Facebook EdgeRank and Accurate Analysis
If your responsible for posting content on your organization’s Facebook page, chance are you are familiar with EdgeRank. If not, the basic concept, though often misunderstood, is pretty straightforward. Facebook uses an algorithm for determining what information appears in your news feed. That algorithm is called EdgeRank. Technically speaking, the algorithm Facebook uses = affinity x weight x time decay. Affinity refers to the relationship between the user and your organizations page...
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Using Images in Email
We hadn’t planned on yet another post about email, but it was the focus of a lot of client work this month so we figured, what the heck. Using images in an email campaign is one of those topics that can cause some consternation with clients. If they come in wanting the email equivalent to a nice four-color glossy catalog cover, we aren’t going to convince them that a text based email is really what they need. This isn’t to say that recreating that four-color brochure as an...
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Political Campaign Emails and the Junkmail Folder
Writing content that engages your volunteers or potential donors is hard enough. Add to that the need for catchy subject lines that serve as an effective call-to-action and you have your hands full. The additional worry of avoiding the junkmail folder can be a bit overwhelming. We have discussed the importance of the subject line in other posts, where we noted that about 35% of all email sent to the junkmail folder is sent there for the content of the subject line alone. That means the other...
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The Subject Line Shouldn’t be an Afterthought
For good reason, clients tend to understand that they need to take time to test, re-test, think through and generally do a thorough job planning email content and design. What can be a lot more difficult is trying to help them understand is why their subject line needs the same attention. We can quote open rates and click-through rates all day long, but it really comes down to this. When you open your bloated email inbox every morning, what determines if your going to open the message or...
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Does Good Content Count?
Just so we are all on the same page, when I say good content, I don’t mean the ‘content’ that is plagiarizer or regurgitated copy or just garbage wrapped up in an SEO bow and served up to make the search engines (well really THE search engine) happy. That approach works if your real audience is the search engine. You can certainly succeed just cranking out content that looks great on a search results page and will entice visitors. If this is your business model, you can...
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Three Things to Stop in 2012 – Email Marketing Campaigns
I decided to write a companion post to my entry from a few days ago, Tips on Email Marketing Campaigns. This time, instead of some good ideas, lets focus on what to avoid. Before we get started, nothing on this list is set in stone. I don’t know what market your in or who your target audience is. The things I recommend you avoid pertain to about 95% of email campaigns out there. Somewhere, there is always an exception, but not many. OK, with that out of the way, lets get rolling. Stop...
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