The lost art of Email Marketing
We have all had the odd email asking for bank account details in return for a Persian princess…and because of this some say email marketing is just another excuse to spam, annoy & scare users with fraudulent junk. Although you may only see the dark side to email marketing, here at JM we deliver bespoke and creative emails with compelling content.
E-mail marketing is exactly what it says on the tin, marketing done using e-mail. It’s been around for years and lately, we’ve had clients ask if it’s still relevant or needed to grow your business... YES. With so many other ways to market your business, e-mail marketing might seem like a waste of time and money however it is one of the most personal ways to reach a client or customer.
I’m going to explain to you why we believe it’s still relevant and can be used to massively increase sales and brand awareness.
2.9 Billion
E-mail marketing has been around for many years and in this time, has continued to be used to provide information, digital coupons and other offers from brand to customer.
Since sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have grown in popularity, people seem to see e-mails as old and outdated. However, statistics show that people still check their emails regularly throughout the day and this is a huge factor for e-mail marketing. In fact, the number of email users worldwide is forecasted to rise to 2.9 billion by 2019 and the open rate for e-mails with personalised messages was 18.8% compared to 13% in 2016.
Subconscious Marketing
Strategic and personalised e-mails help grow brand awareness instantly. Although the user may not click through or convert straight away, the email will embed your brand into their subconscious and therefore cause them to either, interact with your future e-mails or, when your services or products are needed your brand will be the first they think of.
Tracking & Data
Another positive for using e-mail marketing is the statistical and data side of it. JM use various analytical tools to track data that comes from email campaigns. This data is vital to the success of both your future campaigns and how you follow up hot leads. From an email we can track, opens, clicks, forwards, the user’s location, time of opening, conversions, purchase transactions for every user and much more.
This is an extremely helpful insight to how your email has been perceived and what you can do to improve further campaigns. After sending several campaigns you can then dictate buying/enquiry habits of your customers along with growing brand loyalty and awareness.
So in simple terms, Email marketing is very useful to businesses and can still increase income and brand awareness, if done correctly. The marketing tool itself isn’t losing quality, it’s just the number of people who have access to email marketing has increased, hence the reasons for increased spam and junk. The negative however is that you may need professional email marketing experts in order to make sure your email is creative, profitable and legal, ensuring every campaign is successful.
If you find yourself wanting to dive into the world of e-mail marketing, be sure to get in touch for advice or to launch your campaign. For more info visit https://johnsonsmarketing.co.uk/services/email-marketing
Conner Thornewill – Digital Marketing Executive
Johnsons Marketing
Social Media Marketing Workshop
Social Media is the most recent and influential tool in the world of marketing. Whether you are onboard with social media or not, you cannot ignore it. No matter if your business is 1 hour or 100 years old, social media is a must in today’s society. Sure, your businesses can survive without social media but you would be missing out on such a huge market and therefore stunting your business growth.
There are so many different social media platforms, and it’s easy to get confused about what content you are supposed to post and where. But don’t worry as I’m here to help.
A successful social media campaign requires consideration to the platform, target audience, content, time of post etc. Social media for business is about showing your brand off little and often, therefore, building yourself into the memory of potential consumers. Then, when the time comes, your consumer will have your brand embedded into their subconscious “Wish List”.
What platforms are best and why?
- Facebook: Facebook is still the biggest social networking platform in the world, if Facebook was a country it would have the world’s 3rd biggest population. Facebook has a wide variety of ways to share all types of rich content e.g. picture, video, text, website snippets. Facebook also has a great way of targeting specific audiences with your company’s related interests and in any location. You can target these manually or via the paid ads. It’s a great way to keep an eye on the competition! Facebook’s advertising system is also a brilliant way for a small business to start their PPC journey. Although this is a not as targeted approach, it can be a cheaper CPC (costs per click) than Google AdWords and tells you a lot more information about your audience.
- Twitter: Twitter is a powerful tool for keeping the world up to date with your brand and business. Whilst the Kardashians are tweeting about their new emoji’s and Donald Trump is causing a stir with any of the 180 characters at his disposal, brands and businesses are using this platform to keep customers regularly updated on what’s happening. Due to twitter moving so quickly and being the most hectic social media site, we use it as an update tool. Posting your main stories and larger pieces of information to sites such as Facebook as this is a platform where people will take the time to read a large post, but also advertise this post on Twitter using it as an amplifier to a possibly different audience.
- Pinterest: Pinterest (A visual bookmarking site) is the 3rd largest social media and is used by over 100 million people and businesses. Pinterest referrals have the highest’s conversion rate of all social media platforms. You can interact with people who are looking for products similar to yours but are unable to find you as they are not 100% sure what they are looking for.
- Google+: G+ and Google Business might not be the most popular but it has been proven to improve search engine results and PPC from local and global results. Once you have enough reviews on your page you can also integrate this with your AdWords to increase CTR (click through rate).
- LinkedIn: LinkedIn is the online version of networking. There’s nowhere online where employers and employees are more intimately linked. Company’s seeking clients and individuals seeking employment should grow their LinkedIn networks by adding as many real connections as possible. Using LinkedIn, we create leads for clients and look at changes in the industry’s gathering information that may be crucial for our client’s growth. Advertising yourself on LinkedIn is ok but everyone is on they’re for the same reason, so instead of trying to gain customers from posting too much on your wall, a good recommendation we have is to try and build more relationships using LinkedIn. Focus on specific information on clients you wish to target and then approach them directly.
How can we help?
Well, we can either help set it up, create your profiles and pages and you go away and post when you want or we can do it all for you, liaise weekly, write creative posts and content on a weekly basis. We can also help promote your posts and profiles using paid promoting which gets you in front of the target users that aren’t already following you and using our PPC knowledge we can manage and optimise them to make the most of your budget.
To read more about Social Media Marketing please visit www.johnsonsmarketing.co.uk/services/social-media-marketing
I hope you found my Social Media Marketing Workshop useful to you and your business. Understandably, managing social media for your business is a big task and requires in-depth thinking about your brand, your target customer, your platform and your content.
Fortunately, JM has several qualifications and years of experience in marketing businesses successfully through social media.
We understand people can be quite sceptical of social media marketing as it was made for personal use but as Seth Godin (multi-millionaire/entrepreneur) once said “Marketing is just a contest for people’s attention” – and if you are still not on board we can offer a free consultation to help you learn more about Social Media Marketing.
For more information contact us on hello@johnsonsmarketing.co.uk or call 01283 670604
The Psychology in Graphic Design
Graphic Design is a something that can make or break a business. The design or athletics of something is the first impression your customer has of your business and therefore is at the forefront of any brand. Today I’ll be explaining how design can majorly influence a consumer.
Shapes & Lines
The first thing you will see in a design is the line work, yes you could say that you see colour first but the lines in a design dictate where the colour is, when you see a McDonald’s logo you may think you see yellow first but the lines create the shape of an ‘M’. The shapes and lines used in design are just as important as colour as they also portray emotion and a message along with controlling and separating the colour for example: using only curved lines in a design can portray a relaxed/calm, friendly or playful design, whereas using sharp lines and corners will give a more intensive, bold and serious design.
Serif Fonts
Looking at the letters of fonts like Times New Roman you can notice short lines at the top and the bottom on each letter. These short lines are called serifs – so if a font contains those lines, it’s definitely a serif font. Serif fonts usually have a formal feel, that’s why they are commonly used in formal correspondence where prestige and classiness are important. Serif fonts are perceived by users as a rule as delicate, beautiful and expensive.
Sans Serif Fonts
A group of fonts that do not have serifs are definitely sans-serif fonts. In comparison with others groups, the sans-serif font is best to be used on the screen. While serifs interrupt the flow of reading from a screen (though they create the flow in print), sans-serif fonts create a clean and intuitive reading process on the screen and they are perfect for headlines and body copy. Usually, readers perceive these fonts as rugged, relaxed, warm, cheap, cool and young.
Script Fonts
The fonts of a script group are cursive fonts and are best for the screen use. These fonts produce an elegant feel and are appropriate for headlines and some decorations. Readers usually characterize these fonts as feminine, beautiful, expensive, soft, delicate, relaxed, quiet, happy and old.
Decorative Fonts
When you see the font that cannot be referred to any of the groups mentioned above then it’s definitely a decorative font. Mostly, decorative fonts are custom creations. As a rule, these fonts are used to build a visual theme for your design. They are great for headlines but are almost senseless for the body copy. Readers usually characterise these fonts as joy while others make the reader feel disgusted.
Colours
Colours are very important. As a graphic designer, when I see a design that contains too many colours I immediately look away, it creates a messy and confused emotion. A business should be able to decide on 3 colours that represent their brand. The colours you chose for a design must be associated with your brand but if you find you are running out of colours to use it is expectable to lighten or darken the tone of the colours. As part of our design consultation, JM will normally create a collage of colours and ideas. Certain colours also represent certain emotions and feelings. Below is a nice colour emotion guide that explains this.
How Design Influences?
The design of everything makes a huge impact on your consumer’s opinion. While the conscious elements like layout, content, and readability will matter, there are also subconscious ways that your audience can be affected by your design. When people first come to your website, read a flyer or open a brochure, they will make a conscious decision as to whether they want to keep reading or turn away on their subconscious reaction to the design. Our goal is to create designs that make the viewers intrigued and interested in what you have to offer.
For more information regarding our design services, please visit http://www.johnsonsmarketing.co.uk/services/graphic-design
Hopefully, that helped you to understand more into the mind of a graphic designer, however, if you have any questions please get in touch on 01283 670604 or drop us an e-mail at: hello@johnsonsmarketing.co.uk
