Posts Tagged ‘Tips’

6 Tips For Improving Email Campaign Delivery & Open Rates

May 17th, 2010

Like most eCommerce stores, you have a database with all your newsletter subscribers. You send them emails on a weekly/monthly basis. You have a very low open-rate and deliverability rate… How do you fix this? Here are 5 quick tips to get your email in the customers inbox and get them to open it.

Improve Deliverability

Tip #1 – Remove Bounced Emails

After every email you send, remove all the hard-bounces. Most email providers will allows you to view a report of which email addresses bounced back. Take that list and bulk-unsubscribe them from your list.

Most ISPs see that you keep sending to email addresses that don’t exist and they will start to think of you as a spammer and blacklist you.

Tip #2 – Include Unsubscribe Link On Top Of Email

Include a unsubscribe link at the very top of your email body. The ISPs scan for this and when they see an unsubscribe link on top of your email it tells them that you are serious about your email list integrity and that you are not a spammer.

Tip #3 – Text to Image Ratio

Another thing ISPs look for are emails with mostly images. When an email body consists of just images with very little text it has a higher chance of being spam. Spend the extra few minutes and add some text!

Improve Open-Rates

Tip #4 – Subject Line

Your subject line is the single most important element of your email after it has been delivered to the customers email inbox. This is what will make someone click to open the email. Write it well and always include a call to action.

Tip #5 – Include Short Text Snippets

Include a short text snippet on top of your email template. Most email clients offer a preview pane and this will be the first thing consumers  see. This is extremely useful with email clients such as Gmail and Outlook where they show a snippet of the email in the inbox itself.

Via: Campaign Monitor

Tip #6 – Use Alt-Text & Image/Table Sizes

Make sure you always include alt-text on all images because most email clients will block images when the email is first opened and will only display the images when the customer clicks “Display Images”.

It is equally important to use the width and height tags for all tables and images so that when there are no images displayed, you email is still structured properly. This will help the consumer understand what the email is about even without images and encourage them to view the full email.

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Posted in Email Marketing, Marketing

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Making The Most Of Email Marketing

July 28th, 2009

Email Marketing

If you are not actively engaging your customers to signup for your site’s newsletter, then your missing out. If you don’t even have a newsletter, then you better get started.

Email Marketing is often overlooked as a marketing channel. If you have a smaller ecommerce site, you may think that you don’t have so many people signed up anyway. If that’s the case, promote your newsletter on your site by offering to send out shopping tips, coupons codes, special sales etc…

Branding

You should try to send out an email campaign once or twice a month. This helps consumers become familiar with your brand and they will be more likely to open your email and less likely to hit the ‘Spam’ button.

When sending out your email you should always send from them same email address and try to include your brand name in the beginning of the subject. Again, this helps familiarise the consumer with your brand.

Compelling Call To Action

First and foremost your goal is to get the consumer to actually open the email. The way to do this is by using a great subject. Something that will make someone click. Skip the boring ‘Bob’s Bi-Weekly Newsletter’ and go with ‘Save $10 Off All Orders – 3 Days Only’.

Aside from a great subject you should make the body of the email as compelling as you can. Offer discounts, instant rebates, rewards. The better the incentive the higher your conversion rates will be.

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Posted in Email Marketing, Marketing

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5 Site Design Tips To Boost Conversion Rates

July 27th, 2009

Shopping Cart

With any ecommerce site there are a lot of variables that can contribute to the conversion rate. Here are some tips to help you get the most out of your site.

Speed

Page load times are very important. We live in a very fast paced world. If your pages take too long to load people will leave before the page is even done.

Landing Page

Ensure that your landing pages are highly relevant to your visitors. Make sure that your site is easy to navigate with as few clicks as possible. Always try to show pertinent information above the fold.

Call To Action

Always make sure that your call to action (i.e. Add To Cart, Buy Now buttons) are high enough on the page that it can be seen as soon as the page loads without scrolling down.

Trust

People need to be able to trust you. Display your approval seals where they will be visible right away. You can display your SSL seal, your Hacker Safe seal, your seal from customer review sites. Extend the trust from these brand names to your site.

Easy Checkout

Simplify your checkout process by consolidating it in to as few pages as possible. Only ask pertinent information and offer multiple payment types such as Google Checkout, PayPal Checkout Express, BillMeLater etc…

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Posted in Site Design

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