It should go without saying that the security of your mailing infrastructure (Mail Server) is closely tied to your sender reputation and is a building block for establishing long-lasting relationships with your customers.

If you are hacked and spam lands in your subscribers’ inboxes, there are multiple risks, each having a different impact on your email program:

Spam creates a lot of complaints against your domains and IP addresses
Spam will lead to a drop in subscriber engagement with your legitimate email
Both subscribers and Mailbox Providers (MBP’s) could block your mail
Malicious actors will likely send spam to random email addresses that are not your subscribers, which usually includes a high number of spam traps
If unauthorized content is being sent from your infrastructure and you are hitting spam traps, then you are likely to be listed on publicly available blacklists

The various factors I’ve mentioned above matter. Because major MBP’s are checking performance and security parameters. To make filtering decisions before accepting a connection from your email server.

The time it takes for performance metrics to normalize varies based on the scale of the spam run, but no matter how long it takes, it will have a detrimental effect on email deliverability and ROI.

Based on our experience with Certified Clients, we put together 5 tips on how to secure your mail server. Share this information with your IT department for better protection from malicious actors:

Encryption: When securing your mail server, make sure you are using secure connections. Encrypt POP3 and IMAP authentication and use SSL and TLS.
Mail relay configuration: Avoid being an open relay for spammers by specifying which domains/IP addresses your mail server will relay mail for.
Connections and default settings: To avoid DoS attacks, limit the number of connection and authentication errors that your systems will accept. Remove unneeded server functionality by disabling any unnecessary default settings. Have a dedicated mail server and move other services like FTP to other servers. Keep total, simultaneous, and maximum connections to your SMTP server limited.
Access Control: To protect your server from unauthorized access, implement authentication and access control. For example, SMTP authentication requires users to supply a username and password. to be able to send mail from the server.
Abuse prevention: Check DNS-based blacklists (DNSBLs) and reject email from any domains or IPs listed on them. Check Spam URI Realtime Blocklists (SURBL), and reject any messages containing invalid or malicious links. Also, maintain a local blacklist and block any IP addresses that specifically target you. Employ outbound filtering and use CAPTCHA/reCAPTCHA with your web forms.

Keeping your mail server security is not only a prerequisite for a successful email program. But also for making the most of the Certification program. Hence the benefits include improved email deliverability at major MBP, bypassing critical MBP filters, unblocked images, and active links. If Compliance team detects spam on your Certified IP address/domain. They suspend your IP address/domain from the Certification Program. And it may take 30 days or more for performance metrics to comply with Certification thresholds.

Email Marketing

Benefits of Sending Email in the Cloud

April 2, 2018

Sending email using a cloud-based SMTP server has numerous benefits for growing businesses, saving you time and streamlining your costs. Customers started with custom systems, but as usage increased found that their current email infrastructure didn’t have long-term appeal to the bottom line. So they searched for more cost-effective ways to manage their email and found outsourcing to be their solution of choice.

If you are still managing your own custom email systems in-house and are considering making the switch, consider the following benefits that outsourcing your transactional email to an SMTP mail server can provide.

Lower Cost

Outsourcing your email to a cloud-based mail server is just cheaper than your own. When calculating the true cost of maintaining your own email infrastructure, you must consider the costs of staffing, hardware, software, maintenance, storage, and ancillary channels like mobile – all of which will add up over time especially as you grow.

Easy Updates

The ability to initiate upgrades and configure software from a central point that can be deployed system-wide eliminates the usual headaches and saves an extraordinary amount of time and resources.

Rapid Implementation

Adding users is faster and more efficient. This is particularly helpful for companies who add large volumes of users on an ongoing basis.

Pay as You Go

Instead of incurring the upfront expense of purchasing hardware and software, you can simply pay for what you need now and increase your usage based on actual need rather than projected need. In this way, companies realize savings almost immediately after making the switch.

Expertise

When outsourcing your email to a reputable provider, you get a team of individuals. And that can serve as your external email operations team, focused on email deliverability issues.

While all of the above are excellent reasons to choose an SMTP service. Perhaps one of the most important reasons is the overall business benefit of outsourcing your transactional email. In doing so, you can focus your development resources on building revenue-generating products.

Email Marketing, Marketing Automation

Virtual assistant for Email Marketing: Best Ideas

April 1, 2018

here are a few ideas on how a virtual assistant can help with your email marketing

Set up an email marketing account

Once you have chosen your email marketing platform, your virtual assistant can complete the registration and profile process. They can ensure that all the required fields are completed. If you have an online store or social media accounts, they can link these to the platform as well

Upload names and email addresses

If you have collected names from a manual signup process then these can be transcribed into the database. If you have details in spreadsheet form, these can be easily uploaded onto the platform.

Create a template

You can choose the layout of your communication in most email marketing platforms. To ensure consistency, it’s always best to communicate in a consistent format that your audience expects and knows. Your virtual assistant can put this template in place, so you can reuse it time and time again.

Write text in line with business strategy and voice

A virtual assistant with copyrighting ability will be able to write most of your email for you. You will need to provide a simple outline of what you want to communicate.

Create graphics to insert into the email

Graphics and photos are a great way to break up a block of text. Your virtual assistant will be able to create simple graphics that are relevant to the text and in line with your branding.

Schedule or send

Once the communication is complete, your virtual assistant can send or schedule it to go out at a time that suits you and your audience.

Provide summary feedback

Most platforms have built-in analytics, but you might like to track items separately over time. You can report on performance such as opens, clicks, bounce rates and industry averages.

Email Marketing

How you can use Video in your Email Marketing Campaigns

March 31, 2018

[:en]Email Marketing campaigns are a great way to share your video marketing content. But you might still be a bit unsure about how to include video effectively. In this post, I’ll share some tips and tricks to help you go video adding the special sauce. That can really amp up your nurturing campaigns.

Video in Email Marketing

A lot of people ask me “Ian, can I stream video playback in an email?”. The answer to this question is sort of. The image below outlines which email clients support video, but as you’ll notice, you have to be careful with this pie chart. Because the two major email clients (Outlook and Gmail) do not support video playback, you have to get a bit creative to give your readers an interactive video experience.

4 tips to work around the playback challenge and incorporate video in your emails:

Within your email, include an image from your video and put a “play button” on top of it to mimic the look of a typical video player

With the addition of this pseudo-play button, you’re adding a visual indication that a video is part of your email. When readers are prompted with this “button,” they’ll click the image and be directed to a landing page. Or a branded video sharing page with your video embedded. Using a compelling image to link readers to your video content within the email. In this way works really well to increase click-through rates.

You can also use a GIF instead of a static image. However, you should make sure to choose an ideal first image for the GIF. In case the email client does not support GIFs (darn Outlook) and freezes at the first image.

Embed video on your landing page and set it to auto-play:

Because you’re technically redirecting folks to a landing page with your video embedded, you’ll want to catch their attention right away and auto-play is a surefire way to do this (it also requires fewer clicks from your viewers).

As a general guideline, your video should be 30-90 seconds for the top of funnel campaigns and 1-30 minutes for individuals further down the funnel:

Since attention spans will vary depending on a prospect’s progression through the sales funnel, you’ll want to make sure your emails, and the videos within those email campaigns, are highly targeted.

When sending messages to top-of-funnel leads, the associated video should be short and sweet. You can gloss over product details or even skip them entirely—the whole point is to attract new contacts and guide them into the sales funnel.

For prospects you’re targeting who are further along in the funnel, consider including videos to answer questions you know they have about the product, detailed product demos, or personalized videos about how the product solves problems within their industry.

Place a call to action during, or at the end of the video that suggests a clear next step for your audience:

If you’ve managed to get your readers to become viewers, you’ll definitely want to direct them to more content they might like, encourage them to share the video with social buttons, or have them fill out an Eloqua form at the end of the video.

Building a call to action can be as simple as prompting viewers to “download our white paper”. Or as strategic as including a contact form at the end of a video. A form can collect even more details to push into your marketing automation or CRM contact records for future lead nurturing and segmentation.

Tracking & Measuring your campaign

You can send as many emails as you want, but if you aren’t tracking responses. You won’t know if your videos are effective or not. All email marketing systems can tell you who’s clicked on your email, and which links they clicked within the email – video or otherwise. Tracking beyond this info is where things get more interesting.

If you’re using all-in-one video marketing platform you can track not only who watches the video. But how long each individual viewer watched the video and where they dropped off or lost interest.

Capture new leads with forwarded emails

If someone really likes your email/video they may forward it to a friend. If their friend’s contact information isn’t stored. In your marketing automation or customer relationship management system. You’ll want to make sure there’s some way for this. New contact to put up their hand and request more information.

Email gates that can be added to the video plays and customizable calls-to-action that follow the video wherever it’s viewed. Optimizations like these can help you capture lead data anywhere your video goes. And it’s important to have this sort of strategy for capturing information. From viewers who want to self-identify as interested prospects.[:gb]Email Marketing campaigns are a great way to share your video marketing content. But you might still be a bit unsure about how to include video effectively. In this post, I’ll share some tips and tricks to help you go video adding the special sauce. That can really amp up your nurturing campaigns.

Video in Email Marketing

4 tips to work around the playback challenge and incorporate video in your emails:

Within your email, include an image from your video and put a “play button” on top of it to mimic the look of a typical video player

Embed video on your landing page and set it to auto-play:

As a general guideline, your video should be 30-90 seconds for the top of funnel campaigns and 1-30 minutes for individuals further down the funnel:

Place a call to action during, or at the end of the video that suggests a clear next step for your audience:

If you’ve managed to get your readers to become viewers, you’ll definitely want to direct them to more content they might like, encourage them to share the video with social buttons, or have them fill out an Eloqua form at the end of the video.

Building a call to action can be as simple as prompting viewers to “download our white paper” or as strategic as including a contact form at the end of a video. A form can collect even more details to push into your marketing automation or CRM contact records for future lead nurturing and segmentation.

Tracking & Measuring your campaign

You can send as many emails as you want, but if you aren’t tracking responses, you won’t know if your videos are effective or not. All email marketing systems can tell you who’s clicked on your email, and which links they clicked within the email – video or otherwise. Tracking beyond this info is where things get more interesting.

If you’re using all-in-one video marketing platform, you can track not only who watches the video, but how long each individual viewer watched the video and where they dropped off or lost interest.

Capture new leads with forwarded emails

If someone really likes your email/video they may forward it to a friend. If their friend’s contact information isn’t stored. In your marketing automation or customer relationship management system. You’ll want to make sure there’s some way for this new contact to put up their hand and request more information.

Email gates that can be added to the video plays and customizable calls-to-action that follow the video wherever it’s viewed. Optimizations like these can help you capture lead data anywhere your video goes. And it’s important to have this sort of strategy for capturing information from viewers who want to self-identify as interested prospects.[:au]Email Marketing campaigns are a great way to share your video marketing content. But you might still be a bit unsure about how to include video effectively. In this post, I’ll share some tips and tricks to help you go video adding the special sauce. That can really amp up your nurturing campaigns.

Video in Email Marketing

4 tips to work around the playback challenge and incorporate video in your emails:

Within your email, include an image from your video and put a “play button” on top of it to mimic the look of a typical video player

Embed video on your landing page and set it to auto-play:

As a general guideline, your video should be 30-90 seconds for the top of funnel campaigns and 1-30 minutes for individuals further down the funnel:

Place a call to action during, or at the end of the video that suggests a clear next step for your audience:

If you’ve managed to get your readers to become viewers, you’ll definitely want to direct them to more content they might like, encourage them to share the video with social buttons, or have them fill out an Eloqua form at the end of the video.

Building a call to action can be as simple as prompting viewers to “download our white paper” or as strategic as including a contact form at the end of a video. A form can collect even more details to push into your marketing automation or CRM contact records for future lead nurturing and segmentation.

Tracking & Measuring your campaign

If you’re using all-in-one video marketing platform, you can track not only who watches the video, but how long each individual viewer watched the video and where they dropped off or lost interest.

Capture new leads with forwarded emails

If someone really likes your email/video they may forward it to a friend. If their friend’s contact information isn’t stored. In your marketing automation or customer relationship management system. You’ll want to make sure there’s some way for this new contact to put up their hand and request more information.

Email gates that can be added to the video plays and customizable calls-to-action that follow the video wherever it’s viewed. Optimizations like these can help you capture lead data anywhere your video goes. And it’s important to have this sort of strategy for capturing information from viewers who want to self-identify as interested prospects.[:in]Email Marketing campaigns are a great way to share your video marketing content. But you might still be a bit unsure about how to include video effectively. In this post, I’ll share some tips and tricks to help you go video adding the special sauce. That can really amp up your nurturing campaigns.

Video in Email Marketing

4 tips to work around the playback challenge and incorporate video in your emails:

Within your email, include an image from your video and put a “play button” on top of it to mimic the look of a typical video player

Embed video on your landing page and set it to auto-play:

As a general guideline, your video should be 30-90 seconds for the top of funnel campaigns and 1-30 minutes for individuals further down the funnel:

Place a call to action during, or at the end of the video that suggests a clear next step for your audience:

If you’ve managed to get your readers to become viewers, you’ll definitely want to direct them to more content they might like, encourage them to share the video with social buttons, or have them fill out an Eloqua form at the end of the video.

Building a call to action can be as simple as prompting viewers to “download our white paper” or as strategic as including a contact form at the end of a video. A form can collect even more details to push into your marketing automation or CRM contact records for future lead nurturing and segmentation.

Tracking & Measuring your campaign

If you’re using all-in-one video marketing platform, you can track not only who watches the video, but how long each individual viewer watched the video and where they dropped off or lost interest.

Capture new leads with forwarded emails

If someone really likes your email/video they may forward it to a friend. If their friend’s contact information isn’t stored. In your marketing automation or customer relationship management system. You’ll want to make sure there’s some way for this new contact to put up their hand and request more information.

Email Marketing

Increase your Email Open Rates with Best Subject lines

March 31, 2018

Email marketing has become one of the most-used marketing tools for lead generation, communication, and general revenue increase. But with the increased popularity also came plenty of strategies on how to make sure your customers actually open your emails in the first place. Writing the right subject lines is tricky. You need to make sure it hits just the right spot.

Ask the who, what, and why

In order to know what to write, you should know who you’re writing for first. Before worrying about a subject line, you should first establish your audience and the type of email you’re sending. Once you establish what your email will be about and write the content, you’ll be able to assess the subject line that will give you the best results.

What do people react to?

So now that you have established who are you writing to and your email type, you can select the reaction you want to install. Digital Marketer notes that there are eight types of subject lines audience tends to react to best. They include things like self-interest, curiosity, news, social proof, humanity, story, scarcity, and offer.

Main Elements of Subject lines

Powerful words

The email marketing world is full of emotion-evoking words. Words such as ‘epic’, ‘fail’, ‘everything’, ‘important’ and ‘inspire’ are able to bring out a certain curiosity in people that will make them want to know what’s happening within your email. And that’s another click for you!.

The value word

Each email needs to have a value. That value should be summarized in a single word, which you need to add to your subject line. For example, that can include guides, facts, planners, offer, discount, sale, and so on. Your email should always include the value you’re bringing to your customer.

Numbers

Using numbers will help people through what the email will be about. The number can also directly correlate with the value you’re giving your customer and increase your opening chances.

Using emojis

Marketers have started adding emojis after noticing they’re most used in casual online conversation. Strategically using emojis will help you create a relatable subject line that will make people want to open your email and as a bonus point, let them have a giggle or two and will also usually stand out in a crowded inbox. Of course, using emojis is optional as it depends on your own personal brand and tone of voice.

subject lines depend on your own content, industry, and further marketing trends. But if you’re not satisfied by your ROI and the numbers you’re getting, try experimenting with the new subject line.

voice broadcasting service

Voice Broadcasting: We are using it in your mobile campaign

March 31, 2018

Voice broadcasting applications take advantage of older, more traditional forms of phone technology. They can be broken into two main components.

IVR

With an IVR (Interactive Voice Response) system, you can set up surveys, polls, appointment reminders, payments, and more for inbound or outbound uses. Customers interact using a simple keypress. Our IVR technology is easy-to-use with a simple drag and drops menu or XML. IVR systems allow you to connect with your customers like never before.

The end-user places a phone call to (or receives a call from) a specified number and reaches a voice broadcasting platform with a pre-recorded message. This platform may then be navigable by using voice prompts or by pressing the numbers on the phone’s keypad. IVR is good for decision-tree campaigns.

Voice Recording

This is a simpler option than IVR. It is not interactive in the same way. The end-user places the call (or receives it) and listens to a pre-recorded message. This option is good for educational/informational campaigns. The system sends one piece of information to the end-user via a pre-recorded message. This option is much like an outbound blast SMS but as a voice recording instead of text.

Both of these options can be in-going and out-going. Either the end-user phones the system or the system can phone the end-user. Another option is flash-to-call, where the end-user calls the IVR system, which terminates the call rather than picking up. The IVR system then automatically phones the end-user back and they are free to navigate the system with no financial cost to themselves.

Advantages of voice broadcasting

Voice broadcasting technology solves a number of unique problems that have no other solution. Corporations, government organizations, community groups – they all make use of voice broadcasting in order to maximize their reach.

Adding the Personal Touch
Providing an Interactive Experience
Offering Flexibility
Reaching a Wider Audience
Being Cost Effective
Staying Consistent
Expediting the Process
Exploiting Familiarity

These are groups who may have problems accessing SMS campaigns. Using voice broadcasting technology allows these groups to access information and campaigns.

Voice broadcasting technologies have a variety of distinct advantages. These include that:

they work on all phones
they work on all mobile networks
the user interface is easy – people are used to dialing a number
they can be used in all languages
A natural form of communication
they are accessible to those who cannot read the text.

The technology behind voice broadcasting

Another advantage to voice broadcasting is that it is relatively easy to set up. Renting phone lines is sufficient to build the needed infrastructure. However, there is a challenge in the implementation of speech technologies. Although it is possible to set up IVR in any language (a great advantage) it is limited due to the need to pre-record these prompts.

Hosting and deployment are key to using IVR technology. Currently, the infrastructure needed is very expensive although there are some low-cost options such as Freedom Fone. It also only runs on Linux-based operating systems. Whereas I personally think this is brilliant, it does mean that organizations interested in using Freedom Fone need to be familiar with Linux.

Challenges of voice broadcasting

There are still a few disadvantages to Voice technology and this is partly why some argue in favor of SMS or USSD. Voice broadcasting technologies present challenges for both users and content developers:

Cost

If the service requires end-users to phone a number then the cost is higher than SMS or USSD. However, if the service is outgoing then there is no cost to end-users putting it in-line with SMS.

User Interaction

Users may be unused to interacting with a recorded message rather than an actual human after dialing the number or receiving an inbound call. Additional training may be required. The user interface needs to be carefully designed. Having a long list of options for a caller to navigate through is a danger. The options need to be short and concise.

Connectivity

Using a voice broadcasting platform is dependent on the end-users phone having connectivity. A big advantage of SMS is that messages can be received later (with some restrictions – for example, with some Telcos messages get deleted after 72 hours if not picked up). With voice, if the end-users phone is not connected, they cannot access the service. There are, however, ways around this. For outbound campaigns, the system could automatically retry calling the end-user at certain intervals. If the end-users phone is not connected, the system could send an SMS to the end-users phone with a number to call back to reach the voice campaign once they are re-connected.An advantage to voice here, though, is that the end-user is not dependent on using a mobile phone. If there is a land line, they can use that.

Possible misuse

Using voice broadcasting technologies give great opportunities to record voice and other sounds in the field. But, as Stephane Boyera argues, this may be subject to misuse. He uses the example of citizen-journalists in the field being able to use IVR to report on events. However, as the voice is identifiable and traceable, this poses a real risk to corrupt countries.

Email Marketing

3 Little Known Techniques in the NEW Email Marketing

March 30, 2018

[:en]

Little Known Techniques in the NEW Email Marketing are:

De-Personalization

No personalization is the new personalization. We’re not only desensitized to {firstname} in the subject line of Email Marketing we receive from marketers. We’re actually repelled by it. Personalization was originally ‘invented’ as a way to flag someone’s attention, based on the old truism that “there’s no sound sweeter to someone than his own name.”

But, then the marketers got their hands on it (doh!) and now it’s a signal that you’re being marketed to. People who really know me, and whom it’s my priority to read and respond to, would never put my {firstname} in the Subject line.

It’s now a marketing flag, and just as they do to all other marketing flags, audiences quickly develop banner-blindness to protect themselves to protect themselves from the noise.

Instead of clunky and unnatural {firstname} personalization, Technique #1 in the NEW EMAIL MARKETING is about NO personalization. His subject line is short and casual and doesn’t sell anything or over-describe common when we’re eager to explain ALL the exciting benefits of our product or service to a defenseless subscriber.

Noah doesn’t use a greeting, and jumps straight into the message, even starting his copy mid-sentence in the preview text (extremely important as it functions as a 2nd subject line).

The subject line and its preview text both feel imperfect and casual as if from a friend, not over-proofed or premeditated like it’s been through the hands of the entire marketing department.

Getting Past Promotions Tab

65% of emails get opened on mobile first. This is great news but has a couple of takeaways:

1. You MUST mobile-optimize all email campaigns.

Watch out for high opens but low clicks.

It could mean your content is not good, but if you are reasonably confident that your content and lead-up are decent, then it could be due to:

lack of mobile optimization or

simply because most people don’t like to click on things on their devices because it takes them out of the app they’re on.

Mobile can be a huge secret weapon for getting past priority inbox, but only if you create campaigns with a MOBILE-FIRST attitude.

2. Mobile-based followups

Another approach is to do the mobile-based followup to signup because remember there’s no promotions inbox on most mail apps.

If they’ve just signed up, and you are also getting their phone number, you can send them an SMS as an immediate reminder to go check their confirmation from you, right there on the device that they’re already on.

This would be especially worthwhile for your key transactional emails like your Welcome email or other confirmations.

3. Use your Thank You page to remind people to look for your Welcome

Don’t forget to use your email signup Thank You page to REMIND recent subscribers/signups. That you’ve just sent them a confirmation and that they should look for it now. 

Pre-targeting and Retargeting

Email pre-targeting is another great way to warm up your list. For a major, conversion-oriented email campaign with before you send the campaign.

Yes, I did mean pre-targeting, not just re-targeting.

Here’s how pre-targeting works:

Identify your recipient list and export them for specific targeting in paid campaigns. Through FB Custom Audiences, Twitter Tailored Audiences, and/or Gmail Adwords

Focus ads on brand awareness; do not ever make your campaigns about the “hard sell”

Send your email campaign.

Be sure to use basic common sense about who’s on that recipient list.

You don’t have to go micro with your segmentation. Even creating a few broad categories of recipients will make your ads perform better. And will make the subsequent email campaigns do better too.

As a bonus, you can run further retargeting after your email campaign goes out.

Here are additional ideas for post-campaign retargeting:

To subscribers who never opened

Subscribers who opened but didn’t click your CTA

To subscribers who opened MULTIPLE times but didn’t click your CTA

Subscribers who opened clicked the CTA but didn’t convert.

[:gb]

Little Known Techniques in the NEW Email Marketing are:

De-Personalization

No personalization is the new personalization. We’re not only desensitized to {firstname} in the subject line of emails we receive from marketers. We’re actually repelled by it. Personalization was originally ‘invented’ as a way to flag someone’s attention, based on the old truism that “there’s no sound sweeter to someone than his own name.”

It’s now a marketing flag, and just as they do to all other marketing flags, audiences quickly develop banner-blindness to protect themselves to protect themselves from the noise.

Noah doesn’t use a greeting, and jumps straight into the message, even starting his copy mid-sentence in the preview text (extremely important as it functions as a 2nd subject line).

The subject line and its preview text both feel imperfect and casual as if from a friend, not over-proofed or premeditated like it’s been through the hands of the entire marketing department.

Getting Past Promotions Tab

65% of emails get opened on mobile first. This is great news but has a couple of takeaways:

1. You MUST mobile-optimize all email campaigns.

Watch out for high opens but low clicks.

It could mean your content is not good, but if you are reasonably confident that your content and lead-up are decent, then it could be due to:

lack of mobile optimization or

simply because most people don’t like to click on things on their devices because it takes them out of the app they’re on.

Mobile can be a huge secret weapon for getting past priority inbox, but only if you create campaigns with a MOBILE-FIRST attitude.

2. Mobile-based followups

Another approach is to do the mobile-based followup to signup because remember there’s no promotions inbox on most mail apps.

This would be especially worthwhile for your key transactional emails like your Welcome email or other confirmations.

3. Use your Thank You page to remind people to look for your Welcome

Don’t forget to use your email signup Thank You page to REMIND recent subscribers/signups. That you’ve just sent them a confirmation and that they should look for it now. 

Pre-targeting and Retargeting

Email pre-targeting is another great way to warm up your list. For a major, conversion-oriented email campaign with before you send the campaign.

Yes, I did mean pre-targeting, not just re-targeting.

Here’s how pre-targeting works:

Identify your recipient list and export them for specific targeting in paid campaigns. Through FB Custom Audiences, Twitter Tailored Audiences, and/or Gmail Adwords

Focus ads on brand awareness; do not ever make your campaigns about the “hard sell”

Send your email campaign.

Be sure to use basic common sense about who’s on that recipient list.

You don’t have to go micro with your segmentation. Even creating a few broad categories of recipients will make your ads perform better. And will make the subsequent email campaigns do better too.

As a bonus, you can run further retargeting after your email campaign goes out.

Here are additional ideas for post-campaign retargeting:

To subscribers who never opened

Subscribers who opened but didn’t click your CTA

To subscribers who opened MULTIPLE times but didn’t click your CTA

Subscribers who opened clicked the CTA but didn’t convert.

[:au]

Little Known Techniques in the NEW Email Marketing are:

De-Personalization

It’s now a marketing flag, and just as they do to all other marketing flags, audiences quickly develop banner-blindness to protect themselves to protect themselves from the noise.

Noah doesn’t use a greeting, and jumps straight into the message, even starting his copy mid-sentence in the preview text (extremely important as it functions as a 2nd subject line).

The subject line and its preview text both feel imperfect and casual as if from a friend, not over-proofed or premeditated like it’s been through the hands of the entire marketing department.

Getting Past Promotions Tab

65% of emails get opened on mobile first. This is great news but has a couple of takeaways:

1. You MUST mobile-optimize all email campaigns.

Watch out for high opens but low clicks.

It could mean your content is not good, but if you are reasonably confident that your content and lead-up are decent, then it could be due to:

lack of mobile optimization or

simply because most people don’t like to click on things on their devices because it takes them out of the app they’re on.

Mobile can be a huge secret weapon for getting past priority inbox, but only if you create campaigns with a MOBILE-FIRST attitude.

2. Mobile-based followups

Another approach is to do the mobile-based followup to signup because remember there’s no promotions inbox on most mail apps.

This would be especially worthwhile for your key transactional emails like your Welcome email or other confirmations.

3. Use your Thank You page to remind people to look for your Welcome

Don’t forget to use your email signup Thank You page to REMIND recent subscribers/signups. That you’ve just sent them a confirmation and that they should look for it now. 

Pre-targeting and Retargeting

Email pre-targeting is another great way to warm up your list. For a major, conversion-oriented email campaign with before you send the campaign.

Yes, I did mean pre-targeting, not just re-targeting.

Here’s how pre-targeting works:

Identify your recipient list and export them for specific targeting in paid campaigns. Through FB Custom Audiences, Twitter Tailored Audiences, and/or Gmail Adwords

Focus ads on brand awareness; do not ever make your campaigns about the “hard sell”

Send your email campaign.

Be sure to use basic common sense about who’s on that recipient list.

You don’t have to go micro with your segmentation. Even creating a few broad categories of recipients will make your ads perform better. And will make the subsequent email campaigns do better too.

As a bonus, you can run further retargeting after your email campaign goes out.

Here are additional ideas for post-campaign retargeting:

To subscribers who never opened

Subscribers who opened but didn’t click your CTA

To subscribers who opened MULTIPLE times but didn’t click your CTA

Subscribers who opened clicked the CTA but didn’t convert.

[:in]

Little Known Techniques in the NEW Email Marketing are:

De-Personalization

It’s now a marketing flag, and just as they do to all other marketing flags, audiences quickly develop banner-blindness to protect themselves to protect themselves from the noise.

Noah doesn’t use a greeting, and jumps straight into the message, even starting his copy mid-sentence in the preview text (extremely important as it functions as a 2nd subject line).

The subject line and its preview text both feel imperfect and casual as if from a friend, not over-proofed or premeditated like it’s been through the hands of the entire marketing department.

Getting Past Promotions Tab

65% of emails get opened on mobile first. This is great news but has a couple of takeaways:

1. You MUST mobile-optimize all email campaigns.

Watch out for high opens but low clicks.

It could mean your content is not good, but if you are reasonably confident that your content and lead-up are decent, then it could be due to:

lack of mobile optimization or

simply because most people don’t like to click on things on their devices because it takes them out of the app they’re on.

Mobile can be a huge secret weapon for getting past priority inbox, but only if you create campaigns with a MOBILE-FIRST attitude.

2. Mobile-based followups

Another approach is to do the mobile-based followup to signup because remember there’s no promotions inbox on most mail apps.

This would be especially worthwhile for your key transactional emails like your Welcome email or other confirmations.

3. Use your Thank You page to remind people to look for your Welcome

Don’t forget to use your email signup Thank You page to REMIND recent subscribers/signups. That you’ve just sent them a confirmation and that they should look for it now. 

Pre-targeting and Retargeting

Email pre-targeting is another great way to warm up your list. For a major, conversion-oriented email campaign with before you send the campaign.

Yes, I did mean pre-targeting, not just re-targeting.

Here’s how pre-targeting works:

Identify your recipient list and export them for specific targeting in paid campaigns. Through FB Custom Audiences, Twitter Tailored Audiences, and/or Gmail Adwords

Focus ads on brand awareness; do not ever make your campaigns about the “hard sell”

Send your email campaign.

Be sure to use basic common sense about who’s on that recipient list.

You don’t have to go micro with your segmentation. Even creating a few broad categories of recipients will make your ads perform better. And will make the subsequent email campaigns do better too.

As a bonus, you can run further retargeting after your email campaign goes out.

Here are additional ideas for post-campaign retargeting:

To subscribers who never opened

Subscribers who opened but didn’t click your CTA

To subscribers who opened MULTIPLE times but didn’t click your CTA

Subscribers who opened clicked the CTA but didn’t convert.

[:]

Email Marketing

Essential, Pre-Built Segments to Hyper-Personalize your E-commerce Emails

March 29, 2018

Shift your automated email marketing into hyper-drive by pre-defining 5 key segments based on fine-grained customer information and behavioral data

Email marketing has long been a cornerstone of any successful eCommerce operation. And, in much the same way, where email campaign segmentation and hyper-personalization were once considered optional, that is no longer the case. Together, they have redefined the rules for building automation, dramatically increasing the relevancy of automated campaigns to online shoppers. With this in mind, you would do well to include both types of activities in your email marketing playbook, lest you lose out on customers and leave money on the table.

Segmentation and Hyper-Personalization – Undeniable Benefits, Hard to Master

To drive home the point, consider the following: DMA (Data & Marketing Association) study found that segmented emails can generate up to 58% of all email revenues, while personalized emails can result in 6 times higher transaction rates when compared to non-personalized emails.

Now, imagine if you could leapfrog the issues faced by many of your peers. And combine the power of these two proven email marketing devices to hit your eCommerce business’s sales targets. For instance, what if you could use hyper-personalization to better segment your mailing list? Well, dream no more. You can easily capture the benefits of segmentation and hyper-personalization by using a top-quality email marketing platform and by establishing 5 strategic segments right at the start.

One of the best ways to leverage this in-depth customer data is to use it to construct pre-built segments, where the data is used to formulate criteria for segmenting your customers into more precise groups, that you can engage with hyper-personalized marketing.

Pre-defined segments that you can readily create in your email marketing system, which I consider must-haves for E-commerce businesses:

First-time or recent customers

Cash in on the higher profitability of repeat sales by dynamically segmenting. First-time or recent customers and providing them with a more fitting customer journey.

Aside from the fact that retaining customers is cheaper than acquiring new ones, a 5% increase in retention rates can grow profits by 25% to as much as 95%.

You can take advantage of this opportunity to establish a long-term relationship. With new customers by using dynamic segmentation. Dynamic segmentation allows you to use real-time data to automatically segment customers that meet some pre-determined criteria.

Lapsed Customers

Use specialized re-engagement emails based on specific client data points. To bring lapsed clients back into your circle of customers. Some customers can be hard to please. One day, they might show interest in your products, even make a purchase. And the next day, they could turn cold.

Once you have segmented lapsed customers, you can draw them back into your sales funnel by way of re-engagement emails. Based on what you already know about them, including any hyper-personalization data you have on file, you can.

Loyal Customers

In short, for those customers who are enamored with your products and service. Offer them more, for instance through cross and up-selling.

Fact: loyal customers are more likely to buy other products from you. This is evidenced in a study by Bain & Company, that found that almost 70% of Gap Online customers would consider buying furniture from the Gap, while, 63% of online grocery shoppers would buy toiletries and OTC drugs from their online grocers.

A pre-built segment for loyal customers will, therefore, simplify your upselling and cross-selling efforts. Use your avid fans’ purchase histories to send them relevant recommendations that could prompt them to place additional orders.

Having a loyal customer segment also provides a fantastic opportunity for you to turn your enthusiasts into brand advocates. Offer them exclusive deals, special discounts or even “cash-back” for each referral they point to your business.

Virtual Receptionist

Scheduling Appointments While Using a Virtual Receptionist

March 29, 2018

With your business growing, your need for professional scheduling skills will continue to grow Virtual receptionist. Without knowing where and when you need to be with proper scheduling, may cause you to feel more and more frustrated and disorganized.

Five basic benefits of using a well-organized scheduling service:

Making More Profit

With the sound of a cash register playing in your head, you can give yourself a big pat on the back for employing a scheduling service like to help you be competitive and win more contracts. If you are a doctor or salon owner, when a patient cancels after business hours, you have the opportunity to call another client to fill the newly vacant slot.

Scheduling Helps Many Types of Companies

Regardless of what service or product your company sells, proper scheduling needs to be a high priority. For example, spas and hair stylists book appointments. Mental health counselors, therapists, and doctors all schedule clients, while restaurants book reservations. Professional answering service representatives can take incoming calls in the tone your company represents and schedule appointments to match your style. If you have a unique slogan, professional representatives can answer your calls using your cheerful slogan.

Affordable Plans

Our plans are affordable and are designed to help your company see results quickly. Our professional staff is also bi-lingual with several representatives fluent in Spanish and other languages. As a bi-lingual firm, we can help you work with a broader customer base and boost your profits faster.

Personalize a Dashboard to Suit Your Needs

All the heavy lifting to get your account and company dashboard setup. Once your dashboard is running, you can access it 24 hours each day on your personalized website. You will be able to see your appointments for the week and can easily plan, rearrange or cancel meetings as necessary. Also, if you need to review previous weeks, that’s not a problem either. Most of all, no matter which of our representatives take your incoming call, they will always be able to see your current calendar.

Texting and Email with Mobile Access

As your company grows and the need to visit more clients increases, it becomes impossible to remained tethered to your laptop or desktop all day long to see if there are any changes to your calendar dashboard. So, how will you learn of any client-initiated scheduling changes? It’s simple, real-time updates through texting or email will notify you whenever information is received. And, as you walk into your meetings. You can also be alerted to any last-second details that will help you stay on top of your game.

Lead Nurturing

Difference between Lead Generation and Lead Nurturing

March 24, 2018

Lead Nurturing

Lead nurturing is building relationships with potential clients even if they are not currently looking to buy a product or service. They may have signed up online to receive your newsletter or follow you on social media, but they aren’t necessarily ready to make a purchase. In the traditional consumer buyer behavior, they are perhaps still at evaluation or awareness – so a hard sales call at this stage won’t work.

Now that you have some leads, all of which are at various stages of the buying process, what can you do to increase the likelihood of turning these leads into sales? The answer is: lead nurturing. It is not enough to simply gather leads and hand them over to sales. It’s important to understand that each lead is different, and must be handled as such.

Because not all leads are ready to purchase this instant, it’s important to interact with your leads and to determine which stage they are at. Are they just hearing about your products and services? Or, have they been searching for the right products and services for some time and are comparing your offerings to those of your competitors? Just because a lead isn’t ready to buy this very instant, it doesn’t mean they aren’t almost ready to buy. The only way to find out where they’re at is to ask, but first, you must establish trust.

Nurturing Lead starts once a company has a potential client’s contact information and can personalize communication with him or her.

Lead Generation

It is core to the business sales process. Feeding leads into the sales funnel, qualifying the leads by phone call, meeting or sales call. And then converting the hot prospects into actual sales. Lead generation is undoubtedly an integral part of the overall sales process. But what is it, exactly, and why is it so important.

IMPORTANCE OF LEAD GENERATION

Lead generation is the process of generating excitement around specific products and services. In order to bring potential new customers into the sales pipeline. This can be done by way of inbound or outbound marketing, each of which has its advantages and disadvantages. And so should be used in combination with the highest success rate.

Outbound marketing is a somewhat invasive form of lead generation, and may not appeal to certain types of buyers, so it’s important to research your specific market before diving too heavily into this type of campaign. Examples of outbound marketing include cold-calling, face-to-face direct marketing, television, radio and print advertising. The disadvantages of outbound marketing are that it is difficult to measure, can be off-putting to certain buyer types, and can be quite costly with the potential for little return on investment.

Inbound marketing is a less aggressive form of lead generation, which allows potential customers to find their way. For information about your products and services. And encourages them to request additional information via a lead form or other method of capturing contact information for follow-up.

Lead Nurturing Throughout the Sales Process

Be sure to check in regularly, but not so often that you drive your leads crazy. By sharing relevant and appropriate content at the right stages of the sales process. Your message is more likely to reach the right people at the right time.If you’re trying to talk about pricing with someone who still doesn’t fully understand. The benefits and features of your product, you could scare them away. Or turn them off to the product altogether by seeming too pushy. It’s all about listening to your leads and letting them take you through the sales process. Versus pushing them when they’re not ready.

Services

Solutions

Industries

Contact

Support

Vmayo Team

If you are hacked and spam lands in your subscribers’ inboxes, there are multiple risks, each having a different impact on your email program:

Based on our experience with Certified Clients, we put together 5 tips on how to secure your mail server. Share this information with your IT department for better protection from malicious actors:

Lower Cost

Easy Updates

Rapid Implementation

Pay as You Go

Expertise

Set up an email marketing account

Upload names and email addresses

Create a template

Write text in line with business strategy and voice

Create graphics to insert into the email

Schedule or send

Provide summary feedback

Video in Email Marketing

4 tips to work around the playback challenge and incorporate video in your emails:

Within your email, include an image from your video and put a “play button” on top of it to mimic the look of a typical video player

Embed video on your landing page and set it to auto-play:

As a general guideline, your video should be 30-90 seconds for the top of funnel campaigns and 1-30 minutes for individuals further down the funnel:

Place a call to action during, or at the end of the video that suggests a clear next step for your audience:

Tracking & Measuring your campaign

Capture new leads with forwarded emails

Video in Email Marketing

4 tips to work around the playback challenge and incorporate video in your emails:

Within your email, include an image from your video and put a “play button” on top of it to mimic the look of a typical video player

Embed video on your landing page and set it to auto-play:

As a general guideline, your video should be 30-90 seconds for the top of funnel campaigns and 1-30 minutes for individuals further down the funnel:

Place a call to action during, or at the end of the video that suggests a clear next step for your audience:

Tracking & Measuring your campaign

Capture new leads with forwarded emails

Video in Email Marketing

4 tips to work around the playback challenge and incorporate video in your emails:

Within your email, include an image from your video and put a “play button” on top of it to mimic the look of a typical video player

Embed video on your landing page and set it to auto-play:

As a general guideline, your video should be 30-90 seconds for the top of funnel campaigns and 1-30 minutes for individuals further down the funnel:

Place a call to action during, or at the end of the video that suggests a clear next step for your audience:

Tracking & Measuring your campaign

Capture new leads with forwarded emails

Video in Email Marketing

4 tips to work around the playback challenge and incorporate video in your emails:

Within your email, include an image from your video and put a “play button” on top of it to mimic the look of a typical video player

Embed video on your landing page and set it to auto-play:

As a general guideline, your video should be 30-90 seconds for the top of funnel campaigns and 1-30 minutes for individuals further down the funnel:

Place a call to action during, or at the end of the video that suggests a clear next step for your audience:

Tracking & Measuring your campaign

Capture new leads with forwarded emails

Ask the who, what, and why

What do people react to?

Main Elements of Subject lines

Powerful words

The value word

Numbers

Using emojis

IVR

Voice Recording

Advantages of voice broadcasting

Voice broadcasting technologies have a variety of distinct advantages. These include that:

The technology behind voice broadcasting

Challenges of voice broadcasting

Cost

User Interaction

Connectivity

Possible misuse

Little Known Techniques in the NEW Email Marketing are:

De-Personalization

Getting Past Promotions Tab

Pre-targeting and Retargeting

Little Known Techniques in the NEW Email Marketing are:

De-Personalization

Getting Past Promotions Tab

Pre-targeting and Retargeting

Little Known Techniques in the NEW Email Marketing are:

De-Personalization

Getting Past Promotions Tab