Targeted email marketing campaigns take a little bit of time and patience to achieve success. Many people make the mistake of thinking that their email campaigns consists primarily of simply sending out emails. In fact, much of the well-planned marketing campaign should take place before a single message ever goes out to anyone.

You’ll want to begin by thinking about the purpose of your campaign, then the various strategies that you might use to achieve that purpose. This requires that you develop an understanding of your audience, the types of messages that they will be likely to respond positively to, and also the timing of the messages you’re sending out.

Discovering The Purpose of Your Email Campaign

This first step is so deceptively simple that many people forget about it entirely. They assume that sending out an advertisement is better than sending out no advertisement, so why not?

But think about it like this: you are about to send a message to a group of people who were interested enough in you and your products that they agreed to be contacted. What if this is the only message from you that they ever open? If there is no fundamental purpose for the message, then your only chance to connect with a highly qualified lead could be waste.

Don’t misunderstand–this does not mean that every message you send out should push the hard sale. That’s not going to work for most people either. But there has to be a reason for each message, something that it aims to accomplish. In many cases, this may be as simple as building trust. Email marketing campaigns are excellent avenues for building trust prior to asking for the sale, but you won’t build up that trust just by virtue of having sent out 400 words of copy. You need to be active in accomplishing the goal of your mailing, and it helps to have a clear idea of that goal in advance.

Marketing To Your Target Audience

The goals of your message should have a lot to do with the people it is being sent to. This goes above and beyond the standard demographic targeting, to looking at the types of actions that a person on your list has performed. If you are going to send out a sales letter, think about whether or not it will benefit you to send it to people who have already purchased your product. Or whether there is some add-on or up-sell that you could be pitching to them instead.

Imagine what would happen if you created a special list segment containing only people who have mentioned your product or service on their blogs. Now there’s a group of people to pitch a special offer to. Email marketing campaign software is essential for setting up this type of market segmentation in your email campaigns.

What Type Of Message Best Fits Your Email Marketing Campaign?

If people are signing up for your list after buying your product, your messages to them should be somewhat different than messages for people who are signing up from informational pages on your site. For informational subscribers, there is probably no better or more efficient strategy than to use email autoresponders to build up slowly to the call to action. This way you can lovingly hand-craft a series of trust-building sales messages that gently woo the potential customer, and deliver them over a tested period of time. The best part is that you only have to write the email series once, and then once the subscriber buys you can use 1-2-All’s subscriber actions to have them automatically switched over to your ‘relationship management’ list for existing customers.

Timing Your Email Marketing Campaign

I mentioned sending out your email campaign along a tested timetable. This is a really important piece of the email marketing puzzle, and one which will be different for every demographic and every product niche.

Most people just choose an arbitrary frequency to send their newsletters out, and try to stick with that schedule. This can be a good tactic for promoting an air of stability for your company. If this is your campaign strategy, you’ll want to set up a calendar or timetable for yourself so that you’re not rushing to produce sub-par content at the last minute every week or month.

On the other hand, sometimes it can be wiser to consider the natural fluctuations of your market. If you are promoting a seasonal product, no one is going to be interested in reading about it until the season approaches. So if you send out a newsletter every month, people will already be used to ignoring you by the time the appointed season comes around. In this case you will probably actually make more sales by not sending anything out for months at a time.

I recently noticed an advertisement for an email marketing solution… The ad copy went something like this:

“Flash improves your email marketing campaigns effectiveness”

I am not sure who on earth came up with that – OR – if it was automatically generated, but it most definitely does not.  On that topic, here are a couple of things you should avoid when creating your email campaigns.

• Flash
  You will experience compatibility issues along with security warning issues.  If you want to include a movie you can include a screen capture of the movie and then have the movie launch in their browser once they click on the image.
• Javascript
  You will experience compatibility issues along with security warning issues.
• Forms
  I realize some people may disagree with this – but forms are not fully compatible and they can trigger some security warnings.
• Background Images
  Background images are very tricky if you wish to get maximum compatibility.  Outside of placing a background image in the body tag you will experience a number of issues.
• Setting a background color without using a wrapping div
  Many web based email clients will not show your body background color.  Thus if you are requiring a background color we suggest to also include a wrapping div around your content that is also set to have the same background color that your body tag has.

These are just a couple of the things you should keep in mind when creating your next email campaign.

This is part of a series of email design articles.  Subscribe to our blog to be notified as we release additional email design tips.

A while back we released a feature that allows certain ActiveCampaign products to authenticate users with an external login source. This feature is currently supported in KnowledgeBuilder 3.x and SupportTrio 2.x, and will soon be included in every ActiveCampaign product.

I wanted to share how dead simple it is to get started creating a new login source using your own authentication system. We’ve included some of the more popular applications like Joomla, PHPBB3, and vBulletin, as default external login sources, which can be enabled at any time.

But you may have your own custom authentication system that you’d like to use. In order to do this, you’ll need familiarity with editing PHP files, as well as a programmatic understanding of how to use PHP to speak to your authentication system.

To get started, open up the ac_global/loginsource/ directory contained within your KnowledgeBuilder 3.x or SupportTrio 2.x installation:

You’ll see a number of individual .php files, each corresponding to a separate login source configuration. For this example, I’ve added the last file, zencart.php, as we will be creating an external login source for Zen Cart.

Set up .php file

Once you create the new .php file in this directory, edit the contents of the file with this:

<?php

$loginident = "zencart";
$loginvars = "host,dbname,user,pass";

?>

Here we specify the name of our new external login source (the $loginident variable), as well as the settings you’d like to specify when setting up this login source (the $loginvars variable).

The $loginident variable will correspond with the name you see listed under the available login sources within the application:

The $loginvars variable will correspond with the available fields that allow you to input specific information pertaining to this login source:

Once you have included those two variables in the new .php file, you should be able to access the login source directly within the application:

Enable and further configure .php file

Once you’ve saved your new login source settings, using the above application pages, you are ready to configure the .php file to speak to your authentication system.

The easiest way to set up the rest of the .php file is to copy an existing source. For example, if you open vbulletin.php, you’ll see the necessary functions that need to reside within the class:

class vBulletinLoginSource extends AC_LoginSource {
....
}

Modify names to match your new login source. For example, vBulletinLoginSource would become zencartLoginSource.

Keep the five core functions in place:

Modify these functions to extract and authenticate a given username/password combination. For more information on what each of these functions should return, please view our detailed help documentation article.

We can also set this up for you, if you provide us the database structure that houses your external user credentials, as well as any specific PHP authentication/validation functions.

Testing out your new login source

If you feel confident that you’ve modified the .php file correctly, the only thing left is to test it out!

Make sure you’ve enabled your new login source, set User Type to Public or Admin, and promote it to be the first login source the system tries to use for authentication:

Then, log out of the application, and try logging in as a user from your external system. If everything is working, you should be able to log straight in to the application as normal!

You need to have a reason for sending an email to your subscribers.  This reason should lead them to a clear call to action in your email.   If your newsletter does not have a purpose then you are wasting your subscriber’s time.  People are busy and do not like to have their time wasted.  When you send someone an email you need to ask yourself what it is you would like them to do.  Do you want them to buy something from you?   Do you want them to reply to your email?  Are you asking them to donate their time or money to a worthwhile cause?  Your subscriber wants to know what it is you want from them.  They also want to know what you are going to do for them. If this is not obvious then you will lose them and they will not listen to what you have to say.  In order to get them to do what you want you have to make it obvious to them.   You also need to make what you are willing to do for them obvious.

Create a Void So They Feel a Need

Most people need a motivation in order to feel a need.  If they need money they feel motivation to get a job.  If they develop a gut they feel a need to go to the gym. In order to create a need for your subscriber you need to make them aware of what they are lacking.   Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs presents a theory of motivation that is based on the following:

• Physiological Needs – these are basic needs required to sustain life such as air, water, food, and sleep.
• Safety Needs – this could include living in a safe place, job security, savings, and protection from situations where a person would feel threatened.
• Social Needs – these are needs related to interactions with other people such as friendship, belonging to a group, and giving and receiving love.
• Esteem Needs – these are needs such as self respect, achievement, attention, recognition, and reputation.  This includes internal needs related to self esteem such as self respect and personal achievement as well as external needs such as social needs and recognition.
• Self Actualization – this is the peak of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs and is part of a person’s quest to reach their full potential.   This includes the need for truth, wisdom, knowledge, and meaning.

What is not important here is whether you agree with Maslow’s theory that lower levels of need must be satisfied before the higher needs are addressed.  What is important is that you realize that all people have needs and the reason products exist is to fill one of those needs.  Sometimes needs may not be obvious or ingrained in your reader’s mind.  When you do email copywriting you are writing to sell.   Your job is to show a need for your product or service.   If you do this well your reader will feel a void unless their need is satisfied.

Fill the Void By Offering a Solution

When you establish a need exists you can begin showing your reader how what you are selling fills that need.  This means talking about benefits as opposed to features.   Features are boring.  People do not want things unless they fill a need.  Talking about features is meaningless unless you can show how that feature fills a need. Sometimes people assume that because a person is looking at a product they must already know how all its features benefit them.  This is wrong.  Do not assume anything.   People trust you for your expertise or they would not come to you.   They want to know what’s in it for them.  An example of this can be found with cell phones:

Feature:  Bluetooth enabled

Benefit: Allows you to talk on the phone without using your hands

A younger person may know what Bluetooth Enabled means but for an older adult who is less technically inclined the term could be completely meaningless.   If you are talking about features as opposed to benefits you are throwing away potential customers.

Let Them Know What They Have to Lose

“What makes something special is not just what you have to gain, but what you feel there is to lose.” – Andre Agassi

What separates you from others with similar offerings?  What would your customer lose if they were to go with someone else instead of you?  Assure your reader that they are making the right choice by letting them know what they have to lose.  Give them a reason to believe you are special. You can draw on inspiration from past testimonials, case studies, statistics, brand identity, and of course your benefits when you are looking to separate yourself from your competitors.  Show them what makes you unique.  Let them know what life would be like without you.

Make It Easy For Them to Act On Their Need

Now that your reader knows that you have what they want its time to lead them to a clear call to action.  The call to action is an invitation to your reader to take an action that contributes to the goal of the email.  This call to action could take the form of a link that redirects to a landing page,  a method of purchasing the product, or even a reply to your mailing.  The purpose of your newsletter should be obvious to your subscriber.   Now that you have shown them what’s in it for them its only fair that you let them know what you want in return.  Your call to action should be clear and direct.  Your mailing should be structured in a way that is likely to generate a direct response from your reader.

Without a call to action you are merely teasing your reader. You are playing games or merely messing with their head.  Sparking interest and getting attention without letting them do anything about it.  If your reader does not know what your call to action is then you just wasted their time. Email marketing writing either produces results, or it is useless.

An obvious place to place your call to action is at the end of your mailing.   But that shouldn’t stop you from moving it up where appropriate or using multiple calls to action throughout your mailing.   You might have a call to action at the top, the middle, and the end so that no matter how erratic your reader’s attention is they always have a place to go!  Adding multiple calls to action throughout can increase the likelihood that you get a response.  Readers are use to being able to click on almost anything and that includes images, brand names, and logos.  If you do use images then add supporting text under the image and in the “alt” tag so that your reader will know what to do if images are disabled.

Persuasive writing begins with being able to communicate with your reader in a language they can understand.  This does not mean that you need to dumb down your language or show off how much you know.  Both can be equally frustrating if the person that you are talking to does not understand what you are trying to say.   Write in a language that sounds natural and unaffected.  Be clear and concise when presenting your subject.  Make your points using concrete details that your audience can relate to. If you follow this simple advice, you’ll see much better results from your web, print, and email copywriting.

Some of the best teachers that I ever had were able to take abstract ideas and put them in a language that everyone could understand.  They were masters of keeping their audience engaged by finding ways of making their subject relevant in order to reach as many people as possible.  They could do this because their mastery of the material allowed them to present it in any way they needed to in order to reach their audience.   If you asked them a question and they spoke to you individually you knew that they knew their stuff because they could explain it in a way that you could understand.

I found one such teacher when I took Calculus in college.  I actually found Calculus to be one of the most enjoyable classes I took and it was not because I was a math person.  Every subject uses its own particular vocabulary and can seem complicated unless you are able to keep up.  This is especially true when you use that same vocabulary to build upon further concepts.  My calculus teacher had us solve equations based on word problems that had to do with episodes of the X-Files, a popular TV show at the time.   This made class more interesting and I began understanding new concepts effortlessly because equations involved diabolical schemes from the Smoking Man.

In order to write persuasively you must first master the material you are presenting and be able to explain it in as many ways as possible. That way you can reach as many people in your audience as possible.  Like a good teacher you must master the art of communication.   If given the opportunity you should be confident enough to present your material to every individual member of your audience in a way that each and every one of them is able to get.  When you are able to do this you establish your credibility.

You must empathize with the person you are writing for.   Empathy allows you to see things from another person’s point of view because you are able to feel what they feel.  In order to effectively persuade you must be able to view things the way the people you are communicating with view them. You are going to need to make a practice of empathy in your daily lives as this is the only way of truly understanding the different ways in which diverse sets of people think and feel.  In order to master persuasion you must learn to feel what other people feel when you attempt to communicate with them.

When you empathize with your audience you are not just connecting with them but they are also connecting with you.  Empathy bridges divides.  In order to speak in a language that another person understands we must know what it feels like to think and feel the way they do. When you do this they are more receptive to the way you think and feel.   If you empathize with others they are more likely to empathize with you.  This makes them more persuadable because they are more willing to place themselves in your shoes in order to understand how you think and feel.

If you can then follow this with reasoned arguments then they will consider your reasons and place themselves in your worldview.  Some people may be initially surprised or confused by your empathy at first.  They may initially mistrust your attempts to empathize with them and think you are simply trying to be manipulative.  However,  once you establish that you feel the way they feel through sustained effort in your communication with them then this quickly leads to trust.  In order to master persuasion you must be able to establish trust with your audience.

For some it will be harder to come around toward your worldview than others.   You are going to want to pay special attention to people that do not see the world the way you do.   Remember,  a good teacher is able to take questions from anyone in the room and present learning in a way that everyone understands.  They have a mastery of their material and this allows them to present it in more than one way.

You will have people that understand what you are saying when you say it.   They are attune to your way of thinking so your arguments make sense to them and they sound persuasive.   In order to do your job effectively you need to especially consider arguments from people who are not attune with your way of thinking and who are the least persuasive.  Their objections will make your writing more persuasive. Persuasive writing is able to answer questions from anyone no matter what point of view and present arguments in a way that everyone can understand.   Everyone you attempt to communicate with may not agree with you but they will consider what you have to say.

Update: 1 Reason Not To Install Zend Optimizer

Since this article was published in May of 2008, ActiveCampaign has discontinued use of Zend Optimizer and Ioncube in favor of our own solutions to enhance the speed and security of our applications. Consequently, there is no longer any additional software that you need to install in order to use our products, and you now have full access to the source code of all of our software.

We believe our software can help your business to succeed. We believe this so much that we want  to give you the opportunity to try it out for free for 30 days and make your own decision:

• Click here for a free trial of Email Marketing
• Click here for a free trial of Survey Software
• Click here for a free trial of Help Desk
• Click here for a free trial of Knowledge Management
• Click here for a free trial of Live Chat

Original Instructions for Installing Zend Optimizer on Your Web Server

One of the ways that we increase the overall speed and security of our web-based software is by pre-compiling the PHP code. The tools that we use to do this are called Zend Optimizer and Ioncube. You actually only need one or the other in order to encode PHP scripts, and I’m not aware of any performance benefit that either one enjoys over the other. The only reason that we use both of these products is to provide maximum compatibility with all the different types of web hosts and servers that are out there. That’s why, when you visit the downloads page in our online help desk, you’re always asked which version of the software you’d like to download: Zend or Ioncube.

Most people who don’t produce or use a lot of web-based software have never heard of either of these products and get a little flustered when confronted with the question of which they should download. If you’re using a shared web hosting account or have an in-house server admin running your web server, then you have a simple one-step solution: pick up the phone, call the admin, and ask which one you can use

If you’re running your own server, it’s still very simple. The first thing to do is to find out if your server can already run Ioncube scripts, since if it can there are no additional steps for you. The way to find this out is to:

• download our test script
• unzip and upload it to your web directory
• and then open it up in a web browser

You’ll see something like this:

As you can see, my own local test server is not able to run Ioncube-encoded scripts without additional setup, because I’m using the latest version of PHP, which has broken dynamic loading. That’s no big deal, because I went ahead and installed the free Zend Optimizer with just a couple of clicks, and now I’ll show you how to do the same.

Download Zend Optimizer

If you find this part challenging, you probably shouldn’t be trying to run your own web server! 

What you need to do is to download the Zend Optimizer package onto your web server. You can get it from http://www.zend.com/en/products/guard/downloads, where you’ll need to select the appropriate package for your server. So first select the radio button labeled “Zend Optimizer” (not the one labeled “Zend Guard,”) and then you’ll find that the dropdown box becomes populated with a list of server types that Zend Optimizer is available for. The chances are very good that the type of server you are using is supported by Zend Optimizer. Remember, folks, you’re installing this on your web server, not on your own local computer (unless your web site is served from your local machine), so you want to be doing all this from the server, and to select the option that corresponds to the operating system running on the web server.

Before you are allowed to download, you’ll have to register for an account on zend.com on the next page. Once you’ve downloaded the software, all that is left is to install it on the server. The instructions for doing this will vary depending on the type of server that you use. If it is a Windows IIS server, just double-click on the installer .exe file and follow the instructions that appear on the screen. On any other type of system, including Mac OS X and any Linux or Unix variant, you’ll find that the installation package is compressed, so you first need to extract it.

On Linux or Unix servers

• Open up a terminal window or get yourself out to the command line. You can decompress the package by entering the following at the command line prompt:
  • gunzip -c <package name> | tar xf -
• Then, from inside the installer package directory that is created when the package is unzipped, type:
  • ./install.
• Now you’ll see a nice pretty graphical installation wizard that will walk you through setting up Zend Optimizer on your server.

On servers running Mac OS X

Installation on a server running OS X is a little more complicated that you might like it to be, but is still very doable. The most complicated part is basically just that you have to use the command line, which many OS X users are not very familiar with. However, you can find a very good tutorial for going through this process here [link removed since the article disappeared!).

Now put it to good use!

Once you’ve got Zend Optimizer installed on your server, you should be able to run Zend-encoded PHP scripts right away. So now just grab a copy of the Zend version of whichever ActiveCampaign software product you’ve purchased, and follow the installation instructions in the docs/install.txt file (you can also find the instructions in our knowledge base.)

If you run into any problems with the Zend Optimizer installation or if you get an error message saying that Zend Optimizer is not installed on your server, check the Zend website for troubleshooting tips.

A while ago I told you about the new art installation in front of our building. I wasn’t really sure what it was supposed to be at that time or where it had come from or who was responsible. Of course, like any good citizen I relished the triumph of aesthetics in my corner of the city.

On Friday the Tribune carried a story about the sculpture, which is called the “Communication X9″ by an Israeli artist named Yaacov Agam. Yaacov is hopping mad.

It seems the sculpture was originally placed in another part of the downtown area, in an outdoor park that also features massive sculptures by Pablo Picasso and Marc Chagall. Chicago loves a great big sculpture, what else can I tell you? Unfortunately, after a couple decades the paint on Agam’s sculpture started fading and peeling, so the city took it down for restoration.

This is where the trouble begins. The firm hired to perform the restoration–for $300,000!–was supposed to consult with Agam throughout the process in order to make sure that the restoration was true to his original work. The firm says they did, the artist says they didn’t. And now Agam is calling the restored sculpture “an unauthorized copy” of his original work and is suing everybody.

The idea behind the piece is that the subtle changes in color would create the perception of motion for onlookers. I never saw the original, so I can’t say how well it worked, but I don’t think I’ve noticed any perception of motion while gazing at the new and improved model.

In my previous post, I talked about some of the reasons to start doing web surveys. Of course, for someone who has no experience with this way of gathering information, starting to run surveys can be a little daunting. As always, you’ll want to make the user’s experience your first priority. This means taking a little extra care in crafting the surveys themselves and the ways that you promote them.

Survey early, Survey often

Don’t go back through the last 5 years of business data and figure out everything you’ve ever wished you knew about your clients and their habits and dump it all into one survey. It would be great if all of your customers were willing to spend 30 or even 60 minutes answering your questions, but they are not. In fact, if you ask them to do this, they’ll probably lose a lot of respect for you and be less likely to do business with you again. You’ll probably have better results doing a short 5-6 question survey every few months.

Mix it up a little

Since you’re adding frequent, short surveys, why not hook them into different actions that your site’s visitors are usually taking anyway? If you have a membership area, you could add in a quick survey between the login page and the member’s area. If you offer something for download, you could stick one in before the download is served. Make it feel like a quick, relatively unobtrusive extra step in the middle of an action that your clients are used to performing anyway. If you play this right, you can actually gain an extra layer of data that might tell you about the different types of answers you get from users engaged in different types of activity on your site.

Explain yourself

You have to be classy about these types of things. Remember that you’re asking for your clients to take time out of their busy days, and explain to them why you think it’s important for them that they help you out. Will the results of this survey be used to make your site nicer for them to use? Will it help to improve your products or services in some specific way? Let your clients know that you care about their experience with you and are offering this survey in order to make sure that you keep improving. Make them love you.

Offer some incentives

They don’t have to be major incentives, just a little something commensurate with the effort you’re asking for. If you offer an information product and are using your surveys to improve it, offer clients a free or discounted copy of the new version for helping you improve it. It’s only fair. If it’s a membership site you’re asking questions about, consider giving a free week of membership for completing your survey. The other day I saw a bank offering free blankets for opening a checking account. I can’t possibly imagine whose banking decisions they’re trying to sway with this offer, but I’m sure they must have put some kind of market research into it. People like to feel rewarded.

With a little bit of brainstorming about the types of information you could use from your clients, a little planning about how you intend to extract the information and put it to use, and some basic common sense about the way that you ask people for their help, you might just open up your business to some surprising potentials that have been right under your nose for years. Or you might strike gold with one client’s dead-on analysis or fond wish. A good web-based survey software or survey service package could change your life.

If you’re just getting started with survey design, you’ll find that it can be a little tricky to write questions that get the information you’re looking for without biasing the response. I highly recommend looking over these basic guides to evaluation pamphlets provided by applied sociologist Gene Shackman.

Here is a short list of reasons why I would unsubscribe from a newsletter. No particular importance on the order…

1. You send me a mailing more often than needed.
   Rarely I stay subscribed to a weekly mailing list. It better be quite good to keep that frequency going.
2. Non-stop promotion.
   I like to know about your new products and services. But give me something other than a standard sales pitch.
3. Duplicates.
   I subscribed once. I only need one copy.
4. Your content is bad.
   Boring content will encourage me to find the unsubscribe link.
5. I lose interest.
   People will lose interest in your subject. Nothing you can do about this one.
6. Grammatical issues.
   Take some time to edit & review your newsletter and I will take some time to read it.
7. Ugly email design.
   Whether it is HTML or TEXT take some time to design a professional and easy to read layout.
8. Excessive advertising.
   Advertising is fine and is required for some business models. However, I subscribed for your content. Not a 600×300 ad that covers the majority of my message preview.
9. Paid “special” newsletters.
   There are a couple popular newsletters that send out “special” advertiser mailings in addition to their newsletter. So not only is their newsletter cluttered with ads – but subscribers also have the joy of receiving full email advertisements frequently.
10. Copied or low quality content.
    If I subscribed for informational content I want quality and useful content. A free republished article or generic piece of content will not encourage me to be a subscriber for much longer.

What makes you unsubscribe from newsletters?

ActiveCampaign has a new partner to create newsletter, email and promotional writing content for your email marketing and web site.

Great newsletters utilize “highlights” consisting of 1-2 paragraphs that introduce new products, services, or general information about what’s going on in your organization. A well written newsletter can help you convert new prospects, motivate current customers to make additional sales, or simply attract new visitors to your website. Take advantage of a well written newsletter with your next campaign!

I encourage all users of Email Marketing (or any email marketing program) to devote some time for producing quality email copywriting. Strong copy will assist with your conversions via email and will also encourage your subscribers to remain on your list. If you do not spend any time on the copy you will be stunting the success of your marketing efforts.