Vote for the most effective marketing channel
From the interesting responses I have received so far, I think it is fair to make your opinion public.
So here’s a public poll where you can decide and see what others think is the most efective marketing channel today.
[polldaddy poll=1025002]
In search of the most effective marketing channel
How effective is a marketing channel - Copyright Genesis Interactive
Effectiveness of a marketing channel was measured using the following 8 criterion.
- · Is the channel Low Cost
- · Does the channel have a broad reach
- · Does the channel allow personalisation (1 to 1)
- · Does the channel deliver targeted messages
- · Does the channel offer any viral features?
- · Can the results be tracked?
- · Is the channel easy to access?
- · What is the longevity of a channel
Each criterion was scored out of a total value of 100. The scores are plotted on the line graph from left to right (highest to lowest). So, the highest socre has highest effectiveness.
Questions around cost were normalised using comparative value proposition offered by each channel.
We considered advanced targeting abilities as a measure for the “target-ability” property of a channel
Reach – Global = Maximum, Local/Regional = Minimum
Tracking: We consider a campaign trackable if you can quantitatively define the number of responses and conversions.
What do you think? Any comments?
Viral Email Marketing – Tap into your customers’ social network
For most readers of this blog, you already know the importance of making your marketing campaigns viral.
The real question is how do you make your campaigns viral in such a way that your message starst spreading like wildfire.
Well, here is a solution recipe that talks about how to create a viral email marketing campaign with guaranteed results.
Ingredients:
- A great special offer
- A competition give away
- List of opt-in email subscriobers (with first names)
- A Maxmail user account (get a Free trial account here)
Preperation:
Make sure your mailing list of subscribers is clean and has first names recorded for every single subscriber along with a valid email address.
Create an HTML newsletter (doesnt have to be fancy – keep it simple) with your special offer inside. The body of the newsletter should have a 600 x 200 graphic (well designed) that talks about an automatic entry for anyone who forwards this email to a friend. Each forward counts for one entry.
Mention the giveaway prize.
Forward this email to your friends to automatically into a draw to win one of 5 42inch Panasonic PLasma TVs. Forward as many times as you like, each forward counts for one entry. Increase your chances, get forwarding now.
Make sure you have the subscribers first name in the subject line (for higher uptake) and also in the greeting line (e.g. Hello John instead of Hi there)
Send the email.
Watch it cook
John receives your email and decides to forward the email to Sally, Bod, Sue and Ryan. Because John opted Sally, Bob, Sue and Ryan into your original mailing list, when any one of them forward this email, you have an exponential growth in the virality of your email.
Consider this
How Viral Marketing Works
You sent an email to John and it has been forwarded around to (in this example) a total of 29 new subscribers. You have also accumulated several competition entries. Your mailing list has grown and now you have greater interest from your customers.
Best of all, Maxmail’s viral marketing feature allowed you to tap into a list of subscribers that you didnt have access to prior to sending this email.
Comments and suggestions welcome.
22 Imperatives for Email Marketing Success
“Load and Send?” “Batch and Blast?” Those two marketing concepts are ancient history in the modern email environment. Now, you have to navigate your way through a complicated landscape of customer expectations, challenging technology, government regulations and other issues old-school direct marketers never had to face.
Maxmail has identified a set of principles we call “The 22 Imperatives for Email Marketing Success.” Don’t let that number intimidate you, though, as most marketers are already deploying many of these imperatives. Increasingly, though, companies that fail to follow all of these principles will find their email marketing programs underperforming their competitors and not achieving maximum ROI. Read More
How to build a permission based mailing list for effective email marketing
Developing a cost-effective email list poses a challenge for all email marketers. Because email addresses change at a rate of 30 percent or more on most lists, marketers must adopt an aggressive approach to expand their list and yield a significant return on investment.
As you browse the list below please keep these helpful tips in mind:
- Consider All Touch Points: Use every point of contact with customers and prospects.
- Obtain Permission:Always obtain permission with the confirmed (double) opt-in method for online contacts. For offline contacts, update your database with when, where and how the contact was initiated. Confirm their permission in the first email.
- Required Information: Obtain email address, name, format preference and logical interests/preferences.
- Focus Equal Attention on Existing Lists: Implement strategies and incentives to transform inactive subscribers into active ones.
- Provide Valuable Benefits: Convince potential subscribers of the valuable benefits they’ll receive.
- Convey Trust: Clearly state your privacy/email policies.
Email Marketing the cost effective client engagement tool
It never ceases to amaze us that in the world of business so much time, energy and money is spent on the acquiring new clients yet very little thought or energy goes into maintaining and growing those already hard won clients.
Most businesses know the math – It can cost up to 10 times more to win a new customer than to engage those you already have. So it is a little incomprehensible to try and fathom out why so many businesses continue to ignore this goldmine sitting on their server somewhere.
With a simple email marketing strategy and the right email marketing software, businesses can begin to mine this vein of gold and re-engage customers that have already purchased from them. The great news is that email marketing is by far the most cost effective marketing medium available to any business today. And because your customers have supplied you freely with their email addresses your message is not considered spam (more on this later). Read More
Make your email marketing viral with Maxmail
One of the best ways to build your mailing list is by collecting referrals.
With Maxmail, when you send out a newsletter, you can include an HTML hyperlink anywhere inside the Newsletter by adding the #ForwardMail# tag. When the newsletter is sent to your subscribers, they will be able to click on the #ForwardMail# link (you can control the text label) and come to a landing page that looks like the one below.
At this stage your subscribers can forward the newsletter to their friends and also opt them into your mailing list for future mail outs.
Take a look at the following video tutorial to see how the entire process works out.
Maxmail
Email standards for HTML newsletters – Nobody cares
It’s been almost 10 years now since the broader web design world was introduced to the ideas, and the importance, of web standards. The Web Standards Project taught us all that we shouldn’t have to code the same page twice for Netscape and Internet Explorer. By designing to web standards, and with the help of increasing browser support, we could reduce the time and money spent coding and make lighter, faster, more accessible websites.
Unfortunately, just like that Celine Dion song from Titanic, HTML email rendering has been left in 1998. Getting even a relatively simple design to work in the 10 or 12 major email clients can be a very frustrating task, and support is getting worse, not better. It’s time for web designers and email client developers to realise that we need to follow the path that web standards for browsers has cut so clearly.
HTML email is here to stay
Designers, particularly web standards designers, have not shown a lot of love for the idea of HTML email. Key figures in the industry have spoken out against it, and the general approach has been very much ‘Don’t do it’.
Real time HTML Newsletter Acid Test
Does anyone has anything to say about the lack of Email standards with rendering of HTML emails across different mail clients?
I find it particularly frustrating trying to integrate an HTML email that is cross-mail client compatible.
So we have decided to build this new live Acid Test tool which will check for compliance across the following mail clients per HTML email.
Apple Mail
Eudora
Entourage
Outlook 2007
Gmail
Lotus Notes 08
Yahoo Mail
MSN Web Mail
Windows Live Mail
Mozilla thunderbird
The Acid test works along side the newsletter creation tool/HTML Editor which will process the HTML syntax of an email, check across 17 CSS properties that are partially/not supported across some of the mail clients and show the user a score for each mail client.
Have a look at this video tutorial to see how Maxmail provides you with a robust solution to combat the increasingly frustrating job of making sure your HTML emails look the same across every mail client.
We would love to hear your comments or suggestions regardnig an ACID Test of HTML emails – Help us improve it.