from" field is especially critical in establishing credibility, so make smart use of it to clearly identify yourself.

Show less, get more. Studies confirm that time spent on email deteriorates as a reader moves through it, so the less you have them scroll the better. If you're trying to cover a lot of content but have only a few messages or articles, a paragraph synopis and link to more information is an effective way to go. For a lot of messages or articles, a short sentence and a link for each will generally bring better results.

Make optimum use of the preview pane. That four-by-four-inch square is "the big stage" for attacting the attention and winning the trust of your email audience. Be sure to have your brand name, offer and call to action prominently displayed in this space and keep everything clean and to the point. You'll want to keep designs at 600 pixels wide or less to save readers the chore of scrolling horizontally.

For more ideas to drive sales check out archives to this blog or visit Ambit Advertising and Public Relations.

      

Index of Posts

Getting More Bang From Your Business Blog

Shift Your Thinking and Jump Start Your Marketing

"Canned" Advertising Kills

Gaining Business in a Sour Economy

Wish You Were Here: Engaging Customers With Postcard Advertising

A Little More Conversation, A Little Less "Puffspeak"

When the Economy Gets Tough, the Tough Get Marketing

Hungry for Web Site Traffic? Feed a Search Engine

The Upside of Branding Cities in a Down Economy

Rise and Shine Online: A Multi-Pronged Approach to Business Exposure

Flop-Proof Rules for Making Memorable Speeches

The Laws of Trade Show Attraction

Potent PowerPoint Presentations in Five Easy Pieces

Putting More "Pull Power" in Your Next Mailer

Inspect Your Copy for Sizzle and Substance

Three Big Keys to Choosing the Right Marketing Firm

R U Using SMS 2 Market?

Letting Customer Testimonials Do Your Talking

Taking Your Blog From Wallflower to Life of the Party

Secrets to Writing Direct Mail Letters That Sell

Email Subject Lines that Build Curiousity (and Banish Spam Fears)

Why Baby Boomers Still Matter as a Marketing Target

Sell, Sell, Cell!

Learning the Language of "You"

Building a Facebook Following That Leads to More Business

Need to Create a Tagline? Just Do It

Blog Behavior: Best Practices for Reaching Bloggers

Fishing for Social Media Opportunities in the Stream of Life

Mingling and Marketing on the Social Media Scene

Creating a Powerful, Brand-Focused Ad Campaign

Now Hear This: B-to-B Audience Still Tuned to Radio

Designing Emails for Inquiring Eyes

What Makes You Any Different in These Economic Times?

Crafting Email Text that Delivers Your Message

Conducting Focus Groups to Confirm Ideas that Sell

Practicing "Good Form" to Get Online Prospects Registered

Enticing Inactive Email Recipients

Optimizing Your Landing Pages for Higher Conversions

Creating Taglines That Promote Your Brand

Boosting Your Online Visibility With the Right Dose of SEO

Selling Prospects Throughout Your Website

Creating the "Write Stuff" for Search Engine Optimization

Old Marketing and New Marketing: Getting the Best of Both Worlds

Fuel for driving traffic to your Website.

Trying to find your place with Web 2.0?

Building positive media relations one editor at a time.

Decision-Makers Value Industry-Specific Digital Media ... Why Don't You?

Get your email messages through with a rock-solid reputation.

Extending Your Reach By Advertising In Other E-Newsletters

Grabbing publicity with "caveman easy" press releases.

Start a Blog, Build a Brand

Well-done copywriting is prepared on medium.

“CRISIS!” Defending Your Reputation With Timely Public Relations

Digital is inevitable but bluring the focus of your campaign is not.

Building your brand with a Starbucks "kick."

For more ideas to drive sales check out archives or visit Ambit Advertising and Public Relations.

What Makes You Any Different in These Economic Times?

By now, we're reading our life in the next 12 months through headlines like these:

• Marketers are already feeling the effects...
• Companies are cutting marketing budgets...
• Marketers are preparing their contingency strategies...

And your mail bag is beginning to fill with guru speak on how to deal with the inevitable slowdown.

But along comes Rob Preston, editor in Chief, Information Week with Down to Business: Don't Succumb to the Recession Noise.

Here's his last paragraph; you can click through to read the rest:

In a recent budget meeting, after our highly capable finance chief cautioned several executives to watch every dollar in anticipation of a softer economy, my colleague responded: Fiscal prudence is always important, but if you're asking me to take my foot off the gas pedal, my position is that I choose not to participate in this recession.

You too can choose not to participate in this recession.

Here's how.

Redirect a small percentage of what's left  in your marketing budget to add a mix of  email marketing, Web banners, Google and Yahoo! Adwords, Web analytics, landing pages, micro sites, SEO/SEM and blog marketing to your traditional advertising and public relations.

Pick the right mix, keep them on message, merge them into the advertising and public relations campaign, and watch your marketing budget become more efficient.

Now... which ones do you choose? If your company is of sufficient size, you've probably used the last few years to sort out the ones that work with your advertising to drive sales.

If you haven't , don't dabble. These tools are marketing tools that need a little technology to make them work. Don't run out and hire a bunch of technology vendors and expect trackable results. Get some help from marketing people who understand how to use the technology to deliver your message.

That... is what will make you different in these economic times.

For more ideas to drive sales check out the archives to this blog or visit Ambit Advertising and Public Relations.

Crafting Email Text that Delivers Your Message

In the high tech world of digital media, using plain text email to market a product or service may strike some as an old-fashioned approach out of step with the times. That mindset couldn't be further from the truth.

Effective, well-rounded email programs often use both HTML and text to ensure optimum rendering and delivery. The fact is, with HTML formatting often disabled by image-blocking platforms or aggressive spam filters, plain text email is still "old reliable" for delivering a marketing message that gets read and acted on.

The Art and Science of Email Text

Offering a text version of your email or incorporating text segments into HTML messages is a smart way to meet a broad range of reader preferences. But your text message must be shaped with an artist's flair and a technician's care to take full advantage of the medium that delivers it.

With "crisp, clean and simple" as your guide words, here are some tips to keep your text on target:

• Using too many URLs can bog email text down. Avoid overload by selectively showing only the most important links such as landing page, home page and contact page.

• Limit paragraphs to four or five lines deep to keep text from appearing too dense and uninviting to the scan-and-go reader.

• Restrict the use of typographical devices like stars and asterisks -- they can trigger spam filters that are sensitive to ambiguous punctuation.

• Use a title line to announce your offer or publication name that is visible in a standard email preview pane that displays only the top 2 to 4 inches of the message.

• Test the message prior to sending with an eye out for bulky copy blocks, broken URLs and awkward layout elements.

For more ideas to drive sales go to blog.ambitmarketing.com or visit Ambit Advertising and Public Relations.

Conducting Focus Groups to Confirm Ideas that Sell

In marketing any product or service, strategically strong ideas that drive sales are essential to your success. But how do you know if your "great idea" is really going to connect with your customers? The simple answer is: ask them.

A Fresh Perspective on What Matters Most

A focus group typically brings together eight to ten qualified people for a face-to-face discussion of a particular topic. Focus groups provide qualitative research, which means they provide an understanding of perceptions, feelings, attitudes and motivations. The personal observations group members share enable you to get a fresh perspective on what you're doing or what you're planning to do. You can test your assumptions on your target audience and use them as a barometer to determine if your latest ideas are going to fly . . . or fall flat.

Putting a Focus Group to Work for You

With some upfront planning and clearly defined objectives, you can get the maximum value out of your focus group sessions. Without that preparation, you may not ask the right questions or even have the right people sitting at the table!

Typical ways you can use a focus group to improve your marketing:

• Discover the hot buttons for your target market. What messages will stimulate them to buy?

• Test a new advertising campaign to find out whether the message is clear, if they view the ad positively or negatively, whether the ad would prompt them to act. Compare a series of ads or brochures to see which one they like best. Test a logo or tagline. Test a mission statement; a vision statement.

• Brainstorm. If you have a problem to solve, focus groups can provide an excellent forum for generating creative ideas.

There is nothing like focus groups to get you excited about your marketing. They can be humbling, informative, energizing, make your eyes roll when you realize your new concept won't fly, or be incredibly exciting as you, when armed with great research, are confident that your new strategy is a sound one.

For more ideas to drive sales go to blog.ambitmarketing.com or visit Ambit Advertising and Public Relations.