Utilizing Preheaders in your Email Marketing Campaigns

Preheaders are a powerful marketing tool.  They can influence your email marketing campaigns, as they increase your click through rates, which is every email marketer's main goal.  With some understanding, creativity, and ingenuity, you just may find yourself using them in your next email campaign.

What is an email preheader?

A preheader is usually a brief line or two of content, placed on the top of an email, newsletter, online publication, or website.  When preheaders are used on a website, they are placed on top of a particular graphic, such as a logo, emblem, or brand name symbol.  Usually, it is the very first thing that an email subscriber sees and notices. In many instances, aside from the subject line, it is the only text displayed in an email's preview pane.  With that said, you can easily see its power and potential.

There are two primary ways in which email marketers use preheaders. They are used as the call to action or as an additional text tease snippet.  As you can see by the example below, this simple, but highly effective preheader is being used as a call to action. For the lookout only for: email marketing

More and more email marketers are utilizing preheaders.  As with any email marketing campaign, there are so many different strategies when looking to target a specific market.  However, there are general foundational principles that will work for all.

Maintain relevancy and clarity. Never overdo your preheaders. Keep them short.  Do not use them as an additional paragraph for your content.  A good preheader is emphasizing a promotion, sale, or an important announcement.  Employ them to amplify your message with a link to your website for further reading.  Like an arrow, they need to hit the mark quickly.

Why are preheaders successful?  A picture stays in the recipient's mind.  This snippet builds interest and curiosity.  You are giving enough information while making it worthwhile to find out more.  A preheader cuts right to the chase.  It is not wasting your recipient's time with too many words and graphics.  A preheader puts the value right up front.  You know what the offer is without having to read any further.

Use preheaders to:

·    Announce a special sale with a link to your landing page.
·    Link to an online version of your e-mail.
·    Ask subscribers to add your e-mail address to their address book and white lists
·    Deliver a dynamic one-line summary of your content to provoke their curiosity to read further.
·    Remind your subscribers why they are getting this email and who it is from.
·    Provide coupon information for a promotion.
·    Inform subscribers of a time-limited sale.

Do not forget to test your preheaders

Creating the right preheader is important.  As with any email marketing campaign, testing is the only way to be sure you have your target's interest.  As you would do with any A/B testing, create a few preheaders, sending different ones to a segmented group on your list.  Track the results, gathering your click-through rate stats.  By doing this, you can see which one gets the best results.For the lookout only for: email sender

Every part of your email marketing campaign needs to be optimized and tested.  Using preheaders shows us that the top portion of our campaigns can really have a powerful impact on our click through rates, resulting in higher ROI returns.  Every portion of your email campaign is a valuable piece of real estate.  Build wisely.

Building your Email Marketing Lists on Permission

Internet marketing is everywhere.  There isn't one industry, large or small, which cannot benefit from marketing to an increasing and unending global marketplace.  Reaching out to customers and clients, while creating your brand awareness, has never been easier which is why restaurant owners have quickly joined the game.  If you are a restaurant owner, this is the perfect opportunity to increase your sales while building a loyal clientele.

What can Email Marketing do for your Restaurant?
•    Sending emails that tell your customers of new menu items, coupon specials or special events – keeps your restaurant in front of their minds and their stomachs!

•    Customer testimonials help build your business reputation, while creating a valuable viral campaign.

•    Sending out customer feedback forms gives your clients a chance to share their views, comments, and observations.  This is an ideal way to find out what your clients want, which in turn, creates repeat business.

•    Increasing website traffic.  If you have a website, include that in your email marketing campaigns.  Directing your clients to your website, gives you another large area of marketing to your target clients, while increasing a new segment of interested prospects.  Use your website to display your special dishes.  Offer some free recipes.  Everyone but everyone loves a good meal.For the lookout only for: email marketing

Building your Opt-in Email List
As your customers arrive simply ask them to drop off their business cards or email address.  Let them know you want to keep them informed of any specials, promotions, or discounts that you may offer during the week.  When you send out your email marketing campaign, don't forget to include an unsubscribe option.  Don't hold them captive if they want to opt-out.  Don't forget to include a forward in your campaigns.  Using that option, your campaign not only builds a list of loyal clients, but at the same time, your clients will be able to send those campaigns easily to their friends, family and colleagues, as well.

Planning your Email Marketing Campaigns
What are your objectives?  Successful campaigns are built on planning and research.  What type of communications do you want to send to your customers?  What kind of dialogue do you want to begin?  As the restaurant owner, you need to know why you are sending out a campaign and what specific goals you hope to gain.  Are you promoting a new cuisine, announcing the addition of a new chef, creating more repeat business, or advertising a special dinner wine?  Having a set purpose of desired outcomes, helps you obtain the results you need.

How many is too many?  You must determine the frequency of your email marketing campaigns.  Frequency normally will depend on your personal needs and concepts.  Frequency ranges from weekly - to bimonthly.  Savvy marketers let their clients set the frequency range, because frequency is very subjective.

Know your Clients:  Ask for customer feedback.  Stay on the same page with your customers.  Knowing what they want takes out any unnecessary guesswork, while leading to another successful email strategy.

Track your e-campaigns: – Obtain live behavioral stats.  Tracking and analyzing your campaigns is the only way to know how your campaigns are performing. Tracking your data enables you to see if your emails were delivered, opened, and if your clients clicked through to your call to action.  Analyzing these campaigns will teach you about your customers' habits and patterns.

Adding the Social Media Ingredient to your Email Marketing Recipe

Blog on your Website: – Invite your customers to share their thoughts and opinions on your blog.  Read what they are writing about.  Bring your personality into the discussion.  Social media is growing because people want to know you.

Email marketers are always open to new and creative ways when looking to grow and diversify their client base.  This is an essential key ingredient for any email campaign.  An email marketing campaign is the perfect vehicle when looking to produce greater sales, while creating an interest and desire in your product or service.  So, would why would anyone invest their time creating a dynamic campaign, if they there were no recipients wanting to read it?  What a rhetorical question.  No one would ever plan to do that, but that is exactly what happens when you don't build your email database lists based upon permission.

Permission Based Email Works

Permission based email marketing is a best practice that enables companies to take advantage of a solid, cost-effective proven marketing strategy, when looking to building a larger market segment while building and sustaining consumer trust.  The payback is well worth it.  In a report posted by Forrester Research, consumers open two-thirds of the email messages they have opted into.

When used properly, email marketing can be an exceptionally compelling and persuasive marketing method.  It's a channel that makes it possible for a buyer and seller to openly and freely correspond with one another, building a sound and steady relationship founded on relevance, value, and trust. When handled incorrectly, email marketing can be damaging to your brand identity.  Sending unsolicited email can cause you to be identified as a spammer, causing loss of recipients, your reputation, and possibly your ISP provider.  A company's reputation once lost is not easily won back.

What is Permission Based (Opt-In) Email?For the lookout only for: email sender

Permission-based email marketing is the exact opposite of a spammer. The significant difference, of course, is that the emails sent have been requested.  Sending permission based emails increase sales, helping to strengthen the relationships you have already nurtured and developed with your clients and subscribers.  Permission based email turn curiosity into clients, and clients into repeat buyers.

•    Using email marketing software will automatically guide your email campaign in the right direction.  With permission based email marketing software, create flawless newsletters and email campaigns.  Our software will automatically manage: subscribes, unsubscribes, and bounces.

•    With autoresponders, you can control the type and frequency of every email campaign you are planning to send as well as thanking your prospects and clients for signing up, automatically.

•     How are your campaigns doing?  You cannot manage what you cannot track.  Tracking real-time behavioral patterns is essential.  Building successful campaigns rely solely on accurate and dependable tracking reports. With advanced tracking reports, you can adapt and adjust your offers, tactics and strategies, automatically boosting sales and profitability.

•    Creating a call to action that leads your recipients to a sign up page on your website or specific squeeze page, is a great way to increase your permission based opt-in list.  Make your form simple, clear, and easy to read.

•    Be Real - Be Relevant.  Nothing but nothing takes the place of relevant content.  Quality is always greater than quantity.  Your message should get to the point quickly.  Whether sending out announcements, promotions, sales, and testimonials, make sure you are not overwhelming them with graphics and unnecessary hype-filled chatter.

How to Market with Email Marketing

Every business has one goal - to raise their ROI.  With email marketing, businesses are making that a reality.  But the question  remains, why are some businesses profiting while others are not?  Hey, that's a really good question.  There are some  important strategies to factor into your campaign when looking for a good return.  Here are just a few:

Thought out Strategies

Most companies decide to give email marketing a try because they know it is one of the most cost-effective tools when  undertaking a large or small email marketing campaign.  However, strategies are not like fast food, ready to go, no waiting, no  stress.  Marketing plans are just that, plans that are thoroughly thought out and seriously researched.  Before venturing out into  an extremely competitive and perceptive market, you need to have a solid foundation for your service or product.

Questions that need to be answered:

1.    Who is your target market?

2.    Are you sure that your target needs your product or service?

3.    Have you researched your competitor's website and blog?

4.    Do you know your keywords and phrases for SEO success?

5.    Do you have a clear call to action and suitable landing page?

6.    Have you integrated Social Media marketing?

7.    What are your goals and objectives that you plan to achieve with email marketing campaigns?

Goals and Objectives:

How are you going to achieve your goals and objectives?  Have you considered using powerful and dependable email  campaign software.  Honestly speaking, it is tough out there.  Having sincere intentions, a good product, or service, coupled  with a dynamic message, just doesn't cut it anymore.  Without that email campaign's ability to land in your recipient's in-box,  get opened and read, you have just wasted most of your valuable. time.

Appearance Matters

Do you have time to design?  How are your HTML skills doing lately?  As the saying goes, you never get a second chance to  make a good first impression.  If you feel a bit intimidated by these questions, then consider the software alternative that will  help you achieve all your business goals and objectives.

•    Email Campaign Software comes with hundreds of professionally designed templates.  All the graphics are  optimized, meeting ISP standards.  Simply pick out the design that matches your brand and voice.  You can easily change  colors, fonts, while importing your own logo and pictures.  Sorry, you have to write the text.

•    According to all email-marketing surveys, no one reads an entire page of text.  People glance and skim, while  looking for relevance.  Remember to keep your message sharp and clear.  Put your call to action in the first paragraph.  Don't  make them wonder why you are sending this email marketing campaign.  Let them know what's in it for them.

•    Do not add too many graphics.  No one will be impressed.  Graphics take time to open and can obscure an  important message.  Many people have never changed their graphic default settings, so the emails come in with giant blank  spaces.  Keep that in mind when designing your next email campaigns.

Don't be Mysterious:  According the Can-Spam laws for business, you need to include your physical address or you may be  considered a spammer.  You should also have a business email address in the sender's email box.  Today's consumers are  inundated with email and spam.  With all the recent warnings of viral worms, and malware, very few recipients will open a  message from a sender they do not recognize.

How to Market with Email Marketing

The Power of Tracking

Sorry to say, that once you hit that little send button, your job is not over.  What happens to that campaign once it is sent, is as  important as its birth.  To maintain control you need to know the destiny of each and every campaign that you send.  Using  email campaign software, you will know:

•    # of emails delivered/not delivered

•    # not opened/opened

•    # bounded emails

•    # subscribed (opt-in) unsubscribed (opt-out)

•    # of errors and undeliverable

•    # visits per link

Of course, this list is not exhaustive.  But we hope it is a wakeup call, showing you the importance of having the right email sender campaign software by your side.  Whether you want to grow your business, sell your products and services, while creating a  viral campaign, you cannot do it with small thinking using a manual approach.