I work in children’s mental health. Every day, our company sets out to serve children who are facing challenges that would make a Hallmark Movie Channel moment look like dinner at grandma’s. Barring a full rundown of our entire corporate belief structure, I’m going to share a mantra our entire team subscribes to - Needs Aren’t Services.
In our world, Needs Aren’t Services is about the families we serve. As service providers, it is very easy to get into the rut of telling a family what THEY need. “Your child needs therapy.” “Your child needs a mentor.” “Your child needs to be on anti-depressants.” After all, we’re the experts, right? We’ve been trained to figure out what people need and how to give it to them. Surely, we know best.
Humor in blogging is tricky. There is the possibility of offending a client or their followers. Or using humor that is not understood by the reader. Many people will avoid humor at all costs to avoid any negative reaction to the company. Unfortunately, most people will not remember information that is too dry. Think of an insurance seminar. It is not because the information is not relevant or important; it’s just that there is no hook to help the reader remember your message.
Using too much humor leads to your audience not remembering the name of the product. However, they will remember the commercial and how the product was used. I can think of numerous times that I remember the commercial and not the name of the product. The ad gets drilled into my head because I laughed at some feature in the video. Since it is so over-the-top, I forget the vendor name.
I, along with the Delivra Director of Marketing, Carissa Newton, attended the Blog Indiana 2010 Conference held at theInformatics and Communications Technology Complexthis past weekend. It was a great event where several speakers offered their expertise about the world of blogging, social media, and related topics.
Carissa was one of the presenters during the 2-day event and spoke about blogging and how it was relatable to a marriage (an interesting combination!) in No Road is Long With Good Company. For those of you that couldn’t make it to the event, we will be posting video as soon as it is made available.
During the presentation and throughout the conference, Carissa was able to encourage (with Starbucks and iTunes giftcards) others to be guest bloggers on the Delivra blog. So, avid readers of eMailchatr: make sure you are staying tuned in for the next couple of weeks as we start to post some of these blogs written by experts in their given fields.
Furthermore, one of the conference attendees, John Uhri or @yOmbo (if you prefer), offered his “sketchnote” abilities and took notes from the several presentations he attended, Carissa’s being one of them.
For a look at the rest of his “sketchnotes”, please visit his blog! They are a creative, unique resource to see what some of the presenters from the Blog Indiana conference discussed.
Building a quality email list for your company is one of the biggest concerns when starting and continuing email marketing. It is important to know when and how to ask people to join your mailing list, so you are not sending people unwanted emails. Recently, I stumbled upon an article that presents clear tips to help people grow their email lists organically.
Click here to read 9 ways to build your email list. It is a great resource to start expanding and engaging new users in your email marketing campaign. By improving your email list, you will see a much greater impact on the success of your campaign.
For further information on growing your email marketing list, take a look at these past Delivra blog posts:
When working with HTML in emails it is very important to know what works and doesn’t work. Below are some tips that can help make sure everything is readable and works well in different email clients.
1. Maximum recommended mailing “weight” is 50kb, which includes the actual HTML document (10kb or less is ideal) to be delivered and all referenced images (40kb or less). Minimize mailing weight as much as possible through image optimization, markup refinement, the removal of all embedded comments and indentation, etc.
The landscape of email marketing is constantly changing. This has caused a need for shifting tactics through the years in order to attract email recipients. Video marketing has become an important addition to the email marketing world. It provides a new way to engage people in a fast and efficient manner. Instead of having to scroll through pages of text when opening an email, a recipient can watch a short video that engages and impresses them in a small amount of time.
These videos can also provide your company with a slick and professional interface to send to your recipients. Making and sending out quality videos can help the customers relate and put a “face” to your company. By sending out videos, you will set yourself apart from the competition and (if the video is done well) look like an expert in your field.
Click through rates have always been an essential part of the email marketing process. They help to let you know if your recipients are engaged and interested in what you are sending. They also let you know if your recipients are reading your emails. So it is essential to make sure to know how to improve your click through rates. Here are a few tips that I have found that help to improve click through rates.
Delivra had a special guest this week! Katie Newton (Avon Middle School-8th Grader) visited and shadowed the marketing team to learn more about what they do every day. We asked her to share with us what she likes about email campaigns and here are some of her thoughts…
Tales from a poor confused artist who thought school was finally over
I’ve been working at Delivra since last summer. I started with a basic e-mail marketing I.Q. of about 12, and considering how lost I get during conversations within the company or with other big-wigs of this particular market, that number does not seem to have changed much. Fortunately, as a designer, my job is relatively straightforward and simple, but it does come with some memory-testing challenges.
The whole process seems to be like a never-ending finals week. You spend a few days studying (building the email), turning in homework (sending the client your drafts), you take the pre-quiz (send the test email), then panic your way through the final exam (send the email). It’s stressful, nerve-wracking, and worth everything when it results in a perfect A+ (a happy client). And while it probably isn’t as nail-bitingly terrifying as that Psychology exam you just found out about, it is enough to give you nightmares about being eaten alive by HTML.
Fortunately, cliff-notes and study-guides are available in the form of blogs. Those come in really handy when an HTML-monster project comes along, and your usual weapons of choice aren’t cutting it. There aren’t many challenges out there that another designer hasn’t overcome, and they’re more than willing to help a clueless fellow out.
Did you know that you can use Delivra’s HTML Content library to store landing pages ? Yep, instead of having to rely on your IT or Web team to create and publish a web page you want to use for your marketing efforts, let Delivra’s Content library do the work for you.
For example, let’s say you are interested in providing your recipients with direct access to past issues in your company’s current newsletter. It isn’t necessary to post those newsletters to your company’s web site. You could easily link back to past issues by directing your mailing’s recipients to files stored in your list’s Content library.
I work in children’s mental health. Every day, our company sets out to serve children who are facing challenges that would make a Hallmark Movie Channel moment look like dinner at grandma’s. Barring a full rundown of our entire corporate belief structure, I’m going to share a mantra our entire team subscribes to - Needs Aren’t Services.
Did you know that you can use Delivra’s HTML Content library to store landing pages ? Yep, instead of having to rely on your IT or Web team to create and publish a web page you want to use for your marketing efforts, let Delivra’s Content library do the work for you.
