Please note that we have no internet connection today at our Suite26 Harlow offices. BT are on the case.

This does not affect your Suite26 account or our servers. Your email campaigns will still send as normal.

For support, please call 0845 313 0912.

Thanks.

Creating a successful call to action (CTA) is essential as it is what triggers the chain of events that leads to a sale, registration or website traffic.  A CTA is just as important as a subject line as it is what prompts the reader to act once the email has been opened.  If you take the time to carefully consider your own CTA, the outcome will be worth the extra effort.

1. Give a Reason to Click
As always, there has to be something in it for your readers.  Make sure that your CTA leads to something that is useful, desirable and worthwhile. Also, make it known that by clicking on the CTA your reader will be getting something in return, some info or an offer perhaps.  You want to entice the reader into responding to your CTA.

2. The CTA shouldn't be a Mystery
By simply saying "Click Here," you risk leaving your reader wondering what happens next.  You need to explain what the benefit is to completing the call to action.  If the CTA is vague, readers will be less likely to click.  Instead try phrases like "Click here to read the full story" or "Visit this page for more information on this offer."  All it requires is a simple one-liner that highlights what will happen after the click takes place.

3. Create a Sense of Urgency
CTA's should generate a “must respond now” outcome otherwise campaign responses will be lower.  If there's no reason to act now, readers are likely to put it off, which can lead to forgetting about it altogether.  If I get an email offering DVD box-sets on sale for the next 2 weeks, I may delay responding until a later date, maybe I don't have time to go through the shopping cart that day.  But if the CTA says a sale ends 6pm today, or there's limited stock, or only the first 100 customers to respond qualify, I'm sure to click straight away.

4. Don't be Tight with Your Links
You only want to have one main CTA, but that doesn't restrict you from linking to your CTA in multiple places.  Spread the link throughout your email so that the main CTA is not the only route to the desired landing page.  If your CTA takes your reader to the main sale item, put that same link in several other places.  Hopefully the CTA will grab your reader's attention, but if not, give them several other places to find the link.

5. Make the Call to Action Stand Out
Be sure to place your CTA at the top of your email, above the fold.  Your reader should be able to see it in their email preview screen, before they even open the email.  If you place it towards the middle or bottom of the email, it can get lost by other content.  Make your CTA very noticeable either by bolding it, putting it into a graphic or by adding an arrow or symbol.  It needs to be eye catching and obvious (without being too large and not in sync with the rest of the email).

6. Use a Unique Click Phrase
You can be more creative than simply saying "Click Here."  Your readers aren't dummies, so you don't have to simplify your CTA to the standard and overused "click here" phrase.  Because this phrase is often used, it doesn't stand out like it used to.  Try other action phrases like "Download Now" or "View More."

If there were ever a perfect example of why you should avoid purchasing data, this is it.

Today we received a copy of our local town council's business directory full of local business listings and yet we (Global Gold Network) were surprised not see ourselves amongst the listings.  We couldn't work out why we were left out and wondered what was the selection process was of our council's marketing people in choosing who did and did not feature in the directory.  You would have thought that 7 years residence should surely qualify us.

So we decided to contact our local town council and enquire about the missing listing.  To cut a long story short, it turns out that they used a Marketing company to produce the directory and they had purchased data containing "all the businesses in our town", but as it turns out, the data wasn't update, by 7 years it would seem.

And so, we get left out the directory and therefore miss out on potential business from local companies, all because a marketing company used purchased data. It’s not their fault the data wasn't accurate, but that’s the risk you take with purchased data.

We are pleased to announce a new email marketing feature for Suite26, the first of many improvements and new functionality to be added in the coming weeks, aiming to make your email marketing more effective.

Today’s new feature is quite simply a button that lets you resend a campaign to those contacts that didn’t open the original email, therefore reducing the time and effort it used to take before. Sorry about that.

This new feature works by automatically placing these ‘unopened’ contacts into a new group for you, which you can rename and then select when scheduling your campaign to resend.

How to use this auto ‘create new group’ feature:

1. Go into the report for the campaign you previously sent and underneath the ‘More Reports’ section, click on ‘Not Opened Report’.

2. At the bottom of the list of contacts displayed, click on the new link titled ‘Create a new group with these contacts’.

3. A message bar will then appear saying the contacts are being importing into a new group and might take a few minutes.

4. Refresh your screen after a few minutes and you’ll see a new contact group has been generated, which you can rename if wish.

5. To resend the email campaign, go to Send/Schedule Campaign and simply select the new contact group of unopened contacts.

If you have any questions or need any help using this feature, please call Mark on 0845 313 0912.

Email Marketing Tip:

We have recently noticed that some web browsers are stopping the export contacts task from completing, therefore leaving some customers wondering where their downloaded file has gone. Fear not, here is how you can retrieve it:

- Click on Contacts in the top menu
- On the Contacts dashboard, find the widget box called Recent Contact Exports
- If it’s not on your dashboard, click on Add Widget
- In the Recent Contact Exports widget there will be a record of your recent export

- Click on Details
- Click on Download File

This will now give you your export contacts on a CSV file.

Suite26 allows you to personalise the subject line and content of your email marketing campaign with data pulled from your contacts database.  This will help to project a more personal and friendlier image for your email marketing campaign and help encourage recipients to open the email.

The majority of the contact data fields and any custom fields you setup within Suite26 can be inserted into either the subject line, email content or both.

How to Personalise your subject lines:

If, for example, you wanted to add the recipient's first name to your subject line you would place the following piece of code into your campaign details: {FIELD($firstname)}

Simply follow these steps to add personalisation to the subject line:

-Go into your email campaign
-Click on Edit Primary Content
-Scroll down to Insert Field

-Click on the dropdown menu and select your required data field (e.g. First Name)
-Click on Insert
-Highlight the code and copy it

-Come out of the edit primary content screen
-Click on Edit Campaign details
-Click on the Subject line field and paste in the code.

Happy New Everyone.  Lets kick things off with a new year email marketing tip for you.

Adding Alternative Text To Images

Images on HTML email designs do not always display automatically in most email clients, so adding a short sentence or description (alternative text or alt text) for each image gives the recipient a quick overview of what to expect, either before their email client loads the images or before the reader has to right click and download the images.

Another benefit of including alt text on your images is that it helps improve your text to image ratio on your email. Having an even text to image ratio is something that increases your emails’ chances of getting through spam filters and landing in your customers’ inbox.

To add alternative text to your images in Suite26:

-Click on Edit Primary Content
-Select Insert/Edit Image
-In the Image Properties box, type in your alt text description in the Alternative Text field as shown below.

How to add alt text to your images

Dear Customers,

Please note our Christmas and New Year opening times for all email marketing and Suite26 support and sales enquiries are:

Friday Dec 24th - From10-2pm
Saturday Dec 25th - Closed - All day
Sunday Dec 26th - Closed - All day
Monday Dec 27th - Closed - All day
Tuesday Dec 28th - Closed - All day
Wednesday Dec 29th - From 10-2pm
Thursday Dec 30th - From 10-2pm
Friday Dec 31st - From 10-2pm
Saturday Jan 1st - Closed - All day
Sunday Jan 2nd - Closed - All day
Monday Jan 3rd - Closed - All day
Tuesday Jan 4th - Normal opening hours

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

The Suite26 Team

Dear Customers,

If you need to buy email credits for your account, please email sales@26.co.uk for a quicker response.

Thanks

The Suite26 Team

Here is your chance to make a great saving on Suite26 credits as we are offering 10% off Suite26 purchases today. Just make sure you bag your Suite26 bargain before 5.30pm today.

Your email credits never expire, so buy them now and make a huge saving even if you're not planning to use them striaght away.

We hate to see a bargain go to waste, so call 0845 313 0911 and quote CCC10 today. Remember you now have until 5.30pm Thurday 16th December to buy with 10% off.

Call 0845 313 0911 and quote CCC10 today

Cannot be used in conjunction with any other offers.