Why Email Marketing Generates Better Returns Than Print Ads
There are a many advantages of Email Marketing over advertising in magazines. I am listing a few of them here for you to review and decide for yourself. Let me know if you agree with them or not.
- Longer copy: An email is much longer in size, and you can place as many photographs and product details as you want. A print advertisement is limited in size and width. Printing in colour is even more expensive. An email is ALL colour.
- Clear Contact Information: Your company’s logo, location, address, map can all be put on an email with all relevant details, in bold and easy to view/find. Your print ad may take up more space for the product features, leaving miniscule space for the contact information. Often, the address is in such a small font that one has to strain the eyes to see it.
- View Full Product Details: The reader can click on the link and visit your website for more information anytime. For an ad, a reader can’t visit the shop if it is night. Nothing more frustrating than to wait for the next day or Monday to talk to someone to find more information. Often, people forget about the whole thing by the next day. Here goes another lost sale! At least provide the website address in your print ad.
- Email has a long life: The holding power of a magazine is probably 1-2 hours. Once it is read, it is thrown in the trash can, or in a pile, never to be picked up again. An email is more often kept in the Inbox or filed away in a folder. We have seen people contact us for information even after 9 months of sending the email.
- Online activity can be tracked: Once a email is opened, it can be tracked. We can analyze the links clicked by the reader, which pages, products did he/she viewed, and how long did they spend on the website. No such thing with a print ad. You don’t even know if your target audience got to see it, let alone how many saw it.
- Get to know the Prospect: An email can invite the user to leave their contact details for exiting promotion offers, and future discounts, private sales when new shipments arrive etc. This is the first step to start building relationship with the prospect and generate good quality leads.
- Build Constant Contact: Once we get the email address of the visitors, we can contact them periodically, and suggest them to buy additional products, give them away as gifts to their loved ones, or simply refer new customers to us and get discounts/points.
Customer Information is your Biggest Asset
You really don’t know who is reading your print ad, or how much sales you are getting out of a print ad. An email marketing campaign offers much better tracking in terms of success/failure, open rates, click rates, time spent etc. The biggest asset is the customer information - name, address, emails, what they bought etc. With this information, you can continue to market to them for future sales.
Build Customer Relationships
Ever wondered why Amazon is so successful - not because they had the biggest inventory, but because of their excellent customer relationship building skills. They did it with Wish Lists, remembering what you browsed, welcoming you with your name the next time you visited, and a simple one touch interface so you don’t have to key in your information ever again.
Use Email to reach your target market and build strong customer relationships. Then laugh all the way to the bank!
Cheers,
Vinai
Strategy to target Gmail users with Adwords
Do you want more clicks, and more conversions from the Google Content Network?
Try one of the best converting sites on the Google Content Network - Gmail. It has consistently proved itself for us and our clients.
Do note that there is a specific strategy to target Google Ads on the Content Network. You need to choose Gmail as the Placement channel. If it converts well for you, you can even increase the bid for such placements to adjust your position and wording.
It is best to create a separate campaign on the Google Network, solely targeting the Content Network, and have placements setup for mail.google.com.
Further, there is this fun-box at the top of Gmail - an area where ads get top placement. You can also target this area with a specific syntax in the Google Adwords Placement Setup, which has been explained by Google Media Planner Austin Lau in this detailed video, now available at YouTube.
Go ahead, try it out, and let me know of your results. I am pretty sure that Gmail will bring you more clicks, and conversions if you target it correctly and monitor the results to tweak the performance.
If you need help from Google Adwords Qualified Professionals in setting up your Adwords Campaigns or to target Gmail, you can contact us at Brand Rich anytime.
Call us at (65) 9877-3485 for a free consultation or demo.
Cheers,
Vinai Prakash
Chief eMarketing Strategiest, Brand Rich LLP in Singapore
Why not start a Blog?
Many of my clients and prospects consult with me on the creation and execution of their eMarketing Strategy blueprint. One of the tools I often suggest to them is to start a simple blog on their site.
The immediate reaction - Oh No! It won’t work for us. We only provide B2B Products or Services. This is not something that is practical or feasible.
Reasons for Not Blogging
Other reasons can be - There’s no time to blog, there’s no one to blog, our CEO won’t have the time to blog, we are not sure what to blog about, we are not interested in such frivolous acts and the classic - No one in our industry is doing it.
Well, if no body is doing it in the industry, why not be the first to get started on this simple and effective medium and show to your customers and prospects that you can be a thought leader - the one who thinks ahead, and leads the industry, and cares about your customers.
Topics to Blog about?
In terms of topics - you can talk about industry trends, the new products or services being offered by your company, the current economic situation and how you can help your customers, offer support and answer basic questions asked by the clients and prospects all the time, and create awareness.
Finding the Time to Blog
In terms of time - yes, it does take a bit of time to do the posting, but it is not much - a few minutes, to an hour a week… Problogger offers a suggestion to batch write the blog posts - 3 to 5 at one go, and then release them over a week, or several weeks.
Anyone in the company can write the blog
It does not always have to be the CEO - Although some popular blogs are written by CEOs like Jonathan Schwartz. But most are written by marketing departments, people in Customer Services, Product Development, or even Sales. If you absolutely don’t have the time or resource to do blogging for you - you can always find inexpensive ghost writers at Elance.com or GetAFreelancer.com for a few bucks.
List of a few blogs written by CEOs.
1. Jonathan Schwartz (President & CEO, Sun Microsystems)
2. Craig Newmark (CEO, Craig’s List)
3. Mark Cuban (Owner, Dallas Mavericks)
4. Alan Meckler (CEO, Jupiter Media)
5. Kevin Lynch (Chief Software Architect, Adobe)
What to write about
This is the most important aspect of writing a blog - don’t start the blog just for the sake of writing. Your blog must have the top 6 ingredients of a good blog, as per Seth Godin, the marketing guru.
But you might not get all of it right when you first start blogging. The important thing is to get started, and start writing. Your writing, your thought process, and your reader’s comments and criticism will shape your blog over a period of time.
There are enormous benefits of having a Blog
- You show to the customers and prospects that you are listening to them, and are willing to share what’s happening in the company, and what’s coming in the future.
- You showcase your thought leadership in your industry.
- You generate a lot of links for your website - which helps in getting a high ranking in search engines. Many people blog for the sole purpose of generating links, and improving their ranking in organic search results. Search engines love new content, and come to visit your site often, and index more pages.
- People find a way to interact with you through your blog - they can leave comments, and offer suggestions to you, which may not be possible through the normal website, or may not be easy enough.
- A blog gives you a competitive edge. This is a great way to differentiate from the ordinary competitors, and show your expertise. Other may be doing the same things as you do, but if you are the first one to educate the prospect, show them your detailed process, and interact with them, you are treated as the thought leader, the one with the knowledge, expertise and oomph.
Setting a Blog
It is easy to setup and configure a blog on your website. Your IT people should be able to do it quickly. Or you can seek professional help from us - we have got very non IT people to blog - for example Doctors. One of our blogging clients is an Aesthetic Surgeon, who blogs about Aesthetics, Beauty and Wine on her Joie De Vivre blog. We can setup your blog in a day…
Conclusion
Using a Blog as one of the bullets in your eMarketing strategy is a sure fire way to get things started with a bang. Be seen as a thought leader, network with clients and prospects, and learn a new medium you will fall in love with - Start Blogging now!
Cheers,
Vinai
Building your eMarketing Strategy
