Archive for the ‘Email Marketing’ Category

How To Reduce Unsubscribe

Saturday, March 21st, 2009

If you want to keep your subscribers you need to listen to them. You need give them what they want otherwise there’s no reason for them to be subscribed. There are a few ways to do this successfully.

One of the best ways is to simply ask them what they’re looking for. You can do this by creating a form for them to fill out and the bottom of your newsletter. This will allow you to see what things are being asked for the most and implement those certain things in your newsletter. If you’re giving your subscribers what they want, they’re more likely to stay subscribed.

Another thing you need to be careful of is the amount of emails you send out! You could have some of the best information out there but it won’t matter. You need to realize you’re not going to be the only emails they’re receiving and if you’re sending too many emails they will become annoyed. A safe amount of “regular” emails to send out is two a month. This way when you have sales or promotions they will be more effective because they’re noticeably out of the ordinary amount of emails. No matter what it’s always good to start small in anything. So start with one email a month then two, three and four. If you notice your unsubscribe rate increase after that extra email a month then back it down and see if that was the reason.

These are two of the most important things you need to take into perspective when decreasing your unsubscribe rate. If you have these in place correctly you’re sure to have an effective email marketing campaign, one of the most important parts of Internet marketing.

Some Email Marketing Winners

Thursday, March 5th, 2009

Email marketing can be extremely effective at a low cost and it’s not as complicated as you think. To get an effective email marketing campaign going you want to start with the most important aspects, the basics.

One of the first things you need to figure out is; what is a good number of emails you should send out in a month. The average effective campaign will send out emails twice a month or once a week and no more. You should really start out at once a month and see how your conversion rate is affected when you increase your emails sent. Keeping it to a maximum of once a week will not annoy your subscribers and keep them interested. It’s also good to figure out which day of the week is best to send out your emails. For instance you might want to try sending your first one on your slowest day of the week and your second on your busiest day of the week. More than likely you will get a greater response on your busy day because the majority of your customers are online then.

Another thing you that can make a big difference is the subject you use in your emails. The rights subjects can make all the difference in the amount of subscribers that open your emails. It’s a good idea to test different types of subjects to see which ones work better. This also ties in with testing different email campaigns. It’s a good idea to split your list up into groups and send each one a different email. This will allow you to see which email is more effective to use.

There are many different email marketing winners but these are some of the most important basics. Once you’ve mastered these, you can start testing more in-depth techniques.

How To Convert Email Subscribers

Friday, February 27th, 2009

The first thing you want to do is figure out which subscribers have not yet made a purchase. Take these emails and compile them together into one email list. These subscribers are obviously the hardest to convert and they should be emailed your best offer or offers. With you’re analytics set up to track every page of your website you will be able to track which subscribers are clicking a link or links in your email. There will more than likely be a percentage of subscribers who will click, but not buy again after this email. You will want to backend the subscribers who didn’t buy with a final, even better offer.

The next thing you want to do is analyze which subscribers have made a purchase within the past 30 days, depending on what kind of products they purchased and separate their emails. You are then left with the rest of your list who’s made a purchase, but haven’t made a purchase recently. There are a few reasons why this may have occurred. One of them could be because one of your competitors was offering a better deal at the time they were ready to purchase. Another could be because they only needed a one time purchase anyways or they just don’t need to make another purchase yet. It’s more than likely, that a good percent of these subscribers will make a purchase if they are sent a special offer. It’s a good idea to have a sale on your website going on during the time you send out on email to your subscribers. Make sure that the sale on your website is not a better deal than the one you’re offering your subscribers. This way they realize the advantage they have to being subscribed and being a loyal customer.

How To Check Your Email Marketing Reputation

Friday, February 13th, 2009

Knowing how your email marketing reputation stands is a very crucial component to make sure all of your subscribers are receiving your newsletter. There are several elements that are assessed to decide your email marketing reputation score.

One of those elements is your email volume. You want to make sure you keep your email volume at an acceptable rate. Sending emails out several times a week could be pushing the limits. You also need to try and keep the amount of emails you send as consistent as possible. If you have a sudden increase in the amount of emails you send in a short period of time this can be seen as spam.

Your email delivery rate is also very important. If a lot of your emails sent out aren’t being delivered this may be seen as an out of date list or a rented list. This can definitely be seen as spam so it’s important that you keep your email list as updated as possible.

Spam reports are probably one of the biggest factors in your email marketing reputation. If you have a lot of people report you as spam to their email providers or their ISP’s this is more of hard evidence than anything. However, they will cut you some slack and take into perspective the size of your list and the fact that you’ll always have people who report emails as spam whether they are or not.

Some good websites to check your email marketing reputation are Sendmail.com, SenderBase.org and SenderScore.org. These should help you get a better idea of where you email reputation stands.

How To Make Answering Emails More Efficient

Sunday, February 8th, 2009

Email can be beneficial in many ways to your business but one thing it allows you to do is build a relationship with your customers. A great relationship with your customers is one thing that separates an ok or good business from a great business. Most will start out with good intentions and keeping up with the handful of email you’re receiving. It’s when a website starts to receive hundreds of emails that it becomes overwhelming. While answering these emails is part of your business it doesn’t necessarily help you grow your business. There is one thing you can do to help fix this without hiring someone and it’s called automate. Automation gives you the opportunity to give an instant response, answer common questions without typing, capture your customers email addresses, increase the seriousness of your business and much more. You have to remember that the quicker your response to a customers question the more likely they are to buy. They are most likely asking a question because they are ready to buy. The longer you wait the more of a chance they will find what they’re looking for elsewhere or decide they are no longer interested. With an autoresponder you can set up a list of frequently asked questions and answers. If their question doesn’t apply to any of those give them an option to forward their message to another email address where you will specifically answer their question. This is will surely increase your efficiency while still answering customer inquiries and allow you to keep growing your business. A couple recommended autoresponders are AWeber.com and GetResponse.com. We recommend that you try different services and figure out which one best suits your needs.

Email Opt-In List Growth Strategies

Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009

If you want to be successful with email marketing you need to keep your opt-in list growing. In order to do this you need to effectively implement some simple but important strategies. The number one thing you need to do to gain subscribers is provide an incentive that your traffic can’t resist. For instance give everyone who signs up for your opt-in list a coupon worth 5% off any purchase. Any type of incentive that has great value will do wonders for your list.

There are many different ways you can present your visitors the opportunity to opt-in. One is to have a standard “subscribe to our newsletter” form somewhere visible on your homepage. While this is better than nothing it’s most commonly the least effective. If you’re going to use this method at least make sure that it’s displayed globally on your website, meaning it shows up on every page. While it really all depends on your niche, commonly, the most effective method of building a list is to use what’s known as a hover ad or a pop in form. This is a form that “hovers” into the middle of the screen after 5 seconds or so of being on the website. The reason this is commonly the most effective way to build your list is the fact that it can not be missed. Without doing this a lot of your visitors will not even see the fact that you have a newsletter when if they did would have signed up.

These are just a couple of the strategies you can use to grow your email opt-in list, but some of the most effective. By implementing these to your website you are more than likely going see an instant increase in subscribers.

Emails Away From The Spam Box

Monday, February 2nd, 2009

Email complaints are probably the number one thing that will send your emails to the spam box. If you send emails to frequently like more than once a week many of those on your email list will start to mark your emails as spam. For a lot of people this is way too many emails, even once a week is too many emails for some.

Another thing you’ll want to look at is how up-to-date your email list is. If too many of your emails bounce back your list may be seen by ISPs as outdated or rented. A lot of fake emails could also cause a lot of bounces. A way to help eliminate this is to make sure that all of your subscribers are required to confirm their subscription after they sign up.

It’s also a good idea to try and avoid words like free if you can. This is a word that’s used in a lot of spam emails and if it’s used multiple times in your emails they will most likely be considered spam. You also want to make sure you use as much text as possible and less images. You have to remember spam filter robots can’t see images and may view an all image email as spam due to lack of content.

There are many different things you can do in order to remain away from the spam box, but these are some of the most common. This should keep you on your way and away from the spam box.

How To Get Subscribers To Open Your Newsletter

Saturday, January 17th, 2009

Many people will sign up for your newsletter simply for whatever it is that you’re offering as an incentive. However, many of them will still remain subscribed but not actually read the newsletter. There is only one way to change the view of these subscribers and that’s by writing a subject that captures their interest. You will need a subject that is well thought out and well written. Without a subject that captures their interest instantly what is the incentive to open the email? Well, there isn’t one and your readers are going to move on to their other emails.

Your subject should be short and concise. It should provide a summary of the emails content to give your subscribers an idea of what to expect. A good subject will trigger a certain emotion of your subscribers and get them to open your email. You have to remember your subject needs to grab their attention right away since you only have a few seconds. Two of the best types of subjects are ones that ask a question and that command your reader. You need to make sure that your subject pertains to your niche as much as possible. The only way to really know which type of subject works for your niche is to test. Divide your list and send out the different subjects you’ve come up with and see which one converts better.

Email Marketing

Sunday, December 21st, 2008

Email marketing uses electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial or fundraising messages to an audience. The term is usually referred to sending emails with the purpose of enhancing the relationship of a merchant with its current or previous customers and to encourage customer loyalty and repeat business. Email marketing has become so popular due to the fact that a mailing list provides the ability to distribute information to a wide range of specific, potential customers at a relatively low cost. Email marketing is often reported as second only to search marketing as the most effective internet marketing strategy. Any website that is not using email marketing is allowing traffic and customers to slip through their fingers.

How Often Should you Email Customers?

Friday, November 7th, 2008

Email marketing is one of the most powerful tools you can use in Internet marketing. The bigger your email list becomes the more powerful it will be. With the proper email marketing tools you can send personalized emails to your entire list in just a few minutes. You must email your customers enough so that they keep interest, but you must also make sure not to email them too much. A good email marketing path to follow would be to email your customers every two weeks or every month. This will depend on whether or not you are releasing a new product or if you have time sensitive information you want your customers to know. You want to make sure three quarters of your emails are good information and not just trying to sell them something. This will make all the difference in how effective your list is.