Deborah Brody Marketing Communications Percolating Creative Ideas * * * November 18, 2015 Thanksgiving Edition Greetings! We are just a week awa

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Deborah Brody Marketing Communications

Percolating Creative Ideas


November 18, 2015
Thanksgiving Edition

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Fall Day on the C&O Canal

Greetings!

We are just a week away from Thanksgiving and I’d like to take this time to thank you for being a subscriber to my newsletter. I am grateful for your readership and I hope that you continue to find useful information here.

And speaking about newsletters, did you know that email marketing is still one of the best marketing tactics out there? According to eMarketer, email marketing was the most effective digital marketing channel for customer retention in the United States in 2014. And BtoB Magazine reports that 59% of business-to-business marketers say email is the most effective channel for generating revenue.
And yet, there’s room for improvement. Below are some email marketing best practices.

On the Caffeinated Ideas blog, one of the most popular posts this past month is one about automating Twitter: Is lazy interaction better than no interaction? (Tip: Check it out and avoid senseless automation!)

Are you planning your 2016 marketing and communications? Let’s schedule a time to discuss how I could help you develop your marketing materials. Just call me at 240-803-3262.

Best wishes for a very happy Thanksgiving, and a wonderful holiday season.
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Deborah

P.S. The statistics about email marketing came from Hubspot's The Ultimate List of Marketing Statistics.

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Best practices for email marketing

We all get tons of marketing emails, most of which we signed up for, or from organizations with which we have done a transaction. In other words, we’ve opted-in and that makes us more likely to read the email or at least not unsubscribe. The opt-in is exactly what makes email marketing so valuable.

Don't squander your chance to connect with your audience. Here are four suggestions to keep in mind:

Be careful about images. Did you know most email clients don’t automatically download images? Often, emails will show up with an "x" where the image is supposed to be. This means that if all you send is an image with no text, the reader can’t see anything at all. The solution is to use both text and images, and to use tags on the images.

See how your email renders on different platforms. Email can appear differently on different platforms and email services (Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, etc.) There are paid services like Email On Acid to show you how the email looks across platforms but you can and should test it yourself by sending it to different email addresses and accessing it from different devices (use friends if you have to!).

Make sure it’s readable on mobile devices. I receive countless emails that can’t be easily read on my smartphone and this is a problem since Hubspot reports that more than 80% of readers are accessing email on mobile devices. Your email should be mobile-friendly. If it isn’t, look into the coding or change email marketing providers.

Test what you can and always check your statistics. If you have a large enough list, you can run tests. For example, you could check what subject lines increase open rates by sending one subject line to half your list and another subject to the other half. You could do the same type of test to check what day of the week gets a better response. Most email marketing platforms provide statistics, which allow you to see data such as open rates and click-throughs. Use the data to inform your next mailing.

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Communications tip: Eliminate overused words, phrases

Do you have words and phrases that show up over and over in your writing or your speech? They are most likely your go-to adjectives, adverbs and descriptive phrases. The problem with using the same word or phrase multiple times is that it becomes boring or even meaningless to your reader or listener. Take the time to read or listen to your work carefully. What words or phrases are your crutches? It’s easy to use clichés or popular phrases (e.g., sweet spot, low hanging fruit, etc.). It may be harder to come up with an alternative, but doing so could add some zing to your communications.

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Let's work together!

Deborah Brody Marketing Communications services:

Writing and copy editing of marketing/communications materials
Communications and social media consulting
Communications and social media audits
Customized blog training and workshops

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