Take a look at our newly updated portfolio pages, featuring a selection of Green Media work completed during May. The update includes the new website for elite specialised security firm Bulwark Group, email marketing for Ferrari and a search optimised redesign for the HLA Services website.
Check out the updated Green Media portfolio, featuring a selection of April’s work – Beamish Hall’s fantastic new website, a typically stylish Liverpool Audi e-flyer and an exciting viral video for Northumbria Police. Take a look.
We’ve added a selection of email marketing examples for March on the Green Media portfolio, including our first e-flyer for exclusive super car marque Spyker, as well as a fantastic Audi cabriolet special event mailer.
It’s absolutely essential that your company marketing represents the very best that you have to offer if you’re going to get the results you need, particularly in today’s incredibly competitive business environment.
If your marketing isn’t projecting the very best indication of your products and services, you’re not only missing a huge opportunity to connect with people, you’re also potentially damaging your brand long-term.
We see examples of some truly dreadful company marketing on a daily basis, despite the ever-increasing demand for quality. Here are some of the most common;
- Bulk mailings sent from Microsoft Outlook or a similar email system
- Campaigns sent using basic DIY template programmes
- Marketing emails sent with attachments
Using these methods simply creates a negative effect and turns prospective customers away. This sort of approach gives a wholly unprofessional impression, which is precisely the opposite of what it should be doing. If you’re currently employing these methods, we’d like to talk to you.
Here at Green Media, we know what works for one doesn’t necessarily work for all. That’s why we approach every marketing job with fresh ideas. Like everything we do, there’s nothing off-the-shelf, and your campaign is created specifically for you, around your own requirements and expectations. Standing by this ethos, we’ve helped hundreds of companies in a diverse range of sectors successfully market themselves over the last decade. We’d like to add your company to the list.
Take a closer look at what Green Media has to offer.
We’re debuting our new supercar client Spyker’s email marketing this month, with a typically sophisticated e-flyer. As you’d expect from the ultra-exclusive Dutch marque, the flyer features a sublime style and inspirational imagery, along with a powerful yet understated call to action.
The Spyker “Six Senses” e-flyer will be part of March’s portfolio update at the end of the month, so come back shortly to see it for yourself.
The February portfolio update has been set live, featuring a selection of Green Media’s work during the month.
Email marketing examples include a flyer for the remarkable Bentley Continental Supersports, and an incredible sale mailout for Jardine Motors Group, featuring Ferrari, Maserati and Bentley models.
We’ve also launched three exciting new websites; interactive country of origin directory Made in Nations, business finance experts Dovetail Financial Solutions and specialist car brokerage Precious Metals.
Next month’s update will include an e-flyer for a very special new supercar marque – check back shortly to find out more.
The credit crunch has forced a widespread rethink in the way that companies advertise their products and services, and the change in approach is now being experienced across the board. As we’ve said for a while here on Green Notes – the customers are still out there, the marketing just needs to reflect the times to be effective.
The NFL Superbowl final, the American Football showpiece characterised by its incredible viewing figures and therefore marketing potential, is an accurate indicator of the advertising industry as a whole – and Sunday’s US broadcast underlined the marked shift in emphasis. A Hyundai offer of clean slate credit in the event of losing your job during a repayment period perhaps highlighted the new advertising landscape better than most.
Back here in the UK, the examples are numerous, if slightly less stark – a longstanding Virgin Media offer of three months cheap rate services has been hastily repackaged as “brightening the credit crunch”. Sainsburys supermarket has gone from overpromoting its premium “Taste the Difference” and “SO Organic” lines in favour of the budget “Basics” range. These examples, picked from many, again underline the way in which the biggest of corporate names are redirecting their focus.
From a marketing perspective, it’s a new challenge to appeal to customers and prospects with genuinely reduced buying power, but the key point remains the same – the customers are still around, they haven’t disappeared. It’s absolutely essential for advertising to keep pace with the changing demands of these customers to get results now.
We’ve facilitated such a shift with our own clients over the last few months, and found that a strategised change in copy tone and offer presentation really can reap rewards. Some of our email marketing during this period has achieved record responses, and the return on investment has continued to tell its own story.
So if you’re wondering how best to market your products and services during the downturn, get in touch, we’d be happy to show you what we can do for your business.
The first portfolio update of 2009 features email marketing campaigns for Bentley, Jaguar and Audi, along with a great redesign for Friendship Travel. See for yourself.
We were delighted to hear about the response to a recent email marketing campaign for one of our Jaguar clients, which again proved the overwhelming business benefits of advertising through the downturn and the incredible potential of email marketing. The e-flyer, for Lancaster Jaguar Sidcup, was mailed out on Friday 5th December and led directly to the sale of ten brand new Jaguars and forty-five enquiries of interest for possible future purchases.
The mailer was sent to a datalist containing 1946 registered customers and achieved a 42% open rate – far higher than the industry average. The decision to broadcast on a Friday helped to create momentum throughout the weekend, as highlighted by the results.
The stunning sales results emphatically demonstrate that email marketing is still the most effective pound-for-pound promotional medium available, continuing to make an impact even in the hardest-hit sectors.
If you’re looking for a low-cost and effective way to get your message out to customers and prospects, then email marketing is likely to fit the bill. This series of articles is designed to highlight the key issues – explaining what to do, what not to do, and why. In this piece, the first of the series, we’re looking at some of the most commonly-spotted problems in email marketing, and the ways they can be avoided.
However, if you just need the benefits of great email marketing but perhaps don’t need to know all the ins-and-outs discussed here, then get in touch with us – we’d be more than happy to demonstrate how effective it can be when done properly.
Copy for email
Copywriting for the web has its own distinct set of rules, largely based around hitting your point straight away, avoiding unnecessary words, maintaining clarity and giving the reader a pay-off as soon as possible. You’ll find that these themes come into sharp focus when writing email marketing copy. All too often it is bogged down with a long-winded and dawdling style, and this lack of clarity can effectively kill a whole campaign, regardless of how good your offer is. Just as deadly to email marketing is copy that is too brief, as this can fail to engage readers.
If your marketing email is vying for attention amongst a hundred or so other emails throughout the course of a day then it absolutely must make an impression and stand out – and the copy is a clear opportunity to do this. Your opener is crucial – engage the recipient straight away by making it clear precisely what you’re offering, what the benefit is to them and why it’s worth reading on. If these things aren’t obvious in the first couple of lines then you’ve lost your chance.
Image-heavy mailers
Email marketing that over-employs imagery can look incredibly good, but it can fail to be effective in terms of results for various reasons.
With increased awareness of viruses and security threats it’s quite rare these days for people to have their emails set up to show images immediately. So email marketing that is overly reliant on images is completely dependent on recipients clicking to see them – which they often won’t!
Even if an image-based email does make it through to a viewing, there are several different email clients and systems that display HTML messages in very different ways. Your carefully crafted masterpiece that was designed to perfection might look unrecognisable on certain clients. Be sure to code around this, and don’t leave out any of the popular email clients.
Despite the image minefield, some brands have fantastically effective e-flyers made up purely of images – Schuh is a good example of this, as well as a lot of the high-end fashion retailers. However these mailers work on the strength and recognition of the brand itself, often in the subject line or from field. If a recipient sees a respected and trusted brand name (obvious phishing aside), they’re far more likely to click “show images” or allow the flyer to upload. Once the recipient has seen the email quality, it’s likely to be assigned to a safe senders list from that point onwards. However, if it’s an unknown or unexpected brand sending the email, then no amount of “can’t see this email? Click here” messages will encourage the reader to open it.
It’s best to achieve a balance between text and images, so recipients can see immediately what you’re trying to say and it’ll look the part as well. For more information on this, see our dedicated article.
From fields and subject lines
These two underappreciated factors are the first things that appear in an inbox, so they deserve as much consideration as anything else in email marketing. As mentioned earlier, if used correctly they can instantly win over a recipeint. However, if either of these are fluffed, then you’re risking the failure of the entire campaign, regardless of how brilliant it might be in every other respect.
First off, the from field – it’s not exactly complex stuff, you’re just saying where the email is coming from, but there are definitely some rules you should be following here. Again, if you’re marketing a big brand or respected name then take the opportunity to reference it. Don’t bother with an email address, especially not a clunky “donotreply@” style one. Using names in from fields is an option, but it depends entirely on whether the recipient will be expecting it and will know who the named sender is. A name in a from field can add a neat personal touch in certain cases, and you’ll find that personally written newsletters often carry the name of the author in this field.
Next up, the subject line – this continues to be one of the most poorly executed elements of email marketing, but again is a fairly straight-forward thing to get right. The golden rule here would be, simply, don’t look like spam. Don’t use words like “best” or “cheap”, and avoid full subject lines in capital letters, as these are likely to trigger spam filters and send your marketing directly to junk mail folders. For the same reason avoid using characters such as “£”, “$” or “!” even if there’s an entirely credible reason to do so. Once you’ve got these spam issues out of the way, think about how best to present your message in the most succinct fashion. Don’t make it too long or cryptic. It needs to be quick-fire, contain a selling point or an intriguing line to encourage an opening. It’s a vitally important factor so make the most of it.
Timing
The day and time that you send out your email marketing can play a large role in deciding the end result. Sending out on a Monday morning will all but guarantee failure in most sectors. Think about the start of your own working week… do you have time to peruse and respond to unexpected emails? It’s unlikely.
With newsletter-style email marketing, decide on a regular mailout day and time – and stick to it. Recipients will expect the email to drop into their inboxes at the same time each week, month, or however often you send it, and it’s this regularity that will guarantee and maintain a certain level of interest.
More sales-driven email marketing should be timed around key buying times, depending on the product or service you’re promoting.
Call to action
The last point in any email marketing is the call to action, the element that turns a recipient into a customer. It’s incredible to think that any email marketing could be sent out without a cast-iron call to action, but it does happen.
Don’t leave your reader in any doubt whatsoever as to what they need to do to take you up on your offering. Walk them right through to the phone number, email link or web link that takes them to a conversion. Ideally give them an option of all three, different customers have different preferences so you should cater for them all.
