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Everyday your inbox brings in emails intended to market something. You might spare a glance to the ones that stand out in your preview pane. A successful email is one that leads the customer to your product and generates sales. So what makes your email successful? Relevant content – yes, Interesting subject line– yes, but having just the right content and subject line do not always work. The first step to a successful email is a good design.

Here are a few tips to keep in mind when you design your email:

• Have a good contact list:  Carefully study the interests and habits of the people in your contact list. Design your emails to suit their needs and make sure they find it interesting.

• Branding: Establish your brand when you design your email. Your company logo should be part of your emails. Your emails should have a particular style unique to your brand.

• Be mobile accessible: Your emails should easily work in all platforms especially in the mobile platform as many people read their emails though their mobile phones.

• Readable messages: When you send emails with images, it may not be accessible to them because many clients disable images. Therefore include a description of the image to your email provider and add a caption for it in the email. This way the message will be clear to the reader even if he cannot view the image.

• Stick to a font: Select a clear and easy to read font. Be consistent in the size and type of font you use for all your messages

• Keeping it simple works: Forget complex messages and intricate designs. When designed properly, a direct and simple tone will convey your idea beautifully.

Retaining your existing customers costs less than getting new customers. Maintaining a consistent and familiar look in your email marketing campaigns will go a long way in establishing a comfort feel with your brand.

http://directmarketing.thomsonlocal.com/News-Advice/Email-Marketing/Try-standing-out-from-the-crowd-with-innovative-email-design/

http://thedigitaldivablog.com/email-marketing/5-effective-email-marketing-design-tips/

Yes, you read it right. It's time to drag and drop those boring, pre-iPhone emails into your trash, and head to the creative department for something that screams - 'Look at me'. Your customers and prospects get a trillion emails in their inbox every day and the chances of them reading yours rests on one factor alone - RELEVANCE. 

As more email messages fill our inbox, we spend little or no time reading them. This does not mean email marketing is no longer effective. It only means we, as customers, have become smarter in picking only those messages relevant or ones adding value to us. You can increase relevancy by paying more attention to the following:  

Creative Subject Lines - Grab their attention instantly by using bold, and short, subject lines relevant to the reader. This way they do not get trimmed when accessed from a mobile phone. 

Concise and Interesting Content - Your email content should be easy to read and to share. It should easily direct the customer to the landing page. 

De -Spam Yourself - When irrelevant messages fill their inbox, customers hit the Spam button. Win back your customers with reactivation campaigns and tailored messages to interest them. 

Use Social Networking - Study your customer's social activity. How often do they share content? What influences them? Who do they share with? You can personalize your emails by capitalizing on these insights. 

Design for Small Screen - The messages you send are often getting read in your prospect's mobile inbox first. Design your messages to fit mobile marketing. 

Test Your Emails - Test your email marketing message. Key elements like the subject line, content, images, landing pages, design, address, etc. should be tested before you send your email. 

Need help crafting email messages that grabs your propect's attention, contains relevant content, and leads to action? Call the email marketing consultants at Delivra. 

The last entry for prepping your Holiday email campaign focuses on content and evaluating results. Choosing your content focus should be easy if you completed the tasks from week one and week two.

Test your subject lines and content. Can't decide on a subject line or where to place that "Buy Now" button? Email AB split testing takes the guess work out of it and shows you the results instead. Do not lean on just open or clickthrough numbers, instead keep the focus on conversion.

Keep your content simple. Just because you have lots of widgets does not mean they all need to be in the email. If you need to, refer back to your goals and ask yourself, does this addition to the content help meet our goals? If not, then take it out. Lastly, don't forget to add your social media share buttons. Your members are friend with other peope like them give them an easy way to share the info.

Use your results to make changes to the next mailing. Email is dynamic. Not happy with your results from your last mailing? Change something. Test. Repeat. While your goals should be pretty set by now, your roadmap should be etched in pencil and fine tumed throughout your campaign.

Benchmark and document for next year. Get a head start by writing out clear and detailed notes for next year. Document what worked, what didn't and ideas for trying next year. The longer you wait the more you will probably forget.

Best of luck on your holiday campaigns. Need some ideas for you campaign? Here are some ideas to get the ball rolling.

Holiday Email Campaign Ideas

• Dynamic Sequence- Create a drip campaign for certain interests. Maybe your recipients just want to see gift ideas for mom or a certain interest like running or reading or travel. Use dynamic content to send them one email with all of their choices rather than multiple emails.
• Themed Emails- 12 days of savings (make sure your members optin for this daily email). Need a special opt in? We can help. Contact us to learn more about profile and subscribe forms.
• Come back- Don't forget to set up shopping cart abandonment emails with an incentive to come back to complete the shopping process.
• Early Bird Campaign- Early shopping deals for "Black Friday" and "Cyber Monday" can stand out in the inbox if done well. Email graphic design has different rules than Web graphic design. Need some help figuring that out? Check out our design gallery for some ideas, thencontact us to learn more.
• Smart Phone Focus- Creating a special campaign for your smart phone users can increase sales and provide valuable information about where your members are reading your emails. Do some testing to make sure your in store check out process can scan the barcode from a smartphone. Need to know where to start? Check out our mobile design whitepaper.

The winds kicked up out of the south last week, bringing spring temperatures to most of the United States. The earth started its annual rebirth as flowers started peeking through the ground and people once again ventured outside.

Marketing seems to be going through a rebirth of its own, and the season is called mobile. The mobile season has marketers donning bonnets of marketing ideas and gathering baskets of cell phone numbers.

It's not surprising. Research shows that mobile marketing will play an increasingly important role for companies wanting to get messages out to consumers. More than 250 million Americans carry a cell phone today, and more than half of those phones have Internet access. The Direct Marketing Association believes that mobile will be the fastest growing app over the next five years.

Most marketers understand that they can no longer count on email as the only channel for communicating with a diverse customer base. Sure, customers may be able to read emails on their phones, but they are increasingly using Short Message Service (SMS) and Multimedia Message Service (MMS) to send and receive information.

According to the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA), Americans sent approximately 1.8 trillion text messages in 2010. Another 56 billion multimedia messages were sent. So how can email marketers capitalize on this trend?

Start by designing mobile campaigns that respect the customer. Unlike other marketing channels, mobile marketing demands customer attention almost immediately. Annoying customers by sending unwanted messages that interrupt their lives is a quick route to losing customers.

To find out what initial steps email marketers can take to ensure a good user experience, please click here to read the rest of the this Media Post article.

With the rise of social media, people assumed email marketing was dead. I'm assuming that with the number of mobile phone owners increasing, people will again think...email is dying. I can't agree.

In fact, just like there is great potential in email and social media integrating, I think the same is true for mobile and email.

Recently, a HubSpot blog post highlighted effective email list growth tactics based on information from MarketingSherpa. It was encouraging to see that mobile capture was proving to be a valuable tool for B2B companies. I have no doubt that B2C will also soon find the effectiveness of using mobile capture for email lists. There are so many opportunities to engage with your customers via the mobile marketing channel, such as text to subscribe, SMS, and email.

According to one article by Christmas of 2011, 1 in 2 Americans will own a smart phone. With so many people in possession of a mobile device, it's pertinent marketers start to infiltrate this marketing channel. If you haven't started engaging with mobile marketing yet, here are a few quick tips to get you going:

1. Plan. As with most new marketing strategies, it's important to prepare a plan. You have to determine which areas of mobile marketing are the best to implement based on who your audience is and how active they are on mobile devices.

2. Goals. Once you've determined that your audience is, in fact, going to benefit from your company engaging with them via this marketing channel, it's important to figure out what your company's goals are with using mobile strategies.

3. Budget. Next, figure out what available funds you have to incorporate this new tool. Once you have an idea of what you can spend, you can start the implementation process of some of these tactics.

Of course, these are just the very beginning steps to get started implementing mobile marketing. If you are currently working with an ESP to send your email marketing campaigns, you may want to check with them to see if they also provide mobile marketing services as well.  Delivra plans to soon launch the text to subscribe functionality for it's clients, allowing people to text a keyword to a short code number in order to subscribe to your email list.

I think we all agree that mobile marketing is on the rise. Have you seen a mobile marketing campaign that you thought was exceptional? Please share in the comments; I'd love to hear about it!

Lavon Temple | Marketing

If you are like me or anyone I know, you are likely always on the go.  Life today is not as simple as it used to be.  One of my saving graces has been my smartphone.

• It literally never leaves my side
• It serves as my alarm clock
• It provides me with entertainment
• It has my calendar
• It has my email
• It has my contacts
• I can get movie tickets with it
• I can watch videos
• And so on....and so on...and so on

Sound familiar?  I could go on all day, but simply put mobile devices have become a way of life for everyone these days.  It's not just businessmen anymore.  It's every generation.  My kids are even using them non-stop.  I was in a restaurant earlier this week and saw an elderly woman pull out her cell phone to call her daughter since there was bad weather.

The point is this, while mobile may be exploding, email is just as important if not more than it ever was!  Why, you ask?  It's simple...with smartphones today your email marketing campaigns become a quick way a mobile user can get to a phone number, an address, a map, or even a link.  In fact, I will often  forget to save a contact in my email.  My solution...my smartphone.  Where else can I get to a phone number, click on the link and be able to call that person quickly.  Not only that, but my phone is advanced enough to remind me to save that contact while I am at it.  I even use my smartphone to map out directions.  Don't have an address?  I bet that email I just received has a link!  I was even recently shopping at a store that sends me email coupons.  And as usual, I forgot my coupon!  When the cashier asked me for my coupon I grumbled that I forgot it at home.  She asked if I had the email on my phone.  Can you believe I still got the discount because she was able to take the coupon info right from the email on my smartphone.  ONE DEVICE, but so many uses.  As technology evolves and cost goes down, people like me will be the bulk of your database one day.

Remember, when you are creating email campaigns to include some of those simple things you may think your recipients might already know.  Your website, phone number, address, or even links to email or maps.  Chances are that your recipients might have that info or have seen it in the past.  But if they are like me, they will refer back to emails from key senders for those very links they might need on a smartphone.

You don't necessarily have to have an advanced or costly mobile marketing strategy.  But, what you should always keep in mind is where your emails might be read, how they render, and what information you include (even if you feel you are repeating often) that might link on a smartphone.

Need help making sure your email incorporates some of these strategies? Contact us today at info@delivra.com or at 877-915-9465 and we'd be happy to help.

Carissa Newton | Marketing

Business is good. We are hiring more staff and Delivra will be needing to expand office space. Planning ahead, I met with a commercial real estate representative from one of the largest brokerages in the world. 

He had done his homework by going to our web site to research our business. 

It was obvious that this was his first exposure to an email marketing software company. He commented, "I get what you do. It's like when I was sending direct mail credit card solicitations while working for a bank in the 1980's. This is the modern day direct mail." 

"I'm 52 years old you know. I just don't get all of this Facebook and Twitter stuff," he exclaimed. 

I was tempted to ask if he owned a mobile phone, but was distracted by my own agenda. 

For all of you in the generation that was weaned on fax machines, which in their day were the cutting edge for fast communication of information, it's time to catch up or give up. 

Your younger competitors have all the latest technology gadgets and expertise to maintain a winning edge.