4 Ways To Increase Your Email Open Rate

There are a lot of hurdles you have to jump in an email marketing campaign just to get an email into the inbox of someone who might open it. First, you have to make sure that you have a valid email address. Then you need to find out if the person actually uses that email address, or if they use a different address. Once you have conquered all of the challenges involved with putting your email in front of the right target audience, then you have to start experimenting with your open rate to get the best possible results.

The open rate of an email campaign is the percentage of people who actually open the email when it is sent. If your target audience does not open your email, then all of the great content inside is pretty useless. There are some tactics you can use that will help you to increase your open rate, and drive more revenue with your email marketing campaign.

Try Sending Unopened Emails Again

Spam filters and lost connections can sometimes prevent your marketing emails from getting through when you start a new campaign. One way to help increase your open rate is to resend unopened emails and hope they get through the second time. Be sure to track your open rate with resent emails to see if resending unopened emails is a tactic you want to try on a regular basis.

Run Tests To Develop Better Delivery Times

You or your Internet marketing partner has software that can tell exactly when your marketing emails get opened, right down to the hour and minute. You should use that information to develop a database of the best times to send out your emails, and then use that database to increase your open rate. If you put your emails in front of your customers at times when those customers traditionally open emails, then you significantly increase your success rate.

Develop A Theme

As you send out marketing emails. keep track of the elements that appear to increase your open rate. If humor increases your open rate, then start to lean on humor more in your other email marketing campaigns. Keep track of everything from background colors to the way you present your message. Over time, you will start to see themes and trends that work in making sure that you have the highest possible open rates.

Avoid Spam Language

You already know that phrases such as “buy now” and “great free offer” trigger most spam filters and negatively affect your open rate. You need to keep track of the spam language that is getting your emails caught in spam filters and be sure to avoid that language in any of your email marketing pieces.

Email marketing is a science that needs to be constantly studied and altered to be successful. Each campaign is another chance to collect data that can make a huge difference on how successful future campaigns will be. The open rate of your marketing emails is an incredibly important number to monitor, and it is also important to find ways to positively affect your open rate as well. By watching your email marketing results, you can find ways to increase your open rate and get more engagement with your emails.

Four Fun Email Marketing Tactics That Work

When you work in Internet marketing, one of the first things you learn is that marketing has to be fun for the audience if it is going to work. If your marketing is boring or dull, then you won’t get nearly the response that you want. But when you take some time to make your marketing fun, you can get more responses, and you can get valuable input from clients as well.

Email marketing is an important way to stay in touch with clients and deliver critical product information. When you incorporate some fun elements to your email marketing, you can make it even more effective and get better results.

Create An Exclusive Club

Your marketing emails become much more effective if you can create a situation where your customers look forward to getting your newest emails on a regular schedule. The easiest way to create demand for your emails is to create an exclusive club that gets promotional prices and inside information delivered in every email.

You need to create a program where only people who join your email list get special pricing deals, and get information on new products before those products are released. The promise of exclusive information and great pricing deals is always an effective way to improve your email marketing results.

Make Quality A Priority

Each and every one of your email marketing pieces should have great information, and look extremely professional. One of the biggest mistakes companies make is building a big list of marketing email addresses, and then putting out boring text emails that are very different than the emails used to attract that audience. When you make quality a priority for each email, you will find it easier to maintain your audience, and add new email addresses as well.

Use Cliffhangers

Movies and television shows use cliffhangers to get people to tune into the next episode or buy a ticket to the sequel whenever it comes out. Believe it or not, cliffhangers can work just as well in email marketing to get customers to eagerly anticipate your next email.

When you announce a new product early to customers on your email marketing list, then leave off the one big feature they will all want to read about and say you will announce that feature in the next email. Little cliffhangers in each email will create anticipation for your next email and get you better results.

Get Customers Involved

If a customer sends you a positive comment in response to your marketing email, then quote that comment in your next email. When customers see that their input matters, you will be able to turn part of your marketing emails into interactive events with clients.

Another great way to get customers involved in your emails is to list content winners in your emails and congratulate those winners. Once again, this allows customers to see that your contests are real, and it also gets customers a little excited that they could have their name featured in your next email.

The key to a good email marketing campaign is to have fun with it. When it looks like the company is having fun, then customers will respond in a positive way and help your emails to be much more effective and productive.

4 Ways You Can Improve Your Email Marketing Efforts

You put together what you thought was a great email with an enticing offer and then sent it out to your customers. But after a few days of waiting, you have almost no results to show for your efforts. What happened?

Sometimes people can make email marketing into something much more complicated that it was meant to be. If you want to make your email marketing campaigns effective, then you need to hire a professional Internet marketing organization to give you the right results. But there are four basics about email marketing that every business owner should know that will help them to better understand their email marketing efforts.

Know Your Customers

Your email marketing efforts all start by understanding what appeals to your target audience, and what type of message will entice your customers to respond to your emails. By collecting sales and customer service data through good contact management software, you can develop customer trends that are valuable in developing effective email marketing campaigns.

Learn From Your Previous Email Campaigns

For the last three email marketing campaigns, you used a blue colored background to your messages and the response to each message was disappointing. For your next message, try a green background and see if that inspires your customers to read your messages.

Every success and failure you experience in previous email campaigns can be used to enhance future efforts. You may use something as simple as changing background colors, or your lessons may be a bit more complex. But as long as you are learning how to succeed from each marketing campaign, then you are headed in the right direction.

Segment Your Target Audience

Your customer profiles are invaluable in developing email marketing campaigns because that data can help you to create focused target audiences. Instead of sending the same message to every customer, you should be segmenting your customer base and creating target audiences that will respond to different messages.

For example, you can group all of the customers together that have a history of buying new product accessories as soon as they are released and send out new product announcements to those customers first. An effective email marketing campaign tries to make each message specific and personalized for every customer.

Have A Schedule

Your email marketing campaigns should have a release schedule to make it easier to monitor the progress of each email piece, and to make sure that you are spacing out your emails properly. Over time, you will be able to develop an understanding as to how often and how many emails you should be sending out to get the maximum results.

It does not take long to realize that finding success with email marketing requires the experience of a professional Internet marketing organization. Good email marketing does not happen by accident. It is planned meticulously, and then the data gathered from each campaign is used to improve future messages. When you do email marketing right, it can be an effective marketing tactic that helps your company to grow.

Four Ways To Improve Your Email Marketing

One of the big misconceptions about email mobile marketing is that it has no place in a marketing program because no one reads emails on their smartphones or tablets. The truth is that the smartphone and tablet have not diminished the popularity of emails in any way, and ignoring mobile email marketing is a big mistake.

People read their mobile emails as much as they use their phones to make calls, which makes mobile email marketing and effective advertising tactic. The problem is that website and business owners do not understand how to create a mobile email message that will get read by their target audience. With just a few tweaks of your standard email marketing message, you can get your target audience to start reading your mobile emails and increase your revenue.

Be Selective In How You Use Mobile Email Marketing

It is much easier for a user to go through a series of marketing emails on their laptop or desktop computer than it is to browse emails on a smartphone. While your target audience has opted-in to receive your marketing emails, that does not mean that they want to delete messages from you several times a day just to get to their personal emails.

The best approach is to be selective in how you utilize your mobile emails and avoid filling up the inboxes of your target audience with messages they won’t read. When you have something important to say, then use email marketing to get your point across and make it more effective.

Keep The Subject Short

If your mobile email marketing message has a subject that is more than six or seven words long, then your target audience may not read your message. Remember that the smartphone and tablet offer a smaller readable screen, which will cut off your subject if it is too long. Keep your subject at between six and 10 words and you should have greater success with your mobile emails.

Grab Their Attention

One of the biggest differences between people who do read marketing emails on a smartphone and a standard desktop computer is that the smartphone users tend to scan their emails much faster than desktop users. Your mobile email marketing message needs a strong headline, an attractive and pertinent image and a short but effective message if it is going to have a chance at getting read by your target audience.

Remember The Format You Are Using

As you develop your mobile marketing emails, remember that your target audience will usually only see the subject line and the first line of text. That is why that information needs to be very concise, but it also needs to get your message across and inspire the reader to read the rest of the message. As you develop your mobile emails, remember the limitations of the smartphone format and use those limitations to your advantage.

Text marketing is a very effective way to reach an audience, but you are leaving money on the table if you are not using mobile email marketing as well. By developing a mobile email message that appeals to your target audience and fits the mobile format, you will see a definite improvement in your metric numbers for your mobile email marketing and an increase in overall revenue.

Why And How To Change Your Company Logo

Changing your company logo is never something you do on a whim. The decision to change your company logo should only be done when it is absolutely necessary, and it should be a well-planned event. Your logo is something you invest a lot of time and money into as part of your branding efforts. When you are going to change that logo, you are going to change everything your customers already know about your company. That is why it has to be done right, or else your company will suffer.

Why Change Your Logo?

The best reason for changing your logo is if your company changes its name. Whether you merged with another company or changed your name for legal reasons, changing your logo to coincide with a name change can actually be a very effective marketing tactic.

Another reason people use to update their logo is to modernize it to fit contemporary styles. If you feel that you need to change your logo to keep up with a certain style or look, then you did not do a very good job of establishing your brand. There are companies with logos that are hundreds of years old that have never changed because there was no need to change. Instead of changing your logo to meet contemporary styles, you may want to have a professional marketing company look over your branding process and fix it for you.

How To Change Your Logo – Step 1: Design A New Logo

Unless you are a graphic design or marketing company, you should not be designing your logo yourself. A professional design company will create a memorable logo that will make your new name announcement more effective. Work closely with a professional marketing company to design a logo that best exemplifies your new company.

How To Change Your Logo – Step 2: Gradual Shift

The biggest mistake companies make when they change their logos is they choose a random date and then just change everything over. Suddenly, customers are getting invoices with new logos on them and the website has been completely changed. This is not going to give your customers time to adjust, which is why you need to use a gradual shift.

A gradual shift consists of transitional stationary that has both logos at the top and says that the old one is becoming the new one. You should develop the front page of your new website and then let customers preview the new page before you actually launch it. Let your customers ease into the new logo and it will be easier to say goodbye to the old one.

How To Change Your Logo – Step 3: Make The Change

In all of your marketing materials that talk about your transition to a new logo, give customers a date when the change will take place. It is easier to make it a significant date like the first day or last day of a month. When that date arrives, make the change by launching the new website and switching over to the new correspondence and invoicing materials.

By creating a gradual transition to a new logo, your customers will be at ease with the change and it will not disrupt your business. If you must change your logo, then hiring a professional marketing company to help you make the change properly is critically important.

The Synergy Between Your Print And Online Marketing

One of the things we always talk about is the need for online as well as offline marketing to promote your website. We could talk for hours about the need to maintain a consistent marketing look along your website and marketing pamphlets to help boost brand recognition. But what does all of that really mean? How does your print marketing work together with your online efforts to create a strong marketing approach?

Some People Still Need To See It In Print

Online marketing is not quite as prevalent as you may think and it often needs print marketing to prop it up and make it effective. We want to believe that the younger generation gets everything it needs off the Internet, but that is not the case. We also tend to believe that older generations shy away from the Internet when it comes to getting new information, but that would also be inaccurate.

The dynamic between generations and their reliance on information makes for an interesting study. We may look at that in detail later, but right now it helps to know that younger generations still look to their local newspapers and entertainment magazines to get a big portion of their information. The older generations tend to not trust online advertising that is not reinforced with offline efforts. So it is safe to say that some people need to see your advertising in print in order to find it effective.

Print Travels Better In Some Cases

A potential business client who is getting ready to board an airplane may spend more time reading a magazine than surfing the Internet on their phone or laptop. Magazines and newspapers are easier to carry and so are product pamphlets. When a potential client is looking for some fast and convenient reading, it is not unusual for print content to be their first choice.

Print Can Be Bigger

A big marketing message needs a big medium and with online marketing you are limited by the size of the screens your target audience is using. Even the largest tablets cannot compare to the visual impact of a full-page print ad in a national newspaper. It can sometimes be more effective to kick-off a marketing campaign with a huge, full-color ad in a newspaper or large-format magazine than to rely on someone else’s smartphone screen to get the impact you are looking for.

Always Use The Two Together

Our marketing experts can roll out a complete marketing plan for you that would include printed materials to compliment your online advertising. It has been our experience that a comprehensive marketing plan consisting of offline and online elements is exponentially more effective than relying solely on one or the other.

Of course, the ratio of offline to online content depends on your message and your audience. In some cases, you may not need the ratification of a print advertising campaign to bring legitimacy to your online efforts, but you will still need effective pamphlets for your trade shows. Let our experts review your marketing needs and prepare the perfect mix of print and online content to exceed your marketing expectations.

You are putting a lot of money and effort into your website and it is showing excellent results. But we know from experience that you can enhance those results by also including a strong offline campaign as well. Give us a call and let one of our experts explain the synergy between print and online marketing to help bring the maximum amount of attention to your advertising efforts.

Marketing Essentials for 2015

It is our job to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to marketing information, which is why we are fully prepared to handle your marketing needs in 2015. The marketing world changes constantly and what worked in 2014 may not work as well in 2015. As the year starts to come to an end, we just wanted to point out for marketing realities for 2015 that we already know.

Keywords Will Be Less Important

Remember those good ol’ days of creating lists of primary and secondary keywords for your website content that would help to drive traffic? Well, those days will be all but over in 2015. As Google continues to change its algorithms, the emphasis will be on quality content and not the use of keywords.

Google’s Panda and Hummingbird updates are working together to try and make searching more intelligent and the Penguin update is being updated to make sure that the links on a website offer value to the user. If it all sounds confusing, don’t worry. We have it under control and we can put content on your site that will drive traffic in 2015.

Social Media Marketing Will Become Huge

Social media marketing is already something that we focus on with strong intensity, but it will become even more intense in 2015. One of the reasons that social media marketing is changing in 2015 is the changes being made by the major social media platforms.

For example, Facebook is no longer the free business marketing platform it once was. If you want to use Facebook to market your business, then you are going to have to pay a lot of very complicated fees. We will help you to understand the new Facebook and use the other social media platforms to your advantage as well.

Organic Links Will Be Critical

Organic link building is when you take the time to work with other website owners to develop relationships that are beneficial to your website users. Anyone who buys links with a lot of traffic going to them is going to be punished severely and that trend will continue to intensify throughout 2015.

Google started cracking down on purchased links with the first Penguin update and there are more Penguin updates being released in 2015. Google now considers it to be spamming when you put purchased links on your website and we have all of the resources necessary to avoid Penguin penalties.

Quality Content Will Become More And More Prevalent

Web content used to be crafted by professionals who knew how to build pages and articles around certain keywords and keyword phrases. As we touched on earlier, keywords are starting to diminish in importance, which means that quality content is going to be king.

We have a team of professional writers who will create your quality content and get your website the attention it deserves. We are prepared for the changes coming in 2015 and we put quality content on your site that will drive plenty of traffic.

In 2015, Google will be looking to change the way that websites create and utilize content. We are prepared for those changes and we are ready to get your website the traffic you need throughout all of 2015 and beyond.

Why Use Direct Mail?

Does it still pay to use direct mail campaigns for your business? Most direct marketing now takes the form of either email or text message marketing, which means that direct mail marketing has been left to those smart business owners who see its real value. Our USPS Every Door Direct Mail program offers incredible value to your company by presenting information to customers in a way that no other marketing program can deliver.

Direct Mail Gets On People’s Desks

Whether you are trying to reach consumers in their homes or business owners in their offices, our direct mailing campaigns are designed to grab people’s attention. We understand that the appeal of a direct mailing piece starts the moment it arrives in your customer’s mailbox. You have a precious few seconds to convince your prospects to open the mailer, and we know how to make those seconds count.

Our approach to getting your mailer noticed depends on your audience, your product and your marketing goals. We take all of that into account and create a direct mailer that will get you results.

We Can Help You Track Your Progress

The best way to understand the power of our USPS Every Door Direct Mail program is to see the results for yourself. We have several ways to determine who is reading your mailers and how much revenue those mailers are generating.

We will show you exactly how to create metrics that will act as proof of the return on investment that your mailers get you. We can also show you how to segment your mailers to send out different messages to different audiences to get better results.

Let Us Do The Work

You give us the specifics of your marketing program and we will develop a direct mail plan to fit your needs. Then we will print your materials, package them up and get them into the mail for you. We take care of every step of the process and we get your approval for everything that we do. All you have to do is wait for the responses to start coming in and gauge the success of your mailers.

If you are not sure about the effectiveness of direct mail, then let us recommend a program that has a smaller budget. We will show you that every penny of your marketing budget matters and that we can get you a huge return on your investment with our professional direct mailing programs. We know that, when you see the real results, you will want to start scheduling more campaigns in the future.

Why Use Direct Mail?

You can use direct mail to announce a new product, invite potential customers to the grand opening of a new location or introduce a major holiday price promotion. You use direct mail because you can give all of the information your customers need in a format that they can read whenever they want. Direct mail is a stress-free form of marketing that your customers will appreciate and use to help grow your business for you.

Contact us today and let’s talk about direct mail campaigns. We will explain to you how the entire process works and we can get started on your direct mail campaign right now. Let us show you how effective a professional direct mail campaign can be for the future growth of your business.

4 Keys to Looking Like A Rockstar At Your Tradeshow

A trade show is a place where you can meet new customers, network with industry experts and find out the latest information on industry innovations. But if you want to really find success at a trade show, then you need a booth that will attract and interest people.

We are experts at developing the ideal trade show displays that will bring you foot traffic and get results. When you are putting together your trade show booth, make sure that we are part of your planning process. We can give you four good reasons why your trade show displays matter and how our professional service can make your booth more successful than it has ever been.

Trade Show Visitors Are Looking For Bling

When consumers go to a trade show, they are expecting booths to pop out at them and make them want to talk to sales people. Business professionals are looking to network with companies that give the image of being proactive and show the promise of being an industry powerhouse.

A plain booth with some standard, vinyl signs is not going to get you the status that you need. But when you allow us to create your trade show displays, we will give you the kind of bling you need to get plenty of positive attention.

Good Displays Let You Compete With The Big Boys

Trade shows are like the Internet in that mostly everyone is on a level playing field. Aside from the major show sponsors who get huge spaces to utilize, you and your competition are all setting up in basically the same size space. What you do with that space will determine what people think of your company.

We can create displays that will make your company look like it is a top industry competitor. Even if your biggest competition is three times your company’s size, we can elevate you to their level with an effective set of trade show displays.

Your Trade Show Displays Answer Questions

Good trade show displays with attractive graphics and text that is easy to read can answer questions for traffic that will bring you more interest. When you use professional trade show displays, people will instantly know what your company has to offer and they will be able to make an informed decision as to whether they want to do business with you or not.

Professional Displays Establish Your Brand Identity

We will use your corporate color scheme and corporate logos to create trade show displays that work to unify your brand identity. A big part of brand identity is instant recognition, and putting your logo and corporate colors on a professional trade show display will make your company hard to forget. The next time that potential customer sees your logo, they will remember it and remember your company.

At Tom and Company, our job is to create the best possible image for your company. We do this by using our years of experience in marketing and trade show success. Let us put all of that experience to work for you and create for you a series of trade show displays that will get your company noticed and help you to maximize the return on every trade show you are a part of.

Five Reasons Why Your Website Is Failing Miserably

When you start a business website, you naturally hope that your website starts to generate revenue and adds as an enhancement to your primary revenue streams. If your website is the primary way you do business, then web traffic becomes extremely critical to your success.

Despite the importance of your website and all of the effort you put into it, you are still not getting the kind of traffic you need. We can give you five good reasons why your website is failing miserably and we offer the solutions to those problems as well.

1. You Are Trying To Do It On Your Own

If you owned a brick and mortar store, would you build the storefront on your own, or would you hire professional builders? If you want a storefront that lures foot traffic into your store, then you hire a professional to build it for you.

The same principle applies to your website and its maintenance. When you try to build and maintain your own website, you are not getting the professional results you need to bring in traffic. When you allow a professional organization such as ours to build and maintain your website, then you will have something that will attract customers.

2. Your Site Is Dormant

How often do you add new content to your website? If you want to bring in a steady flow of new clients, then you need to add new content to your website every single day. Whether it is a slew of new products or an engaging new blog post, you need to give people a reason to visit your site and spend their money.

3. Your Coding Is Sloppy

Sloppy website coding will cause your website to take longer to load and it will also steer the various search engines away from your site. Our staff of Internet professionals will make sure that your coding is always clean, which will keep the traffic flowing and put your website in a position to be ranked higher in the search engine results.

4. Your Website Is Boring

Creating an exciting website is definitely a job for professionals. Bright colors and animated graphics are not what make a website exciting to users. You need a site that offers the things that your users want in ways that are interesting to them. If you sell products, then put your pricing promotions on the front page to entice people to enter your site. There are many ways to make a website exciting and our experts know them all.

5. You Don’t Do The Right Marketing

As a company of marketing experts, we pride ourselves in knowing how to get exposure for your website. Doing the right kind of marketing is much different than doing a lot of marketing. You can pay for ads on your own and spend all day on Facebook, but that is not going to bring you traffic. You need to find people who are interested in what your site has to offer and then get your message directly to those people. That is what our team of experts is extremely good at.

Let us show you how a successful website looks and works. Gives us a call and we will make the changes to your site that will bring you the success you are looking for.