Email Marketing: design tips to improve your open rates.
Many email marketers frequently fail to realize that their subscriber's email application preview pane is the first opportunity their content has to attract the attention they require. wifeswaptv.
And unfortunately those that don't allow for a snapshot preview in their content design fall victim to lower than expected open rates as their subscribers are less likely to open the message in full. hotelsiracusa, biotechnologycourse, compressionhose.
Here are four simple steps you can to take to ensure your next email message preview pane design gets all the attention it should:
First, be aware that prior to Outlook 2003, the preview your subscriber sees runs horizontally along the foot of their screen. artposters, ceramicwholesale, countrywidecorrespondentlending. In Outlook 2003, this view is a vertical slice showing the left hand side of your content. doggates, repressionand.
As a tip take a blank sheet of paper and then reveal the top third of your next message and then the left third. coolshirts, vanguardcarrental, lexuswheels. Does what you see in both instances seem interesting enough to entice your subscribers to click on?
Second, by allowing for the thinnest of newsletter mastheads, you should cram into these viewable snippets as much content as you can. designerdress, malestimulant, adidasgolf. Plus, if this content tells your subscriber exactly what your message contains, then the chances of them opening it increase even further.
Third, don't have too many images cluttering the preview space. moosegifts, memorynotebook. By default, my version of Outlook 2003 suppresses all images sent to me in HTML messages. princesspeachxxx, drinkingfilteredwater, alkalinebattery. All I see is a sea of red crosses, which tells me nothing about the message. mapletree, outsidewoodboilers. (I tend to leave these messages until later, which CAN become NEVER! Your subscribers may well do the same.)
The smart newsletter designers use images sparingly in this top part. lambear, romainepatterson, cordlessradardetectors. Even better, they build their masthead using not images, but HTML text and colour to effectively get across their message. linearamplifier, cartkitchen. As a consumer, I'm far more tempted to break my train of thought and dig down deeper into that juicy piece of content I can see.
Thus, by treating the preview pane of your newsletter as a quick-peek mini-summary for your subscribers, you are on the right track to grab a new client!
It's simple really--the quicker your readers are intrigued by the very first lines of your email, the more they will read them.
Chris Price is the founder of Permission NZ Ltd - He has over 8 years experience in online marketing.
You can learn more about this business by visiting the company web site http://www.permission.co.nz
or his blog at http://www.chrismprice.com
Supercharge your Pay per click advertising and Google AdWords Campaigns
Okay, so you've either just created a web site and you need to get web traffic, or you have one that is under-performing and you need to do something about it. wholesaleretail, elevatedalt, girlboardingschool. Pay per Click to advertise your website using Google AdWords is the way that many people will go. wisconsinnewspaper. It's a great idea because with a successful site you really can make money online but there are a number of things that you should know before embarking on this potentially expensive but also otentially very lucrative venture. japanexport, craftsmanbandsaw.
Why use pay per click or Google Adwords?
It's simple, with so many web pages indexed now it can be all but impossible to get your pages found by someone typing their search terms into a search engine. rollercoasterworld, latenightalumni. If your website is on page 700 of the listings then no one is ever going to find your website which can be devastating for your business. defensivedrivingschool, peturinecleaning, tangodancesteps. What are you going to do? Well, you could spend a fortune on search engine optimisation (SEO) in an effort to promote your website and move up the rankings. keystoneschool, womensapparelphiladelphia. Even this may only produce a little more website traffic and you could see little return for all of the effort and expense. recipestew, bouquetlilywedding. Alternatively you can start a pay per click advertising campaign or Google Adwords campaign and see immediate results. securitypatrol, rebuiltinserters. You adverts appear instantly and from day one you have increased website traffic so you can maximise sales and make money. homefitnessgyms.
Pay per Click eliminates all of that struggle required by search engine optimisation and can give you a position on the first results page from day one. jonathanogden. Cool! That's just as good a #1 ranking on the search engine so what's the catch?
The catch is of course that many other webmasters realise this and they are already using pay per click to advertise their website or do their website promotion because they want their business to make money too. hairwig.
As this operates on the basis that the highest bidder gets the #1 ranking, you can see how this might prove to be an expensive venture if you are foolish enough to get into bidding war. furniturestripper, blacksatin, regioniv. But if you are smart enough to play the game you can get much better value for your advertising buck and reduce the amount it costs to promote a website.
Yes, it would be great to get the top slot and ideally you want to be within the first page of results returned. baltimoremesotheliomalawyers, diversityenvironment, ashlandoil. But, if you are at number four instead of number one you will still get lots of website traffic and it will cost you much less per click than the number one slot. languageschool, sqldatabase, bustersghost.
Let's face it, you want to save money wherever possible.
You have to if your'e going to make money online. cheaptires, evaporationprocess. So, how do you do it? Simple, you rely on the competitor's lack of knowledge and imagination. spectatormagazine, eroticcartoon. Many advertisers or webmasters will create a list of keywords (or phrases) that is perhaps only 200 to 500 lines long because they concentrate only on the most popular keywords and they will ignore the fact that many other keywords or phrases which are less likely to be searched for exist at all. holemacularsurgery. When they don't get results or their keywords become inactive they will often throw even more money at it because website promotion is vital to their business. impossibletrivia, hondafitvtec, fartgallery. Most advertisers will do the same. biggestbookstoreonline. This makes competition for those keywords high and the bidding war expensive. caterpillargenerators, onlineroulettegame. This is bad news for advertisers but great news for the search engines.
So what's the answer?
Irrespective of what other people are bidding there is an
opportunity for you to compete at a different level and to bid much less per keyword than the opposition. bcrichmockingbird, blankworldmap.
To save money like this all you need is a huge list of the less commonly used search terms and to bid only a few cents for each of them. creditcardholder. Overall you will most likely still get as many clicks!
Remember that you only pay when someone clicks on your link so it costs you no more to have thousands of keyword phrases in your list than only a few hundred. graduationcard. The huge benefit is that you have phrases that other people do not and that when they are searched for, not only will your advert be highly ranked but because of the lack of competition, you will get your clicks for so much less. homepage, cancerinbrain.
This allows you to bid 6cents per click where others are bidding 25cents!
How on earth though do you build a list of keywords that runs into the thousands? Fortunatly it's simple to do with the right tools. bodyoder. You can buy software to do this but you don't need to because there is a also totally free piece of software called "Keyword Kruncher" which was created specifically to help you build such a list in about 5 minutes. surveycompany. You can download it for free here:
http://www.richimajin.co.uk/krunch.php. domainprediction, clocktower.
Using this free download and the technique outlined above you can bid less for your keywords to save money on your pay per click campaign and still promote your business. cardpostsecret. This allows you to more easily make money, get website traffic to promote your business and will also help to push your website up the search engine rankings because any pay per click links that are spidered by the search engines will be indexed too. vancomycinresistantenterococcus, scallopfishing, cedarcanoe. If you want to make money or promote your website then get smart about the way you use pay per
click for website promotion.
Link Building Strategies That Work
There are a number of ideas about what are the best ways to promote a website and about the best ways to attract more visitors to a website. teethingsymptom, casablancaceilingfans. In my opinion, it is important to start up a link building campaign to increase the number of websites which have a link to your site on their site. ahmangreen, hexcolorcodes, plagasforestales. This is one proven method which has been successful in achieving high rankings for many different sites, however there are some important factors to keep in mind when attempting to build up this link network.
If you have a new site and are desperate to achieve top rankings on the top search engines such as google, think again. commercialdebtnegotiation, executiverecruiter, temperaturesenser. Most of these search engines will probably not give your new site a high ranking until it has become established. advantagetravel, tamarackrealty, kellyclarksonbreakaway. This is where the age of the domain is important. wlireservationrewards. You can not in reality expect to be placed in a higher search position than a site which has been around for eight years and which has been building up links, during this period. scabiestreatment, firefighterclipart. This is where patience is required, you should see your site as something which is going to be online for a long time and hopefully in time, some of the other sites that you are competing with will have dropped out etc.
This is the same attitude that should be applied when building up the number of backward links pointing to your site. guesseyewear, ftlauderdaleabdominoplasty, stressandhealth. Going from only a few, to a few thousand in a short space of time may not be the best idea. harppictureseal. Regular increases are in my opinion the way to go and quality is just as important as quantity. reebokoutlet, umbilicalherniaadult, templebar. Decide the ways in which you are planning to obtain your backward links and try to ensure that you obtain roughly the same amount each month, where possible of course. gucciwatchrepair. Over a long period of time this strategy is sure to pay dividends and your search engine position should steadily improve. yardlight, juristjob. You will then have an authority site, which all new sites will be aspiring to compete with. fishinglodgecanada. Like many areas of life we do not really want to wait for our success and want immediate rewards, such as high rankings. mealsdelivered, luxurybedlinens, martinsprocket. On some search engines this may be possible but on most it will require hard work and this type of patience.
The links that you obtain should where possible be from sites which are in a similar industry or subject matter, to your own site. jiujitsukimono. This is a lot easier said than done however. auctioneersong, businessopportunityleads. If your site is very well written, optimised and of use to a large number of people, you may well receive links on other sites without the need to request the link. daylilyauction. This is of course exactly what you want and is why it is important to spend time thinking of how your site is written and presented.
A good way of obtaining a link to your site is to write a reference or testimonial to owners of other sites with which you have had dealings with. glassdinnerware, educationlibrarian. Offer to write them this testimonial which of course will be of great benefit to them, on the understanding that they will include a link back to your site at the bottom.
I personally concentrate on obtaining one-way links as I believe these to have the most value. giftformusician, coveyfranklinstore. One way I do this is by writing articles such as the one you are reading. flashingheadlight, egyptianamulet, fourqueenshotel. There are a great number of benefits of writing articles which can be read at most of the article directories such as ezinearticles. simcoereformer, citizencane. I would certainly recommend it to other people who are thinking of starting up a link building campaign.
Stephen Hill helps to promote a number of websites including:
stuttering treatment
guide to anti-aging
quit smoking tips. lemysterebras, snaketattoos
