Archive for email marketing
Email Marketing: A Quick and Easy Method of Increasing Your Autoresponder Marketing ROI
Posted by: | CommentsEmail marketers, like every other types of marketers, are continually looking for ways to increase the profitability of their marketing campaigns. Here’s a simple method of doing that.
Many email or autoresponder management services have a special feature, namely, a warning screen a reader is taken to if they try to subscribe to your list twice.
Why would someone try to subscribe twice? The most common reason is… they are highly interested not only in the topic, but they are furthermore interested in what YOU have to say, and on top of that, they’re already signed up previously (but forgot).
Someone that has previously signed up and is wanting to sign up for your list again is very likely a good prospect. So, why not take advantage of an opportunity?
Besides, the warning screen is often rather foreboding and the reader is easily “put off” by it. Why create a problem where there doesn’t need to be one? Why not take lemons and make lemonade? Here’s a solution that will fix that problem and additionally increase your profits.
All you have to do is replace the default warning screen with an offer to buy something! You might even offer them a special deal, pointing out the fact they are already a subscriber. If you don’t want to sell them something at this point, offer a bonus or send them to your blog. Whatever you do, use the opportunity to promote your products and your websites.
Following these hints will explode your autoresponder and email marketing profits!
When To Use A Hosted Email Service
Posted by: | CommentsAlmost every business can benefit from effective email marketing. One question that business owners often have is: why kind of system do I need to manage my customer and prospect email addresses?
The majority of small businesses would be well-advised to use a hosted service. Many good services exist. Two widely-used examples are Aweber and GetResponse. When we refer to a “hosted service”, we are speaking of a service that is managed by an outside company, with nothing to install in your own server. The latter type, often call self-hosted, has some advantages, but is too complicated for the average small business person to effectively operate.
What do you gain by using a hosted email marketing service? There are several.
First, most of these services have a top-notch reputation with email servers all over the world. This means that your email is more likely to be delivered than if you manage your own system.
Second, hosted email services typically have many email deliverability experts that will jump into action if any of your emails begin to be flagged as spam. This inevitably happens to the best of us; you merely get to avoid doing some of the legwork to fix it.
Third, most of the better hosted services have built-in tools for helping your emails pass as many spam filters as possible. They will typically give each email a score on the “spam” scale and show you what factors contribute to that score. You can then make changes as necessary if you choose.
The downside is that you have to pay a monthly fee versus a one-time cost. However, what you are getting for the small monthly fee will typically far outweigh the cost and time involved in managing your own email marketing software on your own server.
Write Effective Email Subject Lines
Posted by: | CommentsOne of the most important aspects to any email is the subject line. If it is not done right, you negate the whole reason for sending the email in the first place. In other words, you should spend as much time crafting a good subject line as writing the email itself, if you want the email to actually get opened, read, and acted upon.
Having a well-thought out subject line for your email is more important than ever. Here’s why.
First, people are wary of spam. Spam filters clear out most, but not all, spam. So as a legitimate email marketer, you want to avoid all appearances of a “spammy” email, and this begins, not surprisingly, at the very beginning.
Second, every good email begins with a promise… implying that the email is worth the reader’s time to invest a few minutes in reading. You may not know this, but most people scan through their email inbox and decide what looks most important. Most people never read all the emails they receive. By crafting a compelling subject line, you increase the chances your email will be read.
Third, even legitimate email marketers have resorted to “tricks” to get emails opened. While these may work in the short-term, in certain fields they have been used so often that readers tire of them. One approach that always works is to give the reader a taste of what they will get inside. There should be congruity between the email subject line and the body of the email, in the same way that a newspaper story headline should have continuity with the actual story. By avoiding “tricks”, you will stand out from all the other short-term minded marketers who use tactics without considering the long-terms effects of burning out their readers.
Email marketing can be a very effective medium for getting the word out to your prospects and customers, and the care with which you craft your email subject lines can make or break your email marketing campaigns.
“Smarter” Permission email marketing and Amazon.com
Posted by: | CommentsAmazon.com is a good case study of smart permission email marketing.
The emails are personalized with my name.
They send recommendations based upon what I have bought in the past.
They send recommendations based upon what people who share my interests have bought.
All of this data is uniquely targeted to me; no other person has the same set of interests and has bought the same combinations of books and music on Amazon that I have. Yet, the email content remains relevant to me. Otherwise, I would have unsubscribed long ago.
They also make it easy to order, and much of the functionality described above is duplicated on the website, if you log in.
They allow me to create my own sense of community on their website (wish list, writing reviews) and use email to keep me connected to that community.
Permission Email Marketing
Posted by: | CommentsPermission email marketing vs s*p*a*m, what’s the difference?
Spam is equivalent to the “junk” mail you receive in your physical mail box, if you did not give explicit permission for the mailer to send it to you. (As a copywriter, I shudder to call it “junk” mail, but that’s what it’s known as.) To carry the analogy further, you would continue to receive the mailings forever and there would be no way to turn it off.
If permission email marketing were to be carried over to the direct mail world, here’s how it would operate.
You would decide that it would be ok to be included on Company A’s mailing list. Either they mailed something to your home as an insert for another company’s materials, or you picked up a postcard somewhere. They may have offered a free gift or report if you sign up now. They may even have a mechanism for you to call in and ask to be included on the list.
Next, the company would mail you a postcard asking you to confirm your inclusion in the list. That’s what we call “double opt-in” in email. You take the first step, raising your hand as it were, asking to be included on the list. The company then requests that you affirm that indeed it was you that wanted to be included. The company is making sure that it didn’t receive your name and address from another party.
After the company received back the confirmation from your address, it would begin regular mailings to your home.
Email marketing and attrition
Posted by: | CommentsI recently mentioned the concept of building your list “one at a time”. One reason this is important is due to attrition.
People change their email address and forget to notify you. Sometimes they are trying to get rid of spam and sometimes it is a change for a different reason. Bottom line: their email starts bouncing and you lose a subscriber.
A mail box fills up and the email starts bouncing. This can happen for a number of reasons. The reader may be sick or out of town and unable to read his or her email. They intended to stay on your list but it looks they’ve abandoned their email address.
Often readers get fed up dealing with all of their email, and go on mass unsubscribe rampages.
Or they just realize that they aren’t really interest in your product or service.
Whatever the reason, email list attrition is a part of life and there’s nothing you can do about it, most of the time.
To compensate, you must keep adding new readers to your list if you want to at least keep it the same size.
My prior post gave some ideas for doing that.
Build Your List, One at a Time
Posted by: | CommentsYou should have a sign-up form on your website or blog, and ask for visitors to sign up for your free ezine, weekly tips, or whatever you send to keep in touch with your prospects and customers.
Make it easy for people to sign up. And if you use a professional service like Aweber, the process is pretty automated for you too.
Many sites use a “pop-over”, to force visitors to either enter their email address or close the box. This is something that you will want to test to see if conversion rates are better. It will depend on the market and perhaps on the layout of your site.
Another technique you can use is encouraging your readers to forward your email to friends or colleagues who would enjoy it. Some of them may sign up for your list.
A similar technique employed by some websites is a feature whereby one can send an article, or a link to it, directly from the website to a friend or colleague. Again, this technique should result in more readers added to your list.
The Ezine Queen
Posted by: | CommentsIf you’re interested in starting your own ezine, one resource you should check out is Alexandra Brown’s site:
http://www.ezinequeen.com
She offers a free 45 minute audio class on starting an ezine, and free articles, weekly tips via email, and paid products.
According to her site, Mark Victor Hansen & Associates said she is one of the top ten direct marketers in the world, so you should definitely check out what she has to say.
The free article section alone looks like a goldmine to me.
I’m not an affiliate (yet) but perhaps I’ll sign up…her stuff looks like the real deal.
Email marketing and sneezers
Posted by: | CommentsIn his book, Purple Cow, Seth Godin discusses the concept of “sneezers”.
Huh?
“Sneezers” are “experts” who tell all of their friends and colleagues about a new product or service, and are perceived authorities in the area and are therefore influential.
The book is worth reading just for the discussion of “sneezers”.
What relevant does this have for your email marketing campaigns?
Everything.
In fact, email is the perfect medium to capitalize on the “sneezers” tendency to “spread” the virus. Email is so very simple to forward to any number of people, adding one’s own comments. And today, of course, almost everyone has email.
You can understand why the ease of forwarding makes gives email a nudge over paper-based communications in many applications. If you happen to hit a “sneezer” at just the right time, you can have influence far beyond your original prospect list.
These principles should not be restricted to business. I belonged to a service organization that insisted on mailing a monthly newsletter with news and training opportunities. I asked why email was not used, citing the lower cost, instant delivery, and ability to forward. I argued that the newsletter could be much more effective and we could save money at the same time. Predictibly, my concerns fell on deaf ears.
For the service organization to which I belonged, there was not much at stake. But my story illustrates how organizations can get trapped by inertia, doing things the same way they’ve always been done and not taking advantage of new opportunities.
Ezine Advertising Strategies
Posted by: | CommentsHere are some ideas to help you as you begin thinking about advertising in ezines.
- Go Slow. It’s your money, so spend as little as possible in the beginning. You don’t know yet what is going to work.
- Test. Have mechanisms in place to track the actions of the prospects who view the ad, and commit yourself to doing the testing.
- Offer to trade advertising space with the ezine owner, if you have your own ezine.
- Don’t advertise in an ezine until you have read at least a few of the issues. Get on their mailing list. Is the ezine targeted well to your market?
- If at all possible, collect the names and email addresses of prospects who respond to your ad. They will then become *your* prospects and you can email them according to own schedule.
