In a post at Email Marketing Reports, Mark Brownlow presents a screenshot that looks like a page from a 19th-century novel: lengthy paragraphs filled with sentences of uniform length.

That, he notes emphatically, is not how your email messages should look.
“In fact, you wouldn’t read the words if that was an email,” he says. “The wall of text is a barrier that few will bother scaling. No matter how good the writing, how valuable the information, how trusted the source, response is sacrificed because the paragraph length demands more reading effort than some are prepared to commit.”

It’s all psychological. The same information that looks ponderous in two paragraphs appears easy-to-digest when broken into five paragraphs. In other words, the rules you learned at school about fully developed paragraphs simply don’t apply to online communication.

Here’s what you need to do:

Write paragraphs that occupy as little as one line but don’t exceed six lines. “This … issue becomes more pressing as screen displays narrow, thanks to the spread of smartphones, netbooks and other mobile devices,” Brownlow notes.

Reduce the sense of monotony by varying the length of your paragraphs and sentences. “Throw in the occasional one-line paragraph or a three-word sentence and you may annoy your English professor,” he explains. “But you give the reading landscape contours and diversity. The content looks like a melody of words, not a dirge.”

The Po!nt: Write the words and the music. Engage your readers with lyrically arranged text that gives your message visual appeal.

Repurposed from MarketingProfs posting earlier today, with proper attribution to Mark Brownlow of this organization.

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The key to better results in email marketing is to test. Test headlines. Test subheads. Test design. But where do you begin?

Here are four steps for creating an email testing plan that will skyrocket your response rate.

1. Prioritize what you need to know.
Identify the email variables (subject line, offer, creative, etc.) that you think will have the greatest impact on response, and list them in priority order.

2. Design your test.
Map out all of the email attributes and the possible combinations you’ll be testing, and create a unique group for each possible combination of variables.

3. Select a test period and duration.
Select a test duration (a month, a quarter?) and keep it as short as possible. The longer the test period, the greater chance that external factors will impact your results and thus increase your margin of error.

4. Establish a control to test against.
Good test design always tests against a control. The control group is a segment of your list that receives no special treatment or variation from the norm.

from MarketingProfs

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Average open, click, bounce and abuse complaint rates by industry

Our customers often ask us, “What kind of open rates should companies like mine be expecting?” and “How many bounces are too many?” or, “What’s an acceptable abuse complaint rate?”

So we scanned over 273 million emails delivered by our system (where campaign tracking was activated, and where users actually reported their industry) and calculated average open rates, average click rates, average soft bounces, average hard bounces, and average abuse complaint rate by industry.

Best of all, these stats aren’t pulled from a survey of big giant corporations with million-dollar marketing budgets and dedicated email marketing teams. 70% of our customers are 1-10 employees, and they’re design-it-yourselfers. If you run a small organization, and you do your own email marketing, now you have an “apples to apples” comparison with others in your industry.

View this illustrative chart:

Average Email Campaign Stats of Customers by Industry
Type of Company Open Rate Click Rate Soft Bounces Hard Bounces Abuse Complaints Unsubscribes
Accounting 27.36% 4.13% 3.91% 10.67% 0.04% 0.35%
Advertising 23.79% 4.20% 2.77% 6.67% 0.08% 0.36%
Architecture 32.05% 1.52% 6.16% 8.04% 0.00% 0.25%
Art 26.12% 6.86% 2.04% 4.49% 0.09% 0.41%
Arts_Music 16.22% 2.09% 0.97% 1.86% 0.08% 0.26%
Beauty/Health 29.88% 6.94% 2.63% 8.54% 0.15% 0.85%
Church 32.95% 4.48% 1.18% 2.89% 0.05% 0.26%
Construction 23.86% 4.44% 2.95% 5.33% 0.19% 0.85%
Consulting 22.34% 3.30% 4.29% 6.57% 0.03% 0.29%
Creative Agency 20.97% 3.12% 2.69% 5.16% 0.06% 0.38%
Creative Other 29.94% 0.86% 1.11% 0.60% 0.03% 0.10%
E-commerce 19.80% 4.78% 1.48% 3.21% 0.10% 0.37%
Education 25.86% 4.72% 2.11% 4.39% 0.05% 0.26%
Entertainment 15.42% 3.27% 1.10% 5.59% 0.12% 0.25%
Entertainment/Events 21.96% 0.42% 3.27% 7.58% 0.09% 0.14%
Financial Services 20.87% 2.47% 2.76% 3.98% 0.06% 0.33%
Food 36.62% 7.90% 0.84% 2.02% 0.09% 0.63%
Freelancer 32.95% 6.33% 3.16% 7.15% 0.07% 0.50%
Government 26.64% 4.30% 1.33% 1.95% 0.03% 0.22%
Graphic Design 25.35% 4.34% 2.49% 11.71% 0.12% 0.41%
Hardware 28.05% 3.57% 1.29% 2.01% 0.02% 0.18%
Healthcare 19.91% 3.99% 1.47% 3.81% 0.12% 0.50%
Healthcare/Medical 24.66% 6.96% 10.47% 9.00% 0.23% 0.41%
Hotel 27.50% 7.17% 2.90% 5.31% 0.08% 0.49%
Insurance 24.43% 2.92% 2.85% 5.71% 0.04% 0.37%
Internet/Web Svc. 20.34% 5.65% 1.46% 3.18% 0.06% 0.27%
Janitorial 27.82% 0.10% 10.18% 16.26% 0.05% 0.00%
Legal Services 25.48% 3.97% 4.14% 4.60% 0.04% 0.35%
Manufacturing 26.70% 4.92% 3.15% 5.61% 0.09% 0.46%
Marketing 20.52% 2.97% 3.32% 8.29% 0.16% 0.40%
Multimedia 19.46% 3.54% 1.24% 1.60% 0.06% 0.25%
Music 27.94% 5.17% 2.05% 7.73% 0.12% 0.39%
Non-profit 27.66% 4.06% 2.24% 4.31% 0.06% 0.24%
Other 15.29% 2.36% 1.74% 3.19% 0.07% 0.29%
Other Groups 27.66% 6.83% 1.72% 13.16% 0.08% 0.34%
Other Marketing 18.49% 3.66% 2.39% 3.15% 0.04% 0.21%
Photography 34.17% 6.82% 1.73% 3.59% 0.07% 0.36%
Public Relations 20.99% 3.13% 4.00% 8.21% 0.11% 0.30%
Publishing 21.05% 1.60% 1.11% 3.22% 0.03% 0.18%
Real Estate 22.84% 4.24% 2.02% 4.31% 0.08% 0.30%
Recruitment/Staffing 27.59% 4.61% 2.82% 6.49% 0.07% 0.74%
Restaurant 26.17% 3.40% 1.33% 3.44% 0.08% 0.41%
Retail 27.61% 5.76% 1.48% 2.80% 0.08% 0.42%
Self-Explanatory 34.80% 6.02% 6.14% 17.33% 0.04% 0.20%
Software 18.22% 3.26% 3.00% 6.01% 0.08% 0.43%
Technology 21.05% 2.75% 4.01% 6.60% 0.07% 0.40%
Telecommunications 29.77% 5.46% 2.98% 9.35% 0.10% 0.53%
Travel 24.97% 4.96% 2.17% 3.74% 0.10% 0.39%
Video Production 33.09% 6.81% 2.48% 2.63% 0.09% 0.43%
Web Design 27.42% 6.90% 2.45% 5.05% 0.09% 0.37%

ALSO, here are some useful tips for improving your email campaign performance:

* Boring works best. When you write your subject line, don’t sell what’s inside—tell what’s inside. Read our study on writing effective subject lines.
* If you want people to open your emails, you need to get past their spam filters first. Avoid using spammy keywords and phrases, and avoid using ALL CAPS or too many exclamation points. The best way to avoid spam filters is to learn how they work.
* Too many hard bounces is a sign of an old, stale list. People change email addresses every few months. Make sure you keep in touch with your list regularly (at least once a quarter) so they can stay subscribed to your list.
* Soft bounces usually mean the recipient is “temporarily unavailable.” Maybe they’re on vacation or their mailbox is full. You can keep those emails and re-try them later (MailChimp auto-cleans soft bounces after 5 failed campaigns).
* Hard bounces mean an email address failed. Maybe it no longer exists, or maybe someone typed their email wrong when they subscribed to a list. But hard bounces might also be spam filter rejections. If you see an abnormally high number of bounces after a campaign, you should read your bounce back records for any messages or “clues” from spam filters.
* Abuse complaints happen when recipients click the “This is spam” button in their email programs. That usually means they don’t remember you. Make sure your “From:” and “Subject” contain your company name (so they’ll instantly recognize you).

From Mailchimp

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“Marketers must become accountable for the effects of their marketing efforts on the bottom line and the success or failure of marketing must be judged based on its return on investment,” says marketing and new media leader Christopher S. Penn. Penn currently is VP of strategy and innovation for email marketing company Blue Sky Factory and author of the blog “Awaken Your Superhero.”

Penn asserts most marketers understand conceptually what ROI is, but many are still foggy on what it is not. He clarifies: “ROI is an objective metric, a bottom line truth. Things like number of Twitter followers, pageviews, blog comments, etc. are diagnostic metrics. Imagine you were on a road trip. Diagnostic metrics tell you how the trip is going. Objective metrics tell you if you’re there yet.”

Explains Penn: “Consider this from the perspective of losing weight. You have an objective metric: lose 10 pounds. Now let’s say you use a treadmill as part of this goal. You have plenty of diagnostic metrics, like treadmill speed, miles run, etc. If you make the mistake of thinking a diagnostic metric is an objective metric, then your progress will automatically skew towards achieving those diagnostic metrics by any means, even incorrect ones. For example, if your goal is six miles a day no matter what, you could just stick your cat on the treadmill for an hour. At the end, you’ll have gotten the number you want – six miles – but not gotten any closer to achieving your objective goal. Also, your cat will probably be mad at you.”

The results of such an analysis can be dramatic. For example, when Boston Martial Arts measured its marketing efforts in terms of objective results, they discovered email ROI was a whopping 1,755%! Facebook and Twitter efforts on the other hand both showed negative ROI.

To evaluate what’s working in marketing, Penn says marketing ROI should be measured in terms of “cost per lead”, and ultimately, how many of those leads result in cold hard cash flowing into the company’s bank account. Tracking efforts to this extent requires marketing to work in concert with sales to make sure that all efforts are coordinated, cooperative and truly supportive.

That’s why Penn requires his marketing staff to attend sales meetings and stand with sales on the front lines. He says this helps them come face to face with their audience and as a result, better equips them to design campaigns that will deliver qualified leads to sales. Penn says there’s absolutely no excuse for marketing not knowing what prospects want.

“Attaching a dollar value to each tactic gives you a clearer picture of what is and isn’t working. That allows you to focus resources on supporting the marketing efforts that are earning the most money,” says Penn. Simply put: If it’s not earning any (or worse, losing) money — stop doing it. Caveat: unless you have compelling evidence that gives you a reason to believe that the investment will pay off in the future.

Ideally, the flow should look like this: Marketing provides sales with qualified leads, sales turns the leads into customers, customer service makes those customers into evangelists, who not only will keep buying from you but who also will help you spread the word about your product or service. But the cycle is initiated by marketing and the quality of the turn hinges on its effectiveness.

By Helena Bouchez on Marketing Profs, LLC

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PDFs, videos, podcasts, etc., on topics from webinar audience recruitment to invitation strategy, developing compelling content/message shaping, engaging/authentic webcast delivery, post event conversion, PURLs, VIPs, coaching and managing speakers, and much more. Download to your heart’s content…no protected collateral!

At http://tiny.cc/sym5w .

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That’s right: encourage people to unsubscribe by putting a second unsubscribe link up the top of your email. Like I do:

unsubscribe up top

I first argued for this option two years ago (though it wasn’t my original idea) and others have since explored the issues, notably Loren McDonald and Chad White.

Spam reports are a big contributor to your reputation as a sender of email and thus your ability to get delivered.

The theory is that an unsubscribe link at the top of your email encourages people to use it who might otherwise use the “report spam” button to achieve the same aim.

And it works for some:

* Groupon revealed that adding an extra unsubscribe link like this did in fact reduce spam complaints by 30%.
* ESP StreamSend reported complaint drops of up to 75% for clients using this practice.
* Conversion Voodoo added the link up top and noted, “we’ve seen slightly higher unsubscribe rates, but substantially lower instances of spam complaints”
* The University of Pittsburgh took this step as well and said that “…since moving it, we’ve seen our number of “Mark as Spam” complaints drop significantly.”

Others are less positive. Commenting on Loren’s article, Jason Henderson noted, “I tested putting the unsubscribe link at the very top a few years ago for one company, and it was a nightmare. Many people actually started clicking on it by accident…”

So is it really a good idea?

I believe it works much like a guarantee. But the majority of other commentators take a more circumspect view.

The consensus seems to be that it’s worth doing whenever you stray from the best practice path. For example, when you’ve had a longish break between email sends or your email’s relevancy isn’t as good as it could be.

Of course, if you’re worried about spam complaints, then you need to address the cause. In such cases, the top unsubscribe link just tackles the symptoms of sub-optimal email practices.

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The superiority of HTML email to plain text email for driving response has become an accepted truth in email marketing. And not without justification.

Alchemy Worx, for example, recently demonstrated the power of images: adding a small, relevant icon to an email boosted total clicks by over 50%.

Now that nearly all marketing email is HTML email, might you try the occasional plain text message as an alternative?

Why?

First, plain text is now so rare that it could actually stand out more among the plethora of multi-colored HTML missives. Like a blank canvas in a Picasso exhibition.

Second, the success of HTML for one-to-many marketing communications means it’s associated with exactly that: one-to-many marketing communications.

Plain text still says “personal” (all my personal email is plain text) and/or “important” (much transactional email is still text-based).

This might work well where the message itself:

* needs to do something different to stand out…such as in a reactivation campaign (see this Firebox example)
* is specifically “human”…such as a message from the CEO or some other personality (see the Crutchfield email in the middle of this post)
* tackles a serious or emotional issue, such as a charitable cause, politics, or the economic crisis (see this example from the Obama Presidential campaign)

A good compromise for such emails might be a rich text approach, with a subdued HTML masthead (so logos etc. ensure recognition in the preview pane) and then plain text in the main message?

From Mark Brownlow, E-Marketing Reports

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So many organizations offering webinars as one of their communications/marketing channel to prospects are reporting to us their declining registration counts.  At the end of the day, despite their implementation of email invitation best practices, surveys about what topics would be of greatest interest for them to present, and the reminder capabilities of their respective webinar platforms, the number of eyeballs viewing their presentations are declining.  And, whereas I could take this particular topic down several paths that may impact registration (informational content vs. sales pitch?, establishing a track record of impactful and effective speakers, increased webinar offerings, etc.), what I want to comment on here is securing access to a larger, yet targeted audience.

For many years, companies and associations have rented lists and co-promoted events with sister brands, and of late, they’ve ranged into social media like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter seeking more interested parties.  Yet counts for many are still lagging.  What can be the antidote for this epidemic of disinterest?

The answer lies in Parallel Audience Recruitment, or PAR.  PAR enables an organization to access a matching demographic, or adjacent audience, that they haven’t been able to reach on their own, and thereby drive up their webinar registration counts.  BTW, PAR does not involve purchase or rental of a list, though it DOES involve the PAR provider using its own email service platform to deliver the organization’s email creative.  The result is a very cost-effective means of driving up counts without need to own lists or manage mailings.

If you’d like to hear more, drop me a line back for more detail.

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Many look at social media as another outlet to pump their marketing messages into, especially companies which have found that success in other channels of marketing such as SEO, PPC, e-mail, or traditional marketing outlets like TV, radio, or print have slowed or come to a virtual standstill. They read that Foursquare is the next “Internet darling” of social media and is being used and touted by early adopters.

Facebook fan pages, MySpace accounts, Twitter streams, blogs, YouTube channels, Digg submissions, Flickr accounts, Wikis, even rating and review sites are all social media marketing tactics you see commonly touted as efforts companies “should be doing.” Have you ever stopped to even ask why?

Why should your company have a Facebook fan page? Is it because everyone else does? Maybe your competition does?

That old saying, “if your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?” is just as true in social media. While it may seem cool and hip to be able to say you have all of these different social media accounts, are these the marketing tactics you need to be doing to be successful in social media?

Marketing Tactics without a Strategy is Like Doing Nothing at All

It’s a common practice to toss up a MySpace account or Facebook fan page because it’s free, easy, and everyone else is doing it. While businesses should secure accounts on social media sites for their company or brand names, don’t automatically jump in and devote massive amounts of time to one particular social media marketing tactic just because of the above three reasons.

Implementing social media marketing tactics for any reason without a sound strategy in place will ultimately lead to confusion, and then disappointment in your efforts in the social media space. It’s a lot like throwing darts blind. You’re throwing them without knowing what or where the bull’s-eye is. Once in a while you might hit the dartboard, and it would be a miracle if you hit the bull’s-eye.

Any ad agency, public relations company, or search marketing firm that comes to you and says “you need a Facebook fan page” without any reason other than “it’s new and you need it and we know how to put it together for you,” you might want to stop and ask yourself why you’re using this particular agency.

Social Media Strategy Involves Much More than a List of Marketing Tactics

Your agency might come to you with a laundry list of social media tactics they say you should employ as a “strategy.” Unfortunately, it isn’t a strategy. It’s just a list of marketing tactics they’ve become well-versed in and want to be paid for deploying for you.

Again, it comes back to answering the question “Why?” Why should we be doing this?

Social media strategies involve much more than just putting the accounts together and sending out a press release saying, “Hey, we’re now in XYZ social media site.” The members of these social media communities don’t care that you announce your presence. What they care about is if you give them valuable, quality content.

So what does a social media strategy involve? What should you be looking for? How do you avoid failure? These are just a few things you should consider before wildly deploying social media marketing tactics.

* Answering the “Why?”: Your social media strategy should fully answer why you’re using a particular tactic. Is it because your audience is there and interacting already? Is it because the potential for branding and exposure is there? Do the research.

* How to Deploy: How do you gain respect in social media? Do you go in guns blazing, or do you sit back and get a feel for what you’re about to embark on? Is it an approach of asking questions first and then offering advice? Do you want to ask for submissions from the audience or start by writing valuable content? Your strategy should fully answer these questions before you start.

* Defining Your Goals and Measuring: How do you know your efforts were successful? What is your company expecting as a return on your time and resources spent on your marketing efforts in social media. If there isn’t a clear set of goals to be measured for your efforts, how can you justify your tactics? Do you have clear ROI for your social media efforts?

* When to Re-evaluate?: Companies forget to define when they should re-evaluate their efforts. They get into the mode of “we’re doing this and we’ll just keep doing it because we have the budget to.” What if something isn’t working, and you aren’t meeting your goals? What if something else is working really well? Set points in your strategy for re-evaluation. Remember, nothing is ever set in stone when it comes to social media marketing.

By Liana Evans, Search Engine Watch

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Webinars can be a smart way to help people learn more about your company or brand, and e-mail marketing is one of the best ways to get the message out about an event. Here are some promotion dos and don’ts, courtesy of Janine Popick, CEO and co-founder of online marketing provider VerticalResponse.

1) Don’t forget the basics. It might sound silly, but marketers often forget the most salient information when sending out a promotional e-mail, such as date, time or program name, Popick said. Identify the time zone, for example, and include opt-out—and opt-in—links. In addition, make sure there’s a link that recipients can click on to preregister for the program.

2) Do keep content simple. Webinar invitations should include the who, what and why right upfront. Provide a bio for anyone speaking at the event and bullet points that detail exactly what participants should expect to take away from the program. “Really hype the speaker and [his or her] legitimacy,” Popick said. “You want people to walk away from your message with a good idea of why they need to attend.”

3) Don’t be shy about reminders. If someone has signed up for your program, remind them a week before and then again the day before. It won’t seem intrusive if you keep it basic, including a link to the program, the time and day reminder, and a quick synopsis of what the recipient should expect. “The message can be changed up a bit, but the bullet points should probably stay the same,” Popick said.

4) Do use e-mail as a follow-up vehicle. Once someone takes the time to attend a webinar, it’s crucial that you reach them in some way immediately following the event. E-mails should include a link to the recorded webinar as well as a thank you. Prospects may also receive a special offer. “Segment your attendee list into attendees and registrants. Then segment each into prospects and customers,” Popick suggested. “Leads who didn’t attend should get a link and a special offer.”

5) Don’t overlook the power of testimonials. You probably use case studies and customer quotes in traditional e-mail marketing. It can work just as well in webinar promotions. You can include links to previous webinars in your current invitation and call out the benefits of attending one of your events by letting a recent attendee explain what he or she got out of the experience, Popick said.

6) Do cull webinar transcripts and materials for future e-mail content. During a successful webinar you may receive more questions than you have time to answer. Those questions can be repurposed as e-newsletter content or blog fodder, Popick said. “You can include a sentence in the follow-up e-mail that says, ‘If you didn’t get your question answered, check out our blog,’ ” she said. You can excerpt one or two so registrants who didn’t attend have another reason to click through to the recorded webinar.

7) Don’t oversell yourself. Webinars work best when they are used for thought leadership and education; you don’t want your entire program to be too self-promotional. Don’t be afraid to tap speakers from outside your company, Popick said. “You want your speaker to be viewed as a best practice guru within your industry,” she said.

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