Saturday, November 6, 2021
Tuesday, November 2, 2021
How To Make Your Email Marketing Work For Your Business
If you've heard that email marketing is one of the best marketing channels in existence, but don't know how to make it work for your business, you've come to the right place. In this article, we'll break it down for you and show you exactly how to make email marketing work for you business.
The post How To Make Your Email Marketing Work For Your Business appeared first on mailfloss.
source https://mailfloss.com/how-to-make-your-email-marketing-work-for-your-business/
How To Make Your Email Marketing Work For Your Business
If you ask most people why they don’t read their emails, you’ll hear answers such as:
“There are way too many emails in my inbox.”
“All I get are spam emails from certain companies.”
“The emails I get aren’t too relevant.”
Whatever they say, the true underlying reason why they don’t read emails is: they don’t care. Plain and simple.
If they cared about what the emails had to say, or at least about the person or company who sent them, they’d make an effort to open their inbox for a second.
Still, there are certain emails that perk everyone up:
“Thank you for your purchase!”
“Your order has been shipped.”
“Welcome, (insert your name here).”
What’s the difference between those types of emails and the emails no one gives a damn about? Hint: it doesn’t have to do with transactions.
People React to Emails That Match Their Current Needs and Problems
When people take certain actions like purchasing a product or subscribing to a newsletter, they’re primed to receive emails that fill a certain need.
Their need to know their transaction was successful.
Their need to know they’ll be receiving their order soon.
Their need to know which benefits they’ll get by subscribing to someone’s list.
Their need to receive updates and information they care about right in their inbox.
So, how can you make email marketing work like that for your business?
Here’s a lesson more important than everything you learned in high school: motivation starts off-screen. Your emails can’t make a person go “hey, maybe I do need to buy this electric cat hair remover, how have I never thought about it before?”.
First, the person must own a cat, and secondly, their cat must be shedding. If this issue is keeping them up at night wondering how long they’ll spend cleaning their home’s surfaces, reading a subject line that says “stop your cat from shedding FOREVER” would be like finding gold.
Motivation starts off-screen. Your emails should fuel that already existing motivation.
It takes effort to know what those needs are and how to best cater to them. Knowing where to start will make it easier, so keep reading.
Know the Difference Between Marketing Campaigns (and When to Send Each)
Wait, what do you mean a nurturing sequence isn’t the same as a drip campaign? Has your entire life been a lie?
The mistakes begin when people dive into email marketing without knowing basic differences from one campaign to another. Next thing you know, their email marketing isn’t working. Dammit.
Wanting to get your hands dirty is exciting, but it takes just a couple of minutes to learn how and where to use each campaign, especially those some of you have been using interchangeably.
Newsletters
Newsletters are meant to nurture existing contacts. They’re a great strategy for an audience of avid readers, information-seekers, and people who want to learn new stuff every now and again. These people are into good content curation, or maybe they just want to keep in touch and stay updated.
Not sure if you’re aware, but trying to keep up with tons of industry-related articles at once is exhausting. That’s where newsletters should step in.
They’re easy to create since you don’t always need to write them from scratch. You can repurpose existing blog content, do a roundup of the best weekly posts, and curate interesting stories from other experts.
If you want to drive traffic to your blog, newsletters won’t let you down.
Drip Emails
This is the perfect strategy if creating ultra-personalized email campaigns isn’t possible at the moment.
The folks at Business 2 Community phrased it perfectly, so here’s a great analogy in case you get confused about what drip emails are:
“Take the instance of how a sprinkler works in a garden. It showers the grass with water irrespective of the care needed to tend it. Every strand of grass receives water whether required or not.”
What that means is, drip email marketing isn’t done based on a single lead’s action. Although they’re sent to specific segments of your email list, drip emails will be well-timed and sent regardless if a subscriber is “ready” to receive that or not. For instance, a drip campaign for a clothing store could go something like:
Drip 1 (first day) - Welcome email
Drip 2 (within 24 hours) - Onboarding email
Drip 3 (fourth day) - Promotional content + discount code
Drip 4 (ninth day) - Promotional content + new campaign alert
Is there a guarantee that subscribers will be ready to buy by the time you’ve sent the third drip email? Nope. But drip marketing automation is a lot better if you’re on a budget. And it converts much better than if you were relying on unplanned email blasts. Over 50%, in case you were wondering.
Lead Nurturing Emails
It’s great to know that people have gone through your lead magnet. Yet, that doesn’t mean they’ll read your emails, stay in touch, or buy any of your products. They may have gotten what you had to offer for free and walked out the door. Ring a bell?
Here’s where nurturing campaigns outperform drip campaigns: they’re highly targeted and individual behavior-based. What’s sent to one lead won’t be sent to another unless they share a similar behavioral pattern.
A chart from MarketingSherpa showed that marketing departments using lead nurturing campaigns saw a 45% higher return on investment (ROI) than those who didn’t.
Lead nurturing emails include:
- Welcome emails
- Eye-catching content based on a user’s preference
- Repurposed blog content snippets
- Inspiration (works amazingly for retail and decor businesses)
- Promotional emails based on a user’s browsing history
- Abandoned cart emails
The purpose of lead nurturing is getting your newly acquired leads ready to buy by sending the right emails at the right time, based on what a particular lead has been doing. Both in and outside your website. It’ll have them asking “how did you know I wanted to see that?”.
Here, check out the following survey by MarketingSherpa.
According to this survey, “welcome” and “thank you” emails will give you the highest open rates. Automating these emails to trigger whenever someone new subscribes or makes a conversion is a clever move.
Here’s a great example of a lead nurturing email from Monday.com, triggered once a user’s free trial expires:
Promotional Emails
Ecommerce stores should keep promotional emails in their back pocket since their marketing strategy brims with sales and discounts.
Still, the fact that you sell products or services doesn’t give you the freedom to get heavy-handed with promotional emails. Unless, of course, you’d like to sound like an annoying salesman breathing down your subscriber’s neck.
Think about it: if someone bought a product today, they’re unlikely to buy something again too soon. So slow down on the offers. There’s a lot more you can do to engage your leads before they move on to another purchase.
It’s easier to know when prospects are ready to buy with a lead nurturing campaign in place. But if you’re not using lead nurturing, make sure to only send promotional emails after you’ve delivered plenty of informational content first.
Here are some promotional retail examples from Shopilicious and Manach.
Re-engagement Emails (or Win-Back Emails)
Regardless if you’re a brand-new business or a multimillion-dollar enterprise, you will collect more than a few inactive subscribers.
But hey, you can get some of them back. Some, not all. Which is better than nothing.
According to a study by Return Path, 45% of inactive subscribers who received re-engagement emails read future emails. Nice.
Try it yourself. Bring dormant subscribers back by crafting a heartfelt win-back email like this one from Framebridge:
You should also swallow your pride and keep an “unsubscribe” button visible. Accepting that some people aren’t promising leads is easier than nurturing hope. That’s your sign to gather fresh leads instead of holding on to stale ones.
Segment Your Email List
Email list segmentation is one of the most instrumental approaches to email marketing these days. It’s your chance to only send relevant content to each subscriber based on their buying preferences and demographics.
The one and only Hubspot improved their click-through rate (CTR) by 583% after implementing a segmented email campaign.
You could be next.
To segment your email list, you’ll need to collect data to create focused segments and deliver personalized content to each. For this topic, we’ll assume you already have a firm grasp of who your customer personas are. If not, you might want to define them before you start segmenting your list.
You also might want to group your subscribers by age, gender, location, job title, personal preferences and goals. Stay in the know about their behavioral patterns in other sites by gathering their personal data using website cookies, which will help you deliver a personalized marketing experience. If they accept the cookies, that is.
Understanding their personal preferences and what they expect from your emails is easy. Before a potential lead opts into your email list, ask them what kind of content they’d like to receive in their inbox, like this:
By creating content that meets your subscribers’ needs, you’re more likely to get higher rates.
Focus on Branded Email Layouts
Feel like ruining your entire branding? Play around with fun email templates like there’s no tomorrow.
Drag-and-drop email templates have been the greatest invention since the microwave. Still, they also gave people the freedom to try different things out and, sometimes, ignore their branding.
The slightest change in copy, color, and images can create a disconnect in the minds of potential customers. You’ve worked hard to develop a brand people will recognize, so it pays to stay consistent with your branding throughout all marketing channels.
This also applies to display ads, by the way.
For reference, look at Grammarly’s website homepage…
And now, look at their promotional emails:
Clean Your Email List Often
No response to your win-back campaigns? No need to pout.
If you’ve been noticing a few subscribers haven’t engaged with your emails in, say, three months, they just might not care. And that’s fine.
What’s not fine is the fact that a cluttered list can make both your open and click-through rates hit rock bottom. Oh, and your bounce rates could reach an all-time high. You don’t want that, or having your emails being marked as spam.
At the end of the day, email marketing is about connecting your brand to leads who are more likely to become customers. You’ll only want to keep the real ones in your email list, so a clean-up will do you (and your brand) good.
How often is often, though?
If you want to pull a Neil Patel, you could give your list a scrub every week. But you know you don’t have to, so doing it every three months works. As long as you stick with it, of course. At mailfloss, we do it for you in real-time automagically. It's set and forget and takes 60 seconds to setup. /endplug
Don’t Do Email Marketing in a Vacuum
Speaking of dead subscribers, someone staying subscribed to your list isn’t the same as them opening your emails. They could still be scrolling past them, however.
Most of the time, hearing the truth from the source is the best move you can make. Don’t be shy to ask for feedback. Even though knowing where and how you can improve might not bring those subscribers back, you’ll be improving the experience of upcoming subscribers. All you have to do is ask, and every input counts.
A simple subject line such as “can you help me with this?” goes a long way. If you think you’re unlikely to receive answers, try giving a discount code or a freebie to anyone who helps you out. After all, their opinion is valuable to you.
And of Course, You Can’t Do Any of This Without the Right Software
If it all sounds too overwhelming, this is your reminder that you’ll only do a fraction of the work. In short, you’ll do the thinking, and technology will keep tabs on automation, AKA the job no one wants to do.
Tools like Mailchimp, GetResponse, ConvertKit, and many others are available to create a seamless experience for your company, your small team, or just yourself. You can give them a test drive before committing to them and deciding if they’re the right bet.
The thing with email marketing tools is: some people are too worried that they won’t get enough value for the price they’re paying.
Well, if you currently have up to 1,000 subscribers, you’re in luck. That number is the golden ticket to a lot of free versions. If you have more, congrats for bearing that long without a marketing tool. Now, run straight to G2 and view unbiased opinions from people who’ve had enough time to review the products.
Closing Thoughts
There might be one or more reasons why your email marketing isn’t working for you. Perhaps you haven’t been matching your emails to your subscribers’ expectations, you haven’t been segmenting your email lists, or maybe your emails just look confusing and weird.
If any of the above has stopped you from reaching your desirable rates, there you have it. The solutions to (almost) all of your problems.
Just a final reminder: as soon as your email notification becomes important to someone, they’ll instantly stop what they’re doing.
Thursday, October 21, 2021
DailyStory Email Verification is here!
If you’re looking for a DailyStory email verifier, look no further because mailfloss has you covered with our DailyStory integration. Email verification for DailyStory is important mainly for three important reasons, all related to maximizing your email ROI and profits. email verification helps you get your emails delivered to more real people because it increases […]
The post DailyStory Email Verification is here! appeared first on mailfloss.
source https://mailfloss.com/dailystory-email-verification-is-here/
DailyStory email verification options using mailfloss
If you’re using mailfloss for DailyStory email verification, you have five options at your disposal. Before explaining the four options, make sure you have properly connected DailyStory to mailfloss. You only need to do this once and from then on mailfloss will be able to automatically perform email verification for the connected DailyStory account. Here’s a screenshot of […]
The post DailyStory email verification options using mailfloss appeared first on mailfloss.
source https://mailfloss.com/dailystory-email-verification-options-using-mailfloss/
Thursday, September 30, 2021
How To Clean Email Lists With DailyStory
Getting started cleaning your email lists with DailyStory is easy with mailfloss. Once DailyStory is connected, you can let mailfloss automatically clean your emails lists with DailyStory going forward. Here’s how to do that. Step 1. Visit the integrations page Visit the integrations page by clicking on “Integrations” in the left sidebar. […]
The post How To Clean Email Lists With DailyStory appeared first on mailfloss.
source https://mailfloss.com/connect-dailystory-mailfloss/
Thursday, September 16, 2021
7 Quick Ways to Boost Your Email Marketing Results
If you’re a quick-fix aficionado and are looking to improve your email marketing results, you’ve come to the right place. While it may sound a bit controversial to expect quick solutions for lasting results, these are genuinely quick strategies to implement and start seeing results from your email marketing efforts.
The post 7 Quick Ways to Boost Your Email Marketing Results appeared first on mailfloss.
source https://mailfloss.com/7-quick-ways-to-boost-your-email-marketing-results/
7 Quick Ways to Boost Your Email Marketing Results
If you’re a quick-fix aficionado and are looking to improve your email marketing results, you’ve come to the right place.
While it may sound a bit controversial to expect quick solutions for lasting results, these are genuinely quick strategies to implement and start seeing results from your email marketing efforts.
Before stepping in, we’d love to remind you that marketing is subjective. What could take longer to show results for one person could take less time for someone else. It’s a matter of who your audience is, the industry you’re in, and the amount of competition you have in your hands.
That little disclaimer will probably make some of you mad, but that’s alright. Our goal here is to give you the best advice without fooling anybody.
We’ll be looking at 7 quick strategies that will show you the numbers you’ve been expecting. The fixes involve:
- Subject lines
- Preheader text
- Responsive templates
- Personalization
- Send times
- Email addresses
- CTAs and Links
Keep reading to learn how to boost your email marketing results.
Tweak and Test Your Subject Lines
A sexy subject line that gets cursors hovering over it before clicking is the type you’re looking for. As expected, there are a few quick rules you must follow.
What’s the optimal length for a subject line, you ask?
Short.
But if you’re into specifics, 8 words. Don’t get too caught up on this number, though. The reason your subject line should be around 8 words is simple: it shouldn’t be cut off by an ellipsis.
If that happens, the most enticing part of your subject line (if there is one) could be hidden behind three dots. That’s a shame because we’re sure you crafted a killer email no one bothered to open.
Let’s get to the examples. The following subject lines come mostly from writers, but bear in mind they work wonders for any industry.
A good subject line should:
Entice curiosity. It should jump out at you. It should make you say “Wait, what? Why? How?”.
Examples:
- “my underwear was out” - Marie Forleo from The Copy Cure
- “I’m pretty much f*cked” - Cole Schafer from Honey Copy
Hint to a solution (or more than one). Your prospect has a pain point that needs to be solved. They’re suffering with it. Your subject line should offer a solution--but only if they open the email. And use emojis every now and again, they’re fun.
Examples:
- “NEVER burn out again *fire emoji*” - Marie Forleo from The Copy Cure
- “3 practical tips to improve your rankings! *rocket emoji*” - Yoast
Present a mouthwatering offer or discount. Who doesn’t love discounts, right? If well-written, this type of subject line will stick out like a sore thumb.
Examples:
- “Today $197 - Tomorrow $497” - Rebecca Matter
- “*mind-blown emoji* 50% discount on our UX Writing Essentials course” - UX Writing Hub
Create urgency. Something needs your subscriber’s attention immediately. Make sure they notice it.
- “5 writing projects needed now” - American Writers and Artists Institute (AWAI)
- “Last call to snag these 20+ courses, trainings, and guides” - Cheryl Binnie from Copy Luv
Or maybe, scarcity. If you give your subs a chance to think for a minute longer, they might lose it. Don’t be a jerk--let them know!
- “1 Spot Left - TV Series Pitch Document Writing Lab” - Amanda Toney from Stage 32
- “Few Hours Left - This Ship Is About To Sail” - The Long Tail Pro Team
Tap into a fear of loss. Fear can be one hell of a powerful emotion in the right circumstances. Sometimes, people will only value something when it’s gone. Or almost gone.
- “I’m deleting your Envira account” - Envira
- “This is goodbye” - Matt Bockenstette
You’ll probably come up with more than one subject line for a single email, and that’s exactly what you’re supposed to do. How to know which one will get the highest rates?
With tools like ActiveCampaign, split testing your subject lines and choosing the winner is easy.
Of course, you can go without a tool as well. Send the same email with different subject lines to different (and small) sections of your email list. See which section showed the highest open rate, and send the winning subject line out to your entire list.
Add and Optimize Preheader Texts
A book’s title is an open door. What invites you to enter is the opening line.
An opening line must be interesting enough so folks will continue reading. it should be something like the beginning of Metamorphosis by Kafka.
The same goes to emails and preheader texts.
Preheader text, snippet, you name it. This short yet mighty description digs deeper into what the email is about. The subject line alone should do the job of making subscribers click. But in case it doesn’t, the preheader text could step in and save the day.
Here’s a mobile example from a welcome email sent by BeardBrand.
“A kickass offer just for you.”
A kickass offer? Just for me? I’m in.
Here’s another one from Matt Bockenstette.
“Our free gift to you.”
To keep the subject line short and sweet, the preheader does the job of letting us know there’s a free gift inside. Enough said.
If code freaks you out, you can add preheader text to your emails using your email marketing software. Note that not all of them will let you do this, but if you’re looking for an option, ActiveCampaign is a good one.
Make Responsive Templates a Rule
If a subscriber has opened your email, don’t ruin your conversion chances by presenting a confusing template.
It’s worth reinforcing that most email opens are done on mobile devices. 81% of emails, to be exact. With that in mind, making your templates responsive isn’t something you should be negotiating at this point.
Do you wear Crocs?
Interestingly, Crocs ran a split-test to measure the results of their newly created responsive email templates. Note that this was back in 2013. Responsive design was just starting to gain momentum, and marketers were testing it out like cavemen discovering fire.
Here’s what they did:
They sent the same email to two different groups of people: Group A and Group B.
Only, Group A received a responsive email design, which looked like this:
And Group B received a static desktop version, which looked like this:
The result? A 7.66% increase in the click-to-open rate (CTOR), which measures the number of unique clicks your email gets divided by how many unique opens it gets. In short, it’s an elite metric that calculates how effectively your email performed.
Mind you, this was 8 years ago. If you still haven’t implemented responsive templates to your emails, you’re almost a decade late. Your template design must work together with the rest of your email marketing strategies to guarantee the best results.
Personalize Your Emails
According to 74% of marketers, targeted personalization can increase customer engagement rates.
It’s all fun and games until someone starts their emails with a subscriber’s first name and calls it a day. Anyone can call you by your first name.
Including someone’s first name on a subject line or body text is a facet of personalization, but it’s far from the whole picture.
Just as a side note, companies may accidentally send something like this:
Ouch.
Although it’s clearly a glitch, it’s...kinda hurtful. While the recipient knows they’re not the only one who gets a personalized subject line, this just reminds them they’re part of an automated process. So be careful.
Lesson learned: personalization goes beyond a first name greeting. It’s about sending content that warms your recipient’s heart because that email looks like it was created just for them. And it was.
Do you know why brands like Function of Beauty are famous? Because they personalize your shampoo and conditioner. It’s yours, no one else’s. Your name or nickname on the bottle is just an additional flamboyance. Not any less cool, though.
Do you know why we love doing those BuzzFeed tests? Because we’re going to get a personalized answer based on our previous choices. And no matter how stupid some of them may seem, they still get us hooked.
How to do the same for your emails?
A great first step is to survey potential leads who enter your website. A question as simple as “what brings you here?” can help you deliver targeted content in case they go through your lead magnet.
What’s more, keep tabs on their browsing activity. Users love to be offered products that match their previous purchases and personal taste. This works well when sent as a trigger email for an abandoned cart, like Asics did here:
Another cool thing to do is sending trigger emails on important dates, like a subscriber’s birthday or anniversary with your brand.
Also, be nice and slide a coupon in there. They deserve it. Venus here did it right:
Know Your Best Email Send Times
The folks at GetResponse went ahead and analyzed over 2 million emails in 2020 to find the answer to “what’s the best time to send emails for high open rates?”.
It’s a behemoth of a guide, you should check it out.
And the answer is...drum rolls...
There’s no correct answer.
The good news is, there are margins you can follow. First, your open rates will depend on:
- Your audience’s habits
- Your industry
- Your audience’s location
- Your location
- Any seasonal changes
Since you’re looking for the go-to answer for the best global send times, here you go.
“A rule of thumb suggests that aiming your emails to go out between 8 am and 5 pm is a safe bet”, Michal Leszczynski wrote.
Also according to their findings, email open rates are generally lower on weekends. And the winner days to send emails are Friday for higher open rates, and Thursday for higher click-through rates.
Still, you can only obtain accurate results by measuring your own email CTRs. For instance, if you notice your audience usually opens emails at 6 am, it’s safe to send them early in the morning. In this case, it doesn’t make sense to wait until around 8 am when a lot of other emails could be topping their notifications.
You can simplify things by making use of timing features available in email marketing softwares. Tools like GetResponse’s Perfect Timing feature will skip the guesswork and send your emails when your audience is most likely to open them and take action.
Don’t Ignore Your Subscribers
In other words, forget “noreply” email addresses. Do you have any idea of how many unsuspecting subscribers are still looking out at a rainy window, waiting for a response from your noreply address? Possibly a lot.
Here are a few ways you can fix it and make subscribers more likely to reach out to you.
Instead of sending emails by the name of your company, have a friendly-faced team member do it. A real person looks way more approachable.
At the end of every email, let subscribers know how and where to reach you. If possible, add a signature to verify that you or a team member are who you say you are.
Not trying to demand a lot from you, but make an effort to reply to all messages. That’ll show subscribers you’re committed to solving their problems, which builds trust around your brand.
If that could take a while, be open about it in advance. Tell them how many hours or days it could take for you to reply. Whatever you do, don’t leave them hanging.
Make Important Links Visible
Wanna see an overly exaggerated illustration of this point?
Mistakes were made in this email. A lot of mistakes were made. But the one worth pointing out is...
Don’t bury your CTAs. Don’t make them compete with one another. That thing above reeks of desperation--as you can see, or can’t see, there are several CTAs. Some are visible, some are not. Register, register, register!
If you need someone to click an important link, make them stand out. Multiple CTAs aren’t a problem by any means, but the person above has created a monster.
Here’s the right way to add multiple CTAs to your emails and invite people to click them instead of chasing them away.
Pay Attention to What Isn’t Working, and Ask How You Could Improve
As much as we’d love to tell you there are ready-made recipes to know what’s working for your business, the quickest and most effective way to do that is by tracking your email analytics.
Great, more work.
Not really. With a great email marketing platform by your side, you’ll be receiving personalized reports showing most of, if not all of the data you need to be tracking.
But since reinforcing your knowledge doesn’t hurt, let’s see what these metrics are:
- The click-through rate (CTR): the percentage of people who clicked on a call-to-action or link inside the email, which is a good thing. An average email CTR should be 2.5%.
- The bounce rate: refers to the percentage of email addresses that didn’t get your email because the reach was unsuccessful. An acceptable bounce rate should be lower than 2%. Use a good email verifier to keep it low.
- The conversion rate: this is the percentage of subscribers who take action from your email, such as buying a product or registering for a webinar. There’s no single “best” conversion rate to work with here, but you can find your industry below and determine your average.
- The open rate: the percentage of subscribers who opened an email campaign you sent. A good open rate should be between 15% and 25%.
- The unsubscribe rate: also known as the most hurtful metric, the unsubscribe rate is the percentage of subs who have decided to quit your email list. If your rate is below 0.5%, that means you’re good for now.
- The return on investment (ROI): your email marketing ROI refers to the profitable percentage you got out of your investment in a campaign. The average email marketing ROI is 122%, according to eMarketer.
If people aren’t engaging with your emails as you’d like them to, applying the tips from this article and measuring upcoming results is a great way to start.
Is there anything else you can do? Yep, there is.
An alternative is to survey your subscribers and ask them what they would like to see in their inbox. You could also ask for a minute of their time to gather constructive feedback about their experience.
Some of you recoil from listening to feedback and it shows. Ever thought that might be the reason why you’re unhappy with your rates? Hmmm?
Closing thoughts
Email marketing, or any type of marketing, for that matter, is all about “it depends.” It depends on the business you’re in, who your audience is, and whether you use email marketing tools. Above all else, it’s about fixing what’s wrong, and improving what’s right.
These tips are as quick as quick can possibly get. The results may come just as quickly. If they don’t, keep an eye out for your email analytics and feedback from your contacts. Test and tweak. Watch what happens.
Thursday, July 15, 2021
Why Lead Generation is the Ultimate Goal for Your Email Marketing
Lead generation is an important activity for any business. No leads means no new business. In this guide, we'll show you why lead generation is the ulimate goal for your email marketing, and also show you exactly how to do it right.
The post Why Lead Generation is the Ultimate Goal for Your Email Marketing appeared first on mailfloss.
source https://mailfloss.com/lead-generation-email-marketing/
Why Lead Generation is the Ultimate Goal for Your Email Marketing
Go ahead and try to pump water out of a dry well. Any dunderhead knows it won’t happen because there’s nothing to draw out of there in the first place.
It’s the same thing with lead generation. You won’t have customers if you don’t generate quality leads, first. Email marketing is one of the several ways to do that--one of the best, for that matter.
It’s not just an inexpensive lead generation tool anyone can master. It’s also the most effective way of connecting with your customers, sending exclusive content, offers, and driving sales that way.
It helps if you ask yourself why you’re doing email marketing in the first place. It’s not because it’s fun. It’s because you want to earn more subscribers you can nurture and convert to customers in the future.
Your mind must be all over the place at this point. How to attract leads? How to prioritize them? How to increase their chances of buying? Gaaaaah!
Don’t fret. You’ll learn these and other mysteries of the lead universe in just a minute. But as a rule, we’ll go with the most important questions first.
(Feel free to scroll down, we don’t mind.)
Why Lead Generation is the #1 Thing You Want to Get Out of Your Email Marketing Efforts.
Emails can be ideal lead generation tools for a myriad reasons.
Quick facts you’ve already seen (but repeating them won’t hurt anyone):
Email marketing is inexpensive, offers an average ROI of $44, and connects well with audiences through personalized content. Oh, and you can make it a breeze with automation, too. Phew.
Here’s some proof, in case you were wondering.
When asked about email marketing, 81% of B2B fellas say they rely on it for lead generation.
It’s easy to see why. Instead of blasting customers with information they’ll ignore, lead gen gives them a chance to come to you, sit down, and consider the offer. If you’re successful, congratulations. You’ve got customers.
Still Not Convinced? Here’s Something Else That Might Change Your Mind
Back in the day, CEO of QuickSprout Lars Lofgren, (who has one hell of a cool name), led the marketing team of I Will Teach You to Be Rich. If you don’t know what it is, it’s financial advisor Ramit Sethi’s website. He’s also written a book of the same name, by the way.
You might recognize Ramit from the following subscription confirmation:
This collaboration resulted in a little case study titled “How to Get 40,000 Leads Per Month”, and email was a big part of it.
Tweaks to their double opt-in page (the funny one above) increased conversion rates from 63% to 82%. That means there was an increase in email opt-in rates, thus generating more leads he could nurture via email. It’s a double confirmation, so the folks who subscribed were positive about receiving his business tips on their inbox.
Moral of the story--frowny Ramit disappeared, but leads filed in. All it took were a few simple changes. Here’s how the new subscription page turned out:
But, Lead Generation Alone Isn’t Enough.
Nothing’s ever enough, is it?
Listen. People don’t do email marketing with the purpose of...doing marketing.
Sure, a percentage of their revenue goes to marketing tools and marketing research, but you get the point. Doing marketing for the sake of marketing would be like walking in circles and never going anywhere.
“The most effective lead generation strategies don’t just optimize around generating more leads. They optimize around generating the leads that are most likely to convert to valuable customers”, Kelly Farrell wrote in a LinkedIn lead generation case study.
That said, not all leads are prospect material. Plus, they’re not in their final form yet. There’s still an extra mile to go if you want them to convert into paying, happy customers.
That doesn’t happen overnight, though. Generating leads still means you’ve got to nurture them so they turn into quality leads, then prospects, and then, hopefully, customers.
Without proper nurturing and great content, leads won’t grow. And the only thing that’s good for you if it doesn’t grow is a sprout salad. Right?
So, we’ve got two questions here:
1- How do you generate leads?
2- Most importantly, how do you generate qualified leads?
Let’s answer them below. Take note.
Make Your Lead Magnets Irresistible
Remember in older cartoons when a hand-shaped smoke scent would swirl up in the air and drag characters towards the big ol’ roast chicken?
That’s what your lead magnets should do. Only, they should drag leads toward your email list, where the goodies are at.
Lead magnets can be checklists, PDFs, ebooks, cheat sheets, guides, templates...people love those when they’re free and easy to put their hands on.
Still, a lead magnet has to be worth being added to yet another email list. It has to be enticing, to-the-point, and offer something people will remember you for.
DigitalMarketer did this well by including a few fascinations on what potential subscribers will get from their offer. It’s much easier to accept gifts from strangers when you know what’s to come.
Take a look:
Now these are some swipe-worthy fascinations. They’re short enough to skim through, yet detailed enough to perk up a few ears. Nice.
Keep Your Email List Updated
Sometimes you just need to let go of some people like you did to most of your high school friends.
Wanna hear a sad truth?
Those inactive subscribers lingering in your email list aren’t there because they’re such fans they won’t unsubscribe. They’re there because they have nothing better to do. Sorry to break it to you, but if any of your nurturing sequences or offers were of interest to them, they would’ve taken action long ago.
Keeping your email list updated is an act of love, you know. If someone isn’t interested, nothing in the world can help you win them back. So move on and clean that sh*t up, already.
Cold as it may sound, deleting disengaged contacts from your email list will do wonders for your lead generation strategy. After all, you’ll only keep active subscribers. The subscribers are known as those who are more likely to read your newsletters, click your calls-to-action, and buy your products. Those are the ones you want to keep around. And you’ll definitely want to remove invalid email addresses with a good email verification solution.
Pro tip: just going out with the old and in with the new is the wrong strategy if your email content isn’t engaging enough. Maybe you’re the problem. You may not be segmenting your list or applying email marketing best practices. Just a little something for you to think about.
Perform Lead Scoring
Again, not all leads are created equal. You’ve got the ready-to-buy leads, as well as the not-quite-there-yet leads. You can tell one from another by performing lead scoring.
Lead scoring is all about, you guessed it, ranking your leads and discovering where they stand in the sales funnel. To determine a lead’s score, you should consider and track the following:
- Lead demographics (age, location, job title, etc.).
- Their behavioral criteria (or the way they browse your website. Is it through forms? Lead magnets? Email? Social media?).
- The products they look at.
And then segment them. That way you can easily tell leads that have a long nurturing journey ahead of them from those who are ripe to buy something.
Wait, are we treating leads like cattle now? That’s rude.
Although it may sound like leads are just numbers, this is just a simple way to organize them and cater to what they’re more likely to respond to.
An example. Say a prospect is checking out one of your products, but never buying it or adding it to their shopping cart. You could use email to shoot a discount at them: 20% off of that and related products. How about that?
We’re not going to dive extra deep into lead scoring--that’s a chat for another post. But hopefully, you now know how important it is to rank your leads so please segment your email subscribers accordingly.
Introduce Subscribers to Your Other Channels
Email is a mad growth hacking tool.
Your newsletters are the ideal place to show off by linking to your social media, articles, podcast episodes, landing pages, and more. Everyone can agree that, if it wasn’t for email, no one would ever know what any business is up to.
Here’s how Bonusly encourages subscribers to read their articles:
The chunk of text leading to a cliffhanger is enough to entice the targeted subscriber’s curiosity. If they wish to read the article, they can go ahead and click that bright and juicy CTA.
Now, if they’re interested in something else, Bonusly doesn’t leave them hanging. They offer a few more options, giving another chance for readers to move further down the funnel. Pretty interesting.
The “let’s get social” type of email is also a nice way to go about it. Here’s Nordstrom doing its thing:
There you have it. Each of their socials lined up, followed by every blog where they can get insider tips. Plus, an encouraging footer bonus: free shipping and free returns.
Considered that this type of email should go out to fresh subscribers, an increase in traffic wouldn’t be surprising.
Or, you can do it the other way around. Intercom went straight to Twitter to promote their email newsletter:
40,000 is a big number. If that many people are reading that newsletter, it has to be good.
And that’s on successfully increasing your email list using social media.
Email Marketing Lead Generation is the Heavyweight Securing Your Business. Or At Least, It Should Be.
In short conclusion, reaching your desired lead count will depend on a few key points:
- How seductively you grab your leads through magnets.
- Making sure you’ve only got raving fans in your email list.
- Rating leads from hot to not (yet).
- Last but not least, taking leads where the interesting conversations happen.
Got it? Good.
Let’s close this out with something inspirational.
Another guy with a really cool name, Colin Nederkoorn (aka the founder of Customer.io) said something you should repeat to yourself every morning:
“If you’re running a real business, email is still the most effective way to universally reach people who have expressed interest in your product or site. For that, it really can’t be beat.”
Straight up.
How has email marketing helped your lead gen efforts? Drop a comment below.
Tuesday, June 15, 2021
Monday, June 14, 2021
Iterable Email Verification is here!
If you’re looking for a Iterable email verifier, look no further because mailfloss has you covered with our Iterable integration. Email verification for Iterable is important mainly for three important reasons, all related to maximizing your email ROI and profits. email verification helps you get your emails delivered to more real people because it increases […]
The post Iterable Email Verification is here! appeared first on mailfloss.
source https://mailfloss.com/iterable-email-verification-is-here/
Iterable email verification options using mailfloss
If you’re using mailfloss for Iterable email verification, you have five options at your disposal. Before explaining the four options, make sure you have properly connected Iterable to mailfloss. You only need to do this once and from then on mailfloss will be able to automatically perform email verification for the connected Iterable account. Here’s a screenshot of […]
The post Iterable email verification options using mailfloss appeared first on mailfloss.
source https://mailfloss.com/iterable-email-verification-options-using-mailfloss/
How To Clean Email Lists With Iterable
Getting started cleaning your email lists with Iterable is easy with mailfloss. Once Iterable is connected, you can let mailfloss automatically clean your emails lists with Iterable going forward. Here’s how to do that. Step 1. Visit the integrations page Visit the integrations page by clicking on “Integrations” in the […]
The post How To Clean Email Lists With Iterable appeared first on mailfloss.
source https://mailfloss.com/connect-iterable-mailfloss/
5 Deadly Email Marketing Mistakes to Avoid
Email marketing mistakes are a dime a dozen. Some are worse than others and can absolutely sink your email marketing efforts. Do not commit these email marketing mistakes. It's for your own good. Instead, we'll show you how to do it right.
The post 5 Deadly Email Marketing Mistakes to Avoid appeared first on mailfloss.
source https://mailfloss.com/email-marketing-mistakes/
5 Deadly Email Marketing Mistakes to Avoid
The mistakes about to be mentioned are, in fact, deadly.
Deadly to your brand, to your marketing efforts. To your dignity, maybe.
They’re the reason people hate emails and often ignore them. Even if one of the subject lines said “just open this email to get a million dollars”, they would still not open it. They’re exhausted at this point. Plus, an average of over 100 business emails a day means they’ve seen it all and some.
Email marketing can be a thrill at first. You’re discovering so many templates and innovative techniques, it feels like first-time Disneyworld all over again. Especially for beginners, going overboard with what should be avoided (ahem, spamming) is a lot easier.
But that ends now.
How about making these folks’ lives easier from here on out? Maybe even getting them back to reading their emails for pleasure while they sip coffee in the morning?
If you’re a new or seasoned marketer, it doesn’t matter. Stick around, there’s gold down here.
We’re going to have a deeper look at:
- Why you should always greet your subscribers, no matter how useless it sounds.
- The right way to create email preview panels, and what to include on them.
- How not to manipulate your audience.
- Why letting your subscribers have the upper-hand makes you a hero.
- And lastly, how to avoid making your emails look like street signs.
Let’s dive right in.
Forgetting to Welcome Your Subscribers
Welcoming people is etiquette 101.
Still, 41% of brands never send a welcome email within the first 48 hours of subscription, according to Active Campaign. Two days gone by, and not even a “hello”.
You know what that looks like? Neglect. If you met that person in real life they might be one of those snobs who look at you with their nose up in the air.
Unless, of course, you’re one of them and have no idea they should be sending welcome emails in the first place. In this case, you’re forgiven.
If that’s “just who you are”, here’s something else for you to think about. What’s the email that consistently gets the highest open rate of all campaigns you’ve ever sent?
It’s not the one with the big discount or the one with the most clever of subject lines. It’s the welcome email.
Why? Because a welcome email comes right after someone has just converted into a subscriber, and they want to know what’s in store for them. Whether their subscription will be worth it or if they might as well unsubscribe while they’re at it. It’s really a decisive time, so your welcome emails should be well-planned.
The basic rules of a great welcome email are:
- Say a warm, honest welcome. Tell them you’re glad to have them join the party, because you are.
- Tell them what to expect from your content. Will they receive weekly exclusive articles? Special offers? Be crystal clear, and make it sound exciting.
- If you’re in ecommerce, a welcome coupon won’t hurt anyone.
Take this perfect example from Headspace:
The guys from Headspace are congratulating you for making one of the best decisions of your life. They’re also letting you know what you currently have access to, how it works, and what to expect after you’ve tried it out.
That’s how you do it.
Not Using Email Preview Panels to Hook Readers
If you haven’t yet enabled your preview panels, you should.
As of now, you know the elements at the top of a page are high-priority when it comes to grabbing or deterring someone’s attention. The same goes to subject lines and the text that follows.
What makes a good preview, you ask?
Well, the best message previews (or preheader texts) are so sharp they could cut someone. Just like meta tags, they’re your “second chance” at winning a reader in case the subject line alone doesn’t suffice. In a few more words, you get to briefly expand on the contents of the email while enticing subscribers to open it.
On desktop, preview panes look like this:
While on mobile, they look like the examples you’ll see below.
You have between 40 and 130 characters to make a statement for both mobile and desktop users. Copy Legends founder Matt Bockenstette always seems to use this count wisely. Take a look.
“Just 361 words (and 20,000 customers per day)”.
Short email, big reward. Sign me up, Scotty!
As you can see, numbers play a leading role in grabbing a reader’s attention. Especially if it’s something that will be worth their time, such as:
- Offers (up to 50% off, free shipping)
- Large, shiny numbers (20,000 customers per day)
- Clever, curiosity-driven copy.
Speaking of curiosity.
This subject line is curiosity-inducing. It's followed by an even more puzzling preview panel. And this works incredibly well for people who are interested in Matt’s content. And if they’re subscribers, you’d guess they are. And boy, it works.
It works because let’s face it: this kind of subject line is a bit worn out at this point. The whip hand is what comes below.
If he’d just grabbed an excerpt of the content and used it as a preview it wouldn't be as effective. This would be just the generic email you’d scroll by. Instead, he added to the curiosity by including something related to the subject line that builds interest.
So, how can you add a preview panel to your emails?
If you can code, good for you. It’s possible to add preheader text to your emails using HTML and CSS code. But why complicate things, right? Great email marketing software out there will let you customize your preview panels and be out the door in a minute.
Always make sure to preview your preheader before sending, by the way. Make sure it looks good, and ask yourself if you would open that if you were an oblivious reader.
Tricking Subscribers With Misleading Marketing Messages
This shouldn’t even be a caveat, but here we go: always deliver on the promises you make on subject lines and preheader texts. Don’t just make them frilly to encourage clicks and disappoint readers when they don’t get what they clicked for.
Marketing is one hell of a persuasion tool, you know.
Many of histories' most powerful people were persuasive. Both heroes and tyrants, alike.
This is no joke. Some people know damn well how marketing works and use it to trick their subscribers, which is a cheap move.
And although some promises might look inoffensive on the surface, they’re still misleading at the core. And they could vanquish customers’ trust if they ever find out they’re being manipulated. You don’t want to go for that.
Here’s an example of a not-so-harmless type of subject line. There you are, deciding which emails to ignore, when you come across something along the lines of:
“Overstock: Fresh Titles For Only $8,99!”
Only, it comes from an ebook store. You can’t...you can’t overstock ebooks.
They won’t use up any “digital space”. So it’s clear that whoever came up with that is making a fool out of their customers.
They might win their business once, but never again if customers are smart enough. That was a subtle one, but crafty emails of this nature are why people hate emails in the first place.
Even if smart technology is making people dumber, they’re still quick to judge a cunning email because they’ve got so many of them already.
Don’t be that person.
Sending a Gazillion Unsolicited Emails
Here’s another winner in the “why emails suck” department.
Get a load of this:
Email unsubscribes due to too many emails verge 50%. Ouch.
Listen, emails aren’t half as exciting as a Twitter mention or an “@ commented on your post” notification. The less cluttered someone’s inbox is, the better. People might be ignoring actually interesting emails because some spammer made them grow sick of them all.
The good news is, you can be a Good Samaritan and let subscribers choose how often they’d like to see your emails. Using a subscription management center (or preference center) for your email list is a great way to do this.
A subscription management center is a separate page where subscribers have full control over the content they choose to receive in their inbox. It also allows them to unsubscribe to your list altogether. If they want to leave, set them free!
Again, email software like MailChimp have sections dedicated to helping you create preference centers in a heartbeat. No coding skills required or anything. Most of our favourite picks have this feature, as well.
Now, see the difference between someone who spams you and someone who’s respectful of your decisions? It’s like a weight has been lifted.
Making Your Emails a Clusterf*ck of Information
Some people are proud to make their emails look just like LA street signs.
It’s just too much. Whatever you’re asking people to do, they’re not going to do it if they have no idea where to go next.
Emails should stick to a single message that leads to one (or more) visible CTAs. And by visible, we mean relatively large. Colorful. Well-placed. Like in the following webinar invite:
This one gets extra points because:
1- It’s a double CTA. You’ll see it often in webinar invitation emails--typically one CTA at the beginning and another at the end. There aren’t too many, but also enough to re-enforce the desired action, which gives readers another chance to click.
2- “Register Now!” in red. Genius.
And speaking of littering emails, here’s some friendly advice.
A lot of people hate images like this one right here:
They can’t stand it. Why? Because I’ve seen it everywhere. If you use cheesy stock photos that’ve been around the block in your emails, your subscribers will figure that you didn’t move a finger to create something original.
Avoid using this kind of image. You can find more authentic and high-quality pictures in online libraries like Unsplash and JumpStory.
Your Email Marketing Success Depends on You Not Making These Mistakes
Ignore them at your peril. Don't do email marketing if you aren’t willing to put your all into it--or pay someone to give their all. It’s one of the most inexpensive ways to generate leads and multiply your investment, so make it count.
Whether that’s a lead nurturing sequence, a welcome series, or a product launch, avoiding these email marketing mistakes will be key to your success.
So, congrats, you’re already ahead of unsuspecting marketers. Now that’s a fine job.
Are there any mistakes deadlier than the above? Let’s see them below.
Monday, May 24, 2021
Sunday, May 23, 2021
Ecommerce Email Marketing Guide for 2021
Ecommerce Email Marketing when done right is incredibly lucrative. If you are an ecommerce store and want some tips on how to make the most of your email marketing, read on to find out exactly how to do it.
The post Ecommerce Email Marketing Guide for 2021 appeared first on mailfloss.
source https://mailfloss.com/ecommerce-email-marketing/
Ecommerce Email Marketing Guide for 2021
These unprecedented times have rocked the world of marketing. You’ve read this a couple of times, haven’t you?
You’ve also had enough of the word “unprecedented”. It’s just a fancy way to say we’ve never seen anything like the impact of this crazy virus before.
Anyway. It’s true that people are on their phones and computers more than ever now that they shouldn’t leave the house. And guess what? They have more chances of seeing that shiny email notification of yours. But chances aren’t certainties. No worries, we’re here to help.
Let’s start this article with an equally overwhelming, yet not nearly as deadly news as COVID-19.
One number: 293 billion. Ish. That’s the number of emails sent every day, from every single platform to all kinds of people, for a variety of reasons. Have you any idea of how many of these emails go out to your customers? A lot. Do they open all of them? Absolutely not.
Moral of the story: you’ve got to fight hard for the click and everything that comes after.
First Things First: Without Email Marketing, You Won’t Sell a Thing.
Opening any email (unless it’s from Harvard or something) is hard enough as it is. But if it does get opened, it should be a slippery slide towards the purchase.
But don’t get too excited. Your customers won’t necessarily buy your products after the first promotional email sequence you launch. A concrete buying decision can take months. That’s how email marketing does its best work. By firing the right emails at the right time to the right people in hopes to achieve just that. Plus, there's a potentially huge ROI of $42 for every $1 spent.
We put together this guide to help you greatly increase your chances of getting your ecommerce emails opened, clicked on, and your products bought. Maybe they’ll even be used as examples in articles like this one. Trust us, we only share the good stuff.
Here you go.
From Now On, Only Use Responsive and Interactive Email Templates
To be more specific, kinetic email templates.
Your customers have probably interacted with one--but they have no idea what it’s called. It’s like listening to those famous classical music pieces and still not knowing who the hell composed it. All they know is that if they could choose, your customers would only see this type of email when buying anything.
Kinetic templates are fully responsive email templates with one difference: they’re interactive and look like a whole website in and of themselves. We could’ve just called them interactive designs, but whatever.
Anyway, here’s the ace in the hole: viewers won’t need to visit a bunch of pages to get where they need to be. If they need a carousel display to showcase many different products, they’ve got it right there. If they need to add contact information, multiple tabs, shopping carts, and the whole shebang, it’s there.
It’s much easier to buy something if there aren’t a lot of steps to go through, isn’t it?
Holistically speaking, the less they’ve got to do and the least tabs they need to open, the better.
Of course, these templates must be responsive, or else they’ll become a mess and their initial purpose goes down the drain. Emails should look great and flow easily regardless of the device. 46 percent of emails are opened on mobile, so if the Mobile First update still hasn’t jolted you awake yet, you’re lagging.
This interactive template from Adidas is mouthwatering. Here:
Let Artificial Intelligence Handle (More) Things
Every marketer knows the dreadful feeling of expecting news such as “AI has taken over the world. You’re all fired”. Every piece of news that remotely touches on how AI is worrying the authorities sends shivers down your whole body, doesn’t it?
The good news is, you can calm down for now. AI is the kind of robot we need, like the Iron Giant. Only, AI is sacrificing itself to give your ecommerce clickable and engaging emails. It’s been doing its thing for years, and without it, we wouldn’t have prestigious email marketing tools saving us hours of work.
Seize the opportunity to take advantage of AI through your favorite email marketing platform. When you use it right, you’ll make people interested in your ecommerce store because:
- You’ll be sending emails that target customers’ current state (active buyers, occasional buyers, cart-abandoners) instead of bombarding them with what will eventually end up in the trash.
- They’ll appreciate that you remember them on special dates like their birthday, or celebrate milestones with them (some of which they’re unaware of).
- You’ll rock personalized campaigns! Segmentation devotees saw a 14.3% increase in open rates and a 100.95% increase in click-through rates. MailChimp said it, so it’s legit.
What’s more, AI allows you to do powerful CPR on your customers by creating specific retargeting campaigns. Customers who have been “dead” for a while still have the opportunity to return as active/occasional buyers. Or it might not work and you'll lose them. Either way, you’ll have done your best.
The bottom line: embrace AI, and embrace your email marketing platforms. Not only does it boost engagement, but it might add extra zeros to your balance.
Create Accessible Emails
Has it ever occurred to you that some of your customers don’t see your emails because you don’t give them a chance to?
No, because you only think about yourself.
Think about it. How often do you see brands on Instagram captioning their pictures so that visually impaired customers might have a chance of seeing them, too? Not often.
How about emails? Maybe you’ve seen one or two, but didn’t even realize they were accessible. Pssst, that’s the goal.
Making emails accessible (as well as every piece of content you write) is your chance to make a difference. Especially when people out there neglect such an important matter. And it’s something you can do by tweaking a few simple things.
Here are a few things you can already apply to your next campaign to make it more accessible to customers:
- Try and use contrasting colors for button background and text. Tools like WebAIM’s Contrast Checker will help you with this.
- If you're adding information to images, be sure to include titles and links with the same purpose. Don’t worry about it looking “repetitive”.
- Use alt text as an opportunity to describe images in detail.
- Use descriptive anchor text for links. It’s your chance to abolish the old “click here”.
- Use content hierarchy. Your subscribers could be using screen-readers to read your content. And it’s much easier to prioritize sections and skim text when people know where to focus.
- Create read-worthy, conversational text. Not only is it great for accessibility, it also scores SEO points and it’s one of the requirements for great voice search optimization.
When you give more people a chance to access your content--and if it’s interesting enough for them--they’ll absolutely appreciate what you’re doing. Do it not for brand recognition only, but also as a way to be kinder to your community.
Look at this example:
The image on the left is optimized for accessibility, while the one on the right is not. See how the button colors contrast with the background? See how there’s information on the image, but also a title and a CTA button right below it? That’s what we’re talking about.
Give User-Generated Content the Attention It Deserves
One of the most indispensable marketing books of all time was written by Dr. Robert Cialdini, and it’s called Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. This book explains about the five “weapons” of persuasion, one of them being social proof.
Arguably, there’s no better social proof than user-generated content. Because let’s face it, if 9 out of 10 people chant “this product sucks!” to the four winds of the internet. You most likely won’t purchase the product in question and look for something else. After all, the people have spoken.
Brands are inherently biased. Potential customers want to hear from those who waited days or weeks for a product to arrive. They want to see the reactions of people who have touched it and smelled it and had a whole experience with it.
It’s no wonder consumers are 2.4 times more likely to view user-generated content as authentic. Wouldn’t you?
These emails are perfect for when you need a boost in brand trust. Ironically, it turns the attention away from the brand, leaving the limelight to loyal customers. Here are a few expert to nail UGC in your upcoming campaigns:
- Don’t be afraid to show off your best reviews.
- Feature customer photos. You’ll want to avoid influencers for this one as we already know they’re paid to praise products. You’re looking for authenticity, and so are your skeptical customers.
- You can also encourage them to use hashtags on Instagram if they’d like to be featured.
The following example from West Elm rugs aced two of the above.
In all cases, you’ll want to ask for permission to feature personal photos and reviews. Be sure to include the customer’s social media handle, as well. Just a heads up.
Focus on Customer Retention (NOT Customer Acquisition)
If you only think about earning new customers, you’re doomed. Customer acquisition is relatively difficult, five times as costly, and won’t guarantee any purchases. Though it’s not certainly not ignorable, customer acquisition shouldn’t be your priority. Now, customer retention should.
When it comes to occasional and recurrent customers, you can be sure they’ll be buying something eventually if you pull the right triggers. They’re the ones who have purchased from you in the past. And the fact that they know and like your brand is a huge opportunity.
They’re advocates who contribute immensely to your brand through word-of-mouth and sharing, which 76 percent of people are more likely to trust.
Also, these people are making you the money you can use to optimize your marketing strategy. So they deserve all the love and attention you can give.
We have a behemoth of an article that breaks down powerful tips you should take to retain customers successfully, examples included. You’ll want to have a look at that if you’re dedicated to turning your ecommerce email marketing strategy around.
The Takeaway
In the foreseeable future, use this guide for your ecommerce marketing endeavors.
Granted, email marketing strategies are always mutating like the Coronavirus itself, but it’s still the email we’ve known for years. We might have a few points added here and there. But the nitty-gritty will remain: giving the right customers the right offers, at the right time.
Would you add any tips to help fellow marketers achieve their longed-for ecommerce goals this year? Comment below.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)