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7 Strategies to Optimize Your Email Marketing Campaign

7 Strategies to Optimize Your Email Marketing Campaign

by | Sep 7, 2021 | Blog, content marketing, email, email marketing, social media marketing

Email is still one of the most effective marketing strategies. It helps you drive sales, generate leads, and boost your reputation as an industry expert. When it’s done right, email has a higher ROI than many other online marketing tactics.

Whether you’re sending out an email newsletter to your subscribers or promoting a new product on your website, these seven tips will help ensure that you get the most out of every campaign.

  1. Personalize Your Subject Lines

Yes, I want my free report!  No thanks, I’ve already read it!  Beauty tips!  The next big thing in tech!

Which email would you rather open? The one with a personalized subject line or the one that makes it seem like every other email you get? Your readers are much more likely to take an interest if they feel special. Whether you’re sending emails to your subscribers or developing a segmented list for your next email marketing campaign, personalizing your subject line can make a world of difference.

You can do this in a couple different ways:

  • Use the recipient’s first name and last initial (John P.)  or include their job title (Customer Service Representative).
  • Ask questions that are directly related to something they’ve already done on your website.
  • Refer back to something that was mentioned previously or a question they may have asked.

 

  1. Write Persuasive Subject Lines

When you look at the previews in Gmail, what do you click on? The no-brainer offers with big discounts? Or the funny headlines and pictures? Personalized subject lines get you to open your emails, but persuasive headlines ensure that you actually read them. Here are a few tips for writing perfect subject lines:

  • Keep it short and sweet.  Short paragraphs with no more than five sentences will grab your reader’s attention and keep them from getting bored.
  • Pique their interest.   A/B test headlines to see what kind of results you get. In one email campaign with a segmented list, I was able to increase conversion rates from 3% to over 20% just by adding one additional line of text that hinted at the promotion. “Want more leads? Try our new lead generation tool” was much more appealing than “Get your own lead generation tool”.
  • Tell them exactly what they’ll get for taking action.  Does your email include an ebook? Give it a title that lets people know exactly what they’re getting and include the word “free” or “download” in the description if you want to drive extra traffic. If you’re giving away a sample of your product, make sure you mention that. Use dynamic text to change the price depending on whether they’re a paid subscriber or not.
  • Include an image.  Visual content is much more appealing than plain text and it’s proven to cut your bounce rate in half. When people see a picture, their eyes are instantly drawn to it and they try to guess what you might be trying to get them to click on. This can have the added benefit of persuading people who are reluctant about buying, especially if there’s a problem or concern that they’re trying to work out in their mind before they make a decision.

 

  1. Make it Easy to Share Email Campaigns

If you’ve done a good job of providing valuable content that your subscribers will enjoy and want to share with their friends, then you can significantly increase the number of people who see your email by adding social media buttons to the email. This way, if someone does like what they receive, it’s very easy for them to share it with their friends.

There are a couple different ways you can do this:

  • Embedding social bookmarks lets you add in icons that people can click on to like, tweet, and share your content. This is my favorite option because it’s easy to do (a lot of email marketing companies can provide this as an add-on) but you have limited room for text so you may not be able to fit everything that you want if your email has a long subject line or lots of images.
  • Adding social sharing buttons to the email is another great option.  You can add these buttons directly into your email template or you can put them as a link at the end of your campaign.

 

  1. Use High Value Images

Don’t send out an email that’s text heavy and make sure you offer some sort of visual content. The average email is at least 1/3 images so if you want to stand out from the crowd, make sure they’re high quality and relevant.

 

  1. Provide a Compelling CTA (Call-To-Action)

If you’ve done everything right up until this point, your call-to-action should be obvious.  If you’re sending an email to announce a new product, promote a webinar or give away freebies, there should be no doubt in your subscriber’s mind about what they’re going to click on.

But how do you get your subscribers to convert? Studies have shown that emotional words like “guarantee” and “free” are more likely to persuade people to take action. One study found that including the word “free” in your CTA button increased clickthrough rates by 410%.

 

  1. Send it at the Right Time

In order to increase open and click-thru rates, you need to send emails when most of your subscribers will be looking at their inbox.

Timing also plays an important role in determining how your email is received. The average CTR for emails sent between 4-5 PM is around 9%, but the number jumps to over 17% in the evening.

According to MailChimp, Fridays and Saturdays are the worst days to send out emails so that’s when you should make sure not to send yours.  Tuesday and Wednesday morning is prime time with a 20% increase in open rates for the first two hours of business, then things really pick up after lunch (when most people check their email one last time before leaving for the day) and more than double around 3 PM.

 

  1. Find Out If Your Email Got Opened

You can use your email marketing provider to see when someone opened the email, how many times it was forwarded or clicked on a link within, who actually clicked through from social media and even what time of day they opened it. Use this data to better understand your subscribers and increase the effectiveness of future campaigns.

 

So there you have it, 7 strategies to optimize your email marketing campaigns.   If you keep these points in mind, you’ll be able to write better emails and get more subscribers.

Content Topic Generation

Content Topic Generation

by | Aug 30, 2021 | Blog, content marketing, email marketing, social media marketing

Ways to Come up with New Content Ideas for your Blog

One of the biggest problems many bloggers face when it comes to new content is figuring out what kind of posts to write. After you’ve written a batch of quality articles, you can’t just continue creating variations on the same topics. You need to regularly come up with new and interesting ideas. As I detail in my post about blogging tips to generate traffic, a big part of what determines whether your post is successful or not is how much unique content you’re providing.

So it’s important that you come up with new ideas for topics for every blog post. Here are some things I’ve found that are helpful in coming up with fresh ideas:

  1. Visit other blogs in your niche.

One of the easiest ways to find new ideas is to look at other blogs that address similar subjects in your same area of expertise. What kinds of topics do they write about? Which ones get a lot of traffic? Do they all have something in common? If one post does really well how can you spin it in a different direction?

  1. Take a trip to your local library or bookstore.

Every time I head over to the bookstore, I’m always checking out other blogs and books on writing so that I can come up with new ideas for my own blog. It’s easy to do this now that they’ve gone digital – just load up your E-reader or iPad and you can browse the shelves at your leisure.

A great book I picked up recently is The Ultimate Blog Post: 50 Ways to Increase Your Traffic by Emily Martha Sorensen, which has a lot of great information about writing posts that people want to read as well as fresh ideas for coming up with different content.

  1. Make a list of all the topics you’ve ever written about on your blog and think about different ways to present them.

Go back through some of the posts you’ve already published and think about how you can redo them or add what you’ve learned since it was written. Often you will have new information or a change in perspective if some time has passed since you’ve written a piece.

 

  1. Brainstorming

I have a notepad that’s just for blog post ideas, and when I get an idea in my head I’ll write it down so that it doesn’t go anywhere (and because I’m forgetful). From there, if the idea seems like something worth pursuing, I’ll further flesh it out and work on developing a full post.

My process is that I’ll fill up the notebook with lots of ideas, then cull through them periodically. Once I have 5-10 good ones (not all are gold), I’ll pick one to develop into a full blog post. The other ones get revisited at another time.

In my case, I think of myself as a general blogger, so I’ll work on topics that are relevant to a wide range of bloggers or online businesses. However, you may find that some are more applicable to your niche than others. If you’re not  there yet though, try and figure out why it’s not working for you and how you can apply it to the core of your content. You never know when a seemingly random idea that comes up might just be exactly what your audience is looking for!

 

  1. Brainstorming, Part 2: Creative exercises to help generate ideas.

Another exercise is to think about the 5 people that you most want to reach with your content. How can you help them? What do they need? Narrow your list down to one and then develop a post around it.

 

  1. Brainstorming, Part 3: Improve your brainstorming skills by observing how others come up with ideas.

I picked up this little gem of advice in an interview with Derek Halpern, Founder of Social Triggers. I think it’s really insightful although I’m not sure if he invented the concept or got it from somewhere else. Here’s what he had to say:

“I learned this trick recently that has worked very well for me. Each time I have a new idea — whether it’s for a blog post or an article or a book, whatever it is — instead of going straight to writing I’ll first just create a mind map. A mind map is basically just a diagram with all your thoughts connected by lines. You write down your ideas and the connections between them. What this does is it helps you flesh out your ideas and gives you a sense of structure. It makes it much faster to write later because you’re not trying to figure out the best way to say something – that part is already done.”

“When I’m doing this, I actually just use a blank sheet of paper and start writing down all my ideas, and then I just connect them with lines. It’s pretty quick for me to do a mind map, and it’s saved me a ton of time on my writing.”

 

  1. Think about how you can give value to your readers in the post.

I think this is one of the most important things that people forget about when they’re writing. When you think about your readers, what are their needs? What problems do they have? What’s the one thing that they’re looking for from you that will help them achieve something or make a process easier?

Solve a problem for them, offer inspiration, or perhaps just give them some motivation.

 

Online readers are looking for engaging content, but it can be a challenge to generate fresh, new ideas for blog articles. You can come up with new topics by checking out what is already out there, keeping a running list of ideas, or participating in creative writing exercises. If you keep your reader in mind you will be able to create highly trafficked blog posts.

September 2021 content planner is here

September 2021 content planner is here

by | Aug 25, 2021 | Blog, content marketing, email marketing, social media marketing

Holiday Season Already?

With September being a week away, now is the time to start planning for the holiday season. Many of your biggest competitors have started generating buzz around the holidays. You have all of the tools you need to connect with your audience and deliver content and offers that will get them excited to shop with you. Check out these tips.

September content planner

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