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Drive Results with Impactful Email Design   Now that you've set your goals and have a clear expectation of what you're working towards, it's time for Week 2 of Constant Contact's Ready, Set, Send Challenge! This week, we're turning our attention to the ins-and-outs of crafting the perfect email. A well-written and designed email can make all the difference in engaging with your audience and driving the results you want. Watch the video below, and then share an email you created – either in the past, or a brand new email with BrandKit, to earn your badge and get feedback from our community and coaches.    I’m Aaron Wesley Means, founder of ACTIVATE Business Solutions, based in Asheville, North Carolina. For more than 12 years, ACTIVATE has served clients of all shapes and sizes from local to national, has trained thousands of businesses through seminars, webinars, and conferences, and is a recurring award-winning solution provider.   In this week’s Ready. Set. Send challenge, we will tackle a true cornerstone of successful marketing: your emails. The inbox is easily the most powerful and visible strategy in your marketing lineup, so it has to be great! What does that mean? Designing the perfect email starts with the basics of a great subject line, stellar branding, and a handful of critical components ranging from a featured image, font size, a call to action, or social media integrations. Be sure to plug in for Week 2 of Ready, Set, Send for a breakdown of how to execute the perfect email.     The 7 Essential Design Elements   Behind most successful endeavors lies deliberate and thoughtful planning, which helps guide the process and ensures an impactful outcome (we love using the word ‘impact’). Crafting an effective email campaign is no different. Check out our 7-step checklist below and try implementing the strategies that make sense to rise above the inbox clutter.   Header: This is your From address, your Reply-to address, and your Subject line. These three elements work together to build trust and get those opens. So make sure the email is coming from an expected address - whether it’s your company name, or an individual person then hook your audience with an email subject worthy of being opened! Don’t be afraid to get creative, use a play on words, include any recent trends, or seasonal identifiers. This is also a great spot to release your inner child and include emojis.  Preheader: You’ll want to stand out from the rest with a preheader that’s unique, eye-catching, and intriguing. The preheader and the subject of the email are like the perfect couple. They have to work hand in hand, but one needs to be funnier for the relationship to last. Choose which one has the spice, but know they both equally contribute to the success of the overall email message.  Your Brand’s logo & color: To continue to build trust with your subscribers, your emails should match your brand or aesthetic. So make sure to include your logo front and center, and leverage the same colors you are using across your website, socials or store.. Leverage our BrandKit tool to save yourself time and create consistency across all your campaigns.  Image: Ask yourself if it makes sense to include an image in your email. Hint: it always makes sense to do this! Include a photo, GIF, video, or whatever you think caters to your audience best! And did you know, if you are crafting images in Canva, you can save them directly to your Constant Contact image library to help save you time Text: You don’t need to be a Nobel-prize winner author to compose the perfect email. Be yourself – and write what your recipients would expect to read from you, or your brand. The goal is simply to convey the main reason for your message Call to action: After determining what the reason for sending your email is, ask yourself: “What would I like my audience to get out of this email?” Is it to click a link to your website, schedule an appointment, or discover something new? Including a call to action button directs your audience to the next step! Footer: Think of your footer like your signature. You want to include any necessary information to ensure recipients can continue to engage with you or your company, whether it’s  your socials, your website, or contact details!    🗒 Too much? Download our PDF cheat sheet on The Anatomy of a Perfect Email to design the perfect email faster.   You can spend hours crafting the perfect communications, or you can use Constant Contact tools to cheat your way to more opens, more clicks, and more time saved.    Branded emails in an instant: Enter your url or upload colors and images into BrandKit, then choose a layout template to have your aesthetic instantly added to emails. See how it works or try it out. Optimize your subject lines. Check out the AI generated subject lines if you are at a loss for words, or try testing two subject lines to see which one performs better. Make an impression with Canva images. If you’re using the free graphic design tool Canva, you can add images, photos and more directly to your Constant Contact library and then add to your emails.  Got an idea but not enough words? Try the AI generator tool in the email editor toolbar to turn your ideas into a full-fledged email. If you’ve already used BrandKit, it will automatically pick up your voice and tone from your website.   Your Assignment: Use BrandKit to upload your assets, either by scanning your website or manually adding your logo/color/images. Review the 7 Essential Design Elements from the Anatomy of a Perfect Email handout.  Want extra credit? Challenge yourself to try something new, like using a new pre-built block layout or including a new image that best captures the message of your email After sending your email, share it with the Community using the permanent URL. Not sending an email this week? Take a screenshot and include it in your reply. We'd love to see your hard work and what you’ve learned!   How you’ll earn your badge: Reply below with your email’s permanent URL or a screenshot of your draft, and you’ll receive the Week 2 badge. It will be proudly displayed on your Community profile, plus keep an eye out in your Community inbox for a larger image to share on your own social channels once Week 2 is finished.   Resources: Handout: Anatomy of a Perfect Email Blog: Email Design Best Practices Community: Creating Your First Email   TL;DR   Design the perfect email by following the 7 Essential Design Elements from the Anatomy of a Perfect Email handout and dip your toes into BrandKit. Watch the video, follow the tips, and crank out those emails for greater inbox visibility, improved open rates, and increased click rates galore!    Not yet a Constant Contact customer but want to start creating beautiful-looking emails? Start a free trial.   We’re excited to see what cool templates you come up with!   ... View more

Multi-channel marketing campaigns use various platforms and tactics to expand your visibility and achieve your goals. The benefits of these campaigns speak for themselves.   We're taking the most popular questions from our latest webinar and expanding upon them so you can strategically plan and execute a marketing campaign that drives success for your organization and the upcoming holiday season that is effective for all your marketing channels!   You can view the webinar directly through Wistia or right here on the Blog!     Goal Setting   How hard is it to get started? Start small and dedicate 30 minutes of your day to creating one specific goal using SMART goal-setting:   Specific: What are you trying to achieve? Measurable: What data will you collect to measure your success? Achievable: Is your goal possible? Relevant: Does your event goal align with your broader marketing goals? Time-bound: What’s your timeline to achieve your goal? This will help you break down your big goals into smaller, more well-defined objectives which will give you the focus you need, help you stay on track, and measure your progress effectively.   Say you’re an online seller and want to increase your revenue. Let’s use SMART goal-setting to make this a well-defined goal: “Increase revenue by 10% by the end of 2024 by implementing a holiday marketing campaign that uses social media, email marketing, and SMS to promote special offers. We will track progress through monthly sales reports and adjust tactics as needed to ensure we meet our revenue target by the end of the year.”   Much better!   Multi-Channel Marketing   What channels should I be posting on? Social is all about engagement and reaching a new audience who may be unfamiliar with your brand. This is a great space to engage directly with your followers by responding to and liking comments. ​ Email is best for longer, more detailed messages. It's where you can tell a richer story and deepen connections. In this channel, you have full control of content and timing, vs. being at the mercy of a platform or an algorithm, like social.    SMS messages boast some of the highest open rates of any communication channel, often exceeding 90%. Text messaging is best used for certain instances, such as time-sensitive or exclusive offers but the text creation space is much smaller than social or email and you’ll need to use fewer characters to get your message across. Use that space wisely! Can I post the same thing across different social media/email/blog channels? Generally, yes. When you’re planning a campaign we recommend combining two or more channels to amplify your reach which gets the most amount of people to see your marketing message and take action. The most common channels are email, social media, and SMS.   ​We recommend using the same theme but modifying the post to suit each channel. Each channel has different features like the ability to include links and sometimes people expect to see different things on certain channels. In our research, we find that usage time varies between all of the channels so posting all at once may show lower engagement in certain areas. This is something to test in your strategy to see if it makes a difference with your audience.     Are hashtags still worth including in my posts? There's a lot of speculation about hashtags floating around.  Most social channels still support the use of hashtags which can be beneficial in boosting your presence and getting found by more people. Using multiple hashtags can make your post look spammy and can create a drop in engagement. We recommend using between three to five.     Does Constant Contact offer blog tools? No, at this time, we do not offer blogging tools.  What is the best way to go about a campaign when your company is niche, but offers a large amount of products/services? Start by thinking about your goals and getting specific for shorter amounts of time. It could be what you want to accomplish for this last quarter of the year for example. That will guide what you choose to do for your campaign.    Segmentation will be key to offering the most relevant technology or services to the right people to make an impact. So look at past data in terms of what tech they already purchased from you, you can feature upgrades or things that pair well with what they have.    For your prospects who have not purchased, keep it simple in terms of what you're showing them. You don't want to overwhelm them. Can you talk about the benefits or drawbacks of year-long campaigns? We are a nonprofit that looks for volunteers throughout the year. Think about everything you do for the year as part of your campaign. This means that you'll need to communicate regularly with your audience. The more you can segment to send more targeted, relevant information, the better your results will be.    You'll need to keep your audience updated all year on your progress, share who you're helping and the stories that are so impactful to driving your audience to take action.   This also may depend on the resources available at your organization. Running a campaign can be stressful, so sometimes shorter can be better.     Event Marketing   If trying to promote an event, would you consider that a product campaign or a short-term campaign? I would consider this a short-term campaign. This can vary based on the event and your overall goals.    In-person typically requires more lead time since people may need to travel. This also depends on how local this is or if it's a big conference that people may need to consider travel costs to get there or hotels.    Virtual events can typically be much shorter in terms of promotion and the event itself. Our company doesn’t sell products, rather we promote events. How do we use the Campaign Builder? You can create a multi-channel marketing campaign with the goal of running your event within the Campaign Builder. You'll be able to manage registrants and details within Constant Contact.    Campaign Builder will also help you promote that event by inviting people via email, social, and text, in addition to some reminders based on the timeline for your event. Can you provide some useful terminology that drives success for fundraisers? It's all about connecting with emotions around whatever your cause is about and it comes down to telling stories about your organization and who you're helping. Check out this blog post for more information on nonprofit storytelling. Any advice on having higher attendance at webinars? We have found that most people who attend, register closer to the webinar. Start your main promotions about a week out and tell your contacts what the benefits are to attending. What will they learn? Make sure you're sending reminder emails to your registrants. We’ve seen some great stats about sending reminder emails 4 hours before and then 1/2 hour before your webinar starts.  B2B industry   We are specifically a B2B company. How does multi-channel marketing compare to B2C? Multi-channel marketing works in various industries. While we don't have specific stats, we have many in the B2B space using multi-channel campaigns as discussed in the webinar. Does Constant Contact's Campaign Builder have B2B-specific strategies (vs. B2C)? Yes! When you go into the Campaign Builder, you tell the Builder the goal for your campaign. It will ask you a few questions and you can let the system know what it is you do and you'll also be able to tell it your industry as well.  Do you think social media is worth it for products that aren't visually appealing? Yes, absolutely! There are still many benefits to being on social media. If you are a B2B, a decent size of your target audience may be on Linkedin. You could also check out other platforms where they may be spending their personal time to help build brand awareness and recognition. Email sending and reporting   How much is "too much" when sending out email campaigns to our client list? Once a week, once a month? Pay attention to your audience and how they are responding. In particular, look at your unsubscribes. If you see more unsubscribes after upping your sending frequency, this is a sign to slow down your sending. In general, we recommend sending at least once a month. When you are running a longer marketing campaign, we recommend sending and posting three times to remind people.    It's important to remember that outside of your campaign, you don't want all of your information to be selling something or asking your contacts to donate to your cause. You've got to have a nice mix in there, but the biggest thing is to pay attention to your metrics. Your campaign example mentioned three emails in a two-week period, but I’ve noticed my customers are more likely to unsubscribe if they receive that many emails in a short timeline. What do you recommend for retention during campaigns while still getting the message out? Everyone's audience is different. In this case, you can cut back to two emails. You can still share your emails on social media as not everyone will see it, but you can still get that reach and exposure to new people. I've always looked at the open rate as a measure of impressions. Is that a good use of that metric, and if not, what is a good use of that metric? Opens are less accurate in today's world due to technology like Apple Mail Privacy where the tech itself will open and review the email when a real person has not opened the email. However, opens can help you in other ways like letting you know if something is amiss like a deliverability issue.    We suggest diving beyond those opens to look at clicks, unsubscribes, and even outside of your email marketing tool to look at conversions or those end actions and whether people did what you wanted them to do, like visit your website or purchase a service. What about email readers who click on everything except the CTA button? We have large open rates but cannot get them to click on our CTA buttons despite changing the wording. Look at what they are clicking on instead. In many cases, you can use that data to segment your list. It may be that the right people aren't interested in the information being sent. At what point can we remove non-openers from our lists? This depends on your business or organization. We heard success stories where a contact started engaging and purchasing after years of not engaging with emails.    If you're a nonprofit organization, they may still be connected to your cause, just without the money to make a donation, but may be willing to support you in other ways. If you're selling a large purchase like industrial equipment, wait much longer as they aren't likely to buy often.    You might also consider different methods to re-engage them over time. Different people may react and respond to different things.     Marketing Ideas   What are some nonprofit marketing campaign ideas? Storytelling Series Idea: Share powerful stories from beneficiaries through videos or written content. Execution: Create a series of posts or short videos highlighting personal journeys and the impact of your organization. Social Media Challenges Idea: Launch a challenge that encourages supporters to participate and share their experiences. Execution: For example, a “30-Day Kindness Challenge” where participants perform and share acts of kindness.  Awareness Days/Months Idea: Tie your campaign to national or global awareness days relevant to your cause. Execution: Create focused content and events leading up to and on that day to maximize impact.  ​Donor Recognition Program Idea: Showcase your donors and their impact. Execution: Highlight a "Donor of the Month" and share their stories and contributions on social media and newsletters. Volunteer Spotlights Idea: Highlight the work and stories of your volunteers. Execution: Create profiles or videos that show their contributions and the difference they make. What are some Education marketing campaign ideas? Seasonal Campaigns Idea: Align campaigns with back-to-school seasons or graduation periods. Execution: Create themed content that addresses the needs and interests of students and parents during these times. Student Success Stories Idea: Highlight the achievements of students and alumni. Execution: Create videos, blog posts, or social media features showcasing their journeys and how your institution contributed to their success. Interactive Webinar Idea: Provide free webinars on relevant topics in education Execution: Invite industry experts to share insights, followed by live Q&A sessions to engage the audience. Alumni Spotlights Idea: Feature successful alumni in your marketing materials. Execution: Share their stories in newsletters, on social media, or on your website to inspire prospective students. Interactive Infographics Idea: Use infographics to present educational statistics or insights engagingly. Execution: Share these on social media or in blog posts to draw attention and encourage sharing. Monthly Themes Idea: Focus each month on a specific topic or skill relevant to your programs. Execution: Create content, events, and activities around that theme to engage students and parents. ... View more