Facebook isn’t just the world’s favourite social media platform; it’s also a powerful events hub. With 490 million people using Facebook events every month, it’s the discovery site many people turn to when they want to find out what’s going on in their area.
Naturally, Facebook is also a competitive space for event marketing. Last year alone saw 38 million events created by Facebook Pages. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of other events competing in the space.
To stand out, you need to know a few fundamental things. Facebook’s display algorithms reward events that are listed and advertised in particular ways.
So here are a few of our tips to help you market your event more efficiently on Facebook.
Optimise it for mobile
You don’t just want people to find out about your event. You want them to buy tickets.
Since most Facebook traffic takes place on mobile, you’ll want to make sure your checkout process is mobile-optimised. The user shouldn’t have to pinch and zoom in to read text or make a purchase. The “buy” button should be easy to find and click on a small screen. The form fields must be mobile-friendly.
Taking these steps reduces friction for users and makes it easier to checkout. In fact, events see a 160% lift in conversion with mobile-optimised payment processes. With Helm Tickets, the event page we create for you and the whole checkout process is already mobile optimised.
Manage and monitor your events faster
Facebook Events sees 40% year on year growth in engagement; Facebook works hard to make event publishing easier for event creators. With Facebook publishing tools, you can publish, edit, and update multiple events from one dashboard.
Similarly, Facebook event insights allow you to view insights about the people your events have reached and their response to each event.
Soon, Facebook will redesign the feature to include expanded audience insights to give you a better sense of who your audience is.
Facebook supports event creators by making events easy to publish and manage and also makes it simple for users to find events with powerful search and browse capabilities.
Target your ads to the right audiences
Facebook’s targeting tools are highly sophisticated, making for an extremely effective ad platform. To reach a new audience or do a better job of connecting with your current target demographic, boost your event.
You don’t have to have a huge ad budget to increase the impact of an event post.
Event creators have a lot to gain from boosting their events, customers who see the ad can click on the ad immediately to act on their impulse to attend and buy a ticket all within the app.
Facebook’s ad pricing is unique because the social platform charges less for ads that are more relevant to audiences (what they call a ‘relevance score’). This might sound contradictory, but it’s for a good reason: Facebook constantly strives to present better options to its users. So if your ads hit the mark with your audience, you actually pay less.
Using Facebook’s targeting parameters to reach receptive audiences, your ads become more relevant and less expensive. And more importantly, they do a better job of reaching the right audience, so you sell more tickets.
Facebook is an incredibly powerful event marketing tool to use to promote your event better. By making the most out of their events feature combined with some PPC (pay per click) ads, you can see a huge uptake in ticket sales if done right.
With new social networks being created regularly, LinkedIn can be a platform that’s often forgotten about and underused. However, it can be an incredibly powerful tool for marketing your event – especially if you’re aware of many of the platform’s hidden tools that don’t seem to get the attention they deserve.
To help you learn how to use LinkedIn effectively to promote your next event, here are some tips to show why it shouldn’t be overlooked.
What is LinkedIn?
Before we jump into the tips here’s a quick overview of LinkedIn as a social media platform. It launched in 2003 and is the fourth most popular social media network among US adults. It’s primarily centred around careers and business and enables users to connect and share content with other professionals, including colleagues, potential employers, business partners and new employees. If you run a B2B or career-focused event, LinkedIn can be a fantastic marketing tool.
24 tips on promoting your event on LinkedIn
Customise your public profile URL. Make your personal profile look more professional and easier to share by customising your LinkedIn public profile URL. Instead of a URL with a million confusing numbers, it will look more clean and professional.
Add a LinkedIn background photo to your personal profile. In June 2014 LinkedIn jumped on the ‘cover photo bandwagon and started rolling out the ability for users to add a background photo to their personal profiles. This gives your LinkedIn profile a little more personality and can be a great way of promoting your event if you have a social media banner prepared. Don’t forget, LinkedIn is a professional network so make sure you choose your photo accordingly!
Add a ProFinder badge to your profile. LinkedIn has made some changes to the types of badges that are available over the years. Depending on what you’re trying to accomplish, you may want to consider adding a ProFinder Badge, which is used to identify freelancers and services within LinkedIn’s ProFinder network. This is a service that matches contractors with project managers seeking help.
Take advantage of the blog/website links on your profile. Instead of using the default anchor text links in the website list within your LinkedIn profile’s contact info section, you can now add links to your portfolio and social networks. You can also add links to your work under each job description, so if you’re looking to increase clicks through to your event, make sure you populate those areas with the online presence you want to draw the most attention to. There’s now also the option to upload multimedia for a given job or project. For example, if you have some photos or video content of your event you can add those in to help promote your event.
Search engine optimise your LinkedIn profile. SEO isn’t just limited to blogging. You can also optimise your profile to get discovered by people searching LinkedIn for key terms. You can add these words to various sections of your profile, such as your headline, your summary, and your work experience.
Add, remove and rearrange entire sections of your profile. LinkedIn also enables you to reorder entire sections of your profile in any way you prefer. When in edit mode simply hover your mouse over the double-sided arrow in each section. Your mouse will turn into a four arrowed icon, at which point you can click then drag and drop another position on your profile. This way you can prioritise event-related media to the top of your profile.
Use open messages to send messages to people you aren’t connected to. With the exception of your fellow group members, LinkedIn only allows you to send messages to people with who you share a first-degree connection. But some people let you send message to them anyway, even if you aren’t connected. The ability to be a part of the Open Profile network is only available to premium account holders, but it allows users to choose to be available for messaging by any other LinkedIn member, regardless of their membership level. This is perfect for reaching out to people who may be an asset to your event team or simply promoting your event to a larger network. There are other options for sending messages to those you’re not yet connected with, like sending a request to connect with a note attached. We don’t recommend overusing this. If you’re a premium account member you can also use InMail.
Check your network updates or share your own. Found on your LinkedIn home page, network updates are essentially LinkedIn’s version of the Facebook newsfeed. Check this feed periodically for a quick snapshot of what your connections are up to and sharing, or share updates of your own, such as noteworthy content related to your event. You can also sign up for email notifications and sort by top updates or recent updates to filter your feed one way or another.
Be identifiable. Allowing others to see who you are if you view their profile. To enable this, visit your settings (click your thumbnail image on the top right and click Privacy & Settings) and then click “Profile Viewing Options” under “Privacy”. Make sure you check off the ‘Your Name’ and ‘Headline’ (which is the recommended option), as it will allow you to take advantage of the next tip on our list!
Check out who’s viewed your LinkedIn profile. The ‘Who’s Viewed Your Profile’ tool, which is accessible in the main navigation via the profile dropdown, allows you to identify which other LinkedIn users have visited your profile page. In fact, LinkedIn gave this a facelift in February 2014, so the information it provides is better than ever. You can now also see how you stack up against your profile views for your connections, people in your company, and other professionals like you. This is useful if someone has been checking out your profile who you’d like to connect with or who could be potentially interested in your event. This could be the ‘in’ you’ve been waiting for to connect. This feature is only available if you follow the above steps though.
Easily find new connections – or reconnect with old ones. The connections tab in the top navigation offers multiple tools to grow and connect with contacts in your professional network. When viewing your connections, click the “Manage your synced and imported contacts” and from there you’ll be able to sync your email contact to see who’s on LinkedIn and who you can invite to join. These contacts can be essential when it comes to spreading the word about your event and offering support on the contact you may share regarding your event.
Make the most out of LinkedIn groups – Did you know that if you’re a member of the same group as another user you can bypass the need to be a first-degree connection in order to message them? As long as you’ve been a member of LinkedIn for at least 30 days and a member of a particular group for at least 4 days, LinkedIn allows you to send up to 15 free 1:1 messages to fellow group members a month (across all groups you belong to). In addition to this group, members are also able to view the profiles of other members of the same group without being connected. Join more groups relevant to your event and industry to enable more direct messaging possibilities and make sure you participate in discussions to build trust within your group.
Share your LinkedIn status updates on Twitter. Ever since the LinkedIn/Twitter breakup of 2012, you can no longer automatically sync your tweets to publish on LinkedIn. However, as long as you add your Twitter account, the opposite is still possible. So if you’re posting an update about your event to LinkedIn that you’d also like your Twitter followers to see, you can easily syndicate that update to Twitter by selecting the Public + Twitter option in the dropdown menu within the LinkedIn update composer. This tool is perfect for making sure your event updates are consistent across both platforms.
Leverage @mentions in your status updates. In 2013, LinkedIn rolled out the ability to tag or @mention other users and companies in status updates – much like the way it works on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. So if you want another LinkedIn user or company to see your status update, you just need to include the @ symbol immediately before the user or company’s name in your status update. As a result, that user/company will get alerted that you mentioned them and their name will also link their profile/page in the status update itself. This is great if you have event partners you wish to mention and promote your own updates. It will also encourage them to reshare your update to their network.
Optimise your LinkedIn company/event page. The design of the LinkedIn Company page has changed a lot over the years. Make sure yours is set up correctly and optimised for the latest layout, featuring a compelling and high-quality banner image. If you’re setting up your page for the first time, LinkedIn has a great walkthrough process to make sure you don’t miss anything out.
Created targeted LinkedIn showcase pages. LinkedIn Showcase Pages are niche pages that branch off from your main company page. Think of them as extensions of your main company page that allow you to promote specific events/products, or use them to cater to a more individual marketing persona. This provides a more personalised experience for your company page visitors.LinkedIn users can also follow more specific Showcase Pages without having to follow the company’s main page or its other Showcase Pages. This allows your business to tailor the page closely to the audience of the specific page. This makes this feature perfect if you’re a business that runs events as a side project instead of an ‘events only’ business. To create a Showcase Page, go to your Company Page and click “Manage page.” At the top, click “Admin Tools,” and select “Create a Showcase Page.”
Post company status updates and target them. Make the most of your LinkedIn company page by publishing company status updates for all your page followers to see. This will give LinkedIn users even more reason to follow your company page, growing your LinkedIn reach. Here’s some of LinkedIn’s advice for sharing company status updates. If you’ve already mastered updating your company’s status, you can take it to the next level by using the power of segmentation with LinkedIn’s targeting options. These enable you to target your status updates to specific users. Company page admins can target their updates using criteria like company size, industry, job function, seniority, geography, language or even by including/excluding company employees. These targeted updates will appear on the company/showcase page itself for those users as well as in the user’s network updates feed on their LinkedIn home page. This is perfect if you’re running a medical conference, for example, and you only want to target people who work in the medical profession instead of your entire network who may not be interested. This ensures their own feeds aren’t getting clogged up by posts that aren’t relevant to what they want to see
Check out LinkedIn’s ‘Content Marketing Score’ & ‘Trending Content’ resources – If you’re a LinkedIn Business Solutions customer, you can learn how impactful your organic and paid LinkedIn content is with the Content Marketing Score and Trending Content resources. Your content marketing score measures user engagement with your sponsored updates, company pages, LinkedIn groups, employee updates and influencer posts when applicable. It then provides recommendations for how you can improve your score, and thus the effectiveness of your LinkedIn content.
Experiment with LinkedIn Ads and Sponsored Updates – If you’re looking to complement your organic LinkedIn marketing efforts with some paid advertising, LinkedIn Ads are a smart choice. One of the biggest benefits of LinkedIn advertising is the targeting options. LinkedIn’s PPC ads let you target specific job titles, job functions, industries, or company size, to name a few. You’ll be reaching people who are more likely to be interested in your content and your event. For more information on LinkedIn, Ads click here.
Create your own industry LinkedIn Group, and join other relevant groups. Create a group based on a relevant industry-related topic, and become a LinkedIn group admin. You may use this to establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry, grow a community of advocates, generate new marketing content idea and eventually generate new leads. You should also consider joining and getting executives from your business or event to join other relevant groups and positively participate in discussions to exhibit thought and leadership in your industry and event.
Email your LinkedIn group. One of the perks of managing a LinkedIn group is that you can email all the members of your group, up to once a week. These emails take the form of LinkedIn Announcements, which are messages sent directly to the email inboxes of group members (if they’ve enabled messages from groups in their settings). It’s the perfect opportunity for generating new leads for your event from LinkedIn, particularly if you’ve managed to build up a solid group of users.
Experiment with publishing content on LinkedIn’s publishing platform. Publishing is available to all users. Experiment with how this feature can support your event marketing goals by creating content for the platform and promoting it through your company page. For example, you could experiment with syndicating content from your events blog to LinkedIn Pulse and using it to promote a subscription to your full blog.To publish an article, click “Write an article” on the update box on your LinkedIn homepage. From there, you’ll be taken to the publishing platform where you can compose your draft.
Add the ‘Company Follow’ and ‘LinkedIn Share’ buttons to your website and content. Promote your company’s LinkedIn presence and help grow the reach of your company or event page by adding the ‘Company Follow’ button to your event’s website. Also consider adding the ‘LinkedIn Share’ button to your various content assets like blog posts, emails, and landing pages to extend the reach of your content to LinkedIn users.
Analyse your LinkedIn marketing performance with the Analytics tab on your Company Page. Use your Company Page Analytics to evaluate the performance of your Company Page. This feature offers data about the effectiveness of your page’s status updates, engagement, and reach, as well as information about your page’s followers — demographics, where they came from, how your following has grown over time, how your data compares to other companies.
Over the last few years, LinkedIn has had a huge overhaul that’s led it to be one of the most prevalent social media platforms in the world, carving out its niche by focusing on the business community. It’s added a variety of features that make it perfect for promoting events, through both personal profiles and company pages.
Last time we took a look at how to how to report on all the efforts you’ve put into your email marketing campaign, from what metrics to look out for, to how to A/B test your content. If you missed the blog, check it out here.
This time we’re taking a look at how to use email marketing for SMBs (small and medium-sized businesses). Email marketing changes depending on who you’re marketing to, your industry, and whether it’s B2B (business to business) or B2C (business to customer). You’ll have to look at your current audience and who you want to attend your events to decide which bracket you’ll fall into.
We’ll also look at the best email marketing services to help you choose which would work best for your needs.
Below are some key stats to consider when putting together a campaign that’s either B2B or B2C specific.
B2B key email marketing stats:
Emails that are triggered by an action perform 3X better than nurture emails or drip campaigns
Email is the preferred communication channel for 86% of professionals
60% of marketers believe that email marketing produces a positive ROI
Click-through rates are 47% higher for B2B emails than B2C
Subject-line emojis accounted for increased open rates for 56% of brands
B2C key email marketing stats:
78% of consumers have unsubscribed from lists because a brand was sending too many emails
Over 90% of consumers check their emails daily
Video increases CTR by 64.8%
Email subscribers are 3X more likely to share social content than others
Best email marketing services
Hopefully, you should have a pretty good understanding of email marketing campaigns in their entirety, so the next step is to pick an email marketing company that works for you. When choosing an email service provider (ESP), make sure it offers the following services:
CRM platform with segmentation capabilities
Good standing with Internet Service Providers
A positive reputation as an email service provider (ESP)
Easy-to-build forms, landing pages, and CTAs
Automation
Simple ways to comply with email regulations
Ability to split test your emails
Built-in analytics
Downloadable reports
These features generally come as standard with most ESPs, but it’s always worth double-checking to ensure you get the most for your money.
Email marketing templates
Templates take the design, coding and UX (user experience) work out of crafting your emails. Unless you’re a designer or developer, templates will save you lots of time when it comes to putting together a beautiful email to send out to your audience.
When making your choice remember to choose templates that are proven to be effective; high-quality templates come from reputable ESPs that have tested them against many alternatives. Do your research, and you’re sure to find one that works for your needs.
Email marketing examples
One of the first steps you can take is to look at your own inbox. Which marketing emails have you opened lately? Think why you opened them. What did they do that made you open that email or click on that link? There are plenty of online resources to help you gather ideas and seek inspiration, so we recommend finding some examples you like and building from there.
Whilst it may seem there are many rules when putting together an email marketing campaign, as long as you keep this key rule in mind, you won’t go far wrong: Treat your subscribers like humans.You can achieve all your email marketing goals if you keep this golden rule in mind regarding every subject line or call to action (CTA).
Your subscribers have chosen to hear from you, and they want to relate to you. So be genuine, informative, and valuable to them, and they will look forward to hearing from you.
In Part 2 we took a look at the best practices when it comes to email marketing as well as the regulations such as GDPR, if you missed part 2 and are looking for more information on best practices and regulations check it out here.
This time we are going to be taking a look at how to analyse your email marketing results to help you make informed decisions regarding your marketing campaigns.
Here are some of the best ways to track the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns.
A/B Testing
Not all email lists are the same, some audiences prefer personalisation and some will think it’s spammy. Some audiences enjoy big bright CTA buttons and some prefer something more subtle.
You’ll never know what type of people make up your email list until you test the variables. This is where A/B testing comes into play.
A/B testing or split testing is a way to see what type of email performs best with your audience by analysing the results of email A again email B.
Here is a quick walkthrough in how to set up an A/B test:
Select one variable at a time, for example, subject line, CTA or images
Create 2 versions of the email, one with and one without the variable
Allow your emails to be sent out simultaneously for a period of time
Analyse your results and keep the version that worked best for you
Test a new variable and repeat the process
Most email marketing providers have A/B testing built into their software, which will make it easier for you to compare email results without too much work.
Email marketing KPI’s
There are 4 key metrics to keep an eye on when evaluating the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns.
Deliverability – measures the rate at which emails reach your subscriber’s inbox
Open rate – the percentage of people that open your email once it reaches their inbox
Click-through rate (CTR) – the percentage of people that click on your CTA’s
Unsubscribes – measures the number of people who opt-out of your email list once they receive an email from you
Improve your email results
There are many factors that can impact your KPI’s, it will take a bit of experimentation to work out and what works best for your emails and your audience.
If you aren’t reaching your targets it’s worth playing around with the variables to see what improves your email results.
Deliverability
Make sure you are following best practices to avoid spam filters
Remove inactive people from your email list and keep only subscribers that are engaged
Check which emails bounced and remove those from your email list
Open rate
Experiment with the language in your subject line to engage with people to open your email
Try sending your emails at different times of day to see what works best for you
Click-through rate (CTR)
Make sure your offer holds value to your audience
Rewrite your copy to make it clear to your audience what you want them to do
Try different CTA’s whether it’s visual graphics or written copy, bold vs subtle
Unsubscribes
Secretly a good thing as you are losing uninterested audience members automatically and making your list more relevant
Ensure your email aligns with your brand
Make sure you haven’t promised one thing with your offer and delivered another
Double-check you have provided value to your audience before you try and upsell
Email marketing report
Collecting all this data is no good if you don’t put together a report you can form future decisions from.An email marketing report is a spreadsheet where you can record your results in one place to help you make inferences from your KPI’s and take action to improve them.
Here’s how we would recommend you organise your report:
Metrics:
Total number of emails sent
Number of emails delivered
Deliverability rate
Bounce rate
Open rate
Click-through rate
Unsubscribe rate
Data:
Subject line
Length of the email body
Offer
CTA
List segment
Questions to ask:
Was your deliverability rate high in comparison to previous periods?
How did your CTR compare to your open rate?
Were your unsubscribe numbers consistent with other emails?
Did a certain subject line perform better than others?
Does the length of the email make a difference in CTR?
Could another style of CTA perform better?
Was the offer appropriate for the list segment?
Keeping track of your results is an essential part of any marketing campaign as it works as guideposts to help you navigate future decisions to help grow your events and ticket sales.
Next time we will be taking a look at email marketing for small and medium-sized businesses, whether you are B2B or B2C we are going to take a look at how to make the most out of your campaigns so you see great results. Keep up to date with our feature updates and event marketing advice via our blog as well as on Linkedin!
Last time we looked at how to get started with an email marketing campaign, including how to create an email marketing strategy and how to build up your email list. If you missed the first part of this series you can find it here. This time we’re taking a look at email marketing best practices and some regulations we recommend you follow.
Email marketing best practices
Once you’ve built up your email list full of loyal subscribers it’s important to make sure your emails don’t end up in a spam folder or worse, on a blocked list.
Here are a few important things to keep in mind before you start sending out information to your email list:
Email marketing tips
While you probably wouldn’t think twice about the formatting or subject line of an email you send to a friend, email marketing requires a lot more thought and consideration. Everything from the time you send to your email to the devices which your email could be opened on the matter, and should be planned.
The goal of email marketing is to generate more leads and increase ticket sales. This is what makes creating marketing emails a far more involved process than your average one.
The components of a successful marketing email include:
Copy: The copy in the body of your email should be consistent with your voice and stick to only one topic.
Images: Choose images that are eye-catching and relevant and optimised for all devices.
CTA: Your call to action should lead to a relevant offer and stand out from the rest of your email.
Timing: Based on various studies the best time apparently to email is 11 am on a Tuesday.
Responsiveness: On average, around 55% of emails are opened on mobile, so your email should be optimised for this as well as other devices
Personalisation: You should write every email as if you’re writing it to a friend. Be personable and address your reader in a familiar tone.
Subject line: Your subject line should be clear, actionable, and use enticing language that’s personalised and aligned with the body copy of the email.
Email segmentation
Segmentation means breaking up your email list into subcategories that relate to your subscribers’ unique characteristics, interests and preferences.
You need to remember that your audience and your subscribers are human and you should always do your best to treat them as such. (That means not sending out generic email blasts!)
The reason email segmentation is important is without it you can run the risk of sending the wrong kind of content to the wrong people and potentially lose subscribers.
Why you should segment your email list
Each person who signs up to your emails is at a different stage of readiness to convert into ticket buyers (which we’re assuming is your goal).
If you send a discount code for your tickets to subscribers that aren’t interested in attending your latest event due to location/previous commitments etc. you’ll probably lose them. This is because you have skipped the part where you build trust and develop the relationship between you and your audience.
Every email you send should treat your subscribers like humans that you want to connect with, instead of a group of leads you’re trying to fit into the same box.
The greater the level of segmentation in your list, the greater the level of trust you’ll be able to build with your leads, and the easier it’ll be to convert them at a later date.
How to segment your email list
To begin to segment your email list you’ll need to create a variety of lead magnets and opt-in forms (click here for more information on these) that cover each part of the ticket buyers’ journey. This means your contacts will automatically be divided into separate lists.
The majority of email marketing platforms allow you to segment your email list by contact data and behaviour that will help you send the right emails to the right people.
There are several ways you could break up your list including:[Text Wrapping Break]
Geographical location
Lifecycle stage
Awareness, consideration and decision stage
Industry
Previous engagement with your brand
Language
Job title
In most cases, you can segment your list in any way you wish, but it’s important to be as exclusive as possible when sending emails to each individual subgroup.
Personalisation
Now you’ve established who you’re emailing and what’s important to them, it will be far easier to send emails with plenty of personalised touches.You’ll know you’re speaking to potentially hundreds and thousands of people, but your subscribers don’t need to know or feel that.Studies have shown that personalised emails have a 26% higher open rate and an improved click-through rate of 14% when compared to non-personalised.
Once you have all your personalised data and you’ve set your email marketing platform that allows for personalisation, there’s no excuse to send out generic emails that don’t make your leads and audience feel special.
A few great ways to personalise your emails include:
Adding in their first name into the subject line or intro greeting
Include region-specific information (great for running local events)
Only send emails that are relevant to the last engagement the lead has had with your brand
Information about personal events like public holidays or birthdays
Ending your emails with a personal signature from a human, not your business
A relevant call to action for an offer your audience may find useful
Email Regulations
Email regulations are consistent with consumers’ desires to know how and why their information is being used. One of the most important factors in email marketing is complying with what your audience wants and is looking for.
CAN-SPAM Compliance
CAN-SPAM stands for ‘Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing (because sometimes the two go together).It’s the way to protect your subscribers’ right to only receive emails they’ve requested.The law was passed in 2003 and applies to any commercial emails used for business purposes.
To ensure your emails are CAN-SPAM compliant you need to make sure you:
Include your company/event name in the address of every email
Place visible unsubscribe link within your emails
Use real email addresses in the “from” and “reply to” fields
Write subject lines that indicate the contents of the email
If you’re still unsure about CAN-SPAM there are plenty of resources online for further information.
GDPR Compliance
While there was some controversy when GDPR was first brought in, it actually moves you closer to building long-lasting and trusting relationships with your audience.
GDPR is about giving your audience the right to choose. They choose your emails. They choose to hear updates from you. They choose to buy your event tickets. This is exactly what inbound marketing is about: your customers coming to you because they believe your business and event hold value to them.
GDPR only applies to businesses that operate in the European Union and market to EU citizens. Non-compliance will result in large fees that aren’t worth the risk, so it’s best to read up on GDPR to ensure you are fully compliant.
Here’s a brief overview of how you can comply with GDPR laws:
Use explicit and clear language when requesting consent to store personal information.
Only collect contact data that’s necessary for and relevant to your business.
Store contact data in a secure manner and only use it for the agreed-upon purpose.
Retain data for justifiable business purposes only.
Delete contact data on request.
Make it easy for contacts to unsubscribe from your list or update their preferences.
Comply promptly to a contact’s request for access to their data.
Keep company records to prove GDPR compliance.
These regulations should be taken seriously, so it’s a good idea to create a GDPR-compliant strategy for your business before you begin sending out emails.
How to avoid spam filters
After spending your time creating your perfect email and adhering to regulations, the last thing you want is to end up in a spam folder!
You want to avoid the spam folder because:
It will hurt your deliverability across the board
Your contacts will miss your emails
You won’t be able to accurately measure your marketing effectiveness
Your analytics will be wrong
Some of the best ways to avoid being sent to the spam filter are:
Getting whitelisted: A whitelist is the opposite of a blacklist, meaning it’s a list of approved senders that are allowed to reach a subscriber’s inbox. The best way to do this is to ask your new subscriber to add your email address to their address book. Include directions on how to do this in your welcome email.
Watch your copy: Avoid using all capital letters and multiple exclamation points, as well as spam trigger words, like ‘opt in’, ‘click below’ and ‘order’. These words are easily detected and marked down by Internet Service Providers (ISPs).
Use a reliable email service provider: Your email service provider’s reputation affects how your emails are delivered, so it’s always best to stick to established and well-known companies for an added level of legitimacy.
Implement a double opt-in: After someone opts into your email list, send an email asking them to confirm. This ensures that your new subscriber is genuinely interested in your emails and will likely be more engaged.
These are essential steps to making sure your emails are trusted and compliant and will help your audience build trust with your business and your event.
Next time we’ll be looking at how you can keep track and analyse your email marketing results to help make your campaigns as efficient as possible. Keep up to date via our blog as well as on LinkedIn!
