We added yet another prestigious motor marque to our portfolio this week, with the acquisition of Lamborghini as our newest email marketing client. The Italian supercar legend’s official Reading dealership is using our service to publicise their opening, with a striking flyer-style mailer.

We’re looking forward to future mailings with Lamborghini Reading over the coming weeks and months, keep an eye on our portfolio page to see the latest designs.

We set our new email marketing system live today, with a debut mailing for a BMW client the first to experience the all-new features and results centre. All of our email marketing from this point will be through the new system, and we’re looking forward to seeing even better performance ongoing.

So, what’s new? In a word - everything. We’ve built from the ground up to create a system that is capable of providing the most complete service to our email marketing clients. The previous platform was already delivering outstanding performance, but with this new system we’re taking it to the next stage. Here are some of the new features;

New interface

Intuitive, easy-to-follow and beautifully presented. The main sections are divided with sliding tabs, clearly indicating each category. Results and statistics are shown in 3D graphs and simple grouped listings, making it easier than ever to navigate.

Unlimited link tracking

We’ve taken the limit off the number of traceable links that can be placed within an email, so no matter how wide the scope of your email marketing, our new system can comfortably cover it. Each link is clearly titled depending on its destination, making it easy to quickly scan through your listings and check performance.

Wider results date range

Date ranges have been extended to ten days from mailout, meaning that you can identify any opens or clicks within that period and clarify exactly when they happened. Discover when your recipients are most likely to act on your message and set target dates for the future.

Performance comparisons

Compare results from any two mailings, side-by-side. Find out what worked, and refine your approach for the next broadcast.

We’ve revamped our in-house email marketing system in the last few months to incorporate some exciting new features and introduce a new presentation interface. The new system, which is currently going through its final test sessions, will supercede our EDM for Business platform when it launches later this month.

Throughout the last eight years the Greenmedia system has provided email marketing to some of the biggest names in various sectors on a global scale, with phenomenal results across the board. We’ve built up an email marketing client list that currently includes the likes of Aston Martin, Audi, Porsche and numerous other prestigious marques - all of which have been acquired due to the continued strong performance of the system. We thought the time was right to take it to the next level, so, that’s exactly what we’ve done.

We initially created the system because we couldn’t find anything out there that provided all of the email marketing features we wanted to offer our clients. In building from scratch in-house with our own development team, we were able to produce a system that offered the latest features in a single, scaleable package. In the eight years that have passed since version 1.0 went live, there have been countless additions and amends, but it is still the case that nothing else quite like it exists in terms of mass email marketing packages. We firmly believe that Greenmedia’s email marketing offers a superior service, and our experience in the area is second to none.

The revamped version marks the biggest change to the system to date, and we’re sure that it’ll provide the platform for even more email marketing success when it goes live soon.

With so much focus on the design, copywriting and call to action used in email marketing it’s easy to forget how important the subject line is. The seemingly innocuous subject line is more often than not the last thing to be considered in an email marketing campaign, but it’s essentially the deciding factor behind an email getting opened or deleted. It doesn’t matter how professional and effective the email is - if the subject line isn’t up to the job then the whole campaign is at risk of failing.

Think about your own daily inbox experience and the hordes of emails that you routinely delete without a second glance. If a subject line isn’t immediately attention-grabbing, and it’s an unexpected email, then the chances are that you won’t bother opening it. With so many other legitimate emails requiring so much attention, who can blame you?

So there’s really a lot riding on the subject line, therefore it’s vital to give it the same attention and planning that you give to the other elements of an email marketing campaign.

There are two main issues to consider when writing a subject line - firstly, how to avoid junk mail filters and secondly, enticing recipients enough to actually open your message and read it.

1) Junk mail filters, whether as part of email software packages or wider company security policies, use a number of triggers - one of which is the humble subject line. They’re principally on the lookout for any words that clearly identify an email as spam - you know the usual suspects - but often rope in entirely legitimate messages accidentally. Have a look at your own junk mail folder, amongst the viagra and fake Rolex spam there will be at least one innocent email that has been swept up indiscriminately. Look at the subject line of the unlucky email and you’re likely to find the reason why it’s in amongst the junk.

To avoid this fate befalling your next email marketing campaign, steer clear of using certain characters in your subject lines - £-signs, $-signs, exclamation marks and question marks can all inadvertently flag up an email as junk, despite having good reasons for being used.

As well as individual characters, there’s a whole host of words that you should avoid using in your subject lines - “free”, “buy”, “deal”, “best” and “greatest” being some of the most common. In fact, most superlatives provide nothing more than a fast-track to the spam folder. Modern junk mail filters are intelligent and have been created around years of experience detecting spam, so if your subject line sounds anything like it could be a con, then it’s likely to face the chop and never see your recipient’s main inbox.

2) Enticing your recipients to open an email requires some thought. Of course the subject line needs to refer to whatever you’re mailing about, but you need something special to make it stand out above the masses of other emails in an inbox. This really depends on the purpose of your message, the type of customer you’re targeting and what you’re aiming to achieve overall. The demands here vary wildly, but it is essential to think about what the customer will respond and react to.

If you’re sending a regular message to recipients who are expecting the email, then a standard subject line that they’ll become familiar with is a safe bet. If your client has a respected brand name then use it somewhere in the subject line - the trust-factor alone will ensure a good open rate.

An unexpected message, perhaps to a customer database, needs a tempting subject line that is careful not to cross the line into the sensationalist. Again, have a quick scan of your junk mail folder if you want to see sensationalist subject lines.

So in a nutshell, you know your email marketing is wonderful but your recipient doesn’t (yet), and it’s up to the subject line to win them over. It deserves to be more than an after-thought. It’s just as important as any other element of the campaign, and should be treated as such.

Along with SEO and web development, email marketing has been one of Greenmedia’s core services from day one.

Unlike some of the so-called email marketing experts out there, we’re not jumping on the bandwagon and we haven’t bought a generic off-the-shelf programme to do it for us. Our system has been created in-house by our own development team, and is based solely on the needs of our clients. It has developed over the years to become the email marketing system of choice for the likes of Aston Martin, Ferrari, Porsche and Audi, among others.

The success of any email marketing broadcast depends on several factors working together, and because of our many years of experience we know precisely what works and what doesn’t.

It’s always crucial to keep in mind the reasons why you’re doing a particular email marketing campaign - while it’s easy to come up with a nice looking e-flyer, if you ignore the other key issues you’ll find that the campaign will be a flop. There are lots of areas to consider, and making something presentable is a small part of the process. This isn’t about being a vanity project and creating something that appeals specifically to you - it’s about getting results, which means knowing your target customers and developing everything around meeting their needs.

At Greenmedia we know the design approaches that will grab readers’ attention and keep it. We know how to create call-to-action messages that get clicks and calls flooding in. We know the optimum broadcast time and day for your industry, and we’ve learned quite a few other things throughout our years of doing this. We know email marketing and we know how to make it work for your business.

We’ve continued our work with prestigious car marques this month, with a range of stunning email marketing campaigns for Aston Martin, Ferrari, Porsche and Audi, among others.

One of the many client dealerships taking part in a campaign, Lancaster Cambridge Aston Martin, sold three new V8 Vantage Roadsters as a direct result of the mailshot - achieving a remarkable return-on-investment.

“The results of the work that Greenmedia has carried out to date have been fantastic. We have seen numerous Aston Martin sales coming as a direct result of the mailout campaigns, and the effects have been almost immediate,” said Andy Matthews, Dealer Principal at Lancaster Cambridge Aston Martin.

We’re always thrilled to hear such positive results from our mailings, but we’re never surprised.

Our email marketing system has been developed in-house over a number of years to provide precisely what the client wants - clicks, calls and an absolutely incredible ROI. As well as the immediate sales impact that email marketing can generate, clients are able to check the statistics down to the last click-through - to find out exactly how a mailing performed. Our highly refined system coupled with striking bespoke mailer designs creates an irresistible combination, with an end-result that speaks for itself.

“We now firmly consider Greenmedia’s email marketing service to be among our most effective and economic marketing sources, and we’re looking forward to continuing the success with future promotions,” added Andy Matthews.

When you get over £300,000 in sales as a direct result of a single mailout, the value of our email marketing is there for all to see.

Take a look at some of this month’s e-flyers and see for yourself why they have been such a success;

• Aston Martin
• Ferrari
• Porsche
• Audi

We went live with our new email marketing system this month, which has already shown its worth with some fantastic mailing results. We took a simple approach to development – find out what our clients want from email marketing, and push it further. Greenmedia has provided email marketing for hundreds of companies since 2001, and we’ve always moved to keep ahead of the game by offering that extra level of service that sets us apart and makes companies return time after time. By creating the system in-house we ensured that we got exactly what we needed, and avoided the off-the-shelf identikit solution that so many other agencies opt for. We know we’ve created a system that will work harder for us, and more importantly, our clients.

A recent example of how effective our email marketing is came in the form of a hugely successful mailout for Lexus Newcastle this month. The dealership was looking to promote its RX350 models, of which it had two pre-registered examples for sale. The aim of the campaign was clear – achieve the sales of the two models. We designed a clean and classy email flyer based on the Lexus brand’s impeccable and understated style, with copy and call-to-action tailored to encourage immediate contact. Drawing on our email marketing experience with marques such as Audi, Ford and Seat, we timed the mailout to be broadcast mid-morning on a Friday, when we know most people are at their most receptive to retail offers. Our approach proved well-founded, as both of the cars were sold within hours of the flyer going out, and an order was placed for a third model later in the day. Using our new bespoke mailing system, our client was able to track the performance of the email flyer from the second it started hitting recipient’s inboxes, right through to the sale of the models. The nature of the motor industry - with its high value sales – means that email marketing can achieve some genuinely phenomenal ROI figures. To get such an effective impact for a relatively low cost makes email marketing a shrewd choice for companies of all kinds looking for a strategically-placed marketing spend.

We continued our ongoing work with Northeast Audi throughout March and April, with a series of typically striking email flyers for various promotions at their network of dealerships. Another Greenmedia development for Northeast Audi this month is a custom-built client email system, which is currently being put through its paces in testing. We’re excited by the possibilities this creates, and are looking forward to its imminent live launch.