Why E-mail Marketing Is Important
E-mail marketing is one of the best ways to nurture relationships with customers and potential customers. Although social media is hot, e-mail marketing has an important role to play in online marketing and content distribution.
Why e-mail marketing is important
- Speed: It’s instantaneous.
- Efficiency: Send one e-mail or 1,000 e-mails with one mouse click.
- Management tools: Track who receives your mail, who reads it and what they do next.
- Coverage: Most everyone reads their e-mail.
- History: E-mail is in your inbox, while social media is dynamic. If you miss a Tweet, it's gone.
These factors explain why e-mail marketing is a popular way to reach out to new and existing customers electronically. It’s a way to send word of deals, reward loyalty or simply get your brand message in front of new eyes.
The Direct Marketing Association reports that 23.8 percent of marketing e-mails were opened in the most recent quarter, up 7.1 percent from the previous quarter. E-mail is bringing in $40.56 for every dollar spent on it in 2011, compared to catalogs' ROI of $7.30, according to DMA.
“As we come to the end of 2011, e-mail is not just alive, it's thriving,” said Martin Lieberman, a managing editor with e-mail marketing vendor Constant Contact. “More messages are being sent, [and] people say they prefer e-mail over other communications methods.”
Avoid spam and send quality messages
Even with the best tools in hand, a savvy business owner approaches e-mail marketing with a degree of caution. There’s a fine line between marketing e-mail and spam. No one wants your spam.
While all of these services have special tweaks to help keep your message out of the spam filter, that doesn’t mean it isn’t spam. The heart of the distinction is content. If your mail fulfills a need and desire, if it serves a purpose and adds value for the recipient, it’s legitimate marketing.
Like many other national companies, the Callan Group is committed to personalized service handling all aspects of e-correspondence for the client. Business owners save time and money by outsourcing different aspects of their business...e-newsletters need to be handled in the same way. Other national e-newsletter companies offer small fees, however you have to do everything yourself from uploading email addresses to providing high resolution graphics to guessing the sizes of tables to maintaining opt out options. Do you or your company have the time for that? Contact us!
These few tips help ensure that all of your e-mails are quality messages.
- Know your audience.
- Write to your audience.
- Use great subject lines.
- Don't write too frequently and don't write too infrequently.
- Review your e-mail analytics to learn which topics are most clicked on, and what times of the day are most popular for sending e-mail.
- Keep your content interesting and relevant.
Happy e-mailing!
Building Your Email Database
The end of the year is a good time to get organized. Here is our video of ways to build your email database for the New Year! In this video, we talk about exporting your contacts which we have blogged about previously.
Sprucing up your Website
Sprucing Up Your Website
How long has it been since you spellchecked your website? Or added something new and different? We have 2 very simple and fast ways to spruce up your website really quick! Clear out all those spelling mistakes and add a Facebook “like” button at the same time! Not only can this possibly create more traffic from Facebook to your website but the new visitors will also not be able to find a single spelling error.
First the “Like” Button, Facebook has been very smart and has built a little application on their developers website where you can create your own “like” button and it will automatically create the HTML code for your website. After that it is as simple as copy and paste to wherever you could want it on your website!
The developers website is: http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like/
Then we have an online Spell Checker for you that can check your entire website by just entering the url for your website, for example http://www.thecallangrp.com. It checks the entire website and then gives you all the errors on that particular page so you can go into your editor and change it or make a note of it for your web developer to change it.
The spell checker website is: http://www.truesitetools.com/spell_checker/
And those are 2 quick and easy ways to make your website look a little more fresh and professional
Shelf Life of an Email Newsletter
Shelf Life of an email Newsletter
The shelf life of an email Newsletter is much shorter than that of any print magazine, this is due to the fact that people receive an email at home or on their Smartphone and just quickly scan over it for any information pertaining to them, and then moves on to the next email. After this the email is soon forgotten unless it has an amazing deal or it really grabs the reader’s attention.
Another important thing in email Newsletters is Punctuation and Grammar! While the importance of this is much less so in an email Newsletter than a Magazine because of the shelf life, it is still very important though to maintain that professional look. Most people don’t go back to an email Newsletter to read that one article again, they just look at it for that clear and concise deal that they are looking for or the information that they want. As of course sometimes it does happen that a spelling error or grammatical error is made the importance is smaller than in actual print. And sometimes we make the obvious mistakes on purpose just to grab your attention to that part of the Newsletter or to elicit a response out of the reader so that we can get a gauge on how many people thoroughly read the Newsletter! So next time if you see a spelling error or grammar mistakes remember to send us an email!
Exporting Contacts From your E-Mail Address Book
Exporting Contacts From your E-Mail Address Book
Have you ever wondered how to export your address book from your e-mail like yahoo,Gmail, or even outlook itself?
Well we have scrounged the internet and have found you these easy step by step guides for each respective E-mail provider! So just click the link below the Provider you use and follow the step by step guide!
Yahoo:
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/yahoomail/manage/manage-10.html
AOL:
Hotmail:
http://microsoftfeed.com/2011/how-to-export-contacts-from-windows-live-hotmail/
Gmail:
https://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=24911
Outlook 2003/2007:
http://www.online-tech-tips.com/ms-office-tips/export-outlook-contacts/
Outlook 2010:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook-help/export-contacts-HA101870639.aspx
Hope this helps!
Recession Inspires Company Growth
Hear how an outsider continues to keep business local in Volusia & Flagler counties
PORT ORANGE, FL (Wednesday, June 8, 2011) – It was the day after Halloween 2007 when Diane Michael was asked to fly to Daytona Beach immediately as her father, Rick Michael, former executive director of economic development for Volusia County, was scheduled to have a sextuplet bypass surgery.
Michael was the founder of Buy Me Love Benefits, a
As she was taking care of her father post-op she became restless and approached Halifax Humane Society, asking them to allow her to create an auction in
Four weeks later 15 eligible men and woman were put on stage at the Museum of Arts & Sciences. The 20-40 year old bachelor/ettes created date packages and were auctioned off one by one at a high energy cocktail party that generated $17,000 for the shelter.
The following day Michael flew home to
Knowing that Buy Me Love Benefits would not be continuously as successful as
In April of 2008 Michael hired developers to create a web-based email service platform. Knowing that the present day was moving towards more ways of electronic marketing, she knew she had to be one of the first to introduce the new word of mouth for small businesses in Volusia and
As a small business owner herself, she knew that time is money and that most small business owners did not have time to market themselves properly through email newsletters. In the first week Michael secured 8 clients including SoNapa Wine Bar, Michele McCarthy Interiors and Crouch & Dunn Family Practice. The roster grew and grew and in December of 2010 Michael decided to take the business, fondly named The Callan Group, after her deceased mother's maiden name, to the next level.
Despite several clients going out of business and the climate of the local economy, Michael chose to invest back in the business she started just three years prior. In such a short amount of time this company continues to make strides to be the best in their field providing the most current marketing avenues for their clients. The Callan Group won a Bronze Addy Award from the American Federation of Advertising recently. They also continue to support the ever-changing needs of their clients by providing QR codes, social media links and special rate deals in their e-Newsletters. The Callan Group also has teamed up with Gage Publishing and Marketing 2 Go offering several local businesses an affiliate program that covers all marketing needs from the professionals of each field. This was just the beginning.
In January of 2011 the training program was created; an opportunity for other entrepreneurs to purchase a business in a box. Similar to franchise models, Michael's program gives motivated individuals the chance to be their own boss. By recruiting their own clients and setting them up on the company’s monthly program, purchasers can easily make six figures in their first year. The first week after rolling out the program two buyers came about. The first, John Ferrado who had been selling on a commission basis for The Callan Group since April of that year with focused efforts in
Since their training began both have acquired several dozen clients including Rose Villa, Spikes Athletic Footwear, McCharacters and several local hotels. This opportunity allows for the business owner to have the freedom needed in this fast-paced world. Having the ability to work from anywhere provides the potential to have clients in other areas as well.
Despite the recession, this local company has been inspired to maintain a stellar product, proven customer service, affordable pricing and most importantly, a business opportunity for individuals that are qualified. This is the type of growth and attitude that smaller communities continue to need to attract and retain business growth.
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About The Callan Group
The mission of this Veteran/Woman owned firm is to assist the business community by bringing experience, innovation and training to help further economic growth through custom, personalized electronic marketing. The Callan Group was awarded a Bronze Addy Award by the American Advertising Federation for exceptional work in electronic marketing and all their employees are active in several non-profit organizations in Volusia and Flagler counties.
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