Jun/100
Even More Insight on Click Activity with New Overlay Report
Taking campaign reporting one step further...
Yes, it’s true… yet another exciting feature has recently been added to the arsenal of features inside our powerful reporting functionality.
With the all new ‘overlay report’, you no longer have to guess which links are most popular inside your email campaigns and newsletters.
By simply scrolling over any given link inside your campaign, you’re able to see exactly how many times the specified link was clicked by a recipient.
The report is available now… even on campaigns you’ve sent in the past.
This new feature is is just one of dozens available inside Primary Target’s powerful, web-based email marketing app. Some of the others include:
- Google Analytics
- Forward to a Friend
- Compare Campaigns
- Link Activity
- Recipient Activity/History
- Bounced Email Addresses
- Unsubscribes
- Spam Complaints
- What are your recipients using? (Outlook, Hotmail,Gmail, etc.)
With the recent launch of the new mobile application a few months ago, we figured that’d be tough to top… but it looks as though this new ‘overlay report’ funtionality is really something big!
Also, while keeping with the good news… Primary Target Media has recently surpassed 20 million emails delivered… Yet, another milestone!!!
Jul/091
Connecting with your audience through Social Media Marketing
On the topic of social media, approximately 33 percent of consumers are presently not connecting with brands on social networks, finds a report by Razorfish.
In the recent report, Razorfish surveyed 1,000 consumers who reported both social media and e-commerce activity with the purpose to analyze how social media influences purchasing decisions. Overall, 80 percent were members of at least one social network and 40 percent were active in two.
“Social media has quickly become one of the most talked-about topics in marketing. We didn’t want this report to just be more of the same, so instead we took a different, more scientific approach to evaluating this phenomena and measuring its effects,” said Shiv Singh, VP and Global Social Media Lead at Razorfish.
“Today, a brand’s actions speak louder than its words and pushing out messages is no longer enough to excite and engage consumers.”
The report also indicated that brands must identify their audience who influences perception including offline peers, blogs and reviews. Consumers are more likely to engage and purchase with existing brands with credible voices. Brands using social media marketing need to be steer clear from the sales-pitch approach, and be more upfront and personal with their audience.
Of those surveyed, 57 percent said they had visited brand fan pages at least every few weeks or months, showing signs that consumers are not forgetting about them. When a brand offers current, relevant content, its audience will be more likely to engage with it.
Jul/091
Consumer Trust in Advertising
Recently, Nielson released some very interesting insight regarding what types of advertising consumers trust the most.
Before I show you the numbers.. Let’s dive into the importance one might weigh on these findings.
When deploying any type of advertising, you choose the medium that you feel best suits your audience. So although these numbers give us a solid idea of how consumers as a whole trust specific mediums, let’s not forget that your only concern will be, does your audience trust the medium(s) you choose… Following me?
For example, if you’re marketing to the 25-40 demographic using online mediums, the fact that your 87-year old neighbor doesn’t trust online ads is completely irrelevant.
Okay, enough of the fluff… Here’s some numbers.
Recommendations from people known - 90%
Consumer opinions posted online - 70%
Brand websites - 70%
Editorial content (e.g. newspaper article) - 69%
Brand sponsorships - 64%
TV - 62%
Newspaper - 61%
Magazines - 59%
Billboards/Outdoor advertising - 55%
Radio - 55%
Email marketing - 54%
Ads before movies - 52%
Search engine result ads - 41%
Online video ads - 37%
Online banner ads - 33%
Text ads on mobile phones - 24%
In conclusion, although these numbers paint an excellent picture of the overall acceptance of many different types of advertising, I wouldn’t recommend going out and dumping your online banner ads for more newspaper ads… Definitely not!
Try and get a feel for what your prospects and audience want to see. That’s when you’ll truly start to benefit from you ad spending.
Jul/090
Top 10 Email Marketing Mistakes
With email marketing being so widely used these days, we start to see an increasing number of people making very common, yet critical mistakes. Have a look at our Top 10 Email Marketing Mistakes below, and ensure you’re campaigns are performing at their best!
1. Lacking a strategy - Develop a strategy detailing why your recipients will find value in your campaign. Content, key messages and metrics expectations.
2. Outdated list - Develop a permission-based list of opt-in subscribers to increase open rates and reduce undeliverable e-mails. For customer lists, try and contact your customers to ensure you have an updated email address on file. Outdated lists will offer higher bounce rates, and lowe view/click rates.
3. Non-relevant content - Keep your message relevant. Your recipients should find your campaigns interesting and engaging. E-mails with the highest opt-in and open rates are most often thought-leadership topics or personal insights into industry trends.
4. No thought to layout - Keep in mind that your message may be viewed in a preview pane with images turned off or on an e-mail system or PDA that doesn’t support HTML content. Your top-line message must include a link to a Web-based version—just in case.
5. Sloppy design - Adding graphics improves visual appeal, but you need a balance of images versus text. Too much text can be overwhelming and your readers will quickly get bored. Get to the point.
6. Hard selling - If your readers feel they’re being pitched to, your message will not only get deleted but they may even unsubscribe from your mailings. Worse yet, they could report your e-mail as spam.
7. Lack of external links - Newsletters are best developed with stories pointing to an outside Web site. Include a portion of the story with a link to “read more” and have links relevant to specific Web site pages.
8. Poor testing - All e-mail systems will not display your message the same, so be sure to test your campaign across various applications. Format consistency is critical for HTML-based e-mails.
9. Sending at the wrong time - Think about recipients’ time zones and business hours. Recent data suggest higher open rates occur on Tuesdays and Wednesdays between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.
10. Ignoring reporting - Metrics tell you whether your message was successful, or a flop. Analyzing your campaign reports allows you to develop better content, that will engage your recipients.
Jul/090
Press Release: Primary Target Media Surpasses 15 Million Emails Delivered
Windsor, ON – Primary Target Media, a Windsor based marketing firm who works with clients to modernize their marketing efforts, has officially reached a milestone in delivering 15 million emails on behalf of their clients.
As Windsor’s premier email marketing firm, Primary Target Media has been helping businesses of all types, develop and deploy effective email marketing campaigns for nearly 5 years.
“We’ve seen our biggest growth over the past year or so” says owner Joel Paterson. “With customer retention and loyalty truly coming to the forefront of many businesses, people are starting to see the importance of effective and consistent email marketing communications” he states.
Joel adds that much of the appeal comes from the low cost that email marketing offers. At Primary Target Media, you can reach past customers for as low as $0.02/contact. “People are starting to see that sending direct mail postcards/letters isn’t always the best option. Especially when email marketing allows you to reach up to 50 of your customers for the same price you pay to mail one postcard” Paterson claims.
In addition to their managed email marketing service, in which Primary Target handles the design, set-up and delivery of its clients email campaigns, they recently launched a ‘Do-it-Yourself’ version of their powerful email marketing application back in April of this year.
“We launched the DIY application to give our clients the ability to get their feet wet with email marketing at their own pace. It’s extremely cost effective and it provides them with an easy to use, robust email application at their fingertips”. Says Joel.
Along with email marketing, Primary Target Media offers an array of interactive and modernized marketing services to its wide range of clients. From custom web design and search engine marketing, to social media marketing and campaign monitoring services, they continue to push limits of both strategy and technology to deliver desirable results.
Primary Target Media can be reached by phone at 519-253-8885, or online at www.primarytargetmedia.com