Whether you are new to email marketing or are a seasoned pro, GraphicMail will have, at some point, been a new piece of software to you and there were no doubt questions you had about how something in your GraphicMail account worked, or how to increase proficiency.  It's common, and totally understandable when you’re working in a technical application with as many features as ours.

When you're not sure about something in GraphicMail the easiest way to rectify the potential problem is to visit our Help Center.  The Help Center covers a range of topics and categories, offering step-by-step instructions on how to solve some frequently asked questions. We offer help documents, video tutorials and FAQs.

However, although we try to make these answer ALL your questions and direct you to the answer quickly and effiently we’re not sure how helpful the answers are to you as an individual user. So to solve this issue, and to assit all our users with any future issues or questions that may arise, we need your feedback so we can continuously improve on our help centre.

So now you can vote on how helpful our FAQs were to you.   Next time you have a question, check out our Help Centre, and tell us if our help was helpful or not.  You can also leave a comment or additional question. Any constructive feedback is most appreciated!

To kickstart your email marketing for the new school year we’ve included our FREE back to school email marketing primer.  Swot up on the basics for a successful email marketing campaign – it includes how to increase your mailing list, design a top-marks newsletter and your test cheat sheet, we’ve even included tips to boost your campaign. 

It’s easy to follow and childs-play to implement – download your free Back To School Email Marketing Primer here.

Kick off the new school year with the right gear:

our FREE back to basics email marketing guide AND…

New back to school templates!

These are perfect for all your back to school promotional mailings.  Simply log into your account and find them in our template library.

Happy mailing!

A few months have gone by since our 6-part series of blogs highlighting the launch of our TriggerMail feature and our recent case study  about the benefits available, I thought that we should maybe take a look at the usefulness of autoresponders (AKA TriggerMails).
If you’re unsure what TriggerMails are, checkout our video or the blog series.

The benefits of sending automated emails are very clear; timesaving, strengthening customer relationships with such things as an annual ‘Happy Birthday’, but there is something else which was shared with you in our segmentation blog article ; Triggered (or Prompted) emails provide a way to target your readers – much the same as segmentation.

So, where do I start ?

If you’ve decided to give it a try, and I strongly recommend that you do, begin by setting up a couple of triggers; if you’ve captured the dates of birth for your subscribers, simply setup an email to be sent to them say, 3 or 4 days beforehand giving a list of items that you will happily discount during the week in which their birthday falls. It is a fact that Birthday email messages generate a very good response and conversion-to-sales ratio.

Basically you are able to integrate your segmentation and TriggerMails, allowing you to monitor a customer’s past purchases, their account anniversary, any reviews that they may have posted on your site, payment reminders, even their wedding anniversaries and then set TriggerMail to automatically send them an email relevant to that occasion.  It can be anything from congratulations and best wishes, to product information or discounts on something they might find of interest.

If the response from your subscribers is positive you can always find more ways of integrating evermore TriggerMails into your campaigns.

What reason would I have to set these TriggerMails? 

Think of this as just another way for contacting your customers and develop the relationship between them and your brand, it tells them that you understand them and their interests. The result is that you email them more often and, because your emails have more relevance, they respond in a more relevant manner.

Isn’t this likely to result in my readers thinking that I’m bombarding them?

No, although you will be keeping in touch with more frequency, it’s a more relevant contact and these contacts are prompted by your subscriber’s response to a date or product specifically relating to them. Not all the contacts in your list will have received the email, as you only sent the emails to small proportions of your list.  Also, because these emails are more targeted, the result will be a greater ROI than your untargeted bulk email sends.

But doesn’t this mean that I should stop sending out mass emails and newsletters?

Of course not!  Bulk sending your newsletter is the way to spread your message and to gather more subscribers.  After all, it is the one that all your subscribers initially signed up to receive.  Using TriggerMail is your way of refining those relationships more and pushing potential customers into becoming actual purchasing customers, or existing customers to make further purchases.  Autoresponders are there to complement your email campaigns by balancing your bulk broadcast emails with relevant, targeted emails sent to a specific, small portion of your subscribers and, because they’re automated it releases you to focus on other things – be it a reviving cup of tea or an in-depth promotional strategy.

Put simply, TriggerMails added to your campaigns help you to send the right message at the right time to spur your subscribers to action.

One of the most-often repeated questions I get is “ What is the prime sending time for my email newsletters; Monday?  Wednesday? Friday? ”

I suppose the REAL question is………… is there a ‘BEST’ time ?
 
 One of the most important components in your email marketing campaign is controlled by your subscribers – the part where they DO or DON’T open your email. So much of your time and effort has been put into the creation of your a newsletter – the images, text, layout, the research for information and yet, all of that could be valueless if the recipient just simply deletes it, or dismisses it as junk.

This is the time to consider timing your sends! Give some thought to what your subscribers would be doing on your scheduled send days. Will they be have the time to open and read your email? 

Many studies have shown that the most beneficial days to send are the middle of the week, mainly because this tends to be the busiest, so it would follow that your email has the most possibility of being opened and reacted to on those days. This is an observation but not a rule.

Monday and Friday should also be in your thoughts. As far as Monday goes, with plenty of week-ahead planning meetings, colleague catch-ups etc., it’s best to plan your email to arrive in the afternoon so that your subscribers have more time to read it.
Friday being a day when business people receive less email and, if they are able, they may invoke the ‘Poet’s Day’ rule (Push Off Early, Tomorrow’s Saturday) so send your message earlier in the day – or later if your mailings are B2C and you expect them to read it at home in the evening or over the weekend. So, what about the weekend? This is a bit more risky and you should only send if your stats have shown that sending (maybe to selected segments) at this time gives you a good response. If they do not show as active, it may be that they have been received and not checked and then lost in the Monday Mass of emails and possibly consigned, along with most of them, into the recycle bin.

 As you can see from this, each day has its own benefits and disadvantages. The rule here is Research and feedback (check reports & statistics). Experimentation is acceptable and could be considered part of the research. It’s important that you send to suit your subscribers in preference to your own preferred schedule.

I recently posted a blog article about subscriber segmentation and how, using it thoughtfully can greatly benefit your email campaigns.  I have since come across this excellent case study on Marketing Sherpa. It highlights how TicketsNow.com, a US company specialising in online ticket sales, has increased their email marketing revenues by 322% -directly through segmentation!

The case study describes how the company changed their email marketing strategy to draw their customers more closely to the brand with the aim of optimising those of its subscriber/ customers with a history of being bigger spenders

They segmented their customers by spending habits and their interests, making them able to aim the newsletter in a much more focused way. 

They also introduced three customer loyalty programs:  Named ‘Preferred Customer Clubs’; customers gained automatic membership dependant on their annual spending $1,000+, $3,000+ or $8,000+.  Upon gaining membership they were sent consumer incentive offers such as free shipping or use of an exclusive customer support line. Members of these clubs received emails which were directly targeted to their membership level and even past click-throughs. In addition, they received more personalised emails reminding them of upcoming events that they had purchased tickets for, plus extra, related information, such as discounts available from restaurants close to the event. Following each event they sent out an email with reviews from other customers and offering the chance to submit their own revue, giving their customers the ability to not only engage with the brand on a more social level, but also to become part of a ‘community’ of loyal customers who interacted with each other with individual recommendations and reviews.

So, what began as a segmentation exercise resulted with enviable customer-relationships and loyal & interacting customers – plus that 322% increase in sales conversions! All achieved through their email marketing campaign and, as if that weren’t enough, their subscriber list grew by 87% and their complaint and unsubscribe rates fell too.

Mark Hodes, Senior Vice President of Customer Marketing for TicketsNow.com, said of the campaign: "I think it proves that more (targeted) email can only help keep people engaged and keep them more active as repeat customers.”

 
When it comes to the subjects of segmentation and targeted email marketing, campaign stands out as a perfect example of how to put it into practice.  Although it may sound intricate, all the tools to achieve this are sitting in your Graphicmail account just waiting to be used. Just refer to my previous article for the 1^st step – subscriber segmentation which shows you how to customise your subscription form and set the automated subscriber segmentation tool. Then, using TriggerMail you can setup event reminders such as those sent out from TicketsNow.com.

With a little thought you can combine both TriggerMail & segmentation to engage your customers within a campaign which they feel a part of and is relevant to them, making them more likely to respond to it

Remember the blog article that I posted about the power of social media?  Well maybe, as a result of that and the speed at which social media has grown in the online marketing world; you’re wondering ‘If that can be accomplished with just Facebook and Twitter, why do I need email Marketing?’

eMarketer recently reported that social media usage is on the increase and the new Marketing opportunities that are presented go a long way to explaining the attraction of Social Marketing. That said, it was less than a month ago when Marketing Sherpa’s weekly chart was indicating that marketers are still impressed by email marketing and believe it to be as rewarding as ever. Which begs the question; ‘Which is the most effective?’

Some find that it’s not the easiest question to answer, but this case study by MarketingVox, illustrates perfectly the effective differences between email and social media marketing.



Email marketing has the ability to convert twice as many sales as social media.

When all is said and done, the benefits gained from marketing a healthy brand and keeping it highly visible and well-recognised across all marketing channels, are not as useful as converting that interest into sales – that, after all, is where the money is!

How do they compare?

Mary Spio is a partner in Gen2Media, an agency in the music industry working with such big names as John Mayer and The Black Eyed Peas.  She studied two of their music artists, (she referred to them as A and B, so I’ll stay with that). She compared their different marketing approaches and how that effected their individual sales.

Artist A, got over 20 million views on the social network, YouTube - but showed no real interest in email marketing campaigns.  Artist B began by implementing an email campaign to enable direct contact with fans. Using a list of 2 million subscribers he launched a personalised email campaign over a full weekend which offered his subscribers exclusive tracks through iTunes.  In just those two days his email campaign raised $ 700,000.

When it is properly managed, Social media is a fantastic tool for attracting an audience of existing and potential customers to your brand but it is a mass-communication tool.  Yes, it’s also true that email is a mass-communication tool, but it is more personal! With email you take your communication to an individual follower, addressing them by name and through their own inbox. 

Which is the winning strategy?  As a firm believer in ‘Having your cake and eating it’, I prefer to have the best of both worlds.  The art is in knowing the strengths and weaknesses of each tool and using them so that they complement each other.

As highlighted by this case study, it’s great to broaden your reach using social media but we must never lose sight of the fact that consumers respond much better when they are treated as individuals.

With email marketing you can target your subscribers individually, creating the foundation to build your own loyal customer base.  Not to mention, converting those sales.

Whether you are a casual follower or an ardent fan, you cannot fail to be aware of the forthcoming  WORLD CUP in South Africa. That also goes for your readers and you know us, ever on the ball ( yes, that pun WAS intended ) so we asked our Design Team to join our enthusiasm and create some themed templates to help us out – see below……..

So kick-off ( ! ) your past designs and set your goal ( oops, there we go again ) to engage your readers in your own version of soccer fever.

Are you one of the many Graphicmail users who diligently follow the links to our blog that we post on Twitter and Facebook? If you are, you may have already seen the blog article about the online revolution. If not, it’s worth checking out as is this video which contains some social media statistics that you may find interesting. It’s becoming more obvious every day that email is recognized as the top performing direct and online marketing channel so, it makes sense that combining email and social media is going to have a massive impact and to help with this we have released a new way to compliment them both.

Social share

This tool lets you publish your email newsletter straight to your Twitter account.  The newsletter title together with a link to your full newsletter will then automatically appear as a tweet – with no manual intervention form you!

As Twitter each Tweet to 140 characters, you will be delighted to hear that The Graphicmail Development Team have created another helpful gadget called GMtiny which is our very own URL abbreviator – it shortens your newsletter link, reducing that overlong and unsightly URL to just a few characters. How handy is that?

Not content with that, we have already begun work to extend this feature so that you will be able to publish across even more social networks. Next one; Facebook! Keep watching, we’ll notify you when this happens.

But, if you’re not already involved, don’t wait for that, start now by using our new social share tool to enhance your brand exposure online. Expand your subscriber audience and give your sales a boost by engaging more fully with these potential customers.

And, don’t forget – Graphicmail is also on Facebook and Twitter. Go there now, be a friend and follow us. We really enjoy reading about what our followers are doing.

Whilst you’re at it, check out the Graphicmail tools which you can use to insert social widgets in your footer – then, after your newsletter goes, check the social widget statistics section in your reports.

For those of you still unaware or unconvinced about the benefits of Social Media, here’s a really good article by Chris Moerdyk of BizCommunity reviewing Erik Qualman’s book; Socialnomics. Chris does an excellent job of summarising many of the important aspects regarding the development of  social media, some of which will maybe make you consider, as they did me………………..

If Facebook gets more traffic every week in the US than Google - and YouTube has become the second largest online search engine, then it’s more likely that your customers will locate the product they are seeking on a social site like Facebook or YouTube than they will on Google. Which begs the question………..” What happens if they can’t find your product when they are searching their social media? ”

Social media is the online version of what has traditionally been referred to as ‘word-of-mouth’ : Qualman states that, “whilst 78% of consumers trust recommendations from their peers, only 14% place their trust in advertisements”. So what happens when your peers aren’t recommending you through their new word-of-mouth (social media)?

Social search has grown to become the new online phenomenon: Search engines are now giving preference to companies based on their social mentions.  In Qualman’s opinion we will not, in future search for products or services as they will find us using social media.

But how does this link with email marketing?

Graphicmail have for some time now, been providing a variety of ways to integrate your email marketing with social media because we want to help you and your business to be prepared for each new wave of online expansion.  Last year we provided social widgets for your email footer, allowing your subscribers to share your newsletters through their social network accounts. Now we’ve added a new social widget reporting tool allowing you to track those who shared what  with who and through which network they shared it.  Finally, we released our new social share feature in our newsletter