• Streamline Email Marketing Management
  
• Get "Fractal" — Solve Your Email Client Compatibility Issues
• Give Your Email or Email Landing Page the "Five Second Test"
  
• Use Social Media Design Apps to Enhance Your Email Programs
• Boost Your Email Open Rates

Streamline Email Marketing Management

Selecting a solution to help manage your email marketing may be difficult. For many, it's not just about picking an email provider but choosing a service that has the features to best fit your needs. Do you go with an Email Service Provider (ESP) or Marketing Automation Platform (MAP)? Let's explore both...

ESPs excel in email design, management and deliverability. MAPs streamline marketing operations by automating email-related processes (e.g., email management, lead nurturing and drip marketing). In reality, the lines are becoming blurred between the two platforms as ESPs are incorporating more marketing automation features. Today, most of the mid-to-enterprise solutions on the market have similar out-of-the-box capabilities and the ability to scale or customize as needed.

Following are some ideas to help you weigh which type of provider is best for you.

• Manage large subscriber lists or perform heavy list management.
• Are initially focused on starting out with email capabilities and plan to later add lead nurturing and marketing automation features.
• Are initially focused on starting out with email capabilities and plan to later add lead nurturing and marketing automation features.

A Marketing Automation Platform may be more suitable if you:

• Require a turnkey system that includes both lead nurturing and behavior scoring.
• Have the dedicated resources/team to administer the system and develop content that supports nurturing campaigns.

A few customers have asked us what we use to send you our Industry Insight emails. We use Act-On, a marketing automation platform. It is an on-demand/cloud-based solution that has integration with Salesforce. It is easy to use compared to other enterprise-level systems that offer similar functionality but may require more process planning and IT help. We love Act-On and would recommend it in a heartbeat. Still, you should create your own requirements list and ensure you compare vendors based on your criteria, not someone else's.

Get "Fractal" — Solve Your Email Client Compatibility Issues

You have a beautiful design. It shows off your brand and looks great in HTML on your browser. You send a "test" message to a couple email clients (Outlook, Lotus, Gmail, Yahoo) and BAM... your design goes down in flames. Emails have to be tested on all your prospects' clients to make sure they appear the way you intend.

How much time do you spend testing your email design before each send? This is definitely a sore spot for many, including our own team. We allot special time in our campaign preparation to test different mail clients and generally have to find and iron out bugs ourselves. Fractal, a new solution (currently free to use), does the hard work for you. Fractal finds compatibility issues with email clients and solves them for you by outlining them and adjusting your code. It takes just minutes and you can email the report if someone outside does your email design or programming.

TRY FRACTAL ON YOUR NEXT CAMPAIGN. GET STARTED HERE.

Give Your Email or  Email Landing Page the "Five Second Test"

Understanding whether your email or campaign landing page achieves your desired results can help shape your campaign's ROI. A new tool called Fivesecondtest recently came to our attention. Fivesecondtest helps you fine tune your landing pages and calls to action by determining what a test taker recalls about your design after viewing it for 5 seconds. After uploading a design, a poll is conducted based on questions you outline. You receive a report following the test that helps you fine-tune your design to ensure your key message is being conveyed. There is a free version you can try out now. Note that private tests can be made with paid upgrade plans.

Use Social Media Design Apps to Enhance Your Email Programs

Email and Social Media go hand-in-hand. Many companies are adding social sharing and follow buttons within their email campaigns to strengthen audience development and content syndication. They are also leveraging social platforms to promote email and grow their email lists. There are some easy-to-use apps out there that generate forms for Facebook (try ShortStack or Pagemodo). Don't forget to add links on Twitter, Linkedin and other social sites to your email signup landing page.

Boost Email Open Rates

Be choosy with the name you assign to your emails' "From" line.
The name that appears in the "from" line of your email could make or break your open rate. The recipient often makes the decision about whether or not to open an email based on their familiarity with the "From" name. If your analytics shows a low open rate, the name you have assigned should be reconsidered for future emails. Most email applications let you customize the "From" name. Try testing your company name versus the name of a sales rep or account person on different segments of your list. Prospects may respond better to brands while customers may open more emails from their sales rep. Some email marketers find using a combination of the two works best.

Use verbs in your subject line that convey action and include words that create a sense of urgency
Effective email subject lines should be written like landing page calls to action. They should compel recipients to take action (e.g., Explore our new ABC selection guide). Further, be sure to include your offer or show value in the subject line and, where applicable, convey a sense of urgency or timeframe for taking action.

Incorporate "hot" keywords in your subject line.
Online marketing software provider Hubspot reported some findings on subject line words that received the most clicks. Words like "posts," "e-newsletter," "digest," "bulletin," "edition," "tips," "video" and "news" were among the top results. Try one of these out in your next email.

Incorporate "hot" keywords in your subject line. Keep subject lines on point and refrain from "marketing fluff."
Ideal character count of an email subject line varies when asking different email providers and experts. However, most will tell you to stay between 35-49 characters max and that anything over 55 gets cuts off. Twitter works for a reason. Every character counts. You have no room for waste. Email is no different. In fact, some studies have shown that as subject line character count rises, open rate goes down. Remember whatever the length, testing to see what works with your prospects is the key.

Determine your company's best time of day to send email.
There are many theories and online recommendations that will tell you to send email on a specific day or time of the week. Unfortunately, there is no magic "time to send" for all. We recommend you determine your own sweet spot by testing different send times and tracking results to see what time works best. You may be surprised at the result. Do you target engineers on a global basis or a specific country/region? If you tend to target individual geographies, you might factor working hours into your send time. Some email tools have features that deliver messages at the target time in the individual time zone of each recipient.