Testing and Segmentation Tips for Effective Email Marketing

If you’ve been sending the same email messages to your list and have noticed a decline in performance, it might be time to consider a few changes to reignite the response.

Simple A/B testing can identify elements within the email campaign that can be improved or adjusted to boost overall performance. These changes can optimize your content and jump start your marketing efforts.

Here are some good examples of things you can test within your email marketing strategy:

• Message subject lines: Shorter vs. Longer? Question vs. Urgency?
• Text copy: Wording, fonts, headline, length
• Design elements: Colors, images, buttons, layout
• Send time: Afternoon vs. Morning?
• List segmentation: Location, activity, time zone
• Call-to-action: Wording, placement, size, visibility
• Day of send: Weekday vs. Weekend?

You can also add personal customizations like First Name and Birthday messages to provide additional relevancy. If you’re sending clicks to a landing page, be sure to test elements on there as well.

Whether you’re looking at one item or larger, multi-layered changes, testing can keep your email content fresh, relevant, and better positioned for continued success. Even minor changes can have a big impact, but you’ll never know unless you test.

	Adam Hubka is Director of Social Media Strategy for Paramount Communication Group. Adam is a Certified E-Marketer (CEM) and a Certified E-Marketing Analyst (CEA). Follow Adam on Twitter @AdamHubka.

The Value of Social Media for Businesses

Much like a company website, business pages on social networks are an excellent tool for brand positioning and marketing. In fact, there are studies that show that consumers value a brand’s social media presence more than their website. Social networks give businesses a chance to interact with these users, provide valuable product details, contribute to SEO methods, attract new customers, and build loyalty through direct communication.

Here are a few things businesses can incorporate into their social media strategy to engage consumers, enhance branding, and position themselves for new leads.

• Polls, Questions, and Consumer Feedback
  Social networks provide a valuable opportunity for crowdsourcing and focus group-style research. By posting questions, conducting surveys, and encouraging user contributions, you can easily collect data that can be used to shape your marketing campaigns.

• Exclusive offers for followers
  If you have discount prices, exclusive specials, or free items to giveaway, these can all be perfect for your social media followers.

• Contests and content submissions
  You can drive engagement using things like contests, scavenger hunts, promotions, and caption contests using Facebook apps, Pinterest boards, Twitter hashtags, Instagram photos, and more.

• Newsletter sign-ups and Emails
  If you have an email newsletter, providing an app on your Facebook page is a great way to drive sign-ups and find new readers. Including social media icons in your emails and encouraging readers to follow your pages also helps drive traffic from email and integrate the two channels.

• Video Highlights
  87% of marketers in the United States use video for content marketing. Video features are a fun way for businesses to showcase items or provide a look behind the scenes. YouTube channels, Facebook apps, and mobile apps like Vine are all worth looking into if you have content that would lend itself well to visual display.

It’s important to remember that you don’t necessarily need to be on every social network. Identifying which channel is the best fit for your company will save time and provide better results for outreach methods.

Sure, the popularity of any one social network may shift, and trends may steer users to the next big thing, but the social medium as a whole shows no signs of disappearing anytime soon. The influence and scope of social media ensures that it is likely here to stay. Businesses can take advantage of this channel by incorporating smart, interesting, and valuable contributions to the online discourse.

	Adam Hubka is Director of Social Media Strategy for Paramount Communication Group. Adam is a Certified E-Marketer (CEM) and a Certified E-Marketing Analyst (CEA). Follow Adam on Twitter @AdamHubka.

How Small Businesses Can Use Foursquare (and why they should)

Foursquare seems to be one of those social networks that people either love or hate. The idea of check-ins, collecting badges, pursuing Mayorships, and sharing your location may not be for everyone, but the popularity among mobile users seems to be maintaining a steady growth.

According to Nielsen’s “Social Media Report 2012,” Foursquare has 10.4 million active monthly mobile users. That represents roughly 42% of everyone who has downloaded the app. The report also notes that Foursquare ranks only behind Facebook (78 million) and Twitter (23 million) in terms of monthly mobile users. The report did not include Instagram, but given the recent popularity of the photo sharing app it could be possible that Foursquare ranks behind that as well. Even if you add Instagram to the ranks, Foursquare still claims a solid foothold within the top four most popular social apps.

Foursquare is rapidly becoming a valuable tool for local businesses to attract customers and connect with check-in specials, mayor discounts, and other location-based promotions. It is also becoming a valuable resource for finding reviews, recommendations, and suggestions for local venues, similar to Yelp, Google Places, and other popular geo-social networks.

Foursquare also gives businesses the chance to boost their SEO, help their search rankings, and create a digital presence with little to no additional money needed for search engine optimization or pay-per-click marketing campaigns. It’s free to create a business page, and Foursquare offers a multitude of valuable analytics and marketing tools once it verifies the owner. Businesses can develop brand advocacy, repeat visits and increased sales through simple interaction with consumers using the mobile app.

It’s worth nothing that users can also create Foursquare locations for businesses if one is not already setup, so even if a business isn’t using Foursquare they may still have customers checking into their location. This underscores the value of claiming the location, building a presence, and embracing this popular social network to enhance business operations.

	Adam Hubka is Director of Social Media Strategy for Paramount Communication Group. Adam is a Certified E-Marketer (CEM) and a Certified E-Marketing Analyst (CEA). Follow Adam on Twitter @AdamHubka.

Instagram is adding 10 million users per month, 7.3% are active on a daily basis

Instagram is one of the fastest growing social networks in terms of popularity. According to comScore, the free mobile photo-sharing app now has more daily mobile users than Twitter, and the projections all point to continued growth. Instagram has over 100 million users; it is adding about 10 million users per month, and 7.3% of users are active on a daily basis.

While businesses may not see a direct connection to revenue as easily as with Facebook and Twitter, the recent metrics show that Instagram is still a worthwhile marketing tool. Instagram can provide value as a platform to showcase product images, exclusive previews of future products, and as a branding tool to establish company identity. By providing a behind-the-scenes look at the company through photographs of events, featured employees, and other interests, it can present a personal side that humanizes the organization. Instagram can also be a valuable resource for crowdsourcing photography or artwork, hosting creative photo contests, and connecting with customers.

The rapid growth in popularity combined with the fact that the social network is almost entirely based on mobile devices (it launched web profiles in November) shows why Facebook was willing to spend roughly $1 billion to acquire the network in 2012.

Do you use Instagram? What creative uses of Instagram have you seen from brands?

	Adam Hubka is Director of Social Media Strategy for Paramount Communication Group. Adam is a Certified E-Marketer (CEM) and a Certified E-Marketing Analyst (CEA). Follow Adam on Twitter @AdamHubka.

Cyber Monday and Black Friday set records for online sales

The online sales numbers for the 2012 holiday season are setting new records for eCommerce. According to comScore, Cyber Monday garnered over 1.4 billion in sales, setting the record for the largest online spending day in history.

However, Cyber Monday wasn’t the only day with over $1 billion in online sales; Black Friday sales increased 26% from 2011 to bring in $1.042 billion for the first time in history.

Mobile has also played a growing role in online sales this year. According to IBM, mobile sales on Cyber Monday accounted for roughly 13% of total sales, and almost 1 in 5 visitors to retailer sites came from mobile devices.

Consumers are becoming savvier when it comes to finding the best deals online. Social networks have proven to be a valuable resource for trusted referrals, and search engines have become an essential channel for locating sales, researching products, and informing buying decisions.

The evolution of Internet shopping behavior is creating new opportunities for businesses to connect with consumers and succeed with forward thinking online marketing strategies.

Overall, more than $16 billion has been spent online this holiday season. The surge in smartphone, tablet, and mobile device ownership combined with improved Internet connectivity and a growing familiarity with online shopping has resulted in substantial eCommerce growth in 2012.

Is your business taking advantage of the popularity of online shopping?

	Adam Hubka is Director of Social Media Strategy for Paramount Communication Group. Adam is a Certified E-Marketer (CEM) and a Certified E-Marketing Analyst (CEA). Follow Adam on Twitter @AdamHubka.

Facebook Officially Has Over 1 Billion Active Users

Facebook recently announced they now have more than one billion active users each month. The number is truly astounding if you consider the size and scope in comparison to other popular social networks worldwide.

The 1 billion number marks an increase of 45 million users since July 2012, when they reported that 955 million people use Facebook. In the United States alone, surveys have found that 42% of Internet users have a Facebook account. With a user base of that scale it is no wonder that businesses continue to move towards the social network to engage their customers and capitalize on the marketing opportunities that have developed through Facebook exposure.

For all of the talk about stock price issues, privacy concerns, and claims of over saturation, the social media giant continues to grow and continues to stay relevant for both its users and businesses alike.

In honor of the occasion, Facebook has released their first video ad campaign. They worked with Wieden + Kennedy (most well known for their Nike commercials) to develop the 30 second promo.

Celebrating a billion people is very special to me. It’s a moment to honor the people we serve. For the first time in our history, we’ve made a brand video to express what our place is on this earth. We believe that the need to open up and connect is what makes us human. It’s what brings us together. It’s what brings meaning to our lives.

-Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg

	Adam Hubka is Director of Social Media Strategy for Paramount Communication Group. Adam is a Certified E-Marketer (CEM) and a Certified E-Marketing Analyst (CEA). Follow Adam on Twitter @AdamHubka.

7 Tips For Improved Email Rendering

Email coding and website coding are not exactly the same thing. Yes, they both use elements of HTML, CSS, images and enriched media, but ISPs and email providers tend to lag behind web browsers when it comes to how content is displayed. Unfortunately, there are no universal standards for email rendering, so creating the perfect design can become a little tricky. Here are seven tips to give your email the best possible appearance across all channels.

Avoid CSS and code with tables.
When possible, standard HTML tables should be used to ensure ideal message rendering. Embedded or external CSS will be stripped out by many email clients, which leads to errors and broken coding. Inline CSS within tables or Span tags are safer and can provide more flexibility. A good rule of thumb is to try to keep your code as basic as possible—think 1997 style coding.

Avoid background images.
They’re not supported in most versions of Microsoft Outlook, and they won’t load in many other email platforms, which results in blank space.

Use Alt attributes on images.
This will provide alternate text that shows up if images are blocked or turned off by default. Alt tags are especially important when viewing image-intensive emails on mobile devices.

Include height and width definitions on images.
Defining image dimensions can speed up message load time and will create a clear structure for the overall message.

Use the Block tag for piecing together images.
The Block tag will protect your design from unwanted breaks or white lines between images. This is useful whenever your design pieces together multiple images to create a seamless appearance.

P tags can create paragraph spacing issues.
Although P tags are very common for paragraph coding, it’s usually safest to use double BR tags to create paragraph breaks and to avoid spacing issues.

Always test.
ISPs and email services are constantly changing, and message rendering defaults can vary, so it’s always a good idea to send yourself a test through as many email platforms as possible. There are also a lot of great tools that allow you to pinpoint design flaws, optimize content and expose potential issues prior to send.

What best practices or design tips have you used when formulating an email marketing message?

	Adam Hubka is Director of Social Media Strategy for Paramount Communication Group. Adam is a Certified E-Marketer (CEM) and a Certified E-Marketing Analyst (CEA). Follow Adam on Twitter @AdamHubka.