eNewsletter Campaigns Have Never Been Easier To Implement, but Avoid These 5 Common Pitfalls

eNewsletters are enjoying a resurgence.  Yesterday’s mass media is increasingly expensive, scattered and surely difficult to measure.  While there is still demand to get your message out, the supply of cost effective options dwindles.

Marketers have a variety of email campaign providers at their disposal.  From web design shops to dedicated email blast companies, the industry footprint is growing.  With a design, copy and a list you’re on your way.

Although marketers can turn email blasts around quickly – like everything in business – it will pay dividends if you consider some of the finer points.

1. Even with opt-in mailing lists, your subscriber’s email box probably sees you as a spammer.  Spend the time for usability testing to minimize being filtered before hitting the inbox.

2. Don’t assume your print fonts will work in your eNewsletter.  There are actually only a handful of web-safe fonts, and using one that isn’t compatible might automatically change your fonts to something your computer can read.

3. Be careful with attaching files to an email blast as they are red flags that you might be spamming. Instead consider putting the PDF on your server and including a hyperlink to it.

4. Test your eNewsletter against different platforms and older mail systems.  Chances are all of your clients don’t have all of the latest technologies on their machines.

5. Double check that your “opt out” mechanism is working properly.  Worst case scenario, you can violate federal “Can-Spam Act” regulations and be sued by those you are trying to serve.

Good luck future email marketers!

Can Spam Act legislation

Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Email Guidance

Jeff Howlett

Account Executive
Jeff works closely with eCrossings Media clients to develop strategy and help implement email marketing campaigns.

Social media marketing is great, provided you think like a marketer

No one doubts the sheer volume of social media users. In fact, a recent report by Pew Internet indicates that adult internet users with a social network profile have “more than quadrupled in the past four years.” Numbers like that can turn even the most traditional marketer’s head.

Like the forty-niners to the Gold Rush, marketers are now flocking to capitalize. "Get us up on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter they shout!" Engage those users so they can engage our brand and our bottom line. Without barriers to entry, many marketers are jumping headfirst into multiple social networking channels without a plan or a second thought.

This is all fine, but isn’t marketing about segmenting your target audience and customizing your message accordingly?

It’s true that from teens to seniors everyone is getting involved. But the devil is in the details -- and more specifically the demographics. Looking a bit further into usage of social networks, it’s clear that baby boomers are more discerning with those in their network. Long term and more complex communication are embraced by this demographic. Relating back to your business, these users might be more patient with posting quality messages (think product or service feedback).

Conversely, younger demographics are more attuned to more frequent communication that is often less complex in nature. Trying to stimulate interest in events geared toward a younger audience? Text messages might provide more traction. Want similar product feedback from younger users? Consider using more video with different channels for response (text, comments, Facebook wall).

The social media landscape continues to change. As a marketer, your job is to not only embrace new technologies but understand how your target audience interacts in those media.

http://tech.msn.com/news/articlepcw.aspx?cp-documentid=19904693
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007113
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007118


Jeff Howlett
Account Executive
Jeff works closely with eCrossings Media clients to leverage new media opportunities

eCrossing’s Siegelski Nominated as Healthcare Rising Star

eCrossings Media’s Jackie Siegelski has been nominated for the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association Rising Star award. This award recognizes Jackie as an outstanding performer and an ambassador for professional women in healthcare. It also acknowledges Jackie's ability to grow into a true leader in the field.

She will receive her award at the annual Woman of the Year luncheon at the New York Hilton on May 7. This year mark's the 20th anniversary of the luncheon, so the meeting will be more special than usual. The HBA is the premiere organization for providing training, education, and mentoring for women in the healthcare industry.

Jackie joined eCrossings in 2006 as a Web Developer and is now a Project Lead.

Social Media and No-Cost Internet Marketing

Internet marketing can be a large and expensive undertaking. From designing and building a website to continuing site management, costs can rack up quickly. Next you will be tasked with determining how to spread your finite promotional dollars.

This is really difficult – and I’m not going to provide a formula on how to do so. Instead, I’d like to suggest ways to use social media to drive your brand at no cost.

If you’re in the business of marketing, you know that you’ll need to communicate where your customers are “listening.” Today, people are listening to each other through social networking channels, which have no entry cost.

For example, if you have promotional or informational videos they can be posted on YouTube at no cost, you can even create your own YouTube channel devoted to your videos. If you’re feeling daring, you can allow users to comment on your content. Or disable comments if you like.

Similar to the YouTube phenomenon are social networking sites. Increasingly mainstream, these sites provide yet another avenue to create dialogue about and touch points with your brand. Marketing to professionals? Consider creating a group on Linked In. Marketing to a more mainstream audience (possibly for community outreach or fundraising)? Then you might consider developing a Facebook or YouTube Presence.

Still skeptical, consider that President Obama had 5,599,451 “supporters” linked to his Facebook page and 1,299,795 “friends” linked to his MySpace page at the time this post was written.

Now that is a lot of listening.

http://www.myspace.com/
http://www.youtube.com/
http://www.myspace.com/

Jeff Howlett
Account Executive
Jeff works closely with eCrossings Media clients to drive their brand.

The Best Healthcare Website Features Pay You Back

Recession? Check.
Budget Cuts? Check.
Panic? Double check.

It’s no secret that hospital marketers have a difficult job. Add one part tough economy and two parts budget cuts and lately the job can seem even more daunting. Unfortunately, even though fat website budgets have gone the way of the dodo, it seems that expectations have not. But before you put your shoes through this screen, I wanted to mention some website improvements that might pay you back.

Since costs are a constant in the offline world, you might consider website features that reduce costs associated with operating your business. Patient pre-registration tools are a great example. With some careful planning (and a lot of testing) your marketing and admitting team can reduce the cost of getting patients into the doors. Reduce costs by investing in a well developed pre-registration tool and you won’t need the same amount of resources to answer phones and manually enter the same information.

Another great example is a gift shop. Bad economy or not, visitors will always come with gifts in hand to see their loved ones in your hospital. If a gift shop feature isn’t up on your site, your organization is losing money there as well. In the offline gift shop you will need staff and space as well as logistical and billing resources. Wouldn’t it make more sense to create a Gift Shop section on your website where users can browse high-quality images and make a transaction then and there? In addition, chances are by the time the visitor comes to the hospital to see the loved one they probably have the gift. Providing an option for them to access the Gift Shop when they are on your site, will provide (1) a seamless interaction with your brand (2) convenience and (3) less chance that they will visit someone else’s florist on the way to the hospital.

Even if you maintain strong offline gift shops and pre-registration resources, web features will begin your cost savings. Good luck putting those features to work.


Jeff Howlett
Account Executive
Jeff works closely with eCrossings Media clients to implement cost saving features.

Overlake, Lenox Hill Hospital Win Web Awards

Two eCrossings Media clients were recently recognized for online excellence. Overlake Hospital Medical Center in Bellevue, WA, earned a distinction award in the Best Overall Internet site (200-399 bed) category of the eHealthcare Leadership Awards. Lenox Hill Hospital, New York, won a standard of excellence award in the Healthcare Provider category of the WebAwards.

Overlake Hospital is a nonprofit regional medical center offering advanced medical services to the Puget Sound Region. Its site was redesigned by eCrossings Media in 2007.

Lenox Hill Hospital is an acute care hospital located on Manhattan’s Upper East Side and is one of the leading hospitals in the nation. Lenox Hill’s website was redesigned by eCrossings Media last year

The eHealthcare Leadership Awards recognizes the best healthcare providers, health plans, healthcare associations, online health companies, pharmaceutical/medical equipment firms, suppliers, other healthcare organizations, and business improvement initiatives. The awards highlight the Internet's role in achieving an organization's business objectives and recognize the hard work that has gone into creating outstanding health Web sites.

Winners were recognized at a conference held in Orlando, Fl, Nov. 10-12. The awards are sponsored by Strategic Healthcare Communications.

The WebAwards recognize talented individual and team efforts in outstanding Website development. The awards are sponsored by the Web Marketing Association and were given out earlier this year.

Web Content Management 101

You’ve got a cool website. It’s shiny, things move, and it talks. The problem is all of that content.

When you have an informational website, one of the biggest challenges is managing all of your quality information. Ideally you want both fresh content and features that grab you.

Gone are they days when basic HTML knowledge will allow you to manage a large site. Even if you had an army of people “HTML-ing” away, you will spend half of your time and resources just tracking edits. Things have changed.

Today’s leading websites use a content management system (CMS) to effectively manage vast amounts of information: editorial, images, video. They use a folder structure so people can quickly drill-down to the page they want to edit. For example, a hospital CMS might have the following CMS structure:

Programs and Services -> Orthopedics -> Orthopedics locations page.

CMS editors often have a WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get) controls similar to Microsoft Word — so it’s easy for non-technical folks to make changes.

Most CMS programs even log all of your edits so you can see who made what edit and when. If it’s a temporary change you can revert back to an old edition. Cooler still, the majority of Content Management Systems allow you to drop in keywords for Search Engine Optimization and integrate with multimedia and other Web 2.0 add-ons.

For large sites that require a lot of edits by multiple people, a quality CMS is a Godsend. Depending on the product, there are many other bells and whistles.

Good luck future content managers.


Wikipedia

CMS Review

CMS Matrix

What is a Content Management System


Jeff Howlett
Account Executive
Jeff works closely with eCrossings Media clients to ensure their CMS is helping them achieve their overall online goals.