Email Non-Responders
September 30, 2008 at 10:43 am
The autumn edition of Walking the Talk went out last week and response rates amongst those who opened it were very good. However, we do have a number of non-responders which I always keep an eye on.
Non-responders are people on your list who do not open the email or click any links. It used to only raise an issue about deliverability – ie. are the emails getting through spam filters to reach them in the first place?
But now it also begs the question of how many subscribers are using mobile devices. Given that my list is mostly business users, and not so much to my iphone adoring peers, it’s likely that this is not such a big issue at present, but definitely one that needs to be addressed for the future. So the next edition of Walking the Talk is going to have a separate mobile friendly version. A little extra work perhaps, but an evolving best practice for email marketing I think.
In the meantime, how to deal with non-responders?
What I do is compare lists of non-responders from the last edition and this edition. Any name that appears on both lists I will contact directly from my personal email address to inform them that Walking the Talk went out last week, and to ask them to add the email address to their trusted senders so that they might receive it in the future.
Tone of voice is very important. You don’t want to come across as too bossy. You also don’t want to seem too snoopy – ie. that their every move is being watched.
If this action is successful, it will mean that some of the non-responders will take action and hopefully receive the next edition of Walking the Talk into their inbox. There will always be some who do not do anything, but that’s OK because a) it’s their choice not to and b) I don’t want to be contacting people who do not wish to hear from me.
Tags: Email Non-Responders
Blog Action Day 2008
September 29, 2008 at 8:32 am
Last year 20,000 bloggers took part in the first Blog Action Day. It was about the environment and the idea was to have everyone blog about the environment on Blog Action Day in a bid to put that very important topic into people’s minds – out there on the agenda.
I didn’t take part. But this year I most certainly am. This year’s Blog Action Day is about Poverty. You can expect a post from me on 15 October reflecting on poverty. If you have a blog, you should take part too. Write a post on 15 October about poverty too. And if you’re a commenter, then get on to your favourite blogs on 15 October and ask them why they’re not blogging about poverty too!
Blog Action Day 2008 Poverty from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.
Tags: Blog Action Day 2008, Poverty
All Girl Team Makes Rugby Magic
September 26, 2008 at 11:36 am
Our new site for Old Belvedere Rugby Club has just gone live. Not only is the established and venerated club updating its site, but they are taking to blogging in a big way.
The site is constructed using Wordpress which enables easy content management, it incorporates a Flickr feed where they’ve already got hundreds of pics up, and the blood red design will certainly speak to rugby players. But it is the blog that is really going to improve the way they communicate.
Last night I delivered training in how to blog to Committee members and team captains. I feel sure that they’re going to take to it in a big way; there are a lot of people in there who are passionate and have a sense of humour – two essential ingredients for blogging success.
On my own part, I’m pretty pleased that the all-female team at Brightspark has successfully delivered on the project objectives for this bastion of male-ness in Dublin 4!
Visit the rugby club site.
Tags: Old Belvedere Rugby Club
Brightspark Site Shortlisted
September 23, 2008 at 7:01 pm
Yippidy-do-da, one of our sites has been shortlisted for the Irish Web Awards. It’s none other than the beautiful Kanchi – in the Most Beautiful Website in Ireland category. And we’re still waiting to see if it appears in the shortlist for Most Accessible Site in Ireland too.
Competition is stiff, there are some wonderful sites out there. Just goes to show how important it is to have these awards that are free to enter and unbiased in the judging process.
Tags: irish web awards shortlist, kanchi.org, most beautiful website in ireland
Free Stuff On The Web
September 23, 2008 at 5:12 pm
As we face into austere times and with much talk about belt tightening around, I’m delighted to present below for your consumption a list of free things on the web that can be of use to you. Thanks to Twitter buddies @bohoe and @ericnieuden for their contributions.
- Pix.ie – great site for storing and sharing your photos. Better than other photo sharing sites, Flickr and Picasa because of more intuitive navigation, no limitation of number of albums, it’s Irish, and you get a whacking 6 Gig of free storage space. That means for the average person you can put up nearly all your photos before having to pay a thing! On Flickr you’ve to pay $24.95.
- Want to get your pics in tip top shape before you publish? You don’t need to pay $999 to Adobe when you can use Picnik or Photoshop Express for free.
- Weebly – for free web design, hosting, and content management. Shh! I’ll be putting us out of business (not really!)
- Contacts Management, To-Do Lists, etc. from 37signals.com – I love all their products, using Highrise to keep on top of remembering birthdays, and phone numbers. And Basecamp helps me run projects on budget and on time which saves my clients money.
- Iwantsandy.com is a very intuitive virtual assistant. Write her emails or use twitter to store and retrieve info, get reminders and such.
- Can’t afford to buy MS Office? Try Google Docs instead of Word. It’s free, allows collaboration, and because it’s online, you can travel with it! I also use Google Calendar instead of paper these days, so that’s another €9.99 saved on paper product.
- Office Live Workspace and Small Business – can access doc’s online
- Office Accounting Express – free and easy accounting package that you can download and use with Word, Excel, etc.
- Looking to save on legal fees for that contract? With file sharing site Docstoc.com you need never form out for documentation again! Download business, legal, educational and tech docs for free.
- No need to buy the RTE Guide anymore when you can view TV listings for free online.
- And mobile companies all offer free online texts. I’m with Vodafone, I send around 100 free texts per month which saves me about €240 a year.
- I don’t want to condone free downloading of music and films, but there’s plenty of them about still around!
- And when you’re in need of a laugh, just type in your favourite comedian’s name into YouTube and there they are, performing for free! Here’s Eddie Izzard on technology:
Tags: free stuff online
DIY SEO
September 23, 2008 at 3:54 pm
There are lots of myths out there on how to get your site ranked – but the days of doorway pages, cloaking, automatic site submissions are all over. Nowadays to secure a high ranking on your chosen keywords, it takes hard work and a professional to get the results you want. There are however, some steps you can take towards improving your ranking by yourself:
1. Content
Search engine spiders love content. They want to read text and preferably text that has your keywords in it. Without getting into the great debate as to whether you should be writing for your user or the search engine spider, doesn’t it make sense that if you are a site about “Car Fleet Management” that your site is going to have the words “Fleet Management” liberally scattered throughout?
Keyword selection is often one of the most arduous parts of the search engine process because we have to explain to clients that just because we are working on getting a ranking for them, we can’t just magic it out of the air and achieve rankings on words that have no real connection to their business!
Next, when you’ve got your page content worked up, look at the meta data such as page titles (by far the most important), descriptions, keywords, internal linking keywords, and alt tags.
I cover all of this in detail in our Internet Marketing training – if you’re interested, the next session is on Thursday 9 October.
2. Construction
If your site is already built, there’s not much you can do about this, but tidy code will assist search engine spiders in their task of indexing your pages. This is why it’s always a good idea to use a reputable web design company when embarking on your new site project. Your 19 year old nephew straight out of web design school might create a site that looks good on the front end, but the code behind it could be all over the place. Similarly, graphic designers are used to designing for print. This doesn’t mean they are good at xhtml/css coding.
Don’t build all Flash sites if you want to get a good search engine ranking.
Because it’s just not possible to get good rankings on all-Flash sites, so we don’t take them on. And if you’re thinking of redesigning your site, make sure you write into the brief for your designer that it is not to be an all Flash number. Pockets of Flash are good. But no Flash intro and no all Flash sites.
There’s a lot of debate about hosting and specifically whether you can aid your search engine ranking by hosting in the country in which you are targeting. If your site is a .com and is hosted in the USA , it won’t be included in results from Ireland on Google. So you might consider moving hosting to a reputable Irish company. These days, their prices have come down, while service has gone up. So there’s no real reason to host abroad.
3. Links-arama
The gold dust of the search engine world, it is inward links that will really power your position up the search engine rankings. Unfortunately it takes time and connections to secure quality backlinks to your site. This is why I always say it’s best to leave search engine optimisation to the professionals. We take care to build links only on quality PR sites and to add links in an incremental process over time. Google isn’t stupid and if it suddenly sees your site jump in the number of backlinks, it will take note – and probably dump you!
These are just some tips that spring to mind when I think about how people can look at their SEO. Unfortunately I believe that without spending money engaging a professional, it’s unlikely that you can secure a good high ranking for a highly trafficked keyword on your own. In these times of cutting back, SEO is most certainly not one of the areas to be shaved.
Tags: seo tips
Email List Building Techniques That Work For Ireland
September 10, 2008 at 10:07 pm
There’s no point in having a beautiful design and interesting content for email newsletters if you’ve got no-one to send to. This post is about the steps you can take to build your email list. There are lots of articles around about this, but these tips are ones that have worked in my experience for the Irish market.
Build or Buy?
My original thought on this is below. This applies to SME’s and individuals. However, I have revised this for brands or well known personalities. In those cases you could buy a list – ensuring it is a quality list of opted in permission-based addresses. It’s still not going to be as effective as an email list you’ve built yourself.
Don’t ever buy an email list. It’s a total waste of money – the money you spend on the list, the money you spend on getting the email out, and the disappointment when you don’t get the results you want.
If you received an email from an unknown source, would you act on it? Or would you send it to the same steaming pile where mails from hawkers of Viagra, Cialis, Rolex, reside?
9 Tips For Online List Building In Ireland*
- Add an opt-in form to your website. Position it somewhere visually prominent. And even better, put it on every page. That’s what we do.
- Don’t be too greedy in what you ask for! Just because your marketing department would like to know the county, car registration number, and birth date of would-be subscribers doesn’t mean you should ask for them. The less information you ask for, the more likely people will subscribe. So start off by asking for name and email address only. If you ask for name, use it – and personalise your emails. If you’re not into personalisation, ask for email only. You can always ask for more later – when you’ve earned it.
- If you’re a start-up, make sure you have a teaser opt-in. Here’s a good example of one – see how they ask for what they’re about, they’re coming, and only ask for an email address.
- Next, include links to the opt-in form on all your communication. Add a link to email signatures, so every email leaving your company is seeking permission to market. Look at every touchpoint that customers have with you – add opt-in’s to invoices, delivery dockets, back of business cards. Follow up sales to customers with an email inviting them to join the email newsletter list.
- Build a process around asking permission of everyone you meet. After attending business networking events, follow up with a short email saying “nice to meet you and I’ve added your name to our email newsletter list’. Tell them they can unsubscribe at any time. And you know what? Irish people hate to think they’re missing out on anything so they never really do!
- Or go the lazy way – run separate lists. Include one for all new people you have recently met. Send an email to new people saying “here’s a sample of our email newsletter. I think you might find it of interest. If you don’t want to receive it, you can unsubscribe here.” This is playing on the fact that the law around email and spam in Ireland is a bit grey. You can get away with an opt-out email of this nature, provided you always respect people’s wishes to unsubscribe.
- Data mining. If you’ve got the time or resources, it can be worthwhile to run extracts from your database to see what customers/clients you’ve got email addresses for. New contacts can often be added to the database by your sales team who do not have an objective to increase the email marketing list. It can be useful to run this exercise once a year. If you haven’t done so already, add a field for opt-in to email.
- Bounces. When we’re looking at reporting for email newsletters, it can be easy to focus on the open and click rates. But you should also act on bounces and non responders. Check bounces for typos against your main database. Telephone the contacts if you have the time to find out if the contact is still there. Often this can yield results and provide an opportunity for a re-introduction, or simply to remind customers that you’re still around.
- Non responders are those contacts on your list that haven’t opened your email. This can be for any number of reasons – maybe they’re not receiving, it’s ending up in their spam. Sometimes they are getting it, but just deleting, or giving it a quick scan in the preview pane before deleting. I find that generous but ballsy strategies can work in awakening non responders from their reverie. Send a special offer with a closing date. Send a reminder, tell them you’re going to remove them from your list. And when the time comes, remove them. If they’ve been non responding for some time, they’re distorting your results and you’re better off without them.
Think of yourself – maybe you signed up for an email newsletter when you were planning that trip around the world or a wedding. Now you’re back or married, the last thing you want is constant reminders of where you’re not going… so lose ‘em.
* Would love to have 10, but couldn’t think of 10 that work!
In my experience, online list building in Ireland is not enough.
It takes time to build up lists of substantial size, so to really give your list building a push, you’ve also got to bribe them! That’s where we bring in ….
Offline List Building
- I find postcards work really well, for all business types. Design a postcard with a great offer or competition on the front. On the back, include your address with a FREEPOST address and a space for them to fill in their email address and name. Then blitz ‘em. Give them to all your sales team to distribute to everyone they meet. Front of house people should have them. They should go out with every mailing (invoice, brochure, delivery docket).
This doesn’t have to be expensive. With print costs coming down every day, and amazing offers like these from Moo Cards from €13.79 and Vistaprint, the only real cost is in the competition. Spa weekends are always attractive. Weekends to European cities – you just don’t have to say in the competition details that flights are with Ryanair!
When you get the postcards back and have updated your mailing list, be sure to keep them. Data handling requirements are that you must keep them for 3 years.
Building a list is an ongoing project.
It’s not something you can ‘get done’ in a week. It’s a state of mind.
I’ve seen many examples of businesses that really get it and work to ensure that list building is a central party of their activity.
And they get the results.
Think of it – if you speak to 1 person per day, that’s about 360 email contacts a year. Times that by the number of people on your team and the multiplier effect kicks in.
If you would like to have a chat about how you can bring in email marketing list building to your operation, just get in touch. You may be a well-established business that has been issuing an email newsletter for several years, or you may be starting out and wanting to put in good practices from the word ‘go’. All of these activities have worked time and time again in Ireland. There are more things you can do, but they’re quite specific. Just contact us and find out!
Tags: Email List Building for Ireland
Golden Spiders Are At It Again
September 10, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Spamming that is.
That makes me really really angry. After all the bloody time and hassle I had to spend last year getting my little case brought to the Data Protection Commissioner, and they’re doing it again.
It’s because the piddly little fine of €500 didn’t really hurt them at all.
If you receive an unsolicited email from the Golden Spiders will you please do something about it? If everyone complains and makes a big deal about it this year, maybe they’ll get more than a €500 slap on the wrist.
Now the one good thing out of all of this is that I haven’t heard a peep! If I do, I will most certainly be acting on it. So woe betide anyone in Golden Spiders HQ who sends out the wrong list.
Tags: golden spiders spam
Is This Really Microsoft?
September 8, 2008 at 7:11 pm
I just landed on Get Inspired.Net and I can’t believe that Microsoft is behind it.
There are typos and grammatical errors all over the place and really bad design and coding. And we’re invite to join the community – but not really told what for?
You can see what I mean here:
Tags: Microsoft Advertising
Self Assessed Tax Payers Watch Out For This
September 8, 2008 at 5:04 pm
If you’re self assessed for tax, then you’ll know that you have to pay up to the Revenue by end October. Because I have such a fantastic accountant who is motivated by his wish not to have me moaning and giving out about large amounts leaving my bank account, I was recently advised to make a payment to my pension fund in order to relieve the pain at end October.
I have a pension set up with Eagle Star. Last year it transpired that they set up two accounts for me – one for the initial opening amount, and one for the monthly payments. I had this out with them last year, but failed to get anywhere. I know they set up multiple accounts because it benefits them, but I just had to leave it. [When talking at length to financial people I feel my life force seeping out of me...]
This recent cheque I sent to them had my policy number on it and no mention of financial advisors anywhere. It was an unsolicited cheque sent to them. So what did the chancers do?
They have gone and set up another new account ‘for me’ and have paid close to €1000 to my financial advisor.
I am not happy. I will not accept this. It’s a typical example of kickbacks within the financial industry. Most people wouldn’t bother to read as far as page 8 of the letter. But I did.
A phone call to Sinead O’Sullivan in customer services yielded no information. She was unable to tell me:
- If they had set up a new account
- If so, why they had done so?
- Why did they pay money to a financial advisor who had nothing to do with the transaction?
Sinead will be coming back to me tomorrow afternoon. But my advice to you if you are self-employed and making tax reducing pension payments, be careful – make sure the suits don’t use your hard earned cash to reward one of their own.
UPDATE
Eagle Star came back today and confirmed that they have put all the money into the one account, ie. no fees withdrawn. So a happy ending to the story. But make sure you read all the boring waffle you get in these kind of letters to ensure that all of your hard earned cash goes to fund that retirement in the sun!
Tags: Eagle Star, Pension Matters, Tax Matters
