With the launch of our new Mailigen SMS feature, marketers can synch their email and SMS lists together to build one common communication strategy. Whether you are a newbie or a seasoned professional, it’s time to get started with your first SMS marketing campaign.

SMS List Building and Segmenting

List building

We have already highlighted some tips on how to build SMS lists in our previous article:

• include a phone field in your web sign-up form
• collect phone numbers via email newsletters
• motivate them to join the list by offering benefits

Contact segmenting

Mailigen enables one list for both email and SMS contacts. If lists are synched, you can segment your new SMS contacts according your existing email list data. For example, already created email segments, results of email marketing campaigns, or internet surveys.

Message Development and Sending

Added value

SMS campaigns differ from email newsletters whose aim is usually to inform subscribers about the latest news. The briefness of SMS is more appropriate for special offers, reminders or alerts.
Add some catchy benefit in the message, like:

• discount code
• gift card code
• announcement of competition
• password for something
• exclusive information

160 characters

Write as short and precisely as possible. Your aim is to grab attention and clearly indicate what the receiver can get from you, where to go, or what to do. It’s your call to action!

Remember 160 characters are the limit. If you use Unicode and write in language with accented characters, each letter will count as 2 characters.

P.S. Make sure you know your audience, and whether it’s okay if you use abbreviations or write latin letters without accents.

Include links

With the expansion of smartphones, you can include links in SMS. Guide them to mobile-friendly landing pages with additional information that can’t fit in 160 symbols. With Mailigen SMS, your added links will shorten automatically.

Follow Campaign Results

Don’t stop your mobile marketing efforts by pressing the ”Send” button. Analyzing SMS campaigns is as important as analyzing your email campaign results.

Delivery

In email campaigns, the delivery rate and open rate differ a lot from each other. But in SMS campaigns it’s almost the same. Those who receive your SMS, will most likely open them. After the campaign you will be surprised about how high your open rate is!

Google Analytics

Mailigen enables tracking recipients’ activities with Google Analytics. Include the UTM code in the link and look at your campaign results in Google Analytics. You will see the traffic to your website via SMS links and the rate of conversions. After that it will be easy to calculate the ROI.

Clicks

With Mailigen SMS campaigns, you have full click statistics. You will know exactly how many of those opened SMS responded to your call to action and clicked on the link. Then you can use those click statistics to segment your contact list and treat them differently with more targeted messages.

Summary

With these new tools and features, the richer your marketing strategy is. Just don’t rush in with trends just because they’re trends. When used, smart SMS campaigns can bring great engagement with your audience. Email is indispensable when we talk about communicating news, blogs, articles etc. But nothing can be more targeted than a small message sent directly to the right person at the right time and place.

Haven’t tried yet but want to get started? Our team is here to help you. Contact our consultant and boost engagement right now!

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• SMS List Building
• Brand New Mailigen SMS Marketing Features!
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Almost everyone has an email address and more than 3 billion phones in the market are SMS enabled. As the mobile market explodes, texting now has twice as many active users as email. The SMS channel is growing rapidly, and marketers need to capitalize on the mobile channel. So, we set out to build a tool for you to create SMS marketing programs that produce the best results.

We’ve created Mailigen SMS, an easy to use and fully integrated SMS solution that synchs with your existing Mailigen contact lists.

Some of the great new features:

• SMS delivery to more than 200 countries and territories
• Registration of unique sender names
• Built in SMS customer management system
• Segmentation of SMS audience
• Gathering new subscribers via web sign-up forms
• In-depth SMS campaign reports
• Automatic URL shortening and click tracking
• Google Analytics integration
• SMS integration with email marketing strategy

After extensive research, the Mailigen development team identified important marketing aspects of the mobile commerce revolution and brainstormed ideas for new mobile email marketing tools for our customers. We took the best capabilities and combined them into one comprehensive tool for greater marketing impact. In keeping with our mantra of “make it easy to use”, we have created a simple to understand tool for creating and sending SMS messages. Because marketing is ultimately about the result, we put a big emphasis on reporting data because reporting is what helps you optimize campaigns and save on marketing costs.

Integrating SMS and email marketing will help you create a following and promote your company by creating a seamless messaging strategy to deliver targeted messages. Adding SMS to your marketing program allows you to reach your target audience anytime, anywhere and reach subscribers at the point in time most relevant to your offer creating a sense of urgency and dual effect if used together with email marketing campaigns.

Check out the new SMS features, and as always, send us your feedback. If you have never used mobile marketing don’t be intimidated, our support team is ready to help you get started.

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• SMS List Building
• SMS Marketing Campaign Development
• Will SMS Saturate Your Target Market?

Recently we launched the Mailigen SMS feature that allows you to create SMS campaigns all over the world, as well as the ability to integrate SMS in email marketing campaigns. Before we start your SMS campaign, let’s start with phone number list building.

Gather Both – Email and SMS Lists

If you are a newbie, you are probably starting from zero and don’t have an email list or a SMS list, so gather them both at once. Create a sign-up form with name, email and phone number fields.

Promote joining your email and SMS sign-up form:

• place sign-up or lightbox sign-up forms in your webpage and blog
• invite people in social media to join your list by promoting a link to your sign-up form
• add a sign-up form on company’s Facebook page
• make people fill in an online form when registering for an account, event, download, discount coupon etc.
• benefit from offline events when people fill in subscription or registration forms
• make use of QR codes that you can place almost everywhere and encode links to your sign-up form

Add Phone Numbers to Your Email List

If you have email list and you regularly practice email marketing, you have already established relationship with your audience. It’s so much easier for you to build an SMS list if you can start from an established list. They already have a trusted relationship with you and know you are not a spammer. Sending them relevant content means they will be ready to give you also their mobile phone number.

Work those newlsetters

• When sending a newsletter, invite them to join your SMS list by filling in a special field placed in the newsletter.
• Create a call to action leading them to a special landing page and fill in their phone number there.

Problems You Can Face

Mobile phones are considered to be something more personal than email, so people are often suspicious when you request their mobile phone number. Be ready for some subscribers to push back, they may not want to give you their phone numbers making it difficult to build a solid SMS list.

If all sign-up form fields are obligatory, you risk people will not finish the subscription process or simply will write in the wrong phone number. So it’s better to give them choices on what kind of contact information they want to share.

And don’t forget to offer motivating benefits to subscribe. You can even differentiate benefits by whether a person has subscribed for email, SMS or both.

Motivation to Sign up for SMS List

Give great reasons to sign up by offering benefits for joining your SMS list:

• coupon, discount code, gift card, free stuff, or some other special offer they receive after joining your SMS list
• additional or unique information about your product or service
• having subscribed for a SMS list, give a free download of a guide or ebook
• position subscribing to your SMS list as joining a VIP community whose members receive unique offers and information
• organize contests and from all subscribers raffle the lucky ones winning prizes

Last Thought

All list building is a process and takes time. Sometimes even more true for building lists with sensitive data like mobile phone numbers. Put your imagination in motion and make the contact collecting process meaningful, motivating, and interesting. Remember to promote the subscription benefits and additional value. You can make use of our tips and prepare for your new mobile marketing challenges.

Follow our stream of blog posts, there is more info to come on SMS marketing campaigns and their integration with email marketing campaigns!

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According to Janis Rose, CEO of the company,

the placement is significant because while no email marketing service provider can ever guarantee a top ranking in a review, the achievement proves our platform works just as well for the novice as it does for the professional marketer.

Functionality reviewed included submission interface, protocol compliance, delivery rate, analytics and support. Mailigen achieved a 90 percent overall score, scoring 18 out of 20 in all five categories. TopSEO noted

Mailigen’s power and flexibility is based on a perceptive, user-friendly web based email marketing software which enables you to build optimized, high-impact emails with breath-taking ease.

To view the rankings, please visit TopSEO webiste.

Mailigen recently received another significant recognition, ranking sixth in the TopTen REVIEWS of email marketing service providers.

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The way we interact and share information is changing rapidly, with mobile technology leading the way. So, the way we market must also change rapidly with more tools for reaching a mobile audience. It’s no secret traditional advertising has been undergoing a shift from offline and mobile advertising is quickly becoming the most effective way to reach target audiences anytime and anywhere. Consequently, the provision of information to mobile devices is one of the most effective marketing methods currently available.

The rise of mobile marketing means savvy marketers need to be more effective than ever at integrating their marketing tools. Smartphone market penetration is estimated to be just under 30% today, but SMS can reach both smart and standard mobile phones. This makes it one of the most effective mobile marketing tools available today. Additionally, SMS marketing allows companies to reach all consumers at a very low cost. Software company STRATA, a company engaged in media buying and selling, polled marketing agencies about their customers preferences for the first quarter of 2011. 25% of agencies polled said they are working with clients who are asking for SMS capabilities and advertising creative. That’s up from 15% in the fourth quarter of 2010.

With mobile adoption on a rapid rise, nearly every mobile phone user in the U.S. is capable of sending and receiving text messages and SMS has become increasingly important in developing countries where the number of feature phones far outnumber smartphones. In September 2010 eMarketer forecast SMS would be the biggest single mobile advertising format in the most immediate future, with a 38% share of mobile advertising spend in 2011. Will 2012 be the time when SMS saturation reaches your target market?

Building SMS into your integrated marketing campaigns requires several considerations: Location based marketing, Mo- bile marketing, Social, CRM and Email marketing. A common misperception of proponents of each of these tools is as they grow, they replace the other. Not true. These tools work beautifully together to deliver vibrant campaigns and en- gage customers. Check out this paper on the many ways to integrate SMS with your current marketing efforts.

Download our new guide SMS INTEGRATION

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Symbolizing dominance and ambition, the Dragon is considered the mightiest of the signs in the Chinese Zodiac. Dragons live by their own rules and are usually successful due to their drive, ability to face challenges and willingness to take risks. Passionate and enthusiastic, dragons prefer to lead and in their professional lives express creativity, inventiveness and ingenuity. We couldn’t think of a better mascot for 2012.

As this year comes to an end, it’s time to consider email marketing trends for 2012. What will be the leading trends in 2012 and what trends are over? One thing is clear, to be a Dragon you need to be multifaceted and multi-layered, active, bright and fast. Like all integrated marketing programs, the Dragon embodies the force of all signs of zodiac, especially Rabbit, Tiger, Rooster, Snake and Monkey, so we’ll need to borrow from them.

1. Mobile Marketing Rabbit

Mobile marketing is the trend of 2012. According to the latest study of ReturnPath, due to extreme growth of smartphones, email viewership on mobile devices in US has grown by 34% compared with the previous six month period, and now 23% of email is read in mobile version. IBM recently released the holiday online shopping stats and 7% of all sales the day after Christmas were made on an iPad. That may not seem like a big number, until you remember the iPad didn’t exist just a few years ago. Email marketing and mobile marketing have tremendous potential when tethered. As an email marketing rabbit, you will have to loop from computer to mobile, from mobile to tablet and vice versa. Don’t forget mobile commerce has started to compete seriously with electronic commerce. Financial self-service transactions and mobile banking are expected to grow rapidly in 2012.

The rise of mobile marketing means you need to be more effective and faster than ever. Smartphone market is estimated to be just under 30% today, but SMS can reach both smart and standard mobile phones. SMS integration in email marketing is the best solution to take out the most of them. With Mailigen SMS you can use one email list for both email and SMS campaigns, segment your SMS list according survey response, insert links in SMS messages, track clicks in SMS messages with Google Analytics and use many other features.

Before
You focused on how email design looks in webmail or desktop.

Now
Your primary concern – is your email good looking and readable on mobile devices?

Optimize content for mobile devices

Make your email mobile-friendly with these tips:

• Rethink one column design
• Keep your layouts simple
• Keep your message brief
• Don’t exaggerate with size and width of email, rise font size, use both HTML and plain text
• Remember to optimize mobile readable sign-up forms, landing pages and survey forms
• Use email marketing in mCommerce
• Integrate mobile marketing with mCommerce
• Integrate SMS in you email marketing activities

2. Email Deliverability with Tiger Force

With the growth of email activities, unfortunately spam is also going to increase dramatically in 2012. Being an email marketing tiger, you will have to be strong enough to jump through a blazing cycle, called spam filters.

Before
You boasted about 96, 97, 98%, some managed to boast even about 99% of email deliverability, while ignoring how many emails landed in spam or junk folder or simply went missing.

Now
Your understand that everything that does not land in inbox is a lost resource. So you should be more interest in inbox placement rates, meaning the number of emails that actually land, are seen and can be opened in inbox.

Improved spam filters

Beware of spam filters! To protect receivers from growing spam, ISPs have strengthened their spam filtering. And even though you are an ethical marketer your messages are at risk. Try these tips:

• Send your campaigns with professional ESPs with whitelisted IP addresses and domains
• Use only opted in email lists
• Relevancy matters, make sure your content is targeted to the list

Smart inboxes

Email inboxes are getting smarter than ever, so respect intelligent inboxes. The world’s leaders Hotmail, Yahoo and Gmail have their own „priority inbox” and „view email just from contacts and connections” systems analyzing receiver’s previous interaction with email. The most important criteria for marking email with priority are opening messages, marking them as important, moving them to folders, adding senders to contact list or deleting messages. To get your messages in smart inboxes be recognizable as a sender, send campaigns to opt-in contacts, use relevant subject lines, deliver relevant content that engages with your audience, survey them to specify their interests and ask your recipients to add you to their address books.

3. Gorgeous Rooster for Email Exclusiveness

Inboxes are chock-full and people tend to skip emails they judge uninteresting after scanning their incoming messages. As a rooster in email marketing, you will have to show your feathers in all glory, splendor and amazingness.

Before
You thought about how to make people respond to your call to action and how to attract more subscribers to your list.

Now
You think need to think about how to make people like your email and keep them loyal subscribers.

Email uniqueness

Be creative in design and unique in content. Offer not only „special promotions” but also useful and unique information that can be provided only by you. Respect today’s need to be brief and clear. Boring, irrelevant email is the main reason people unsubscribe from receiving messages. Further reading only happens when content is relevant, timely and shareable. Don’t be afraid of running content and timing experiments and testing email elements to optimize campaign results.

Relevance of content

Think of what your subscribers really want to receive, even if you think it’s interesting that doesn’t mean everyone else will. The more targeted and personalized the email, the more likely it will be read and clicked. Use online surveys to specify subscriber interests and needs and then segment your contacts according survey responses. This will ensure you deliver them as highly relevant content. A once in a lifetime survey won’t be enough as interests change with time. Stay on top of your subscriber preferences.

Interactive emails

Make your message visual, people tend to capture more information by watching, not reading. Add video or insert links to video in your email, as well as use moving gif elements in email to make it more attractive and eye-catching.

4. Analytical Snake

As marketes devote more resources to email marketing in 2012, they want to track every penny they spend. Being an email marketing snake, you will have to crawl in zig-zag patterns to track all the interactions your subscribers have with email.

Before
After sending a campaign, you looked at open rates, click through rates and how many emails ware not delivered.

Now
You are interested in who opened your email more than once, which links are clicked the most, how much time is spent on landing page, who opens your emails regularly and who deletes them regularly.

Deep analysis and calculating ROI

Devote as much time to analyzing your campaign results as you do for planning. As it’s getting harder to penetrate mailboxes and pay receivers’ attention in crowded inboxes, marketers are in need of qualitative and deep campaign reports and statistics. Use the data to discern elements that can help to improve campaign results. To get an objective overview, explore and compare at least three to six previous reports. Define which of your contacts are active and which are inactive to treat them differently.

Testing email elements

Add testing to your obligatory 2012 to do list. Today only a small part of marketers regularly test different email elements to optimize email marketing campaigns. Only a few marketers actually calculate ROI. There are plenty of elements to be tested, like subject line, message, call to action, layout, images, links, day of week sent, time of day sent, landing page, personalization, from name etc. Just don’t rush changing each element every time you send your campaigns. If you make changes, give yourself some time to observe the impact of changes and draw conclusions. Only regular testing and optimizing can lead you to high ROI.

5. Interactivity of Monkey

Today every client is a treasure. Instead of sales, marketers now have to think more about the social customer. As an email marketing monkey, you will have to go public and search for connections and long-term relationships. You will need to be aggressive about monitoring your online relationships and using email to connect and engage with your customers.

Triggered messages

Launch triggered email programs as soon as possible by following your subscribers’ interactions. If people have left filled shopping carts, click regularly on links but no further action is taken, buy specific products and services, „respond” to them by sending special deal offers related to their interests. Cross-sell and upsell products, send them additional information they are looking for, reminders about expiration dates, anniversary, holiday greetings etc.

Social media integration

Take advantage of social media. With the growth of smartphones and tablets, the world is still continuing to socialize online. Integrate social media in your email marketing campaigns to gather new subscribers and expand email content to the friends of your subscribers. Put your social mind in motion with lightbox sign-up forms, bonus systems, creative viral campaigns tying up email, social, SMS and other marketing means.

Last thought

We hope introducing upcoming email marketing trends for 2012 will help guide your decisions about your dragon-esque email marketing strategy for 2012. Be everywhere your customers look, follow up everything they do, nurture them and be available when they need you. Open your creative mind to new and unexpected ideas and put them into motion. Hope you’re excited to get started, tailor your communication network and strive for better results in 2012. May the celestial Dragon bring great luck to you!

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The world’s leading email certification and reputation monitoring company, ReturnPath, released this compelling report just a few days ago. This is their second global report on the impact mobile is having on email viewership, which examined data in US from April 2011 through September 2011.

In light of this data, we think it’s important to get started with on-the-go strategies for the next year!

Mobile explosion half a year ago

At the end of the summer, in our blog about mobile email, we discussed the first study conducted by ReturnPath. That study looked at US data from October 2010 through March 2011, revealing an 81% growth in mobile email viewership in last 6 months. Summer results showed webmail was the leading platform for viewing email with 48% of the total. Desktop use was a little more than 36% of views. While mobile was coming in around 16% that was more than revolutionary comparing with the last year.

Mobile era is outpacing its previous efforts

Since then the proliferation of smartphones has increased, resulting in a dramatic boost to the mobile era. The latest results demonstrate the same: first place for webmail, second for desktop and third for mobile. But the proportions have changed, respectively 44%, 33% and 23% according to ReturnPath. Even though mobile still represents the smallest piece, it has increased by 34% in just a few months and is growing rapidly. The other two, webmail and desktop, decreased by 11% and nearly 9.5%.

So, what’s your plan?

Firstly, figure out if the trend applies to your business. Not all audiences are geared for mobile. If yours isn’t then don’t force it.

Survey your target audience and find out where they read their emails. Send an online survey to your contact list or include an additional field in your sign-up form for new subscribers. If results show the same trends as in the US, segment your audience and treat them differently. With Mailigen online surveys you can automatically segment your audience by survey response.

Your existing email template most likely will not fit mobile device sizes. So, it’s time to consider your mobile design strategy and create a fresh mobile email template for next year’s campaigns! Read more how to make email design mobile friendly.

iPad email viewership up in the air

Consumption of email on the go is not only increasing because of smartphones. With the launch of the iPad 2, email views on the iPad have jumped dramatically by 73% between April and September of 2011. In comparison – during the previous six month period, there was a 15% increase in email opens on tablets.

So, what’s the point?

If you feel your subscribers are new technology adopters, survey them more precisely and include questions about tablets. If a significant part of your audience reads email on tablets, it’s worth adapting your email designs for them. Even though the bigger screen of a tablet offers more options than the small one of a smartphone, there is still a difference from desktop and webmail. If you are not creating a special design for tablets, at least test your design on them and all the other devices used by your subscribers.

Time when reading email matters

One of the main factors affecting where email is read is time when it is read. During weekdays working hours, of course, desktop mail is our primary source for viewing email. In the morning, after work and on weekends, we read our emails in webmail. And – now on mobiles too. Today we are shifting to reading more mobile email. We simply love the ease to check email on the go. We can do it at lunch or on the train without waiting until we get home. Desktop mail is unlikely to go away due to mobile but mobile could affect slightly less webmail use in the future.

So, how to proceed?

After segmenting your target audience, pay attention to the day of week and time of day sent. Some mobile email campaigns are more effective on weekends when people tend to enjoy their leisure time. When conducting mobile campaigns, avoid sending on Mondays as it seems to be preferred for webmail and desktop but not for mobile.

Last Thoughts

One thing is for sure – 2012 will be challenging time in email marketing, yet creative and dynamic. Be wherever your client is or… even a little bit ahead. We’ve talked a lot about sending relevant emails in our blog, meaning relevant content to each receiver. Email format is also a big factor of relevancy. Let it be on your To-Do list for the new year – find out where your subscribers are viewing email and perform a relevant on-the-go sending strategy.

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We made a Top 10 of the best Email Marketing Resources worth reading, adding to your bookmarks and subscribing to content. Happy reading!

1. Email Marketing Reports – www.email-marketing-reports.com

Created in 2001 by Mark Brownlow, this site is one of the pioneers in email marketing online resources. Over the last 10 years, Mark has collected an enormous article directory with more than 50 categories and thousands of posts in his blog making the site one of the most significant, helpful and richest resources for email marketing practitioners. If it’s happening in email marketing, you will find it on this site.

What makes it our #1?

• Mark’s personality for starters. He is one brightest email marketing experts and he is always willing to share knowledge.
• Guarantee of real, usable content (as Mark would say, the site excludes everything that even sniffs of spam or unprofessionalism)
• Rich links guiding to other resources, for example, Holiday email marketing resources including more than 40 useful online materials about Christmas marketing

2. Email Marketers Club – www.emailmarketersclub.com

This is the biggest discussion forum about email marketing topics. It’s the place where competitors become friends and advisers. Whatever the question, one of the 4,700 member marketers will definitely know the answer. The Club is created by Tamara Gielen, the author of the blog Be Relevant! – another valuable resource on email marketing.

Why we love Tamara?

We have always appreciated her motto “I read so you don’t have to”. Tamara surfs the web, selects the most important items and brings it to us in a user-friendly way. Just scroll through her weekly blog post and stay up-to-date.

3. The Email Guide – www.theemailguide.com

Also called “email marketing search engine” where you can find all necessary information about email marketing issues. On this site we appreciate:

• excellent examples of lightbox sign-up form emerging in front of the reader (you should also think about lightbox sign-up forms to gather your subscribers)
• the simple structure of website making easy to find everything
• the moment of reflection everybody goes through – am I a bee or a ninja? :)

What makes it stand out from the others?

No other email marketing website has its own radio show! Email Radio welcomes experts of online marketing industry and broadcasts live every week.

4. Email Expert – www.emailexpert.org

The blog is created by email marketing expert Andrew Bonar, and here you can find the freshest news, press releases and blog posts of several email marketing gurus, tips and useful resources.

Why we recommend it?

We like the quality of materials and the possibility to create the content ourselves. Here you can submit your email news, upcoming events, advertisements and links. Of course, to make full use of the website you should register.

5. MarketingSherpa – www.marketingsherpa.com

If you read our Mailigen blog regularly, you would notice MarketingSherpa as we often refer to their charts. MarketingSherpa is a research firm specializing in marketing trends, so the website outlines the most recent research results. Every year, it conducts wide research on email marketing and publishes it in their Email Marketing Benchmark. All charts and research results are described in detail in the MarketingSherpa blog. In addition to all that goodness, each year MarketingShepa organizes the world’s largest email marketing event Email Summit where marketers discover emerging trends and get acquainted with email marketing experts.

It’s worthy to note the lightbox sign-up form where you can choose whether to subscribe for weekly news or weekly charts or both. (This is a best practice example you can use in your email marketing activities). Also, check out the ShepaStore where you will find a rich library of books and online resources.

What is the most important?

Charts, tables, graphs and all the other visual evidence of deep and qualitative research making it the ideal place to do research for presentations, blogs and articles.

6. DMA Email Marketing Council Blog – www.dmaemailblog.com

The blog of the Direct Marketing Association, based in London, where you will find the most important industry news.

Why add it to your bookmarks?

There are several of the world’s best marketing experts publishing regularly in their blog posts. A wide view point and new blog posts every 2-3 days.

7. Email Experience Council – www.emailexperience.org

This cross company council is a project created by the Direct Marketing Association of US. The Council regularly organizes conferences, seminars and other events devoted to email marketing. One of the most popular is annual Email Evolution Conference.

Why is it worth it?

There is lots of useful information on email marketing. But the biggest benefit comes from the membership. Most of events, presentations, webinar recordings, whitepapers, case studies, reports and other resources are available for members only.

8. MarketingProfs – www.marketingprofs.com

MarketingProfs is like a portal to “everything marketers need”. A lot of articles, bloggers, blog posts, forum, ads, online store, research materials and more. Even a university with online trainings in the latest in marketing! Also the site is nice to look at with funny and attractive photos enriching the articles. If you want to go further than email marketing and get a broad overview of Internet marketing in general, MarketingProfs will be the right place.

Why is it so useful?

The section we’d like to stress the most is MarketingProfs Digital Marketing World where you can participate in online conferences for free. Don’t miss out the next conference about social media marketing, but you can also listen to previously recorded conferences about email marketing.

9. Clickz – www.clickz.com

Similarly to MarketingProfs, Clickz offers information about different marketing topics. But there is also a special category only for email marketing issues. Email marketing blogs are written by well-known experts like Jeanne Jennings and Simms Jenkins.

Why is it always nice to visit?

A stream of email marketing blog posts updating every 2-3 days.

10. Email Stat Center – www.emailstatcenter.com

The project is created by Simms Jenkins, the CEO of BrightWave Marketing and the author of the book The Truth About Email Marketing.

Why this site?

There are no superfluous headlines, slogans and photos. Just facts and statistics about email marketing that are divided into categories referring to the most important email elements. If you are looking for facts to refer to, this is the right place.

Mailigen Email Marketing Resources

Apart from these email marketing resources, we invite you to check our new Resource Center. As an email service provider, we think it’s part of our job to help teach and share best practices. Our new Resources Center offers Guides, Whitepapers, Datasheets, Planners and much more to take full control of your email marketing campaigns. The freshest one – Email Marketing Campaign Planning Guide – will help you to plan, produce, test, deliver and follow up your email marketing campaigns. We developed this guide for everyone, even if you are not an expert marketer.

Hope these email marketing resources will be useful for improving your email marketing performance. Subscribe to their newsletters, read articles, check blog posts, study the best practices and stay ahead of the curve with the latest trends in email marketing.

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Plan Your Campaign Milestones

There are several significant holiday dates for bargain hunters, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Hanukkah, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The National Retail Federation research says 60 percent of shoppers will take advantage of retailers’ sales and discounts for their 2011 holiday purchases. That’s a big group of people looking for the best deals.

Black Friday, November 25 – since 2005, day after Thanksgiving in the United States has been the busiest shopping day of the year. Capture that shopping fervor with targeted messages the week of Thanksgiving, and remember Holiday discounts will draw the in-store traffic.

Cyber Monday, November 28 is the Monday immediately following Black Friday and was created by companies to entice people to shop online. Offer your subscribers great follow up deals to support Black Friday purchases and create online traffic.

After Cyber Monday, create a campaign leading up to the Christmas holiday. Some examples of great campaigns are 12 days of Christmas countdowns, a list of favorite things, top ten products, and products offered by demographic (his, her, children, age group, geek, gardener, etc.).

Hanukkah starts December 20th and lasts for eight days. If you have a segment of your audience celebrating Hanukkah, offer 8 days of deals prior to the holiday.

Promoting last minute deals for the shopper who waits until Christmas Eve is a great way to build some in-store purchases. Offer items that are potential stocking stuffers and great deals for the procrastinator. Where possible, integrate with an SMS campaign to drive last minute purchases.

Don’t forget about the post holiday shopper. Many people return gifts or use gift cards to shop deals the day after Christmas or at the start of the New Year.

To help with planning, you can use our new Email Campaign Planning Tool to create a compelling email campaign and generate holiday sales. Using a deliberate step by step plan will set you apart from competition. Don’t forget we are always here to help! If you need help contact our team of holiday helpers to get started.

Happy Holidays!

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• SMS Marketing Campaign Development

List building for group buying

When it comes to starting email marketing for group buying sites, it’s all about the email list. Groupon’s biggest piece of intellectual property is their email lists. To enter the group buying game you have to rapidly grow an extensive email list. This means you must choose tools that provide a sense of urgency, make your message shareable and entice people to respond to your call to action.

Lightbox sign-up forms

Get started by using lightbox sign-up forms. After just a few seconds on your website visitors should be able to find a sign-up form. Light boxes let them be front and center so your audience is more likely to subscribe for newsletters.

Special promotions

In order to motivate people to subscribe for newsletters, create special subscription campaigns including these elements:

• use your business profiles on social media to promote subscriptions;
• create a compelling landing page outlining benefits of subscribing;
• credits for signing up and inviting friends; and
• offer other benefits like souvenir gifts, samples etc.

Segmenting contacts for group buying

The next step after building email lists is segmentation. Relevance is more than important when we talk about group buying. Getting the right offer to the right person at the right time – that’s critical! So where to start?

Other useful tips:

• mix up specified preferences with behavioral information as people shop for family and friends;
• do not restrict the choice and allow subscribers to look also at deals by location;
• allow multiple choice sign up for more than one location; and
• ensure different receiving options – each day, once a week, all deals together or each topic separately.

There are two main benefits of segmentation. First, sending relevant emails will increase loyalty of your clients. Second, you do not have to send campaigns to all your contacts, therefore you will save money on monthly plans or email credits.

Social integration for group buying

Email marketing goes hand in hand with social media. You can use social media not only to gather subscribers but also to promote daily deals.

Include social media in your newsletters and invite users to share the content with their friends. Use a reward system and let them earn benefits for sharing. There are plenty of ways to reward those who share the content, share and earn credits or get the deal for free.

In order to track purchases, you must add merge tags to your social sharing links to ensure links are unique.

Creating campaigns for group buying

Group buying is one of those rare business models with a communication going out every or almost every day. Let’s look at the most important email elements:

Other elements to include in group buying emails

• timeframe of deals to make attention and bring an urgency;
• information about the next deal or even voting about which deal will be the next one.

Reengagement campaigns for group buying

When receiving emails from the same sender every day, after some time subscribers may become immune. Therefore group buying sites have to think carefully about creative reengagement campaigns to attract inactive users. Read more about reengagement campaigns.

However, if a person doesn’t want to receive emails from you any more, you must let it go. Last attempt: after clicking on unsubscribe link, lead him to compelling landing page, for example, with a funny video motivating them to not unsubscribe.

Analytics for group buying

For group buying sites, it’s very important not only to track recipients’ steps they take after receiving offer newsletters, but also to track revenue coming from campaigns. One of the most useful tools to get revenue data from email marketing campaign is Google Analytics Ecommerce. With Google Analytics Ecommerce, you will know the exact number of purchases, income of each product and total revenue from email marketing campaign.

Tracking ecommerce transactions is very easy to do. All you have to do is to configure your Google Analytics account and to add Google Analytics Ecommerce tracking code to your ‘Thank you page’ after purchase. Read more how to set up Google Analytics Ecommerce.

To Sum up

The phenomenon of group buying continues to expand and outpace its previous efforts. The biggest daily deal sites have found their key to success by tailoring perfect communication via email marketing messages. If you are a new fighter on the scene, stick to proven guns and take the best out of them.

We’d like your take away is the following. Firstly, the more targeted email content is, the more successful it’s likely to be. Secondly, think cross-channel and profit not only from email marketing but also social media, mobile and SMS marketing and other marketing methods that you can integrate in your group buying marketing strategy. Make all channels work for your business!

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