Topic: Online / Content Marketing

Email Marketing

Opening rates are the most important to stay up to date with when you start tracking your marketing emails. Every aspect of this marketing strategy is important, but if your email isn’t being opened, you won’t have the stats you’re looking for.

In this present time, everyone is using emails as a part of their marketing strategy, meaning that your list of audience, has more emails sent to them now, than they ever have. It’s such a large number of companies using this strategy, that email companies have started to auto-select emails into different locations such as, Spam, Promotions, Social, and Primary. And this is what can make it extremely difficult to be seen by clients.

Luckily, there are a few ways you can make your e-marketing stand out more. We will be talking about 10 different ways to improve your email open rate.

Email Marketing
  1. Send Time

We would never have any issues if we knew exactly when to send the email, and when exactly the client is on their phone. This is where picking an optimal send time comes into play. You are able to investigate the open times of you emails and that can give you incredible insight, on the days you receive the most traffic on your emails, and also the time of day your audience is opening your emails.

Every email list has a unique send time and day of the week. It’s important to use the data you have at your disposal to help you discover your optimal send time. If you’re not sure where to start, think of the times of day, and when people would be on their phone the mostly, waking up, lunch time, and right before going to bed.

  1. Absorbing Subject Lines

Subject lines are one of the most important pieces of info that your subscriber has to make the choice on whether to open the email or not. This makes it highly critical to use the space provided effectively and efficiently. Putting in an intriguing question or a special offer can increase how people look at your email, and if they decide to open it because of the interesting subject line, and would like to know more.

  1. Personalization

With the number of emails that we receive every single day, when we get something that is more tailored to the clients needs and wants, it sets it apart from the rest of emails you receive. Adding different tags in your subject line about your client’s city or town, or even the name of the client, can give the added pop that really catches your readers eye and will persuade them to open your emails.

  1. Mobile First

Did you know that most of your emails are read over a mobile device now? If you are not using the optimizations to work with mobile users, you are actually hurting your chances of the email being opened even before you send it.

In mobile email service provider, you may only have 50 characters to sell your subject line and preheader for your email. This means placing your keywords at the start of your subject line so you ensure that the client will notice what your email is about and want to open it.

  1. Preheader

The preheader text is the summary text that follows the subject line in the preview in the inbox. This helps the reader have more context about the email before they decide if they want to open it or not. The preheader is the best place to put a promotional offer.

A different way to use the preheader is to help your email to appeal to a bigger audience. If your subject line only applies to certain group of clients, the preheader is the perfect time to pull in your readers that might not open your emails normally with the content mentioned in the subject line.

  1. Segmentations

List segmentation is the best way to improve your email opening rate, while simultaneously reducing your unsubscribe rate.

If you send a lot of various emails on different topics, you may want to consider trying to spilt your email lists into distinct segments depending on demographics and your interest when finding your optimal send time and day.

  1. Bucket Testing or A/B Testing

This testing is the same just with different names. This is a great way to see which parts of your email are working and which parts need to be enhanced. A few ways of A/B testing is understanding how your clients interact with your email, which trigger word they responded to the most, and which call of action gets the reader to open your email.

  1. Personalize the Sender Line

Most emails people receive are mass marketing that have little to no personalization for one specific person, and they usually are strictly companies trying to sell something to you.

If you would like to connect with your readers on a more personal connection and have them know you only send high quality content for emails, then you should try to use your actual name when signing the email.

  1. Clean your List

One important step you must always try to keep up with, is removing subscribers that do not open your emails. This will help your open rate improve over time.

It sounds super easy, but honestly many marketers are alarmed with losing a potential open from a client who hasn’t opened their emails in months. The size of the list is something that many people will hold very close to them. There comes a choice where the marketer will have to decide if they want to keep someone on their list with the possibility of them never opening their emails, and this again can affect your open rate poorly.

  1. Schedule, Schedule, SCHEDULE!

As we spoke about in point 1, finding the ideal send time and day is a must to improve your open rate. Once you complete finding the time and day, stick to a consistent schedule This will help build acknowledgment with your readers. They will be expecting your emails at this point.

Email Marketing

Conclusion – Email Marketing

If you already have an email marketing software account but are unsure how to use it and also pull the data for the right time and day, or an A/B test, or segment your markets… We can help you.

We believe in creating emails with stunning designs with a focus on long-term marketing. Our team can work with any database, or we can help you build a new mailing list. It doesn’t matter if it’s a one-time email blast or a long-term campaign, we’re here to help. Let’s talk and come up with an exciting email strategy. Let’s build an email plan that works for you, contact us to get started today!

Online Scheduling Insiteful Solutions

Scheduling

Let Insiteful Solutions Help you Get Your Business Back to Work with our Online Scheduling System

Getting Ready for the Future Post COVID-19

As the cloud of COVID-19 lifts and the various provinces start phased opening for places other than essential services, Insiteful Solutions has been hard at work helping our clients get ready to re-open and re-start operations. The past few weeks have been heartrending and complex. As we grapple with the ‘new normal’ that faces us Insiteful Solutions is here to help people get their businesses back up and running, safely and responsibly.

Doing Business in the age of Social Distancing

With the advent of COVID-19 in early March of this year the world took a sudden and dramatic shift. By mid-March many provinces had closed all but essential services and worldwide people were advised to stay home and isolate to protect themselves and the most vulnerable among us from the virus. These swift actions left many businesses scrambling not just to close businesses but how to transfer their operations to e-commerce in all attempts to keep their businesses running. At Insiteful Solutions we immediately swung into high-gear and set up e-commerce capabilities for several of our clients and made sure that their websites were mobile friendly. We also advised all of our clients to reach out via their social media channels to make sure that their customers were aware of their new operation schedule and how they could still provide service to them.

Provincial Recommendations

The province of Ontario has developed a framework to guide its re-opening plans. It is a three- step approach which will slowly see businesses, services and public spaces open. On the website www.ontario.ca the province outlines the steps to make sure things open with public health and safety at the forefront of everything. One of the main components which businesses all over the world, including Canada, will have to grapple with is how to maintain social distancing when the doors of businesses open. It is recommended that people stay 2 meters apart under all circumstances.

The New Solution – Online Scheduling

In the weeks and months to come it is clear that businesses are going to have to operate differently. Whereas before businesses were able to open their doors and allow anyone to visit within their operating hours, social distancing will cause these ‘regular’ operations to change.

One of the ways the business world is responding to planning in a post-COVID19 world is to organize online scheduling for business. If you run a retail store for example your previous operations most likely saw people come and go as they wish – going forward for the foreseeable future retail stores will need to monitor the number of people in their stores at any given time and do their best to encourage social distancing within their retail space. While many stores that were able to remain open at the beginning of COVID-19 started instituting line-ups outside their store, line ups might not be the best way forward. That’s why at Insiteful Solutions we are helping clients set up an online scheduling system so your customers can reserve a time to visit your store to go shopping.

Avoid the Stress of Scheduling

There are numerous benefits for your business to scheduling customers to visit your store or business. The system Insiteful Solutions is using takes all the hassle and stress out of organizing times for your customers to visit you. Clients can self-schedule the times they wish to visit you based on the information and parameters you provide; this allows you to anticipate the number of people that will be in your store at any given time thus allowing you to schedule the appropriate amount of staff at the right times. If you are a business that offers a certain service, again clients can self-schedule and provide the exact details of the service they wish to receive. The online system doesn’t just take care of scheduling – it covers off an incredible array of back of house work which will allow you to focus on other things. The online scheduling system can be embedded into your website for easy access and sync with Outlook.com, iCloud, Google Calendar, Exchange and Office 365. If your offering is solely an online venture then this system can sync with GoToMeeting, Join.me and Zoom so that when the appointment time comes customers are automatically linked to the online meeting forum.

As Canadian businesses quickly restructure their operations to cope with the complexity of COVID19, businesses are having to operate with leaner staffing and overall be more flexible. The online scheduling system doesn’t just help you book customers to visit your store – it can also by synced to whatever accounting system you use: QuickBooks, Freshbooks and Xero integrations are all possible. This syncing of systems frees up time from the nitty gritty of invoicing so you can focus on other things. Clients can also pay for the service they receive through PayPal, Square or Stripe. Credit card information is also securely kept for one time or future payments. Clients can also tip for the service they receive and use vouchers or coupons they have been given. The Insiteful Solution online scheduling system is so much more than just telling people when they can visit your store or business – you can be rest assured that the detail work around visits will be taken care of so you can focus on your interface with your customer and supporting your business.

Keeping Your Brand Strong

And you don’t need to worry about an online scheduling system diluting your brand. Insiteful Solutions will embed the online scheduling system into your existing website – your clients won’t have to deal with a clunky transfer between sites or any confusion that may cause. Everything about the online scheduling system will be branded as if your company created it. We can design the online scheduling system to display your logo and customize it with your company colours, the online app can be edited so that the text reflects the tone and culture of your business.

All the Convenience, None of the Hassle

One of the best things about the online scheduling system is the convenience for both you and your customer. Once a customer books an appointment they will automatically receive reminder emails or text messages so they don’t forget the appointment. The system is set up to take into consideration multiple time zones should you be located in more than one city and will automatically do the time zone conversion for customers.

Insiteful Solutions has been working with clients in Markham, Toronto and all over the GTA for nearly 20 years to address all of their digital marketing needs. With the onset of COVID-19 we were able to quickly help existing and new clients pivot their business to function online. As we face the future with our clients we are more focused than ever to help them develop new operating systems so their business can continue to function and thrive. Contact us today so we can help you set up an online scheduling system for your business and help grow your business!

Insiteful Solutions: Our COVID-19 Response

Insiteful Solutions COVID-19

At Insiteful Solutions we, along with so many other Canadian businesses, have had to adjust our operations to the current impact caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. We were fortunate at Insiteful Solutions that our business transitioned fairly seamlessly to working remotely. Many of our designers and programmers were already working off-site and we were able to continue working with clients and address all of their needs promptly. Unfortunately, we have had to move our in-person client meetings to virtual – but this too has worked well and we’ve enjoyed more than ever working with our valued clients to help keep their businesses thriving during these challenging times.

If you need to reach anyone at Insiteful Solutions our phones are still staffed Monday to Friday from 9:00am to 5:00pm, please give us a call at 905-947-8235 or pop us an email at contact@insitefulweb.com.

At Insiteful Solutions we are sending our thoughts to everyone affected by COVID-19 and wishing that you all stay safe and healthy during this challenging time.

Our People

A strength of Insiteful Solutions is we have a large network of people who work together to create cutting edge websites and online marketing campaigns. Nothing is more important to us than our staff’s well-being. At the very beginning of COVID-19 we have adjusted all of our operations to function remotely; staff are working from home and we check in with them frequently and everyone is following social distancing guidelines. Our staff are available and eager to work with current clients on their existing sites and new clients to create website and online marketing solutions.

Our Clients

At Insiteful Solutions we are fortunate that many of our clients have been with us for a decade or longer. Their well-being is of paramount importance to us and we are dedicated to supporting them throughout this crisis. We want to make sure our clients have the best website possible to weather this current economic crisis and we constantly educate ourselves on current trends and opportunities that we can pass along to our valued clients. While some of our clients already had e-commerce built into their websites we want to make sure all of our clients can re-calibrate their business model to not just survive, but succeed, during the pandemic. At Insiteful Solutions our team of experts are here to help you pivot your business operations and drive as many people as possible to your online presence.