Archive for July, 2014

The Secret to Successful Email Marketing Campaigns

Posted on July 18, 2014. Filed under: Business, Email Marketing, Email Results, Marketing | Tags: Call to Action, Consistency, egmentation, Email Content, Email Marketing Campaigns, Email Marketing Plan, target audience |

Email Marketing should be a key element in your online marketing mix, but many business owners struggle to get success from their email marketing efforts, they send out enewsletters month after month, year after year, and get no real results. However, on the other side of the coin other businesses seem to get AMAZING success from their email marketing campaigns. We’ve heard stories of people sending out an email campaign and getting sooo many sales or inquiries within hours or even minutes of sending the email. So what is the BIG secret in why some people are successful and others are not? The answer is…….planning your email marketing campaigns, knowing your audience and providing the right content for your audience!

In order to be successful with email marketing, you have to know your audience (your target market). The most successful email marketing campaigns are the ones in which the content provided is exactly what their audience needs and wants. So how can you make sure your email marketing campaigns are successful? Here are 6 ways to make sure you have successful email marketing campaigns:

Create an email marketing plan– Your email marketing plan needs to cover what, when, who, and how. What type of emails are you going to send (i.e. enewsletters, autoresponders, stand-alone, drip campaigns, etc.)? When are you are going to send out your emails (Mondays, Tuesdays, 10:00 am, 2:00 pm etc.)? Who are going to send the email to (customers, clients, prospects, leads, referrals, etc.), and how often you are going to send the emails (monthly, weekly, daily, etc.)? Putting a plan together helps you to be clear on what you want to do with your email marketing and helps you to focus on getting the results.
Know your target audience– This is important for every aspect of your marketing and just as relevant for email marketing. You have to understand the needs of your audience. This is the only way that you will be able to accomplish #3 on this list, so take the time to know the specific demographics (age, gender, race, etc.) of your target market. Be specific as possible. The idea that your services or products is for everyone is the worst way to market your business and you will never be able to create effective marketing campaigns much less email marketing campaigns. You also have to understand your target market’s psychographics (attitudes, tastes, preferences). The more clear you are about these things the better your email marketing campaigns will be.
Segment your email list– Making sure you have several email lists that are segmented based on type of person and or interests is a great way to segment your list. For example you should have a separate list for your customers/clients and then another list for your prospects. That way you can target your emails specifically to promotions geared towards customers and then you can create another campaign geared towards prospects. Statistics show that your customer list is your most valuable and profitable list because they have already purchased from your company (and hopefully had a good experience) and therefore you have a higher chance of getting repeat business from your current customers. You want to treat this list differently than you would prospects who have not purchased from you yet. On the other hand, it is also important to segment your list based on product or service purchased (or person’s interest). For example, if a person purchased product or service A from you they may have different needs than someone who purchased product or service B from you, so differentiating them in your list can make a big difference in your marketing results.
Create great content for each specific segment– Having great content is obvious, but having great content that serves your target audience is priceless. For example if you have a list of people who opted in to receive email from you that are interested in service A, make sure that you are sending out a lot of relevant information about service A. Information that people will find useful and interesting. Sending out an email with all your services and products and being salesy does not serve your market. You want to think how can I be the most helpful and engaging to my readers. Studies show that having an informative blog post in your email and having people click a link to read more of the post is a great way to engage your audience. Videos also work well in emails. Having a screenshot of the video and then people can click on the image and/or a link to view the video is also a good audience engaging technique.
Have a Strong Call To Action– You want to direct people on what they should do. Do you want them to “call and make an appointment”, “click to learn more”, “stop by and visit”, etc. Using strong calls to actions in your email marketing help your readers to take the necessary action.
Be Consistent– I always stress the importance of consistency when it comes to email marketing. Make sure that you send out your email campaigns on a consistent basis. If you don’t, people will forget about you and your company. Consistency also helps for you to stay top of mind with your customer and prospects. You can even set the expectation of frequency upfront by saying. “We will be sending you a weekly newsletter” or “We will be sending you a daily digest”, etc. that way people already know when they sign-up how often they should expect to receive communication from you. Then it will be up to you to consistently deliver on that expectation.

Are you using these strategies in your email marketing? If not, what strategies would you add for successful email marketing campaigns?

Be sure to download this checklist with 21 tips on how to get amazing success with email marketing! (limited time only)

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How to use Email Marketing to Grow Your Business

Posted on July 7, 2014. Filed under: Email Marketing, Marketing, Small Business | Tags: Autoresponder, Drip Campaigns, E-Newsletter, email marketing, Promotional Email |

Are you using email marketing to promote your business?

Are you thinking about using email marketing in your marketing strategy?

This blog post covers four types of email marketing strategies and how you can use them to grow your business:

E-Newsletter- An Email Newsletter (E-Newsletter) is an email created in a newsletter format and emailed to a list of your email contacts who have opted-in to receive information from you on a consistent basis (daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, etc.). There are many variations of e-newsletters including plain text e-newsletters or html e-newsletters. The look and feel of your e-newsletter is up to you, but it should be consistent with your brand. Although the look and feel of the e-newsletters will vary for each company, most of the time there are key components included in an e-newsletter. The components usually include the following information in some way:
- Intro– An introduction from the company or person who publishes the newsletter. The intro is the lead into the email and usually includes a brief update and then leads into the rest of the newsletter
- Article/Blog Post Preview– Many e-newsletters link to the company’s recent blog post which covers the topic in more detail, so the first few sentences or paragraph of the blog is placed in the e-newsletter and the reader would have to click on a link in the email to read the entire article or blog post
- Event Announcement– Many companies choose to include any announcements of upcoming events in the e-newsletter. These events could be live in-person events including conferences, seminars, workshops, etc. or online events like webinars or teleseminars. This will be included in the e-newsletter with a link to the event page where people can register for the event.
- Special Promotions- This could be promotions from your company of promotions from partner companies. The promotion offer is listed and the reader can click on the banner or link to get additional information. The link usually takes the reader to a sales/promotional page to get more information regarding the special offer
- Inspirational Quotes– These are popular and many companies like to include them in their e-newsletter
- Testimonials- Many companies like to showcase testimonials in their newsletters because it is a great way to show your audience why people love your product or service and people tend to look favorably on testimonials.
- Videos– A link to a video is great to include in an e-newsletter. If you have a company video or a video that your audience would find useful, you can include the video image and link to the actual video in the e-newsletter.
E-Newsletter Tips:
- Be sure that the content in your e-newsletter is 80% educational/entertaining and 20% promotional.
- Limit the information to no more than four topics for each newsletter.
- Keep the e-newsletter clear and concise and make sure that the information does not appear cluttered to the reader.
- Have a strong call to action at the end of each section (i.e. “click here to read more…” “click here for more information” “sign-up today” etc. )
Promotional Emails– The specific purpose of this email is to promote ONE thing. This could be an event, a special company promotion, etc. You want the information to stand out, so you create a specific email dedicated to just this one topic. This is also known as a stand-alone email. This type of email is great to use if you have one topic or you want your audience to focus on one thing. The one thing could have several parts, but the email itself focuses on only one topic. For example, if you are having a special sale and you want to focus your readers’ attention on the special sale, although you may have several items on sale, the focus of the email is the one topic of the sale. Promotional Email Tips:
- Be sure to focus on only one topic
- Have a strong call to action at the end of the email (i.e. “buy now” “limited time” “click here for more information” “sign-up today” etc. )
- Make sure you are clear on what you want your reader to do
Autoresponder– An Autoresponder Email is a series of emails that is sent to a person when they sign-up for something. This could be when they sign-up to join your email list, when they sign-up to get a free download, when they sign-up for a webinar etc. The action of signing up and therefore opting into the list creates an automatic response (or autoresponder) that is a series of emails that are sent to the individual over a period of time. Autoresponders are great because you can set it and forget it. Once you create the series any time someone opts into that particular list, he or she will receive the emails automatically and you only had to create it once! AutoResponder Tips:
- Make each email in the series timely and relevant
- Provide valuable information before you promote your product or service
- In a series of 4 emails, 3 should be informative and educational and the 4th one can be a promotion (always provide value first)
Drip Campaigns– Drip campaigns are very similar to autoresponders in that they are a series of emails. The difference is that a drip campaign does not have to be initiated by a person opting in. You can create a campaign for a specific group of people already on your email list and drip them information over a period of time. Drip campaigns are great to promote an event or a special company promotion to your entire list or a portion of your email list. Similar to the autoresponders, once you create the emails you just set it and forget it as the series of emails will be dripped out to your list over a period of time Drip Campaign Tips: