According to a report by StrongMail, travel and hospitality companies don't use subscriber preferences or behaviors to target their offers in pre- and post-stay emails. This is a major mistake when running an email campaign. Only 30% of travel email marketers use their subscriber preferences, and doing so generated nearly twice as much revenue from their email programs than companies that send untargeted messages. Sending untargeted emails is a mistake that can cost your company, travel-related or not, out of a lot of potential business. Here are 5 more email marketing mistakes you might be making. Timing - Deciding on what day and what ...

Using a rented email marketing list can help your company reach new potential customers who are perfectly within your target market. However, according to a survey by Marketing Sherpa, marketers have found that in-house email marketing lists are more effective than email marketing campaigns sent to third-party lists. Of the emails sent to in-house lists, 87% felt they were effective while only 51% of emails sent to third-party lists were felt to be effective. The reason why in-house email marketing lists are more effective is because those people consciously signed up to receive information from you. They are invested in your company ...

Segmenting your the email list for your email newsletter is the easiest way to improve the conversion on your email marketing campaigns. The more engaged a subscriber is, the more committed they are to your company. They would require a different message than someone who never opens your message. There are three general categories you can use to segment your email list based on engagement. Engaged Subscribers These are people who click on your emails recently and frequently. These people want your emails and will respond to offers. This should be your main focus. Semi-Engaged These are people who do not always open ...

Having inactive subscribers on your email lists can often throw off your data. These are people who have never opened a campaign, or people who haven't been active in a long time but haven't unsubscribed from the list. Segment these people into a separate list called "nonresponders" and start seeing if you can get them active again. Email a link to your opt-in form and have them sign up again. On that page, give examples of your emails so they can see what they are signing up for. Email them with a coupon for your company. The more extreme the coupon, the more ...

Are you driving away customers with your email campaigns? By sending out mass emails to all your subscribers, you could be deterring potential customers. Almost half of people who have ever unsubscribed from an email said that it was because the emails weren't relevant to them, according to a survey from the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council. Also, 41% said they would consider ending their relationship with a company because of irrelevant email or mailing campaigns and 22% said they would definitely end their relationship. About 3% of opt-in emails for subscribers in the US and Canada were sent to “junk” or ...

With people getting bombarded by more and more emails every day, it is important to keep your emails relevant to the people who are receiving them. If they aren't relevant, then people will quickly delete, unsubscribe, or mark it as spam. To make your emails relevant to subscribers, consider segmenting the recipient list. This way, the information you send out will only reach the people who need it. Pay attention to not only what services and products people are buying, but also what people are looking at on your website. This could help give you an idea about what they are interested ...

By now, you’ve become accustomed to a variety of e-mail marketing tactics.  Small and large companies alike are using  e-mail marketing to engage their audience and to grow their sales.  The truth is that blasting an e-mail to everyone on your compiled client/prospect lists is not necessarily going to yield any results. The key to maximizing your conversions and improving the effectiveness of your e-mail campaigns is to have a strategic plan.  First, analyze the data you collected from previous campaigns.  By using behavior-based targeting, the likelihood of having better conversions is much greater.  Instead of sending your e-mail offers to ...

If your e-mail marketing campaign seems to be in a rut, it might be time to look at your e-mails and see if it is time to make a few changes. Here are a few quick steps you can take to help increase your turn around rate. Change the content layout. By varying where your content is normally placed in each e-mail, it'll force people to pay more attention to what is going on and not just casually glance through. Segment the list based on customer habits. By creating more specific e-mails that go out, customer interest is more likely to increase ...

As email continues to grow as a primary method of communication in modern society, many of today's marketers are taking advantage of this medium as a cost-effective and highly useful marketing tool.  Among the many concerns email marketers face, email deliverability is predominant.  According to the 2008 Email Marketing Buyer's Guide, email deliverability is the primary consideration for online marketing professionals.  Because of the many complications involved in increasing email deliverability, many business owners allot a portion of their advertising budget to purchase access to an email service provider (ESP) specializing in email marketing.  ESPs are valuable because they provide a ...

OneIMS, a full service marketing company in Chicago, IL, provides a comprehensive web-based email marketing suite that can easily be tailored to meet the needs of marketing professionals from many industries.  Today's online business owners require comprehensive, user-friendly email marketing solutions with the wide range of services and flexibility to target their unique goals.  eDirectMail, the web-based email marketing suite offered by OneIMS, was designed specifically for online marketers by seasoned marketing professionals.  eDirectMail tools allow business owners to effortlessly send compelling, high-quality HTML/text emails, e-newsletters, event invitations, online surveys, and email marketing promotions.  The web-based software is easy to use and ...

Variable data printing (VDP) and digital printing technology allows business owners to target customers more specifically with the aid of specialty data and mailing lists.  With VDP, business owners can define a target market based on income, lifestyle choices, interests, marital status, gender, and an almost infinite number of categories.  Business owners are able to actually imagine the "perfect client," the customer most likely in need of their goods and services, and then systematically and specifically target individuals who fit that description in their direct mail marketing campaigns. These highly targeted direct mail marketing campaigns are even more effective when they ...

The 2008 Email Marketing Buyer's Guide sited email deliverability as the primary consideration for online marketing professionals.  As consumers continue to rely more and more on the internet for their shopping and purchasing considerations, today's successful business professionals maintain their edge by remaining visible and easily-located online.  Effective email marketing is an important component of any campaign; therefore, increasing email deliverability is a primary concern for many online marketers. As email marketing becomes increasing complex, many business owners find it advantageous to invest in an email service provider (ESP), an email marketing suite designed specifically for the kind of high-volume, permission-based ...