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How to Improve your Email Marketing

How to Improve your Email Marketing

Email marketing remains one of the oldest yet most effective digital marketing tools. Reaching at least 3.8 billion people per year, according to a December 2018 study by the Radicati Group, this provides marketers with a practical, inexpensive way to generate leads, drive conversions, and retain customers.

Unfortunately, many small and medium-sized businesses still struggle with email marketing. While the majority of these businesses use email, only a small fraction can say they’ve mastered the channel, with most still struggling to get meaningful ROI. Below, we look at seven proven tips to help you improve your email marketing returns.

Begin with a clean Email List

Every email list loses a bit of quality every year. Between people changing their addresses and customers moving to new email providers, you’re guaranteed to find a few obsolete contacts on your list. It’s your job to regularly audit the list and weed out incorrect and outdated addresses.

Aside from that, take steps to grow your list. Find a useful lead capture tool, get your opt-in forms out there, and consider giveaways to win new sign-ups.  And, never, under any circumstance buy a list and expect it to be valuable. More often than not, it will get you banned from your email marketing service.

Get your content right

Since emails need to be fairly short, every word counts. So, you want to be keen on what you say and how you say it. Optinmonster has three useful tips.

First, always sound like a real person; avoid marketing jargon and be conversational. Secondly, appeal to emotions; use sensory words to help your readers see and feel the picture. Third, sprinkle your copy with power words to elicit a reaction.

Use psychology to drive action

The human brain is designed to react in predictable ways. Email marketers can take advantage of this to drive action. For instance, Fear-Of-Missing-Out (FOMO) approaches such as scarcity and urgency are guaranteed to earn a higher CTR. Other psychology-driven strategies to help you get more clicks are; color choice, pictures of faces, social proof, and personalization.

Invest in email automation

Only 49% of companies use email automation. This is unfortunate considering that automation has the potential to turnaround your email marketing fortunes. According to a recent study by the Epsilon Email Institute, triggered emails have 70.5% higher open rates and 152% higher click-through rates compared to regular emails. Also, automation boosts qualified leads by 451%, improves revenue by 85%, and increases productivity by 69%.

Use images/video in Emails

In one of his most popular blog posts, celebrated digital marketer Jeff Bullas reveals how he increased email conversions by 344%, thanks to images and videos. The trick is simple, make sure that each email you send out has at least one image. Videos work too, but they can be slow. This makes quality images your best option. Consider GIFs and emojis as well. GIFs, for instance, boost conversions by 103%.

Follow industry best practices

Over the years, email marketing has shown a few patterns that marketers can use to remain competitive. For instance, always send welcome emails. Welcome emails have an incredible 81% open rate and 22-25% CTR! Additionally, send emails between 9-11 am and 3-5pm, on weekdays, for the best outcome. Above all, optimize your subject lines, use lead magnets, and always provide a CTA.

Test and improve

No marketing campaign is perfect. If you want to get maximum value from your email campaign, take time to observe, measure, analyze, and consistently test out different options. Some of the elements you want to test are; subject lines, CTAs, send times, content, and visual layout.

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These seven tips to improve your Email marketing alone might not triple or even double your email marketing revenue. But, they’re guaranteed to have a positive impact on your ROI.

What to Send to Your Email List When You Don’t Know What to Say

What to Send to Your Email List When You Don't Know What to Say

We’ve all been there. After doing a fantastic job getting thousands of people to sign up for your email newsletters and you find yourself with nothing to say.

You need to keep them on board with exciting newsletters. Otherwise, you might not only lose their attention but could also lose the customers themselves. What kind of newsletters can you send to keep them hooked?

Here are 7 types of newsletters that you can share with your email list to keep them excited.

Remix an old blog post

Let’s begin with an easy one. You write blog posts all the time. By now, you probably have thousands of posts published on your blog. Whenever you experience “writer’s block,” feel free to reinvent one of those posts and send it as an email newsletter. Just make sure to update it so the information is relevant. Also, add a few ideas and tips to freshen up the piece. This is a great way to freshen the content on your blog and get Google indexing your website again.

Your success story

People are always looking for inspiration. It doesn’t matter how many other stories they’ve heard out there; if you have something that can energize and encourage them to pursue their goals, they’ll always have an ear for you. If you can do this while staying humble, rest assured of winning plenty of hearts along the way.

“X Mistakes I Made”

…Or something along that line. Everyone who wants to succeed will always be looking for ways to avoid obvious mistakes. Why not share a few things you got wrong over the years and how you overcame the challenges? Why not share a few things that you didn’t know at the beginning and how understanding them can accelerate the journey to success? Readers will like your story.

Answer frequently asked questions

In the time you’ve been in business, you’ve had customers and prospects ask you all kinds of questions. It’s also likely that some questions keep popping up over and over. Use your email newsletters to provide answers to those questions.

Share some exciting news

This could be news about anything; your business, the industry, products, technology, and so forth. As long as it’s something you know that your contacts not have heard yet, share it. For instance, if you’re introducing a new product, share that. Share news about an upcoming promo or contest. The list is endless.

Traffic/growth/income reports

Sharing progress reports with your list also works well. It could be graphs and stats showing how your traffic has increased over the past years. It could be growth reports showing your revenue and how far you’ve come. Or, it could be income reports. Sharing these pieces of information tends to increase consumer confidence in a brand.

Free downloads

Finally, whenever you run out of ideas for your email newsletter campaign, consider giving away a freebie. A popular option is e-books. E-books showcase your knowledge and strengthen the bond between you and your list. What’s more, freebies have been proven to prime consumers for paid products.

These 7 ideas should keep your contacts engaged and informed year round.

How to Make Money With Your Email List

How to Make Money With Your Email List Email marketing is not dead– not even remotely close to dead. In fact, data shows that the impact of email marketing may actually be increasing every year. A record number of new email accounts are still being created every year. The average email user is receiving more emails today than at any other time in the past.

Rather than being used as a form of interpersonal communication, as it was at its onset, it’s now used as a central component of eCommerce transactions. Because your local utility company and your cell phone provider will send you email notifications when a bill is due, and a corresponding receipt once you’ve paid, brands know you’ll eventually check your email. It’s only natural that it’d be used as part of any serious online sales effort.

Obviously, there are two basic steps to any email marketing effort:

  1. Collect email addresses.
  2. Send out a newsletter, or market to your list.

Strategies, best practices, and variations on how to go about accomplishing these two steps will differ from one industry to the next.

Try these four powerful email marketing optimization strategies:

  • Provide value

    If you only send sales emails, be prepared to lose a lot of subscribers. Resulting in a rather dismal conversion rate. Send valuable content, intensely-targeted to your list, and you’ll earn the right to pitch your prospects. They’ll respect you, trust your authority in the space, and will have had enough chances to have considered doing business with you prior to your official ask.

  • Design your funnels

    Don’t be discouraged if you’ve been lumping your whole list into one category and emailing every subscriber on each campaign. Moving forward, you can begin to sculpt out defined list sub-sections. For example, a ‘previous customer’ segment is a no-brainer. Segmented lists for specific business objectives and for specific marketing campaigns not only allows greater granularity in targeting, but it also gives you a greater ability to experiment.

  • Blog optimization

    If your email marketing efforts are stagnant, you may want to look further up the chain. You might have done a great job converting new site visitors into email subscribers, but have you built any relationship with them prior to their opting-in.

    The answer to this can make the difference between a “who is this emailing me?”-response or an “Oh, these guys have a course?” type of response.

    Work on your blog content, keep it fresh, relevant and useful to your target audience. This practice will improve the effectiveness of your email marketing efforts.Click To Tweet

  • The ‘tripwire’ trick

    This is as crafty and slick as it sounds. A tripwire is a very small ask you put directly after an email list subscription in each of your funnels. A tripwire might be $5 or $7 and it has a psychological reason for being used. Studies have shown that people are more likely to purchase from brands they’ve already done business with rather than ones they’ve never bought from.

    Therefore, it makes smart business sense to get a quick, low-cost sale from as great a percentage of your list as possible. As a result,  they experience what it’s like being your customer. Thus eventually make a follow-up purchase.

No matter what tips or email marketing strategies you try, just make sure you don’t write-off email marketing altogether. There is money in your list. All you need to do is grow it and get better at harvesting it’s potential.

How to Use Confirmation Emails to Make More Money

How to Use Confirmation Emails to Make More Money If you’re already using email marketing to generate leads, convert sales, and delight customers; you’re doing a great job! Aside from boasting a phenomenal ROI, email marketing is also the most effective way to reach customers and prospects.

To help boost your ROI even further, today, we want to give you a few tips on how to use confirmation emails to drive lead generation and sales.

You probably already know about confirmation emails – the emails you usually send to customers who’ve just made a purchase, thanking them for buying from your store and asking them to come back.

But, did you know you can use these emails to more than just thank customers? Did you know that you can use the emails to pitch your brand and products? In fact, you can even use confirmation emails for remarketing! Share on X

Use them to up-sell and cross-sell

Up-selling and cross-selling are two of the most effective marketing strategies. According to one Nielsen study, consumers actually love it when sellers offer new product options. It shows them that the seller cares.

Consumers prefer to buy products from brands they are already familiar with. Put these two factors together, and you have up-sells and cross-sells contributing to between 10% and 30% of e-commerce revenues.

With this in mind, when sending the purchase confirmation email, use the opportunity to suggest a complementary product. For instance, if one buys a shaving razor, ask if they’d be interested in shave cream. If they’ve just purchased a phone, ask if they need a phone cover, and so on.

Use the emails to recover abandoned shopping carts

Shopping cart abandonment is a huge challenge in the e-commerce industry. Last year alone, more than 70% of shopping carts were abandoned midway through transactions, costing merchants $4.6 billion in the process.

Use emails to reach out to consumers and convince them to go back and complete the purchase. For instance, you can send an email asking about the difficulties the shopper experienced on your site and offer to provide help.

Send a confirmation email alerting consumers about discounts on the items in the abandoned shopping carts. This works particularly well if the consumer was window shopping. A discount offer can make them change their mind and return to complete the purchase.

Use confirmation emails to promote your brand & expand your reach

There are a couple of ways to do this. For instance, use emails to ask consumers to share the experience on social media. In the email, ask them to “share” the message, providing buttons to your preferred social media networks to make the sharing easy.

Another option is to ask them to sign up for your newsletters, read your blog, or subscribe to your YouTube channel. A consumer who thoroughly enjoyed the shopping experience will not hesitate to do so.

Finally, ask consumers to rate your business and leave reviews on popular review platforms. These ratings and reviews will convince other shoppers to consider your brand.

The best part, email campaign so the emails are sent exactly when they need to be sent, further increasing your conversion chances.

You’ve Got a New Email Subscriber, Now What?

You've Got a New Email Subscriber, Now What?

Building an email list is so important for your business. It yours, you own it, and it won’t disappear. After your list is set up, what do you do? Learn what your next steps are.

The Welcome

Get your relationship off to the right start by giving them a valuable welcome email. Your welcome email should introduce to your brand, show your personality and some of your most useful content. Promotion codes and a list of your most popular resources offer an excellent way to get started. Let the subscriber know how often they should expect your emails, and do your best to stick to that schedule.

Long-Term Nurturing

While your email list is an important source for customer conversions, your emails shouldn’t be filled with pushing sales tactics. Buyers need to trust your brand before they decide what they want to buy from you.

Stick to your email schedule and fill your newsletter with interesting content. Buyer’s guides give subscribers the opportunity to educate themselves about your product and industry. Mix in promotional messages, so you’re top of mind when it’s time to purchase.

Behavior-based Messages

Another use for your email list is sending messages based on the subscriber’s actions. If they add something to their cart and leave the site, an abandoned cart email reminds them and may entice them to finish the checkout process. An order confirmation email is another example of a triggered message.

These messages arrive immediately after the subscriber acts, or shortly after. You reach them in critical decision-making periods and may be able to persuade them to make a purchase and overcome their sales objections.

Personalize the Experience

Email personalization comes in a few forms. At the very least, using the subscriber’s name or another unique identifier is a must. Most email marketing tools make adding this information easy and straightforward.

Segmentation is another excellent way to offer relevant, customized emails. Demographic information, interests, previous purchases and consumed content are a few options for separating subscribers into groups.

Your email marketing list is an extremely important asset for your brand. Implement these suggestions to maximize your email marketing value and boost your cash flow.

Why People Open Emails

Why People Open Emails Though email is a product of the modern digital age, it’s almost old-fashioned compared to social media. And yet, email looks like it will stick around for a long time. According to the Q4 2016 Email Benchmark Report by global information services group Experian, 56% of total email opens happened on smartphones or tablets in Q4 2016. This illustrates the fact that email has made the transition from desktop to mobile use.

The same report also states that quarter-to-quarter revenue per email increased from 6 cents in Q3 2016 to 8 cents in Q4 2016. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but considering emails can be sent out to a whole subscriber list with only one click, a jump in revenue is a per subscriber stat.

For entrepreneurs, this is an opportunity you can’t miss. When you have a subscriber list, you have the ability to reach out to people quickly and easily via email. And if you do it right, your messages will be read.

But what makes people open emails? Several factors are influential here:

Timing

Emails are likely to be read within the first hour of being delivered. In the following hours, the chances are lower. After 24 hours, the odds are no longer in your favor

The day you choose to send an email has a direct impact. If you want to have a higher success rate, pick Tuesdays or Saturdays. Tuesday has an average open rate of 18%, the highest among all weekdays. But among all days of the week, Saturday has the highest open rate at 18.3%. Evenings after 8 pm fare the best, followed by afternoons from 4 pm to 8 pm.

Reputation

Who you are and what your business does plays a key role in your emails getting opened and read. So building an image as a trusted authority in your niche is critical. If your previous emails didn’t offer much, or if your website and social media pages lack substance, people will think your emails follow suit. It takes a while to establish a good reputation, but it’s well worth the effort.

After sender name, the subject line, offer, intro paragraph, and expected length (in that order) influence the chances of getting your email read.

Personalization

Let’s say your name is Alex and your email handle is alex101. You receive 2 emails, one with “Alex, here are great deals for you!” or “alex101, here are some great deals for you!” The chances are that you will regard the second email as spam and send it to trash without even a glance. An email handle used as a greeting is a dead giveaway that the email is auto-generated. Most people suspect that emails are auto-generated, but it helps if it doesn’t look like one.

Most online marketers currently want to focus on social media and other forms of digital marketing, but email isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, so step up your email game.

How to Clean Your Email List

How to Clean Your Email List

You need a healthy email list to be successful at email marketing. Ongoing list maintenance keeps your deliverability high and conversion rates at an acceptable level. Use these tips to get the most out of your email list.

1. Purge Inactive Subscribers.

If too many people delete your emails or mark them as spam, all of your messages may go straight to the trash. Reach out to inactive people. Inquire if they still want the information and messages you provide. If not, take them off of the email list. If they’re interested later on, they know where to find you.

2. Be Consistent

You don’t have to email your list every day to see results. You do need to be consistent if you want to email your list once per week, try to stay with that pace. Focus on quality over quantity. You’re competing with countless other marketing messages in their inboxes.

3. Track Your Open and Click-through Rates

Do you know how many people opened your last email? Your click through rate? Pay close attention to your email stats. Track:

  • The type of emails that work best with your subscriber list
  • Open rates
  • Click-through rate
  • Device the email was viewed on

You can learn a lot about your subscriber preferences and use that information to improve with each message.

4. Provide Value in Exchange for the Email Sign-up

People have crowded inboxes, so you need a pretty good incentive to get space in there. If you run an e-commerce store, you can offer free shipping or a discount on their first order. For B2B companies, ebooks or a comprehensive guide to your industry is a good way to attract new subscribers.

Triggers to Help People Subscribe to your Newsletter

Triggers to Help People Subscribe to your Newsletter

A quality, qualified, opt-in only list of people who want to read your emails and look forward to your newsletters is the single most important thing you can do for your digital marketing ROI and your bottom line. The only trick is, getting people to opt in.

To get people to subscribe, you’ll need to give them a compelling reason to do just that. Here are a few you may not have thought of:

1. Social Proof: a Numbers Game

Here’s a secret: no one will ever want to be the first to sign up for your list. They probably won’t want to be 10th either. But if you’ve got hundreds of people subscribed, they’ll want to know what’s great about your newsletter. If you have a big list already, use that social proof to boost your numbers!  Share the number such as, “Join over 5,000 others…”

2. Keep Them Guessing

The best newsletters, emails, and headlines tell just enough to get you interested but leave some mystery. To get more subscriptions, you need to learn the art of keeping your target audience guessing, just enough.

3. Use the Power of Exclusivity

There’s a reason people will spend months on the waiting list for a Gucci purse, and then spend enough to buy a small car to get one: exclusivity. The more exclusive the club, the more people want to be in it, so make your list an invitation-only affair, or put a time or number limit on it.

4. Promise Something Great… and Deliver

Successful newsletters have people waiting for them. If they can’t wait for your newsletter to arrive because it’s so full of deals, information, and other valuable stuff, you’ll have a captive audience. Because it’s not just about getting the subscriptions: it’s about keeping them too!

There is so much information and so many options that people are fatigued. They’re inundated with choices, and drowning in variety, so if you want to make email marketing work for you, you really have to stand out.

Make it easy to sign up. Give people compelling reasons to try your newsletter, and then consistently over deliver your content. In a world full of bored and jaded people, it’s the companies that delight and surprise that really stand out.

Segment your Email List for More Conversions

Segment your Email List for More Conversions Have you heard, the money is in the list? The email list, in this case.

Did you know you may be leaving money on the table if you mail the same message to your entire list? Send the most relevant messages to their inboxes, not just any message. This in an efficient and scalable solution with segmentation.

What is Email Segmentation?

Email segmentation divides your email list based on custom factors. You can split up your list with some of the most common methods being by geographic location, age, income and job title.

The specific factors you choose depends on your type of business. Add a behavioral tag to categorize a user. Have they ordered from your store recently, did they buy something last year, or are they a new purchaser? Nurture each list segment with the offers and content that they need to increase your conversion rate and lifetime value of the customer.

If you provide services, look at where the subscriber is in your marketing funnel, any actions they’ve taken on your website and whether they’ve been in contact with your team.

The sky’s the limit on the segmentation you choose for your subscriber. So there’s no reason to take one-size fits all approach to your list.

How to Segment Your List

Most email marketing and marketing automation services allow you to sort readers into different groups based on the information they provide. You can automatically do this by sorting users on the subscription form.

For example, if you offer several products segment your list by the product purchased. Progressive profiling allows you to capture more information every time a person goes through one of your forms. You might ask for an email and name on the first interaction. Then expand to their company size, income and questions about their pain points in the next.

The second way to segment is by links clicked.  Start with a general list. Send out an email with 3 key, unique links to different areas of service your company offers. You can segment your audiences by those who clicked service link 1, the second list for service link 2 that was clicked, and the same for the service link 3.  Furthermore, you ow have three lists with people who were interested enough to click a specific area.  You can then send each follow-up emails specifically related to the area of service they clicked on in the first email! That’s segmentation.

Get the most out of your email list by providing a custom experience that’s valuable to your readers. You’ll see more leads, conversions, and revenue for your efforts.