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There’s so much information overload in everyone’s email box these days that it’s hard to see how email campaigns could still be successful. But a report by Epsilon shows that open rates increased quarter over quarter (5.9%) and year over year (12.6%), resulting in an overall open rate of 26.2%.

This graph by Epsilon shows how open rates continue to climb (click chart to enlarge).

In order to be successful with your email campaigns, there are two important factors you need to consider:

Make sure you have a good list – are the intended recipients getting your emails? There are third party email companies that will validate your email list as a part of their service. If your list is old and outdated, make sure you validate it or your efforts will be wasted.

Send emails to people that request them – often times marketers don’t want to spend the time and effort to create their own mailing list so they buy one from a third party vendor. This doesn’t guarantee that you’ll reach your target audience or people that are really interested in your product. A better practice and more efficient way of getting a list would be to send emails to people who have requested to receive emails from you. Build your list with good contacts and your results will be much better as you’ll be reaching the people that want to hear from you.

But once your target audience gets your email, how do you get them to open it? Below are 5 tips to help you increase the chances that the email will be opened:

1)   Make an effort to come up with a good “subject line”. Try to entice the reader to want to read more by having a good subject line. Make the subject relevant and interesting. Be witty and keep it pithy.

2)   The “from name” needs to be consistent. This is your company or brand name and it always needs to be the same. This is how you’re going to get recognition and your open rates should increase once the reader recognizes you. Your goal should be to earn their trust with good content and have them know who you are.

3)   The content has to be useful information – you should discuss topics that are important to those receiving your emails. Give your recipients useful information on things that they are interested in. Educate them on your product and send them content they can use.

4)   Frequency is key – if you send emails too often, your recipient will get annoyed and opt out of receiving your emails. If you don’t send them often enough, you risk them not recognizing you. You’re going to have to find a happy medium and see what works best for you.

5)   Make sure your email campaign is mobile device friendly – more and more people are opening their email on the go throughout the day on their mobile devices. Marketers however are not taking advantage of this by optimizing their email content for mobile devices. Email design and readability is an important factor that needs to be a part of your email campaign. Keep paragraphs short and call to actions clear.

As mobile and tablet usage begins to outpace desktop usage, it’s important for marketers to understand their consumers’ behavior and preferences and create effective cross channel campaigns that will be more successful at acquiring more customers.

If you think it’s time for your company to launch an email marketing campaign, get in touch with Hadfield Communications at www.hadfield.net. We’ll be glad to analyze your current email campaign efforts and give you feed back on how to improve on what you already have.

There are many steps to creating a well thought out Website.

Your Website is the one marketing tool that is accessible to anyone in the world and it’s your best marketing asset. You may not be getting all the benefits you could from your site because it may not be as dynamic as it could be. If you haven’t done the following five essential things, maybe it’s time you consider freshening up your Website:

• Elevate Search Engine Rankings – By adding key words to your content, your site can get better rankings. Sites with content that is updated frequently usually rank higher in search engines. You should always update your site with news about your company, articles or tips related to your services with links to those articles. Adding a blog would also help your rankings by adding content constantly.
• Enhance Content and Performance – How many clicks does it take to get there? You don’t want your potential customer to get frustrated and leave your site because it takes too many clicks to get to the relevant information. Consider how your site is structured and see if it may need some trimming down. Over time, sites can get cluttered by pages and code that have become cumbersome from layers of updates.
• Add Social Media Icons – You want people to share pages from your Web site, so make your content something they want to share. The more sharing people do, the more visibility you will get. Don’t miss out on sharing content just because you don’t have social media icons.
• Increase Engagement of Your Site – User experience involves more than just design. You should streamline your information for successful delivery. Give your customer content that is relevant to them. Does your site look good on a mobile device? If not, you need to change that.
• Know What Your Users are Doing – Become engaged with the analytics of your site to know what your users are doing. If they like certain content, give them more of it. If they like reading your blogs, post more blogs that they can share. If certain pages have higher bouncing rates, research why those pages are not interesting to the visitor.

Website design and content need to be managed and updated in order for your site to give you the best return on the investment. If you thought putting up a Website would magically bring you customers, you’re probably finding out that’s not the case. You have to keep content fresh, the user experience should be pleasant and you should provide value to people so they keep coming back and sharing your materials.

If you think it’s time for your Website to be refreshed, get in touch with Hadfield Communications at www.hadfield.net. We’ll be glad to analyze your site and give you feed back on how to make it better.

Hadfield Communications has determined that 10% -15% of our customers traffic is coming from a mobile devices. The largest opportunity to reach Hispanic consumers is with a mobile enabled website or a text messaging strategy. This segment is also growing rapidly.