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Email Marketing

It’s not marketing – it’s making friends at scale ft. @bythepartygirl

November 18, 2017 by Nichole Elizabeth DeMeré

Most bloggers use Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter to cultivate their audiences. But lifestyle and party blogger Ashley McAllister has a knack for making friends (and clients) through email subscriptions – something very few bloggers, or businesses, get right.

Canadians party differently than their Stateside counterparts, according to Ashley McAllister, blogger at The Party Girl and Etsy store owner. Americans seem to take things further, creating epic events out of weekend girls’ brunches and balloon-festooned birthday parties for toddlers. Part of the reason, she suspects, is that Americans have so many more resources, including multiple craft stores and Target. Canada has Michaels… and the internet.

Before Amazon, life for a party girl was a lot harder. Especially in a small town just outside of Toronto. Ashley says, “I felt like all of this really cool stuff was out of reach.”

But that seems to have only made Ashley more creative. This woman can make a cake topper out of just about anything.

In a country where the population, outside of a handful of urban centers, is spread out over 3.8 million miles, it can be hard to find people who share your passions. Especially when the dominant culture is a bit more understated.

“There are people up here like me. But I couldn’t find them.”

That began to change with Instagram.

“You see images people are sharing and that creates a following, and as people see images of what other people are doing, that style of party throwing is growing here. Having a theme and different elements and DIY projects. I didn’t used to see that very much. DIY wasn’t that big here except maybe for weddings, and that’s changing.

“But there has been a bit of a gap up here. People thought the DIY projects were out of range.”

The Party Girl blog began as a desire to share her crafts with friends and family, but the more she crafted, the more she felt there was a gap to fill.

“I thought maybe there are other people out there who would like to see this type of thing, or feel like they could do it if they saw someone else do it. The blog began as a way to create that community, where people could see what other people were doing and see that it isn’t crazy, that they weren’t alone, and that it’s not insane to DIY everything for your wedding or bridal shower.”

And it’s in creating community where Ashley McAllister truly shines.

Here’s How GIFs Can Fire up Your Brand’s Email Open Rates ft. @CloudApp

August 11, 2016 by Nichole Elizabeth DeMeré

gifsthatkeepgiving

Image created by Yasmine Sedky (@yazsedky).

I could watch Patrick Stewart facepalm all day. Through the wonder of GIFs, I’ve actually done just that, going into giggle-fits on every rotation.

Looped hilarity aside, GIFs are quickly spreading beyond Reddit and Tumblr and into mainstream marketing, and for good reason. They’re highly effective at achieving the KPIs every marketer wants: Better open rates, more views, and higher conversions. Also, people love ’em.

Email marketers can especially benefit from adding GIFs to their campaigns. In this post, we’ll cover exactly what you need to know about using GIFs to make your email marketing more convincing — and more fun — than ever before.

Here’s How Brands Execute Truly Awesome Tactics for Email Marketing by @NikkiElizDeMere

January 12, 2016 by Nichole Elizabeth DeMeré

Emails rarely inspire awe. Typically, the responses they elicit are more akin to, “Ack! Not another email from that company. Off to spam you go!”

Some companies, however, are completely reimagining what email marketing can do and what it should be about. These companies don’t believe email marketing is about direct sales; rather, it’s about delivering value that’s relevant, consistent, useful, timely, and personal. Basically, these brands are writing emails you actually want to read.

It sounds like something that should be simple to pull off, but it’s not.

In this post, I’ve rounded up the companies that have impressed me the most with their email marketing tactics, and identified what makes each tactic work.