Ben Wheeler

Real Life Example – Use the internet to your advantage

I’ve had a surreal week – I met Eddie Izzard on Monday at the Dylan Thomas Theatre.

I look after the online presence (websites, e-mail marketing, social media, online membership system etc) for the theatre as I am one of their voluntary directors and trustees. I also Stage Manage a view of their events and Monday’s gig was one of them.

We had the booking confirmed at 6pm on the Friday night and were told we were allowed to publicise it from 8pm.

So, 8pm we put the approved promotional material on our website, sent it out to our public mailing list using e-mail marketing, sent it out to our members via our internal e-mail system on our membership application and put it on facebook and twitter. Our online booking system was ready and waiting.

The capacity of the auditorium at the theatre is 150 standard. We sold half in 30 minutes and then at 8.30pm, Eddie twittered himself and then the rest of the auditorium sold out in 15 minutes. We increased capacity by 16 chairs so we were full to capacity and they sold out in a further 10 minutes.

166 seats sold in 55 minutes just through the power of the internet. Nothing like this has ever happened before.

So, a real example of how using the right technologies and having the right systems in place, we could be in control of our complete online presence, update it in seconds and have an amazing success!

The Dylan Thomas Theatre website is fully controlled via a bespoke Content Management System. We use MailChimp for our public mailing list. Our membership system is an online application with the ability to e-mail our members. All the systems were designed for purpose by Beach Software and fully managed.

Could you benefit from understanding what technologies are best to use and what media can benefit your business? Get in touch!

Learn How to Effectively Use Email Marketing Posted: 02 Apr 2010 10:24 AM PDT When you are launching an email marketing campaign, your goal is to become a familiar piece of your subscriber’s world. As you become familiar, your readership will begin to feel like they know you, and in time, they will come to trust you as well. If you want readers to welcome your emails, build them so that your distribution list will be happy to receive your emails, and they may even come to look forward to your emails. Pay close attention to your content, and then pay close attention to the look and feel of your email. 7 Tips for Email Marketing Remember that your email reflects on your company, so develop your brand, and be consistent with how it looks and what it says. If you do not want tot be perceived as a spammer, then do not act like one. Here are some helpful tips that will show you how to develop trust through your emails by paying attention to how they look and how they make you look. 1. Use a consistent sender name When a recipient gets your email, they should be able to immediately recognize who you are. So make sure that your sender information is filled in correctly. Choose a name and stick to it. It can be your company name, your product name, or your online name, but for your readers to know you it must consistently be the same name. 2. Create eye catching preview pane Most people are inundated with email, so make sure that when they receive your email they see something that will spark their curiosity in the preview pane. Give them just enough information to let them know that want to read more. By not properly formatting your email to make full use of the preview pane, you run the risk of having your email deleted even before it has been read. 3. Ask for feedback Never send out an email that cannot receive a reply. If you have a prospect that wants to contact you the last thing that you want to do is make it hard. So, when you are creating your email find ways to engage your prospects with questions or a forum for a comment. Ask for suggestions, and encourage questions. Even if you get negative feedback, your prospect has done you the favor of offering you a way to improve your email marketing campaign. One of the easiest ways to find out what people are thinking is simply to ask. 4. Include contact information Make sure that your email includes you company’s complete contact information so that your readers see you as a tangible company. Give your company a physical place, so that people can picture where you are. They will feel more comfortable about you if you have a real presence rather then just floating around in cyberspace. Always publish your contact information in the same place. So if you have a logo for a header and it includes your contact information, always send your emails with your logo header. By seeing your information over and over, prospects will begin to consider you someone that they know and feel comfortable with. So always print your contact information in the same location in your email. 5. Always include complete contact information in the footer By always including your company’s contact information in the footer of the email, if your prospect becomes frustrated looking for an address or phone number, they will know that they can always find it in the footer of your email. When someone is trying to get in touch with you, it should be effortless for them to locate your contact information. 6. Always keep the same look and feel People are comfortable with familiar things, and they do business with comfortable companies. By being aware of your brand and always having the same look and feel to you emails, you will become familiar to your prospects. Use your logo, colors and tagline to burn your identity into your prospect’s mind, and they will soon come to view you as an old friend. 7. Use a reliable design Do not waste a lot of time designing your email. You need them to look professional and have good content, but they do not need a lot of bells and whistles. Keep your format simple, and keep your content rich, and in time you will garner the respect and trust of your readers. For any marketing campaign to be successful, your prospects have to trust you. You have to make sure that your message works for the demographic that you are trying to reach. Keep your formats simple, so that your emails will look professional for all of your recipients. Pay attention to your format to make sure that you message appears correctly for your subscribers. While content is important in email marketing, appearance is equally important. Remember these suggestions as you create your email marketing campaign, and it should be very successful for you. For a free, no-obligation consultation, contact Anton Pearce via www.antonpearce.com. Set aside just 30 minutes and discover how you can use online marketing to get all the clients you need to fill your practice. Anton is an online marketing consultant who specializes in helping health and wellness professionals to market their services online. Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources Learn How to Effectively Use Email Marketing

The Internet has transformed the way we do business, opening new channels of communication and introducing far more direct ways of marketing to customers. One aspect of online marketing that is frequently underused is email marketing and one critical element that is often overlooked is the actual content of the email. So how can you get more from your newsletter copywriting?

1. Avoid the delete button. 90% of the millions of emails sent every day are spam. Your email newsletters can only be judged as successful if your customers actually read them. An effective subject line is the first point of contact – if that doesn’t have the power to engage and interest, your carefully crafted newsletter will end up in the recycling folder.

You are already talking to an audience you know are interested in your products. So the door is already open. If your customer has signed up to your newsletter, then they’ve already expressed an interest. It’s now your job (or that of your copywriter) to keep that interest by constructing a newsletter that interests, entertains and, most importantly, informs.

1. Draw them in. A newsletter is only worthwhile if it offers the recipient something such as useful information that’s relevant to their business. Engage with your customer. Ask for feedback. If they feel involved in the process, then a two-way communication is opened, keeping them interested and much more willing to read your subsequent follow-up emails.Ask yourself what you would want to read as a customer and then craft your content around that principle. Content, as any good copywriter knows, is all-important, but it has to be content that is relevant. Without that interconnection, your reader will become bored and your newsletter will be heading for the trash bin.
2. Treat your customer well. If your customer has taken the trouble to part with their personal details, make sure you show your gratitude by acknowledging their sign up. That simple act reassures them that they are part of the process, not just an end result. Think of the email newsletter not as a short-term stopgap in your advertising and marketing campaign, but as a long-term process. The best email newsletters offer valuable, interesting and relevant content that extends the relationship you have with them beyond a website visit or sale. Your email newsletter is a vital part of your relationship with your customer – it shows that your business, brand, products, services etc are aligned to their lives. More importantly – a good email newsletter shows you care about your customers by providing them with content that’s relevant and interesting.
3. Content, content, content. A newsletter full of waffle, badly written content or irrelevant information is the quickest way to damage your reputation. The worst that can happen is that your customer looks for the ‘unsubscribe’ link and in one move you’ve lost them. Content for content’s sake is ineffective – it is merely padding that a customer will instantly see right through, so keep it relevant.
4. Keywords aren’t just for search engines. Search engines are not the only things that work on keywords – humans do too. Construct your content with ‘trigger’ words that are, once again, relevant to the customer and their business. Relevant keywords inspire little explosions of connection in the minds of your customers – use the right trigger phrases and your customers are more likely to follow your calls to action.
5. If in doubt, call a professional copywriter! Finally, if you really want your email newsletter to work, don’t be afraid to ask for help from a professional. Commercial copywriters are not just experienced wordsmiths; they’re also highly proficient in the techniques of marketing and business communication. If you need to get more from your email newsletters, why not think about engaging an experienced copywriter to create a template for you, write style guidelines, offer training – or simply outsource your email newsletters entirely. In that way, your email newsletters will continue to play an important role in your overall marketing strategy.

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Derryck Strachan is a freelance copywriter and the director of the award winning web content company Copywriting Devon Ltd. He works as a web copywriter for several leading UK search agencies, SMEs and large organisations across a range of sectors. Our services also include articles, blogs, press releases and content consultancy.

 

Today there are numerous ways to promote your products and services online and one of the most powerful is the email and the newsletter. However, it is very important that you have permission from the addressees or your mails will be treated as spam and will not be read, and will therefore be a waste of time. So, how what steps can you take to make the most of your emails and newsletters? Always make sure that you have a purpose in mind when writing your email or newsletter, as it is essential to know what you want to get out of the process? Do you wish to just give information, make more sales or is it just keep in touch with your customers? Whatever your reasons, ensure that you do not waste the opportunity and your time by following these simple tips.

The Emarketing List

Your first task is to obtain contact details. There are many ways of doing this, but a fairly easy way is to use a so called squeeze page asking for their information. You can sugar coat this by offering a free gift or a discount on their first order or something else. Tell them that you will be sending newsletters and always make it easy for them to unsubscribe this service if they so wish. Always make them feel that there is no obligation. Potential and existing customers are more likely to remain with you and buy from you.

Interesting and Factual

Always make information interesting but keep it factual. Do not ramble on and on about things not relevant to your business. Choose topics carefully and attract attention quickly, so do consider your target audience thoughtfully. Keep the reader hooked so that they will visit your website. Perhaps give a couple of useful tips or insights. Do not give the hard sell, people don’t like this and they won’t read your news so give them useful information about your products or services. Try to demonstrate how your products or services can enrich their lives. Depending on what you have to offer, tell your audience how your products or services work and how much you can do to help them. However, do make sure that you can follow up on any promises made as nothing is more disappointing or frustrating than being let down.

Cheaper to Keep an Existing Customer then Get a New One

Fact is, that it is easier to keep an existing customer than it is to acquire a new one, so look after your existing customers and keep them coming back for more. Using email to give special discounts to past customers can give your business a boost. If a customer purchases goods from a company and never hears from that company again, chances are the buyer will forget the name of the company. By keeping in regular contact with your customers means that they are more likely to consider you when looking for the products or services that you offer. This of course is good for business and if you give excellent service, customers are more likely to recommend you to their friends and families.

Choosing How Often to Send Newsletters and Emails

You can choose how often you send out newsletters but be aware of sending too many or too few, you need to get the timing just right. That way your customers will look forward to receiving their newsletters or emails. In the end, it is all about keeping your customers happy.

 Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Who can I send email to?

Guidelines for permission based email marketing

Why do I need permission?

Sending people unsolicited email, commercial or otherwise, is against the law in many countries worldwide.  Besides that, wouldn’t you rather be talking to people who you know are interested in what you have to say?

Who can I send email to?

People who have specifically signed up through your website

For example, by ticking a checkbox (not checked by default) on your signup or sales form

People who completed offline forms & indicated they wanted to be emailed

Eg: By filling in a competition or survey form where they specifically agree to

receive email

People who gave you their business card and asked to receive email

If someone gives you their business card and you have also explained to them that you will be in touch by email, you can contact them.

They purchased something off you in the last 2 years

By making a purchase from you they have provided their permission implicitly, although it is much better to explicitly ask them.

Who can’t I send email to?

Anybody that is not covered by the list above! Here are some examples:

Lists or email addresses received from a third party

Includes any list you bought or rented, got from a partner or membership

organization. No matter the claims of the source of this list, you cannot send email to them.

Addresses you collected or “copy & pasted” from the Internet

Even if they look like ideal customers for you, you can’t email someone just

because you found their address.

Addresses you haven’t emailed in the last 2 years

Permission doesn’t age well. Even if you got their permission legitimately, they won’t remember giving it to you. If you haven’t sent something to that address in the last 2 years, you can’t start now.

By making a purchase from you they have provided their permission implicitly, although it is much better to explicitly ask them.

There are so many companies that provide e-mail marketing, here are just a few with their current pricing.

http://www.constantcontact.com

Email addresses	0-500	501- 2,500	2,501- 5,000	5,001- 10,000	10,001- 25,000	25,000+
# send emails	unlimited	unlimited	unlimited	unlimited	unlimited	unlimited
Pricing	$15 per month	$30 per month	$50 per month	$75 per month	$150 per month	Call for pricing

http://www.marketmailer.co.uk

http://www.mailchimp.com

		$30 per month	$50 per month	$75 per month	$150 per month	$240 per month
Total Subscribers	0-500	501-2,500	2,501-5,000	5,001-10,000	10,001-25,000	25,001-50,000
Sending Limit	3000/month	unlimited	unlimited	unlimited	unlimited	unlimited

Great article found at http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail?r.s=sc&r.l1=1073861169&r.lc=en&r.l3=1073919418&r.l2=1073858845&type=RESOURCES&itemId=1073791469

Extract…

Email marketing is governed by laws on data protection, privacy and e-commerce, so you should plan your campaign carefully:

• The Data Protection Act 1998 regulates how you build and manage your customer database. You need to comply with the law when sending emails to people who aren’t already customers. Read about privacy laws affecting your email marketing on the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) website – Opens in a new window.
• It is illegal to reveal recipients’ details on any emails. Create a mailing group that sends a blind carbon copy to each recipient.
• When sending email marketing messages, you must not conceal your identity.
• Under e-commerce regulations, marketing emails must include certain information about your business, including its full name, contact details and a clear indication of prices if you refer to them.
• There must be a valid address for people to opt out of receiving emails from you.
• You cannot send unsolicited marketing messages by email to individual subscribers unless you have their prior consent. There are exemptions if their address was collected in the course of a sale or if the recipient has expressed an interest in ’similar’ items and chose not to opt out when the address was originally collected. ‘Individual subscribers’ do not include companies or individuals within companies.
• E-commerce regulations require you to make all commercial email clearly identifiable as such, either in the header or the text of the email.

Sending out high quality branded e-mails to customers and prospects has become very popular recently and Beach Software can help send out such e-mails.

Creating a marketing e-mail is very different from normal web design and unless the company that creates your e-mail knows what they are doing, it will probably never arrive to the recipient and even if it does, it probably won’t look as it was intended to.

There are at least seven major e-mail clients available and in use which need to be to tested against, compared to the four browsers to test a website against. Marketing e-mails need to consist of an HTML part (the pretty bit) and a Plain Text part (the ugly bit), they have to use a low number of external images, absolutely referenced URLs, inline styling, no scripting or animation and worst of all really should use tables (these are hated by web designers) to reach it’s full audience.

We test all our marketing e-mails in HTML and Plain Text on the following e-mail clients (when possible) using their standard SPAM and security settings (i.e. Outlook blocks images by default and you have to click to show them) to make sure that on arrival, your e-mail looks adequate until the user recognises the sender and shows the e-mail in all it’s glory. The web based e-mail clients (e.g. Hotmail) strip out a lot of standard formatting for security purposes, so your e-mail could look vastly different on these clients compared to PC based e-mail clients (e.g. Outlook).

Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail ,Windows Live, Outlook, Outlook Express ,Thunderbird, Lotus Notes

The design guides for e-mails are very different to websites; the width of your e-mail is about 50% less at around five to six hundred pixels wide. The Plain Text version of your e-mail can only be around sixty characters wide and any links have to be fully typed out as they won’t be clickable normally. Good e-mail campaigns have a clearly identified sender (i.e. the company name), a strong subject (i.e. the company name and the purpose of the e-mail), and the addressees’ full name, strong company branding immediately at the top of the body of the e-mail (even if images are blocked) and full contact information including the legal stuff.

SPAM is so annoying – people hate getting it, and you don’t want your e-mail being treated as it and it’s very easy to get marked on the internet as a spammer. We’ll review your e-mail content and advise you on where it needs to be revised. Some useful tips are to avoid phrases like ‘click here’, avoid crazy fonts, colours and capital letters, control your punctuation (i.e. don’t use ‘!!!!!’ or ‘???’) and most importantly, your e-mail designer must use correctly formatted HTML – we always do.

One final thing to remember is the legalities. Your e-mail must contain unsubscribe links, you should provide links to your Privacy Policy, you should keep your old e-mail campaigns (perhaps even put them on your website), and you have to have proof that the recipient originally said, ‘yes I am happy to receive your marketing e-mails’.

Our prices start from £35 to design and build your e-marketing campaign. We can also send out your e-mail and track the results for just 1p per recipient and can provide approved marketing e-mail lists.

Ben Wheeler
Beach Software,
Web Design in Swansea, South Wales

e-Marketing (e-mail marketing) is very powerful if used correctly. What you should be doing is sending out good information to people that want it (or may want it). Keep the information clear and tidy and if people want more they can go to your website.

Follow up – use the stats and follow up on your marketing, you know who’s interested so get in touch with them.

Know that every e-mail client displays your e-mail differently – outlook is the worst – you’ve got gmail, yahoo, hotmail on IE6, IE7, IE8, Firefox, Safari etc, Thunderbird, Outlook (various versions), corporate systems like Pegasus etc etc etc.

Ben Wheeler
Beach Software,
Web Design in Swansea, South Wales