The humble subject line has long been an overlooked element of email marketing, often taking a back seat to design, copywriting, imagery and call-to-action refinement during the development of a campaign.

Yet, despite its lowly status on this list of specialist areas, the subject line has actually always been an important factor in email marketing. A good subject line, basically, can make the difference between an email flyer being opened and acted upon or ignored altogether. You can have the best looking email marketing in the world but without a decent subject line to back it up it’s never likely to fulfil its potential.

Now, with mobile devices becoming ever-popular, the subject line is more important than ever to email marketing because of one simple fact;

Smartphone inboxes only display subject lines and from fields.

No images. No preview panes. It’s all down to your subject line. So it better be good.

With the explosion of smartphone use in recent years - the ubiquitous iPhone and Blackberry, along with the rapidly phenomenal Android OS phones (which grew 350% in the last quarter here in the UK) - more and more of us are accessing our emails on the move, or even opting to use smartphones as in-office business devices due to their ever-increasing performance benefits. Smartphones aren’t the preserve of business or the technically-minded, they’re for everyone. And it seems everyone has got one.

Microsoft, which has stayed on the fringes of the smartphone market for the last few years, is moving closer to the launch of its “Windows Phone 7″ operating system - a hi-spec platform that will doubtlessly be backed up by a gargantuan marketing budget when it emerges before 2010 is out. The new Windows offering will present users with yet another super-capable handheld option - and it’s only going to get bigger.

Of course, email on the move simply presents yet another way to use email marketing to communicate effectively and efficiently with your target market. So it’s unquestionably a good thing.

But next time you’re crafting a campaign that will spring into life on iPhones, Androids and as yet unimagined super devices, make sure you don’t forget the importance of the element that has been around from day one of email - the subject line.

Email marketing is a direct and effective means of forging or cultivating a relationship with a customer, while simultaneously heralding the qualities of a company in a prodigious light. The format of an email is clean, bright and instantaneous, suspended upon a screen that creates an interface scenario, similar to the interaction experienced between people. This serves to mimic the steadfast loyalty that occurs within relationships, vital to the survival of any business.

Email marketing is also a cost effective way of distribution and is preferable to the concertinaed leaflet, pushed half-heartedly through a letterbox or shredded and scattered around the room by the family dog. The email is a more unobtrusive solution to marketing, softly stepping into an inbox folder, with a headline that halts skimming eyes rather than the dispassionate gaze that results from the bold invasion of indistinct flyers. Just as curiosity is maintained by snippets of information, the email’s elusive yet applicable headline will serve as a teaser that will initiate an insatiable curiosity. By enticing the customer through a digital door that will be unlocked in a click, the email’s interior will be decorated with eye-catching images, in keeping with a company’s tone and style that is key to granting the attention of the recipient. Uncompromised design that is lifted from the theme of a company’s existing website will ensure continuity, whilst reinforcing the essence of a brand. The information will be succinct in order to avoid a recipient from losing interest and exiting without a purchase.

It could be said that email marketing is a digital rework of the carrier pigeon, which was dispatched to specific locations, communicating information in a targeted manner with traceable results. Along with useful information the pigeon provided a frisson of anticipation, as the sight of the rolled paper attached purposefully to the pigeon’s leg drew nearer. This premise still exists with all forms of communication, as the prospect of new insight is coupled with the remedial effects of contact. Although the carrier pigeon was a revolutionary embodiment of effective correspondence; it is now a distant silhouette that flies way into the mists of time. However, the email has adopted some of the carrier pigeon’s unmistakeable charm as messages are personally gifted, with the attachment of a tailored message that perches itself at the top of an inbox.

The feedback that is available with the use of email marketing is also similar to that of a carrier pigeon, which would return without a message as confirmation of its delivery. Emails provide immediate feedback on a broadcast, as well as being able to target individuals on a global scale. The value of carrier pigeons was especially important in war, acting as a lifeline that transferred crucial updates. The famous French carrier pigeon Cher Ami is an example of the carrier pigeon’s resilience; awarded for its heroic bravery which was doubly impressive due to its serious injuries. Its name translates as ‘Dear friend’, which relates to the familiar opening line of many correspondences addressed to a comrade, as well as referring to the pigeons esteemed role as a dear friend who remained loyal throughout adversity. This demonstrates the valued position of communication, which is loaded with bridge building properties. It is therefore true to say that any communication between two parties, cements a bond. Email is no different; by communicating new offers and welcoming customers into the fold, a relationship takes root. It is true to say that people are more likely to respond to a familiar company who has kept in contact, just as if a familiar friend were to maintain contact, a trust would grow.

The vast distances pigeon carriers could fly, up to one thousand miles is exceeded by the world wide reach of the email, which does not rely upon the intended location remaining fixed. The private interaction that exists between a messenger and receiver seems to be an unrivalled approach, in terms of affectivity and impact. Although the carrier pigeon retains a romantic wistfulness, its return could not feasibly compete with email marketing, which delivers packaged beauty, appeal and machined efficiency.

At Green Media, copywriting for Search Engine Optimisation is regarded as a lifeline for businesses. Keywords relating to areas of interest, specific to a site are raised up like stepping stones from velvety rich copy that laps up around each protruding keyword. While eye-catching headlines act as bridges that invite the user to cross and explore the new territory of a website.

Glistening keywords entwined with the main copy will elevate your website up search engine rankings, from the depths of underwater anonymity, to appear as a dominant feature amongst other results that vie for competition. The surfer will be able to ride the waves that will reach desirable heights of targeted information. Keywords will not litter the copy but will be placed in considered areas that will allow text to flow, rather than be blockaded by repetition, which seems to be a transparent tactic aimed to increase the volume of visitors but does not serve to anchor the user to a site with engaging copy. Instead, keywords are peppered throughout the site in order for the user to easily navigate their way and reaffirm the relevance of their search, as they delve further into the website’s offerings.

SEO is both an art form and a science, crafting and engineering in a continuing process, as a formula of refreshed content keeps information relevant, while the copy’s creativity prevents users from becoming disenchanted with a site, giving them a reason to return with anticipation, as updates renew enthusiasm. By keeping track of trends and behaviours, together with a discerning ability; the copywriter is able to draw upon considered language, structured in an appropriate format that convinces the user of the site’s integral worth.  The copywriter is also fuelled by the deceptively powerful tool of imagery, relayed in words that transport the user into a world by a particular product or service, as they visualise varied possibilities.

Undoubtedly SEO, together with the back-up of quality copy is the most effective way to communicate your website’s professionalism, dynamism and enthusiasm. Without it your website may be drowned under other sites that provide similar products and services and who have taken advantage of SEO’s buoyant ability to keep them ahead of competition.

Find out how good quality writing can be rocket fuel for your website.

We were pleased to find out that a key part of the recent Google update - codenamed Caffeine - centred around the value of good quality copy, regularly updated. Essentially, search has come around to being about what it always should have been about - good quality content.

No technical manipulation of the system.

No tricks.

No smoke.

No mirrors.

…and it’s about time.

We’ve been eulogising the value of good web copy for years, on the basis that if you’re providing what people want - in the form of useful, usable information - then the search engines will wake up to that and start directing people your way. It comes down to the basic principles of search engines - to create a positive user experience by giving people what they’re looking for.

If your website is still relying on short-term techie tweaks to stay on SERPs then you’re on borrowed time. Your site is sitting on digital quicksand. It’s time to get your thinking cap on and get writing.

Many companies have a hard time understanding how best to use social media to promote their business online. It’s not that the principles of Facebook, Twitter and the others are difficult to grasp - they’re not - but, the real business potential can be a lot harder to fathom out. Since social media marketing works differently between businesses depending on what their aims are, there are no guarantees that what works for one will work for another.

That’s the beauty of social media, it’s flexible enough to accommodate an incredibly varied range of marketing approaches and still deliver success. It’s not a strict medium.

An uncomfortable fact of today’s commercial world is that people no longer trust messages from companies, on the whole. This makes marketing an increasingly precision process where even the most meticulously crafted promotions risk failure.

What people do trust is word-of-mouth recommendations, and this has always been the case. These recommendations come from fellow customers (or potential customers) and they come with an inherent credibility that companies can rarely match in their own communications. Social media is the biggest opportunity for word-of-mouth recommendations, well, ever. It has a worldwide span, it’s instantly accessible to anyone from anywhere, it’s permanently available, it’s accumulative and it all leads back to your door.

Word-of-mouth has grown from local to global, and it’s going on right now in tweets, Facebook posts, blogs and forums. Failure, refusal or just a straight-forward inability to get into social media for business marketing is tantamount to ignoring the latest incarnation of the most effective form of advertising of all-time. Is that something your business can afford to do?

Social networking is here and the importance to your business is that it can develop your online presence and authority through multi level communication channels.

Use it correctly and you can create marketing awareness that you may never have thought possible. It shouldn’t be feared or ignored but embraced as an extension to your marketing force.

Social networking tools if used correctly can have numerous benefits on how your business is perceived online.

It’s in its early days but the results for businesses across the globe prove that this is where its customers are: online. This new advertising platform allows business to converse messages to a ready and waiting audience; the trick is to be where your potential consumers are going to be communicating via sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. One of the most important areas is to learn and understand how social networking sites operate in order to develop your business.

Social networking sites work with your website presence. The key thing is to not forget or disregard your website but enforce it through the means of social networking.

One of the most visible and encouraging things is that it they can drive traffic to your site, create the interest and desire to look further at what you do and who you are and most importantly create enquiries and sales.

Engage with your customer base, release promotions and encourage your product/service or brand recognition through careful manipulation.

A brilliant example of a business using Facebook with great results is Pizza Hut, a global brand it has successfully integrated through to its consumer market base and with the advantage of the order app brings more appeal to its online customer base.

Social networking sites are proving popular to various age demographics and all market sectors providing you with an excellent opportunity to nudge consumers and make them aware that you exist!

 It is now not only the young market sector that is enjoying social networking but the older generations too, you can build your reputation and online credibility through flexible medium.

An advantage of social networking is that you can interact and engage with your consumers on a level not previously accessible. In the past surveys and questionnaires provided businesses with something of an indication as to how they were perceived by customers and the wider world. The data collected was not always fully accurate and usually an incentive would be offered to encourage feedback.

Now businesses can get down to the ‘nitty gritty’ of consumer perception through online conversation; this allows you to understand the needs of the customer or potential and delve into their purchasing behaviour.

Measure and control your reputation with the added value of building your online presence and nursing your brand values attributing to customer perception.

Customer retention can also be gained through this medium; you can find out the truth of what your customers really think about you.

The end result is to create more enquiries and increased sales for your business; social networking can be likened to cultivating your own online garden, plucking out any weeds of negativity or potential damage to your business and growing your business ideals.

Take Absolut Vodka for example; they have combined their Facebook page; Top Bartender with online videos. This facility has allowed Absolut to target their respective age demographics.

The launch of the new app for the iPhone ‘Drinkspiration’ allows the user to recommend and customize drink ideas. The app has proven very popular and opens Absolut into the social mechanism for interaction.

Social networking is going to move and develop, if this is the beginning there is plenty of room for new platforms and invaluable ideas. New technology is always emerging; your business must be flexible to react and engage in the new marketing tools available.

Personalise yourself with your consumer but remain vigilant to what you want to achieve.

For your business it is best to approach social networking with direction in mind, your networking strategic needs to be carefully grown in order to keep control of your business communication. The key to success in this new marketing area is recognising and appreciating that social networking is a powerful engine for business advancement and must be carefully maintained to achieve your business marketing plan.

Social networking has only just begun; all businesses must see it as the opportunity to market themselves in an ultimately online world with the advantage of maintaining and strengthening website performance.

We are approaching the time of year when many young people are looking ahead to the long summer break from university or collage. While many student’s minds will be focused on the traditional pursuits of festivals and travelling the more savvy have been polishing their CV and looking at the opportunities available for gaining valuable work experience that will help set them apart in a tough job market.

One way of getting this experience is through work placement. A work placement, usually undertaken between the second and final year of university, provides students with a valuable, real life insight into their career of choice as well as giving them experiences that can give them a real boost in the all important final year.

One of the most important aspects of a placement that is often over look by students eager to finish university is the ready made answer it provides to the trick job interview question of ‘what experience do you have?’. Graduates that have completed a placement have a big advantage in the job market once they finish their course as they already have a year of relevant experience.

Ben Hunt-Vincent, our out going placement student said ‘my placement has given my much more experience than I imagined when I started a year ago. I feel much more prepared for the job market having carried out this placement and I am much more confident about my final year at university too’.

So this summer, if you a looking for an experience more unique than sitting in a field with 100 000 other people at the latest Glastonbury Festival head over to the Green Media vacancies page and check out our placement positions for the coming year.

Viral Marketing is a marketing tool in which businesses can advertise their product through video, game and social networking to intercept their marketing message in an online capacity. 

Viral Marketing is generating awareness for business like never before, and can be said to be one of the biggest shifts in marketing to consumers.

Communication with your customer is changing and it’s a good idea to think about how viral may affect your business.

New types of social media are allowing businesses to move forward with marketing generating an exciting buzz in the marketing world.

Viral provides business with an opportunity to market products through an interactive medium allowing the marketer to convey a message that is reactive to the audience.

It can also provide excellent ROI through a campaign that has the ability to cross through cultural barriers for instance, expressing the meaning of the product through a new marketing portal.

There can be a lot of cost benefits to a viral campaign and the message can be transmitted by word of mouth as consumers experience your marketing; generating high awareness.

This means that customer acquisition costs can dramatically reduce from one single media project.

Viral offers the opportunity for businesses to demonstrate their creative flair; focusing on the brand and taking it somewhere that can build credential and awareness through communicating product benefits in a fresh and innovative medium.

This allows the consumer to identify the brand in a relative format that is accessible for most and can correspond to either multiple sectors or be targeted at niche markets.

In this new marketing format it allows your company to become more personable and expressive, creating interest and conversation. It can change your business persona and can help you evolve your brand and company identity through relating to your customers social networks.

The way in which we advertise has changed due to consumer demand and technological movement, many have researched that consumers are no longer as receptive to ‘traditional’ marketing methods such as the Television or Radio, with a 41% increase in consumer awareness of a product via online marketing; this de sensitisation has moved advertising to a new platform; Viral Marketing.

www.marketingcharts.com

A good example of the strength and power of a viral campaign can be the release of the Nike campaign ‘Take it to the next level’ featuring Ronaldo; 500 million views later it has been one of the most successful and well noted viral campaigns of the last few years.

It was relevant to the audience it was presenting to, highly inspirational and allowed the viewer to feel as if they were on the football pitch with the famous names.

This reflects not only the mass intensity of social media but the popularity and user engagement through viral means.

Viral marketing must be conducted through a clear marketing strategy. What type of message do you want your campaign to create and portray. There must be an emotive conclusion for the consumer such as thought provoking, shocking or humorous.

Most importantly it needs to reflect your product and service USPs.

Groundbreaking for the beauty industry was the Dove Evolution campaign, showing the process of a model being transformed for a photo shoot the message, embedding the message of natural beauty. A series of viral videos showed models being photo-shopped and air brushed to perfection sparking media frenzy and topical debate which gave Dove the perfect opportunity to market its ‘real beauty values’.

The results of the high visibility campaign have morphed Dove into a trusted brand by the female market; the clever marketing by the company translated the message to women everywhere that natural beauty is a positive thing. Women agreed and Dove now has millions of females who are brand loyal and most importantly increased sales.

The advantage of viral marketing allows you to connect in an interactive medium, this gives you the opportunity to relay your brand values and spark conversations relating to your product or services. This gives you the opportunity to cross communicate your marketing message to an expansive market.

Feedback can be one of the most invaluable things for a business and actively listening and reacting to it can mould your company to where you want to be.

Communication of your message is the most essential; through reaching a wider audience you convey your message across an intricate market platform.

People like to see imagery, colour and movement and that’s where a video for example can benefit you, it allows the online viewer to have an insight into your brand behaviour and furthermore give you the capacity to grow your ideas, become part of the online community and allow you to network your business potential

The tools of communication are forever changing due to technological advancement and this process will continue to progress through heightened use and popularity. Viral has quickly integrated itself into the marketing model for businesses large and small. It can also allow a gateway between usually unreachable brands and consumers creating the right vibe and feel for your online business.

If you want to learn more about viral marketing and what we could do for your business please contact us here at Greenmedia on 01912759777.

We’re currently developing an SEO programme for new designer sunglasses website Red Hot Sunglasses, which has recently gone live.

The stunning-looking website has a suitably high-end designer style, and retails an impressive selection of the newest sunglasses from the likes of Ray-Ban, Chloe, Police, CK, Prada, Polo Ralph Lauren, Tom Ford, D&G, Fendi and Dsquared2. With an incredible range, as well as 100% price match guarantee and free next day delivery on all products, Red Hot Sunglasses is one of this Summer’s must-see websites!

Check it out at Red Hot Sunglasses.