A missed opportunity - increase your mailing list registrations. Many businesses are missing out on growing their mailing lists daily. A proven method of getting more people on your email mailing list is to put your registration information boldly on your homepage. Either present an animated banner that clicks through to a dedicated registration page or present the ’subscription form’ on your homepage. Make it easy for your website visitors to join up to receive your email marketing information.

Subject Lines - invite the recipient to open your email. Subject Lines are often overlooked or an afterthought however they can greatly impact on your open rate. Choose a subject line that has a value proposition or call to action to improve your open rate.

Targeted Message Content - give your recipients relevant information. Provide your recipients with information that they want and can use and this will increase the click rate. We say “get to the Inbox to drive visits to your Website”. Providing relevant information in your email message that delivers a value proposition will improve your click statistics.

Message Presentation - enhance the reader experience. Carefully consider the visual impact of your email message ‘when images have not been downloaded’. Many marketers overly rely on images in their email messages yet a high percentage of recipients never download images. Ensure you have ample relevant information that can entice the click without the reliance on images to tell the story.

Message Templates - level the playing field with an eye catching professional email template. Get the appropriate branding presentation with a custom designed template for your email messages. Ensure there are valid links to your website and the branding is consistent with your website presentation. First impressions count so start out with a top class template.

On 5th September 2007 the New Zealand Anti Spam Law called the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007 comes into force and currently there is no code of conduct or official practical guide to assist us (yet). Fortunately we have access to reliable legal advice on the interpretation of this new law and where it impacts on the delivery of commercially oriented messages sent via email and txt.

Our law is tougher than the American and Australian equivalent. Marketers in America can sent commercial emails until the recipient opts-out. Under the New Zealand Act the sender of commercial electronic messages must have consent of the recipient before the commercial message is sent. So this means we need to radically change the way we currently communicate via email and TXT with commercial messages and it pays to get into the habit before 5th September 2007.

Email is a cost effective marketing channel that is extensively utilised by businesses and individuals as an initial means of establishing customer relationships. Often our associates, friends, family and colleagues recommend prospective customers to us and suggest sending an email as a first point of contact. Introducing our services and maybe providing a link to our website in an introductory email has been considered a ‘soft sell’ approach up to now. However when the Act comes into force this approach will no longer be considered legal and prior consent must be given and recorded before you can send your introductory email.

Our sales people and marketers will find it difficult to replace this approach to introducing their services especially as this strategy has been widely employed as a result of the difficulty in getting in contact with people via the telephone. Hopefully this clause in the Act will be revised to enable our New Zealand Sales teams to operate effectively using 21st century technology – however until then we must comply to all the clauses in the Act.

Anti Spam Compliance Solutions For You & Your Business

To see how we can help you and your business comply with the NZ Anti-SPAM Act click here

Client Question:
When must an unsubscribe facility be included in a commercial electronic message? Is it only bulk emails, or is it all messages including one to one correspondence?

Answer:
The New Zealand Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act covers all commercial electronic messages – from one-off messages to bulk mail-outs. No minimal number of recipients are required to trigger the Act unless the person authorised to send the message and the recipient have agreed to waiver the unsubscribe link in communication.

Anti Spam Compliance Solutions For You & Your Business

To see how we can help you and your business comply with the NZ Anti-SPAM Act click here

Working smarter not harder - it’s not as easy as it sounds except when it comes to email marketing. Whether you run a business as a marketer for your clients products or services or you are promoting your own, the job is made a lot easier when you can measure the results with email metrics tracking to assist you.

Why? Well for starters as soon as you release your email campaign to your mailing list you can view the delivery and within a short period know who received your message unlike a physical letter box drop (direct mail marketing) where your flyers may not end up in the number of homes you anticipate.

Measuring the success of a marketing campaign is important for realising the ROI yet many businesses are slow to put a lot of effort into analysing the return for a particular channel or marketing medium utilised and this is understandable as some of the most popular mediums do not provide detailed feedback.

Over the last couple of years we have witnessed a major shift in advertising spend with a higher percentage being dedicated to measurable marketing initiatives especially online advertising banners, email and txt marketing. The drivers for the shift in spend are competition, squeezed profit margins and just plain ‘moving with the times’ – reaching out to the generations that spend more time on their computers and mobile phones.

Email Campaign Reports should be an integral part of your email marketing initiative. A trained eye analysing your campaign feedback can provide you with focus, ideas and of course results – more subscriptions, more sales. ‘Yes’ is the answer (just in case I haven’t answered the question presented earlier) – email campaign statistics can be extremely valuable for improving your success rate. It all comes back to working smarter. When you want to improve in an activity you get advice, mentoring, coaching etc. Improving your ability to reach out to your customers and prospects also requires the same analysis and instruction. Consider our Email Campaign Reporting for your next email campaign.