by John Heida | Mar 10, 2022 | Email Marketing
Email marketing has been around for a long time, so many marketers have formed opinions on what works and what doesn’t. However, they are based on the changing nature of digital marketing. Old beliefs have become outdated, while some myths persist. This is why we thought it would be useful to put together an article debunking common myths. If this is something that you’re interested in, read on as we debunk the four biggest email marketing myths.
A lot of people talk about how email marketing is dead. It’s a common misconception; in reality, email still plays a big role in digital marketing. For example, 93% of B2B marketers use email to distribute their content. On the B2C side, 59% of consumers report that information in an email has influenced their purchasing decisions, and everyone checks their emails every day.
Although some people have reservations about using email marketing – fear of getting lost in the fray of junk mail, for example – it is still one of the most effective forms of marketing. A survey from Marketing Charts found that the average person receives 416 marketing emails each month. But these statistics only show that everyone’s inbox is already flooded with messages; they don’t mean you shouldn’t send any (or very few) of your own. The key to avoiding that spammy feel is ensuring that your content is always valuable. If you send emails that add value, provide information, and are actually helpful to your audience, you are more likely to see open rates and fewer unsubscribes than if you were simply blasting out random emails.
Unsubscribers Are Always a Bad Thing
When a subscriber unsubscribes from your list, it can certainly sting. But the reality is that unsubscribes are not necessarily a bad thing. A clean email list is key to staying on ISPs’ (Internet service providers’) good sides, which will keep your emails from being blocked from inboxes. And if an email does get blocked, there are easy ways to get your subscribers back.
There are ways to fix your mailing list; you can run scans for typos and offer people the chance to re-subscribe if they have been unresponsive to your recent email marketing efforts. Unsubscribes are people who say they are no longer interested in your content, and that could be for any number of reasons.
Long Subject Lines Are Ineffective
Marketers were once told not to use subject lines that were too long to be displayed in someone’s inbox. That sounds reasonable, but it turns out that using long subject lines is not always ineffective.
While email subject lines between 41 and 50 characters performed best, it’s actually longer subject lines with 61 to 70 characters that performed the best. So don’t focus on fitting all of your subject lines into the narrow parameters. Instead, work to create a subject that is eye-catching and gives the reader a peek at what’s inside the email.
Conclusion
We hope this article proves to be useful when it comes to furthering your understanding of how email marketing works. As you can see, some of your preconceived notions about email marketing couldn’t be further from the truth. Be sure to keep everything that you learned here in mind so that you can make the most informed decisions that will allow you to maximize your email marketing efforts.
We recommend you work with professional email marketing services, such as Silo Hill Media to enhance your email marketing campaign. We create custom-tailored solutions for your digital marketing needs to help grow your business. Worry no more about digital marketing, and contact us today! We are located in Caldwell, ID.
by John Heida | Feb 22, 2022 | Email Marketing
According to New York Times, it is an excellent time to start a business even with an unstable economy. The columnist explains that people are less likely to take such risks. Thus, you have lesser competitors.
Besides that development, the United Nations pointed out the growth of e-commerce. After taking these into account, what would it mean for your company? You might want to re-evaluate your marketing scheme.
You have various digital marketing tools at your disposal—from SEO to email marketing. This article will focus on the latter because we want to work on your existing client base.
Basics
Kindly note that email marketing is only effective if you have an up-to-date and accurate email list. Remember that your email list is the basis of your email marketing campaigns because they contain the email addresses of your subscribers. These people are already interested in your brand. Thus, it would be best if you merely continued feeding them with valuable information to convert them into paying customers.
Email marketing can be likened to direct mail, but it is more powerful. For example, you can mail a paper letter to your address, but you can only do it once. When you conduct an email marketing campaign, you have a list, and you can reach out to these subscribers anytime you want.
It is important to note that you should not spam your subscribers. Although it may seem easy to bulk email to hundreds of people, you will likely get high bounce rates and low open rates. It is because your subscribers will quickly become annoyed and unsubscribe from your emails. Thus, you won’t be able to reach out to them again and again.
Furthermore, you can use emails to collect the email addresses of your subscribers. You need to have a signup form on your landing page to do this. This way, you will have more people to email your offers.
What Is an Email List Management?
As mentioned earlier, email marketing is only effective if your email list is up-to-date. It is why email list management is essential in the success of your overall marketing strategy. If you regularly manage your email list, you can deliver more value to your email subscribers.
Staying relevant is one of the keys to email marketing. You want to send information relevant to your subscribers’ interests. Think of ways to give them something they want, not just a “hard sell” of your product or services. You want your subscribers to be open to your emails and not delete them into their trash or spam folders.
Make your subscribers believe that you are an expert in your field. Do not be afraid to provide information that teaches your customers. Your prospects will appreciate the extra information you are providing, which may be helpful for them.
Best Practices
If someone requests more information from you, you should send them a coupon, a comprehensive brochure, or an offer for a product of interest to them. There are many ways you can use your email list to create a relationship with your subscribers. At the same time, you want to make sure you keep your email marketing efforts professional.
Conclusion
Email list management is essential in email marketing. Making an effort to ensure that your audience is active will eventually bear fruit. Please take note that a bad list means an unsuccessful email marketing campaign.
To ensure the success of your email marketing campaign, you should ask for assistance from Silo Hill Media. We can help you in every step of this project. Book an appointment now and let’s take your marketing campaign to the next level.
by John Heida | Feb 21, 2022 | Email Marketing
Cold emailing is one of the oldest digital marketing techniques still used to date. The format of cold emailing is modeled after cold mailing, where promotional mail is sent to specific individuals included on a mailing list.
The goal of cold emailing is to spark interest through spontaneous contact. While many people may think cold emailing is outdated and ineffective, they are incorrect. Cold emailing remains one of the most digital marketing strategies, as long as it is done correctly.
If you plan to launch your cold emailing campaign soon, make sure to take the necessary steps. In this article, we will guide you through creating your cold email marketing campaign.
1. Define Your Prospect
Who are you planning to reach with your email campaign? Before creating this campaign, you need to understand your audience and appeal to them. The best way to do this is to create a buyer persona or profile.
Do not just settle for their basic demographics. Instead, you need to fully understand their personal lives, the decisions they make, their shopping habits, and more. It is essential to get a full grasp of their personality before starting your campaign.
2. Build Your Emailing List
Now that you have a prospect, time to create your email list. Scour through the internet for emails that meet your prospect profile and file these email addresses.
Make sure that you are not simply building a list of email addresses. Create a database of these prospects. You can do this by compiling the email addresses that you have and keeping their profile information. Ensure that each email address is associated with a particular profile to give you a basic understanding of who they are.
3. Create a Catchy and Interesting Email Subject
Most people will quickly delete what looks like spam mail without even sparing it a second look. However, if you create a catchy and interesting email subject, they may want to go back and click on it.
Make sure to keep it short but interesting. Remember that what is interesting to you may not be attractive to your audience. Put yourself in the shoes of your prospects and find what may be an exciting email subject to them.
4. Ditch the Sales Talk
Sales talk can seem intrusive and pushy to a lot of people. This could put people off and result in them deleting your email. Try to avoid sounding like a sales pitch and sound more like something they need.
You can seem more casual in your email and avoid heavy formatting. Be straight to the point in announcing what you offer them, but do so in a way that shows that they need your product. Do not try to force these products on them.
5. Test Your Campaign
Try to test your email marketing campaign on a certain number of people on your emailing list. You do not just make an immediately successful campaign; you may be required to revise.
You can follow up with three more emails, but do not do more than that. Your email campaign will be marked as spam, and your prospects may just find it annoying.
Conclusion
Creating a cold email marketing campaign can be difficult. However, if done correctly, it will yield results. Just follow our steps above, and you will have a successful email campaign in no time.
We recommend you work with professional email marketing services, such as Silo Hill Media to enhance your email marketing campaign. We create custom-tailored solutions for your digital marketing needs to help grow your business. Worry no more about digital marketing, and contact us today! We are located in Caldwell, ID.
by John Heida | Jan 11, 2022 | Email Marketing
Email marketing has been extensively used by various businesses to reach out to their existing and potential clients. And most of the time, emails are sent across different hours in the morning, afternoon, and night.
With this in mind, have you noticed that during a specific time, you are receiving a lot of emails from different businesses, people, and brands? This is because they are using what we call email timing. And the timing where they send out emails depends on a lot of data analyses, email testing methods, and other information that led them to distinguish the best time to send a marketing email.
So, why is it important for businesses to determine the best time to send an email? It all boils down to significant click rates, open rates, and entire email marketing campaign performance.
Now to help you understand why this is important, here are the factors to consider when choosing the best time.
#1 Days of the Week
Timing an email depends on the day you are sending it. This is because there are days when a particular email is expected to perform better or worse. Here is a breakdown of the days of the week that you should expect to see effective emails.
Monday
If you are sending an email on a Monday, there are two possibilities. The first is that the email is not just an announcement or information, but it is also an educational one. The reason behind this is on Mondays, people are back to work and they are not ready to be receiving emails. So, they want to know some basic and informative facts instead of hearing about promotion and sales.
Tuesday
On Tuesdays, you can send out their emails and reach specific audiences. This is because, on Tuesdays, people are not just back to their schedules yet, but they also have a whole week ahead of them.
So, to make them feel prepared for the week, they need some tips, ideas, and even inspirations to help them make the most out of their week.
Wednesday
It is the best time to send a promotional email on Wednesdays. They usually feel bored and unmotivated during midweek. So, to get them motivated and reinvigorated, you can use hard-hitting promotional emails to remind them of your brand.
Thursday
Thursdays are the second best days to send promotional emails. However, during Thursdays, people are already planning their weekends, parties, and getaways. So, you can send some promotional offers that are related to these significant events.
Friday
Finally, there is the last day of the week – Friday. Friday is the best time to send an informative email. By this, we don’t mean that you should send a whole text of ideas and facts, but instead, you have to send something useful and something that people can use to make their work more effective.
#2 Time of the Day
Choosing the right time of the day you are sending an email is also another vital factor of timing. You can’t just send an email in the morning or in the afternoon. You have to know your audience and what they like based on the time of day they are most active online.
Morning
You can send your emails at 6:00 am or 7:00 am in the morning. If you are sending an email on a weekday, then this time is the most likely one where your subscribers will be the most active. This is because they are just waking up and just starting their day.
Midday
You can send an email in the afternoon at 12:00 pm or 1:00 pm. However, you have to keep in mind that this time is not as good as the morning time. But this time is also the best time to send an update email to your existing subscribers.
Afternoon
You can send an email in the afternoon at around 2:00 pm or 3:00 pm. This is because there are some changes in the attention span of people as the entire day goes by. This means that by the afternoon, people are already busy with their tasks, errands, and business meetings.
Evening
If you are sending an email in the evening, then it is most likely at 9:00 pm or 10:00 pm. This is a time when your subscribers are most likely to be busy with their activities for the day. And by this time, they are more focused on watching TV, doing homework, or checking their social media accounts.
#3 Audience Behavior and Demographics
Both the day of the week and the time of the day are important as individual factors but the success of choosing when to send your email marketing email is affected by your audience behavior and demographics.
The best time to send your email is not the same for all of your subscribers. This is because they have different interests, different jobs, different schedules, and different lifestyles.
Conclusion
Email marketing is as vital as any other marketing tool. In fact, studies show that email marketing is one of the most effective marketing methods. By using the right timing and applying the correct tactics, email campaigns can perform better and boost sales.
Silo Hill Media provides affordable and effective email marketing services that allow all facets of your marketing to work in a symbiotic way. Let us help you build your brand through the power of email marketing. Contact us today to get started.
by John Heida | Dec 14, 2021 | Email Marketing
It’s no secret that the holidays are a highly lucrative season for both online and offline retailers. According to the National Retail Federation, many businesses earn 20% to 30% of their annual profits during the holiday season.
Because of its high return on investment, email is a popular channel for holiday marketing initiatives. With the potential of boosting your sales amid a single shopping season, it’s more crucial than ever to plan how your holiday email marketing will stand out among the sea of advertising.
We are here to help! Here are four tactics you may use to boost the success of your Christmas email marketing campaign.
1. Know What Works for Your Target Market
Focusing on what you’ve previously done effectively is a brilliant starting point for your Christmas email marketing. If feasible, start by reviewing the prior year’s statistics, such as opens, clicks, and conversions.
Try to figure out why some emails were effective and apply the same method again. This might be due to the offer, the subject line, segmentation, or email scheduling, among other things.
Remember, it’s just as vital to figure out why anything went wrong so you can avoid it next time.
2. Create A Well-Thought-Out Christmas Email Campaign Timetable
To make the most of the holidays, start arranging your email marketing calendar early in the year and give yourself ample time to prepare all the important elements.
While some marketers have embraced the advice not to wait until the last minute to start their holiday email marketing, some have gone too far!
The practice of sending many retail emails well before the regular Christmas shopping season can lead to email fatigue—sending too early risks people outright ignoring your communications. It’s more imperative than ever to schedule emails wisely if you want to keep your subscribers engaged at the right time.
3. Use Segmentation to Personalize Holiday Email Messages
A customized and targeted Christmas email will generate far more engagement than a generic holiday email blitz. The most efficient strategy to adapt messaging to a customer’s interests and purchase patterns is to segment your contacts.
Here are some suggestions for efficient Christmas email marketing segmentation:
- Discount Aficionados: Identify clients who often (or only) use voucher codes to engage your most price-sensitive customers. Similarly, by creating this group, you’ll be able to avoid giving discounts to subscribers who are eager to buy products at full price.
- Subscriber Interests: Segment subscribers into groups based on prior purchase categories or website areas visited.
- Year-round vs. Seasonal Shoppers: Year-round and seasonal customers have distinct relationships with your business. Consider their individual requirements and motivations when planning your next follow-up campaign’s frequency, topic, and timing.
4. Use Marketing Automation to Tap into the Right Market
The best approach to enhance email open rates and engagement is to send the right message to the right people at the right time. And for Christmas email marketing services, marketing automation is your secret weapon.
To get the most out of your Christmas emails, use these automated strategies:
- Create A Seasonal Welcome Email: You’ll likely get new subscribers signing up during the holiday period. To maximize your expanding base, set up a welcome email with a particular discount or holiday theme. This will help persuade a curious shopper to make a purchase.
- Develop Abandoned Cart Automation Workflows: Cart abandonment is expected during the Christmas season; creating abandoned cart emails is even more critical for securing purchases.
- Use Lead Scoring to Target Warm Leads: Using customer interaction information and scoring contacts can help you build consumer profiles and guide segmentation. You’ll know which contacts are the most engaged, and you’ll be able to customize your holiday email content appropriately.
Conclusion
You still have time to plan and launch your Christmas email marketing campaigns. By following these guidelines, your business can take advantage of the opportunities presented by the holiday season. You can partner with a digital marketing agency in Boise to help you out.
Are you looking for an internet marketing service? Silo Hill Media is a digital marketing agency in Boise that provides affordable and effective strategies for your marketing needs. Contact us today!
by John Heida | Nov 30, 2021 | Email Marketing
Ever since the first email was sent in 1971, Internet users have tried to find ways to maximize the potential of this new medium. One of which was using email to market to potential clients and boost sales.
But why use email instead of TV, print, or even online channels to promote your products and services? Here are six interesting benefits of email marketing for small businesses:
Better Subscriber Management
TV advertising has little to no hold on a brand’s customer base. Social media has a better grip on this concern but is still subject to censorship and community guidelines. If Facebook or Instagram deem your content in violation, they will shut down your page, automatically removing your entire subscriber base.
With email marketing, on the other hand, you have the most control over subscriptions since you handle this list from a service such as MailChimp, Constant Contact, or MailerLite. You can observe their activity on your newsletters and promos and carry them over should you switch email providers.
Better ROI
Think email marketing isn’t for you? Check out this research: you can get up to 122 percent ROI using this method. That’s four times higher than other digital marketing tactics!
Track your email campaign ROI with this formula:
Gross profits from email marketing – Email marketing costs / Email marketing costs
Increased Sales
Email campaigns boost sales by conveniently informing customers about new events, promos, or products directly in their inboxes. These newsletters or messages often come with direct links to the page where consumers can purchase online. And with companies and brands shifting their commerce to digital means, that means it’s easier for your audience to buy online and you to increase sales!
Personalization
Companies and brands don’t just have a target audience. They have target audiences that vary from age range. That’s why they can develop a wide variety of products and services according to their needs.
The beauty of email marketing is that you can segregate your audience by the campaigns you make. Have a promo on baby care items, adult appliances, and teen books? Don’t lump all of them together in one newsletter. Create one per section of your audience and send it to that email list. It will be easier for customers to decide since you’ve narrowed down the choices for them.
Better Customer Relations
Promos and products are not the only topics for email campaigns. You can also leverage email marketing for other messages such as a year-end report, sustainability initiatives, CSR or PR announcements, or a simple thank you to customers for their patronage and support.
Customers receiving content like these is like hearing back from a dear friend about the ups and downs of their life and showing how strong that bond is, even if electronically. Not only does this build credibility, but it also strengthens the relationship between business and customer.
Cost-Effectiveness
Perhaps the best benefit of email marketing is its relative cost-effectiveness in time and money. Providers such as MailChimp, Constant Contact, and MailerLite offer free packages up to a certain subscriber base number, meaning you can send campaigns to your customers for free each month! You don’t have to pay for a subscription, and their interfaces are easy to learn!
Want to notify customers about a limited-time promo? Create a campaign and hit “Send”! No need to boost advertising on social media to spread the word. Remember: it goes straight to their inboxes!
Last Thoughts
If you thought emails were an ineffective way to grow your business, we hope this article has made you think twice. Email marketing is a valuable tool to create meaningful relationships with your customers, leading to increased sales and ROI. Just remember these six interesting benefits, and your small business could become a successful corporation in no time!
Looking for a digital marketing agency in Boise? Get in touch with Silo Hill Media today! We develop practical and effective strategies that allow all facets of your marketing to work synergistically!
