General best practices are a great starting point, but the real magic happens when you tailor your strategy to your unique audience. Every business and every audience is different, and what works for one might not work for another. That’s why it’s crucial to dive deep into your own metrics to discover what truly resonates with your audience.   Topics covered in this webinar: Mastering the top email metrics by learning what the most common metrics really mean and how to interpret them Benchmarking your success through understanding industry averages and where you stand compared to your peers Discovering proven tips for improvement with actionable strategies to boost your results and engage your audience What are the most important KPIs for digital marketing campaigns? The good news is that there are a lot of analytics you can access to understand your digital marketing efforts.    Conversions are one of the most important metrics to understand whether people are taking the actions you want them to take (making a purchase, donating, registering, etc.).   Here are a few other metrics for different channels to consider: Email marketing: Clicks track whether people are clicking to start to take the action you want. You can then start to calculate your conversion rate from there.  Unsubscribes Bounce rate Spam reports List growth Social media: Reach, impressions, engagement rate, and click rate are the most important SMS: Delivered, click rate, bounce rate, unsubscribe rate   Check out this on-demand webinar for more details on understanding and using your digital metrics to improve your results. I am really interested in learning the metrics for social media like Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin. Here is a quick overview of important metrics and their definitions (keep in mind each platform may have their own definitions and availability): Reach - number of people who see your social media content Impressions - number of times your social media content is displayed Engagement - number of people who like, share, or comment Engagement rate - calculated by the number of likes, shares, and comments divided by the total reach Click-through rate - percentage of people who click through to your content Conversion rate - percentage of people who donate, buy, sign-up, etc (your call-to-action) divided by the number of clicks     My open rate is much higher than it has been in the past. Is there a reason why this happened? Apple Mail Privacy which can preload images and content of the emails you send. Because this is also how Constant Contact tracks email opens, this update may affect the accuracy of your email reporting, as we won’t be able to reliably determine which contacts opened which emails when using Apple Mail since their technology is opening the email before your contacts do. You may see an inflated open rate as a result.   This is why going beyond just your opens is so important in today’s world. Clicks are a better measurement for calculating engagement.     Does Constant Contact have a way to filter out bot clicks? To make sure your email reporting is as accurate as possible, we attempt to prevent these “false opens/clicks” from being recorded in your engagement data. We’ve developed a list of known non-human user agents (security programs and bots), and when one of these agents scans a link in your email, we don’t record the open or click. We make a best-guess effort, but due to the nature of the activity, it’s impossible to say we catch 100% of these. We’re continuing to improve and update this list of known non-human user agents, and we’re actively investigating other ways to determine which clicks are real or from a security program. This work is ongoing as security vendors are constantly changing their tactics so they can catch the elusive scammers and phishers.   Bot opens and clicks traditionally would occur immediately after an email was sent. This, however, may not always be the case. We have also seen them happen as a spike several hours after the send. This can sometimes mean that the security filter noticed something later that caused them to be suspicious of the message. If you notice a higher than-average level of engagement on one of your campaigns, there’s a good chance these are bot opens and clicks. For more information, check out this article. ... View more

Effective marketing isn’t just about sending promotions; it’s about building relationships with your audience. It requires consistency to keep your audience engaged and your brand top-of-mind.   We're taking the most popular questions from our latest webinar and expanding upon them so you can learn how to find the right balance for sending and posting marketing content that resonates with your audience, build a content plan that provides value to your audience when you don’t have something specific to promote, and get inspired by real-life success stories from businesses and nonprofits that have mastered the art of consistent marketing.   You can view the webinar directly through Wistia or right here on the Blog!     My customers/followers don’t always want to see emails that are selling or promoting my product/service. What can I do in between those emails to keep them engaged? It’s true. For most of us, seeing constant asks for you to buy something from a company can make you feel like you’re only there to be sold to. This doesn’t create a good relationship, so a balance is needed.   As we talked about in the webinar, it’s important to share content that is entertaining and valuable. Valuable content builds trust, is informative, shares your expertise, or solves a problem. Do you see any common questions from your followers or topics of interest that tend to get a lot of attention?      How do you balance the tradeoff of providing value-based language and having a lot of text? The value needs to be in the content itself, not so much value concerning a product/service you're selling. As long as you're providing value in your content, you don't have to worry as much about the length. You need just enough to answer the question or help the audience solve a problem. And remember relevancy. If the content is relevant and interesting to them, they will continue reading. As we saw in several of these examples, they did have more text because of the value they're providing and how they were truly understanding their audience. Is there anything content-wise you should avoid when communicating with your audience?  In most cases, it's best to avoid anything in the political space (unless you're a political organization) or anything that can be seen as controversial. Can I reshare content I’ve already created? Evergreen content is a great thing to keep in your back pocket. It provides value to your audience and isn’t confined to a date or time period. If you want to change it up, try formatting it in a different way. Can you turn it into a video or a guide? Now that I have an idea of what to send, I’m struggling with writer’s block. Help! It happens to all of us! That’s where the AI Content Generator comes in to give you a helping hand. Type in a few keywords or sentences, and we’ll create a short paragraph based on what you’ve provided. This will give you a starting point to take the next step and make it your own by personalizing the content and using your own brand voice. See our AI best practice guide. What are some good calls to action? Is one like “Book Now” effective since it’s short? We recommend having some kind of call to action in your email or social post. In this example, “Book Now” feels hard, as if your customer needs to commit to something they may not be ready to do. In the webinar, we discussed how to soften the call by using this text: “See how easy it is to automate your email marketing—schedule a quick demo and we’ll walk you through it.” and the button text “Schedule my demo” was used instead. How often should I be sending emails? There isn’t a hard rule for everyone, as this depends greatly on the industry and how active your business or organization is. The goal is to send at least once a month. If you have events or upcoming events, send more frequently in the weeks/days leading up to the program.   The best way to judge how often to send is to review your reporting. If you suddenly increase the amount of emails you send and there’s an increase in unsubscribes or fewer opens, you may want to take this as a sign to cut back.  How often should I post on social media? Each platform has its own best practices, so there isn’t one straightforward answer. This is an instance when you’ll want to review your metrics or reporting to compare posting times and how your followers react, similar to sending emails.   In the end, go for quality over quantity. You may not need to post every campaign sent. What is going to be most valuable to your followers? See our Blog post where we further explain how often to post on social media and what to take into consideration when posting. Also, consider how much time you have and your resources. Don’t feel you need to be everywhere. What relevance do posting schedules have to B2B versus B2C? It depends on the platform and what you can do to produce quality content. As a B2B, it's important to remember that your audience is also a consumer outside of work. In many cases, these B2B audiences are spending time on platforms like Instagram and Facebook, so you can typically reach them there. Are people posting on Twitter/X three times a day? What kind of businesses do they run? The businesses and organizations who are posting that much likely have a dedicated social media manager dedicating time to the content on these platforms. This can also depend on the industry and whether there's a need to share that much content on social media. How do you feel about Bluesky and posting on there? Is there a best schedule yet? The audience isn’t as large, but if your followers are there, it's worth it. The scheduling would be similar to X, about 1-3 times a day. Is it beneficial or worth it to hire a social media manager? If the budget is there, yes. In many cases, when you can hire someone with the skills and time to dedicate resources, you can improve your results on social media. Since they are dedicated to managing your social media, they would also be more apt to stay up-to-date on the constant changes that occur in the social media world. I recently realized Constant Contact has reports that include how many openers are opening with their desktop and mobile phone. I was shocked to find 94% were opening it with a desktop while 64% were clicking on links with mobile. It's great that you are diving into reports like this. There are many reasons this could occur, but most of the time, this occurs in the B2B world. Many may be opening it during the workday on their computer to skim the email and revisit it later to read more once they have time. It would be valuable to do some deep dives into whether the same people are opening it later on mobile.    This data can also tell you that you may want to focus on your mobile readers first. Design your emails so they're shorter with less text and provide Read More links. Are there examples you can share from customers of what they include in their emails or how often they’re sending/posting? Near the end of the webinar, we shared three examples from B2B, B2B, and nonprofits of what they’re including in their emails and posts. Check out our Customer Spotlight for the Woodford Cedar Run Wildlife Refuge to see how they use Constant Contact for their marketing and see an email example! ... View more

Growing your business or organization can feel like waiting for the stars to align, but it doesn’t have to be.   We're taking the most popular questions from our latest webinar and expanding upon them so you can learn strategies to attract new contacts and leads, ways to capture valuable information like interests and preferences to tailor content and offers, and how to manage lists over time to improve email strategies and drive success.    You can view the webinar directly through Wistia or right here on the Blog!     What type of sign-up form should I use? It depends on where you’re planning to share the form and how much information you’d like to gather.   On your website, you can use an embedded or pop-up form. These types of forms will keep your website visitors on the page. For social channels and email signatures, create a lead generation landing page. If you’re at an in-person event, create a QR code that links to your sign-up form.   A good practice is to keep your form short. Ask for their email, name, and one or two other pieces of information. What can I offer in exchange for emails? Knowledge is a valuable resource to provide to a new subscriber or lead and it’s free! When you create a landing page, you can customize the Thank You page to include a button that will allow them to download a document or visit a webpage. The document can be a special guide, workbook, or checklist.    The welcome email is also a good place to thank them for signing up. Share a special document or a discount code to use when they are purchasing an item or service.   Can I upload a purchased or rented contact list? These lists are strictly prohibited and cannot be used in any account. Adding or importing names that go against our email permission policy may result in the termination of your account so you do not want to ever use one of these lists.   The good thing about using our sign-up forms to grow your list and capture leads is that these contacts have given you express permission to contact them. Although express is best, implied contacts get the thumbs up as well, as long as you have had some kind of previous business relationship with them. Read more about implied vs. express permission.   How do I use social media to build my email list? If your business or organization has a presence on social media, your followers may not be aware that you have a newsletter or you’re sending out messages through email! Sharing your emails on your social media channels is a quick way to accomplish this. The URL for a campaign includes a Join My Mailing List button for your followers to join your list. If you aren’t ready to share your emails just yet, create a Lead Generation Landing Page and share the URL in your posts and include it in your About section as well. Is it possible to upload my existing Facebook/Instagram/Linkedin followers into my account? Most social media channels do not provide contact information such as email addresses for followers or subscribers of a page or profile. But hope is not lost. You can create a landing page as mentioned above. Tell your followers what they’ll receive if they sign up to receive emails. Let them know they’re joining an exclusive club (and follow through with that claim!). How do I tailor emails to my contacts who have specific interests? The Update Profile form is the easiest way to gather information. You can send a campaign asking people to update their profile. We suggest not asking for too much information or making everything required.    Once you start sending out emails, you can use segmentation which is the practice of splitting your email list into smaller, targeted groups of similar contacts. When you segment, you can tailor content specific to a group and you can see better engagement along with improved open and click rate and a higher change of conversions. You could segment by location, industry, most/least engaged, or new/existing customer.   How do I prevent people from unsubscribing? As much as everyone would love to see a 0% unsubscribe rate, unfortunately, this isn’t the case for most customers. Unsubscribes happen but you shouldn’t take offense to them. Your contacts’ interests may change, they may move out of the area, or they’re trying to reduce the amount of emails they receive.   Every email sent from our system has a SafeUnsubscribe option in the footer. It is required for all large email providers like us to have an unsubscribe option and this cannot be removed or modified.   Instead of “preventing” an unsubscribe, give them a reason to stay on the list. If your emails are not as relevant, encourage them to update their profile and let them choose what they would like to receive from you. How do I delete unnecessary or unengaged contacts? You might want to take a look at these contacts before deleting them. There is an opportunity to re-engage with these contacts. We talked earlier about segmenting contacts. You can use the pre-built segment to find your Least Engaged contacts. Depending on your business or organization, create a campaign specifically designed for them. Consider sending them a special discount or offer to re-engage them, or send a survey to get feedback on your content.   If you don’t hear back from them, you can remove these contacts to keep your contact lists clean and up-to-date so you can concentrate on those who actively engage with your emails. We have created a lot of lists over the years. Can I delete some of them? Yes, you can delete a list. When deleting, you are given two options: delete the list or delete the list and contacts. We’ll explain these in more detail: Delete the list and contacts - This option deletes the list and all of the contacts on it from your account. If you have contacts on multiple lists, they won't be removed from them. Deleted contacts aren't marked as unsubscribed, so if you need to add them back to your account later, you can. Delete the list only - This option only deletes the list and leaves the contacts in your account. You may end up with contacts that are not assigned to any list, but you can manually add them to a different list so they don't miss out on the emails you're sending.   What do I do with my unsubscribed contacts? You don’t have to do anything unless you want your account to only include active contacts. Unsubscribed contacts do not count towards your billing. If you delete your unsubscribed contacts, if you attempt to upload them again, they will still be marked as unsubscribed. ... View more