Email List Marketing

By: Karen Waddell | VP of List Services, eTargetMedia

 As an email marketer I get hundreds of list counts each week. Sometimes for an email marketing campaign, other times for a direct mail list. I am often surprised at how many times I get counts that aren’t specific.

Imagine you send a list request targeting consumers in Hollywood. Being a Floridian, I might assume the count is for Hollywood, Florida. What if the advertiser is trying to reach Hollywood, CA? Did you know there are nine states that have a city named Hollywood (AL, AR, CA, FL, MD, MS, NM, PA, and SC)?

According to Wikipedia, there are 41 Springfield’s, 26 Clinton’s, 25 Madison’s, 24 Franklin’s, 24 Washington’s, 23 Chester’s, 23 Marion’s, 22 Greenville’s, 21 Georgetown’s, and 21 Salem’s; and that’s just the top ten most common city names.

It’s not just city targeting. Take Philadelphia for example, there are five states with cities named Philadelphia, but there is also a county in Pennsylvania with the same name, and you can also target by the Philadelphia metro area.

Geographic targeting is the most common selection criteria for targeted marketing campaigns. Geo-targeting capabilities in the United States include: zip code, zip code radius, SCF (the first 3 digits of a zip), city, county, metro area, state, or nationwide.

If the target audience is wrong, it can have a huge impact on the advertiser’s bottom line. If your marketing campaign is geo-targeted, make sure your list provider knows what you are requesting. If in doubt, list it out!

Contact eTargetMedia to find out how we can help you target
your email campaigns to maximize your campaign results.

In a perfect world, you would create and revise your own marketing materials and website content. The reality is that if you are a small business owner, you simply don’t have the time or resources to make that happen. Working on your website or creating new marketing collateral is often pushed off as you deal with more pressing matters.

In many cases, working with an outside company such as eTargetMedia makes sense for your creative services. We’ve worked with many different companies to create marketing content that drives their business objectives forward. A few of the reasons that small businesses choose to outsource their creative services include:

Leveraging Expertise: Chances are that your company’s core competency isn’t in areas such as email design or landing page development. Companies such as eTargetMedia have on-staff experts who have helped both large and small businesses to develop high quality online content.

Utilizing Resources: Even if you have the experience and skills necessary to perform highly complex tasks such as designing the HTML for a landing page, there’s a good chance that you have limited time to actually do the work necessary to code a landing page correctly. As a small business owner, your time is better spent running your business while letting an outside company handle your creative services.

Industry Knowledge: Working with an outside company for creative services means that you are working with professionals who have industry knowledge and know how to design creative that engages consumers to act on the creative.

By: eTargetMedia

Email marketing has changed a lot over the past two decades. In the beginning, the goal of email marketing was to send out as many emails as possible with a “quantity over quality” model. Businesses quickly learned that targeted email lists and quality email creative is the most successful way to market through email. Social media and smart phones have changed the email marketing industry again. Consumers started using social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to communicate with friends and companies. Consumers are also using their smart phones more and more.

Some marketers forecasted that this would be the end of email marketing however research is indicating that email marketing is thriving and continuing to see growth and effectiveness. Companies who are effectively planning and executing their email campaigns, using targeted email lists and creative messaging are seeing substantial returns on their investment in the email marketing medium. Any business can see the rewards of email marketing with a strong, targeted email campaign. Email is alive and well and one of the most effective marketing mediums, so it’s time to consider increasing your email marketing budget.

1 | Email Marketing is Thriving

According to a study in 2014, over 70 percent of marketers claimed that email marketing was a core strategy for their business and they were planning to increase their email marketing budgets in 2015. The growth in email marketing may be due to all of the options email marketers have today or the increase of people who are opening emails on their smart phones. Email marketing is thriving, and it’s a trend you should get behind.

2 | You Can Measure Your Email Marketing ROI

One of the greatest benefits of email marketing is that you can measure your campaign results. With every email campaign you send out, you can track open rates, click through rates and ROI so you know what’s working and you can determine if the increase in budget is resulting in a profitable return.

3 | Email Marketing is More Cost Effective Than Other Marketing Mediums

The cost of creating email messages and renting email lists is a lot lower than creating print advertisements, direct mail promotions, or television ads. You don’t have to purchase ad space and you don’t have to pay for printing or mailing. Email tends to get the highest ROI so a small increase in budget can go a long way.

4 | Email Increases Brand Loyalty, Customer Engagement and Sales

Email marketing can work together with all of your marketing efforts to increase brand loyalty, customer engagement and sales. Your email marketing campaigns can feed all of your marketing channels by directing people to your store, blog, social media pages and more.

5 | Email Marketing is Easy to Implement

Email marketing can be executed pretty quickly so you can launch campaigns in a short time frame and optimize your email campaigns on the fly to get the best results. Increasing your email budget gives you the opportunity to test different lists and creative messaging, giving you the ability to determine what works best for your company.

6 | Email Marketing is in Demand

Consumers want to receive email promotions from companies they are customers of or loyal to. To meet this demand for email you will need to step up your overall budget. Send your customers great email designs with special offers including discounts, sales, free giveaways, and special deals. When you create emails that have value to your customers, you meet your audience’s needs and you will see the rewards.

Whether you’re a marketing professional or a business owner, you are probably aware of the power of email marketing. Indeed it is considered the top marketing channel in the digital world and many companies are already investing more of their time and money into crafting effective email marketing campaigns.

But does email marketing truly live up to its reputation as an effective way to reach a target audience, or is it just another marketing trend that will fade out of style? Statistics don’t lie; email marketing is here to stay. Let’s look at the facts. Here are three email marketing statistics that prove email marketing is not going anywhere:

The Number of Email Users is Growing

It’s hard to find someone who doesn’t have an email address. Statistics reveal that there are currently over 3.9 billion people who use email, and this number grows on a daily basis. By 2017, the email audience is forecasted to increase to a whopping 4.9 billion. One billion new accounts in only two years reveals that email is only increasing in only growing in popularity. For this reason alone it’s important that businesses take this channel of marketing very seriously. This means that you will need to create highly targeted, personal, and relevant email marketing campaigns.

The Majority of Online Consumers Use Email

If you’re browsing the internet, chances are you have an email account. How many online consumers use email? An impressive 95 percent. And of those 95 percent, 91 percent check their accounts at least once a day, while many report that they check their accounts multiple times. People who use the internet in the U.S. have an average of 3.1 email addresses, which includes both personal and business accounts. This means that marketers can target customers for both business and consumer products and services.

Mobile Access to Email is Growing

Forrester Research reports that 72 percent of U.S. online adults send and receive business and personal emails through smartphones everyday. The ability for users to access their email accounts via mobile devices is also growing at a steady rate. Marketers can use mobile email to send targeted messages to consumers on the go as well as on the one device that is always with them.

Do you want to increase conversion rates and grow your business? It’s all about email marketing. If you haven’t invested your time and money into creating effective email marketing campaigns, now is the time. Contact eTargetMedia for more information.

Email marketing is considered one of the most effective ways to grow a company. It helps increase sales, generates leads, gets traffic to your site, and even builds customer loyalty. Whether you own a salon, an engineering firm, or a clothing company, it’s important to have a powerful email marketing campaign in place. But crafting an effective campaign isn’t easy, especially when strategies are evolving on a regular basis.

If your current strategy needs a makeover, don’t worry. eTargetMedia is here to help. Here are five proven tips for creating an effective email marketing strategy.

Implement a Call to Action

While you might not be using direct response marketing anymore, every powerful email marketing campaign features clear calls to actions. It’s important to tell your audience what to do next. Do you want them to pick up the phone, purchase a product, or request more information? Some common call to actions include: buy now, contact us, or download now. Using a call to action can boost your ROI and enhance the conversation of your email campaigns.

Test Various Email Campaigns

It’s nearly impossible to craft a perfect email campaign at first try. This is why it’s important to create various campaigns and test them all out. Test various offers, different lists, call to actions, subject lines, and creative content to see what works for your target audience. You can also test various delivery days or different times. Before you send out a campaign, make sure to test it out with an in-house test group. During this test it’s important to check that everything loads correctly and that all of the links work properly.

Connect with Your Customers

Every email campaign should be an opportunity for you to connect with your customers in a meaningful way. You can accomplish this goal by listening to your customers, personalizing messages, and featuring relevant content that is engaging for your readers. You can also include links to your social media pages so they can feel connected through their favorite sites.

Monitor Your Campaigns

How do you know if your campaign is working? You have to monitor them. An easy way to track your campaigns is to include custom trackable links that test and analyze various elements of the email. It’s important to monitor opens, clicks, conversions, leads, and unsubscribes. Once you receive the first set of results, you can tweak and improve your next campaign.

Measure Your Results

The key to improving your campaigns is to measure your results. Understand what works and what doesn’t work and then improve your campaigns using that information. eTargetMedia can help you enhance your email marketing campaign by implementing these suggestions and providing expert services.

Email Marketing continues to be the most effective solution for reaching your target audience, even with the rise of social media, automated ad buying and content targeting. Email marketing has many advantages over other traditional and digital marketing solutions including tremendous reach, strategic targeting capabilities, powerful engagement opportunities, and higher ROI. Utilize a strategic, targeted email marketing campaign and you are sure to see a rise in your sales, conversions and ROI.

Exceptional Reach

According to research, 200 billion emails will be sent every day during 2015 and 4.9 billion email accounts will be in use by the end of 2017. Most of those email accounts are consumer accounts. The number of consumer email accounts will continue to grow quickly as online users need email accounts to communicate with friends, family and business contacts. Social networking sites, online shopping sites and top digital publishers require users to provide an email address to register for an account so this forces the growth of consumer email accounts among users of all genders, races, ages, demographics, geography and more.

Strategic Targeting

There is an exceptional amount of data related to every email address. Anytime a consumer registers an account using their email address, the account tags the email address with data like purchasing preferences, interests, demographics, geography and more without ever violating the privacy rights of consumers or transferring secure information. You can target email campaigns by age, gender, lifestyle, age, demographics, psychographics, geography and more. Email has more strategic targeting opportunities than any other marketing channel.

Increased Engagement

The strategic targeting benefits of email marketing leads to higher engagement since the email campaign is targeted to consumers who are interested in your products or services. The email industry’s focus of opt-in, targeted lists and list segmentation leads to higher engagement among consumers who have already been qualified or specified an interest in your product. Promotions and special offers help increase opens and click throughs as well sales as audiences are sure to engage with the email and promotion. Experian reports a $44 average return for every $1 invested in email marketing.

Consumers Welcome Email Marketing

Consumers welcome email messages that include special promotions on products they are interested in. Opt-in laws and regulations protect users accounts from data abuse and give consumers an option to opt out if they don‘t want to receive the email communication. This gives the consumer the power to choose if and when they want to receive your email message and allows consumers to select email subscriptions based on personal interests and unsubscribing if they are not interested.

Higher ROIs

If you are effectively planning, targeting, and optimizing your email campaigns, you will see strong engagement rates and a growth in sales, conversions and your bottom line. Reaching an active, engaged audience will drive your ROI and results in a successful email campaign. Email is a proven marketing channel that continues to deliver excellent results. Add email marketing to your next advertising campaign to experience its unmatched advantages and you’ll see how effective a targeted email campaign can be.

About eTargetMedia

eTargetMedia has the knowledge and experience to implement a comprehensive email marketing strategy that will produce measurable results in traffic, customer acquisition, and revenues. eTargetMedia’s services include online and offline direct marketing, including; Targeted Email Lists, Postal Lists, Email Append and Creative Services.

Our service and commitment to excellence means that not only will you see vast improvements, but you will have the benefit of utilizing our ongoing support and services to further enhance and develop your email marketing presence.

Even compared to social media, automated ad buying, and content targeting, email marketing remains the most effective method of reaching a target audience. There are many reasons email marketing is more effective than most traditional and digital marketing solutions. Here are some of the valuable benefits of email marketing:

Incredible Reach

Email is not going anywhere. Research predicts that about 200 billion emails will be sent every day in 2015 and 4.9 billion accounts will be in use by the end of 2017. The majority of these email accounts are owned by consumers. As online users need accounts to communicate with business contacts, family, and friends, the number of consumer accounts will continue to rise. The growth of consumer email accounts will also be fueled by the need for people to provide email addresses to register for social networking sites, digital publishers, and online shopping sites. Consumers of all demographics, races, ages, genders, and geography will be opening and using these consumer accounts.

Tactical Targeting

Every email address leaves a trail of data. For example, anytime a consumer registers an account using an email address, the account tags the address with valuable information such as interests, demographics, geography, preferences, and more, all without transferring secure information or violating privacy rights. Marketers can use this information to craft an email campaign, providing them with more strategic targeting opportunities than any other marketing channel.

Higher Engagement

Since it can be targeted to consumers who are interested in your products or services, an email marketing campaign leads to increased engagement. This is because today’s email campaigns are permission-based campaigns using targeted lists and list segmentation, which means they are sent to consumers who have asked for and want the information being sent to them. Then extra incentives such as promotions and special offers can help increase click throughs and opens. These special additions also increase sales. According to Experian, there is a $44 average return for every $1 invested in email marketing.

Consumer-Friendly

Did you know that consumers actually like email messages featuring promotions or information about products they are interested in? They do. Today’s opt-in regulations make the experience safer for consumers because they’re protected from data abuse and can opt out anytime. With the option to cancel, consumers are more likely to choose email subscriptions based on what they want.

Increased ROIs

There’s no doubt that an effective email marketing campaign will yield results — a growth in sales, conversations, and your bottom line. The result comes from creating a carefully planned, targeted and optimized email campaign.

To experience an increase in sales, conversions, and ROI, eTargetMedia can help you craft and implement a strategic, targeted email marketing campaign. To learn more about how you can craft a strategic email campaign and see results, contact eTargetMedia today.

The most effective direct communication channel for daily use is email. Consumers and businesses alike use email on a daily basis to communicate with clients, potential customers, friends, and family. What’s more, the use of smart phones and tablets has made it even more convenient for people to use email no matter where they go.

If you own a business, you know the value of a powerful email marketing campaign. You can use email marketing to increase sales, create leads, strengthen relationships, build customer loyalty, and increase traffic to your site. But email campaigns are constantly evolving, and it can be challenging to stay on top of the latest tactics. If your email marketing campaign needs a facelift, don’t worry. eTargetMedia offers the following five tips on how to enhance your email marketing campaign.

Identify Email Marketing Goals and Objectives

Every powerful email marketing campaign starts with a strategy. Before you even begin crafting a campaign, identify and write down your goals and objectives. What do you want to accomplish with this campaign? Some common goals and objectives include using email marketing to boost sales and revenue, generate leads, build brand awareness, and strengthen customer relationships.

Create a Permission-Based List

An effective email marketing campaign starts with a permission-based list. The easiest way to create such a list is to ask your customers to opt-in to receive your messages. You can make the offer more appealing by offering a discount, a free download, or more information about your products or services.

Rent a Permission-Based List

In addition to building your own permission-based list, you can also rent an opt-in-list from an email list company, such as eTargetMedia. This type of company can provide you with not only an opt-in list, but also the help you need to plan and manage the entire email marketing campaign. They can help you with selecting the list, creating the campaign, delivery, and tracking the results.

Segment Your Audiences

A smart way to target the right audience is to create segmentation criteria. Analyze specific qualifiers such as demographic, geographic, and psychographic qualifiers. The complex segmentation criteria will ensure that your campaigns are tailored to meet the needs of specific email recipients. We recommend doing A/B splits to send unique messages to different segments.

Tailor the Message

Spend time thinking about the message you want to send. What do you want to say? And more importantly, what do you want your audience to do after reading the message? Do you want them to call a certain number, request more information, or purchase a product? Next, craft a tailored message according to the interests of your audience. It’s also important to feature value-added content or special offers to enhance engagement with your message.

In the world of online marketing, it doesn’t get more potent than a strategic email marketing campaign. While most marketers can agree on that statement, many are unclear on the dos and don’ts of an effective email message. In this blog post, eTargetMedia covers one of the major don’ts of email marketing — batch-and-blast emails.

Also called broadcast emails, a batch-and-blast email campaign is no longer considered an effective way to reach your target audience. Why? There are many reasons, the first of which is most important: it’s not permission based. According to Direct Marketing News, many companies are still sending out broadcast emails, but these types of campaigns are not permission based.

Another reason is context. With the rise of location-based marketing, the article suggests that today’s effective email campaign must be “relevant and timely,” which means taking into account important data such as when and how subscribers open their emails.

Finally, batch-and-blast campaigns are no longer “in” because they simply don’t work. According to the article, marketers who invest in broadcast emails are “contributing a gradually shrinking portion of overall email marketing revenue.”

So what’s in? Triggered emails. Unlike batch-and-blast campaigns, triggered emails are “capturing an increasing share of program revenue.” In fact, the article reports that some major companies receive the most of their email marketing income from triggered emails.

So if you’re still using batch-and-blast, it’s time to reconsider your email marketing tactics. eTargetMedia can help you create a permission-based email marketing campaign that meets your demographic criteria and drives results.