Updated 2 May 2013

Apple smartphones are on the decline while Samsung’s star is burning brighter, but the iPhone and iPad manufacturer is still leaps and bounds ahead of competitors in New Zealand, according to mobile ad network InMobi. See the infographic here.

Updated Feb 22 2013.

Mobile continues to take over the world and many of us would rather leave the dog, Passport, wallet or hubby at home than our phone.

What proportion of your customers are interacting with your website using a mobile device?

We’ve decided to share the Trade Me browser statistics to this blog, providing a very handy resource for kiwi web and marketing teams who are able to validate their own observations on browser trends in New Zealand. TradeMe have promised to update these every three months.

UPDATE: In 18 months TradeMe website visits on mobile devices grew from less than 10% in July 2011 to 35% today according to their new report – read article here.

Click here to read their mobile and browser use facts

Key points they make:

• iOS share holds steady at about 50%
• Android continues on its steady rise
• The proportion of total site visits that are from a mobile device is over 25% and is growing – that’s all phones & tablets.  We are doing a lot of TradeMe on our lap on the iPad as we watch telly i think.  (N.B. This stat on TradeMe was shared in person from TradeMe at a recent NZ conference I attended, as at October 2012, and is not in the site stats linked here.)

Remember our earlier and ongoing post regarding smartphone use in New Zealand?  Many searches come via queries on that post on mobile marketshare in New Zealand so we will update that too as we have done for well over a year now.

How is email winning? Let me count thy ways…

1) It’s beloved.  In a March 2012 online survey of marketing professionals, trade publication Chief Marketer found that the No. 1 tool in digital campaigns was Email Marketing, used by 78% of respondents. Email Newsletters were the No. 2 tactic (59%), followed closely by a social network presence (58%). If you want to read more, here’s the full article.

2) It drives online revenue.  Email marketing was the favored marketing channel for Mother’s Day promotions in 2012, with many luxury brands using email for Mother’s Day marketing and driving transactions in numerous ways including free shipping or discounting, invitations to eCommerce and adding sentimental value. (Click here to read more about this)

3) It’s shareable.  Email is the favored marketing medium to share.  So make your email shareable! Have fun, interesting, shareable content and include social share links, and make it easy for people to ‘share’ online. Remember to include links to your social media profiles, have featured content like your Facebook competition or your latest Pinterest boards, and always have other engaging content ready to roll when you deploy your email.

4) It’s personal.  Getting delivered into peoples inboxes is like being deposited right into the inner sanctum of their life, alongside emails from their friends and photo’s from grandma. “Awesome, we’re in, let’s sell them some stuff”! you say. Hang on, first a couple of things. Don’t abuse the privilege. Earn your place in their inbox and retain your right to be in there. Make sure you are worthy. Make sure you are providing value.

5) It can add value.  Further to the above point, the key is to make sure your email is one that they look forward to and want to read. Ask yourself, are you delivering quality content that is relevant, timely and expected? Is it visual, appealing, interesting, funny, or at least providing some value in some way? Would you look forward to your email? Would you save your email to read later?  If you answered yes to these questions then congratulations, you will have a chance of making it past the morning mass-delete and your email may be kept in their inbox to read later.

6) It works internally.  Microsoft Outlook is a white collar worker’s ‘inner sanctum’.  People still spend more time in their email inbox than in any other business application!  Using email inside your organisation can be very successful, but you need to make the messages of value to the staff, interesting and time saving not time-sucking.   (Want more internal email tips? Here’s an article to read)

7) It’s simple.  Email is winning because it is simple and easy, and these day’s it is ALL about simplifying, being visual, making things easy for people and allowing them to do things quickly. These concepts translate across the board into all areas of marketing yes, but how do these concepts translate specifically to email? Well, consumers these days are barraged by information, and they are adapting their habits to cope with the noise. The reaction consumers are having to this ‘cognitive overload’ is ‘self-imposed simplification of the decision process’. So help them out – match them on their wavelength and make things simple for them.  (Here’s a great article explaining this concept)

8 ) It is an entry point.  Want to go one step further? Integrate email and video using email to deliver a stand out message with good video.  We see this working whether you have a retail focus or you predict the weather.  Making an impact with video is possible, and if you are making video, you should eb ensuring it’s seen as widely as possible – enter email.   An interesting point raised at a recent Marketing Association Brainy Breakfast was that video can simplify concepts, and allow people to gain clarity around potentially complex information, thus allowing them to make decisions more clearly.  When everyone’s mind’s are so full already, (As we just mentioned in point 7) this is a good thing to keep in mind.

9) It’s beautifully mobile.  “Mobile email will account for 10-45% of email opens, depending on your target audience, product and email type” Who said this? Read the full story here. Here’s a neat graph to illustrate the point:

10) Social Network VS Email? The truth is that the best platform is the one that benefits you the most. And what is beneficial to you will differ depending on your business. For example if you’re an events management company, you would benefit from Pinterest. Photographer? Google+ is your place. But still, your e-mail inbox is the most powerful and alluring network that exists. Read this great blog post to find out why!

11) It’s even more mobile.  Speaking of Google – their new whitepaper called ‘Our Mobile Planet’ is all about understanding the mobile consumer, and particularly focused on the New Zealand market. It’s full of great metrics and stats, and makes a strong case for email. (You can read this whitepaper here.  This first graph below shows that 51% of consumers use email on their smartphone on a daily basis. That’s 6% higher than those using social networking sites!

12) It’s……. mobile.   Another stat that stood out from this whitepaper was that 80% of all activity on smartphones are communications based, and of that 71% of consumers use email.


So that’s our roundup – now it’s your turn to use the comments below to tell us why email is winning for you.

Pinterest is a frequent topic of conversation these days and I don’t want to jump on the bandwagon for the sake of it, however I do want to share some useful tips about how to integrate email and Pinterest.

Firstly, for the initiated, Pinterest is the third most popular social media site in terms of site visits, behind Facebook and Twitter. (According to Hitwise) Pinterest is a virtual pin board where people can ‘Pin’ images from websites, upload and share their own images, and ‘Re-pin’ images from other people. It allows you to collate these images into categorised boards which you can share, and others on Pinterest can see and share & re-pin. It is visual in nature, and draws a largely female audience – obviously it resonates with females due to our ‘gathering’ instincts, and appeals to our visual nature, and particularly appeals because of the strong themes around home, fashion, food and family. (Among many other categories) and it can be, and is, used heavily for planning weddings, birthdays, vacations etc.

It is also being used for brands to showcase their products, art, designs, and show ‘behind the scenes’ of the company, which helps build the brand personality and personal connection to your customers. So it is no surprise that it is quickly becoming a key player in online marketing. You might be surprised to learn however that the ability to integrate Pinterest with your email marketing channel to build and grow your Pinterest presence is relatively easy. So here are a couple of tips about how to bring these two channels together, beyond just adding a “follow us on Pinterest” button to your email.

Here are the five most productive ways to increase social media ROI by linking the two:

1. Use Email to Announce Your Pinterest Presence
It is often said and well known that your email subscribers are your best and most loyal customers. If your brand fits with the typical demographic of the Pinterest user, you have every reason to promote your presence on the site, and share your images with your customers. One great example is how zulily has embraced its Pinterest presence by not only telling their subscribers what they can find on Pinterest, but also creating content specific to the channel via poster creation and even featuring an incentive to encourage Pinning from their site. (Click here or on the image to your right to view the full email)

2. Include “Pin This” Icons within Your Email
Including a Pinterest icon with a simple string of code is all you need to do to get your content from your email to your Board. You even have the ability to pass through a description to accompany the image – and descriptions in Pinterest are important. A few fun things to note here: if you include a dollar amount price in the description, Pinterest will automatically place a banner in the top, left hand side of the image feature the price; it will also place the Pin in the Gift Guides from the main drop down. Another fun note is that descriptions can also help impact SEO. Think the descriptions through as carefully as you choose your imagery.

3. Co-ordinate New Boards or Pins Around Email Deployment
If you are including references to Pinterest within your email communication, chances are your customers may visit your Pinterest wall of various boards following an email deployment. It is a good idea to have new content available when they get there. To that point, you should be putting up new content, arranging boards and managing the “above the fold” appearances of your Pinterest presence frequently to deter fatigue.

4. Here are some other ideas you might like to consider: 

• Create new pins and update your Pinterest boards around email deployment schedules to complement the email message.
• Add the Pinterest icon to your social media sharing icons in email campaigns and newsletters etc.
• Create specific boards around your email marketing calendar (holidays, big events, social media trends, special sales, or any popular Pinterest category that’s relevant to your brand).
• Include visuals of Pinterest activity in your email campaigns, including the Pinterest activity of your most social community members or ‘behind the scenes’ shots.
• Prepare your boards before an email deploys, so that the content is updated and fresh by the time traffic spikes.
• Keep your boards looking fresh by rearranging them frequently, make sure featured pins are “above the fold” and make sure you choose the best ‘album cover’ for each board.
• Stay social – repin other people’s pins, monitor the community, and start a conversation with users.
• Tap Pinterest’s potential to add to your social media ROI and create boards that mirror the interests, activities, demographics etc, of your customers or followers.
• Have customized boards for different segments of your email database, and of course you’ll want to know who is pinning from your site and engage them on other social platforms as well.
• Pin emails to Pinterest for faster ROI, by linking your email marketing campaigns to your Pinterest.

As you can imagine, this is an ever-evolving topic and new information is coming out every day – we are just scratching the surface of what marketers can do with this channel, so look at this as a few tips to help get you started.
Want more? click here to read more advice about combining email and Pinterest.

So start thinking about what you want to share with your prospects and customers – think about how you can communicate those things through email and social media. Those are the key questions that will determine whether or not pinning email to Pinterest should be part of your plan. If you are using both email and social media, then you’ll find that linking them together in a planned, coordinated effort will make a significant positive change in your social media ROI.

When we think about sharing content, we usually think of Facebook and Twitter.

So, would it surprise you to know that more people share by email than by Facebook?

That’s the result ExactTarget got when they surveyed folks for their 2012 Channel Preference Survey.

Here are their findings.

As seen in the graph above, when you combine all the age brackets, 63% of people use email to share content and only 33% put it on Facebook, and only 5% on Twitter.

The only time social media rules is specifically within the 15-17 age group, so if this is your target audience, by all means stick with Facebook. For everyone else, it looks like it’s time to review the importance of email as part of your marketing campaign.

Email is also the chosen one when it comes to preferred method of contact. 77% of people said they want emails from companies they’re interested in. Direct mail, on the other hand, came in only at 9%.

Email was also the first place people looked for deals from companies they already know. Company websites came in second.

According to ExactTarget, the only place email has declined is as a method of personal communication (45% vs. 66% in 2008). Text messaging is up (36% vs. 16% in 2008), as is social networking posting (13% vs. 3% in 2008).

Also 91% of people say they check email every day and that’s more than any other means of communication.

Social media is great, no doubt. However if you are underestimating the importance, and the preference for, email, particularly when dealing with current customers, you’re missing out.

Want more details? Read the full ExactTarget 2012 Channel Preferences Survey. It’s free.

We’ve been talking a lot about content lately (and making tools to help) so we were pleased to find this edgy and actionable resource that deals with a fundamental issue affecting businesses.  How to consistently create high quality content that engages, educates, informs and ideally, entertains?

When we ask clients ‘What’s hard?’ about digital marketing, one consistent pain point comes up:  Creating and curating relevant, sharable, high quality content.  Writing is hard.  When we talk to our peers at other agencies, we hear the same thing.

A way to address this critical issue is a fundamental rethinking, restructuring, and re balancing of company culture, resources, budgets and strategy.

This excellent recent report from Altimeter Group introduces a five-step content maturity model, complete with real-world case examples, to move organisations from zero (“standing”) to hero (“running”) with their content strategy.  It includes a useful Content Marketing Maturity self-audit.  It ends with four actionable recommendations, finishing with ‘Design Recombinant Content’…

The report urges us: “Strive to create content that can be redistributed in multiple formats across numerous platforms and channel to maximise value and minimise the resources dedicated to continually creating content from scratch.  Understand how to redistribute and reuse discrete components of longer form content”.

A new seasons product launch for example might turn into a themed landing page, a video, one or more blog entries, tweets and Facebook posts, and an email opt-in incentive in the form a Welcome email reward ‘Join our Inner Circle now and we’ll send you our exclusive How-to-Wear Guide for the 5 must-have pieces for this seasons new looks’.

I strongly recommend that you read this report and consider a content plan for your own business.  Here at Jericho we already have, and it’s a key strategy for working with our clients and in our own business.

Read the report on SlideShare and please share this post with your networks using the icons below. We’d love to see comments below on how you manage, or struggle with, the growing demands for content.

UPDATE January 2013

New stats on mobile internet use and market share facts on New Zealand and Australia smartphone use have been posted in a new article on this blog, click to read the newest information here.

UPDATE 22 August 2012

More grist for the mill.  Some hard cold facts spotted on Twitter this morning for the split between iPhone and Android market share in New Zealand.  Both seeing roughly 1 android for every 4 iPhone, and say android is gaining.

RealEstate.co.nz as at today App downloads:  iPhone 85,500 and Android 20,300

TradeMe.co.nz as at today App downloads: 450K iPhone, 120K Android; and they also announced they are seeing 1000 mobile initiated listings/day.

Note I found it easy to find the link to app on RealEstate but couldn’t find it at all on TradeMe’s site.

UPDATE 16 May 2012:

We’ve found some great stats for Australian Smartphone penetration, and Google have just released a new report on New Zealand Smartphone penetration so we thought it time for another update to the last two posts (keep reading for those).

Here, our best informed guess was that 30% of people are using Smartphones in New Zealand.  That’s way up since we first talked about this subject in September (see below) when fewer than 18% of kiwis were on smartphones.   BUT Google’s Our Mobile Planet report of May 2012 says  44% of New Zealanders have access to a smartphone.  Download the full report here.  You can even download the entire data set.

The best comment I have had to date on this came from Andrew Malcolm, one of the smart young things behind ‘Applacarte’.  Andrew pointed out the obvious:

“The actual % of NZ penetration is irrelevant. The important figure is what percentage of our target markets are significantly driven by smartphone decisions. 18-50 yr olds with above average income in metropolitan areas is probably in the 60+% range.”

True that!

Secondly, according to the same Google study conducted with IPSOS Media CT, Australia has one of the highest rates of smartphone adoption in the world. Australia’s smartphone penetration is now 52%, a significant increase from last year’s figure of 37%.  Read the whole article here.

UPDATE 27 January 2012:

We’ve had an update on the below including carrier and market-share s0 we thought we’d share the new statistics, as they are very relevant and part of a substantial New Zealand Internet Use study – AUT: World Internet Project December 2011

The Study announces that usage of smartphones and other handheld wireless devices has grown apace, from 7% of Internet users in the 2007 sample, to 18% in 2009 and 27% in 2011.

The question the AUT: World Internet Project December 2011 asked:  ‘Do you use the Internet through wireless hand-held devices, such as a mobile phone or iPad?’
And, if yes, ‘How many hours a week do you use the Internet through wireless hand-held devices?’

More than a quarter (27%) of users access the Internet from a hand-held mobile device such as a smartphone or an iPad.
12% of Internet users, over 10% of the NZ population as a whole, spend 5 hours or more a week online from a wireless hand-held device.
And, the proportion of users accessing the Internet from a handheld mobile device for 10 hours a week or more has increased from almost none in 2007, to 8% of users in 2011.

16% of internet users say they download applications on a smartphone, which we will take to assume that this is number of Android and iPhone handsets in the NZ market, as these are by far the most common to have ‘apps’.

New Zealand Telco Mobile Market Share statistics:

TOTAL NZ MOBILE CONNECTIONS (Source NBR)

Vodafone: 2,434,000*
Telecom:  2,079,000**
2degrees: 875,656***
MVNOs: 50,000****

ORIGINAL POST: 12 September 2011:

Looking for recent smartphone stats for New Zealand and Australia?

You’ve found them! Unofficial’ but… the most accurate we’ve come across this year:

Mitch from The Hyperfactory shared the following New Zealand mobile phone market share statistics at the September 2011 Brainy Breakfast (a Marketing Association event sponsored by Jericho).

Total handsets in the NZ market:

Over 100% penetration of mobile handsets of all types in market in New Zealand

Mobile carrier market share:

The mobile carriers market is roughly split -
45% on Telecom,
45% on Vodafone, and
10% with 2 degrees.

Smartphone penetration:

Of the over 4.5 m phones in market, it’s estimated:
800,000 are smartphones

250,000 are iPhone/iPad
150,000 are Android

Leaving 400,000 or so as Blackberry, Windows and Symbian (Nokia N series etc).  Clearly this will continue to switch as phones are upgraded and new models launch clouding things further – such as Nokia’s new Windows phone.

In summary we are looking at smartphone penetration in NZ in the range of 14-18% and growing.  Compares to smartphone penetration in Europe and USA in the 30-50% range.

In Feb 2011 Telecom shared that smartphone sales were driving growth with ’16%’ quoted – here is the article at PC World.

Meanwhile, in Australia smartphone use is second highest in the world according to this study on behalf of Google.  Read article here on Australian smart phone penetration.

What do you think?  Do these match up with your experience/best guess/hard data?  Note that smartphone use (the Australian data) and smartphone penetration (the NZ data) aren’t the same thing.  We’ll continue to add to this post as we get updated info.

Do you love stats?  The you might also be interested to read these other posts from our blog:

Nearly 2 million Kiwis Use Social Media ( this is fast out of date so a weekly stat update via Catalyst90 is here )

Nearly half of all adult NZers are now shopping online

What % of shopping online is done on NZ websites vs NZer’s shopping on overseas websites?

Feel free to read, and add your comments below.

It’s not about size, it’s what you do with it right?

Well, yes… and no.  Small databases may just be perfectly formed, but your contacts are always changing, so some growth is essential.

The real question is, if your’s is too small, what can you do about it?  Growing your database relies on some MUST-DO’s. But cry, wail, berate though we do (even to *gasp* our own clients) every single day, they are not done, all over the web, on sites from all over the world.

Don’t be one of them.   Here are a few of the MUST-DO’s to grow your email list:

• Ask. This is direct marketing. You must ask, directly, in many ways – buttons, text links, in-copy prompts, and from landing pages, blogs, Facebook and LinkedIn, etc.  If you are a large business with a busy website this is even MORE critical.  Get someone who has no involvement with your website – you mum for example – and ask them to get their name on your mailing list; watch over their shoulder while they sign up.  Everywhere they attempt to look should have  a text link, button or directive to join.  Note how the GAP family of sites and RachelZoe.com do this right on the home page – their most valuable real estate. And they should know – we’d guess their testing budgets are big…

• Be attractive and useful. Now is not the time to be coy. Describe how you will help and waggle your benefits right in their face.   Use pain-points that demonstrate you know their difficulties, and can help them solve them.  Use value-adds and bonuses to incentivise their action.   We developed our SmartMail Pro’s email series tools for just this purpose (Get our monthly specials and we’ll send you the ground-breaking tutorial ‘Get the most from health insurance’ in 5 parts, each week for the next 5 weeks, for free’).  Yes your content is worth something but their email address is worth a lot – to you, and, even more to them.  Use examples, testimonials and clear language to exchange value and to minimise their risk: ‘We will never ever give your details to anyone else’.  Are your emails beautiful, and functional?  It costs the same time and money to send an ugly email – but risks less pass-along, poor response rates.  Make it rock.  See email design examples here and ask us for some before and afters to see what a difference design can make.

• Make it easy. See the Bonus Resource on form design below and the example above of the Metrics Report Download on our own website (fill out your email address and then see the form on the next page) - DO ask for the personal details you can (and that you will) use to vastly improve the customers experience, such as Gender, Location, and broad preference categories.  Date of birth is nice if you will use it to acknowledge their birthday.  We’ve already said Do NOT hide the subscribe button deep in your site – get it out there!  Please don’t ask for a mailing address, unless you really, really need it – it’s very offputting.  If you have a call centre or CSR’s calling customers on the phone, or viceversa, then make sure they are asking for the email address, and getting permssion by explaining why it will be good to recieve emails from your company.
• Close the loop.  Do what you said you would, when you said you would do it. Fulfilling the promises that you made is key to extend permission and take Seth Godin’s journey from stranger, to friend, to customer and then advocate.  Handing over the email addy is a risk – make the risk pay off and you will have them. and their wallets, right where you need it.
• Use Advocates.     Pass along, and social sharing using social media is one of the strongest advantages email has over other marketing channels, so use your SWYN tools not to send readers to your Facebook page but to get yourself on theirs, and if you don’t have  these tools get us to set you up. Make sure you have clear path to subscribe in every email you send – we explain that fully here. Check out this post Fan, Follower, Subscriber – which one will buy?, and other previous GetSmart posts on social media and email marketing.

Bonus Resources

-Sign up/Registration form design: I have found a fascinating resource on web design usability that has several posts about form design, I recommend them all – just search their site.  Your goal is to optimise the form, and the path to the form, so you increase the chance that web page visitors will persist and complete your form.   
The first post is about the layout of the form: Vertical arrangement works fastest

-How New York Public Library grew their database by 50%.  A case study.

Do you need plans, extraordinary design creative, and a real life team of global email experts to drive your email marketing and social media? Here we are – down under and always ready for action.

Today wrapped up the ETail conference at Boston, and as I followed the Twitter stream (#etail) some great little gems appeared, so I thought I’d share them here.  They are not all attributed – that’s the nature of Twitter sorry!

The big main theme for the day… be customer-centric. Make the experience as easy as possible for them in order to succeed.  People need to be heard. They hate to feel like the brand they spent $ on is ignoring them.

Listen to the customer and field staff. Define a feedback mechanism. Be willing to change for a better customer experience.
Invest in keeping visitors on your site. Keep them in the funnel and keep them moving down.
Critical key to success – 70% of shoebuy.com customers were repeat purchasers in 2010. That’s up from 28% in 2002.
The average upclick from consumers shopping on websites w/ the green “Trusted” browser bar is 17.8%.
35% of @amazonrevenue comes from product recommendations. Personalize your customers’ experience!

ECommerce tidbits from Lucky Brand Jeans:
If you are measuring ecommerce (as you must be) then Lucky Brand Jeans @luckycharliec say there are 6 must have reports:
1. Marketing source by day.
2. Product sales by day.
3. Conversion report by day.
4. Product sales by channel.
5. Homepage link analysis.
6. Detailed Daily Reporting by Marketing Mix.
Lucky also say:
Sending their cart abandonment email ‘right’ away doubled Lucky’s conversion rate.
Sometimes you tweak it ’cause you don’t like it. That’s OK as long as you measure the results.

Video:
Craig Wax on why video works: 65% people learn thru visual, 25% auditory, 10% text. Webcopy can’t compete.
YouTube or Vimeo? Either but push contextually relevant way.
‘Man on the street’ video or ‘highly produced’? Again, both work well.
Average customer satisfaction score increases by 20% when video is included on eCommerce site. – Javier Salom
The more complex the product the greater the conversion rate of product video.

Staples.com – Show an awesome branding video around “easy” campaign – how it’s evolved strategically & how it becomes operational.

Mobile Search:
Google reports mobile originating searches for the word “Shopping” up 30X (yes 30X) from 2007-2011.
Sales or visits, either way 30% contribution from mobile channel seems to be a remarkable number.
Mobile search is the top of any conversion funnel. Failing to invest could mean missing customers in the beginning.

Lastly - talkabout a wake up call to how far behind NZ is from the USA – many of our clients are just getting cart abandonment emails started, and then we hear this!:
#Birkenstock sends up to 5 cart abandonment emails out to shoppers and they may do more! No offer on 1st three, then 5% and 10% off

For more information on Etail visit the official website.

And search for presentations, you might be lucky and find some shared!  What’s your next conference?

Convincing people to share your news/offers/brands with other people is most likely one of your marketing goals in 2011.  If only because extending the reach of a campaign gets you greater results for the same spend.

Combining email marketing and social media to achieve that is becoming very important – but perhaps it’s no shock that email is key; around two and half times more people share using email than social media.

A new report by AOL and published in partnership with Nielsen, proves what people share, where they share it, and why. Sharing content is the number one driver for sharing both with email and social media.

Brand plays a critical role.  If you need a reason to invest more branding budget in your email and social, here it is:  Nielsen reports that brands play a key role: 60% of all content-sharing messages specifically mention a brand or product name.  That makes sense when you see the reasons people share – they want to share trusted information.

Consumers say trust and a desire to help people are key factors in deciding which content to share:
38% share information from people they trust.
36% share important information that helps others (e.g., traffic reports, how-to, community information).
35% share items about popular culture.
32% share information pertaining to common interests.

Email is the primary content-sharing tool among surveyed consumers (66%), followed social media (28%) and instant messaging (4%). Most People Share via Multiple Platforms.  And, 99% people who share content via social media also use email to share content.   It’s a great report – you can read AOL’s release here.  And Marketing Profs dissect it more, and provide graphs here.

Search the blog for more from our team at Jericho on email marketing and social media (we started for you, below):

Fan. Follower. Subscriber. Which one will actually buy?

4 ways that great web content = free money

Subscribe yourself, share with your network (SWYN) and other missed opportunities

About the study: Findings are based on Nielsen’s NM Incite Social Media Monitoring tools, Online Behavior Panel and Attitudinal analysis, tracking more than 10,000 social media messages; and on a survey of more than 1,000 Nielsen Online panel members for 10 consecutive days, December 14-23, 2010

We have been polishing them for years, but in truth, Email Newsletters are still underexploited.  They offer a simple path for you to consistently demonstrate your expertise, and the care you take in your communications.

By my observation, key to getting them done is that you make the process easy by planning your timing and content.  
Timing: When you have agreed frequency (monthly or bi-monthly is right for most businesses)  then work out the timelines you’ll need for copy, interviews, images, and approvals, and set deadlines for the content and delivery.  Missing your schedule is like standing up a date – and it’s hard to get to 3rd base if you don’t hit first and second.
Content: Adding a theme to sit above each issue makes it easier, then each section can work into that.  Each theme should work to support your overall business goals for the year ahead.  For example, if your aim for 2011 is to get new clients, establish credibility, and emphasise your customer focus,  then plan to intersperse two issues per theme, and you have six months content planning sorted.

Here are some ideas – copy and paste them into excel and add columns for your newsletters – to make your own content plan.

Email Design Requirements
Your email will have some content that is regular, so it’s a good idea to plan this out first so we/you can design around your ideas.  Remember changes can be made as your needs change, and the modular style templates Jericho excels at can be flexible with sections left in or taken out as you like.

Top Section Ideas:
Navigation Bar w Links to Key Relevant areas of your Website
Personalised Greeting, e.g. Hi John
Static Index of Content/Sections (just a list of contents)
Bookmarks Index of Content/Sections (a list of contents that will drop to each article when they are clicked)
Introduction – Generic
Introduction – Dynamic (changes out automatically based on key fields like location, gender, client type, preferences)
Introduction – Personal note from ‘Leader’ e.g. with image/sig

Content Section Ideas:
N.B. all of these can also be dynamic (changes out automatically based on key fields like location, gender, client type, preferences)
Most Popular/Best selling
What’s New
Introducing…
Profile
Customer Interview
Us at Work – use a simple Case Study to show how you work with a client on a day to day basis
Testimonial
Customer Questions/Answer
Customer Ideas/Images/Contributions

Bottom Section Ideas:
Advertising
Logos of our Partners
Our Details – Address, Phone in email footer
Contact Us – link to website
Link to Join
Link to Subscribe (missing a link here means missing new subscribers who have received your newsletter from others via forwarding).
Share this email or part of the content, to your Social Network (SWYN) (read other ways to include your recipients social networks here)  We have a descriptive diagram of how that works here)
Join us on Facebook, Twitter, etc.

As always we are here to help - if you want to look at some modular design  examples or just great email campaign examples, ask us. There are 28 of us here and we ♥ email.