Mobile compatible marketing

Mobile compatible marketing -ABC guide

Mobile compatible marketing – ‘going mobile’ or being ‘mobile compatible’ is one of the most current topics in digital marketing. Customers often ask us to factor this in to our solutions and it is for all the right reasons.

This simple ABC gives you an overview of the main considerations that affect moving your communications into mobile territory

A – relevance

You should use the analytical information available to you to decide just how important mobile compatible marketing is. Often when we look at analytics for our clients, the results aren’t what our customers expect. This isn’t solely specific to the use of mobile either. It is surprising how many organisations still don’t use analytics to evaluate their online and digital marketing investments. It’s a free service and helps you make informed decisions about developing your online and email strategies.
Keep your choices in perspective.

B – design

The whole point of mobile compatible marketing is useability. Responsive websites and email work on the principle that on a smaller screen (than a desktop) they look different. This may mean bigger and fewer buttons, larger images and simplified navigation.
The general rule of thumb for us is – the rule of thumb. If a user has to use any more than their thumb to navigate your media, it has failed. If, however you can successfully navigate your media with the use of a single thumb, the design is ticking the first part of the ‘designed for mobile’ criteria. There are other considerations too, including colour choices, font sizes.
The primary focus is the rule of thumb.

C – investment

Going mobile doesn’t need to cost a fortune and you are able to adapt existing collateral relatively easy. Brand new collateral is even easier to achieve the cross over with many templates and themes being responsive out of the box. These form a strong set of foundations to edit and tweak to make them suit your needs exactly.
In terms of budgeting, you will need to allow additional resource for design and programming but its not something you need to do all at once. If you follow the advice in A and B you’ll find that your budget will stretch and accommodate a number of mobile optimised solutions without causing any major upsets.

In conclusion, moving to mobile compatible marketing is as easy as it is effective.

If you need help taking your collateral to mobile readiness, there’s plenty of help at hand.

By Ryan Mullins

Email marketing guide for novices

Email Marketing Guide

 
Email marketing is probably the most common form of marketing. Marketers in large companies, small companies and everything in between use email marketing. Email marketing crosses all sectors and is used for all sorts of communication. This Email marketing guide gives you an insight.
 

Why is email marketing so popular?

 
Email marketing is probably the most common form of marketing. Marketers in large companies, small companies and everything in between use email marketing. Email marketing crosses all sectors and applies to all sorts of communication.
 

Which email platform should you choose?

 
In truth, you’ve likely already got a system in place. The first thing to do is make sure you’re utilising it to it’s full potential. The discipline of regular email marketing is something marketing teams must be well versed in. You should only consider changing what you’re already using if you’ve identified shortcomings. If you have, are they hindering results?
 
With so many variables what do you need to get right with email marketing? A point hotly debated by many, we at renew use an evidence-based approach as our standard.
 

Data

 
The number 1 critical factor with email marketing is data. The quality of your data determines the scope of your success. As such some sectors achieve great success, while others continue to struggle.
 

Subject line

 
Millions of emails don’t get past the subject line and go straight to the trash can. Your subject line is the first part of your email marketing that’s easy to test. It’s also easy to determine what works.
 

Responsiveness

 
Does your email marketing work on a mobile phone?
A huge proportion of email marketing is viewed on mobile. If you haven’t thought of your target audience and user, you risk the trash can. Why risk recipients unsubscribing by sending emails they can’t view on all devices.
 

Content

 
As with websites, is the content of your email focused on the recipient? First step is forget what you want to say and consider what the recipient wants to read. The more you bring content round in line with this, the greater your successes are likely to be.
 

Call to action

 
What should someone do upon reading your email? What action do you want them to take? What’s in it for the recipient? Your call to action needs to be obvious and direct. Make it easy for your recipients.
 
By using good data, a subject line that will grab the right kind of attention. A format that can be easily read, content that they’ll want and a clear call to action. The basic formula for successful email marketing.
 
At Renew Marketing, email marketing delivered for clients takes all this into account..
 
Our email marketing clients contact us because they want better results from their marketing.
 
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Issue marketing brief
Complete the simple to use form for issuing a solid marketing brief to your team of choice.
 
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2 email marketing techniques that deliver better results

What are the best email marketing techniques to deliver results? The debate goes on as to how to gain maximum effectiveness from email marketing. There is evidence to show that email marketing works best in both pre-sales and after sales strategies. The key to the most effective email marketing is the timing and the content.

Today’s world is very much about service and content on demand. Personalisation is also high on the agenda for many marketing managers (although this may be misunderstood). I did read recently that subscribers and consumers have become very accustomed to personalisation and are starting to question the safety of their data.

So how do personalised email marketing strategies work most effectively?
How can you maximise engagement and return on investment without spooking your subscribers?

It’s no secret that most email systems will enable you to embed subscriber information into the body of the emails you wish to send out. The trick here is not to overuse client information. Use it once but then only use it when it’s relevant to the content of the message. So what are the real secrets?

What is the best timing for email marketing?

Most organisations use email marketing. The level of sophistication is where the most difference is found.

Ok, in order to get timing and content perfect, you need your subscribers to tell you what they want and when. The problem is with thousands of subscribers, this may seem like an impossible issue to resolve. Not so!

Once you appreciate the triggers that you can use to automate communication processes and database updates, the value of automation becomes more obvious. Let’s explain this in two parts; firstly, triggers and secondly, actions.

Email marketing techniques #1 – Automation

Triggers

Not only are there obvious triggers within your business such as a customer placing an order but there are a multitude of other triggers which you may not even be aware you can track and utilise. Sophisticated email systems (forget the free ones) have the capability to covertly track subtle interactions, and for that matter lack of interactions with your emails. You may be familiar with the standard information such as open rates and bounces but this takes that email marketing technique a step further. The smarter systems can monitor click throughs. As a report, this information may be useful BUT there’s a better way to use it.

Actions

The question now comes as to what SHOULD happen when a subscriber interacts with your information? Dependent on the trigger you may want a number of different actions. Whether you simply want the database to capture the subscriber’s preference information, you wish to send a follow up email, you’d like your sales team to be notified or even a whole new set of emails is triggered, all of this is possible.
How you set your actions need not be overly sophisticated , although it can be.

The client’s automation was set up to deliver instant notifications to the sales team. The notifications were pre-populated with the subscriber’s information, also detailing their specific interaction.

232 red hot leads were generated within the space of 2 hours for a total investment of less than £1000.

With an average sales value of £3000, a conversion rate of 1% would generate revenue of over £11,000.
These figures become even more attractive as you increase the broadcast volumes. If, for example, the subscriber database was increased to a number of 400,000, the set up and distribution costs would be less than £20,000 but the returns would be in the region of £104M.

In a recent email broadcast.
4000 contacts delivered an open rate of 29% (1160)
and a click through rate of 20% (232).

The real beauty of email is its low distribution cost and instantaneous nature. Scalable email communications need automation and with all the triggers available, delivering comprehensive automated email communication has never been more straight forward. The real key is knowing where email marketing will deliver you best value.
Conditional marketing is the use of preference information to determine the content presented to the subscriber.

Email marketing techniques #2 – Conditional content

This email marketing technique needs a little explanation. If, for example, a travel company’s database showed a subscriber to have a preference for city breaks, the system could use that information to populate the content of that particular subscribers message to be specific to city breaks.

Conversely, a subscriber showing preference toward long haul breaks could have their message content determined to suit them. To use this to best effect, you need to rely on automation and let your subscribers determine the information they want.
Conclusion

Email marketing techniques are used by many organisations but by using the above 2 secrets, the more advanced organisations are gaining business critical edge over their competitors. The examples used are very basic are purely illustrative of the types of functions an organisation may wish to emulate.
To really capitalise on these secrets, an organisation should embrace the technology and apply it in all relevant places.

Find out more about how you can take advantage of these email marketing techniques.

By Ryan Mullins