Effective Email Marketing Tips

The term email marketing probably brings up images of the mail inbox fast filling up with spam. You have nightmares of marking useless emails by the dozens and yet they keep piling on.

One of the challenges faced by email marketing services is that most efforts at communication go in vain because the messages end up landing in trash.

To understand why most messages never make it to their intended recipients, we must understand that there are several stages that an email message must go through. These stages are diverse, and can range from poor keyword choices to inconsistencies in multiple messages that cause them to get lost in spam filters.

Here's a look at some steps that may help your email reach your audience, as you go about preparing your email marketing campaign.

• Crossing the spam filters: Most email marketing services take into account valid email addresses and content. But spam filters will often catch content at the subject line itself as well. When drafting your email content, ensure that you leave out spam keywords, such as Apply Now!, Work from Home, Save $$, etc. You can either check the Internet for a list of spam words. At times, if your email content is free of any spam words, it might still stand a chance to overcome spam filters, despite having spam filter trigger words in the subject line.
• Keep a text alternate ready: When you prepare an email campaign, make sure you keep a text alternate ready because all email services do not allow HTML content. Also, when you create content, remember that online readers have little patience for anything too ornate. Call to action buttons that prompt readers to click and respond are best left plain, though they should be prominent. Keep a sharp eye on the volume of content as well. It does not help to load up online readers with large volumes of text.
• Research well: Before embarking on your campaign, ensure you research your audience. This means, put in a little effort in learning what appeals to them, or what are the peak working days in their industry, where does your target audience typically vacation, etc. You can then tailor your campaign to fit the interests of your audience content-wise and pick the best days for email delivery, when there is a slightly higher chance of them opening the email. Most email marketing services providers can vouch for this tip. While this may sound like a lot of work, it can mean the difference between a potential convert and a turn-off.
• Include freebies: Rarely does something create as much happiness as a simple free gift offer. You do not need to offer your audience entire subscriptions free; however, a reasonable trial period free, or a particular segment of a service free, or tutorial for a particularly difficult application, all can qualify as decent freebies. Just remember to apply anti-spam rules when announcing your freebies as well. Else there is a chance your target audience may never receive it.

Cost Effective Ways to Startup or Rampup Marketing Agency Business

Planning to start a Marketing and Advertising Agency of your own? As a successful Marketing and Advertising Agency owner you wish to add services to your existing portfolio so as to cross-sell them to your current client base and increase your revenues.

In either of the scenarios let's see what you would need if you wish to focus on your core activity of servicing your clients and building ideas and campaigns for them. You would need:-

• Manpower
• Infrastructure
• Software Packages and other Overheads
• Capital for Salaries, Infrastructure, Overheads and Training Costs
• Backup Resources
• Marketing and Sales Plan

Day by day, with competition intensifying and trimming bottom lines for most of the businesses, it would not be prudent to invest your hard earned money and venture into the risky oceans of the business world. Also, add to this the constraints of a tight budget, turning around or adopting a new business and service delivery model due to change in market requirements and economic conditions would be virtually impossible.

So, what would be the perfect risk-mitigated plan to tap into the business opportunity and yet avoid squeezing chunks of cash out of your modest budget? The best and most cost-effective solutions for doing so are:-

1. White Label Solutions:- Using a White Label Solution you can leverage the capabilities and product offerings of a vendor who has been successfully delivering the services that you wish to sell/market. You can also look to package them with your existing services and build cost-effective packaged solutions for your existing and future clients. The biggest advantage of a White Label Solution as compared to a Reseller Program is the ability to determine the prices at which you wish to sell the services which you deem fit for the situation and opportunity. Also, you would be able to give a tremendous boost to your brand name in your client and peer network. The success of working with a White Label Solution provider deeply lies on one factor that they relieve you of all background tasks like Pre Sales, Content, Design, Visualization, Technical Support etc. and let you focus on your Core Competencies i.e. Client Communication, Client Servicing and Strategizing.

2. Virtual Back Office:- For those who don't wish to be tied in the shackles of a product offering and service delivery model of a vendor delivering White Label Solutions, there is an alternate: they can tap into the opportunity of hiring a virtual back-office to support all  Client Servicing functions. You have the flexibility of developing your packages, package offerings, pricing, delivery model and designing customer servicing and support systems. It's almost like hiring an employee except you are at liberty to choose the number of hours for which you wish to hire the employee, as per your changing work requirements. Along with that, you are also freed from spending on employee overheads like benefits, training, leaves, etc. Such a model also ensures availability of resources at all times without having to worry about replacements in case the resource leaves, or substitutes when the resource is on long absence from work. Most vendors charge for these services on hourly basis. To a large extent, the success of such a model depends on vendor capabilities which comprise their team size, their talent pool, skill set of their talent pool and backup resource plan. Companies with a talent pool having multiple skill sets are ideally in the best position to deliver you such services.

3. Subcontracting or Hiring Independent Contractors:- Rated as one of the cheapest methods without having to incur the cost of hiring full-time or part-time in-house employees. Though this model is the cheapest, it is highly manpower-centric and contractor dependent. Turnaround and service deliveries are highly dependent on contract availability and again, this method lacks a backup strategy in case the contractor wishes to terminate working with you.

There is an old saying, "Make hay while the sun shines," so when you see an opportunity to take a plunge into the business world to make your business work, all you need is a partner who could assist you in building the enterprise of your success and is a catalyst in your growth plans.

As an agency, to see how you can partner with someone for your success, please see the presentation at

Solutions for Agency

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