Research has shown that people tend to breakdown their email into five levels of viewing. As readers go deeper into the process, your chances increase that they will read your entire message.

Here's an overview of the five stages:

Stage 1: From the Name
During this stage viewers determine if they want to initially read your email based on your store/brand name

Stage 2: From the Subject Line
The next test is whether or not your subject line captures their attention

Stage 3: Preview Pane
If you have made it past the subject line then they will look down at the email while it's in preview mode and quickly scan it.

Stage 4: Opened Email
If you made it past the scan test, then readers will click open your email and read it "above the fold line," which means the portion of the email that fits on their screen.

Stage 5: View Full View Email
Lastly, readers will read your entire email. The best scenario is if you have a strong call to action and they click through to the website from your email or if they print it out to bring to your store.

Stay tuned for more tips on how to design and write copy for each stage of viewing. For additional email marketing and web strategies, attend my two sessions at the NY Gift Show tomorrow!

I do a lot of speaking all over the world to educate retailers, so I just uploaded my first professional video clip to YouTube. I thought it would be a good marketing tool in YouTube and on my website, so we've embedded the video on the homepage of PatriciaNorins.com. Plus, we've also added video testimonials to our tradeshow site.

It got me thinking about the many creative ways you can use YouTube to promote your store, so here are a few to get you started:

1. Interview some of your customers to get reviews of a product they've bought in the past. I just read a study that reported customer reviews can up web sales of a particular product by as much as 30%.

2. Feature a new product of the month that you profile and talk about in a two minute video. Make sure to link to your video in your enewsletter—and embed the video on the page of your site that lists the product.

3. Make a short design video. Show your customers how to set the perfect holiday table, how to accessorize their fireplace mantle or how to hang pictures to create a gallery effect on their wall. This will position you as not only a resource for gifts and home decor, but also as an expert who is willing to give advice to customers who are in need of a few tips.

4. Ask your customers why they love shopping in your store. (They keep coming back, there must be a good reason!)

5. Show a "before" and "after" display of your windows or a section of the store. Use the opportunity to talk about the products you've placed.

Have you made a YouTube video for your store? Post a link so we can see it!

This year I spoke to retailers across the country about one of my favorite topics—email marketing. In the sessions I teach, I always suggest that retailers sign up to get on the email mailing list of at least 20 retailers (from small to big retailers) so you can start an idea book of what the competition is doing. It's easy to signup—most retailers have an enewsletter signup prominently displayed on their store website—I'm on at least 100 different lists (which is very helpful!).

As the holiday season gets underway, it is imperative that you keep the momentum going with your email marketing. I know it's easy to get so busy with store operations that it falls to the bottom of your to do list, but with other retailers aggressively emailing this holiday season, you MUST continue to give your customers reminders and reasons to visit your store!

By now you've seen (and heard) about the thousands of retailers who are successfully using Facebook to create an online community for their store, build a list of followers and fans and most importantly, drive store and web traffic and sales.

So if you're not on Facebook yet, you should be. According to Clara Shih, author of the Facebook Era, 300 million people are Facebook, and there are 1.4 million Facebook pages (with that number rapidly growing every day). Shih says, "Facebook is increasingly where your audience is for a lot of products and services."

Even if you don't have a website yet, which is one of the biggest objections I hear from retailers, this is a great way to get started.

Ready to try? Follow these (basic!) steps:

1. Set up a Facebook Page (which is different from an individual profile page—you must have a profile on FB to create pages) using your store name. Make sure it's spelled correctly and what you want—once you create a page and give it a name, you can't change it!

2. Fill out all the pertinent information—store websites, hours, directions, etc. And upload good store photos—a blank Facebook page won't attract fans.

3. In the beginning, invite friends and family to become your fans so you will start to build your list. From a marketing perspective, it looks better when people go there and you already have fans (it creates the herd mentality).

4. Start promoting your Facebook page to your existing customers through every marketing channel you have: email newsletters, direct mail, business cards, your website and signage in your store.

5. Offer monthly promotions, drawings or giveaways to incentivize your customers to sign-up.

6. Make sure you're posting messages on your site that aren't sales-y. You want to entertain, give them a sense of community and be interesting. New store promotions, new products and new sales staff are also good updates.

7. Think about using Facebook's new advertising campaign program to attract more fans and traffic to your store. You can target geographically, by gender, by age, etc., and any time someone says "gift" on Facebook who you've targeted, they'll see your ad. It's a very pointed way to market to potential customers right in your area.

8. Just like any marketing initiative, it's helpful if you map out your goals to use them as a foundation for the content you post, the ways you promote your Facebook page and a way to measure success.

Have you done any innovative promotions to draw more fans to your page? Let us know about it.

Two recent promotions I've received via email.

Every time I see a gift shop or retail cart written up in the paper, I go check the retailer's website to see if they've acknowledged it (a blog mention, a note on their homepage or even a Twitter tweet). If they haven't, I'm always a little disappointed. While the publicity might help you find new customers, it's a missed opportunity to not let your regular customers know about it.

Promoting your publicity (either online or in your store) gives you credibility, plus it's a great reminder of why your customers love shopping with you and it'll inspire customers to return to the store for another visit—oh, and it's FREE advertising.

Here are four creative things you can do to let your customers know about your publicity:

• Blog about it—write a blog post outlining the experience of being interviewed and what topics the reporter asked you about—and be sure to include a link the article.

• Frame the article and put it up in your store—your customers will enjoy seeing the article and it's a great conversation piece (for the first month, be sure to set it close to the register on an easel).

• Write about it in your store print or email newsletter—your store newsletter is a perfect place to write up your experience of being interviewed (if it's online, make sure you include a link).

• Post on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook—the goal is to get as many people as possible to read the article, and those platforms are free and pervasive.

And now to toot my own horn… be sure to check out the article our local paper just published about Pinnacle Publishing Group.

I just gave a seminar at last week's New York Gift Show on email marketing, and one of the sub-topics I covered is the importance of having a strong website for your store.

While a basic website is a step in the right direction, I encourage you to have as much quality content on your website as possible. With quality content, you'll come up higher when potential customers search for a product or gift shop in your local market or if a potential buyer is doing a nationwide search for a product that you mention frequently. Plus, your email marketing will be more effective if your website is robust and reflective of your physical store, and your regular customers will visit your site often if there is a good reason to go there.

Here are three ideas for generating more content on your website:

1. Write a store blog—a blog is not just a great way to connect with your customers. As you write about the new products you've ordered for your store, the special events you're doing and all the exciting things that are happening, you're filling your website with great quality content. I recommend Wordpress as a great blogging platform (plus it's open source, hence free). Be sure you install the software on your site—if you use something like Blogspot.com, you lose all the wonderful traffic you'd get if you used YourStoreWebsite.com/blog.

2. Post information about store events and promotions—your website is a fantastic marketing tool to promote all of your store events.

3. Post pictures and descriptions for all the different products you sell and the types of departments you have in your store. Make sure your images are not larger than 72 DPI, and that your text runs as HTML (images do nothing for SEO).

Once you make an investment in your website (and the costs have gone way down for the total investment needed to get a good site going), it will help you increase your store traffic and sales.

Is your store blog working to help you drive more traffic and sales? If so, I'd love to hear about it.

By now I hope you're using email marketing as an effective way to promote special sales and events in your store, notify customers about new product arrivals and encourage them to shop at your store website.

Be sure you remember the rules as you send out your email marketing messages, you don't want to get blacklisted—

1. Don't use false or misleading header information ("From," "To" and routing information—including the originating domain name and email address—must be accurate and identify the person who initiated the email).
2. Don't use deceptive subject lines.
3. Give recipients an easy, one-click opt-out method.
4. Include your valid physical postal address.
5. Only send emails to recipients who have opted-in—or who have asked to receive your information personally.

I'll be speaking about email marketing this weekend at the San Francisco Gift Show in my presentation about retail innovation, and in two weeks at the New York Gift Show at a session dedicated to creative email marketing strategies.

I hope to see some of you there!

I was reading an interesting study conducted by MailChimp.com (an email marketing company) where they analyzed over 40 million emails and identified the subject lines with the highest open rates (60%-87%). Here are three interesting observations I made from the study:

1. The subject line should describe the subject of your email—don't try to disguise the message you're sending. Don't confuse enewsletters with promotions or vice versa—the best subject lines tell the readers what's inside.

2. Use your company name in the subject line—of the top 20 emails (in terms of open rates), 18 of them used the company name in the headline. People will open an email from a company they trust and/or want to receive more information from.

3. The "best" subject lines are straightforward—they aren't too "salesy" or pushy. Stay away from subject lines that read like an advertisement. Unless, your subscribers opted-in to receive "special offers and promotions" from your company. Then there would be nothing wrong with saying "A special coupon" or "offer" inside. (Be sure you watch out for those spam trigger words.)

If you're interested in learning more about best practices and what works in email marketing, I hope you can join me at the New York Gift Show on Monday, August 17th, at my session, "Create Your Own Strong Economy: Use Email Marketing to Power Your Sales." Click here to register for the session.

Even though kids may be cutting back due to the economy, they're still planning to make a purchase for Mother's Day. According to the National Retail Federation, the average buyer is expected to spend $123.89 on Mom this year, so there is a big opportunity for you to cash in on Mother's Day sales. Here are four last-minute marketing ideas to help you capture their business:

1. Even if you've already sent out an email blast to your list of customers, send another one tomorrow. Here are three ideas for content: 5 Perfect Gifts for Mom under $30; an offer to save money (i.e., $5) on any purchase over $30 in the store valid for this weekend only; free gift with purchase (i.e., give away a free votive candle or a Mother's Day card with every purchase made).

2. Put together a focal table near the store entry with a sign, "The Perfect Gifts For Mom," and relocate some of your Mother's Day cards near the cash register. Even though they may have already purchased a card, some people are inclined to pick up a second one if they like it better—and lots of people probably haven't purchased one yet.

3. Call your top 100 customers (or if you maintain a POS system of your customers, call any who visited the store last May for Mother's Day) and invite them to pick up their gift for Mom. Let them know you have a special gift for them if they decide to stop by the store Friday or Saturday and then use a small gift like a rose, candle or pen to thank them for visiting the store. Most people will buy something to get a free gift.

4. Make up a flyer offering $5 off any Mother's Day purchase (valid on Friday and Saturday). Ask some local non-competing merchants (dry cleaners, book store, animal hospital, etc.) in your area if they'll allow you to put the coupons out on their counter. You could even offer them a store gift certificate in exchange for allowing you to distribute the coupons in their store.

If there's ever been a time to beef up your marketing campaign, it's now. In a session I did last week at the Boston Gift Show, I suggested that this is the year retailers need to spend more money on marketing, not less. I know it's tough if your sales are down and cash flow is tight, so here are a few very inexpensive ideas to get your marketing message out there.

Email marketing
Emails are a very low-cost way to reach out to your active customers. If you're not already collecting email addresses, you should start right away. I encourage you to use an incentive when asking for the address, but rather than saying, "Can I get your email address to notify you of special sales," I suggest you also offer a special gift.

I love the story of Bath & Body Works, who collected approximately 10 million email addresses in three months. The sales people all participated and asked each customer if they would share their email address to get a free gift. A coupon was then emailed to the customer which they could bring back to the store to redeem for a free lip gloss. This worked great because it achieved two objectives: the customer had to give a valid email address if they wanted the free gift, and when the customers came back to redeem their gift, they spent an average of $25 on their return visit. And be sure to email regularly—once every two-three weeks is great.

Host more store events
This isn't a new concept, but it isn't used as often as it could be to drive more traffic to your store. Get creative and try some new events. As customers cut back on spending, they are looking for fun ways to have some inexpensive entertainment.

Work with another store to cross-promote one another
Identify a store in your community that isn't a direct competitor (such as a local florist, photographer or bookstore) and you could each offer to put out a flyer or postcard for the other in your store. Or even go one step further and drop the postcard in each customers' shopping bag.

If you're interested in discussing additional low-cost or no-cost marketing ideas, I encourage you to join me and fellow retailers for a TweetChat tomorrow on TweetChat.com, April 10th at 1PM EST. Use the hashtag #giftshopsuccess to participate in the conversation. I hope to see you there!