Expertise on Tap | Email & Video Marketing...made easy

Our latest round up of e-newsletter tips

Here's our latest round up of tips for better e-newsletters. This list is based on e-newsletters I've received recently. 1. Use a real "from" address not a "no reply" address. Always use an address which can receive replies. This is imperative as some subscribers may have comments or queries 2. Keep your introduction brief. If your introduction is too long this means your relevant and  important content is buried too far down the page. Introductions can work well and add a personal touch to the email. But do keep them brief. A couple of lines at the most. 3. Include your company name in the "From" section I received an email this week with only the person's name in the "From" section. It was not clear which company the email was from so I deleted it. So, unless you're so well known that your name alone will suffice, always include the company name. 4. Don't include attachments I received an e-newsletter recently promoting an event with three lengthy attachments. Subscribers won't bother to wade through too much information. Never send attachments, they can trigger spam filters. If you need to include further information link to a pdf or a blog post. Keep the extra information concise. 5. Don't use your email program and send to "undisclosed-recipients" This just looks amateur and depressingly I receive several examples of these every week! Using your email program will almost certainly result in compatibility issues. Eg. it might look fine in Outlook but not in Hotmail. Use an email service provider to send your newsletter, for example Mailchimp. Or better still outsource it to us!

How to increase click throughs for your e-newsletter using video

If you try and embed a video into your e-newsletter it won't work properly in most email programs. The email is also likely to get blocked by anti virus ssoftware. Technology is changing and this may become possible in future but for now a work round is necessary. Here's a simple technique which I use with great results in clients' newsletters. Simply pause the video and take a screen grab then add a play button onto the image. Use this image in your newsletter so that it looks like a video screen. You'll get far more clicks than just using a text link saying "Click here to watch video".

^ Examples of video ^ screen grabs used for my client The Stuart Holmes Hair & Beauty Spa

Why email marketing is not dead. It's just changing

Email marketing is dead! That's what various web articles in the past year would have you believe.  They argue that the growth of social networking will eventually mean people abandon email and start communicating using tools like Facebook messaging and Twitter. Presumably brevity will become the norm as we all attempt to converse in 140 characters or less (!). What I, and others in the email marketing industry are saying is email is not dead. It's just changing. Discover how it's changing and read my 5 point plan on how to adapt your own email newsletter.

How to link to a specific time in a YouTube video

It's a common dilemma. You're watching a funny pets video and you want to send a link to your friend about the bit where the skateboarding dog comes on. Usually it goes something like "Check out this amazing dog, LOL! It comes on around 2 minutes in". Now you can send an exact link of a specific time in any YouTube video. Just right click on the video at the relevant time and then left click on "Copy video URL at current time".  The link is then on your clipboard for you to copy into an email, a Tweet, a Facebook post or whatever.

The resulting link will look something like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je8nn-RzYZk&feature=player_detailpage#t=28s

E-Newsletters - Common mistakes from 2010 and how to avoid them

End of Term Report 2010 - Email Newsletters I subscribe to a lot of email newsletters and although many of them are excellent some make fundamental mistakes, even those sent by very large companies. At the end of the article are some blog links which will help you avoid such errors. Here's my list of this year's common mistakes 1 Failure to include an unsubscribe link or where they have included one they have made it difficult to locate. Making it easy to unsubscribe will improve your list quality. 2 Contact details are not prominent. Subscribers will not go hunting for your phone number or email address. 3 The call to action is not clear and not prominent. What is it you want the subscriber to do? Call a number? Book now? Register here? 4 The subject line is poor. Subject lines should sell as well as tell what's inside. 5 The layout is poor with no clear distinction between articles and sometimes no prominent headlines. 6 The layout contains a large proportion of images to text or is entirely made up of images. This will trigger spam filters. 7 The e-newsletter width is too wide. I recommend 600px if possible and 630px as a maximum. This is because more emails are being read on smartphones these days. 8 There is too much content. I received one recently which was five pages long! 9 The content is dull, often because the author is wrapped up in their own world and fails to consider what will be of relevance to subscribers. Write it then sleep on it. I guarantee you will change your content the next day! 10 Business to business (B2B) emails being sent overnight or at the weekend.  B2B emails need to land in subscribers' inboxes during the working day to have more chance of being read. 11 The e-newsletter has not been tested across the main email clients and therefore doesn't display correctly in Outlook, GMail and/or Hotmail. 12 Broken links. Ensure you send yourself a test email and check that all links are working. Help is at hand!  Here are some previous blog posts which address some of the points raised above. • Why sending your B2B email newsletter overnight is a bad idea • Why you should make it easy to unsubscribe • Why your newsletter may no longer look right in Hotmail and how to fix it • Why your e-newsletter subject line is important • How to generate great content for your e-newsletter

How we used video to help 360 degree feedback company promote its services

CASE STUDY Lumus™ is one of the UK's leading suppliers of 360 degree feedback surveys - leading the way in technical excellence, feedback report quality, latest thinking and client support. Lumus had a business challenge which was how to convey their unique and cost effective approach quickly and effectively to potential clients and website visitors. There were three stages to the process: 1. Planning discussion We discussed what type of video would work best for Lumus. Following our input they decided on a "1 way interview" technique We recommended this technique because the resulting video ends up looking more conversational and less like a hard sell. It's also easier for the interview participant to appear more natural than talking direct to camera. 2. Story board development We worked with Lumus to develop this. It was vital to ensure we didn't just turn up for the shoot with no ideas on the structure and content. 3. The Shoot Although we had built a story board as we got into the shoot we realised some elements of it could be improved. A key point here is just because there is a story board it need not be cast in stone and if there is an opportunity to improve upon it during the shoot don't be afraid to do so. Mike Cooper of Lumus comments: "Working with  Expertise on Tap was a pleasure – they provided lots of great advice and steered us through the development and filming process in a very professional and skilled way – I’m overjoyed with the finished product" Here's the video...

How we used video to help Cheltenham author promote her new book

Mary Pearson is an accomplished meditation teacher based in Cheltenham. She has written her first book "Meditation - the Stress Solution" and wanted to record a meditation excercise to help promote the book. This was a bit different to our normal videos as it didn't involve any in-vision recording. We simply recorded Mary's audio and overlaid some calming still images. The result is a good example of the type of a fast turnround video which we are happy to produce for clients. We received the brief from Mary and completed the video within a few days. After watching the video, if you're interested in learning more about meditation or want to buy the book please visit Mary's website. Here's the video...

Why sending your B2B email newsletter overnight is a bad idea

I see far too many businesses sending B2B* emails overnight. By overnight I mean after normal office hours. *Business to business Here's why it's a bad idea: 1. If you send after 5pm your email will most likely land in their inbox the next morning. That means it won't be fresh. It will be stale. It will be stale because when the user downloads it the next morning it will appear amongst all the other emails that have come in overnight, including spam. It will also be amongst non actioned emails from the previous afternoon. There's more chance of a busy recipient missing the email whilst he/she settles into the day's work. Ok you could argue that some people work beyond 5pm so what's the problem? But many do not. 2. An even worse scenario is to send your email over a weekend. When it's downloaded on Monday morning it's even less likely to be read. What's the solution? Simply send your email to arrive during working hours, ideally between 10 and 4pm so it's not too close to the start or end of the day. That way there's more chance of the email dropping into the recipient's inbox whilst at their desk. In other words it's a fresh email and more likely to be read. It's also worth avoiding lunchtime from 12-2. I could quote numerous studies that state the best time of day for B2B emails, however they all contain conflicting advice which is why I recommend the above broad time window. It's easy to pre-schedule your delivery time If you use a mailing service provider such as Mailchimp you do not even need to be present when you send your email. You can pre-schedule it to send at any time and date in the future.

Can you transform amateur video into something which looks professional?

Yes you can. It is possible to transform amateur footage into something fairly watchable but it depends on the quality of the footage. The tv news channels do it often with user generated content (UGC). What they do of course is edit the footage provided by the viewer into a brief 20 second clip. Of course it's never going to be as good as if their own news crew had been there. As professional video producers we'd normally prefer to be there ourselves and edit our own footage. We've produced numerous videos for our client The Stuart Holmes Hair & Beauty Spa however when they recently attended the Hairdressers Journal Awards (HJA) it was not practicable for us to be on hand to capture Stuart's moment as he accepted the award for Salon of the Year. Not least because HJA had their own film crew in attendance. The workround was Stuart took his own video camera and a team member shot the video as the awards were announced.  Stuart then passed the footage to us to see if we could transform it into something watchable! Here's the result... So, when it's not possible to have the video professionally shot and you need to use amateur footage here are some tips to enable a professional editor / producer to transform it for you. Our Top 5 Tips 1. Shoot far more than you need - This will enable the editor to choose the best bits. - Don't be tempted to "self edit" by stopping and starting. If in doubt leave the camera rolling. 2. Try and keep the camera still - If it has an image stabilisation function switch it on. - Resist the urge to pan from side to side or up and down. - If sitting at a table rest your elbows on the table to steady the camera. - Consider investing in a basic tripod. Or you could try a mini tripod as shown here. 3. Don't zoom in and out - This is called "tromboning" and will make it diffcult for the pro editor to edit your footage. - Use the zoom but do so to frame the shot and remember any camera shake is magnified the more you zoom in. 4. If the lighting is poor adjust the exposure - Some domestic camcorders may have a function to manually adjust the exposure settings. Don't overdo it though or the picture could become over exposed. 5. Use an external mic for close up speech recording - The internal mics on domestic camcorders are not that great so by using an external mic you'll improve the quality of speech recording. See some external mics here. - Note: For the above video the camera's internal mic was the best option as it picked up ambient sound from the venue's PA system.

How to get more subscribers for your e-newsletter

Here are our TOP 10 TIPS to get more subscribers 1 On every contact with customers take the opportunity to ask for their email address. Ensure you explain what you will use it for. 2 Add a subscribe form to your website. Place it on all the key landing pages. Right hand side of page and 'above the fold'. 3 Sell the benefits of subscribing to your newsletter. What will subscribe receive and how often? Why will it benefit them? 4 Give something away for free in return for subscribing. For example a tips sheet, a white paper or similar. 5 Add a link to your subscribe form in your email signature. 6 Promote your newsletter on blogs and forums. 7 Take hard copies of your newsletter to networking events and include details of how to sign up. 8 Archive your newsletter on your website along with details of how to sign up. 9 Include a forward to a friend link in your newsletters. 10 Include a subscribe link in every newsletter for people who have received a forwarded copy. Above all take every opportunity to collect email addresses. If you take the above steps your list will grow organically over time. You'll have a high quality list and will be communicating with people who have asked to hear from you.