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Personalize Your Subject Lines To Increase Email Open Rates

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Have you ever used a personalized subject line in one of your many emails that you’ve sent out to customers?

You know, something like “You’ll love this deal, Stacy” or “We haven’t heard from you in awhile, Tim.”

Personalized subject lines have proved themselves to be great ways at getting customers to open your emails. And in a world where people get bombarded with hundreds of sales emails a day, open rates are more important than ever.

According to a study conducted by Yes Lifecycle Marketing, personalizing email subject lines increases open rates by 50% and can also lead to a 58% higher click-to-open rate. This was from an analysis of more than 7 billion emails sent in Q2 of 2017.

The study also found that non-personalized subject lines had an open rate of 14.1%, whereas personalized subject lines had a 21.2% open rate.

Another study, by Experian Marketing Services, showed an increase in open rates of almost 42% in some areas!

So, why is there such a noticeable increase when using personalized subject lines compared to non-personalized subject lines?

To put it simply, customers expect you to be more than just a place where they buy things from; they want to feel like they have a personal relationship with you.

Marketers and businesses can’t think of personalized email subject lines as something that only the “fun” companies do for their customers; all customers expect that level of personalization with every company they buy from.

Lots of email providers have simple ways to add first and last name personalizations to your email subject lines, such as MailChimp, Constant Contact, etc. All you need to know is a little bit of coding, but your email provider should be able to help you out if you need a tutorial.

Personalized email subject lines are no longer a novelty thing that only certain companies do. Implement this marketing technique into your emails, and see the difference it can make in your open rates and more!

Onboarding Emails And How They Can Help Retain Customers

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Have you ever sent an email to a new customer reminding them of the product or service they’ve purchased, and how they can get started using it?

What about an email that asks a new customer to check out your social media accounts or your blog?

These are examples of onboarding emails. Onboarding is the process of following up with a customer after they purchase something from you in order to give them an answer to their question, “what’s next?” It also helps get your customers familiarized with your products and services.

For example, if I’m a software company, and you’ve just purchased a new bookkeeping program from me, you’re probably going to either A) immediately start using the program as intended or B) forget about it for awhile, come back to it later when you’re not as busy, and struggle to know where to even begin using it. Most people are going to do scenario B in this illustration.

In scenario B, you have a prime opportunity to send an email to their inbox, reminding them to do something simple, such as activating their service, viewing the online Help Guide for the program, contacting you for questions, etc.

Onboarding through emails can accomplish a number of goals quickly and efficiently for your business. Instead of tying up phone lines, or having to take time to respond to emailed questions, you can simply setup an automated email that sends out to all your new customers whenever you are given their email address.

Want to promote your social media accounts or your blog? There’s an email for that! You can even send new customers an overview type email of your business and include all the places they can find you online (YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc.)

Are you a website design company that needs to get your customers to submit important information to you so you can finish building a website? Send an email that reminds your new customers to send these things to you.

Don’t be pushy about it, but let them know that this info is important to helping you finish their website in a timely fashion.

Are you a wholesale supplier working in a B2B relationship with another company? Do you send out invoices each month reminding buyers to submit their payments to you? You can use an onboarding email with a new customer to get them to easily setup an online account with you, to make their payment process easy and efficient.

For example, lots of companies now have an Auto Pay system to make paying for products and services easy and always on time. You can use an onboarding email to let new customers know that they can easily set up Auto Pay online by clicking on a link that you include in the email.

Onboarding emails help to show your customers that you’re invested in them and that they’re not just a way for you to make a profit. It’s a great way to retain customers and keep them from switching to a company that could be your competitor.

There’s no shortage of ways that you can use an onboarding email to streamline your work flow, and help your customers out in the process, as well!

Building Your Sales Email To Answer The 5 Ws (And One H)

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In journalism, one of the most basic lessons they teach you in your intro to journalism class is the concept of the 5 Ws (and one H). The 5 Ws are questions that every proper journalistic story should answer. They, along with the one H, are:

  • What
  • Who
  • Where
  • When
  • Why
  • How

Every story you read, no matter if it’s in a newspaper, a magazine, or online, answers these same basic questions.

But you’re not a journalist, and this isn’t a newspaper you’re trying to sell; it’s your products and services. However, the 5 Ws can still be used to apply to your marketing techniques, especially when it comes to email marketing.

What

To create a successful email, you first need to ask the question “what is the purpose of this email?” Are you trying to sell a new product? Retain customers through promotions? Give them some helpful info that will keep them interested in your brand? The “what” of your email is where you always need to start.

Who

Next, it’s important to understand who your target audience is. Is it new customers? Customers who already have your business? Customers who need a specific product that you’re selling? Figure out who you’re selling to, and build your email around their needs.

Where

When we talk about “where” in marketing, we’re usually talking about the place that your customers are getting their info, but with emails, we already know the “where” is through emails. However, the “where” in this situation could also be where you can lead your customers through your email, aka your Call To Action. If you want them to click into your website, or call you directly with a listed phone number, then ease them into making that decision through a finely crafted CTA.

When

When are your customers most likely to open their inbox and see your email? Different customers are online at different times, and if you miss your window of opportunity, the customer may glance over your email and accidentally delete it without ever seeing your message. Experiment with sending your emails at different times of the day and days of the week and see what works for you.

Why

Why are you making this email? Is it to sell more products, bring in more customers, increase brand awareness, gain more social media followers, or retain returning customers? There are a number of reasons to send an email, but you need to figure out why you’re sending your email before it’s time to send it to your customers.

How

Although it’s not a W, the “how” of an email is just as important as its alphabetical counterparts. The “how” of your email is a final question that you have to ask before sending out your email; How is this going to help my business? Think about how your email is going to help your business grow, and what you expect to get from your email before you’re certain you want to send it out to your hundreds or thousands of customers. Remember, you can’t take your email back once it’s sent out to your customers. Be sure of the message and how it will affect your business.

Remember the 5 Ws when considering any marketing strategy your business has, not just with email marketing.

Keep Your Emails Fresh and Exciting With These 3 Tips

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A lot of times, we as business owners get into a tired routine of sending out the same emails to our email lists. These emails oftentimes lack innovation or a real and engaging voice, and they are usually ignored by customers.

When putting together a great promotional email, you have to take into consideration what your customers are thinking when they open their inbox every day. Even more important, think about what makes you open an email in your own inbox. Is it a catchy subject line? Great deals? Interesting content?

As it turns out, it’s a combination of all of these things. Find out how you can revamp your email strategy, with these three tips.

Craft Engaging Subject Lines

Your subject line is where you have the first opportunity to either reel in customers and convince them to open your email, or turn them away off of what you’re trying to sell to them. So how do you create a subject line that’s enticing to people?

There are lots of different ways to approach your subject line, but one of the most effective ways is to craft a subject line that leads customers directly into your email. Usually, this involves a question, like “Want to know a secret?” or “Have you seen these deals?” It can also be a tantalizing line, like “You’ll never believe these prices” or even broadcasting the promotion directly in the subject line, such as “Get 40% off these great products.” Create a great subject line, and you can lead your customers into opening your email.

Give It A Voice

How do you write the content that fills your promotional emails each time they’re sent out? Do you write in a way that’s strictly sales-minded, or do you try to make them more casual?

Most people, especially those from the millennial generation and younger, are gravitating toward businesses who have found a voice that sounds like how they communicate with each other. What does that mean? Well, it’s all about authenticity. While many people might think the younger generation is obsessed with fake online personas, they actually care more about real, authentic experiences than you might think.

One of the most important things for people to feel when you’re trying to sell a product to them is a sense of authenticity. Write your emails like your trying to form a relationship with your customer, not in a way that makes it seem like you only care about selling to them.

Lead Them To What They Care About

As anyone who does email marketing knows, the email is only the beginning of selling to a customer; you also have need to convince them to click through to a landing page on your website.

One of the obvious ways to lead a customer to your website is through a CTA, or call to action, button at the bottom of your email. A CTA typically says something like “Learn More” or “Get Started.” Those CTA’s are fine, but they are often overused and uninteresting.

To write more engaging CTA’s, you need to figure out a way to spin the CTA in a way that hasn’t been presented to a customer before. Sometimes, it’s as simple as a one-word phrase, like “Start” or “Subscribe.” Other times, you can put what they’re getting on the button, like “Get A Free Trial,” or “Save 50% Today.”

You could also try the whimsical approach, like “Begin Your Adventure” or “Let’s Be Friends.”

CTA’s can be used in a number of effective ways, so don’t neglect the power of this simple tool.

Emails are effective tools for marketing to your customers, but sometimes they are neglected when it comes it new ideas. Try implementing these tips into your next promotional email campaign, and see what it can do for your business!

3 Great Email Newsletter Ideas For Your Business

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Your newsletter is your direct line to reaching customers, no matter where they are. While social media and advertising can reach customers efficiently in most cases, you have to rely on chance with these mediums. Emails are sent directly to your customers, whereas social media and advertising rely on placing your content somewhere that your customers might see it, but there’s no guarantee that they will see it.

Because of this, emailed newsletters are the best way to give your customers information that they’re interested in. But how do you make sure that your newsletters are doing their job, and leading customers to a purchase, or something else on your website? It’s easier to spruce up your newsletter than you might think.

Reuse Your Old Content

Do you have an old blog post that was popular at one time, but doesn’t get as much page traffic as it used to? Why not reuse that old blog post in a newsletter? There’s no rule that says you can reuse your popular content and introduce it to new customers. You might need to revamp the post and update it with new, more relevant content, but it can still be the same post.

Throw in one of your old blog posts into your next newsletter, and direct customers toward that page on your website to give it a boost once again!

Feature Your Customers

Do you have a loyal customer that you’d like to show off or someone that has an interesting story to share? People love hearing stories from real customers, and a newsletter is a perfect place to show off those awesome people!

If you’re looking to feature one of your customers in a newsletter, one of the best ways to do it is to include a picture of the customer and a short teaser paragraph of what they do. Then, link to a full blog post about that customer. That way, you’re bringing more traffic to your website, which gives you a better chance of attracting more people to buy from your website.

Write Interesting Subject Lines

Your subject line is equally, if not more important than your actual newsletter content. Why? Because it’s the first thing people will see when they get your newsletter in their inbox. Without a compelling and attention-grabbing subject line, customers have no reason to open your email. They’ll see it, and either delete your email immediately or mark it as spam.

To write an interesting subject line, think about what’s going to make your customers want to open your email. It could be an interesting blog post subject, or it could be something that uses words like “Exclusive.” Conveying to your customers that they’re getting something that no one else is getting is a great way to get them to open your newsletter.

Your newsletter is a fantastic tool for reaching new and existing customers and funneling them toward your website. Make your newsletters interesting, and see what kind of change it makes for your business.

6 Growth Hacks That Will Change Your Business

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Everyone loves a helpful hack, especially businesses. If there’s an easy way to do something, that results in more customers and more growth, what’s not to love?

Growth hacks, as they’re called by marketers, are simple ways to get great results that grow your business. Today, we’ve got a few tips that can help you “hack” your own business and grow it exponentially.

Recycle Old Blog Posts

When you publish a blog post, it’s fresh, interesting, and new content for your website. But, over time, that blog post that once was bright and new, can become old and outdated. It’ll eventually stop ranking as high as it once did, and will become lost among the hundreds of other blog posts you publish in a week, a month or a year.

Try recycling your old blog posts by updating the content on it, adding different keywords, and reposting it on your social media accounts.

Create Video Content

Video content is the way of the future, as far as content marketing goes. Think about when you scroll through your Facebook or Twitter feed these days. Do you see more video content or links to a website?

If your feed looks anything like mine, video content takes up more than half of all the content I see posted each and every day. And studies have shown that people are more likely to pay attention to video content rather than a link or picture post. You can also embed videos into pages on your website, or attach them to blog posts. Try integrating video content into your marketing strategy and see how it can boost your social interactions and your website traffic.

Focus On Keywords

Have you researched how important certain keywords are for your websites search engine ranking? Specific keywords help search engines to pull up your website whenever people search on Google or another search engine for specific things.

For example, if you spread keywords like “wholesale,” “organic,” and “Made in the USA” throughout your website and in blog posts, you’re more likely to be found by people searching for those specific keywords when they’re on a search engine. Try boosting some of your old blog content with new, fresh keyword and see if it increases traffic to your website.

Invest In Social Advertising

Advertising is a marketing tool that’s as old as shopping itself. If you want people to buy from you, you have to make yourself known to them and show them why they need your product.

Advertising in the modern age has moved away from traditional mediums, such as billboards and magazine ads, and focused more on digital advertising on places like websites, search engines, and social media. Invest a few extra bucks into social media sponsored posts on places like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to target those customers who you might not be able to reach through old-school advertising methods.

Talk To Sales/Customer Service About FAQs

When’s the last time you asked your sales or customer service teams what kinds of questions they get the most from customers? They probably get a lot of the same questions over and over again. You can take this information, and craft your next blog post or email around it.

Find out what the FAQs (frequently asked questions) are for your business, and craft an amazing blog post around those questions. Your customers will appreciate seeing that you’re listening to their questions, comments, and complaints.

Make Email Interesting Again

How’s your email marketing going? Do you find yourself thrown into your customer’s spam folder more often than you’d like to be? Are people responding positively to your sales emails? You might need to rethink your email content.

Try changing up the way you speak to customers through your emails. Maybe take a more lighthearted approach to marketing, and craft the tone of your emails in a more conversational way.

It’s also important to check your emails for its spam risk. There are lots of free services out there that can help assess your email for its spam risk, but a general rule is to make sure you have a higher text to picture ratio in your email to avoid being accidentally tossed into the spam folder.

These six growth hacks aren’t the only ways to boost your sales, but they’re a great first step. Explore more growth hacks in your business, and see what works for you.

Gmail Tips and Tricks That Will Help You Get Work Done Faster

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Gmail, Google’s proprietary email platform, is one of the most popular email platforms in the world. In fact, according to Google, Gmail has more than 900 million users around the world. That means, almost 1 in 7 people has a Gmail account, an astounding number for any piece of software or technology.

But with so many people using Gmail, there are still tips and secrets out there that many might not be aware of, or know how to use.

Today, we’ve got five great tips for you that will help you make the most of one of the best email platforms in the world!

Filter

Do you ever wish you could categorize your incoming mail into separate folders before they get placed in your inbox? Well, with Gmail, you can! To filter your incoming messages, click on the down arrow next to the Gmail search box. You’ll then enter the details of your email that you want to filter, by things like “From,” “To,” “Subject,” “Has The Words,” “Doesn’t Have,” “Has Attachment,” “Don’t Include Chats,” “Size,” and “Date Within.” After you’ve entered your specifics, click “Create Filter With This Search” and then you’ll see options for placing incoming messages with these filter options into specific folders or categories. So, as you can see, you can filter your messages very specifically, so you’re only seeing the emails that you care about!

Send Big Files

Have you ever tried to upload a large file attachment to an email, and gotten the message “This File Exceeds the 25MB Attachment Limit”? Well, good news: there’s a way around that limit! Instead of sending your large file as an attachment directly in the email, you can instead send your email recipient a link to your attachment through Google Drive, Google’s cloud storage software. Just click the Google Drive icon, directly to the right of the attachment icon. You’ll then be given options for what source you want to upload your file from.

Search

If you need to find an old or important message very quickly, and can’t risk wasting time sifting through pages and pages of old emails, then the Gmail Search function will become your new best friend. Filtering your searches works in the same way that filtering your incoming messages does (by clicking the Down arrow next to the search box), but you can also familiarize yourself with search shortcuts to search through your inbox even faster. Here are the main ones:

  • Filename: show only emails that have a certain filename
  • Is: pulls up emails that are marked a certain way, such as starred, read, unread, etc.
  • In: finds emails that have been placed in a certain location.
  • ” “: You can search for certain keywords by placing them in between quotes in the search box.
  • Before: or After: searches for emails before or after an entered date.

Canned Responses

A Canned Response is like an automated response for sending reply emails. It could be used when you don’t have a lot of time to type out a long response to someone, or if you have a certain answer or phrase that you send a lot. To set up a canned response, go to Settings, Lab, and then enable Canned Responses. When composing an email, just click More next to the trash icon, and then select Canned Responses. You can enter new Canned Response here as well.

Mute

Sometimes, you really don’t care about what everyone else at the office is eating for lunch. But, for whatever reason, you’ve been included in the email thread about it. If you’d rather not have these messages clog up your inbox, you can choose to mute the conversation by clicking More above your message, and selecting Mute.

Follow these tips and you’ll be a Gmail pro in no time!

This blog post was originally published on Atwill Media. Need a professional website for your business? Check them out!

Avoid The Spam Folder With These 6 Simple Email Tips

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So, you’ve just created the perfect email. You wrote all the write words, created a beautiful design, and crafted an awesome subject line. You’ve even placed an exclusive deal inside of it that only email recipients can take advantage of! What could go wrong?

Well, turns out, a lot of things can go wrong. Your email could still accidentally end up and someone else’s spam folder. And what’s the worst part of all of this? Your emails could be landing in their spam folder every time you send one, with your customers never even noticing you sent them an email.

Nobody wants to see their beautiful email get ignored and trashed. But, you’re in luck. Today, we’ve got a few tips that will help you keep your amazing emails out of the spam folder and into the inbox where they belong.

Don’t Use Exclamations or All-Caps Words in Subject Line

There are a plethora of different factors that cause your emails to land in the spam folder, but one of the most common and easiest to fix is your subject line. This is the first thing customers will see when they receive an email from you, and it’s what pushes them to decide whether to open your email or trash it. One of the biggest red flags in an email is the use of exclamation points and All Caps words in a subject line. Customers will look at these and automatically determine that your email is spam, without even opening it. They might also flag your email address as spam in their email hosting platform, therefore preventing future emails from ever reaching their inbox. Avoid using these types of subject lines in your emails.

Avoid Sales-y Words in Subject Line

Subject lines are super important for making sure you stay out of the spam folder. Not only do you have to make you’re avoiding the use of certain punctuation and capital letters, you also have to avoid language that appears too sales-y to customers.

Examples of this would be saying “FREE” or “GREAT DEAL” in the subject line. That information is fine to include in the body of your email, but including it in the subject line is a big red flag for customers. A lot of email providers will also automatically send these types of emails to the spam folder, so it’s best to avoid using them altogether.

Have a good text/image ratio

Do you have emails with a lot of text and not a lot of images? What about emails with nice images but almost no actual text? This can be a problem for you since many spam filters check for what’s known as a text-to-image ratio.

Most experts agree that a 60/40 (that’s 60% text, 40% graphics) text-to-image ratio is ideal, and will keep you from getting automatically flagged as spam by filters.

Use Spam Checking Software

It’s also a great idea to use spam checking software before you send your email to customers. Constant Contact already has a pretty great spam checker built-in, but for a more detailed idea of whether your email will be flagged as spam, consider using services like SpamAssassin and IsNotSpam.com to check your email or newsletter. Both tools are free software and can be used to give you a clear idea whether your email is spam-like.

Don’t Include Large Attachments

Most of the time, sending attachments in an email, such as .jpg and .pdf files, are okay. But, if you’re sending .exe, .zip, .swf, or anything similar to those, you run the risk of being marked as spam.

In that same vein, avoid sending large attachment files, such as those above 20MB. If you’re using Gmail, it will tell you if your file is too big to send through email, and will prompt you to send it through its file sharing and cloud storage software, Google Drive, instead. You can also use Dropbox to send larger files if you absolutely have to.

Ask Customers To Add You To Their Contact List

Scared that your emails still aren’t reaching your customers? Ask them to add your email address to their email contact list/address book. This is a great way to ensure that they’ll always receive your emails, even if your email doesn’t pass a spam filter’s strict test. You can even say “add us to your contact list!” at the bottom of your emails, to better encourage customers to add you.

Here’s How To Write Better Email Subject Lines

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Emails aren’t always the most exciting thing to see in your Inbox. I mean, sure, every once in a while you’ll see an email that catches your eye, based on the subject line alone, and you feel inclined to open it and see what’s hiding inside. But most of the time, we’re more inclined to read the subject line, decide if it interest us or not, and then immediately hit the Delete icon.

That’s what happens to most emails. Most aren’t even opened. Why? Because your subject line stinks, and it doesn’t interest your audience. Just like at common open rates for sales and marketing emails and you’ll see that this is a common problem.

So, what do you do to improve your open rate, and get more people to buy your products, visit your website, and stay loyal customers? Improve your subject lines with these simple tips!

Keep Them Short

People like their information to be quick, simple, and to the point. The same goes for your email subject line. Don’t write an overly long sentence that forces the receiver of the email to search for the important stuff. Two to five-word subject lines give more than enough info to people. Plus, longer subject lines will often get cut off in someone’s inbox (especially if they’re looking at their email on a mobile device).

Ask A Question

Want to score a deal? Looking for more sales? Want your emails to shine?

Of course you do. Everyone wants these things. When you ask a question in an email subject line, you’re inviting the receiver of the email to ask the question to themselves, thus convincing (or not convincing) them that they need to open your email and see what you’re offering.

Tease Them

Don’t give away everything in the subject line. That’s like placing Christmas presents under the tree without wrapping them! There’s got to be a little bit of suspense and intrigue involved with your emails. Says things like “You Won’t Believe This Deal…” or “You Have To See This!” These might be considered “clickbait” on blog posts (don’t every do them there), but for subject lines, they work great for enticing customers.

Don’t Sound Too Sale-sy

Sure, okay, you’re sending out a sales email to make, what else, a sale. But, a lot of times when you write a very sale-sy sounding subject line, you run the risk of getting marked as spam in someone’s email. Avoid using words like “Buy This Now!” or words like “Free.” Also, try not to use a lot of exclamation points. This is a big red flag for spam emails.

Talk To People Directly

People like to be talked to directly, as if you, the company, have a personal connection with them. Use words that convey directness when composing your subject line, such as “You Need This Deal,” “Hey, We Thought You’d Like This,” and “An Offer Made For You.”

Use Urgency

Urgency in your emails is a great way to make people believe that they have to act right away on something, or they’ll miss out. Use the same urgency strategy in your subject lines to convey that same feeling to customers.

Emails are a powerful marketing tool. Make sure you’re taking full advantage of your subject lines to get better open rates, and more sales!

Tips For Successful Email Marketing

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Every business knows that email marketing is one of the most important tools for getting consumers the info they need. Email marketing is like sending out a door-to-door salesperson to promote your product.

But just like a door-to-door sales pitch, email marketing can become annoying to consumers. They can be overwhelmed with too many emails, and wonder if you’re still in business if you send out too few.

Check out these tips on how to make your next email marketing campaign grab their attention.

Mobile Is The Way To Go

These days, there are more people who check their emails on smartphones and tablets than on a traditional desktop browser. So you have to make sure your emails are optimized for viewing on small screened devices. That means, don’t clutter the screen with non-essential info. Just the most important tidbits that you want customers to see first.

Subject Lines Matter

You want the people who receive your emails to be able to quickly glance at the subject line and know exactly what they’re opening. That means 1) don’t be ambiguous, and 2) get to the point. Another effective strategy is to use the same subject line for different email types. For example, using “10 Things To Know” every time you send out an email with info about your company lets customers know what the email is about. This makes them more inclined to open it, because they know exactly what they’re going to see in the email.

Get Social

Adding links to your social media accounts in the footer or header of every email you send out is a great way to get users connected to you online. You can include buttons that link to various social media accounts, and you can even include a social sharing call to action button, so they can share the email contents to their followers!

Don’t Be A Spammer

There’s nothing people hate more than seeing hundreds of spam emails cluttering up their inboxes. So avoid being a spammer at all cost. In other words, limit the number of emails you send out to a maximum of one per day. Bi-weekly emails at the beginning and end of the week are effective strategies as well. And you can even choose to send a weekly recap at the end of every work week, if you feel that your customers will appreciate it more.

Design To Please

The way your email looks is sometimes more important than the actual info in the body of the email. A good design is guaranteed to catch the eye of a current or potential customer, so try to design your email to be visually appealing. If you don’t have your own graphic design department to create your own flashy header image, there are many helpful websites out there that can help!