Marketing Communications

A recent study by Rasmussen Reports on behalf of credit card company Discover Financial Services turned up a shocking statistic: 46 percent of the small business owners surveyed said it’s a myth that every business needs a website.

Huh?

The report goes on to say that while the number of small businesses with a website has grown 36 percent in the past two years, only 45 percent of the owners polled currently have one. Of course, that means that 55 percent of small businesses do not have a website. The most common reason given (41 percent) for not having a website was that it is not needed. The second-most common reason (19 percent) was that is costs too much.

I understand the cost objection – it is expensive to put a quality website online. But it has should be viewed viewed as a capital investment, just like a new roof, a delivery truck or an upgraded computer system. It’s part of the cost of doing business.

But not needed? I guess there might be some small businesses out there that don’t need to attract new customers, don’t need to keep their old customers happy, has no need to even make their phone number and address available to the public.

A website, no matter how simple, should function as the hub of your inbound marketing activities. All roads lead back to your website, where you have an opportunity to take prospects into clients or customers.

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While most email marketers spend considerable time crafting their messages and managing their lists, little thought is given to the timing of their email. However, a recent study by Pivotal Veracity suggests that the timing of your email is equally important.

Pivotal Veracity’s Engagement Index Q1-Q309 report found that the average elapsed time between when messages are first sent and when they are first seen has grown from 23.2 hours in January 2009 to 25.9 hours in August. “If you’re mailing time sensitive email campaigns you should consider that the average consumer would not see your email for more than 24 hours,” according to the report.

The time between when a consumer sees the message and when he or she reacts is also growing longer, the company found. This suggests that timing is becoming more important than ever as email marketers find themselves competing for customers’ attention, not only against other email messages and spam but also social media and mobile phone content.

Time of day is also important in the success of an email campaign. If it is B2B, morning is an optimal time, as most desk-bound workers start their day by going through their email inbox, according to B2B Marketing Magazine. The problem with morning is that recipients could be more focused on the priorities of the day than your message.

As the day progresses, users tend to have more intermittent interactions with email – shorter in duration than the start-of-the-day episode, the magazine said. Between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m., users are likely to have five individual episodes of three-to-five minutes apiece, compared to the 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. period when they are more likely to have a single episode that is substantially longer. “On the face of it, this would appear not to work in the marketer’s favor, but your message may be the welcome distraction from an otherwise busy day,” according to the magazine.

Pivotal Veracity’s Email Engagement Index is based on multiple proprietary data sources that are aggregated and analyzed monthly across authenticated mailer domains.

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Want to know the quickest, easiest way to alienate you hard-earned email distribution list?

Bombard them with irrelevant, self-serving, poorly designed emails. It’s a recipe for a quick click of the “delete” or worse yet, the “spam” button.

As the email marketing industry has become more sophisticated, so too have the expectations of your recipients. They want to be educated, informed and entertained. If you do that consistently, they won’t mind the occasional sales pitch dropped in, especially if you are offering products and services they need and want at a price that meets or exceeds their perceived value.

Here are five tips to keep in mind when planning and executing your next email campaign:

Focus on being relevant and offering value: Keep your customers’ needs in mind. Will they appreciate what you are sending? Will they understand its value? Keep the message simple and the layout clean so there are no distractions.

Make It Eye-Catching: The process of getting someone to read and react to your email starts with an intriguing Subject Line and a familiar From Line. Even if those two critical components are on target, you still have only a few seconds to catch and hold your readers’ interest. Think of it like a billboard on a superhighway. Make sure your brand is easily identifiable, the offer is clear, and the call to action strong.

Be a Tease: Use only one or two paragraphs from a longer article, then drive traffic to your website by including a “Read More” tag. Snippets are easier on the eye and don’t discourage readers by forcing them to plow through dense mountains of information.

Opt-Ins Are Like Gold: The temptation might be to build your list quickly with unscrupulous tactics on the theory that bigger is better. Resist that temptation at all costs. Better to send your emails to a smaller list of people who actually want to read them than to a bunch of faceless email addresses. Consistently poor deliverability is a no-no for most email service providers.

Take Time to Build Your List: Highlight the benefits of being subscriber, then give people an easy way to sign up to receive your emails. Offer an incentive — a special report, a discount, or some other tangible product – to encourage people to subscribe. It may take longer that buying lists or using using shady tactics to harvest email address, but the results will be far better in the long run.

Here’s the bottom line – quality will be rewarded, quantity will not. If your ISP doesn’t flag you as a spammer, your recipients will ignore you. Either way, your email campaign will fall flat and you’ll be left wondering why.

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Ever since a caveman scrawled the first advertising slogan on rock wall, three factors have influenced the profitability of any marketing effort:

The Right Message…
To The Right Market…
At The Right Time!

Unfortunately, many small businesses miss at least one of thse critifal factors. Heck, some overlook two or all three. The result is heaps of wasted money and squandered opportunities. Some businesses spend too much money on ego-feed image advertising, and not nearly enough on direct response offers, which are easy to track and evaluate. So, how you you change that?

Here are three ways to make the most of your marketing dollars:

Keep image advertising to a minimum. Sure, it’s nice to see a clever half-page ad in Sports Illustrated or the NY Times. But you never really know how effective it is? Does it lead to inquiries? Sales?

Test, test, test, especially direct response campaigns that are inexpensive. You can offer FREE stuff — reports, samples, coupons — or other response devices. Couple them with compelling copy that show you understand your target audience’s wants and needs. Connect with them, solve their most pressing problems and you’ll have a customer for life.

When you find a successful direct response offer, stick with it. Use every tactic at your disposal — autoresponders, email newsletters, postcards, phone calls — to stay relevant to your loyal customers.

Follow up is critical. Be persistent but respectful. If a potential customer tells you to back off, respect those wished. But don’t be shy about contacting leads if you have additional information that might help sway their decision.

A computerized system that methodically, repetitively and consistently follows up with your leads is the most cost-effective alternative. Otherwise, you might be spending too much time doing manual labor or, worse, wasting valuable leads.

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Email is a powerful tool for marketing good and services. While the options are virtually unlimited, there are a handful of best practices that every email marketer should stick to:

Be Personable
You wouldn’t just walk up to someone you know at a cocktail party and say “Greetings” would you? No, you’d address that person by name. Same with your email marketing. Include your subscriber’s name right at the beginning. Studies have shown that emails with a personal greeting enjoy a much higher response rate. It’s human nature – people love being addressed personally. It makes them feel valued and appreciated. A simple “Hey Joe,” will go a very long way in increasing the response rate.

Think Like a Headline Writer
Most people make a decision about whether to read a story based on the headline. If it sounds interesting or informative, readers will give it a shot. The same is true for email subject lines. Avoid the boring, easy-to-ignore “ABC Co. Newsletter – September Issue.” That’s not going to entice anyone to open it. Instead, include a benefit in the subject, something that will pique a reader’s interest to the point of actually opening your email. How about something like this: “Improve Your Bottom Line in 3 Easy Steps” from ABC Co.

Always Include an Unsubscribe Link
Hard to believe, but some emailers still refuse to include an unsubscribe link in every email or make it so inconspicous and difficult to use that people don’t notice or give up after a handful of clicks. Beyond just being courteous, it’s also a legal requirement in the United States. And if that’s not enough, including an unsubscribe link can help keep your list clean and your deliverability high. You don’t want to waste time marketing to people who have no use for what you are offering. Make sure your unsubscribe link is clearly visible and easy to use.

Text Links vs. Image Links?
Everyone wants to produce emails that are visually attractive and graphically robust. But some research shows that bold, blue, underlined text links draw a better response than images that need to be clicked. Although image links are okay, text links are a more effective way to get readers to click-through to your strategic landing page.

Write Clearly
Make sure there are no spelling, punctuation or grammatical errors on your email message. Make your point and move on. Your message, especially on the web, has to be clear, concise and compelling. Readers won’t put up with rambling, disjointed, jargon-filled essays. Oblivion is just a mouse-click away.

Provide Additional Connections
Make sure the links to your social media profiles appear in all of your emails – you can add them as content blocks in your HTML newsletter and in the email signature of your individual emails.

Be Consistent
I know I’m a drying breed, but I’ve come to expect my newspaper to be delivered at about 6:30 every morning. If it’s even a couple of minutes late I get antsy. As long as you are delivering an email that is useful to your readers, they, too, will come to depend on it. They’ll look for it at a certain time and a certain day. The same rules holds true for your enewsletter design. When my newspaper changes its look, it takes me a while to get accustomed to familiar features in different places. Don’t change your design every other issue and keep your “From” field consistent, Minor tweaks are ok but people tend to prefer routine rather than surprises.

If you have any other best practices for email marketing, I’d love to hear about them.

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