Are our E-communications working?

Having written last time on how great e-communications are, you know e-newsletters and pretty emails that land in your inbox? Then I thought that not all of them are good. It's easy for me to say as a marketing bod that this stuff is great because it saves us so much time and it's just so clever (for easily excited people like me anyway) but I get REALLY wound up with people sending me repeated emails that are (a) too full of text to inspire me to do anything but lie down and (b) they won't let me unsubscribe.

So is that really right - upset your customers (or random people whose email you happen to have) so much that they're driven to ranting on the phone - or worse in a blog? My thought today was that for every one customer that you upset they'll tell 20 other people.... imagine how the internet expands that millions of times!

I suppose in that case it's what goes around comes around. It doesn't put me off and it shouldn't put you off if you're a marketer as long as you do it right. The law (data protection) currently says that means that if they're a recent customer that's fair enough and if they've signed up (subscribed) that's fine, which if you think about covers quite a lot of people really.

Karen McNulty
MarketingPlanWiz

E-newsletters

I wasn't sure about email newsletters at first as heaven knows there's enough stuff landing in our inboxes every day. But as with all marketing, if it's done well it works. I've noticed that the ones I do read aren't too long, are very clear with enough small (we don't want it to take an hour to appear) graphics to break up the text and MOST importantly I can get what I want from it in no more than five minutes, preferably two.

So I suppose it's back to design basics and good copy (see previous blog).

Then you need to send it properly - don't send it from your Outlook or usual email software - use a purpose built e-newsletter system such as constant contact (www.constantcontact.com) which has several major advantages over the DIY method:

1. Good providers use an obvious "unsubscribe" option so that your recipients can unsubscribe quickly and easily
2. They also send the emails on your behalf so that you avoid spam filters knocking you back (they manage this for you) and they look professional
3. You can track how many people opened it, what they looked at, how many times they read it and you'll know if they "bounce" or don't get delivered.

You can't do any of that effectively from your usual email software, so although there is a cost (usually around £10-£20 per month, depending on the number of people you mail to, it's not expensive in my opinion) the results are far better.

We use Constant Contact but perhaps you know of other good ones? Let us know if you do, more choice is always good.

Karen McNulty
MarketingPlanWiz