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Tips to Improve Your Email Open Rates

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAYou’ve put a lot of work into those emails. You came up with some exciting content and even added a compelling call-to-action. You also ran some email tests in the hopes of getting better results. In spite of all those efforts, your open rates are still not improving.

What can you do to bring that up and get people to actually read your emails? Here are some tips to make sure your emails get delivered, opened and read.

Start with a good subject line

If there is one opportunity to convince recipients to read the email, it is the subject line. After all, it is the first thing they see on any email. Your subject line must be clear and concise. It should tell readers what to expect from the email.

Provide quality content

Offer something of value in every email you send. Subscribers will be eager to read your emails if they know that there is something valuable on the other side of the subject line.

Send your emails at the right time

Timing is everything in marketing. If you send emails too early in the morning or too late at night, they can get lost in the shuffle of other emails. If you send it too late in the afternoon, they may decide to put off reading until the morning since they might be too busy accomplishing some tasks before going home. The best time to send emails is during lunch or after work, when you know they’re reading.

Be consistent

Send too frequently and you may end up losing subscribers. Send too infrequently and you may cause your readers to stop interacting with your email. Send your emails at a consistent frequency to build your email reputation. A good rule of thumb is to send no less than 1 email a month and no more than 1 email a week.

Make it personal

Studies show that subject lines that contain the first name of the subscriber boosts open rate every time. This is a subtle trust builder and an instant attention grabber. Make sure you personalize subject lines with first names.

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How to Market Your Business on a Shoestring Budget

BIMS_7.28Most business owners are too busy running their business that they don’t have time to overlook the marketing side of the business. Because of this, they choose to hire a professional to take care of the job.

If you are running a business and you have enough budget set aside for marketing, then good for you. However, not everyone have the money to hire professionals. The good news is you don’t need to spend a fortune to promote your business, and small steps can bring big rewards.

Here are a few recommendations that can help you market your business on a shoestring budget.

Email marketing

If you are starting a business, begin by sending an email to your family, friends, colleagues and anyone who might be interested in what you offer. Be sure to ask permission before adding their names on your email list.

Build your brand on social media

If you want to build a fan base, then engagement should be on top of your priority list. That said, you need to build your brand on social media.

Social media offers a tremendous opportunity to engage with your target audience. Identify your target audience and find a way to pull them in. If you’re pushing salesy content in the hopes of attracting potential customers, then you’re doing it wrong. Post quality contents that they’ll find valuable and interesting. You can also offer some advice, ask questions or solicit opinions.

Build relationships

It can be a lot more challenging to keep a customer than it is to attract new ones. Because of that, it is important to build a relationship with your existing customers. Keep your lines of communications open. Send newsletters or promotional offers to keep them updated about the events you’re hosting, new products you’re launching and current promotions.

Online contest

Online contests can help create buzz. Yes, you need to prepare some good prizes to get participants, but the number of participants and potential leads will be worth the price.

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4 Strategies for Writing Effective Emails

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For most people, business owners and marketers in particular, email is their primary means of communication. It is so widely used these days that it often replaces face-to-face interactions. In fact, some of your first interactions with clients will start online. Unfortunately, a lot of people still find themselves struggling to communicate effectively via email.

Check out the suggestions below on how to write effective emails so you can build better relationships with customers and prospective clients.

Start with an appropriate salutation

Just as you would in a letter, it is polite to add a salutation before jumping straight into the text of the email. But be sure to address the person appropriately.

If you are sending an email to a prospective client, then you want to address him as Mr. Johnson. Meanwhile, if you are writing to a friend, starting the email with Dear Mr. Johnson would be too formal. In this case, “Hi Bob” is the best way to go.

Write clear subject lines

A newspaper headline has 2 functions: 1. it sums up the content of the article; 2. it captures people’s attention. Based on this headline, you can decide whether or not you want to read the article. Your email’s subject line should also do the same thing.

If you have a very short message to convey and can include all the information the person need in the subject line, even better.

Get to the point

We’re all busy. And if someone opens your email, this is your chance to get the message across. Don’t ruin it with poor content.

No one wants to read a long, ambiguous email. So get to the point and keep your word count low. Also, use simple English and steer clear from technical lingos.

Call to action

Your email is intended to get the recipient to do something. After all, there is no point in sending the email if you can’t get the person to do something.

 

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4 Ways to Grow Your Email Marketing List

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While email marketing is an old, unsexy technology, the savviest of entrepreneurs have no intention of giving it up anytime soon. This is because email marketing provides a direct line of communication and has a tendency to turn leads into sales.

Contacts are the lifeblood of any email marketing campaign. That said, growing your mailing list should be a priority.

In this article, we’ll walk you through what you need to do to build a quality email list. Read on and start building a list of people who will want to hear from you.

Make your sign-up forms easy to find

You can use your website to generate more contacts by adding a subscription form where your visitors can sign up. Be sure to place the form at the top of the page to make it easier for people sign up. Survey revealed that sites that place sign up boxes as part of their top banner perform better as compared to those located at the footer area.

Social network

Another way to build your list is by using social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Due to the viral nature of Facebook, it pays to add a subscription form on your page. Be sure to include a sign up link to your email list on the “About” section of your page. For an added boost, you can also add it on your personal account and tell your family and friends about it.

Word of mouth

The best marketers for your products or services are the people who are already using them. For subscribers who have been on your list for a very long time, a discount or a small incentive would get them talking. Encourage them to share your list with their family and friends.

Tell subscribers what they’ll get

As a marketer, you need to answer the question most people ask: Why would I subscribe to your email list if I can just follow you on Facebook?

To urge people to subscribe to your newsletters, let them know that you offer subscriber-only content. Also, don’t forget to mention how often they’ll be receiving emails. Setting expectations upfront helps reduce unsubscribe rates.

 

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Tips to Boost Your Email Marketing Efforts

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With the internet spreading its wings all over the world, most business owners and marketers are choosing to switch from the physical aspect of business promotion to email marketing.

Email gives you a direct line of communication with your customers. However, in today’s world of cut-throat business competition, people are being bombarded with emails; thus, making it increasingly difficult for marketing messages to get through. Remember, your marketing efforts won’t do you any good, unless your emails are read.

Listed below are some of the most powerful email marketing tips. Give some of these tips a try and enjoy more productive campaigns.

Develop and maintain the email list

It is important to develop and maintain well-searched email list in order for your marketing campaign to be successful.

Email list is not a one-time thing. You have to remove people who do not respond to your emails or does not seem interested, at least every 3 months.

Longer lists should also be broken down into smaller segments – the openers, the new subscribers, the responders and the deadbeats. From here, you can plan your next move and get the desired results.

Creating the message

Most people skim past the vast majority of messages on their mobile devices. So you have to make sure that your subject line stands out.

Once an email is opened, you only have a couple of seconds to grab their attention. So keep the message short, to-the point and easily readable. Also, don’t forget to add a signature at the bottom of the email.

Build a relationship

When scanning your inbox, the first thing you usually see is the sender’s name. If the recipient does not recognize who the email is from, there’s a great chance that your message won’t get opened.

If that happens, then the rest of these tips won’t even matter. So, try to build a relationship with your subscribers and carefully earn their trust.

Personalize

Your subscribers will appreciate your messages more if they are personalized. You can use data analytics to generate emails and provide personalized recommendations based on the subscriber’s purchase history.

 

 

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Email Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

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Email marketing isn’t dead. In fact customer acquisition has quadrupled over the past 4 years. This goes to show how effective email marketing is for small businesses. That’s great news, provided that your emails are being read by the recipients.

In order to make sure that you’re getting the most out of your marketing efforts, you have to focus on what’s killing your open rates and find a way to fix them. While some mistakes are harmless, the following mistakes could be costly.

Poor frequency

While a flood of emails may distance the customer you’re trying to attract, the same reaction can also be expected if you send emails on an inconsistent basis.

Have a consistent enough cadence that your subscribers would be thrilled to receive an email from you, yet relaxed enough that they don’t wonder whether or not you’re still sleeping at night.

Forgetting to send emails at important events

The introduction of new products or services, promotions and events your business will be holding are some examples of email worthy announcements. If you have an important event to cover, make it a point to create a multi-email campaign around it.

Poor subject lines

Subject lines are your first impression to every email recipient. They have to be clear enough that people know why you’re sending an email, short enough that they fit the screen of tablets and smartphones and enticing enough not to give away the entire email. Also, be cautious about using words and phrases that could mark your email as SPAM.

Unreliable email list

Whether you’re emailing inactive subscribers, not removing hard bounces or collecting bad data, having an unreliable email list can affect your open rates.

The key to a successful email campaigns is clean data. Make sure that all customer information is valid and up to date. Hard bounces should also be removed from your database.

Additionally, 43% of email recipients click the spam button based on the sender email address and name. So, it’s extremely important that the recipient knows who you are and are expecting to receive emails from you.

 

 

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