Creating Effective Email Campaigns

How to create effective marketing campaigns in a modern age with so many tools. What apps do I use, what are some useful tips?

Email is an important communication platform today both personally and professionally. From a business sense, it can be a great way to reach a very specific audience. Why? Because people use it regularly, so you have their attention. So the strategy you employ with how it looks, and how it performs—for both you, the business, and the customer, are really important. Nowadays we need to consider all of the following:

1. All the different devices, screens and software being used.

2. Spam laws with rules on how emails can be created.

3. Spam and junk filters. Most emails get filtered so we need to employ ways to avoid that.

4. There is a LOT of email traffic, so how best to stand out form the crowd?

5. Email is one of the primary marketing channels.

6. bandwidth issues now that most people are on cellular service when reading these.

7. Security issues are rampant. According to several technology publications, email phishing scams and hacks are on the top 3 security issues—and an “easy” opportunity.

So what to do? There are several choices today when marketing via email. And just how you send them is as important as how they they look and the quality of the content.

First, there are some basic factors to successful emailing. And what is success? Reaching the right audience, getting them to be interested enough to click, respond, and eventually convert to a customer. There are three key factors: quality content (that people will anxiously respond to), quality design (professional and compelling), and a quality delivery system (modern, effective, responsive, and spam-proof). 

Simple and basic html emails are not standard any more— for many reasons. Email used to be just simple and text-based, relying on simple html script—nothing fancy. Using features like CSS, Javascript and other coding languages, you could create some interesting features—but mostly basic— like colored text, animated gifs, and other special effects. But as devices and software progressed and improved, as well as security needs and spam laws increased, it became more challenging to create emails that simply “worked” effectively anymore.

A note on “responsive.” All that means is that it ‘responds’ or reacts to whatever device it’s on. If it’s on a big screen you have more space. If it’s on a phone, it stacks up with content once chunck after another. But there are different levels of responsiveness. For example, simply reflowing a paragraph of text is different than literally designing an experience FOR a smart phone or tablet. In other words, knowing the device, making it easy to read and see on it; Larger and maybe different graphics, larger text, different button layouts, and maybe a simpler “mobile view.” So it makes it either more difficult to program custom emails for several devices (tablets, desktop and mobile)—or considering use of an online email platform like Mailchimp, Constant Contact, and others that incorporate this and many other factors that ensure not just ease of use, but highly successful email campaigns.

So most basic HTML emails lack the responsiveness of modern online email builders which is very important, since most email is read on smart devices. If they don’t respond well to that device, they will be harder to read—and therefore not read at all.

Simple (or basic) html often include nested tables, lower quality graphics, and simplistic code that easily trigger spam and junk filters. To hand-code or custom design html to respond appropriately to “ALL” devices would be very time consuming and unstable. For example, iPhones, Galaxy phones, Windows, Google, and so many other devices—including various tablets, desktops and email app and software all have to be considered and written in the code. This make a very large html document that is sure to not only fail gettin through most modern email servers, but end up corrupt and appearing incorrectly. In addition, often trigger security issues (too easy to program malware), and activate spam and junk protocols—all too common today. 

Think of it this way—just like it used be where programming websites was the thing to do, there are now online web builders that make website creation much, much easier, efficient, and effective. Things like AI, codeless-programming, and VR are no longer in the future, rather in the present. It’s very uncommon to have html written websites in Dreamweaver for example than created with all the modern online CMS apps. We also need to remember all the integration required today. Cross channel marketing—social media, websites, CRM, and many other facets of business.

Junk email is becoming as big a problem as any trash, junk, unsolicited phone calls, or unwanted “stuff.” In fact, some studies are showing that it is THE biggest challenge today with the plethora of devices and e-communication today.

To answer to this challenge, online web builders and email apps were created to make a safer, more stable, and effective process for email communication that satisfy both the sender, as well as the recipients. We want honest, safe, helpful emails, and companies want to be able to communicate with qualified leads for conversion.

Email apps provide a modern approach to creating secure emails that respond perfectly to modern devices. They also provide the flexibility of options needed for a wide range of other requirements for today’s marketing channels. Things like analytics, automation, and databases are used (or should be used) quite regularly.

So how do we create effective email marketing campaigns?

For starters, we need to figure out what the leading providers are. It’s good to know what the best tools for the job are so we can create the best product. This is important so we not only know what will be most effective at getting your message out there, but also so you know “how” you will get them done, and “who” will be implementing them. Email is not a one and done deal. They take a lot of effort to create. Good ones at least. So consider the creative talent involved, the content writers, and the technical and physical “implementors” who all—as a team—get it done. And what tool (software) is used.

Let’s talk about some of the leading online email builders. It’s important to note that there are dozens of great choices, so it comes down to your willingness to learn each platform or hiring those that can be part of the team that can use the chosen application. Each has various pricing plans, and its list of options, benefits, and advantages as well as their disadvantages. They all also have many similarities. So I’d encourage you to explore them, read reviews, or talk to someone that knows them to tell you what’s best for you. Here are some leading examples:

Mail Chimp

Mailchimp is an all-in-one marketing platform that helps you manage and talk to your clients, customers, and other interested parties. Their approach to marketing focuses on healthy contact management practices, beautifully designed campaigns, and powerful data analysis.  While effective, modern, and moderately easy to use, it does require somewhat of a learning curve to set up.

Constant Contact

Constant Contact is an affordable and easy-to-use email marketing tool that lets you create email marketing templates, automate and manage campaigns, build contact lists, and nurture customer relationships. While a popular platform, Constant Contact is very limited in setting up automations. There is no visual workflow builder, you can only send very basic autoresponders and everything takes too many clicks to set up. 

Squarespace

Just like Squarespace has curated stunning website designs for every purpose, there’s an email layout for any audience. Reach your audience no matter where they are. All layouts are made with Squarespace’s responsive designs, so your emails will look great whether they’re viewed on mobile or desktop.  Use advanced email marketing tools to automate your email marketing efforts, streamline contact list management, and personalize every message you send. You will need a domain and website to host the emails, as opposed to a standalone email system like Mailchimp.

Hubspot

HubSpot not solely an email builder, rather is a cloud-based CRM designed to help align sales and marketing teams, foster sales enablement, boost ROI and optimize your inbound marketing strategy to generate more, qualified leads. HubSpot is a top CRM pick for two reasons: it has an incredibly comprehensive free edition that outshines most paid CRMs on the market, and you can use it across your marketing, sales, and customer service teams. It does have an expansive setup and learning curve which can be challenging, but with patience can pay off. This is more for it’s CRM and peripherals, and less about the email system, but an impressive email system at that.

Adobe Campaign (with Dreamweaver html)

Adobe Campaign is a cross channel marketing solution that automates email, mobile, social and offline campaigns, also offering a central place where you can access your customer data and profiles. Adobe Campaign is generally used for automated email marketing. When you use Dreamweaver with Campaign, you can combine the email design capabilities of Dreamweaver with the cross-channel marketing capabilities of Adobe Campaign in the Adobe Marketing Cloud. You can also use their new email designer app that allow drag and drop (codeless) email creation. There’s definitely a significant learning curve, takes more time than most email builders, and relies heavily on Adobe software.

Weebly

Weebly Promote is a complete email marketing service that lets you build email campaigns integrated directly with your website, online store or blog. Use Promote to announce a new product to customers, send weekly newsletters to your readers, or share updates with your most loyal fans. You need domain and website integration to make use of email campaigns, as opposed to specific email apps like Mailchimp.

Zoho

Zoho CRM is an example of a customer relationship management (CRM) platform that allows businesses of all sizes to manage their sales, marketing, customer support, and inventory from a single system. Zoho uses a proprietary unique programming language (Deluge) and contains word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, databases, note-taking, wikis, web conferencing, customer relationship management (CRM), project management, invoicing and other applications in addition to email marketing solutions.

So while html-based email is not exactly “over” it’s not the ideal choice. It can still be used. If simplified to simple text with simple fonts, limited colors, and simple (but attractive) graphics placed, it can be a decent and simple email. You can also use html as a “base” for creation, then import into other tools (most all of them allow imports of html) where you can then implement that application’s other features. In other words, don’t attempt to write programming code to create fancy effects, but use the tools features to implement it.

But if you are looking for more advanced options, more cross-platform integration, ease of creation and management, and more modern responsive solutions, then online email building applications are best. 

Here are some tips to improve successful email campaigns (and “open rates”)

1. Use optimized and attractive subject lines that pass through spam filters and attract viewers.

2. Use subheads or email preview text, especially text that pertains specifically to your audience.

3. Use specific, targeted, and confirmed lists—“qualified” leads.

4. Avoid suspicious “spam” sensitive words like “FREE,” “SPECIAL PROMOTION,” or “ORDER NOW…”

5. Send at the right time. Tues, Wed, and Thursday are best. 6am, 10am, or 2pm

6. Design for mobile. More than 50% of emails are opened on smart devices.

7. Use clever and quality design—make it interesting, professional, and intriguing

8. Keep it simple, but make the content very compelling

9. Use modern tools and apps that make it easier to create MORE email campaigns and offer cross platform integration.

10. Think of your audience. What will THEY respond to, read, open, and engage?

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About Todd: I am a lifetime creative professional dedicated to helping other businesses and individuals achieve their best—their Zen.

I’m Todd Mitchell. Lifetime artist, entrepreneur, and 30-year creative professional. I develop creative ideas and solutions that help inspire the best in people, products and businesses. My mission is helping others achieve their absolute best. Personally and professionally. 

Mitchell Creative Group is a micro-virtual creative agency outside of Boston, serving small businesses with professional creative services: Branding and identity, marketing and advertising, web and print, video and new media. Small businesses need high-level creative support— quickly, and at a fair, flexible price. And that’s what I provide.

https://www.mitchellcreativegroup.com

todd@mitchellcreativegroup.com

(508) 494-8182

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