Clearview Midlands December 2013 - Issue 145 | Page 75

BUSINESSNEWS Generating millions of pounds from email marketing EMPLOYERS’ UPDATE A bold rise in the national minimum wage is needed next year to ease the squeeze on living standards for the lowest paid workers, the TUC has warned. The union body has calculated that the annual salary of a full-time minimum-wage worker would be £770 higher this year, had the minimum rate of pay kept pace with price inflation since 2007. The TUC, which presented evidence to the Low Pay Commission on 9th November, said the Government must increase the minimum wage by more than the rate of inflation or average earnings growth to avoid putting even more financial strain on hardworking low-wage families. The move follows Labour’s announcement of a tax break for employers paying their staff the living wage, should it win the next general election. Despite inflation currently running at 2.7%, the Government last month announced a national minimum wage increase of 1.9% for adults and 1% for younger people. It added that as the economic recovery strengthens, increases in the minimum wage should become more generous. “A bigger increase in the minimum wage in 2014 is also needed to restore what has been ‘lost’ in recent years,” it said. Insight Data, the specialist data and direct marketing company has generated over 2,000 trade and commercial leads from email marketing campaigns carried out for clients in October, representing millions of pounds in new business. Unfortunately, many companies are still trying and failing at email marketing and the number of companies getting blacklisted is rising, seriously damaging their own reputations. Vicky Francis, marketing manager for Insight, says: “Successful email marketing requires three elements – highly accurate data, a powerful email marketing platform and the right message designed for an email audience. Traditional marketing methods don’t work for email marketing so it is important to have experienced digital marketing skills.” Insight Data has developed Mailminx, a highly advanced email platform that ensures much higher deliverability rates than other email systems, and also spam scores and tests the email design format in different email clients such as Outlook and Gmail. “In October we sent some 300,000 marketing emails on behalf of clients and achieved 98% deliverability and an average 21% open rate,” Vicky continues. “But the really exciting result is the number of sales leads – some 2,100 trade enquiries directly from the campaigns.” Call 01934 808293 or email [email protected] INSPIRING THE NEXT GENERATION The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has chosen Young Enterprise as its official charity to inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs and to bridge the skills gap between young people and business. Young Enterprise research finds nine in 10 (92%) of senior UK managers would like enterprise education to be included in the national curriculum to help reduce the toll of one million young unemployed. To read more, visit www.clearview-uk.com The FSB wants to see more schools involved with local businesses and focusing on enterprise education for their students. The ‘Help to make young people more aware of the business world and its valuable contribution’ FSB is working with Young Enterprise to help them reach their target of being in 50 per cent of all secondary schools by 2015. Together the FSB and Young Enterprise will help to make young people more aware of the business world and its valuable contribution to the economy. Furthermore, the partnership aims to improve the employability skills of young people, something businesses say is needed. DEC 2013 75