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What is a database?
Email marketing systems use databases to storage, retrieve, and update data in the system. Everything the system does uses information (data) stored in the database, including email content, email design code, contact lists, scheduled sending, and performance statistics.
The databases in email marketing systems are called “relational databases,” because they recognize relations among stored items of information. For example which contacts belong to a list, or which statistics relate to a specific email.
Think Excel. Excel files are actually small databases. Databases consist of software-based “containers” or “fields” that are structured to collect, manage, and store information. Databases allow users to easily add, edit, or delete the information it stores. The structure of a database is tabular, consisting of columns (types of information with a given name); and rows (instances of information – commonly referred to as ‘records’).
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Popularity: 2% [?]
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I get asked sometimes “…why pay for an email marketing system when I can send mail using Outlook, or Yahoo Groups?” The answers vary according to needs, but generally there are some significant benefits. Here is a baseline primer on email marketing systems.
The term Email Marketing System refers to computer software that sends bulk email to target audiences. Effective uses of email marketing software include sending sales and promotions, customer service, and customer support email communications to opt-in lists of subscribers.
The software uses a database to store contact information, campaign statistics, and message history. The software interface has features necessary to manage email campaigns such as email setup and sending, adding or importing contacts to receive emails, reporting and tracking functions such as how many people opened an email, how many emails bounced back, and how many people actually clicked links in an email.
Email marketing software is sold as licensed software – to be owned and run on a server computer by the owner, or as a service – (Software-As-A-Service – SAAS) which is run on server computers and accessed via the Internet.
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Popularity: 2% [?]
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MarketingSherpa just published a case study on our email marketing campaign for the 2009 American Cancer Society (ACS) disparities conference, Health Equity: Through The Cancer Lens. Our client Linda Blount, MPH, ACS National Vice President of Health Disparities was also featured.
The CancerLens conference marketing campaign was very successful and the reasons for that success can be uniquely articulated in the statement – we didn’t do anything different, we just did things differently.
This simple statement is an important distillation of the campaigns key success factors. It also effectively communicates our unique approach and the virtues of our practices and methodologies. What came out in our interview for the MarketingSherpa Case Study was that every client and marketer knows about, and purports the importance of customer centricity and allowing the customer to drive the communications experience. But rarely do campaigns appear that do this effectively.
Here is a summary of the approach we use to get superior results from our campaigns. Try them.
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Popularity: 3% [?]
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Though professional email marketing practices require investment in time and resources, they use a holistic approach and offer key benefits:
Engagement
A professional campaign includes the creation of specific web pages and triggered autoresponder emails that provide relevant and current information on the subject matter, as well as the producers, partners, and stakeholders. This is important, as it delivers a turn-key experience that effectively promotes the subject matter, the parties involved, and heightened recipient engagement (ie: registration for updates, RSVP to events, etc.).
Measurable Results
Professional email campaigns make detailed performance metrics accessible including read/open rates, link click rates, and conversion rates. They also create databases of qualified opt-in recipients interested in the subject matter and the offerings of producers, partners, and stakeholders.
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Popularity: 4% [?]
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To promote an event using email I propose going beyond the notion of simply sending email and tracking reads and link clicks. Instead, consider setting-up a campaign that:
- Collects RSVP Responses
- Tracks Conversions (persons on your list(s) who actually attend)
- Grows Your Database
Email marketing is an amazing event promotions tool. Here’s what you need to setuip an effective event promotions campaign:
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Popularity: 3% [?]
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If the economic downturn has hit big businesses hard then it has hit small businesses harder. In these challenging times it is critical to market according to your unique business requirements. In other words do what works for you – market your way.
Too many of the strategies and trends asserted and supported in marketing media are effective and relevant only for large enterprises. As an example the Forbes 2009 Ad Effectiveness Survey found that Forty-eight percent of marketers said that search engine optimization (SEO) was the best method for generating conversions online. E-mail and e-newsletters was next with forty-six percent. For smaller marketers the leaders get flipped with e-mail being most effective. Published information and recommendations are generally skewed to favor strategy for large enterprises because they pay for most of the research and publications.
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Popularity: 24% [?]
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It really hurts businesses seriously interested in leveraging new marketing technologies to market and promote more effectively when email marketing services sell themselves as “Marketing” solutions. They are email marketing services, period. An email marketing system or service is one component of and email marketing campaign.
But let’s digress for a moment, I am defining marketing as “the activities that a business undertakes to prompt customers and prospects to take a desired action.” That action might be to make a purchase or attend an event. Whatever, the point of any marketing effort is to get people to do something you want them to do.
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Popularity: 71% [?]
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Here are 3 crucial items that are typically overlooked in the discussion and planning of email campaigns. They focus on what I feel is the bottom line reason businesses use email marketing at all – to generate sales or some other specific action.
1. Track Conversions
Design and implement conversion tracking processes for your campaigns. If your objective is to attract attendees to an event then be sure to require people to check-in so you can know who came and which of them participated in your email campaigns. If the goal is sales then devise a way to know if the sale came from one of your campaigns.
2. Follow-Up Consistently
Do do you remember the the last place you shopped that sent you a timely and relevant email thanking you for your business and/or extending you an offer? Thought so. So be sure to put all that wondrous email marketing technology to work enabling you to send relevant follow-up communications consistently. And take care to follow-up based on each persons interests and preferences, not generically. See item 3 for more on personalization and segmentation.
3. Personalize and Segment
At a minimum capture the name and email address of anyone in your mail lists. Then personalize all emails with the persons name appropriately. And don’t send the same email to everyone. Segment your list. Group list members by different products or services you offer and by characteristics that make them most and least likely to buy what you offer. This most often means collecting more data. Do that.
Popularity: 67% [?]
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