Trending December 2023 # Email Marketing’s 5 Most Underused Engagement Boosters # Suggested January 2024 # Top 18 Popular

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How many of these 5 practical and easy-to-use engagement tools are you already using?

One of the main questions I get asked is about how to more effectively engage in email marketing. The inbox is a very competitive place so you need to stand out, be interesting and be relevant but, although we all know this in theory, the execution often seems to get lost somewhere along the way.

In fact, I still see the majority of campaigns get sent out with very little, or no tailoring of content and I can still sign up to a retail outlet, for example, and give my age, gender and preferences and not see any evidence of this information being used in the campaigns received. This happens in companies big and small and across all industries so, I ask myself, is this because people just don’t know the engagement tools available to them? Do they just think they’re too long and difficult to set up maybe?

1. A/B testing

Optimising and testing is essential in the world of online marketing. If you don’t test, learn from the tests and put this knowledge into practice, things stagnate. Putting into practice what we learn helps us improve and optimise our campaigns.

How does it work? A/B testing in email lets you send different versions of the same campaign to a random, small sample of your database. Maybe you don’t know whether people will react best to the word “free” or the word “complimentary” in the subject line? You can test that. Maybe you’re not sure whether to send in the morning or evening? You can test that too. The contacts in the sample will have their responses monitored for a period of time and the winning version is sent out automatically to those that didn’t receive the test.

2. Segmenting

You can create groups of subscribers by segmenting your list using any of the information that you have on your clients.

How does it work? Let’s say that you run a restaurant and you know your subscribers’ favourite type of food and we have a group that we know loves pizza. Well, using this information, we can send news and promotions focused on that particular preference.

How does this help? This segmentation of your list means that campaigns are more relevant to that particular segment and more likely to be of interest than one general, less specific email sent out to everyone. This relevance and increased likelihood of being of interest means that it’s more likely that people engage.

3. Targeted emailing

How does it work? Targeted emailing allows you to create lists of subscribers based on their behaviour over a certain period of time or, even for a specific email campaign. Did this customer open all your emails in the last 10 campaigns? Did this one not open any in the last 6 months?

How does this help? Similarly to segmenting. Targeted emails are relevant as they are based on what an individual has actually done or not done.

4. Surveys/polls

When you read about segmenting above, you might have been asking yourself “And how should I know whether they prefer pasta or pizza?!”. This is where surveys and polls come in.

How does it work? Request your subscribers to answer surveys and polls by email or on social media and their answers will give you a wealth of information to work with on future campaigns. Just make sure you think carefully and strategically before sending them out. You don’t want to tire people but you do want obtain the most relevant and interesting info with your subscriber making the least effort possible.

How does this help? Your signup form probably only asked them for their name and email address and that’s perfectly acceptable. However, you’ll want to learn more about them for segmentation purposes by studying their behaviour, studying your reports (we’ll touch on this next) and running surveys and polls.

TL;DR

Your email marketing success depends on your ability to gauge your subscribers’ preferences and engage them with relevant, personalised campaigns.

Engage and stay relevant by combining and optimising your use of the following tools:

Segmenting: Use your email platform’s segmenting tools to group your subscribers and create campaigns relevant to each group’s preferences.

Surveys/polls: Learn more about subscriber interests and preferences by organising surveys and polls

Sally Beers is a Customer Engagement Specialist at

Sally Beers is a Customer Engagement Specialist at Benchmark Email in Spain. She is fluent in both English and Spanish, passionate about languages and digital, and started her career in a Spanish start-up. You can connect with Sally on LinkedIn

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5 Best Email Tracking Software

5 Best Email Tracking Software [2023 Guide] Email tracking is an excellent tool for marketing

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Email tracking tools are a great way of making sure everyone gets your emails.

The guide below will act as a listing of the best email trackers currently on the market.

They will provide great insights on your email marketing campaigns.

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Email made easy & beautiful

We picked the most reliable email tracking tools available to make your choice easier. Check out their features and decide which is the best choice for your needs.

What os the email tracking software used for?

Email tracking software is an essential tool for marketing. A good tool should provide insightful information about your campaigns and help you measure their efficiency.

The software listed below is also useful when considering the following criteria:

Outlook email tracking – Outlook

is just another email client, and all of the entries listed can efficiently track its emails.

Free email tracking software –

All of the listed tools have some form or another of a free subscription service, so you don’t need to worry about expenses.

Best email tracking –

It goes without saying that all tools listed here are the best in their field.

Software for Gmail – Just like in the case of Outlook, all of the listed programs can track Gmail emails

We’ve listed all their meaningful features below so you can make the right decision in choosing the perfect solution for you.

This service is easy to use even for beginners, and it doesn’t require any changes in the existing mailings.

Check out more features provided by Atomic Email Tracking Software:

⇒ Get Atomic Email Tracking Software

This software will be able to integrate with CRMs like Salesforce for the best sales potential.

Contact Monkey works in real-time, and this means that you will never miss an opportunity to see who is really interested in your business.

You can use Contact Monkey straight from your Inbox, and this will make things more convenient. The tool has a 14-day free trial.

Check out the best of its features below:

See who opened your email, when, where from, and what type of device they used

It provides desktop notifications when the email is opened

Prioritize users according to the number of times that they have opened your email.

Realtime

analytics

⇒ Get Contact Monkey

Yesware is one of the most used tools when it comes to email tracking. It is an excellent program for SMBs, and it lets you perform all kinds of actions from tracking emails from clients to optimizing sales.

The program comes with a user-friendly interface that will be easily understood and used even by beginners.

Expert tip:

Yesware provides a 28-day free trial, and after this trial is over, you will get various pricing plans.

Let’s go through some if its best features:

⇒ Get Yesware

GetNotify is a free email tracking tool, but on the other hand, they request donations that will allow you to unlock more features for a specified period of time.

Even if this program is quite simple, it comes with a lot of features for email tracking.

Take a look at some of its key features:

⇒ Get GetNotify

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5 Ideas To Get The Most From Groupon And Discount Voucher Schemes

Groupon – The Failed Magic Bullet? A ‘cool tool’ won’t fix a weak sales promotion…

It’s the third time now that that I’ve heard reference to new research on Groupon indicating that “32% of businesses using Groupon find it unprofitable”. The report by Utpal Dholakia of Rice University in the US is the first of it’s kind, surveying 150 businesses, it can be found here.

There are common themes from those 32% of businesses that were unhappy:

Groupon promotions worked effectively to drive purchase, often too many sales were made

Some people spend a lot less than others – consumers are extremely price sensitive

The consumers using Groupon are deal hungry and tend not to come back unless there’s a deal

Surely this is nothing new, the age-old “art” of sales promotion has always had these challenges, Groupon is but a modern, super-efficient, rule-breaking alternative to running a discount voucher campaign in the local newspaper in the 1990’s?

When you read on, what the report is basically saying is that 32% of the respondents in the survey felt that Groupon failed to act as a magic bullet to their problems. Groupon did not magic up enough consumers, spending enough money and then returning to spend more. Without enough thought and consideration how can Groupon be maximised, it’s like any other sales focussed tactic.

The problem then is failing to understand how to use sales promotion effectively, and Groupon as a modern phenomenon, within that. There’s no getting away from the fact Groupon works as a short term sales tactic, Google now values it at $5.3Bn if we believe the rumours of the search giant teeing up to by it.

As a small business how can you get the best out of Groupon - here’s our suggestions:

Excess stock – do the maths first, does the discounting solve a problem at an acceptable loss of margin, or maybe discounting frees up costly warehousing space

Excess capacity – similar to above, and given I worked in the travel market, maybe Groupon could sell seats you’d never have sold and some income is better than none and allows an off-season tour to run, for example

Generate awareness – Groupon could be effective way to get awareness with the right market, and get those new consumers to share the buzz, particularly relevant for younger demographics (Most Groupon users are young (68% are aged 18 to 34) and females (77% are female)

Generate footfall – The Gap allegedly did this, generating a staggering $11m, using an offer as a loss leader to get people into stores

Keep the lights switched on – it may that keeping a production line moving in tough economic times is what you need and that a reduced margin is acceptable for a short period

Of course there are operational requirements to keep in mind on top of this since if you Groupon, they will come! And, you will need more staff, time and resource to serve them. Ensure you limit your exposure in the promotion to guard against over redemption, and of course remember that every customer interaction is an audition for your brand, even when consumers come flooding you’ll need to be on your game and earn the loyalty that you seek.

A word of caution from Seth Godin, when you promote loud and proud you create expectation on the part of the consumer, you re-educate the market and you (hopefully temporarily) turn your brand into another noisy, undifferentiated entity. Groupon can never be a magic bullet for sustainable growth, it can be an effective tactic.

5 Steps To Get The Most Out Of Ai In Search Advertising

Artificial intelligence, or AI, has been a top buzzword over the last year.

In fact, AI was even named the “Marketing Word of the Year” in 2023 by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA).

There are so many opinions and prognostications about the future of AI – with industry leaders and others weighing in – that it can be difficult to understand.

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg recently shared his optimism over the rise of AI technologies like deep learning and how they could lead to breakthroughs in areas like healthcare and self-driving cars.

Space X founder Elon Musk contends that “AI is more dangerous than nuclear weapons.”

On the other hand, Bill Gates asserts that “Artificial intelligence is good for society.”

While the late Stephen Hawking declared that “The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.”

What do we make of these statements?

Like many hot topics, AI is often described in hyperbolic extremes that can sound apocalyptic or utopian. But many applications of AI – and machine learning, which enables computers to learn from vast datasets – are practical.

AI in Search Advertising

In all, it is too much data and too complex for humans to make the optimal decisions manually. AI is uniquely suited to help humans make trade-offs to drive the best possible performance.

1. Set Clear Goals

AI is not taking over your job. It still needs humans to make strategic decisions and set business goals. It is important to take the time to set the right goals, which are unique to any business.

For some, optimizing to a cost per action (cost per sale, lead, registration) is best while others might want return on ad spend.

2. The More Data, the Better

The more data that AI has to learn from on a searcher’s intent, the better it can optimize campaigns.

Even if searchers for some keywords don’t convert, AI can leverage other data like actions on a website or audience data to optimize for performance.

Leveraging a marketer’s full data footprint – including site engagement and conversion metrics (time on site, number of pages viewed, registration, shopping cart status and product page visits, etc.), customer CRM data or data from a data management platform (DMP) – is key to maximizing performance.

3. Apply Expertise

Since AI works the best with few constraints, going overboard can be detrimental since the AI system will look for the optimal solution among a smaller set of possible values.

By focusing on setting the right goals as guardrails, marketers can then let the algorithm decide how to best achieve them.

4. Run Simulations

Simulations allow a marketer to do a low-effort test to see estimated impact without investing real dollars.

Before making big changes to campaign settings or budgets, simulations can help a marketer understand the impact on business goals – then, when ready, AI can take over on performance optimization.

5. Trust, but Verify

Regularly reviewing model accuracy reports offers much-needed peace of mind that AI forecasts and optimizations are working as expected.

With these best practices in mind, AI can do what it does best – and so can you.

More AI & Search Marketing Resources:

Nine Ways To Help Boost Your App’s Visibility And Engagement

Strategy 1: Utilize AI-Powered Targeting Methods

AI-powered targeting methods are becoming increasingly popular in mobile app marketing due to their ability to reach highly targeted audiences quickly and efficiently.

By utilizing AI technologies like natural language processing (NLP), machine learning (ML), computer vision (CV), deep learning (DL), predictive analytics (PA), and location intelligence (LI) tools, marketers can identify user preferences more accurately than ever before.

This allows them to target users more likely to be interested in their products or services with personalized messages that match their interests.

Strategy 2: App Store Optimization

App Store Optimization (ASO) is the process of ‘optimizing mobile apps’ to feature more prominently and higher up in an app store’s search results. This means that your app will appear at the top of the search results when users search for keywords related to your app.

A mobile app marketing agency can help you with ASO by identifying the right keywords to target, creating compelling app titles, and crafting engaging descriptions to help your app stand out in the app store. They can also help you optimize your app’s icon, screenshots, and video previews to increase the chances of your app being downloaded.

Plus, a mobile app marketing agency can track your app’s performance and use data and analytics to make informed decisions about optimizing your app for success.

Strategy 3: Develop an Effective Paid Advertising Campaign Strategy 4: Focus on Retargeting Efforts

Retargeting efforts are another important strategy for driving organic growth through mobile app marketing campaigns. They allow you to re-engage existing users who may have lost interest in using your product after some time has passed since their last active session within it.

Strategy 5: Personalization

One of the most effective ways to boost engagement and retention is through personalization. By utilizing user behavior and preferences data, a mobile app marketing agency can create a personalized experience that keeps users coming back.

Strategy 6: Push Notifications

Push notifications are a great way to keep users engaged and informed about new features and promotions. For example, a mobile app marketing agency can use this feature to send personalized messages that encourage users to return to the app.

Strategy 7: Influencer Marketing

Partnering with influencers can be a powerful way to reach new audiences and build credibility for your app. A mobile app marketing agency can help you identify and work with influencers who are a good fit for your brand.

Strategy 8: App Reviews

Positive reviews and ratings can significantly convince potential users to download your app. A mobile app marketing agency can help you encourage satisfied users to leave reviews and respond to any negative feedback via the App Store or the Google Play Store.

Strategy 9: Leverage User-Generated Content

Conclusion

How To Increase Social Media Engagement: A Guide For Marketers

You should be treating social media engagement like a dinner party, welcoming people and encouraging conversation between the host and the guests.

For modern brands with an online presence, strong social media engagement is a sign that you’re making an impact in the market.

It’s not just about looking popular: it’s about making meaningful connections with current and future customers, which will serve to boost your brand (and ROI) both on and offline.

Read on for the ultimate guide to building, managing, and measuring social media engagement and all its business benefits.

Bonus: Use our free engagement rate calculator to find out your engagement rate 4 ways fast. Calculate it on a post-by-post basis or for an entire campaign — for any social network.

What is social media engagement?

Of course you want to rack up your followers, but ultimately, the greatest measure of social media success is an engaged audience, not just a big one.

As a business, it’s quality, not just quantity, that you should be striving for.

Imagine you threw a party, and tons of people showed up, but they all just sat there silently. No small talk, no dancing, no conversations, no questionable drinking games. Was the party really a success? The RSVP list looks good, sure, but did your guests have fun? Do they like your dip?

Activity and engagement is crucial for every social platform to build a positive brand experience, and develop meaningful relationships with new and potential future customers.

Social media engagement is measured by a range of metrics that could include the following:

Shares or retweets

Comments

Likes

Followers and audience growth

Mentions (either tagged or untagged)

Using branded hashtags

Basically, social media engagement is growing anytime someone interacts with your account and can be calculated in a variety of ways. Check out our complete list of social media metrics, and how to track them, here.

How to increase social media engagement

While you could just cross your fingers and hope that your followers just start spontaneously getting chatty, chances are, they may need a little encouragement.

Luckily, there are plenty of tricks of the trade to boost that engagement and get this virtual party bumpin’.

First, analyze your engagement

It’s hard to measure your growth if you don’t know where you’re starting from.

Then make sure to keep tracking regularly so that you catch jumps or dips in engagement that can give you valuable clues about what’s working (or, just as importantly, what’s not).

These tools for social media analytics can help you save time getting started.

Select your strategy

Of course, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. Since every company’s business goals are different, every company’s social media strategy will be too.

Domino’s Pizza and Tiffany and Co. are going to have very different motivations for their engagement, and that will drive the content they put out there.

Domino’s is trying to create a young, fun, and weird brand voice, while Tiffany aims to educate about its rich design history: their tweets are both engaging in their own ways.

(Source: Dominos Twitter, Tiffany and Co Twitter)

Depending on what suits your brand and what your business has to offer, your social media engagement goals might include:

Changing public perception of your brand

Collecting feedback about new products

Know your audience

It’s hard to get people engaged if you don’t actually know who you’re talking to.

The sort of language, tone, and resources that resonate are likely going to be different for a skateboarding company versus a gardening supply shop. (Save for any gnarly grinding grannies out there.)

Check out our guide to conducting audience research to learn everything you need to know about your target market.

Knowing your audience will also help you determine:

What social media sites to be on

When to publish

Type of content

Brand voice

Create and share valuable content

Now that you know who is following you and why you want to reach them you’re ready for the important third ‘W’: what the heck do I tell them.

Content that is helpful to the audience, that addresses their needs and pain points, is critical. Think “conversation” not “broadcast.”

If you’re just talking about how great your brand is, or what you have for sale, it’s going to be harder to connect.

For a t-shirt company, posting pics of your latest design will only get you so far; posting fashion tips for how to dress up a t-shirt to wear to a wedding, on the other hand, is offering unique service and wisdom to help your fans out. (And daring your followers to share their own “wedding tee stories”? Even better.)

In this Sephora post, the cosmetics company didn’t just brag about their mask selection, they made a game of asking their followers to choose their faves with a #wouldyourather tag.

Time for a little game! #WouldYouRather use a clay or gel mask during the hot, summer months? Comment 👇Clay masks:…

Posted by SEPHORA on Thursday, June 25, 2023

In terms of format, it’s helpful to understand which kind of content is best for each platform: artful images for Instagram, longer text posts or videos for Facebook, and so on.

That being said, don’t be afraid to get creative with these post ideas:

Contests

Asking questions

Polls

Encouraging your audience to ask you questions (try an “Ask Me Anything” session)

Test their knowledge

Media upload contests

Animated gifs

Spotlighting customers

Custom stickers or filters for Instagram Stories

Overall, the best way to figure out what content is working is to watch and learn. Be a content scientist (another hat, cute!). Experiment, observe the reaction, tweak and repeat.

Stay topical

Not sure what to chat about on any given day? Just join a conversation that’s already happening. Commenting on current events and trends in a way that ties in your brand is an opportunity to instantly connect with an audience in a timely way.

Trending pop culture (remember the spring of Tiger King?), big sporting events, holidays, or viral memes can all be great excuses for a post.

— Charmin (@Charmin) February 24, 2013

Keep the conversation flowing

Some may think of conversation as an art, but in some ways, it’s really more of a sport: volleying attention and questions back and forth.

Online, you need that give and take, too. It’s important for brands to practice both reactive engagement and proactive engagement.

When you’re proactive, you’re the one sparking conversation with people who may be talking about you, but haven’t necessarily sent messages to you directly. Maybe they’ve mentioned you with a misspelled brand name (“I love La Croy!”), or a common, unofficial nickname (“can i pls marry a McD’s breakfast sandwich”). Either way, this is an opportunity to reach out and say hey.

If HBO has a search on for both #GameofThrones and #GameofThornes, they’ll be able to catch chatter even from fans (or, ahem, global media conglomerates) who are too excited to spell check.

Who would you choose as a roommate?

• Tyrion, but he never pays rent

• Jamie, but Cersei has a spare key

• Hodor, but he never closes the bathroom door

• Jon Snow, but he knows everything #GameOfThornes

— Disney+ Hotstar Premium (@DisneyPlusHSP) March 17, 2023

To track those indirect mentions, just set up search streams on your Hootsuite dashboard so you don’t miss a chance to keep the conversation going.

Show your human sign

It’s way more tempting to engage with a brand when you think there’s a real person on the other end. And there is! (…Right?) So don’t hide it.

A lot of brands encourage their social team to personally sign-off on their posts. If you’re particularly charming, you may even find yourself with a cult following, like the security guard at The Cowboy Museum who signs each of his posts “Thanks, Tim.” (PS: Watch the episode of Fridge-Worthy dedicated to Tim here.)

But beyond names, there are lots of ways to get personal:

Acknowledge and answer questions

Show the people behind the brand in photos or videos

Keep response times speedy

With Hootsuite’s Saved Replies function, you can pre-compose responses to common queries. When an FAQ comes your way, you’ll be at the ready with a thoughtful, informative response.

Okay, this might sound counter to the “show your human side” point above, but stay with me. A speedy response can lead to increased customer satisfaction, and save your team time so they can provide even more support (and human touch) elsewhere.

But you don’t even have to write them yourself if you don’t want to. Answer enough questions of a similar type, and Hootsuite will suggest replies based on your previous responses (kind of like the Google suggested reply feature in G-Chat). Since they are based on your previous answers, you can rest assured that they’ll still sound human and on brand.

Schedule smarter

Posting frequently—one to three times a day, ideally—is important to keep your content fresh and active in the social streams. Posting at the right time each day is important too, so your sweet hedgehog meme doesn’t miss its chance for maximum audience exposure.

(Source: Screenshot of @RealWeddingsBC Hootsuite dashboard)

Try setting aside a block of time (either daily or weekly) to deal with creating and scheduling posts, and another regular time slot to deal with reactive and proactive responses. Then it’s done for the day and you can focus on the rest of your work (or laughing at other hedgehog memes).

A few other Hootsuite dashboard features can also help boost your productivity and ensure you stay on top of engagement:

Streams: Use streams in your dashboard to see all incoming messages from each social network in one place, instead of checking each social network separately.

Lists

: Create Twitter lists based on specific industries, events, or hashtags and set each one up in a stream for easy monitoring and proactive engagement.