Hello again, I’m Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing, where business takes shape. I want to thank you for following us. It has been a very good week. I heard from a lot of people. Someone who works on the Tonight Show is using the Blog. Another follower is covering soap operas online. Another is covering college football and, an Emmy Award winning composer. It’s very exciting to see that people are using Once a Day Marketing to help their businesses get more fit.
Today is Digital Friday and as always, we’ll talk about things digital. Today’s topic is “Email Newsletters: Tracking Results.”
Email newsletter correspondence is created using an online tool that allows you to design, distribute and track results of electronic newsletters, postcards, announcements and so forth. It’s a very powerful tool to engage your customers via the internet and mobile apps.
One option is Constant Contact, which I’ve been using for years. Others include iContact and MailChimp. You can explore and see which best meets your needs.
What really makes these tools interesting to me is they’re easy to use. You can choose from templates provided or, you can have a graphic artist design something specifically for you. They also allow you to put in all different types of content.
You will also be able to create powerful contact lists. People that you can send to that have opted-in. Lists can be categorized so you can target selected groups with your email newsletter.
Perhaps the most important thing for me is the analytics. I absolutely love it. Every time your email is opened, it is tracked. If you embed video, links or other content, everyone who watches it is tracked by their email address. If they’ve opened it more than once, that is tracked too. You can obtain powerful analytics as to who’s actually engaged with your newsletter. There are not many other things that do that for you in the promotion world.
How do you begin? The first step is to seek out one of these email newsletter sites and sign up. Typically, the fee is small, so it’s not a barrier to using one.
The next step is for you to determine your message and content. What will be relevant and resonate with your audience? A newsletter for the sake of a newsletter will not add value. So, you have to really think about who you’re targeting and zero in on a message that they will listen to, watch and respond to.
Now, what elements should you put in your newsletter? Well, you can include practically anything. I have found that video links are well accepted. Recipients will watch a video, especially if you’ve told the story around why that video is included.
You can feature pictures, text and include links to other sites you would like your audience to visit. Anything that will make your newsletter meaningful to your audience is fair game.
The next question is, how often should you send your newsletter? That is really specific to your target audience. They may only want to hear from you once a month, which I do with my corporate newsletter for my business. However, they may want to hear from you every day, like Once a Day Marketing. So you have to do some analysis as to how often.
When to distribute correspondence is another area to review. You may not want to send it out at 3am, however, it will be in the in-box first thing in the morning if you do. Eleven AM is often a good time because the recipient is probably awake now with all that coffee inside them. Also, you get to them before they take off for lunch. You will have to determine the best time to send out your email newsletters based upon your targets.
I love electronic email newsletters. I hope you now understand why. They are a great way to communicate with customers who have opted to receive your correspondence. Your job is to make sure it’s engaging content that they will want to look at and interact with. Then track those results. It’s like watching the New York Stock Exchange ticker tape.
This concludes Digital Friday and another week of Once a Day Marketing. So, please tune in next week to see what we’ve got in store for you to help advance your business.
I have been receiving inquiries about interacting with me directly. If you are interested in a one-on-one service engagement, please give me a shout, contact information is at the end of this blog. I am Jim Glover, That Branding Guy, for Once a Day Marketing, and we will see you next time.
Jim Glover: 505.501.1330 or onceadaymarketing@gmail.com
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