• The earlier you start the better prepared you will be if other things pop up (which they inevitably do)
• You may find that some of your ideas may take time to come together (Do you have some research to do? Do you need other people to make things happen? How much time will they need to get their part done?)
• If you are optimizing for new products or services, it will take some time for your efforts to show up in the search engines
• If there are changes to your website or marketing message you’ll probably want to test a thing or two to make sure you are getting the most out of your efforts (and test it before the holiday rush of visitors hits your site)

Let’s take a look at each one of these points in a bit more detail.

Things Pop Up
When was the last time your business ran as smooth as you planned for an entire month, let alone an entire year? Probably never. Unexpected things happen that take up your valuable time – the time you may be planning on working on the holiday season. If you are able to map out a plan of attack for your holiday season right now, you will be more likely to stick by it and be able to complete it on time.

Most Online Initiative Take Some Time To Come Together
Some initiatives require other resources like designers and copywriters. The earlier they are involved the more apt they are to meet your deadlines. A PPC campaign is often a powerful revenue driver around the holiday season. And sure, you can pull one together over coffee one afternoon in late November. But to really get the most out of your investment you should start early so you can test different keywords, different ads and different landing pages. That way once the holiday traffic is searching for your product or service you are ready to take advantage of it.

Jumping Up The Search Engines Doesn’t Happen Overnight
As we all know, it takes time for solid SEO efforts to show results in the search engines. So if you start now, you may just be #1 for the terms you want by the time we’re all holiday shopping. But if you start in November there is virtually no shot at that.

It’s Better To Test With A Smaller Sample Size
If you’re testing a new marketing message with an email campaign and / or your website, why wait until the bulk of your customers are coming to buy your product to test it? It make sense to test it out when the stakes are not as high. Test a few landing page designs on a small sample (maybe only part of an email list, maybe a month when traffic to your site isn’t that high). That way you have the kinks out when it’s time for the holiday rush.

Are you still under the impression that it’s too earlier to start thinking about Christmas 2010? Or are you all ready starting to plan for the 2011 season? Let us know your thoughts.

Change The Subject

Nobody biting? It could be time for a change. If you can’t get them to click, it might not be a problem with your subject line, but the content subject itself!

So you look at the tracking stats for your newsletters after every issue, and the clicks and open rates are consistently low. Take some time to reevaluate your message to better appeal to your target audience.

I just glanced down my inbox for an example of a subject line I would never click on. Found a bunch, but here is one: “You’ll be saying WOW every time with ShamWow” I don’t even have to open it. I know what’s in it. I’m not interested in reading an ad.

I honestly might, however, click if it had said something like, “ShamWOW Ranked Best For Clean Kitchen” because it sounds like a news story, some piece of information I can take away. But then they would have to deliver on that promise once I opened it. That means their entire email content would have to change. And if they don’t have something interesting to send, they shouldn’t be sending me an email. Read this post on Internet Copywriting for Dummies.

Is it time for you to rethink your message? Test a new approach each time and monitor how the stats change until you find something that works. Keep in mind, very few people respond well to large blocks of text and in-your-face advertising language, so keep it brief and add value. More on this in the next point.

Do More Than Sell… But Sell

Give readers an option other than “Click Here To Buy Now!” Offer some additional resources that won’t distract the reader but will add value to your business in their eyes and give them a more well-rounded convincing reason to visit your venue. Then provide a strong call to action.

Let’s imagine you own a restaurant, for example, as we brainstorm for ideas. You could send your email subscribers a list of the top 5 things to do in the area (offering links for more information). Then remind them that they can top the day off with a nice dinner out. Or send them a coupon for a free dessert with purchase of entrée because they’ve been “such a good customer.” Let them know your pizza won the latest award. Have they tried it? Offer a gift certificate as the perfect gift idea for that upcoming occasion. Give them something for free on their birthday. Remind them that you do kids birthday parties or rehearsal dinners. I could go on and on.

Even if most of your subscribers don’t have these needs, they may forward it on to someone who does. Dig deep and learn how to spark interest and create value in the eyes of your customer with relevant newsletter content.

Forget Deadlines

When you have something to say, say it. If you don’t, don’t! Many email marketing campaigns aren’t reaching their full potential because they are forced or too scheduled.

When you have to pull something together to meet a deadline each week, month, whatever, your content can run a little dry. You might not have much to say, so you end up adding fluff or straight selling. On the contrary, if you have many exciting things going on, but you wait to send them all at once, each might not get the recognition it deserves. And think of the crammed subject line!

Keep your newsletters focused and relevant. Don’t send too often, but don’t send too infrequently. When you have something to announce, announce it immediately. If you are running a special, tell your subscribers about it. You get the idea. Send them to your website to learn more, and make sure you have an enticing landing page and that your contact us page is up to par.

In most relationships, you call when you have something to say, right? It follows, therefore, that you should email your subscribers when you have something to say as well… even if it’s, “We haven’t seen you in a while. Here’s a good reason to stop by…”

Borrow Good Ideas

If something works on you, make it work for you. Most of us receive a good amount of junk email every day. On occasion, as we’re check marking ten in a row to delete, there is one that catches our eye. It makes us stop. It makes us click. Next time that happens to you, take note. What was it about the subject line that got you to notice it? Was it short? Was it irresistible? Did it say your name? Make that work for you.

Even if it’s from a totally different industry, you can borrow good ideas from great campaigns. If you are very clever, you may even subscribe to e-newsletter lists from businesses in your own industry to monitor their techniques!

Test Everything

Oops, that image didn’t come through, and you just sent your newsletter to thousands of subscribers. Oops, that was the wrong link, and now you are confusing clickers. Oops, that was the wrong date, and now you have to send a correction email.

Mishaps are a fact of life, but many times you can spare yourself some time and embarrassment by simply sending yourself a test message first. Open up email accounts (even if only for testing) on Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo!, etc. so you can see how your message will display in each account. You would be very surprised at the differences!

Also, double check dates, times, locations, other information, spelling, links… anything your message contains… to ensure accuracy – or better yet, get a second pair of eyes on it.

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Want some more expert advice on Internet Marketing or email newsletter campaigns? We here at Mannix Marketing would be happy to answer your questions and help you map out a plan that will work for you. Just call the office at (888) 395-9035.

With all Marketing campaigns, there are some strategic techniques you can use to provide higher clicks, and higher conversions. Below are some of my favorites!

1.    Keep your Subject Line Short: Studies* have shown shorter subject lines of 35 characters or less produce higher open rates AND higher click rates.

2.    Send on Sunday: Try sending out your email marketing campaign on Sunday night or Monday morning could produce higher open rates. The idea is that a lot of people are checking their emails later on Sunday night to get a head start for the weekday ahead.

3.    Add Lots of Links: Include lots of links within your messages – a report by mailermailer on November 2008 showed messages with 20 links or more had a sharp increase in higher click rates.

4.    Include ‘Teasers’: Don’t give your user the full story – you are more likely to give a catchy teaser to a story that you can link to than giving everything away. After all, the main goal is to get more people clicking to your site to learn more!

5.    Follow Up with a Shorter Email Blast: Have a great mid-month promotion, but only run a monthly email newsletter campaign? Don’t fret! Send out a very simple, very short email blast announcing just your one event – sometimes our quick and simple blasts announcing just one contest or one special has proven to be as successful or MORE successful than our bigger monthly news campaign.

6.    Segment Out Your Email List: If you can segment out your list and tailor your campaigns as specifically as possible, you are more likely to have stronger conversions. For example, if you are a restaurant in NYC and you can separate out your list based on local addresses versus addresses outside of the city, you will be able to tailor one e-campaign to locals and the other to tourists.

7.    Last but not least… TEST! What good is strategizing, planning, and executing a campaign and not testing to see what works? Keep a record of what teasers boasted greatest attention and what sort of subject lines worked the best. Remember, even though Sundays may be a good day to send out an e-campaign for a lot of different industries, your demographic may be different, so test your way to success!

I will leave you with this quote from the Email Marketing Metrics Report by MailerMailer:

“According to an October 2008 report by the Direct Marketing Association… By the end of 2008, it [email] will have driven $28 billion in sales and is projected to drive $32.6 billion in sales in 2009.”

* Study from the Email Marketing Metrics Report published by MailerMailer LLC, November 2008