The Ever-Neglected Email

Most people would agree that their email marketing campaigns are important, if not instrumental, in cultivating a strong relationship with their guests.  And yet it's surprising how neglected most email programs are or how little people know about the response they are getting.

There are a number of measurements that are important to understand, including open, click, bounce and spam rates. There are other issues often struggled with, such as how often should I send to my list, what is the best day to send and what type of email will receive a high read rate?

Industry Standards -- Do you measure up?

According to MailChimp.com, our industry averages a 25% open rate and a 5% click rate, along with a 6% bounce rate for emails.  If your email marketing doesn't measure up to these numbers, here are a few improvements you might make.

Tip for Better Email Marketing

Pointed subjects and brief messages.  Analyze your subject lines and make sure they are brief, descriptive and to the point.  Use your company name as it lends credit to you as a sender.  Make sure your from name is your company name and your from address is a valid email address.  For instance, if your company name is "Big Mountain Rentals" your from name should be Big Mountain Rentals and your from address should be something like newsletter@bigmountainrentals.com.

If your email has more than one message, make sure your most important message (and the one that ties into your subject line) is at the top or in a position that will be easily read above the fold.

Make links easy to find and click on.  Ensure you have plenty of ways for readers to click hyperlinks for more information.  For key links, such as to book online, make them bold and blue, since these are industry-standard for hyperlinks and receive higher click rates.  If you have multiple web pages you are promoting, use keyword linking instead of text that says "click here".

Remove hard bounces and unsubscribes.  Removing unsubscribes for your list should go without saying, and most email marketing systems do this automatically.  However, you'd be surprised how many fail to do this, which leads to high spam rates (most email systems allow a spam rate of 0.1% - 0.3%).  Hard bounces should be removed from your list, as these are email addresses that no longer exist.  Keeping your list clear of unsubscribes and bounces will ensure better delivery and better open and click rates.

More On Email Marketing System

For those of you who do any kind of email marketing, video publishing or live video broadcasting, you need to check this out.  A couple of months ago I hooked up with ComF5 Marketing -- a company that specializes in all of the above and at a fraction of the cost the other guys charge.

ComF5 includes email marketing with video embed support at a much cheaper price than Constant Contact.  It has all the same features, built in design templates, auto-responders, plus the ability to embed streaming media.  The analytics are great as well.

The video email component of ComF5 is perfect for anyone in the travel or real estate business.  I promise if you use it once you'll be hooked.

The best thing about the technology service and program is the price and what it enables you to do.  It's just $100 per month and that allows you to become a distrubutor and resell the service to others.  If you decide to pursue the business end it can become very lucrative.  But if you don't, the technology itself is worth every penny and is cheaper than what you're probably already spending for email marketing.

Drop me a line if you want to learn more about this or visit my distributor page at www.comf5.com/joescurto for more information.

Incredible Email Campaign System

I recently was introduced to a new email marketing system that was so impressive that I immediately moved my accounts over.  This new system is incredibly easy to use, has very good analytics, has a very effective video email component and isn't quite as strict on subscribers as others.

If you're looking for a simple email marketing tool with video support (great for doing beach updates, snow reports, real estate tours, etc) drop me a line and I'll tell you more about it.

Welcome to Scurto Marketing...

We are an online marketing firm specializing in web development, search engine optimization/marketing and social networking in the travel industry.  We provide tailored online support services for small to medium sized companies, including vacation rental management and real estate businesses, hotels, online travel agents and others.

Some of our services include custom website development, search engine optimization, online marketing management, social networking support services and more.

Interested in learning more?  Send us an email.