Here are 5 pieces of advice which will enable the success of your email marketing campaigns.

1. Email early in the week

Research has shown that people are the most responsive on Tuesday and Wednesday. You can understand that on Monday most people are catching up after the weekend, send your email just after lunch on a Tuesday for the best results.

2. Select your subject with care

So your email has arrived in the  inbox at the perfect time, but you need to ensure that your subject line is enticing to guarantee your email will be read.

The first few words need to be relevant and tell the reader what the email is about.

They want to see a summary of what is on offer, for example:

“Travel Insurance? We’ve got it covered” 

and not a string of nonsense such as:

“CEW limited Edition Box | Watch YOU Book Day LIVE! | Discount at AX Paris‏”

3. Ensure your subject is fit for purpose

For this we refer you to the advice of email marketing addict Tim Watson

“I would say that the best lesson to be learnt for the subject line is not to always make it less than 50 characters. Fine, if you want to drive awareness and open rate, use a short subject line. But when the subject line is longer, readers can better self-qualify their interest in that particular email”

4. Be consistent

Keep the look and feel of your email consistent from one week to the next. This should help build brand identity and awareness. It is also beneficial to send your newsletter at the same time each week. This is done automatically for you if you use Nouri.sh

5. Make sure your email contains links

You need to ensure the email is fit for purpose and helps you to achieve your goals. If you are a blogger looking to drive visitors to your site, double check you have links in your newsletter. If you are an eCommerce business, you may wish to include a section with a couple of new products or best sellers this week; again make sure there are links back to your site.

With over 1 billion users Facebook is an essential resource for businesses. However, with the introduction of Facebook ads, all users were instantly converted in to potential advertisers. In order to reach all your friends and family, or all of your business page followers you now have to pay.

Each time you post something on Facebook this is only ever shared with a small percentage of your friends/likers, if no one engages with the post then that is that, no more people will view it. However, if some people engage with a post, it means the post will be shared with more of your followers. Facebook is designed so that the interaction of your followers decreases over time, thus increasing the demand for Facebook ads.

Here are 5 reasons why you should avoid using them:

1. The banner ads have an awful conversion rate

The average CTR is just 0.05%, simply because people don’t head to Facebook to shop. It is a platform for interacting with family and friends, not a shopping platform. Compare this to the average CTR of a Google ad of 2% and it is clear where you should be making the investment.

2. You don’t need them

Facebook has cleverly engineered this false demand. The number of likes you have is certainly important, but as with most things in life quality is better than quantity. Organically grow your number of likes with exciting, shareable content teamed with exclusive offers for your Facebook fans. This will produce a higher ROI.

3. They won’t benefit your business

Promoting a post will guarantee that the number of likes you have will increase. Having said that, the new likes that you acquire are likely to be of low quality and the users are not likely to engage with you/your posts after the initial click. These low quality likes mean that even fewer people who actually care about your business will now see your post. As previously mentioned, if the people who like your page don’t engage with a post, that is the end of the trail; no more people will be able to see your post. Having a large number of low quality likes will definitely reduce your reach.

4. Are the new likes real?

Facebook bans acquiring paid likes from such places as click farms (low-paid workers hired to click on paid advertising links).These farms are typically based in developing countries such as Egypt, Bangladesh, India, The Philippines etc. You would also find these likes to be of low quality and there will be little/no engagement with your posts – typically less than 1%. When you create a Facebook ad you can choose which countries you wish to target. However, you may only need to look at the profile of one of your new likers to see something isn’t quite right. They already like 3,000 other pages.

5. Charging you to share content with your friends and family is not acceptable

Enough said.

Do you have any experience with Facebook ads? Let us know how ad campaigns worked for you by commenting or clicking here.

Is it important to recognise that delegation is the sign of a good leader, not the sign of someone who cannot deal with their work load. 

Passing on tasks to others in fact highlights many positive skills. It shows that you trust your team members and highlights your ambition to achieve. There is only a finite amount you can achieve alone; whereas enabling those around you will increase your value.

Team members will enjoy the responsibility, and will work hard to show you that you have made the right choice by putting the task in their hands. It is also a massive pat on the back, as it confirms they have the necessary skills to carry out the task. If some training is required, it shows that you believe they can do the task and that belief will make your staff want to please you.

3 Steps to delegation

1, Identify tasks

The best things to delegate are common tasks that take up your time.

After initial training the repetition of the task will keep it fresh in the mind, and will free up a large amount of your time.

2, Choose the right person/people

You should know who has the right skills to take care of a task. If not, simply ask other members of the team who is good at spreadsheets, or who has a keen eye for analytics.

3, Build up gradually

Don’t just offload all your work in one fair swoop, pass things over one at a time. Ensure your colleague is comfortable with the task and requires minimal assistance, and move on to your new tasks gradually.