November 3, 2007

Table of Contents   

Email Marketing Trends:
Effective Email Marketing
Companies are spending a fifth of their online marketing dollars on email, but there's a lot of room for improvement in delivering the message, according to a report published on MarketingCharts.com. Even though the investment in email marketing is high, 81 percent of email marketers feel they aren't using the medium as effectively as they can, in contrast to 13 percent who believe they are, a recent report found.

CoolerEmail allows email marketers to achieve a better ROI because we make it easy to Build, Send, and Track great emails. Learn more about CoolerEmail's return on investment.


Painless Subscriptions a Must
"Keep it simple, stupid" – the KISS principle – applies to the email-subscription process, too. People want subscriptions to be quick, easy and more transparent, according to a story published on MarketingCharts.com. A study by the Direct Marketing Association's Email Experience Council of top online retailers' email newsletters also found that the confirmation page is more important than ever.

With CoolerEmail, effective email-subscription processes have always been easy for our clients to implement. Learn more about creating your website sign-up box.
Your New Subscriber
Meet Your New Subscriber

Sure, you can't meet them in person for coffee at the corner cafe, but you can order a "New Subscriber" report through CoolerEmail to learn who your new subscribers are. To lock onto this feature, follow these steps:

1. From your Control Panel, click on Master List and go to "Reports."

2. Inside the box for CRM Reports, select the "New Subscriber Report" you want to run from the drop-down menu and press "Go."

3. Review the chart of new subscribers, broken out by the day they subscribed. Notice this doesn't include any new contacts you add manually into your master list. You can also see who unsubscribed – the bad news– and the webpages that acted as a source for new subscriptions – the good news.

As with other CoolerEmail features, this is a great tool for trend analysis and to confirm how fast your email list is growing


Help Us to Help You.
Next time you log into CoolerEmail, please take a moment to update your information on the "My Account" tab. Having current information helps us keep you up-to-date on all CoolerEmail news.

Cooler by Design

Send your Cooler cartoon suggestions, to Bill Mitchell
Everyone Wants More Subscribers
Studies show that subscribers want the email-subscription process to be easier, quicker and more transparent.

How do you get more subscribers and, hence, grow your email list? Check out these five easy ways to get more email subscribers and grow your opt-in list.

1. Get Them From Your Website

Whoever visits your website is a good prospect. Find out how many visitors are coming to your site, and track the number of subscriptions. Compare the two figures to find out your newsletter signup "conversion rate." On average, the conversion rate hovers around 5 percent, but it can be as much as 15 percent. Whatever the figure may be, you can always do better. A simple step to help boost that rate is to make sure there is a sign-up form on every page – yes, every single one! – and that it is easy to spot. Give your visitors every chance possible to learn about and sign up for your mailing.

2. Run a Contest

Yes, a contest can draw them in, but sometimes it can't keep them; therein lies the perplexity of this method. If you do run a contest, be prepared for an influx of subscribers, but then keep track of how many unsubscribe. If the unsubscribe rate is too high for your tastes, this may not be the method for you. What you're after are "qualified" subscribers who are actually interested in your goods and services. On the other hand, contests can greatly increase your visibility, and those indecisive ones may just try what you have and like it. So go ahead, run a contest or two.

3. Advertise Online

"It pays to advertise," the saying goes. Each time a prospect is exposed to your site and your newsletter, the better chance you have of getting a new subscriber. The purpose of such an ad is to elicit enough interest to get a person to sign up for your newsletter. Don't try to sell them on your services right away. Let your newsletter do that job for you. First, check into the possibility of getting reciprocal links on the sites of organizations that are in a similar but non-competing field. They are likely to be interested in reaching the same market and just as likely to cooperate with you in a joint venture, so to speak. Second, check out Yahoo Search Marketing or Google AdWord's pay-per-click services to help get your site listed higher in the search rankings. Ad rates can be quite reasonable. Let their consultants help you choose the best possible search terms to get a better ranking for your site. Place a bid for each search term; you may well be on the way to growing your email list.

4. Determine Your Abandon Rate

If you have a separate page for newsletter sign-ups, see how many people are coming to that page and leaving before they subscribe. If, alternatively, you have your subscribe form on every page (as suggested above), the following two tips may do the trick. First, ask for less information. Limit the amount of fields to five or seven – max – and the required fields even fewer than that. A long list of required items is a sure turnoff. No intrusive questions are allowed. Make it as friendly as possible so you don't exclude any subscribers. Let your newsletter naturally weed out the disinterested ones while keeping the genuinely interested ones. Use CoolerEmail's CoolerTracks™ to see how visitors are moving around your site and interacting with your email. CoolerTracks™ will let you see which pages are more popular with visitors. By tuning into their interests and delivering relevant content, you will reduce your abandon rate.

5. Just Keep Going

Growing your email list takes time and effort. Experiment with one tactic and measure the results. You may need to try a mix of the methods listed above. Test other things, too, such as your copy, design, sign-up form placement and different offers. Keep the best and throw out the rest.


Thank you ...
We are always striving to make CoolerEmail ever better. Customer requests for feature enhancements are responsible for many additions. If you have feedback or suggestions, please send them to suggest@cooleremail.com.

CoolerEmail
  •   ,
866.4COOLER   •   Fax:   •   editor@cooleremail.com   •   http://cooleremail.com