Active Growth is the Activate Ireland blog, focused on internet marketing and the areas of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC) online marketing. Have a question we can answer in our blog? Contact us!
LookWest.ie is an iniative of the Western Development Commission, with responsibility for promoting economic and social development in the Western Region. LookWest.ie promotes Ireland’s Western region as a great place to live, work and do business and maintains a database of subscribed individuals and enterprises. The new look e-zine was tasked with informing and appealing to both individuals and business.
We introduced LookWest.ie in an introductory paragraph.
Each e-zine presents quite a bit of information and therefore we ‘themed’ each monthly ezine to provide focus and context.
Many of the articles contain statistical information so we presented users with a summary paragraph and the option to ‘read more’ for more in-depth information.
The stats of the first e-zine send were very encouraging. Despite a long period of inactivity with their database:
Only 8 people unsubscribed.
The open rate was 33%
The click rate was 45%
This is an indication of a finely tuned message sent to a relevant and well maintained database.
Stats vary widely on average open and click rates in e-mails. Generally accepted averages are 25% for both. That will obviously depend hugely on, amongst other things, your message, frequency of emails, quality of your database and your sector (whether it is e-commerce, B2B, charity etc).
Tips for planning an e-zine:
Plan ahead – schedule in advance and gather relevant information
Consider “theming” emails where appropriate
Have a clear focus on what you are trying to say, by basing it on what is likely to be of interest to your readers
Ask yourself why users have signed up to your e-zine. What are they expecting you to provide them with?
Break information up into bite sized chunks
Present key information in the top. Many users will see only the top in a preview pane, and will use this to assess whether to open or delete.
I’m delighted to collaborate with Sabrina Dent to bring you this two-part training day entitled Putting the Internet to Work. This full day seminar is designed to help SMEs build a comprehensive and integrated online strategy for their business. The course will cover Blogging, Social Media, SEO, PPC and Google Analytics, full course outline is available here.
Building Business Through Social Media
The Social Media seminar runs from 10 AM to 1 PM and covers:
The Whys and How-Tos of blogging for small and medium businesses
Understanding and leveraging social networks including Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook
Tools and metrics for quantifying results from blog and social network campaigns
Putting Google to Work for Your Business
The Google Tools seminar runs from 2 PM to 5 PM and covers:
Safe and effective SEO strategies to improve natural search engine results and rankings in Google
Using Google AdWords to run cost-effective PPC (Pay-Per-Click) campaigns
Utilizing Google Analytics to pull it all together, monitor results, and calculate ROI.
Designed to be hands-on and personal, we have limited each seminar to 8 participants.
As mentioned by Sabrina, we’d like to make this day available to everyone who’d like to attend, so if you need a bursary, drop us a line and we’ll do our very best to accommodate you.
I signed up to the KLM mailing list when I entered an online competition some time back. When the emails started arriving in my inbox, I noticed one important element was missing – an unsubscribe feature. So basically KLM were using these emails to broadcast to their database and giving receivers no way of opting out. Apart from so obviously being customer unfriendly, it is illegal.
I also wasn’t the only person to notice. Maryrose Lyons of Brightspark Consulting wrote about her experience in making a complaint to the Data Protection Commissioners about this KLM spam. I noticed that the last email from KLM that came into my inbox had an unsubscribe feature added to it. Hurrah! I duly unsubscribed and mentally congratulated Maryrose for her success.
So I am exasperated to have received another KLM spam email in my inbox this morning. If KLM are reading – please make note: EMAIL MARKETING 101: YOU ARE MEANT TO REMOVE THE UNSUBSCRIBES FROM YOUR LIVE DATABASE. This is a textbook case of how to generate bad will towards your own brand. Perhaps it’s time KLM called in some professionals.
Recent Comments