Two new website additions to the Green Media portfolio for August are now live online, UK Trade Signs and Anywhere Fitness – take a look.
We’ve got some exciting additions due for September’s update, including three new websites that are currently being put through their paces in beta testing and are set for launch soon. Watch this space!
We’ve written a lot about web copywriting here on the Green Notes blog over the last couple of years, mainly covering copy for search engine optimisation and the best way to write effective website content. One web copy theme that we’ve only briefly touched upon, despite it being part of all our lives on a daily basis, is copy for email marketing.
Email marketing copy is an incredibly wide-ranging concept, and like every other area of web copy the quality of everyday examples varies wildly from the sublime to the sub-ridiculous. Email marketing itself, when executed properly, remains a phenomenally effective advertising medium, however there’s a fine balance in getting it right and wrong. Take a look through your inbox and the email marketing flyers that you’ve received today – how many of them have you responded to so far? Chances are not many, if any at all.
We’ve been creating email marketing at Green Media for nearly ten years, and have seen the industry grow from simple plain text snippets into interactive visual showcase mailers that have more in common with high-end websites. The recipient type has evolved just as significantly, from lone network administrators receiving a few mails a day on behalf of their company, into super-demanding web users that mercilessly cull hundreds of emails from their inbox without as much as a second glance every single day.
Here are a few email marketing copy tips that we’ve found useful over the years, covering some of the issues that should always be prioritised in copywriting for this medium.
Imagine the recipient
Put yourself in the recipient’s shoes. If your data list is refined then you’ll have a pretty clear idea of who it is you’re marketing to, and the copy should be written accordingly. Selling Xbox360 games to teenagers clearly requires a different approach to marketing £100,000 Bentley cars to company directors in their 50′s. Imagine the recipient. Imagine what they’re likely to respond to. Imagine what they’re likely to be turned off by. Once you’ve done your first mailing to any list, for any product, check out the click-through and response rates to see what worked and what didn’t.
Is the call-to-action sufficient?
The call-to-action (CTA) copy is effectively the most important part of any email marketing. Without a carefully crafted CTA the reader won’t follow-up on the message, and the whole exercise will be wasted.
Again, the requirements of a CTA naturally vary, depending on what you’re actually attempting to get the reader to do. If you’re offering a freebie that you know they’re interested in, then the CTA will need nothing more than a straight-forward line and link. If you’re presenting something completely new to the reader, or selling a high-value product, then the CTA will need to be suitably detailed.
Don’t accidentally disguise your email as spam
With so much unsolicited spam email these days it’s rare to find a company junk mail filter that isn’t anything less than rigorous. These filters are on the lookout for any number of indications that an email is spam, some of which can be found in the most innocent marketing mailers. Characters such as “£” and “!” are typical examples of spam triggers, along with terms like “Sale”, superlatives like “Best” and anything vaguely sensational. So, it’s important to avoid these in your email marketing copy – especially in subject lines – or face the prospect of your e-flyer heading straight into a virtual bin.
Get in touch with Green Media for more information on effective email marketing.
The map that you occasionally see right at the top of Google’s organic search results is the Local Business Listings. These listings tend to show up on service-orientated searches where regional modifiers are used as part of the keyterm, ie; “bars in Newcastle”. The prime positioning of the listings on Google’s results page means that if you’re focusing on a particular location for sales then Local Business Listings should really be prioritised in your wider SEO programme.
Google’s Local Business Listings are technically separate to organic SEO, yet rely largely on the same basic rules for success – the main one being the use of good relevant content. Listings are created through Google Accounts, with the option to add a brief description and the all-important location which is highlighted on the results map. It’s so quick to set up, and depending on the type of company you’re running, the benefits can be incredible.
Following the basic principles of SEO good practice is the best way to get a strong performing listing;
- Create a clear title, with a single main keyterm included.
- Write the description for real-world users, in a no-nonsense copy style. Keyword stuffing, as always, results in unreadable copy.
- Focus on your main service – this offers a clearer message to both users and Google.
- Don’t forget to add the business URL – an obvious point maybe, but this isn’t a mandatory field on the set-up form so can be easily missed out.
- If anything notable changes with your business – new services, services phased out, location changes etc – change your listing. It should always be up-to-date.
- Remember Google’s primary aim – to provide the user with the information they’re searching for – if your listing isn’t as helpful and useful as it could be, change it.
While it ranks on its own merits in relation to competition, the performance of a Local Business Listing is assisted by the quality of the associated business website. If that website is doing everything it should with an ongoing SEO programme, then the business listing will benefit accordingly.
Like organic SEO you’ve got the top ten to aim for, as these are the results that will appear on the all-important first page. However, again like organic SEO the competition can often run into the thousands depending on the keyterm and location in question. Approach the Local Business Listings like any SEO project – remember there’s no quick fix or silver bullet, stick to the known principles and the results will follow.
Get in touch to discuss your company’s SEO programme with Green Media.
We’ve launched the Anywhere Fitness website this week, a neat design with a memorable brand identity.
Bespoke features on the site include an interactive events calendar and easily accessible CMS.
