A humble enough beginning.

Now, 134.5 billion emails (excluding spam) are sent each and every day from 3.7 billion email accounts.

A recent BBC article, Email ‘most common internet activity’ in Britain, says that according to the Office for National Statistics, sending and receiving emails is the most popular internet activity (82% of adults).

Email is followed by 71% of adults that use the internet for finding information on goods and services (web searches) and 66% that use the it for social networking.

What’s striking is that email is the oldest and first form of online activity, preceding the first website by 20 years and Facebook by 33 years – yet it is still the most popular form of online activity.

Our own research shows that…

Email activity trounces its next closest rival (website searches) by a whopping 20 times.

That’s a big number. But, take a look at the two graphs we recently compiled below…

Together they show that email messaging continues to be the most active, most prolific and most engaged with communications medium on the internet today.

You have read right – not Facebook, not Twitter, not Instagram or Blogs. Email. 

In terms of accounts (not activity) email beats Facebook by 85% and Twitter by 1,028%!

Number of accounts by online marketing medium*.

And the difference in numbers is even more surprising when you look at daily activity, as opposed to accounts held.

There are 134.5 billion email messages sent every day, as opposed to just 457 million updates on Facebook, 500 million tweets and 6,500 million website searches.

The difference is so vast that to graph it correctly the blue line on the chart below would have to be almost 10 times longer than the width of this column.

The difference is profound when you compare daily activity rates – so large in fact that we can’t even graph it correctly. 

Email absolutely dominates daily communication activity*.

What does all this mean for your marketing?

When it comes to marketing and communicating with most audiences today, especially a business and e-commerce audience, email really is ‘the next big thing’.

Email is still by far the most common internet activity worldwide, despite the rise of social media.

It is official: email is a vastly underestimated marketing super-tool

That’s why we believe the two graphs above reflect some really important points that you should consider…

1. Email broadcasting can be more valuable– when it comes to generating sales revenue than your website and your PPC (Google AdWords) marketing combined.
2. Email broadcasting is– the best way to double (or more) revenue that you get from your existing lead generation activities such as Google AdWords, Direct Mail, Advertising and so on (when used correctly).
3. Email broadcasting wins on ROI– it beats virtually every known online and offline marketing strategy going when you work out your ROI (return on investment).
4. Email ‘Monetises’– in fact, one email address is equivalent to approximately 50 Facebook likes when it comes to monetising (creating sales revenue) your list.
5. When your message is relevant to your list– and your communications schedule is based on quality communications (articles, valuable information, relevant case studies, new product information, event announcements) your prospects and customers will love to hear from you.
6. Email Broadcasting is the best way to– create sales, new sales opportunities and leads from your list, to keep clients buying and to revitalise lapsed customers.
7. It gives you reach– that other mediums cannot (look at the number of accounts held, and consider the time and attention paid each day by billions of people to email messages).
8. It is super low cost– around 1p to 3p per email – around 60 times cheaper than Direct Mail, and highly measurable.

That is why the above charts should do two things

First, they should amaze you – when you compare the “buzz” around social media marketing strategies with the lack of “buzz” about email, you can see in a flash that something is not right.

Social media gets the buzz, but email is by far the widest reaching and most active online communication medium.

One is all froth, the other is substance.

Second, they should jolt you into action – if your business has not mastered email broadcasting as a powerful way to turn your database into profitable revenue – you need to attack it with a passion.

Forget Twitter, Facebook, even your Blog – master the science of email marketing and reap the rewards.

In our next newsletter, we’ll cover 10 Essential Tips to Successful Email Marketing.

For today, though I’ll leave you with this thought…

Many of the people complaining about how hard the economy is, are often the same people who are not communicating with their customers and prospects (invoices, statements and overdue payment letters do not count).

Emailing is the best way to do that today. Period!

To find out how Website Design & Marketing can help you get more for your business, contact us online or call us on 01536 461 597.

The post 45 Years After the First Email Was Sent – Email Still Rules the Internet… first appeared on WD&M.

Yet most businesses completely FAIL to maximise the rate at which they monetise their lists because the either don’t use Email Marketing as the engine, or they get it wrong.

Either way – it’s costly. Very costly.

In this edition of our Newsletter we explore the 7 Biggest Mistakes that most businesses make with Email Marketing…

1. No Strategy – when you consider just how valuable your lists are (they should be generating a high percentage of your current and future revenue) it is appalling that most businesses fail to create a strategy, to create a Communications Plan.

Nowhere does the old maxim ‘if you fail to plan you plan to fail‘ apply more than to your Email Marketing.

2. Wrong Balance – one of the biggest sins (and symptoms) of a business with no strategy is that the balance of the types of emails that they send is completely wrong.

This can mean that all they ever do is pump out sales emails (which eventually turn off the list, fail to educate, add value and inspire) or at the opposite end of the spectrum they send out great articles (that do educate, add value and inspire) but never ask for an action or an order.

Like a successful commercial TV channel, the balance should include great content (articles, videos, information) AND effective Ads (your sales emails). Get the balance right and the money flows!

3. Poor Quality Content – Ouch! This is the path to a slow and painful death for your Email Marketing. You’ve done the hard bit, you’ve created an opt-in subscriber, an enquiry, a newsletter sign up and you may even have a decent strategy and plan.

But then you send them a hum drum, boring series of “me-too” emails. Emails with recycled news, boring facts, amusing but irrelevant anecdotes, links to other people’s great material OR worst of all, news about your company – new staff, new clients, new vans, new locations.

So BORING! But so common. Don’t talk about yourself – directly address the needs, issues, requirements, aspirations and hopes of your clients and prospects to make your email come to life. Inspire and enthuse them! Impress them!

Your email lists are the life blood of your business – they are made up of your clients, your future clients, your supporters, your referrers. They are your sales revenue, your profits and the VALUE of your business.

They deserve your best. Your best articles, your best information, your most inspiring material, your most valuable intellectual property and knowledge, your best offers, your best events – and your best writing.

4. Not Active Enough – you don’t communicate with your list anywhere near often enough because you fear “upsetting” or “annoying” your list. Upset and annoyance are caused primarily through poor “balance” and “poor content”.

If your emails educate, problem solve, inspire and meet the needs and aspirations of your lists – then you can go as often as you have something educational, inspiring, helpful and valuable to say.

That could be once a month, once a week or even once a day! It could be 3 times this month and once next month. When you have something to say that is relevant and of high quality then GO! If you don’t, then wait until you do! More on frequency…

5. Making Readers Click to get the Full Article – this generally is madness. You write a great article, you give some great information, you have an excellent offer, but then you just include a “teaser” in the email, and then ask the reader to click to get the full article!

This is a massive interruption to the reader, it is asking them to make a decision to do something within moments of them starting to engage with your content – and most often they elect to do nothing and your fabulous message is wasted. Even worse they click and their connection is slow or non-existent (on a train or plane) – you’ve blown it.

Don’t be afraid to put it all in the actual email AND don’t create links to the “full article”.

6. No Call to Action – so it’s a big mistake to link to the rest of the article or content, but it’s also a big mistake not include a “call to action”, or even multiple call to actions.

You can link to your special offers, your Packaged Information offer, your “contact us” page, your shop and you can (and should) also include direct call to action in your email with an invitation to email, to phone or to “request”.

7. No Testing – your subscribers, clients and prospects will help you get your emails right – but only if you enlist their help. You do that by testing.

You can test your subject lines, headlines, call to action elements, length of copy, time of day, day of week – and when you do your recipients will help you to understand how to make your Email Marketing super effective.

And they’ll help you understand exactly what you need to do to maximise the revenue from your Email Marketing.

They’ll teach you how to “monetise” your lists.

The Key to ‘Monetising’ Your Lists…

• Today, it can take as many as 5, 8, 10 even 20 (high quality) touches before prospects are ready to buy.
• Intelligently stay in touch with all your contacts (lists) with high quality information – to add value, to educate, to inspire and to sell. Remind them that you are around and more importantly, what makes you ‘special’.
• Use the MFR rule – the people most likely to spend more with you tomorrow are those who have spent the Most, most Recently and most Frequently.
• Integrate the “forgotten” art of growing, nurturing and gaining market “pre-eminence” (you become the prospects first choice before they even seriously engage with your sales team) with your lists.

How to ‘Monetise’ Your Lists

If you’d like to discuss how we can help you develop and implement an Email Marketing Strategy to monetise your lists – call us now on 01536 461 597.

Our clients make millions through monetising their lists with powerful and inexpensive Email Marketing. We can give you as much advice, help and support as you need; we can even do it all for you if that’s what you want.

To find out more call us now on 01536 461 597 or email with your name, phone number and company name to info@websitedesignmarketing.com.

The post How to use Email Marketing to Generate Millions from your Lists and Why Most Businesses Completely Screw it Up… first appeared on WD&M.

By Haydn Rowe

The exciting things to be running with today are usually social – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+ and so on.

But our new research is sobering.

And a timely reality check.

Yes social media is exciting, and for some niche markets IT IS lucrative, and it will become increasingly important in the future (especially Google+).

However, the number one rule of great marketing is to TARGET your customers.

That is, to aim your messages at people who find them relevant, helpful and compelling. And who engage and respond!

Changing your targeting DRAMATICALLY changes your results – even online!

A big part of this is your choice of marketing medium. Are the people who buy from you engaged with the medium or mediums you choose?

We have just completed an up to date survey of global engagement with online marketing.

The results are shocking.

Our first graph shows the number of accounts and sites by medium.

From this you can see that despite the overwhelming attention paid by marketers to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, Email is still by far and away the most popular way of communicating online when measured by number of accounts.

Our second graph is even more shocking as it shows actual USE of the accounts as expressed by daily activity…

View Data Source

This shows that email is still the most actively used and engaged with online medium BY FAR!

And actual use is far more important to us as marketers than number of accounts as it shows where people are paying attention.

To illustrate this, in the CEO workshops that I conduct I ask participants a couple of questions after the mid-workshop break (during which almost everyone has fired up their iPad or Smart Phone).

I ask – who posted to or checked their Facebook or LinkedIn account during the break? Who just tweeted or checked their Twitter feed? And I occasionally get a few hands going up.

Often there are none.

I then ask, who checked and read their emails during the break? Almost all the hands go up!

The reality is, that if this demographic (CEO’s) is your target market then the best way to reach them online is still by far and away the humble (boring) old email.

Email is how they stay in touch, it’s what gets their attention and it is where they spend most of their time online.

The lesson is that you ignore Email Marketing at your peril.

There are some other realities that I freely acknowledge.

One is, if the room was full of 18 to 24 year olds – the balance of responses in all likelihood would have been completely different. This target market is more highly represented in the social media mediums.

Also, if the product or service that I am selling is more consumer targeted the chances are that social media may also be productive, although plenty of highly successful B2C businesses are prolific email marketers (sign up to www.Made.com, www.HotelChocolat.co.uk and www.JohnLewis.com to see what I mean).

And, there is growing evidence that social media is moving from a nice to have to a must have in a couple of key areas – Facebook pay-per-click advertising is becoming a serious and very lucrative medium for some businesses and Google+ is going to become essential to future SEO results.

A clear Email Marketing Plan is a MUST!

However, for today, having a clear plan for how your business builds an opt in email list, communicates with prospects (and clients) and exploits the massive revenues available from this incredibly cheap, fast, measurable, responsive and profitable form of marketing is ESSENTIAL.

You need a clear plan and strategy for email marketing.

Email marketing and broadcasting may be boring, it may be “old school”, it may be way down the “excitement” index when compared with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and the like – but it has massive engagement with the largest online audience on the planet.

The message – ignore Email Marketing at your peril!

The post Think Email is Boring? Our New Research Might Make You Think Again! first appeared on WD&M.

Two graphs that might shock you…

At first glance, there appears to be something not quite right about the two graphs below.

When you look at what is the most active, most prolific and most engaged with communications medium on the Internet today – it can’t still be email?

Surely there is a mistake!

After all, aren’t Twitter, Facebook and Blogs the current “big things” and isn’t Google+ the “next big thing”?

But the truth is that when you look at the number of accounts held – email still trounces Facebook by 400% and Twitter by 1,000%!

Number of accounts by online marketing medium*.

And the difference in numbers is even more acute when you look at daily activity, as opposed to accounts held.

Even after excluding spam emails (106 billion per day) there are still 188 billion email messages sent every day, as opposed to just 60 million updates on Facebook, 140 million tweets and 3.3 billion website searches.

Email activity trounces it next closest rival (website searches) by a whopping 67 times.

The difference is so vast that to graph it correctly the orange line on the graph below would have to be almost 10 times longer than the width of this column.

The difference is profound when you compare daily activity rates – so large in fact that we can’t even graph it correctly. Email absolutely dominates daily communication activity*.

When it comes to communicating with most audiences today, especially a business and commerce audience, we believe email really is the next big thing.

How can we say that, when email has been around for so long?

It’s simple, we get to review and overhaul the marketing of hundreds of companies each year.

And despite the fact that the majority of these are already good businesses – making money, growing and thriving – only a small minority are using email broadcasting, and even fewer are using it effectively.

When we show clients how to harness the power of email marketing, improved results are usually fast to arrive, significant and sustainable.

It is a vastly underestimated marketing super-tool.

We believe the graphs above reflect some really important points…

1. Email broadcasting can be more valuable (in generating sales revenue) than your website and your PPC marketing combined.

2. Email broadcasting is the best way to double (or more) revenue that you get from your existing lead generation activities such as Google AdWords, Direct Mail, Advertising and so on.

3. Email broadcasting beats virtually every known online and offline marketing strategy going when you work out your ROI (return on investment).

4. As long as your message is relevant to your list and your communications schedule is based on quality communications (articles, valuable information, relevant case studies, new product information, event announcements) your prospects and customers love to hear from you.

5. Email Broadcasting is the best way to create sales, new sales opportunities and leads from your list, to keep clients buying and to revitalise lapsed customers.

6. It gives you reach that other mediums cannot (look at the number of accounts held, and consider the time and attention paid each day by billions of people to email messages).

7. It is super low cost (around 1p to 2p per email – around 60 times cheaper than Direct Mail), and highly measurable.

These graphs should do two things to you.

First, they should amaze you – when you compare the “buzz” around the latest “must have” social media marketing strategies with the lack of “buzz” about email, you can see in a flash that something is not right.

Social media gets the buzz, but email is by far the widest reaching and most active online communication medium.

One is all froth, the other is substance.

Second, they should jolt you into action – if your business has not mastered email broadcasting as a powerful way to turn your database into profitable revenue – you need to attack it with a passion.

Forget Twitter, Facebook, even your Blog – master the science of email marketing and reap the rewards.

10 Essential Tips to Successful Email Marketing…

1. Your List – begin collecting email addresses from all of your prospects and clients and adding them to your database.

2. Your Website – create an attractive offer on your website to encourage visitors to give you their email address in return for a valuable report or guide.

3. Newsletter Signup – create a compelling Newsletter Signup page on your website to further build your list.

4. Choose an Email Broadcast supplier – do NOT send emails through your normal email account as you could quickly become ‘black listed’ by ISP’s (Internet Service Providers) – compromising your everyday email account.

With a professional (ideally UK based) supplier you get high delivery rates, an easy to use interface and valuable reports on links clicked, emails opened and much more.

5. Create Quality Content – do not make the fatal error of focusing the email content on yourself, your business and your news. Instead, focus on the customer’s needs – offer solutions to their problems, ideas articles, valuable information, how to’s, inspirational case studies and success stories.

6. High Frequency – if you want to build a stronger relationship with prospects and clients then one of the most effective ways to do this is to send valuable (to them) high quality content on a frequent basis.

Some of the most successful email marketers send 50 to 200 emails a year. Many of our clients are sending 20 to 50 a year with excellent results.

7. Single Article Newsletters – don’t save three or four articles for each email – send each article separately as soon as it is ready. This allows you to ‘touch’ your list more frequently with a lot less effort on your part.

As soon as you have something good to share – send it. If you don’t have anything to share – wait until you do (keep the quality and value high).

8. Repeat Your Most Successful Sales Emails – intersperse your articles with sales emails (those that make a direct request for a meeting, order, to request a quote etc.).

Once you have a sales email that is working well, keep on repeating it on a regular basis (monthly, every few months) until it stops working or you find a better version.

9. Use the Data to Learn – with Direct Mail you only get to measure responses. With email marketing you learn so much more as you get to learn from your ‘near misses’.

You will learn what content people like by how many people click on the links and forward your email to others, you’ll discover what your ‘open’ rate is (how many people read your email) and this allows you to tailor future content around the emails that your list likes and responds to best.

10. Get the Balance Right – we see some email marketers who only send sales emails. That’s like running a TV channel that only plays Ads – viewers will switch over in droves.

We see some email marketers who only send articles and news – that’s like employing sales people who never ask for the order.

You need to strike a balance between the two – good content and the Ads. Create compelling articles and provide great information and benefits, and your list will appreciate your emails and put up with every second or third being an Ad.

Believe me, a well written client-focussed email newsletter sent to your clients is a wonderful and powerful tool for keeping close to them, ensuring that they know what you’re doing for them – and letting them know you want to listen and respond to their needs.

You know, many of the people complaining today about how hard the economy is, are often the same people who are not communicating with their list (invoices, statements and overdue payment letters do not count).

Emailing is the best way to do that today. Period!

The post Two surprising graphs . . . first appeared on WD&M.

How often can you email your clients and prospects without killing your list?

Would you email your clients 50 times a year?

Most business people and marketers recoil in horror at the thought!

‘That’s spamming’ they cry!

‘I’d completely ruin the relationship we have with our clients!’

Well, maybe you would.

But honestly, how do you know?

How do you know that your first reaction is not completely, hopelessly and utterly wrong?

And you need to know, because if you are wrong, it could cost you a fortune.

So what is “right” for your business and your clients?

First of all, let’s acknowledge that most businesses still don’t ‘get’ email broadcast marketing at all.

Fewer than 1 in 10 of the new clients that we take on have any idea of the power, effectiveness and ease of using this amazing marketing technology.

Over the last 7 or 8 years there have been two major revolutions in marketing – Google is one (Google AdWords and SEO for Google), the other is Email Broadcast marketing.

Both are 100% measurable and trackable, both are fast acting and done correctly both will give you a proven return on investment.

(By the way I haven’t listed social media as a revolution because to date it is a proven SOCIAL communications revolution, but NOT YET a proven marketing revolution – Facebook advertising is a spin off from Google AdWords).

Google gets all the headlines, but Email Broadcasting can make you a lot more money, for less cost.

We’ve discussed Email Broadcasting before, the reasons why you MUST get this into your business (it makes money) and the reasons why you MUST NOT use your Outlook email system for email broadcasting (you run the risk of being black listed by Internet Service Providers for one).

But would you email your clients 50 times a year?

Well maybe not 50, but how many is the optimum?

Here are some basic rules of thumb.

The first is that the absolute minimum number of contacts you should have with clients and prospects is at least 5 per year based on the 90 day contact rule.

But that’s the minimum and it’s highly unlikely to maximise your opportunities for conversion, repeat business, cross selling, referrals and maximising lifetime value.

Typically with email broadcasting you should be communicating at least 12 to 20 times per year to start to develop a good relationship that will lead to increases in response and revenue.

You may think that even 12 to 20 emails a year sounds like a lot, but this is where the other rule of thumb comes in.

Send when you have something good to say and share.

If the email is relevant, compelling, interesting, useful and adds value, and you have two good messages to put out this week – then send two emails.

If you don’t have anything good to say for the next two weeks – then don’t send any emails.

And here is another rule of thumb – get the balance right. 

Don’t send all sales emails (unless you are primarily a product sales business such as Screwfix or Argos) – strike a balance between great information (Articles, How To, Expert Commentary and Case Studies) and sales emails.

Think of it like a television channel – if you show all Ads people will soon turn off, if you play no Ads you will have to turn off as you make no money.

But if you have something good to say every week – should you send an email every week?

That sounds like an awful lot, but I’ve been shadowing some great online marketers for the last few years, and here are some examples of how often they are sending emails (and making a lot of money in the process)…

Made.com – backed by leading Internet entrepreneurs including Brent Hoberman founder of MyDeco and Lastminute.com, Made have sent me 63 emails since March 2011.

Hotel Chocolat – have sent me 35 emails in 18 months (at least) I just got another one today.

Micro Scooters – have sent me 36 emails in the last 12 months, 7 in December alone!

Perry Marshall – the world’s foremost authority on Google AdWords who freely admits that he makes most of his revenue from his email broadcasting has sent 593 emails to me since June 2006.

The bottom line is that these examples are all direct response marketers – they only do what works.

And Email Broadcasting (done right) works incredibly well.

Getting started with Email Broadcasting

If you want to understand how you can get started, what is involved, what the costs are and to get things moving – call us now on 01536 461 597.

We have helped clients with email broadcasting for years and can provide you with a super powerful and easy to use Email Broadcast System starting from £45 per month for a start up pack, with a typical monthly cost of around £70 for most small businesses.

We can give you advice, help and support, we can even do it all for you if that’s what you want.

To find out more call us now on 01536 461 597 or click here to fill out our online contact form.

The post How often can you email your clients? first appeared on WD&M.

Email Marketing and How It Could Unlock Your Sales Potential for Just a Few Pennies…

You already know that staying in touch with prospects and customers is vital to maximising your sales potential.

But, most businesses do NOT stay in touch like they should – and lose sales as a result.

Today, it is cheaper and easier than it has ever been to stay in touch with your database by using email broadcasting.

Used wisely, to a good list (usually your own), with quality content and in combination with other mediums, such as direct mail and telephone – it can unlock the massive sales potential sitting in your database today.

33% Sales Growth during the Recession

One client of ours began sending simple email newsletters to their list of Interior Designers, Furniture Manufacturers and Retailers about 18 months ago and immediately started getting orders from contacts that had previously been inactive.

So much so, that it has made a major contribution to a growth of 33% in sales over the period – at a time of deep recession.

With excellent email newsletter broadcasting tools available today from companies such as NewZapp (which we and many of our clients use), this is much easier, more cost effective and more successful than it has ever been.

Writing an email newsletter on a regular or even occasional basis demands discipline and commitment.

Few companies ever sustain that commitment.

But those who do are reaping outstanding results. It is like having your own TV channel – you play good programmes (quality articles and newsletters) and you can then play your Ads (sales emails).

Best of all, you can send emails for about 2% of the cost of conventional direct mail, and an even smaller % of the cost of telemarketing.

Here are a few essential tips to successful email marketing…

1. Your List – begin collecting email addresses from all of your prospects and clients and adding them to your database.

2. Your Website – create an attractive offer on your website to encourage visitors to give you their email address in return for a valuable report or guide.

3. Newsletter Signup – create a compelling Newsletter Signup page on your website to further build your list.

4. Choose an Email Broadcast supplier – do NOT send emails through your normal email account as you could quickly become ‘black listed’ by ISP’s (Internet Service Providers) – compromising your everyday email account. With a professional (ideally UK based) supplier you get high delivery rates, an easy to use interface and valuable reports on links clicked, emails opened and much more.

5. Create Quality Content – do not make the fatal error of focusing the content on yourself, your business and your news. Instead, focus on the customer’s needs – offer solutions to their problems, ideas, valuable information, how to’s, inspirational case studies and success stories.

6. High Frequency – you want to build a stronger relationship with prospects and clients and one of the most effective ways to do this is to send valuable (to them), high quality content on a frequent basis. Some of the most successful email marketers send 50 to 200 emails a year. Many of our clients are sending 10 to 50 a year with excellent results.

7. Single Article Newsletters – don’t save three or four articles for each email – send each article separately as soon as it is ready. This allows you to ‘touch’ your list more frequently with a lot less effort on your part.

8. Repeat Your Most Successful Sales Emails – intersperse your articles with sales emails (those that make a direct request for a meeting, order, to request a quote etc.). Once you have a sales email that is working well, keep on repeating it on a regular basis (monthly, every few months) until it stops working or you find a better version.

9. Use the Data to Learn – with Direct Mail you only get to measure responses. With email marketing you learn so much more as you get to learn from your ‘near misses’. You will learn what content people like by how many people click on the links and forward your email to others, you’ll discover what your ‘open’ rate is (how many people read your email) and this allows you to tailor future content around the emails that your list likes and responds to best.

Believe me, a well written client-focussed email newsletter sent to your clients is a wonderful and powerful tool for keeping close to them, ensuring that they know what you’re doing for them – and letting them know you want to listen and respond to their needs.

The post Email Marketing first appeared on WD&M.