Getting your best HTML Newsletter match

May 18th, 2011

Let’s face it; design is not everyone’s cup of tea. But with the competitive creativity of today in mind, it is not something that can be overlooked. And even if you have lassoed in some Photoshop superhero to give your website that tinge of grandness that could, all by itself, make life worth living, without the means to court surfers to your domain you are always going to be just a pretty face.

One such method is email newsletter marketing.

As boring as it may sound at first, and as reluctant as you may be to add to the digital landfill by potentially becoming a junk mailer, an attractive newsletter circular is sure to give visitors pause for thought. However, choosing the right design should be done with great care. Readers should be attracted at a glance and able to digest what you desire to convey within moments, without forcing them to puzzle over your call to action. Inbox flooding due to the high volumes of online traffic has become commonplace. With the normal person unable and unwilling to absorb every bit of information that the mass media is shovelling at them 24/7, cognitive cherry-picking has become necessary to filter all the babble.

The reality is that you literally have but a few seconds to flirt with your customers before they decide to take things to second base. Nobody wants their message to go in the one ear and out the other. This is where effective html newsletter design comes in. But before you start thinking that this means you need to botox your newsletter, have it go on a low fat diet and invest in silicone enhancements, explore how a few basic styling aspects can perk-up your appeal.

Again, design is not everyone’s forte, which is why pre-designed newsletter templates are often the best bet. There are many varieties of these to choose from; though before you commit to one, buy a house and grow old together, make sure it really is a keeper:

The newsletter design should be industry-specific. This is all too obvious, but often the first major oversight. Show your customers what they are interested in seeing, not what interests you in seeing. So, for example, if you are advertising sports cars your newsletter should fit that paradigm by looking equally slim, extravagant and fast – and not like you are trying to punt a bake-sale.

Get tested. Whereas many people are contented to just snatch the prettiest one and then rush along without concern for picking up something bad later in the campaign, you should make doubly sure that the HTML Newsletter you choose is tested to render/display across all the big email clients. Accounts such as MSN, Yahoo!, Gmail, Outlook, Thunderbird and so on, are good places to start.

Everyone likes to play, and your newsletter template should allow you the freedom to do the same. The ability to personalize content goes without saying, but it is the extent to which you can use the template to produce that prized design will rapidly reveal whether a particular one is going to be worth the trouble. See what you are practically allowed to do and what the limitations are. Most designs are generically flexible, but opt for the newsletter template that is pliable enough to rock your socks off.

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Tags: marketing
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Why use email marketing software?

May 11th, 2011

Email marketing has become such a competitive industry that companies are now forced to look for alternative ideas to stand out from the crowd.

With so many brands competing for customer attention, basic emails will no longer suffice in order to create the desired response levels.

It is for this reason that email marketing software has become so popular with email marketers. Some experts may even argue that it is now essential to purchase some form of software to assist with an email marketing campaign.

There are a dozens of computer programs available to help improve the content sent out to customers. So what should marketers look for from their email marketing software?

Email tracking software

Most companies will invest in some sort of tracking software in order to monitor the response rate of their emails. It would be impossible to measure the success of any marketing campaign without a set of figures based on response. Most email marketing software will allow users to track anything from open rates and click through rates to response and conversion rates for all email marketing campaigns.

Creating customized emails

The goal for any form of marketing is capture the attention of a potential customer within a few seconds. A decent email marketing software package should offer a wide range of customization options for your marketing campaign. Examples of these options could include refer a friend links, template and image altering or links to social media.

Event-triggered emails

An event-triggered email is any email sent due to the occurrence of a predetermined event. These can include simple events such as new blogs being posted on a website or complex occasions such as a birthday of a customer’s relative. Most email marketing software should allow the customization of occasions when event triggered emails can be sent.

With the vast amount of email marketing software currently available on the market, website owners should shop around for the most quality product before investing in what has become an essential email marketing tool.

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Google Panda Evaluation

May 6th, 2011

In March 2011, Google launched a historic change to its algorithm which greatly affected what sort of websites ranked highest in it’s SERPs.

The updates, named either Google Panda or Google Farmer (depending on preference), caused a lot of controversy amongst website owners after some saw their traffic hit up by up to 99 per cent.

The aim of the updates was to decrease the searchability of content farm websites which produce lots of duplicate material therefore giving prominence to quality websites which provide original insightful material.

This article aims to evaluate the effectiveness of Google Panda and questions what is next for the search engine.

What websites have been affected

The latest post-Panda traffic figures suggest that the main beneficiaries are large news companies or national newspaper websites. Popular farm websites such as eHow, ezinearticles were amongst those hardest hit by the updates.

However, internet message boards have been filled with complaints from website owners who claim they have been unfairly punished by the new updates.

How to avoid being punished by Panda

Spokespeople from Google are keen to encourage websites to avoid being punished by the Panda update. The main communications coming from the search engine advises website owners to produce constant quality content as this is what Panda is trying to promote.

Other tips to improve SEO include moving any bulk content offsite and addressing any pages that have low visitor performance.

Panda evaluation

The Panda update may have upset a fair few business owners and at present there seems to be little evidence that smaller, quality websites are directly benefiting from the updates.

However, there is no question that Google’s intentions are definitely in the right place as the majority of web users would much rather be guided towards quality original material rather than websites producing copies of old material.

It could be suggested that there is still some work to do make Panda perfect, but the updates have certainly made the web a better place.

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YouTube Founders Buy Delicious

April 27th, 2011

The social bookmarking site Delicious.com has taken its next step on its journey, leaving the hostile womb of Yahoo! for the more promising pastures of YouTube. The deal was announced this morning, and though the details are skill forthcoming, this is probably good for Delicious.

In a poorly handled media mishap, last December Yahoo! announced it would be shutting down Delicious, only to later clarify (or change their mind?) that they would actually be looking to sell the site. If the site is anything like their parent company, who wouldn’t want to buy it?

So now, instead of a site run by a company on the brink of failure and whose function has remained mostly unchanged, Delicious will be run by a growing site that is continually expanding its influence.

All users will be able to keep their current usernames, passwords, information, bookmarks, etc. It will just be transferred over to the new company. And while it may be several months before there’s any noticeable difference or changes with the site, there has already been one huge improvement.

You no longer have to sign in with your Yahoo! account. Or, for those of you who abandoned Yahoo! around the same time you abandoned Brittney Spears, you won’t have to sign up for a Yahoo! account just to get a Delicious account. Current users will have to sign in one final time with their Yahoo! ID, but moving forward will be able to login with just their username and password.

What the strategy for all of this is, I don’t know; I don’t understand if there’s some sort of advantage to handcuffing one account to another, but it’s certainly inconvenient.

So, moving forward, we’ll just have to wait and see what Delicious brings us. I doubt the changes will be drastic, and it will still be a good site for personal and public use; but hopefully it will once again on the up and up.

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Tags: delicious, yahoo, youtube
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How Editorial Discretion affects SEO and Linking

April 15th, 2011

Whether you’re delving into guest blogging or you’re just doing link building for your website, it’s important to take editorial discretion into account.

When I’m submitting content to be featured on a website or a link to be included in a directory, the individuals in charge of that website have no responsibility to automatically include your link or your article. To the contrary, most of them have specific guidelines as to what they will or won’t accept. While there are some things no site will accept (things illegal or offensive in nature), there are others that are less strict.

For instance, social networking sites will allow you to post pretty much anything. Sites like Delicious, Reddit, Digg, etc. will let you submit content that will instantly be available. If enough people mark is as spam or report you for offensive content it will likely get taken down quickly, but the sites allow you to make that initial submission without any editorial decision.

Because of this, these sites are often less valuable when it comes to link building and SEO. However, those sites that must approve links or those sites which go through a strenuous editorial process – especially if they’re bigger or more popular sites – are going to provide you with more valuable links.

This, one can suppose, is a big reason why Google’s recent Panda update negatively affected so many of the article directories online. Too many of them would publish pretty much anything without having any editorial standard.

As mentioned, this sort of editorial discretion applies for both link building and guest blogging. So while there is a great amount of benefit in going after easy links and guaranteed traffic, there’s always a greater benefit from putting in the extra effort to earn a higher-profile link.

So when developing your link building and SEO strategy, take into consideration that you may need to work a little harder for those more valuable links.

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