Split decision – what to consider when conducting an A/B test

Split decision – what to consider when conducting an A/B test

Posted by Adrian Young

Which of these statements about A/B testing is correct? A. It’s a fun little experiment. B. It’s a powerful tool which must be handled correctly. The correct answer is B. Split testing is a powerful tool. And, like all tools, it has the potential to do more harm than good if it’s not operated with care. It’s therefore unfortunate that split testing is often treated more like option A. "Hey, let’s try this" says someone… and suddenly you’re conducting an experiment based on an arbitrary, last-minute decision. Testing in a haphazard and disjointed manner may garner useful insights into your customers’ behaviour but it’ll be mostly down to luck. Such unplanned testing is as likely to waste time on inconclusive,…

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The importance of Email Marketing and Digital Marketing Strategy for your brand

Posted by Sarah O'Donovan

Have you ever opened a marketing email and not immediately recognised what company it’s from or the purpose of the email? It has no sales pitch or story or maybe it doesn’t even match their website? Sometimes it’s not their fault, they test their emails on desktops but don’t realise their emails don’t render correctly on mobile, the device that the majority of people now open emails on. Believe it or not, some companies don’t even use email marketing and have no idea of the opportunity they are missing out on. Fundamentals of Email Marketing and Digital Marketing Strategy include an optimised website and great emails, even mobile-friendly ones. Said to have the biggest ROI and be the most cost-effective…

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The Rise of the Spam Bots

Posted by Mel Jewell

Email marketers know the best distribution lists you can have are the ones grown organically, with a huge source being via sign up forms on your website. This means you can be certain that that person really wants to sign up…right? You might also have forms to capture such things as contact or blog comments to help you communicate with your users better. But just how safe are your forms really? If you haven’t added any protection to them against spam bots and malicious phishers, then sadly, not safe at all. The implications of this can often be dire for your success as an email marketer. Feedback from your users is a helpful way to know if you are collecting…

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What’s the real cost of not outsourcing your Email Marketing

Posted by Mike Parry

Why is it more expensive to do something in house? Just recently our sales team have come across a number of potential small business accounts which have said; We manage email marketing ourselves… It’s become a part of my role and I fit it in when I can… We’re too small to outsource… We use the DIY email builder for our emails… We can’t afford to outsource. The answer to all of these is simple: You can’t afford not to outsource and here’s why: As a small business you need to leverage every penny of your resource to it’s maximum. If you’re an SME you probably don’t employ a marketing manager, a designer, a coder or a database administrator. This…

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Three interactive email problems (and how to solve them)

Posted by Adrian Young

Electronic mail has come a long way since its humble, text-only roots. The modern medium is one rich in imagery, animation and – if you fancy it – interactivity. Until recently, interactive email could only be achieved by means of some CSS wizardy. While CSS was never actually intended for this purpose, it’s capable of powering surprisingly complex interactive content. In the JavaScript-free world of email, this was a revelation. Of course, technology doesn’t stand still for long. The advent of Google’s AMP for Email has introduced a standardised system of interactive email. Is that the death knell for CSS-based interactivity? Not yet and potentially not at all. It’s early days and remains to be seen whether AMP becomes widely-adopted…

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5 ways we can solve your development headaches

Posted by Mel Jewell

Successful email marketing is more than just sending pretty emails, but to enhance it, extra resources are required. The cost, time and effort, particularly for small businesses, may be off-putting and prevent maximum potential being reached. However, at display block we have the experience and infrastructure already in place for all kinds of development projects. Here are the top 5 ways we can help you improve a multitude of development intensive email marketing elements, with very little input required from your end. Development Project 1. Create your own subscriber list and/or send automated emails Building up your own subscriber list is a must for your email marketing strategy. Capturing users that really want to receive your emails should be the…

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The Future of Email Marketing

Posted by Sarah O'Donovan

“Is email dead” I hear you ask? Certainly not! Statistics say, email is here to stay, and as we marked 40 years of email marketing in 2018, the future still looks bright. Below, we discuss some of the up and coming trends that will keep email in the running for the most widely used form of marketing communication among most companies. Highly anticipated trends for the future include interactivity, personalisation and content. The hottest topic of all though, Artificial Intelligence. Interactivity One trend that has remained, is that of ‘Interactivity’. One way to be truly engaged with your customers is to have an interactive element to your marketing emails that allows a two-way street of communication. For example, the opportunity…

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Do you even know me? Watch out for these email personalisation pitfalls

Posted by Adrian Young

It’s ready. Your beautifully designed, flawlessly coded email is one click away from being fired off to thousands of customers. There’s just one problem: everyone is about to receive the same message. No, the forename which has been shoehorned into the subject line doesn’t count. It’s spray-and-pray dressed up as one-to-one. Email marketing deserves to be more sophisticated than that. And it can be. We live in an age of dynamic content, data science and machine learning. To the benefit of customer and business alike, it’s possible to send expertly tailored content based on a person’s purchasing and browsing activities. But even a richly personalised email programme can sometimes trip up. Read on for a list of personalisation perils –…

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