This post was supposed to be about how exciting this year has been for GetResponse and the email marketing community. But what goes into a year’s summary? Boring rankings you can find on any website? Updates on best/most popular/worst ideas/people/technologic novelties? An annual summary isn’t just a look back but look to the future. Having celebrated our 15th year in business this year, we came up with 15 lessons to carry into the New Year.
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Lesson 1: Timing counts.
I imagine you spend time correcting newsletters, paying close attention to every detail of copy and design. But I have to warn you — all this will go to waste if you neglect something that’s not contained in the email itself: timing.
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Choosing the best day and hour helps you reach more subscribers. Learn more in our infographics: Email Marketing Calendar and Best Day to Send Email. Now go create your email schedule for next year 
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Lesson 2: Easy-to-use is beautiful.
Life is complicated enough, so making it easier for customers should be a priority, no matter whether we’re talking about home appliances, cosmetics or email marketing.
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Make your life easier by using our Email Creator to drag ‘n’ drop images from your desktop into your newsletter. It makes your customers’ experience better, with beautifully crafted emails that look great on any device. Our 2014 wish for you: may all your call-to-action buttons be clicked — a lot!
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Lesson 3: You can’t go wrong with metrics.
Einstein said: “Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted.” He was right, of course. But email stats haven’t harmed anyone so far. In fact, they’ve helped many email marketers find out how their emails perform and what their customers prefer.
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That’s why GetResponse introduced a new Email Analytics panel in 2013 to help you understand and respond accurately to your customers’ email behaviors. Find out all you need to know in this blog post. [insert link]
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Lesson 4: Has video killed the written word?
Maybe you’re an avid reader, like many blog readers. But sometimes it’s more exciting to see things going on than to read and look at photos. Don’t you agree?
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That’s why we launched getresponse.tv — a free video resource for email marketers. If you’re into watching and sharing videos, here’s a post about effective ways to use videos in emails.
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Lesson 5: Be responsive to get response.
What device are you reading this on? Desktop computer? Laptop? Tablet? Smartphone? Your newsletters have to face a new challenge: they must fit every screen and be perfectly easy-to-read.
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Luckily, you don’t have to be an HTML ninja to create responsive emails. It happens automatically with Responsive Email Creator, introduced in September. Why not welcome your subscribers into the New Year with a responsive email greeting card?
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Lesson 6: You only get one chance to make a first impression.
Once you’ve persuaded your subscriber to click the button in the newsletter, you feel you’ve succeeded … But that’s just half the battle if it leads to a landing page. That’s the tricky part — creating a neat, fast-loading, smoothly working landing page that converts.
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To help you, we added a number of new templates in Landing Page Creator. With these on board, (plus good landing page copy), you’re ready to boost your results.
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Lesson 7: Learn from the past and get inspired for the future.
We all love to remind ourselves of successful times and to dream that the best is yet to come. We celebrated our 15th birthday in October and asked you to share your life inspirations with us.
But the lesson wasn’t about being happy to grow older☺, it was about how, if you want future success, you need to look at past actions and keep doing a better job while not repeating mistakes. If you happen to run out of inspiration
from time to time, you can always turn to the guide we made as our birthday gift to you.
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Lesson 8: Test for the best.
People learn from their experiences — you don’t have to know it all from the very start. There’s nothing wrong with looking for correct answers and good solutions. We need to try out different options to find out the best ones.
This applies to email marketing campaigns, too. The A/B Testing feature, introduced in 2013, is a step toward better conversions — no gambling with your budget required. We also prepared useful resources to help you get started.
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Lesson 9: The more (and the more social) the merrier.
Have you signed up to any social media sites? I bet you have. And if not, please do. Why? The answer is simple – you’ll find many of your customers there and hear them speak about their experiences with your. They’ll probably reveal more than you could find out in a one-to-one or interview.
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Becoming social-friendly is a must in today’s world. But it’s easy to get confused (or confusing) with your messaging. Here’s all you wanted to know about social media but were afraid to ask.
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Lesson 10: Nothing stays the same.
Everybody has habits and gets used to certain things, such as wake-up time and work environment. But even though we think everything stays the same, each day brings something new.
The same happens to emails. You still have to think about from fields, subject lines, copy and design. But new ideas have made your emails different, such as preheaders and Unicode symbols in subject lines. Are you curious about what comes next in 2014? We are!
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Lesson 11: Never leave your subscribers unattended.
Let’s say you’ve collected a reasonable email-marketing list — hooray! But how do you keep them excited about receiving your emails? Surely not by abandoning them for long periods and letting them forget they subscribed.
This is what Autoresponders 2.0 is for — to help you stay in touch with your customers, send them follow-ups, and react with precision to what they do with your emails, whether they read them or not. After all, reaction comes from action, doesn’t it?
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Lesson 12: Mobile is the new black.
Responsive emails — check. But that’s not the final word in mobile marketing. In fact, it’s the first chapter in a longer story.
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Have you noticed that more and more subscribers open your emails on the go? Delete them when not displayed responsively? If so, you need to change the language you use when speaking to your customers. This is the most important lesson to learn for next year — a trend that’s changing everything you’ve ever learned about marketing.
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Lesson 13: Content calling.
If you’re reading this post, you’re one step closer to learning this lesson. But let me be clear: you’re boring when you talk about your product all the time. Your customer is bored with the same calls-to-action and “me, me, me” attitude of old-style advertising.
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If you want your subscribers to stay with you and open your newsletters with curiosity, you need to give them something: C-O-N-T-E-N-T. Something to read, watch, share, and talk about. Let us get you inspired with posts we wrote – hope you find this content useful
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Lesson 14: Every gift deserves a pretty wrapping.
Of course, content is essential — content is king, as everybody on the Internet says. However, nobody is going to read your content if it looks ugly (unless it’s ranked in “10 Worst Newsletters Ever”).
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To help you avoid this, we introduced new templates this year, suitable for all occasions, from Mother’s Day to Halloween, and for any business you can think of. Ready to rock the inbox in 2014?
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Lesson 15: It’s up to you…
We’re sharing our experiences and thoughts on email marketing with you, but learning process is mutual. That’s why we left the last point to be completed by you. What’s the most important lesson you learned about email marketing this year?
We can’t wait to hear from you!
15 Marketing Lessons to Learn Before 2014 [Year Summary] is a post from: GetResponse Blog - Email Marketing Tips
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The post 15 Marketing Lessons to Learn Before 2014 [Year Summary] appeared first on GetResponse Blog - Email Marketing Tips.