Tag Archives: email marketing best practices

Why You Should Use Responsive Email Marketing Strategies

Why You Should Use Responsive Email Marketing Strategies

You already know just how effective email marketing can be. Not only are you looking at an ROI in the region of $38 for every $1 you spend, but email also guarantees more traffic. Additionally, email improves customer loyalty and has other benefits that directly impact your bottom line. Now, you can extract even more juice from your emails by implementing a responsive email marketing campaign.

What is Responsive Email Marketing?

Similar to responsive web design, responsive email marketing means optimizing your emails for mobile devices.

According to multiple studies, the majority of emails are now opened on mobile. A recent Invesp report, for instance, shows that two out of three emails are opened on smartphones and tablets. To be specific, of all opened emails;

  • 49.53% are opened on smartphones
  • 16.81% are opened on tablets
  • 33.66% are opened on desktop

These people who open emails on their phones and tablets expect the messages to render seamlessly on their device screens. They don’t want to see broken images or sentences that run beyond the screen area.

Indeed, 70% of consumers immediately delete emails that don’t render correctly on their mobile screen. Worse still, 43% of consumers have previously marked an email as spam because the message didn’t display or work well on their mobile screen.

Responsive email marketing involves optimizing your emails for smartphones and tablets to achieve the best user experience.

Benefits of Responsive Email Marketing

As we’ve seen already, responsive email design significantly boosts user experience. With your improved user experience, your business stands to benefit in the following ways;

Higher email open rates

Smart Insights researched open rates in responsive vs. nonresponsive email campaigns. The results show that for nonresponsive emails, the average open rate on mobile is 51.7%. But, as soon as you optimize your emails for mobile, the average open rate jumps to 57.2%.

That’s an increase of about 10.63% or one more person opening your emails on mobile for every ten responsive emails sent.

Higher click-through rates

More enjoyable user experience can also significantly boost click-through rates. The above-mentioned Smart Insights study shows that marketers with responsive design get 58% of their clicks from mobile devices, whereas for those with nonresponsive design, only 46% of clicks come from mobile. It means that optimizing your emails for mobile can increase your click-through rate by up to 24%.

The first link in a responsive email, for instance, gets 30% more clicks compared to one in a nonresponsive email.

More sales/conversions

Obviously, an increase in your open and click-through rates will likely translate into more sales/conversions. But there’s more. A fully responsive email campaign also involves optimizing your landing pages for mobile. When you optimize the entire email marketing process, including landing pages, expect a sharp increase in conversions.

There are two reasons why. First, most people now make their purchases on mobile. Secondly, once you optimize for mobile, you remove most of the impediments that might prevent the consumer from following through to conversion.

Reduced unsubscribe rates and spam complaints

Finally, optimizing your email campaign for mobile devices also reduces the likelihood that recipients will unsubscribe from your list. It also gives them a reason not to report your campaign as spam.

Up to 51% of email users, for instance, have unsubscribed from a brand’s promotional email campaign because of issues such as poor rendering and broken images. Others also quickly mark such emails as spam. Responsive design can help prevent these issues.

Start Optimizing Now

If you’re serious about generating more leads and sales from your email marketing campaign, the time to begin responsive design is now.

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.

Get Started Today

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.

Email Subscribers Need to Automatically Receive Your Blog Posts

Email Subscribers Need to Automatically Receive Your Blog Posts Every business craves a higher return on their online investment; more email subscribers, more readers, more conversions, and ultimately more revenue. Email marketing can be an asset towards accomplishing this goal. We’ll find out how, shortly. But first, three powerful stats;

    1. Email marketing has a Return on Investment (ROI) of $32 for every $1. PPC, in comparison, returns a paltry $2 for every $1 spent.
    2. Up to 81% of SMBs depend on email for customer acquisition. Another 80% consider email their primary retention tool.
    3. Up to 81% of SMBs depend on email for customer acquisition. Another 80% consider email their primary retention tool.

These stats tell us one thing – any serious digital marketer cannot overlook email marketing. Not only does it promise a huge market but that ROI is simply incredible.

Email Marketing Promises Even Greater Value to Bloggers

It’s not just the market and average ROI. Particularly for bloggers, email marketing promises a lot more.

You own the email subscribers

Not many digital marketing platforms give you control over your contacts. Social media networks, for instance, go as far as to control what posts you can share and the fraction of your followers you can reach. On Facebook, for example, you can only reach about 12% of your followers and your posts can be deleted if deemed “inappropriate.” Email marketing gives you complete control.

Email marketing generates plenty of traffic

According to a 2018 report by Constant Contest Knowledge Base, the average email open rate (fraction of recipients that open the emails they receive) is an impressive 41.96% on mobile and 58.04% on desktop. The average CTR, meanwhile, is 7.06%. That’s 7 in every 100 contacts clicking through to view your blog! Even paid ads struggle to deliver this CTR.

Email personalization drives even more traffic

Bloggers often turn to buyer personas to meet personalization needs. Unfortunately, even the best buyer persona can’t fully meet personalization needs. The good news is – email personalization can! You can craft your emails in a way that specifically addresses the needs of that individual recipient. And guess what, such deep personalization boosts CTR by up to 50%!

It’s easy to track and measure

Measurement is the key to sustained business growth and there isn’t an easier marketing channel to measure than email. You can track pretty much every metric; from delivery rates to open rates and CTR to conversions.

How to Use Email Marketing to Grow Your Blog

Every blogging campaign is different. But, there are a few basic rules to email marketing success;

  1. Find the right email platform: There are several email marketing platforms to choose from. Three that stand out are AWeber, Get Response, and MailChimp. Picking any of these three would be a great start.
  2. Develop your drip campaign: Customers go through an entire journey before making a purchase. It’s important to map out this journey beforehand and send emails in accordance with the journey.
  3. Optimize your emails: Work on your subject lines, email length, sending times, personalization, and CTAs to get the most from your emails. Also, don’t forget to A/B test your campaign.
  4. Optimize your opt-in forms: Also known as lead capture forms, your opt-in forms must be great both aesthetically and functionally. Use a catchy headline, include a compelling CTA, and design to impress.

Now, You Know What To Do

If you’ve not been using email to grow your blogging campaign, now is the time to begin. If you’re already on the bandwagon, use the four tips above to extract more value from your campaign.

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.

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.

Best Practices for Email Subscription Forms

Best Practices for Email Subscription Forms

There’s lots of noise in the digital advertising arena these days, but the best way to reach customers and keep them engaged is email. Social media may be the best way to drive customers to your website, but keeping them coming back is a job best left to email.

Currently, there are 2.5 billion email users worldwide, a number that is expected to grow to 2.9 billion by 2019. Dollars budgeted towards email marketing has been climbing since 2014 and is projected to continue to rise well into 2019.

Email Personalization

One of the secrets to effective email marketing isn’t much of a secret — it’s personalization. When email messages are personalized, the open rate jumps from 13.1 percent to 18.8 percent. An email signup form with more than a person’s email address is the best way to increase response.

Constructing an email signup form that feels more like 20 questions might be a good way to get to know your customers, but it can create a lot of “friction.” Friction is the psychological reaction customers have to forms, whether they be long or short.

Simply put, the more friction your signup form has, the less likely people are to complete it.

Straightforward Formatting

Another important strategy to keep in mind is to keep the email signup form simple. Don’t distract from what you are trying to do, which is open an avenue of communication with your customer. Lots of distractions on your email signup page just keeps people from finding the form.

It’s important to make your email subscription form easy to complete on mobile devices as well. Current data shows that 56% of emails are opened on a mobile platform, as opposed to a desktop computer.

Your email should be formatted for mobile viewing first, and your email signup form should also be completed easily via mobile. Making them responsive to screen size reduces a bit more of that psychological friction.

Details, Details

Personalization and adaptive formatting aside, there are also some small details that can increase people’s response to your subscription form.

  • No long drop-down lists. If you have a drop-down, keep it to just a few options.
  • Eschew the Captcha nonsense for double opt-ins. Captchas just end up being seen as another response field and can be a pain via mobile.
  • Use large buttons that are easy to find and recognize.

Among all the numbers, a clear narrative emerges. Businesses that do not harness email marketing will be left in the dust. It’s imperative that your business has a clear email marketing strategy that remains flexible in the face of the ever-changing digital landscape.

Why People Unsubscribe from Your Email List

Why People Unsubscribe from Your Email List
It’s challenging enough to get people to subscribe to your mailing list, so when they start unsubscribing at a noticeable rate, it’s hard not to worry. Are you doing anything wrong? The likely answer is yes. But don’t fret! The usual reasons people unsubscribe can be addressed in the following ways:

Reason: You send too many emails

Whenever people access their inbox, they have several messages from you.  If this happens too often, they start feeling overwhelmed. Tired of deleting emails, the only other way out is to unsubscribe.

Solution: Give delivery options.

Let people choose how often they hear from you. Some prefer weekly; others want monthly. Some want to be updated right away, while others just want a summary of highlights. Different strokes for different folks, so provide several options they can choose from. And stop sending messages several times a day!

Reason: You send too few emails.

Not sending enough emails is just as bad as sending too many. When people hardly hear from you, they don’t remember they subscribed, so they unsubscribe or even worse, report you as spam. As expected, balance is important.

Solution: Stick to a consistent schedule.

Life can get in the way of email-writing, but try to follow a publication schedule. Even if you send emails twice a month, it establishes a pattern people can recognize, and they know when to expect to hear from you.

But what if it isn’t you, it’s them? There’s still something you can do:

Reason: They signed up by mistake.

It’s easy to click on the wrong buttons on smartphones and tablets. The result is people subscribing to newsletters they never intended to join in the first place. They only realize what happened when they get messages from you.

Solution: Use a double opt-in form.

These people aren’t major losses because they won’t become conversions, but they skew your marketing data. To prevent accidental signups, use a double opt-in form that confirms their subscription.  This ensures that all members of your mailing list are either potential or existing customers.

Reason: They canceled by mistake.

Again, we can blame the small screens of mobile devices for the increasing number of accidental cancellation.  People who don’t plan to unsubscribe still leave your email list because they didn’t realize what they’ve done. They’ll just wonder why they haven’t heard from you and assume you’re too busy.

Solution: Use a double opt-out form

If you ask people to confirm their subscription, then it makes sense to confirm their cancellation. Otherwise, you’d lose a good lead, and that’s a shame. Only those who intend to leave your mailing list will go through the whole process of opting out.

Reason: Your content is too sales-y.

People who knowingly joined your mailing list did so because they want to get relevant content from you. So if you bombard them with ad after ad and not much else, they’ll unsubscribe.

Solution: Deliver content your subscribers find useful.

Soft sell is the way to go when communicating with your subscribers. They’re more likely to respond positively if you give them what they want first, which is information they’ve been looking for.

Building your mailing list is not just about getting new subscribers. It’s also about retaining the ones you already have. Work on both, and you’ll see considerable growth in your subscriptions.

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.