https://busylizziemarketing.com/

Busy Lizzie Marketing, Norfolk (2026)

19/03/2021

The day started badly. Asking my 5 year old to get dressed for the 20th time resulted in shouting (from both of us) and crying (him mostly, but I was on the verge, believe me 😔).

Travelling back from the childminders, I was struggling to see how I was going to concentrate on my to-do list.

But then I remembered that I had one of my favourite things to do on the list.

One of my clients had requested an analysis of their newsletter emails - something I like to call an Email Health Check.

I drill down into the data, looking at all the key performance metrics for emails (opens, clicks, conversions etc) to determine what is working and what could be improved.

Yes, I appreciate I am a bit of data geek 🤓 I love absorbing myself in an email report!

Because when I discover those hidden gems I can recommend to clients that will make a difference to their email engagement and sales, it makes it all worthwhile for me 😊

It could be the best day/time to send their emails, a tweak to their call to action wording, or a slight change to the template layout. Or something else entirely.

If you've been sending emails to your list for a while and want to know how you could make them even better (with a list of data-led recommendations), drop me a pm and let's have a chat 📩

02/03/2021

Last week I shared my top tips for increasing email opens. If you missed it, do check it out, there's some good ones!

But I did hold one back: 💥 Improve your deliverability 💥

If you improve how many emails you get into the inbox, you're more likely to increase the number of opens too.

And just looking at your delivery rate will not tell you whether your emails are making it into or past the junk folder; just how many emails bounced.

So, most important check first. Have you authenticated your domain in your email platform?? 🤷 If you've no idea what I'm on about, read on!

As Mailchimp says "Authentication is critical to the delivery of your email, and works like a license plate. It provides a trackable identifier that shows your recipient’s internet service provider you're a legitimate sender, and it helps your email arrive in their inbox."

It does, however, involve adding DNS records to your website's CPanel or Zone Editor, so it is a bit technical 🤓

If you need a bit more info, drop me a dm with the name of your email platform, and I'll drop you back a link with how to authenticate your domain 📩

Seriously, this could be the difference between getting into the junk folder or the inbox, so do try it if you can.

01/03/2021

~ Birthday blues ~

We celebrated my son's 5th birthday this weekend. Along with the usual "how do we have a 5 year old, he's growing up too fast" thoughts, and the pressure to make a lockdown birthday feel special, it was also very much on my mind that last year's birthday was the last time we saw lots of family and my best friend all in one room.

It was only a few weeks later that covid turned our lives upside down, and so, to me, my son's birthday marks one year of this strange world of lockdown, face coverings, social distancing, and other phrases that we literally never used before then.

So, today feels a little bit wobbly. If you're feeling the same, know that you're not alone.

If you're looking for email marketing tips, I promise normal service resumes tomorrow.

P.S. This 'Cloudy with A Chance Of Meatballs' cake was a massive hit. Thanks so much to Claire's Custom Cakes - it was amazing!

24/02/2021

When's the best time to send a marketing email??

If you do a Google search you'll probably find generic stats that tell you Wednesdays at 10am work best (or something similar) 🤷‍♀️

But they are based on the average of thousands of campaigns in many different businesses and industries.

The only way you'll know when the best time for YOUR subscribers is by testing. If your audience is under 1000 subscribers, an A/B split isn't going to give you a statistically significant result.

You could split your list in two and send each half at a different day/time, and compare the results.

Or just try the same day and time for a few email sends. Monitor your results, then try a different day/time. Check out how it impacts your opens, clicks and sales by doing so.

Over the past six months I've worked with one of my clients to optimise the send time of her monthly newsletter.

For several months we sent the newsletter at 7am on a Saturday. Although response rates were fairly good, I knew they could be better.

Based on a previous evening send, and knowing that the audience are mostly mums who don't have a lot of time during the day, I suggested a Friday evening send.

💥 The results were immediate and telling. An open rate increase of 10% and a click-thru rate increase of over 20%. But the best bit was the uplift in sales of 48% month-on-month! 💥

So, if you want to improve your email performance, start by looking at your email reports. Understand your current stats, and make a small change - just one - to your next email. See how it impacts your results. And repeat. Simple. 👌

Who's gonna start testing their emails? Give me a 🖐 in the comments.

23/02/2021

~ 5 ways to increase your email opens ~

Most people want more subscribers to open their emails. It's a no brainer.

The more people who open your emails, the more people who will see your offering, and a greater chance that more people will click through to your site and buy.

Email marketing is a numbers game, after all.

So, here are my top 5 tips for improving your open rates:

1️⃣ Make sure your 'from name' is recognisable...
- whether that's your name or the company's name or a mixture of both e.g. Lizzie - Busy Lizzie Marketing.

2️⃣ Test different send days and times...
- Try the same time for a few sends, then compare it against a different day/time.

3️⃣ Test different types of subject lines...
- create curiousity by not revealing much
- use less words
- personalise with first name (where appropriate)
- try 'how to' lines e.g. '3 ways to...'
- test different offer wording e.g. 'half price' vs '50% off'

4️⃣ Cull your list...
- Use segmentation to identify those who haven't engaged with your emails for a while.
- Send re-engagement emails to those contacts.
- Remove those who don't respond from your list.
- Leaving you with a more engaged list = higher open rate.

5️⃣ Segment your list... and send targeted emails.
- Tag your subscribers when they join your list, so you know where they joined from or what they are interested in.
- Create segments based on tags or what they click on and send emails about those topics to those specific segments.
- The more targeted and personalised you can be, the higher the email engagement.

Make sure to follow me for more tips like these ☝️ Any questions? Drop me a dm.

@ Norfolk

17/02/2021

~ Do your customers know that you track their email opens and clicks? ~

This wasn't the post I planned today, but early this morning I read a surprising article on the BBC News app and had to mention it.

The headline read "Spy pixels in emails have become endemic". It made news of the fact that many big companies such as British Airways and TalkTalk use tracking pixels in their marketing emails to track email opens, including how many times a user opened an email and their location based on IP address. And what an invasion of privacy it was.

I was pretty shocked. I've been sending marketing emails for over 13 years and analysing open and click rates for just as long. Surely this is common knowledge?? And not just done by big companies. It's standard technology in most email platforms.

Although the article seems to be good PR for a company called Hey's who block the tracking pixel, there was one key takeaway. Companies need to be more explicit about what they track at the point of opt-in.

According to Privacy Matters, putting this info in your privacy policy isn't enough to meet GDPR. They think we should all be doing the same as the ICO (see example on second slide).

What do you think? Should we be telling people we track opens and clicks on our opt-in pages?? Let me know below 👇 @ Norfolk

02/02/2021

It's mine and my husband's wedding anniversary today. 8 years and counting ❤️ (not including the four years we were together and not married).

It won't be the most romantic. Since we're in lockdown and it's a day when we have childcare we haven't even taken the day off... But we did have a delicious 3-course meal from at the weekend to celebrate.

I'm sure we'll take some time this evening to look through our photo album, remembering what a great day it was. I, for one, will be particularly grateful for getting through a tough year with an amazing guy by my side. And, let's face it, lockdown with two small children would be a test for any marriage 😂

Nope, this isn't a post about today, but normal business resumes tomorrow 😉

Thanks for for the gorgeous photo.

01/02/2021

It's February and a month into homeschooling I finally feel like I'm in some sort of routine. I know I'm incredibly fortunate that my mother in law is able to come and provide childcare for a couple of days a week so I can work (she's in our support bubble). Anyone who is literally juggling both at the same time all day, every day, I think you are super human!!

So now I am thinking about what I want to achieve for the month ahead, and aside from helping my clients with their email marketing, I want to start my own list; something I just haven't managed to get around to until now.

I hate not practising what I preach, and I do help clients with their lead magnet campaigns A LOT!

So I'm posting it here for accountability. Please do ask me for my lead magnet in March if I haven't posted about it yet 😂 What do you want to achieve this month? Let me know in the comments and I'll ask you about it next month too!

And if you need any help creating a lead magnet campaign to build your email list, why not book an Email Power Hour with me to walk you through it. Link in bio ☝🏻

19/01/2021

If you ever upload images into Mailchimp templates and don't know how to fix the error messages, check out this super quick video.

I show you exactly what to do to resize your image in 90 seconds!

18/11/2020

~ REAL TALK: If you're not willing to invest in yourself, why would anyone invest in YOU? ~

Give me a 👍🏻 in the comments if you agree.

Back in April during the first lockdown, my business was hit quite hard. A few of my regular clients had physical businesses that had to shut. I needed some more work.

So, I took the decision to invest in 's Build Your Online Audience Programme. This was the first time I had invested in myself, and it felt good. I learnt loads, made lots of connections and came out with the knowledge to drive more business (as well as a brand new client 😁).

Since then my business has gone from strength to strength. I'm not going to lie, there's still loads to do. But that investment has led to so many new clients.

Seeing this quote on Janet's feed, it really resonated. How about you?

P.S. Interested in learning how to use email marketing to boost your sales or offer it as an additional service (VAs - take note!). Why not book an Email Power Hour with me?

I can...
💌 train you on Mailchimp or MailerLite
💌 help you build a branded template
💌 show you how to create an automated campaign
💌 or just about anything else email related!

Check out the link in my bio to book ☝🏻

26/10/2020

~ DO YOU KNOW YOUR EMAIL SUBSCRIBER NUMBERS? ~

Recently I spotted that a client's list had grown by over a 100 subscribers since the previous week's email had gone out.

WOW! That's amazing, I thought. But not for long. It took me just a few seconds of looking at the contacts to see that they were quite clearly spam records 🙄

The first name and last time of each record were the same (and very random words I might add - "Pokearound Pokearound" particularly springs to mind 😂). Plus, the Date Added and Source (the website) were the same for all records.

Because I knew the client's data so well, taking a note of subscriber numbers each week, I could quickly identify that the data was spam and archive it from the list, so we didn't mail it (which would have been a disaster for our sender reputation - affecting whether you are classed as spam).

Plus, I could report it to the client so that her web team could tighten up the web form to stop the spam bots from adding more bad data to her list. I also turned on double opt-in to protect the list in the meantime.

If you don't know your email subscribers, I'd highly recommend you start taking a note of them, and check them before every send, if only to protect your sender reputation.

Let me know A, B or C in the comments if you know your email list numbers...
A) No flippin' idea 🙈
B) I know it's around ###, but haven't checked for a while...
C) Yep I check all the time 😁

07/10/2020

~BEING CONSISTENT~
I went for a lovely brisk walk on Monday lunchtime, where the sun shone for a while, (and then tipped it down when I got home).

It felt good to get some fresh air and stretch my legs, and I thought to myself that I really should do this every working day.

So I've written it into my diary for today and Friday. Because planning it in means it's more likely to happen.

It's the same with my social media; something that previously I've been quite adhoc with. I plan 3 posts a week (because TBH it's all I can fit in at the mo). But it's manageable for me, and I'm becoming consistent - it's only been a few weeks but it's working so far 😉

And it's the same with email marketing. Keeping in touch with your list is so important. Consistently popping up in their inbox will keep you top of mind when they need your product or service.

So, planning in a regular email is a great way of making sure it happens. Once you've been doing it consistently it becomes a habit. And then it feels wrong when you don't do it.

That's the ultimate aim for my lunchtime walk and my social media 💪

If you need a bit of help with planning your emails for the next few months, or even getting started with your email marketing, why not book a power hour with me? All the details are in the link in my bio

P.S. Regular doesn't have to be 3 times a week. Keeping it manageable is the key to habit forming. If a fortnightly email is all you can do, then do that, but just make sure it's EVERY fortnight!

Busy Lizzie Marketing

19/03/2021

02/03/2021

01/03/2021

24/02/2021

23/02/2021

17/02/2021

02/02/2021

01/02/2021

19/01/2021

18/11/2020

26/10/2020

07/10/2020

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