“Your email needs to show personality. Get personal and tell a story that others can connect with.”

Daniel Miller is Benchmark Email’s Director of Marketing. At Benchmark, Daniel has helped businesses from mom and pop shops and kitchen table operations to large enterprises find the best possible email marketing solutions and strategies. Read on to explore Daniel’s knowledgeable insights via his words of wisdom he shared with SparkEmail Design:

On unsolicited email sales pitches:

When it comes to dealing with blasts of sales pitch emails, Daniel says it is best to ignore them. Especially if they come across as poorly put together. He feels the best practice to stand out amongst a sea of such similar email pitches would be getting straight to the point. Let your email’s personality shine through.

On determining the success of email campaigns:

When asked regarding the key metrics used to measure the success of an email campaign, Daniel touched upon these:

• He stated that Opens indicated a sense of interest. Using the from name and subject line along with the preview text can entice subscribers to open emails. He adds, “This is your 3-second likability”.
• Daniel mentions that Clicks highlight the real interested people. He also warns to keep in mind, that the subscribers don’t buy anything on email. They still have to complete the process to buy something.
• He points out that Bounces project how clean the email list is. Daniel suggests, if your emails experience a bounce rate above 2%, consider cleaning your list with a service like Kickbox.

Unsubscribes is the index of the level of overall interest toward your business. To effectively minimize unsubscribes, Daniel advises to adequately segment your lists and ensure that your emails are sent with proper branding and clear offers.

He recommends: “When it comes to list segmentation, group people by interests, locations, previous products purchased, types of products purchased, actions taken or not taken, etc”. According to Daniel, “The more personal, the better.”

On monitoring email campaigns:

He further ahead says that when seeking for a complete picture of your campaign, incorporating services like Google Analytics, can assist in tracking the activity of your subscribers on your website. Daniel said that this allows a business to properly calculate ROI and overall performance.

On outshining competition:

Daniel cites that the foremost way to stick out among competitors, offerings the same range of rates and discounts is to be authentic. Showcase your authenticity. Moreover, he says that discounts are great but people more often buy out of trust.

Quoting Daniel, “Let your subscribers get to know you and your personality”.

On best practices of subscriber engagement:

Daniel also enlightened us on how to provide specific information that each subscriber desires. For this, he levies his focus on collecting the right data as an absolute essential. He states that at the moment of signup or purchase, make sure to collect the data needed to later on segment your list. He backs this up with an illustration:

“For example, if you have a chain of restaurants, a valuable piece of information may be their Zip code. This way you can send them specials and deal relevant to their local store. You can also collect data along the way. Every open and click is a subscriber telling you something as well. Be smart about your subject lines and calls to action as you can also create lists and segments based on engagement behavior. As an example, after a customer purchases something, send an email asking them how everything went. No long survey, just two links. “Great Service / I Was Disappointed.” Depending on the link your subscriber clicks on, you can automatically place them into a new list called “Happy Customers” or send their information to a service representative to get more information on what went wrong.”

P.s: for a deeper perspective into email marketing, digital marketing, SEO related tips, and info stay tuned for a part-II of this interview with Benchmark Email’s Daniel Miller.

Follow SparkEmail Design for enriching guest interviews, blogs, and content from relevant industry networks and personnel who spill the beans on everything you ever wanted to know about the digital space.

SparkEmail Design updates its audiences with effective email engagement, marketing best practices and tips on the daily. If you enjoyed what you read then you might want to consider bookmarking this page or simply sign up to our email list. We will notify you each time we update our blog with such awesome content. Reach out to us at info@sparkemaildesign.com or call on +1 (909) 689 8771.

How to integrate your Canva templates with MailChimp?

With Canva build appealing:
Documents 

1. Presentations
2. A4 documents 
3. Letters
4. Letterheads
5. Resumes
6. Reports

Canva has flawless capabilities to print posters, business cards, flyers, postcards and invitations.

Canva smoothly caters to the social media spectrum. It generates amazing Instagram, Facebook posts and stories.

Craft great Facebook covers and Facebook app ads too.

Also, create beautiful cards, photo-books, calendars, and planners, etc.

Since Canva can do it all, there’s all the more reason to sync it with your MailChimp account. Explore the endless potential of Canva for your business emails.

Here’s how you can integrate Canva with MailChimp in a jiffy:

Build a design

• To get cracking, sign up or log in to Canva. Fixate upon what sort of graphics you would like to create, then pick a template.
• Personalize it with customization and get the look you desire.

Design Template

• You can drag and drop images to design your template. And also set font style and font size.
• You allow to change the background images or upload yours.

Publish to MailChimp

• Once you are fully satisfied with your design, on the top corner of your screen select the white button to select your publishing option.
• Then click on Mailchimp.

Link your MailChimp account

• In case this is the first time around you have published to MailChimp, you shall be indicated to link your Canva account to your MailChimp account.
• Feed your MailChimp details like username and password to connect seamlessly.

Incorporate your design to your newsletter

• Open MailChimp.
• Go to the Content section.
• Under My Files, you will find your design.

And just like that, you’ve successfully managed to fuse Canva with your MailChimp account. Now you are all set to create incredible, eye-catching graphics for your business!

MailChimp’s detailed review - its features and more

Is your business looking to spice up emails with fancy new designs? Looking for a sophisticated and user-friendly email tracking program? Your search ends with the all-in-one brilliant MailChimp!

Choosing a capable email automation and measurement tool like MailChimp is absolutely critical to any digital campaign.MailChimp templates allow business owners to engage effectively with their target audiences. Here’s a run-down of some of the major features of MailChimp email marketing platform:

Design your own beautiful MailChimp newsletter template or leave it to SparkEmail experts to create a spectacle of a design tailor-made just for you. Reach out to SparkEmail at info@sparkemaildesign.com

Klaviyo: Marketing automation, integration and email platform for e-commerce

Introduction of Klaviyo

Klaviyo is a marketing automation platform concentrated on email and designed to efficiently empower e-commerce businesses. Klaviyo email marketing is a cloud-based and super simple to use tool. Klaviyo emails effectively target, personalize, monitor and optimize their e-marketing campaigns, this includes Facebook campaigns as well.

Klaviyo’s free account accommodates a capacity of sending 500 emails(which includes newsletters) and covers 250 contacts. Once their email list hits the 300 contacts milestone, the users will have to begin shelling out $25 per month. The price is related to the size of your growing email subscribers list.

Users shall also get A/B testing tools, responsive drag and drop email creator. Klaviyo templates let users segment their list based on different factors like their web behaviour pattern and open rates etc. This powerful marketing system includes site tracking, 360 degrees clientele profile, autoresponders, custom activity field, 1- click integration and ROI based reporting. It seamlessly pulls out its data from existing e-commerce channels without relying on any traditional tools(like spreadsheets).

Klaviyo is a centralized e-commerce marketing automation that has potent features of a sales-boosting.

Features of Klaviyo

• Powerful segmentation
  
  Targets based on behaviour, browsing, properties and much more
• Website tracking
  
  Uses visitors behaviour to target triggered emails and segment your audience
• ROI-based reporting
  
  Monitors sales from email marketing, based on actual transactions
• Responsive email templates, drag-and-drop email design
  
  This easy feature makes it absolutely a child’s play to make great emails possible
• One-click integrations and API for custom integration
  
  Gets all your important data in one place.No development required whatsoever!
• Built-in autoresponders
  
  Turn to pre-built workflows because time is precious. Also, time is money so start making more money in minutes.

Klaviyo vs MailChimp

MailChimp vs Klaviyo

Conclusive note:

Only because a tool or a platform is free/cheap does not always mean it will save you a buck in the longer run. Remember ,time is money; so if you are expending all of your time teaching your employees or yourself how to craft emails and then your emails turn out just OK, it might be better to invest some more money for a platform that can help you build email campaigns that actually convert. Here’s where we come to the rescue!Leave it to SparkEmail experts to create a spectacle of a design tailor-made for you. Reach out to SparkEmail at info@sparkemaildesign.com

Why Email Marketing Campaigns are Still Vital for Businesses of All Sizes

Nowadays, brands have ample diverse mediums to engage with customers that it’s easy to overlook some of them. Is it still a worthwhile strategy for small and growing business and marketers to implement an email marketing campaign?

Email is one of the oldest forms of marketing, so it’s often considered a thing of the past, but that’s far from true. According to Statista, there are 3.7 billion active email users across the globe. While attempting to engage customers with comprehensive marketing campaigns, don’t forget to communicate with them directly– with promptly timed, particularly personalized, and well-formulated email campaigns. 39 percent want email content to be more informational than promotional, according to Adobe Campaign’s fourth annual consumer email survey results released in August. Therefore, thoroughly building your email list and mastering how you utilize it still remains the single best marketing channel. Here are a few amongst many reasons as to why email marketing still hold a strong foothold :

1. Email is Hands Down the Simplest Way to Reach Out to Smartphone Customers

Smartphone email users escalate nearly every day by the minute and sidelining them or their needs could adversely compromise your ’s email marketing goals. It is an uncomplicated tool to get in touch with mobile users without having to burn a hole in the pocket. Instead of spending oodles of money on any new technologies or software, Responsive Email Marketing Campaigns are an easy start to tap into the cell phone users segment. With increasingly more and more customers accessing their emails via smartphones, it makes more sense to resort to this practice. This means that email marketing campaign messages double as mobile marketing messages. Win-win situation!

2. Email is a Viable Tactic to Keep Customers up-to Speed And Informed

It should come as no surprise that communicating with your customers is imperative. It is key to having a reliable means to communicate with your consumers. Also, it is equally important for your clients to know what these channels are. Email marketing helps you to build brand visibility and awareness which contribute to sustainable growth over time. A proficiently tailored email marketing campaign allows businesses and consumers to stay well connected. Businesses deploy emailing as a platform for dispersing accountable and authentic communication to its clients. Creative Email Marketing Templates enable credible and genuine information to be shared in an interactive manner.

3. Email Marketing Campaigns are Conveniently Budget Friendly

With email marketing campaigns, your business can create far-reaching relationships with a larger audience at a fraction of the cost of traditional media. For small-business owners, this makes it a more lucrative choice. No print prices, no postage fees, no advertising rates. Such a substantial ROI allows you to do more with less, making it absolutely fitting for small businesses that are working with tight budgets.

It help you to find and capture your right target audience being able to strategically select your intended audiences solves all the basic issues of non-targeted marketing. With marketing campaigns, you have more meticulous control over who views your them. By systematically segmenting your contacts list based on their lead status, demographics, name, gender, location, or other data points. Targeting emails ensure that your target group receives content suited specifically to their needs. Both clients and business owners gain since you are able to customize a message for each consumer depending on a segment to foster a higher conversion rate.

4. Measure Your Performance with Email Metrics

Investigative data are mandatory for estimating the success of any campaign. Many marketing channels present indeterminate and approximate results. On the contrary, email marketing campaigns depict accurate and valuable metrics, of the likes of click-to-deliver rates, subscriber retention rates, open rates, and delivery rates. Better yet, these metrics are beyond just mere percentages and numbers. They are a penetration into your consumer’s habits, interests, and behaviors. Utilize your campaign as an instrument to keep an eye out for which information your customers are most receptive to. On the basis of this background, you can furthermore aim your marketing strategies onto the more successful campaigns and topics of interest.

5. Email Marketing Campaigns Allow Distribution at Scale

Only a few styles of marketing are as plain sailing to share as email marketing. With the easy click of the forward button, subscribers can share your offers, deals and news with their friends. Signers who share your email campaigns are serving as brand advocates. Consequently, when a subscriber shares it with their friends, your brand gains more exposure and credibility.

All though email might be an old school tactic it definitely still works. It’s relatively straightforward to start off with email marketing campaigns, so there’s not really any excuse for business owners to not be making the most of this advantageous platform. Understandably, business owners may have their hands too full already to take up email marketing on their own. If you don’t possess the in-house capabilities to develop and implement your small businesses email campaigns, then you might consider working with outside talent. Working in corporation with an agency you to unburden , thereby letting them focus on alternative core business tasks.

The agency will readily assist you to achieve higher results a lot of quickly given their expertise with this tactics. If you’re on a look out for assistance on this foreground consider contacting our team to discuss which of our email marketing plans would be best for your business. For more information on email marketing, reach out to info@sparkemaildesign.com.

E-mail CONTENT: Undertaking THE Electronic Mail RIGHT

The whole email promoting effort is based on the email articles that comprise the niche traces and period of the content, font size, style, everything. We understand the email marketer, it's the most boring undertaking to proofread this content because after all, it's necessary for you to turn into the optimal/optimally critic of your own as well as your creativity, i.e., Composing. Deciding the proper email articles to the successful email marketing campaign is not difficult because it seems over. All you have to is a while, time and the appropriate tools to proofread it as many instances as you can.

Initially WRITING, THEN Proof-reading

What exactly is required to compose the proper content? For the better and straightforward understanding, it is essential to possess the communication in regards to the service/ item with all the consumer. To make sure it's just one, proofreading is crucial. We have shared specific methods and need-to-know a few ideas for that better proofreading of email content material.

STAY Concentrated

Exactly enjoy we try different-size to pick one outfit according to our body dimensions, to produce the content function, it is highly advisable to alter the format of the content to find the exact mistake. After the draft is prepared, take the break and return, begin reading the sentences for the different purchase. Once you are done with this specific task, modify the structure of this draft. You'll find even tools available online to proofread the email articles, optimizing the writing body with the high efficacy as well as the accuracy. Before doing this, just take a while outside and subsequently set the job to get the feedback on their content.

GO THROUGH THE E-Mails, IN REVERSE

For the sophisticated proofreading, the one thing you are able to consider while the suggestion would be read the articles after the handful of hours and maybe even days. Or the better advice would be that, take the rest once you've finished writing the complete email content. This will enable your own brain to throw off the pale with all the bright view to the content translation. Format means to change the font style, size, utilize the colored fonts if it's not, adjust the background color, and what which was perhaps not previously implemented to your content. This kind of the creation can let you gauge, i.e., proofread the email content. Format, the material such it, will work best that you find the problems if you can find not any.

EXPERIMENT WITH the Information FORMAT

Email design? Checked. Readers segmentation? Checked. Email content? I would like to do this proofreading back again. Perhaps not once, double however as many situations you format the mail templates or the different layouts for the email advertising campaigns, then you take the glimpse within the email content, so which makes sure it sounds appropriate to the viewers, i.e., clients. This is the distinctive and perfect way to see the most mistakes from the email material to categorize this. Proof-read the articles by merely reading the sentences from the reverse direction, term. Why should you practice this? Such action will enable the brain to target bit longer on each word of the content as the stream of studying paragraphs will be lost.

CROSS VERIFY THE E-Mail CONTENT

In all honesty, only let set off the distractions while doing the clipping the address. Whatever which arrives among your primary task, tend not to wait. It is hard but to have the distraction-free natural environment at work if you aren't doing this freelancing. The other email information such as the identity of this sender, dates, email subject traces, information & figures has to be correct because the visitors have gotten far too smart. You can make the usage of these content programs for optimizing the electronic mail articles which may let you proofread the complete email address. If you have made the utilization of the links, make sure that it lands at which it will function and you want to earlier hitting send out tab. For the maximum efficacy of this email content, ensure that you perform the proofreading job for that perfect email in the distraction-free atmosphere. The accuracy, as well as the outcome, will definitely endure the results of the email marketing campaign. This type of the activity will let you spot the problems from the material that would maybe not be more observable while drafting the articles. Additionally, if the proofreading is done straightforwardly, the odds are that you will need to have missed the severe mistake otherwise making the email articles feeble or oblivious to the electronic mail template style. Every one of the information, data and the essential points you assemble from the mail content together must be crosschecked, double and verified checked before sharing it with the subscribers. From different sources, you must have collected the information and also the crucial information. Therefore it has to become confirmed to become suitable for the customers to learn.

CONCLUSION

The very first thing right after writing this articles the writer will hop will be to proofread your entire address. It's likely that soon after the creating this content, the chances are you aren't going to find the glitches because there are contained from the draft. As a consequence, you will proofread what you might have written rather than understanding the interpretation behind the email address.

source:-EMAIL CONTENT: DOING THE EMAIL RIGHT

EMAIL MARKETING: THE MOST UNDERESTIMATED YET POWERFUL TOOL

In the world of the business and the corporate world, email has become the convenient mode of communication between the brand owner and customer. The task of sending the series of the email according to the segmented audience varies greatly, depending on the product/ service they are offering to the customer.

The email marketing campaigns are going strong and so does the people behind them are always struggling with the innovative ideas. Scrolling through the different web pages about how to have the positive email conversions, email marketers are themselves now confused about what to do and how to make the recipient to open their brand/ business email.

Many of the email marketers are following the set of rules laid by the top marketer team from the qualified brand/ business. It must have worked for them but not necessarily can work for everyone. There is nothing to be sad or worry about. We have shared some of the Do’s and Dont’s which can be helpful to you for your email marketing campaign.

DO NOT BE MYSTIFIED ABOUT THE ALREADY LAID RULES

Often times, as an email marketer, you must have read or heard about that the TUESDAY is the best day to send the email to the positive open & conversion rate. For some, yes, and other time, NO. It is not necessary that if for the business A the Tuesday happens to be the best day to send the email and receiving the positive outcome, it will work for you as well.

Every business is different, therefore following any set of rules or the myths will not give you the boost to your email marketing campaigns. The reason why TUESDAY was chose the best day for the email is,

l People are not yet over the weekend hangover, therefore Monday is not suitable for the positive open conversion rate.

l Wednesday and Thursday, the people are struggling to be in the mood of the work, therefore the idea to shoot the marketing email on these days is risky.

l Friday again the working people are gearing up for the weekend.

l Weekends are when the people log in or check their emails, hardly.

So the day left for the week is TUESDAY.

It is not the full proof theory, but yes, for some brands and the business the Tuesday has worked for their email marketing campaign on the positive note. There are some stats which says that the Tuesday is the worst day to send the emails and believes that the weekends are the best time to shoot the number of email series to the customer.  

WHAT TO DO?

Which day will work for you is all dependent on the size of your email list, your target audience and also what you have for the customer to offer. As the brand owner, you can lead and instruct the email marketing team to run the email test campaign and then come to the conclusion which day is best for your business for the engagement with the customers.

MAINTAIN THE TONE OF YOUR CONTENT

As the email marketer, you are bound to go for the perfection in the email templates. Design, template size, logo, colors, content, fonts, and CTA. When you focus too much on these aspects of the email marketing campaign, the one thing you lose the focus on is the tone and the interpretation of your message with the customer.

WHAT TO DO?

You can run the test email with the plain email template. Do not be surprised! According to the Unbounce fact, plain email templates i.e. No logos and the colors has 35% better performance. When there are no logos and the colors in the email template, all you can then focus on the engaging content of the email. If you think it is relevant to shoot the long tail emails to the customer for the better interpretation of your message to them, you should not shy away from testing such emails as well.

ENSURE THE ACCURATE DATA

The analyzation of the data of your email marketing campaign is necessary for the engaging open and click-through rates. Many of the top-notch companies ensure the proper usage of the data which includes the customer’s behavior and also the factors which they ignore or encourage them to open the email.

WHAT TO DO?

The analysis of the data for your email marketing can help you to study the insights and also it will let you segment the target audience related to your business. According to the MailChimp data, the segmented email campaigns had the 14.41% open rate compare to the non-segmented email campaigns. Also, the click rate for the segmented email campaign increased by 63.75%. The personalized email templates as well are successful with the 26% more open rate on an average.

MOBILE FRIENDLY

There is increasing number of the Smartphone users in the world, optimizing almost everything on it. While the brands are creating and shooting the email templates, there are certain email campaigns which are not compatible with the small screens i.e. Smartphone. Without ignoring the fact and the data researched; from 2011 to 2015, the email open rate on the Smartphone has grown from 8% to 55% respectively. The number is continuing to grow still.

WHAT TO DO?

The stats are enough to make you understand that the email marketing campaigns should be optimized for the Smartphone screens as well. It is advisable as well as suggestive that the email marketers should first focus on the mobile users and then on the huge screen. While doing so, avoid the phrase such as- ‘ if you are having difficulty reading the email, click here.’ placing the right CTA keeping in mind the mobile screen should also be taken care of by the email marketer.

SOCIAL IDENTIFICATION

The social media revolution has made the world go around to play safe every time they have introduced something new. The email marketing campaigns work on the aspects of the content and also how popular the brand is on the social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The number of likes and the followers make the customer trust on the even basis when they are new to your business.

WHAT TO DO?

Include the social media plugins into the email templates. You can channelize the audience to your social media page or account and also ask them to share it or make the use of the hashtags which you have asked them to do in the email content. Offer the personalized promotions who are following your page and sharing the email content with their friends. 

EMAIL MARKETING BLOG: HOW TO GET AWAY FROM SCRATCHING YOUR HEAD TO DECIDE TOPIC?

As an email marketing content writer, it is difficult to think and share the idea of the blog which will fascinate and interest your audience to read it completely. In fact, it becomes difficult to think uniquely about the topic which is already being shared on the SEO.

Reason? There are many absurd reasons we would say. It can be: you have already been very much creative during the beginning of the job as the content writer or maybe you are the new one to this field/ industry to understand. There can be more reasons than this what we have shared here.

You, as an email marketing content writer, do the R&D for the topic to blog, ultimately landing on the web pages which are not related to your idea or the thought process. So what can be done to not to waste much time on the R&D for the blogging topic and start doing it ASAP?

This is what we are going to share here: the ideal ways to think about the email marketing topics to the blog which can interest your audience. Expanding on this idea, we would be better get started with the ideas to get rid of such confusions rather than complaining about it.

FOCUS ON THE MESSAGE YOU HAVE TO SHARE WITH AUDIENCE

Once you know your target audience is B2B or B2C, accordingly manage your focus. You cannot share the blog about how the business people earn the profits in the B2C platform. You have to make sure that the right blog reaches the target audience, to maintain the interest among them.

You know how the industry works and what are the aspects on which it runs. Now all you need to do is, gather the factors together, monotonously think and focus on the message that you want to share it with the audience for the proper insight.

The focus on the message will benefit you with the two:

l You will get to understand the industry of which you are part now.

l There will be something unique and refreshing for your audience to look for, therefore this will make them more curious to stay stuck with your email subscription.

CHECK THE MINUTE DETAILS OF THE SAME TOPIC BLOGS SHARED BY ANOTHER BLOGGER.

The topic which had surfaced your mind just a few minutes before, when you search the keyword on the SEO to gather the material; BAM! It is being already discussed by the top blogger on the SEO. The idea to create the best blog for your target audience have pondered away.

What can be done here? Read that blog. Yes! Read it. Even though it is being already discussed, read and understand. Look at the factors and the points covered in the blog. The sub-topics, points, infographics, visuals, everything you analyze it well.

Now look at the content material and think which sub-topic or the point is not discussed as the main important form of the content. Is it the customization of the MailChimp Email templates or the use of Pardot templates. Check on it and do the R&D to create the best one.

SAME TOPIC- DIFFERENT FORMAT

When you know as the email marketing blogger that the topic you want to discuss on your website is being already discussed year before by your competitor, check the format in the way it is being blogged about. Are there too many images on the blog? Is it info graphically blogged?

You too can blog about the same topic the competitor has but with the different content format or the strategy. The audiences have the different taste in the same cuisine. Maybe the topic is already being discussed by them, but it is not necessary that the everyone who reads it can understand it well in the format which has been blogged.

If the competitor has blogged the topic graphically, you can blog the same topic as a plain text. No images. No graphics. No infographics. Keep it simple if the competitor has made it little tricky for the audience to read it. When you do so, you will not only get the topic/ idea to share it but also you will learn to blog in the different formats as well.

CONCLUSION

These are the simple tactics which we have learned through the hard times to decide the topic for our website blog. It is difficult to take the whole day just to decide the subject or the idea you want to share with the target audience. Through the great hardships, comes the learning. You can try other tactics as well other than this to make your blog as unique as you want to.