Posts Tagged ‘email lists’

How to build email list with QR codes?

Tuesday, September 20th, 2011

With the exploding rise of smartphones marketers are mobilizing their email marketing programs. Some tactics include making emails mobile-friendly, signing up for newsletters via SMS and social media engagement in email list building. Many marketers are finding QR codes are one of the most attractive and exciting new ways to gather email subscribers.

What is QR code?

If you are not familiar with QR codes, you’ve probably seen them on billboards, labels or advertisements and didn’t even know it. The code is a two-dimensional matrix barcode readable by QR reader apps on camera phones. It consists of black modules arranged in a square pattern on a white background. The information encoded in a QR code can be text, URL or other data.

In short: it is a scanable picture that instantly redirects you to a website with more detailed information or sign up form. Other versions of codes include Microsoft Tag and Google Goggles.

QR codes are commonly used in Asia and are starting to become more common in the US. From July to December 2010, QR code scanning jumped dramatically by 1200% from the first half-year 2010.

Offline list building

More and more we find QR codes are a fun new way to build your subscriber list from sources other than online. Place a QR code on an outdoor ad for people to scan be led directly to a sign-up form.

We’ve got some tips for placing QR codes:

  • print ads, newspaper articles, press releases;
  • brochures, leaflets, posters, stickers;
  • business cards, online PDF materials;
  • bills, receipts, order forms;
  • books, CD covers, menus, packaging;
  • souvenirs, T-shirts, clothing tags, name tags;
  • exhibition stands, store windows, checkout counters.

Another engaging use of QR codes is polling new subscribers. After filling in the survey, invite them to join your email list and then segment them with the information collected. (read about Mailigen online surveys). Couple that with adding social sharing buttons after people have subscribed to your email list (see our blog on importance of social sharing).

Online to offline

QR codes can be a many faceted tool, here’s why you should include QR codes in your email newsletter.

  • Encode a special promotion code in your QR code. Recipients will scan it, store it in their mobile phones and then show it to salesmen, increasing offline traffic and sales.
  • Use a QR code in newsletter instead of a link in order to make call to action more appealing and to make the call to action pop.
  • Add a QR code at the end of newsletter and encode in it your contact information. Recipients can easily add it to their phonebook.

How to create a QR code for your sign-up form?

There are a lot of pages where you can create QR codes. Let’s take for example www.goqr.me.

Choose the URL and enter the address of your sign-up form (Mailigen offers creating sign-up forms).

And here it is – your brand new QR code! Simple and fast.

Check and recheck

  • Make your landing page (with sign-up form) simple and mobile-friendly.
  • Avoid too many fields to fill in. Remember mobile phone users don’t like typing much.
  • Use black and white for your QR code. Sometimes people use other colors instead of black, but if the contrast is low, the mobile phone won’t be able to scan it.
  • Leave white empty space around the QR code to detect it easily.
  • Avoid too many characters encoding in the QR code. Some mobile phones won’t be able to detect too complex QR images.
  • Test your QR code with different mobile phones and applications to be sure it works.

It’s a good idea to create a special sign-up form for QR code subscribers to track their activities and then evaluate QR campaigns. Think also about a special welcome email to subscribers and treat them differently, of course including QR code activities in campaigns.

If not yet subscribed for Mailigen newsletters, you are welcome to do this right now via QR code

Have you ever used QR codes in your email marketing campaigns or would like to do it? Share your opinion about offline list building on the move.

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Posted in Email List Building | 3 Comments »

Care about email list quality, not quantity. How to increase the value of your email list?

Tuesday, September 13th, 2011

When you start doing email marketing, what are you proud of? I would guess, you like to see your email list is growing bigger and bigger. But after some time, you have to return to the question – does your email list size matter? Generally no. Quality certainly does. Ask yourself one very important question, is your list engaging with your emails?

What is the point of having X number of contacts if open rate is only 2%? Some days ago, The Direct Marketing Association released the Q2 2011 North America Email Trends and Benchmarks Results on key email metrics. Compiled from more than 7 billion emails, the quarterly analysis shows average open rate is 22.2 percent and average click rate is 5.2 percent. Of course, each email marketing campaign is unique and sometimes metrics do not matter. However, it is a great way to compare and measure your email marketing campaigns against averages.

The quarterly report shows a 4.8 percent decrease in average open rates and a 0.7 percent decrease in average click rates from Q1 2011. The reason of the decreases is not that marketers make worse campaigns. It is rather the fact email lists have grown up to a giant size and a huge part of lists are no more active; therefore, metrics decrease. If so, it is time to review your email list, get rid of inactive contacts and increase the value of your list. Smaller, but qualitative and targeted email list can be more fruitful than huge email list whose audience is less interested in the content.

What indicates the lack of quality in your email list?

  • Low open rate. You send emails to inactive email addresses, recipients do not recognize the sender or the subject line is not eye-catching at all.
  • Low click-through rate. The content of email is not attractive enough to read it and act according to call to action by clicking on links.
  • High unsubscribe rate. The content is not only uninteresting but even annoying or totally irrelevant to what people have subscribed for.
  • High bounce rate, a lot of spam reports and abuse reports. Your email list contains a lot of non-existing addresses, people have not subscribed for your list or are totally disappointed.

The reason why your email list is missing quality can be you did not follow the best email marketing practices.

  • Bought email list or use 3rd party list.
  • Did not ask permission to your contacts for sending them newsletters.
  • Did not choose the right place to gather subscribers. For example, in a forum where almost nobody is interested in your specific business.
  • Used material bonuses to motivate people for subscribing. If you do that, use relevant bonuses, for example, offer free consultation before buying your product, not a ticket to the cinema. It will show whether a person is really interested in your issue.
  • Got subscribers using tricky methods. For example, when a person registers for something, there is already checked the option he wants to receive newsletters, and of course the check box and explanation are so tiny that nobody pays attention to that. It is better to enlarge this check box and invitation to subscribe, move it to a visible place and let people to choose. Therefore you will be sure about their interest.

In short, all the time you have been focusing on your email list quantity and the quality have suffered.

What indicates qualitative email list?

  • Permission given by subscribers to send them email newsletters; therefore, you know you have targeted audience.
  • Double opt-in that ensures a person really wants to sign up, email exists and subscription is not by mistake.
  • Entering email twice in order to be sure there are no spelling mistakes in email addresses.

What can you do to increase the value of your email lists?

  • Rule No 1 – clean your email list from non-existing and inactive contacts.
  • Rule No 2 – make re-engagement campaigns for inactive ones in order to interest them again in your issue.
  • Rule No 3 – know the time to say “goodbye”, meaning if certain contacts do not want to engage in your issue, let them go and unsubscribe them manually.

Big cleaning day – what to start with?

  • Use database cleaning from non-existing addresses (Mailigen offers the service).
  • Make a re-engagement campaign for inactive ones, for example, asking for re-permission, sending a survey in order to find out their interests, or offering a special promotional benefit (see our article on re-engagement campaigns). From now, you should treat them differently.
  • Use autoresponders for inactive contacts. It is a great way to save your time by sending reminding emails at a fixed intervals if a person do not open emails or do not click on any links (check our article about Mailigen autoresponders).
  • If re-engagement campaigns do not success, let inactive ones go and exclude them from your list.
  • Use surveys for active contacts to get their feedback and than act according to the results. Do not miss a moment people get dissatisfied with your activities (read our article about online surveys).
  • If you have a large list, use surveys to segment your active contacts and offer them various email content regarding their interests.
  • If your business is periodic nature, for example, maternity clothing, bridal issue, make sure on a regular basis people are still in the topic. Remember: opt-ins are not forever.
  • Instead of spending energy on inactive contacts, focus more on active ones to get them satisfied with you.

Last tip

Just do not rush with inconsiderate cleaning. If a person does not buy your product after receiving your first email, that does not mean he will not do this after the seventh. Maybe he will not buy at all. But maybe instead of it he always forwards your emails to his friends and share the information on social networks (see our article on Mailigen social sharing).

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Posted in Email List Management | No Comments »

How to build email list with top social media sites – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube

Tuesday, August 30th, 2011

Social Email List BuildingFor companies, social media sites have long ceased to be places where only share information. A new mantra is emerging: marketing and gathering email subscribers using top social media sites! Marketers talk a lot about it. And rightly so.

Recently, MarketingSherpa presented the results of a survey on the most effective means of acquiring new subscribers. 52% find social media effective, while 10% share the opinion of social media as very effective way how to gather subscribers for newsletters.

Of course, statistics and expert opinion depends on what methods are used to do this.We have gathered ideas of how to build email subscriber list on four of the most popular social networks– Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

Facebook

One of the most effective ways how you can gather new subscribers for your newsletters is adding sign-up form on company’s website, blog and Facebook page. Find out how to add Mailigen sign-up form to company’s Facebook page in this article.

In order to engage paople and get them to leave their email address, on your Facebook page, offer them some incentive, something interesting. For example, if your fans want to play a game, get a discount coupon, download a music or video file for free, they have to enter their email, which you then save in your email list.

Twitter

Add auto-reply to your Twitter account in order to automatically respond to new followers with a personal message. Next to „thank you for following” phrase add link to your landing page where people can sign up for news.

Tweet regularly about signing up option describing benefits of joining your email list. Mention email-only promotions and link registration-required content, such as manuals, webinars, and other useful information.

Re-tweet contest is a great way to attract people to subscribe for newsletters. All they have to do is to re-tweet message with link to your landing page where they can subscribe for newsletters. Reward the most active ones with convenient prizes that fit the audience and your company image.

LinkedIn

Offer sign-up option to your contacts when participating and sharing information on LinkedIn Groups. You can join the existing group or create your own to promote discussions about your company or industry.

N.B. LinkedIn especially will help you to enrich your email list with B2B contacts!

Youtube

Add link to your landing page and sign-up form under the video clip. The one and the only rule – video must perfectly match the theme and motivate signing up for company’s news.

For all social media sites

Link to your landing page with sign-up form should be added to your profile information in Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and others. Do it for both – company and private/professional profiles. And invite your colleagues to do the same. Make sure, there is a strong call to action in the landing page, so that people are really interested in signing up for your company’s newsletters.

Last thought

Gathering email subscribers with top social media sites, when done well, can lead to a big boost in results. However, when making people leave their email addresses for the above mentioned reasons, don’t forget to inform them that you will include them in your newsletter mailing list and tell them what kind of valuable information they will be receiving from you. Remember email marketing is permission marketing.

And befor starting to send your email marketing campaigns, you shoud shortly remind how they got on your list. Make sure they really want to receive news from you. Sometimes, interesting promotional campaigns attract people to subscribe regardless of interests. But your aim is to gather qualitative and active email list, isn’t it?

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Posted in Email List Building, Social Media | 1 Comment »

Email list hygiene – definitely worth it

Thursday, February 3rd, 2011

Email List HygieneWe humans are in love with shiny things, because they make us happy. Spring cleaning allows us to throw out the unnecessary and unwanted possessions, and we should allow ourselves to clean and trim our email marketing lists.

However, there’s always that .00001% chance that the subscriber will change his mind at some point. How do you deal with that inner urge to “keep” the inactive accounts in your list?

Why keep the list clean?

Email list cleaning is a process that you will need to do regularly. However, if sending email costs virtually nothing, why should we clean our email marketing lists in the first place?

Here are a few reasons:

  • The owner of a clean list will have fewer or no complaints about unwanted email (inactive subscribers become angry if you keep bombarding them with more messages.
  • Such complaints can actually make your entire list obsolete (see our article on email deliverability).
  • ISPs can block email from you altogether if you keep sending email to bounced emails, because bounced emails are seen as ‘unknown’ addresses to them.
  • Emailing inactive subscribers will reduce your brand’s value.
  • Email list hygiene is keeping on top of misspelled addresses. Correct or remove them as fast as you can.

Mr. Clean’s guide to email list hygiene

1. If you don’t need to prune, keep inactive emails separate from the main list. Sending them only your most attractive offers or a “renewal message” asking them whether they want to continue the  subscription or not.

2. Build only targeted email lists. Although emails that are fake, bought, or acquired through not quite legal means will be something bigger to show your boss, these email addresses will inevitably drain the life of your campaign, and will damage your company for as long as they remain on the list.

3. Start new subscribers with a welcome message which explains how often should they expect messages from you; what you’ll be sending to them, including an initial offer so the subscriber gets to know your product range right from the start. Email list building is about honesty to the subscribers, and if you’re honest to them, they’ll return the compliment.

How to keep the dirt off your email lists

Perhaps the biggest threat to email list quality is aggressive marketing strategies, which (many a time, artificially) inflate the subscriber count. Although the short-term gains of aggressive strategies are more than clear, the long-term losses become evident only through analysis; this article at the Email Experience Council describes one such case in great detail. Pruning your email list will have no effect, if you pad it out in this manner. It is better to have a list with fewer interested subscribers than a huge list with a fraction actually interested in your products.

Then there is the issue of misspelled addresses. When your list is in its infancy, you will obviously be checking the new addresses out, but as the list grows bigger, it can be hard to check each and every new address. Scheduling time to edit your list your lists would work. For example, proofread your list once a week — or simply watch for bounced emails after each sent campaign.

What to take from this

Think of your email lists like of a lawn. You have to mow the lawn regularly, weeding it from time to time; otherwise it will not look its best. That’s also what you need to do with email marketing lists. Although high subscriber numbers are alluring and – superficially – attractive, the list will be worth next to nothing if it has no inside value.

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Posted in Email List Management | 2 Comments »

Email List Building Tactics

Wednesday, January 26th, 2011

Email List BuildingEmail is an immensely powerful marketing tool. Even after more than 10 years of email marketing, new techniques and tweaks are invented to benefit even more from email marketing.

The techniques and the small tricks you’ve been mastering, however, are fruitless without any subscribers.

Luckily, email list building isn’t that hard once you know the basics.

1. Start easy

It’s common sense to seek for gold where it could actually lie.

Let’s think about it: in your opinion where would it’d be easy to reach subscribers for you?
Maybe your offline store? Or do you own an online business, centered around a single website? Email list building is a breeze if you have a place where many people have a chance to subscribe.

Offline list building

You can ask the staff at your store to ask customers to subscribe to your list by hand. Add a suggestion box by your counter with printed latest newsletter desplayed next to it so they can see eaxctly what they will received, encourage them to subscribe with incentive like discount cupon for next bill etc. Of course, have these sign-up forms easy accessible for prospects that don’t buy anything yet, but want to subscribe. Although offline opt-in seems like a lengthy, manual process, it can make a huge difference.

Online list building

Your website is also an obvious place where you’d find many willing subscribers. A rule of thumb is to place an easy sign-up form on your website, on every single page, so the users don’t have to think twice once they’ve made up their mind. If you don’t want to include the whole form, then at least obvious email Call To Action will be sufficient.

In both cases, if the process isn’t going as well, try adding incentives for subscribing. A one-time 5 to 10% discount or a free gift to a new subscribers doesn’t put much weight upon your shoulders, but can spark motivation into previously unwilling customers.

2. Then, move to smaller sources.

Reading mail and browsing the Internet on mobile phones is common, and can bring you a lot of subscribers. You should optimise your site a bit, to bring mobile users to your list. Luckily, CopyBlogger has a great article about that.

Then there are social networking tools: Twitter, Facebook, and the like.
You can add a subscription form directly on your company’s Facebook fan page, or tweet out a link to a standalone sign up form. Social sources are more targeted, as the prospects are clearly attracted to offers from you, thus, you can create a well targeted email list.

If for some reason you don’t fancy social networks, you can try renting lists to attract subscribers. However, keep in mind that lists are still opt-in email lists and won’t remain yours after rental. Oh, and they are priced adequately.

3. Make up your own ways of getting subscribers.

Creativity makes both you and the customer feel good — the right kind of creativity, anyway, — and, as was mentioned, there is still a lot of room to be covered. And who says that email list building can’t be creative?

There are, for example, people who’ve had success with regular mail. As the return per subscriber is $948 (at least in the high-end tech niche), seemingly expensive regular mail can reap huge benefits. Counter-intuitive? Yes, but highly profitable.

Incentives

Incentives are quite an obscure figure, actually.

Real incentives for subscribers is considered a best practice in email marketing, however, research by marketingcharts.com suggests that, “B2B marketers are more successful in driving new subscriptions with ‘incentivized’ registration, while B2C marketers find ‘non-incentivized’ subscriptions most effective.”

In other words, statistics show that regular consumers are less likely to fall for a “giveaway”; businesses are far more likely to sign-up in the mailing list for a small prize.

Incentives do remain, though, a great means of showing your customers that you care.

Conclusion

You don’t have to do anything too “out-there” to achieve email list growth. Solid, tested techniques usually do better, but don’t shy away — add new channels to ease subscribing even more.

How do you approach email list building?

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Email list rental vs buying third party lists

Tuesday, July 27th, 2010

Have you ever thought about how good it would be if you could simply buy a list of client e-mail addresses in a click?

I hope you haven’t, because it is not worth it.
Unless you meant renting the list – email list rental is a pretty common practice.

The difference between the two (list rental and list buying) is huge. When it comes to email marketing and renting an e-mail list, you don’t get a copy of the list. In short, you never get to see the addresses – the owner does the sending for you. By renting a list you could be a featured business or sponsor of the renters next newsletter to their clients.

When buying an e-mail list, you get the addresses, and that is utterly bad. Not to mention the bad PR you will get if you send to people you don’t know. Not to mention the hundred reasons, among which legal trouble could or could not be the most serious. The worst part of bought e-mail lists is that they don’t work, especially if your business doesn’t sell penis pills… or something like that.

Although a buy third party list sounds like a great idea – you often only invest up to $500 for an e-mail list with millions of e-mail addresses -, sending spam spells a death sentence for business. Out of the millions of addresses which the seller acquired somehow, there will surely be spam complaints which can mean legal trouble. Furthermore, your brand will get severely damaged if you send unsolicited e-mail. Just don’t do it.

These lists do not work because they are overused; they don’t have a permission (how on earth would a 1m large list have permission from all the users?); they don’t have quality; and lastly, in case if you still have doubt about it, sending to third party lists is ogre-ish email marketing.

It is different with e-mail list rentals, though.
The price is the first indicator that they are more likely to work; depending on the nature of your emails, an email list rental costs an average of about $130 for 1,000 impressions according to LPI. Business is business, and the price is fair if you know how to make the most out of email list rental. You know how difficult is to acquire those 1,000 subscribers, but do you also want to be part of another brand who you are simply sponsoring.

Should you consider buying lists? – NO, just avoid buying any e-mail lists, doesn’t matter how good the offer sounds.

Build your own reliable and highly profitable lists by adding Web SignUp form to your website, run a promotional campaign in the store or ask for feedback and capture their email addresses this way best.

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Posted in Email Deliverability, Email List Management, Tips & Tricks | 2 Comments »

Working with email lists (part 1)

Monday, April 19th, 2010

There’s constantly growing number of companies right now which are using effectively the global network as their marketing tool. Market is constantly supplemented with e-mail address list dealers thus making the demand of these lists increase fast.

There are many ways to create an e-mail address list without assistance.

One way is to offer client a constant valuable content, for instance – an informative e-mail newssheet. The other way to collect e-mail addresses is by using database of your own company. Even if you do not have a website of your own it shouldn’t be an obstacle for you to develop and supplement e-mail address lists. By making these steps you will ensure the quality of your e-mail address list which, in its turn, will make your future e-mail marketing campaigns be more efficient in opposition to the case if you would rent the lists from an e-mail marketing service company.

Opt-in is a term which describes the ways people turn up in your contact list. There are people who have:

a)      Registered on a website or by using any other type of electronic or paper registration. For example, when participating in a lottery, he/she is given an option to fill in a form in which his/her e-mail also has to be specified.

b)      Marked a preference (digitally or in any other way) which offers to receive an additional information or offerings.

The last action (b) is essential, because you get a desired permission even prior to sending your first e-mail message. Without these conditions your e-mail is considered to be spam or an unwanted e-mail message. Make sure you have the receiver’s permission before you add him/her to your e-mail address list.

Another important thing that has to be bared in mind is that you have to be sure that a potential receiver of your e-mails will be adequate to the niche of business that you represent. If this goes out of hand, prepare to spend a lot more time afterwards to deal with this issue.

It is wrong to assume that a quantity is a quality in terms of lists of e-mail addressees. It is so because the bigger your list grows, the higher the risk of their quality insufficiency.

This phenomenon is widely known as GIGO (Garbage In/Garbage Out) and it may lead to an undesirable consequences.

In case everything is done properly then catalog dealers and retailers will surely be more efficient as they will reach the right auditory which means, you got it all right!

Hi-tech and professional service companies that are using high quality technologies, avoid obtaining contacts of little value so that no extra time or recourses are spent.

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Posted in Email List Management | 1 Comment »