About Ant Hodges

Christian Businessman, father of two, husband of one. Expertise in digital marketing, graphic / web design and email marketing

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Dec 10

Keep the pedal to the metal in 2010

With the deepest part of the recession behind us the UK still finds itself technically in the it’s hole.

I’m not going to get political here but reading between the lines and seeing that nonprofits are making pitches for new marketing efforts, service businesses are starting to pick up the pace a little and the Christmas season is here, it’s all about a busy end to another year.

Here at toinfinity we are busy with more proposals and quotes going out the door each day, as well as working on some great projects with new and long standing clients.

Here are my thoughts to help you keep the pedal to the metal in 2010 and ride out this storm, producing more news for us all to read about SME’s bucking the trend.

Try small steps towards a new promotional offer

In the new year it is the B2C companies that are most likely to feel a drain in January. Everyone spent out on Christmas and a long January till they get paid. But in no way does that mean that you have to come to a standstill with your marketing efforts. Have a think about a possible 1st Jan offer that you could make available for one day, then lead into an offer available for the whole of January.

Planning for the year ahead and setting goals

Every business coach under the sun that I have come across has always championed goal setting – I am not going to disagree. Make sure that you have in your mind, then on a wall planner, your aims and goals for 2010. It could be that you want 500 new subscribers to your email newsletter by May 2010, or that you even want to start one.

Think about the future yourself, then think about how you can help your clients or customers to plan ahead. If you are a travel rep, how about getting in now for travel plans throughout the year? Summer wont be far away, so why don’t all the child minders rock up their websites in prep for those working parents in preparation to get them thinking about the 6 week summer holidays?

Recap and inform

We find that a lot of people use their email marketing in January for a roundup newsletter of the past year and how they are looking forward to working with clients again in the following year. These normally always start “Thanks for working with is last year…” – don’t forget your P’s and Q’s!

Are you ready for the break?

Most of you might be thinking, “BREAK! What break!” – but I can almost guarantee that most of your clients will go a little off the boil in the next few days, wanting to wind down themselves. Something to do with Christmas parties and mulled wine and mince pie coffee breaks.

What I will be doing is planning for the year ahead so that when I do get the time off over Christmas, I can relax somewhat. Being part of the management or even running your own business yourself is sometimes a 24/7/365 job. Plan your time to down tools and chill with family and friends. Enjoy things this Christmas.

It has been a hard year for nearly everyone in business this year and unlike those city bankers, not all of us are getting huge bonuses either.

So have a very Merry Chirstmas and enjoy your break

Plan your digital marketing to work alongside your traditional marketing for 2010 and let’s see how we can all rise from the ashes of the recession.

Filed under  //   Christmas   Digital Marketing   Email Marketing   Goal Setting   toinfinity  
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Nov 16

Email Marketing - Testing and more testing

Email Marketing

I had a conversation this morning over Twitter (via @anthodges) about sending mass HTML emails.

The person in question was using WindowsMail to send the HTML emails out, on mass, and using the BCC field to put all the names in. Does the job. But the issue was that many people have been telling this person that the emails are going into junk mail folders or are displaying with loads of funny characters and layout issues - never mind the fact that I raised the issue of tracking and measuring campaigns is impossible through WindowsMail.

When sending email marketing campaigns it is important to remember that how you see it on your screen and through your email program is not how everyone else will see it. You need to remember to test you email.

From my own experience, testing a design in all the different email clients out there was one of the most frustrating parts of sending email campaigns in the early days. You need to really look for a provider that has the ability to test all the email clients out there and also pick up any potential issues with your design or content that may cause the SPAM filters to quarantine your email.

Here at toinfinity we have a system called BeyondMail. Built in to this system we have design and spam testing tools. Sure you could create test accounts at all the free internet service providers (IPS's)like Hotmail, Google and Yahoo, sign up (and pay) for other ISP's like Earthlink and Comcast, set up a few virtual machines to cover different operating systems, purchase and install each of the spam filters we test in. By why? You can do all of this in your FREE account of BeyondMail for just £14.95 per campaign.

So what do you get then?

BeyondMail will generate screenshots with images off, on and in the preview panes for over 20 email program and clients - including WindowsMail, Apple Mail, Lotus Notes and even mobile clients such as Blackberry and Windows Mobile.

With the SPAM testing, we don't just look at your content for "spammy words", BeyondMail will pass your email through real spam filters and tell you exactly why you failed. It will also run your email marketing campaign through a number of key spam firewalls - the gatekeepers for most ISP's and large corporations.

All that hard work done for you, all for a small fee of £14.95.

To sign up for your FREE email marketing account with BeyondMail call the team on 01793 238697 and we'll get you rocking right away.

More about BeyondMail

Beyond Mail is our own tailor made email marketing solution for organisations large and small. Operating on a pay as you go, non contractual basis, you have the freedom to choose when you send your emails and are not hampered by the thought of wasting your money if you don't send an email.

Main features

  • Use your own HTML email template, web based email design or enlist the toinfinity team to design and code up a cracking new design for you
  • Manage your subscribers on auto-pilot, easily create targeted segments and let the system handle all your sign up's from your own website
  • Real time, live stats that enable you to go beyond open and click through rates. Link into Google Analytics and track your email related conversions and even sales

For more information and for costings call the team on 01793 238697 and see how you can reduce your email marketing spend, but increase your deliverability and give a better user experience.

Filed under  //   BeyondMail   Email Marketing   Email Testing   SPAM Testing  
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Sep 11

Getting an increased number of converts from your email marketing.

If you are one of the millions of businesses that use email marketing within your promotional, branding building, advertising or networking strategies, converting people from just recipients to actual sales can be a difficult thing to do. Measuring it can be even harder.

The first thing you need to do is ensure you use an email marketing system that allows you to measure all the statistics of your campaigns. Not just the open rates and the number of click-throughs, but I suggest one that will drill down to who clicked what link specifically for each campaign so that you can see trends on some of your users over time.

Utilising the power of these stats will enable you to see if people are actually opening your emails and if they click on any links that you provide for them. This is your first goal... getting them to click on links in your email.

Your second goal is to convert those clicks into the specific action that you require from your subscribers. This may be a purchase, a survey form to complete or just some kind of response to the purpose for sending the email.

There are many ways to convert these leads to sales, but how about increasing your converts by getting a well-designed landing page on your website set up? Investing time into this will bring you great rewards… but what do you include?

A couple of simple thoughts on putting together a great landing page:

1 - Make sure that you match the design, messaging and style of your email in your landing page. Maybe even repeat the heading / subject line of the email as the heading on this page. This will keep a consistent feel to the user experience - it is also a way to give them the feelings of familiarity and comfort. They know that they have come to the right place if you do this.

2 - One straight simple route to the response you require. Keep the landing page to a minimum. Keep the one goal of trying to get the response you set out to achieve at the forefront of your mind when putting your landing page together. If you give the visitor opportunity to wander away from the page with other links and navigation, they will! Keep your subscribers and visitors to your landing pages focussed on the goal of getting that response or purchase in the bag!

For more on email marketing - contact ko-juhnt on 0844 669 8459 or email studio@ko-juhnt.com

Filed under  //   Advice   Business Tips   Email Marketing   Ko-juhnt  
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