For everyone getting started with email marketing in Zimbabwe
Already have clients in Zimbabwe? This plan is for you.
For Business savvy bulk email marketers in Zimbabwe with growing mailing lists.
Email Marketing Campaign Groups are a way to setup your Email Marketing Campaigns. If you have multiple Email Marketing Campaigns with almost same content, or want to club your Email Marketing Campaigns by when they were sent, just group them together. An Email Marketing Group decreases the number of pages you might need to scroll down to find an old Email Campaign and allows you to select and work with similar campaigns, quickly . These Email Marketing Campaign groups look distinct in your sidebar than a regular campaign. A campaign group always has multiple thumbnails on the left, and a set of numbers, on the right. Note that a regular campaign has only a single thumbnail, and no number to the right.
Email Marketing Campaign Modules are the building blocks of your email marketing campaigns. They incorporate placeholders where you can add the text, images, buttons, styles, and layouts that make up your campaigns. You can add as many modules as you require , change the type (different layouts of text and images), and arrange them to suit your design requirements . Module buttons are placed at the bottom of a campaign that is open in Edit mode.
The footer is at the end of your email marketing campaign showing your copyright and business information. It is right below Social Media Links that you have added to your account. The footer is mandatory , and it is required to comply with CAN-SPAM Act, and other laws.
The default details in the footer are the business name and company address that you entered when you registered your email marketing account. You can edit this info by clicking Settings, at the top of the screen. The business Name, and business address fields show in the footer. Feel free to add a phone number, or any other info you would like to display in the email footer, to those fields. Activate the Campaign Tweaks Add-on to make more display changes to your email footer. You can add additional content below, adjust the copyright date display , and center the footer text. Use the styles editor to change the footer background color, and the style of the footer text.
Building your very first email marketing campaign is as easy as a,b,c …
Below points cover creating a full email marketing campaign from start with text and images using the tools available in Email Marketing. It is possible for you to craft a plain text email campaign, or you can use custom HTML to create a campaign from start .With Email Marketing, in most cases you will get an SPF Pass without changing anything on your end. If you do not have an SPF record created , your campaigns will still reach really well through Email Marketing. Also, each email marketing campaign is signed using our own DKIM signature, and includes Sender ID verification . This allows full email validation without you needing to ever be involved! While our SPF covers you for most cases, at times delivery can be improved with a little changes at your end. If you notice few delivery issues (not caused by content), changing your DNS records for the domain you are using as your sender address may help .
Subscribers can forward your email campaigns to friends and colleagues at any time. Here is how:
In the footer of your email, the recipient clicks the Forward link .
They can enter up to 5 friends’ email addresses, include a short personal message , and then click the Forward button .
The campaign is delivered to the subscriber’s friends in the form of a forwarded email message. As the campaign was merely forwarded, the recipients receiving the campaign are not subscribers yet. It is a good plan to include a call to action button to subscribe.
On your stats page, you can find how many times the original campaign was forwarded, and by whom. You cannot see the email addresses of the people they were forwarded to until they subscribe to your mailing list.
An Email Marketing campaign is connected to all your social media profiles, and shareable by your recipients In Email Marketing, there are two different types of "Social Links" that you can connect to your campaigns.
The first are social Icons, that link your visitors to your various social media profiles on all your different social media platforms. The other is social network Sharing Links that let your recipients share the email, themselves.
Adding Social Icons to your Email Marketing campaigns:
You can link any of your social network profiles to your Email Marketing account, and have each of them show up as an icon at the bottom of your Email Marketing emails. (You can also change the position of them, using our Campaign Tweaks add-on, or insert them manually with our macro shortcuts, too.) Just click on Add-ons at the top of any Email Marketing screen, and then on the Social option. Then you can setup , it from there. You won’t be able to see this row of social media icons, while you are editing your email marketing campaign. But they will show up on the Preview page, and when you send your email, for sure!
Now, these icons are not used for sharing your campaigns, but have no fear! Read on, to include ways for your readers to share…
Adding Social Sharing Links to your Email Marketing emails:
The social sharing links are a way for you to inspire your recipients to get involved in the communication , and share your emails themselves. When you press Send on any campaign, and go to the Mailing Details page, you will see a column of check boxes at the end of page. You can select these options, to add your sharing buttons to the very top of your email.
Yes, you can craft an Email Marketing campaign and plan the mailing for a later date. This can be useful when you want to create a group of campaigns at one sitting, and plan their release ahead of time.
Note: Before you get started, confirm your Time Zone settings.
Know CAN SPAM Act and other laws before sending email marketing campaign legally:
Here at Email Marketing, we have our permissions policy to keep your emails landing in inboxes. ISPs (internet service providers) and governments have their own rules and requirements. We would like to avoid getting into the legalese aspect of email delivery but it is still important to know that you are sending responsibly. Here are some guidelines for sending commercial email that should keep you safe:
Only send commercial email to people that have knowingly agreed to get commercial emails from you or your business . Simply put, this means that anyone you email should have opted-in, and expects to receive your emails, specifically. That means no purchased lists! The clearer you are at the time of opt-in about what you will be emailing to readers , the higher your response rate and success will be.
Make sure your business is clearly identified as the sender. If your contacts signed up with you as Bob’s Top Hats, you ought to be sending them emails as Bob’s Top Hats and not Sonny’s Slacks and Spats. Even if you own both businesses , it’s important that your subscribers recognize you!
Include a valid company address and website address on the email that you send so that can both be used for unsubscribing if needed.
This is actually a legal requirement, but it’s a good idea to make it easy for readers to contact you anyway… Periodically reconfirm recipients who have been on the list for more than a year .
This is especially mandatory if they have not read or responded to any emails recently. Dead and non-operational email addresses of recipients harm your delivery and can indicate to ISP’s that you are bad news even if you are not! We can help though, so contact support and we will recommend a few options to keep your list fresh.
When recipients complain or unsubscribe, remove them from the mailing list immediately or as soon as possible after receiving the request.
Well, this one is pretty important! Email Marketing removes recipients who unsubscribe through your email automatically, but in case the readers email you directly, it’s really easy to login into your account and suppress them manually.
Keep in mind that embedding the full form HTML code in your Email Marketing campaigns is not advised . It can cause unwelcome display and delivery issues. Optionally , use the default signup form option. This will add a Sign-up button to the footer of all your mailings.
Email Marketing links to your default form wherever you use the macro [[subscribe]] in your email campaign. To add an extra clickable link in the campaign body, just copy the line below and paste it into any text module in your email:
[Subscribe here!]([[subscribe]])
Don’t forget to send a test to yourself, to check your work. Feel free to edit the link display text used in the square brackets. It’s the visible text your readers will see in the final email.
An Email Marketing template is a pre-designed starter page that you can use to efficiently market your products , invite prospects to an event, compose a newsletter, or send out a quick update.
If these templates don’t offer a layout you like, you can edit a template to meet your preferences , or you can create a new campaign based on an existing one.
To open the template gallery, on the Email Marketing Campaigns page, click Compose! To get a better idea of how each pre-designed template might look with text and images, hover over the Examples below each template design type.
You have several pre-set style options to choose from, in your Styles menu. You can also edit any of the existing color or text settings in each one of those. You also have the option of designing your very own, custom style.
If you host your sign-up form on your site using the plain embed option, feel free to customize the HTML code provided. Just keep the form functions as is , to be sure that it will work properly !
However, if you plan on keeping the form hosted on Email Marketing, or using the styled embed option, or the side tab embed option — use the theme options to modify the style to your liking!
You can technically embed HTML code into an Email Marketing campaign — however! The email programs you are sending to don’t allow any embedding media to be viewed. And, in fact, they are likely to block your email with inserted media, as potentially suspicious content. So you need to steer clear of embedding any media, using any code, for view-ability, and deliver-ability reasons.
Many email clients and readers simply don’t like inserted media. They will either display it incorrectly or send it to spam. ISPs in general don’t like that sort of code and tend to flag it, as a lot of malware makes its way into email through that sort of thing.
Our Email Marketing Experts recommend that you use a high quality screenshot or image in your campaign. And then, link that image to the video or audio on your website , or elsewhere on the web. You could also put a text hyperlink instead of an image.
The target of subject lines is to encourage subscribers to open your email and take steps . Don’t let the pressure of writing the prefect subject lines get to you. Finding the right words doesn’t have to be challenge .
Open rates depend on multiple factors like collection practices, list age and the industry in which you are sending. The average rate ranges from 10% to 25% (at the high end of the spectrum). We analyzed thousands of subject lines to find those with the highest open rates and the most impact. Here’s what we learned.
Be To The Point : The subject line should tell subscribers what they are going to get inside.
It is totally clear what the email is about and the viewer knows, when they open the email, they will read the details about the special offer. Also, note the "call to action" and a sense of urgency. However, it’s worth avoiding overwrought proclamations — you don’t want to come on too heavy.
Be True To The Purpose Of A Subject Line: The purpose is a glimpse of the email; a some of words that capture the essence of the subject matter.
Words With Friends: Feedback is extremely important and with subject lines, getting some outside aspect is vital.
Ask your friends and colleagues what they think the subject line should be or have them edit your subject lines. Better yet, come up with a few options and ask them to come up with some themselves. Then see which ones are best. You will be surprised at how often this results in the perfect subject line.
Split Second Impressions: The starting few words matter! When the email is being previewed, your starting few words are the ones that will be seen so make them count. Litmus has a neat tool to preview how your subject lines will appear across multiple email clients .
Content Is King: Subject lines are a serious factor in generating healthy open rates. It’s the first step to engagement and as such, it is worth looking at how your content drives your subject line rather than viewing the subject line as an afterthought .
A fascinating subject line can only be built on a strong support of content so make sure that your newsletter itself offers value. Thinking holistically , if you want to improve higher open rates, write content that generates great subject lines.
While analyzing our best performing subject lines, a trend did emerge. Of emails that had the highest open rates, 76% of them had either their business name or the product name specified in their subject lines.
That’s more than a coincidence, that’s a pro tip: the top subject line writers use either their company name, the product name or both.
Utilize Google Insights For Search: If you are unsure of which words are best suited to your subject line, try comparing them with Google’s Insights For Search. While it is technically a tool to help improve search engine optimization (aka SEO) and help you understand what people are searching for on Google, the tool offers great ‘insight’ into online interests in general.
It is most useful for subject lines when you want to compare which words will be more powerful or whether to lead with a certain timely topic over another.
Engagement is also known as "clicks" — this is the actual interaction that your readers have with your email newsletters. And can make a big difference in how many are converting to site traffic and conversions. Here are some quick tips for increasing engagement:
Target Your Biggest Fans: Email Marketing support is able to create a "Views" list for you. It is a list of everyone who has checked:your emails, with images, since you began sending. These are your most engaged audience because it is the folks who have been active, in your actual emails. If you want to view it more recently, we can create a Views list for you that span just the past couple months, as well.
Although it may not be your largest list, it is your strongest list. These recipients are most likely to engage with what you send. You will see a pretty significant increase in your Views and Engagement rates if you send to just this list. And a higher rate of engagement means healthier sending, and more assured delivery rates.
Write Good Subject Lines: Subject lines draw your subscribers in! Spend extra time brainstorming a thoughtful subject line or tweaking the one you always use before your next send. Many studies have been done about subject line success, and thoughtful subject lines always result in greater read rates.
Keep Content Fresh: Keep your content fascinating by trying something new: offer a coupon, have a sale, reference current or local events, mention national holidays, or send out a survey (with our Survey Monkey Add-on). All of these are minor changes that might freshen up your content and amaze your audience.
Use Links productively: Adding links to your newsletter makes it easy for your recipients to get to your website. You can use the link icon at the bottom of your text or image module to create a link. (It looks like a chain link. Get it?) If you are already using links in your mailers regularly, but they just say, Click here, try formatting your hyper links like these examples:
You can buy tickets [at my website] (http://www.yourdomainname.com)
[Buy tickets!] (http://www.yourdomainname.com) now!
Detailed anchor text encourages clicks, and is a good strategy, in general.
Don’t forget to make your images clickable, too. It’s something subscribers click.
You can also use the button module to create really desirable calls to action, for your links.
Take advantage of your lovers: One goal of email marketing is to continually expand your reach to new viewers. They can become partners or word-of-mouth promoters for your company – new eyes are a huge asset.
Why not ask users who already love what you are sending to pass along your newsletter? Encourage viewers to share or forward to a friend or relative by using all the available tools. Email Marketing offers a whole suite of social network share tools that you can add to every email newsletter you send.
What Is An Email Newsletter / Email Marketing abuse report?
An email spam report is when a recipient clicks the "spam" button on your email in their inbox. Email Marketing tracks these through feedback loops and reports them in your statistics under the "Marked as Spam" statistics.
How Do I Reduce these email spam reports?
The best way to reduce email spam complaint is to alter your opt-in process. Think about the reasons why a contact in your list would mark your email as spam. Whatever the reason, it is always about an unwanted email. When a viewers reports your email as spam, they’re saying they did not expect to receive an email from you and do not want to receive another! So go through your opt-in process as a test and ask yourself if you can make any step clearer.
4 Tips To avoid email marketing / newsletter marketing abuse report:
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