Was this email helpful? How likely are you to recommend our service to a friend? What topic do you want us to cover in our next newsletter? There’s no doubt that getting timely, honest customer feedback is essential to the success of any business. That’s why we are so excited to share with you a new feature that lets you quickly and easily find out what your subscribers are thinking. It’s called Polls, and it’s available now in Direct Mail version 6.0, a free update for everyone.
It’s Easy to Add a Poll to Your Message
Direct Mail’s built-in template editor already lets you add a variety of content blocks to your message: image blocks, text blocks, social media blocks, etc. We’ve now added an additional block: the Poll block. You add a Poll block to your message when you want to ask your subscribers a question.
Like other blocks, you can modify the appearance of your poll (layout, alignment, font, color, etc.), but you also specify a list of responses that your subscribers can choose from when answering. We have a number of commonly used responses built-in, but you can write your own, too. Here are some examples:
Left: Configuring the poll in Direct Mail. Right: How the poll appears in the email.Left: Configuring the poll in Direct Mail. Right: How the poll appears in the email.Left: Configuring the poll in Direct Mail. Right: How the poll appears in the email.Left: Configuring the poll in Direct Mail. Right: How the poll appears in the email.
You can add as many polls to your email as you need.
It’s Easy For Your Subscribers to Respond
When your subscribers receive your email, they can respond to your poll right from inside their email app. Each poll response is just a simple link. When they click the link, they are shown a web page thanking them for their response and directing them back to the email.
View Poll Results in Your Campaign Report
After you send your email campaign, poll results show up right in the campaign report. You’ll get a summary of the top response (and, if applicable, the average of all responses), and can drill down into a histogram of all responses. Poll results are also available on the go, in Stamps, as well as in web reports.
We hope our new Polls feature will help you unlock valuable feedback that your subscribers are just waiting to provide! Polls are easy to incorporate into your existing messages, convenient for subscribers to respond to, and results are available instantly in your campaign reports. If you have any questions, you can consult our in-depth help article on the topic, or contact our customer support team any time. We’d love to know what you think, and how you plan to use this new feature!
Congratulations! You have made it nearly all the way through 2020, a year like none other! The holidays are now upon us and, you know what that means: turkey, gifts, and overflowing inboxes. As you prepare your year-end marketing, here are some tips on how Direct Mail can help you break through a crowded inbox, boost sales, and grow your customer base.
1. Check out our holiday-themed templates
Direct Mail comes ready to go with a number of holiday-themed templates. They look super-sharp on mobile devices and large screens, and are easy to customize (like all our templates).
You can find these templates in Direct Mail by clicking the “Choose Template” button and searching for Glimmer, Merry Pines, Slopes, or Quattro—or browse the other options available in the template gallery.
2. Stay on top of your holiday calendar
The end of the year is chock full of special occasions and opportunities to celebrate—more than just Thanksgiving and Christmas. Consider theming additional email campaigns around these upcoming holidays in November and December:
November 10: Marine Corps Birthday
November 11: Veterans Day
November 11: Remembrance Day 🇬🇧🇨🇦🇦🇺
November 11: Singles Day (i.e. World Shopping Day) 🇨🇳
November 13: World Kindness Day
November 19: International Men’s Day
November 19: Women’s Entrepreneurship Day
November 20: World Children’s Day
November 21: National Adoption Day
November 26: Thanksgiving
November 27: Black Friday
November 28: Small Business Saturday
November 30: Cyber Monday
December 1: Giving Tuesday
December 15: Free Shipping Day
December 22: First Day of Winter
December 24: Christmas Eve
December 25: Christmas Day
December 26: Boxing Day 🇬🇧🇨🇦🇦🇺
December 31: New Years Eve
When should I start my campaigns?
Consider starting your campaigns a week in advance (or earlier, if your customers average time to purchase is longer) with a follow-up scheduled for the day of. You might also consider sending a thank you email post-holiday.
How much is too much?
It is possible to send too much email. Bombarding your subscribers can lead to unsubscribes or even spam complaints. A good rule of thumb is to not increase your typical email frequency by more than 3× during the holidays.
3. Write subject lines that are irresistible
It’s going to be a crowded inbox, so stay away from bland, generic (or spammy) subject lines. Here are some ideas:
Personalize
Adding a personal touch to the subject line almost always improves your open rate. Direct Mail makes this easy. If you want to include your recipient’s first name in the subject, just include the mail-merge tag “[first name]”. Like this:
You’re not limited to first names, of course. It can be any piece of information that you have stored in Direct Mail for a contact (e.g. occupation, city, last purchase, etc.)
Don’t get carried away
Aim for a ten words or less in your subject line, and limit the number of punctuation or special characters so it doesn’t appear spammy. Using an emoji can help, but try and stick to just one. Also, note that some devices can’t display emoji, so it’s best to use emoji as an enhancement, instead of a replacement for words.
Ask a question
Questions are naturally engaging. Consider using a question as the subject line in order to draw your subscribers into the content.
State your offer loud and clear
Featuring your offer prominently in the subject line can be a good way to stand out in a crowded inbox. According to NRF and IPC, online shoppers top considerations are:
Free shipping, or clear shipping charges prior to purchase
Simple, reliable, free returns
Rapid response customer service
Try these on for size…
Here are some subject line examples for your inspiration:
Warm up to winter with us this Saturday 🔥
Our ultimate winter packing list
[first name], spread some cheer with us — open house sale!
We’re thankful for our customers: Coupon Inside!
Stuff yourself with savings 🍗
Early access to Black Friday deals
Celebrate Small Biz Sat with us: BOGO sale 🎉
See you on Small Business Saturday?
Ho Ho Ho (Spend Less Dough)
You’re Getting Warmer – Packages from $59
Meow-y Christmas! 5 holiday treats safe for your cat
We Like You a Latke!
Challah for These Chanukkah Deals
Let’s start this year right. 10% off throughout January
The easier you can make it for your subscribers to purchase (or take some kind of action), the better. After all, the holidays are just as busy for them as they are for you. Make your call-to-action prominent and easy to find. Direct Mail’s built-in buttons work great for this, and are available in a number of styles.
Struggling to come up with ideas for your email campaigns? Get some inspiration from this gallery and the suggestions below.
Cyber Monday sale
Free shipping now available!
Gift card bonus (e.g. buy $100 in gift cards, get a bonus $25 for free!)
Holiday gift guide
Special coupon code
End-of-year update
Year-in-review or celebration of the year’s achievements
Holiday hours or holiday schedule update
Pre-sale or early-bird discount
Thank you for being our customer (and optionally include a referral code)
New product or service announcements
Share a holiday video
Promote a social media contest (e.g. photo contest)
Black Friday offers
Looking ahead to what’s coming in the new year
Last-minute deals or reminders
Shipping or ordering deadlines
Special gift packages
Small Business Saturday (it’s not just for brick and mortar!)
Share a story about how you celebrate the holidays
Giving Tuesday
Post-holiday specials
6. Check out these Direct Mail tech tips
Now that you’re ready to rock your campaigns, it’s time to put Direct Mail to work for you! Here are a couple of how-to articles to level-up your Direct Mail skills:
Sending Your Email Campaign at the Perfect Time. Learn how to schedule your campaigns to send even when your computer (or you!) are asleep, so that they arrive in your recipient’s inbox at the perfect time.
Search and Segment Like a Pro. Learn how to find and segment portions of your mailing list so that you an send targeted campaigns, or perform bulk editing operations.
You’ve spent all day perfecting your latest holiday email marketing campaign. The copy is perfect, the subject line irresistible. Now all that’s left is waking up at 4 AM to send it so that your subscribers across the country see it first thing in the morning. Wait, what?
Of course you don’t want to wake up early just to send an email. With Direct Mail, you don’t have to!
Scheduling your campaigns
You can schedule your campaign to send at any date and time, even if Direct Mail is closed or your computer is turned off when that time arrives. Here’s how:
Click the send button in the toolbar
Click the “Schedule” popup menu and select “Schedule for Later”
Choose the date and time you want your campaign sent
Click the Send button
After you click Send, Direct Mail will queue up your campaign to send at the time you specified. If you switch over to the Report tab, you’ll see your campaign waiting to send.
FAQ
What if I change my mind and want to cancel or reschedule?
No problem. In the Reports tab, just click the “Cancel Delivery” or “Reschedule Delivery” buttons.
What if someone subscribes to or unsubscribes from my mailing list before the campaign is sent?
If someone unsubscribes in between the time that you queue up the campaign and the delivery date, Direct Mail will automatically skip them when the campaign is sent.
If someone new subscribes to your list in between the time that you queue up the campaign and the delivery date, they will not receive the campaign (but will still be added to your list for the next campaign). For this reason, it’s best to not schedule campaigns too far in advance, especially if you are expecting a bunch of new subscribers.
Putting together an email campaign is often more than just a one-person job. The responsibilities of writing content, creating graphics, editing, analyzing reports, and more may be shared across an entire team of people. In these situations, Direct Mail’s cloud sharing features can really come in handy. In this blog post, we’ll show you how easy it is to share your Direct Mail project with other people.
Step 1 of 1
To share your Direct Mail project with other people, all you need to do is choose “File > Share…” from the menu bar at the top of your screen.
If you haven’t already, you’ll be prompted to first move your project into the Direct Mail Cloud. This is a necessary step because project sharing is built on top of Direct Mail’s cloud features.
After you choose “File > Share…” from the menu bar, you’ll see a list of people that are allowed to access your project.
To allow new people to access your project, click the “+” button and enter their email address. After you’ve entered their email address, pick what level of access (i.e. permission) you’d like to give them:
View: The person can view, but not edit your project
Edit: The person can view and edit your project
Edit & Send: The person can view and edit your project, and can send email campaigns from the project
Owner: The person can do all of the above, plus edit these sharing settings or remove the project from the cloud. Email campaigns sent from this project are billed to the owner’s Direct Mail pricing plan.
When you’re all done, click OK.
What happens next?
A notification email will be sent to the people that you added to your sharing list. The notification email tells them how they can open the project that you’ve shared with them. If the person doesn’t yet have Direct Mail installed on their Mac, the email will tell them how they can download and set up a free account.
If someone has shared their Direct Mail project with you, you can open it by choosing “File > Open from Cloud…” from the menu bar at the top of your screen.
Live editing
As you (or the other people you’ve shared with) make changes to your project, Direct Mail automatically keeps everyone up-to-date. Changes are synced across the Internet in real time. If two people change the same piece of data (e.g. a message, an address, etc.), the most recent change wins.
Change your mind?
You can change who has access to your project at any time. To do so, just choose “File > Share…” from the menu bar again. You can remove people from your project, change permission levels, or add new people. If you remove someone from the list, then Direct Mail will automatically remove your project from their computer.
Just for fun: updating your profile photo
By default, Direct Mail shows a generic “profile photo” next to each person’s name. You can add some fun to Direct Mail by updating your profile photo. Your photo will show up in the sharing window when other people share their Direct Mail projects with you. To update your photo, choose “Direct Mail > Direct Mail Account” from the menu bar at the top of the screen, then click on “Name & Picture”.
Conclusion
Whether it’s authoring content, proofreading, or building a list, email marketing campaigns often require the talents of a whole team working together. Direct Mail’s sharing features can make it easier to work together in real time—without resorting to workarounds like Dropbox or file servers. We hope you take a look at what’s possible, and please let us know what you think.
Direct Mail’s built-in templates are engineered to look great across a variety of devices and screen sizes. Even better, Direct Mail’s built-in editor ensures that any customizations, changes, or redesigns you make continue to look their best on all devices—with no extra work required on your part. If you’re a power user, though, you might find yourself wanting to customize your subscriber’s email experience even further based on what device they use to read your email. If that’s you, check out today’s pro-tip:
Did you know that you can show different content to your subscribers based on the kind of device they are reading your email on? This can be useful for customizing the layout or design of your newsletter for large or small screens. For example, the “Dive In” template that comes with Direct Mail uses this feature to show a slightly different header when the email is viewed on a mobile device.
Here’s how to do it (you must be using one of our modern templates):
Click on the section that you want to customize
Click on the right arrow at the bottom of the pop-up window
Click on the “Visibility” pop-up menu and choose Desktop and Mobile, Desktop Only, or Mobile Only
You can use the Preview window‘s “Simulate Screen Size” feature to check out the results!
