Springmedia May News
May 08 ~ view as webpage

Hi [firstname]. In this issue you'll find an article about how to improve your email marketing open rates, information about using video to promote your products and services and a beginners guide to Twitter. If you are thinking about using email marketing for your business, I'm running an email marketing course for the Merton Chamber of Commerce on May 15 at Tuition House which is free for small businesses. You can click here to find out more or register online. I hope May is a fruitful month for your business and feel free to get in touch and let me know how you are getting on. All the best, Julie

In this issue
Video on Demand
Article Feature: Email marketing
New clients & projects
On the hunt for a super student


Win £20 Itunes vouchers
Save a childs life for £3.75
Twitter anyone?
This month's fave websites

Video on demand - how to substantially increase your sales

Unless you’ve been hiding under a bush for the last few years, you will no doubt have noticed that video has become more and more popular as a medium for communicating with your audience.  So it is with real excitement that I’d like to announce that we have partnered with a business video production company to offer video services that can be used both on and off line.  I must admit, I was a sceptic at first, but I have seen how video can create a great energy to your site and is a fantastic way of demonstrating you service offering when it is done well.  You can see one of wine blog videos on the Springmedia website and hopefully you’ll agree with me that this is a great example of how to do it well. 

 Wine of the month

There is a whole range of video options that might be suitable for your business interviews, events coverage, corporate presentations, and how to videos for your product or service. Thomson properties found that properties with video outsold properties without by by 400%. Email us on info@springmedia.co.uk or call us on 0800 035 2650 to discuss ideas on how you might be able to use video for your business. 

Featured Article: How to improve your email open rate by up to 80%

On average, 8 out of 10 people will read headline copy, but only 2 out of 10 will read the rest. The most important thing in any email marketing campaign is to make sure that your headline works and grabs the reader’s attention.  When done well it can increase your results by over 1000%, when done poorly it can result in nobody reading your hard written newsletter. 

headlines

Here are some of the learnings I have extrapolated from a few different sources about how to create that killer headline:

Start out with a why, how, when, what.  This clear statement give the reader an understanding and expectation about what they can expect in the article
Make your headline credible.  Add a ‘some’, ‘usually’, ‘most’ to the headline and it will make it much more believable to your reader (notice my modifier...)
Be specific in your statement.   In the headline above I outlined a clear benefit and the amount that that benefit could be quantified by.  Think about a clear and specific benefit that you could offer your readers.

Here are some killer headlines that were suggested by Brian Clark from Copyblogger (a must read for anyone that is writing for the internet or email)

  1. Who Else Wants [blank]?
  2. The Secret of [blank]
  3. Here is a Method That is Helping [blank] to [blank]
  4. Little Known Ways to [blank]
  5. Get Rid of [problem] Once and For All
  6. Here’s a Quick Way to [solve a problem]
  7. Now You Can Have [something desirable] [great circumstance]
  8.  [Do something] like [world-class example]
  9. Have a [or] Build a [blank] You Can Be Proud Of
  10. What Everybody Ought to Know About [blank]

Email marketing has become one of the best ways to keep your name and business in front of your clients and prospects.  It may not work overnight but by adding value every time you make contact and building trust, it can produce outstanding results.

If you want to do it yourself our two favourite DIY email marketing websites are: I-Contact and Constant Contact and feel free to email me or call on 0800 035 2650 if you would like to talk about email marketing.

I am running an email marketing course for the Merton Chamber of Commerce on May 15, which is FREE to small businesses (up to 9 employees) who have not already used up their course allowance. You can register online on the southlondon.biz website.

How you can save the life of a child for £3.75

Mosquito nets save lives

While watching the BBC News last week one of the presenters commented that while we are getting richer year on year in the UK, charitable giving is on the decline. This is a really depressing statistic. Last year, we built a website for the charity 1to3, that offers a child sponsorship scheme and has built a health centre for the community in the Gambia last year. Recently we have just included the facility to pay via PayPal for them. So, if you can spare £3.75, please visit the website www.1to3.org.uk and buy a few mosquito nets to save the life of a child.

We're on the hunt for a super-student

Do you know anyone that might be interested in working on website projects on a freelance basis? We're looking for a student who has photoshop and html experience to help out on client projects. It's a great opportunity for someone to learn about business website design and usability. If you know anyone that might be interested, please email me on info@springmedia.co.uk

New clients:
We are pleased to announce that we have just started working with Worthy Communications.  Melanie Worthy specialises in strategy and corporate communications for medium and large businesses. We recently developed their new logo seen below and their website will be live by mid May.

Worthy communications logo

We have also recently been commissioned by Falcon Forge to create a web presence for their astonishing iron products.  Their clients include Arundel Castle, and if you need a 15 foot tall wrought iron bird cage, then they are the people to call.

Falcon forge birdcage

Recent projects:
We have recently updated the Budd website and created a new section called Budd Life which has been created with a bespoke content management system.  Go have a look, read some of their articles and download some of their cartoons.

Animals rights - Budd cartoon

Itunes for your thoughts?
We are in the process of developing an online email marketing seminar and would really appreciate your responses to help in the development of the programme.  Everyone that responds will be entered into a virtual hat and the winner will win £20 in itunes vouchers. 

Please click here to answer the email marketing survey – it should only take about 5 minutes of your time. 

Apple Itunes offer

I’m interested in hearing from people that are already using email marketing and those that would like to know more.

Twitter: All you need to know to stay in touch in under 60 seconds

Twitter

After seeing the amazing Twitter success of one our clients Glasshouse Partnership, we will follow their lead and would like to invite you to get in touch via Twitter. If you're not familiar with Twitter, it is a fun little social networking application that allows you to keep in touch with people and businesses through micro-blogging. You can read more from our Springmedia article on twittering (tweeting?), or why not visit www.twitter.com/springmedia and give it a go.

This months fave websites
Monk e-mail
A bit of emailing fun
Oovoo
Fantastic video conferencing software
Blip.tv
A great video sharing site, much better than YouTube, will also do video conversion
Wood whisperer
The intro just made me laugh

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