How to Successfully Run Email Marketing Campaigns

Email marketing is one of the many marketing methods that simply get overlooked by many small business owners. I am not sure exactly why, as it is typically not expensive and often has a very good return on your investment. The issue is perhaps that most people simply do not know how to manage their campaign very well. They perhaps tried once and failed at it, so they figured it was a method that simply didn’t work. If this is you, then I would encourage you to give it another shot. If you are someone who is just now getting into email marketing, I hope that you find these tips rewarding and enlightening in your initial efforts of a successful email marketing campaign.

 

Test, Test, and then Test Some More

I wanted to put this tip directly up front. If there is one thing that I want you to get from this article/post it is that you should always revise your campaign. I have never seen anyone with a very successful email marketing campaign that has never tested or changed their formatting. Generally, you will need to. You will find that some products will be more successful than others, that colors matter, and that your subject line may impact how many people read your emails. I would encourage you that even if you fail on your first email, change things and see if it improves the results, eventually, you can continue to alter little things and see how even those impact your readers. In the end, it is all about converting those readers to sales, and testing what works will ensure that you get the max return on your investment of time and money.

 

Expect to invest time and effort into your campaigns

This is one of the biggest problems with the vast majority of failing email marketing campaigns. They feel that simply adding a place for people to subscribe on their website is enough. The best and most successful internet marketers online right now always entice you to sign up in some way. They put a lot of effort into ensuring that you not only do it just because you are a fan of theirs, but because you are legitimately interested in what they might offer in their emails.

 

One of the worst email marketing campaigns I have seen was by a forum that simply pasted about 10 of the latest created threads on the forum. There was nothing insightful being given, nothing new, I could easily go to the website and see what was being put in the newsletter without ever needing it sent to email address. To be honest, there just was not any investment of time and effort being placed there. I can see why people would immediately want to unsubscribe or trash the emails as soon as they reached their inbox. Be prepared when you have an email marketing campaign to put some time into it, or you will not have people that want to read what you are saying.

 

Stick to being professional

The problem many people have with subscribing or giving their email to anyone is that it will not be handled with care. Always be professional with the emails you send out and how you handle peoples email addresses. I have seen whole companies get their name out there as being unprofessional and a nuisance. This is not the reputation you are looking to get when you own a business. Instead, you should limit the amount of emails you receive, as well as always offer an unsubscribe button. There are numerous companies that I have subscribed to their newsletters because I know that they are big enough companies that they will follow the requirement of letting me unsubscribe at any given time. Nor will they ever feel so desperate for money that they will sell my email address. If you do not stick to these ethical rules of business, your email marketing campaign may not be the only thing at risk, but your entire business could be.

Grow by leaps and bounds with software to skyrocket your business: ecommerce shopping cart software, content management system software, and email marketing software by Interspire.

Email Marketing Made Easy with Software

Email marketing can really turn your business around if you are struggling. It is a relatively simple way to bring back traffic that has left your website as well as will help you find repeat customers. Even companies who are already successful can really see their sales go up quickly in a matter of a short period of time when email marketing is done properly. The proper way is to use some form of software to help you out and make it easier to accomplish a good email marketing campaign. You may be asking yourself, why do I need software? Below are some reasons why.

 

#1: Software helps you keep your mailing list up to date

Any good software on the market should have the ability to help you keep your list up to date. The problem with many people is that they will purposely register to your list with an email that they don’t use. The problem is that within a few months that email may even be obsolete and without software you will constantly be getting responses saying that your email was not accepted. This is terribly annoying and becomes a huge problem if you have a mailing list that is fairly large. The software should weed these out for you so that you will not keep emailing them month after month and receiving the same responses back as well.

 

#2: Software will help people subscribe and unsubscribe easily

First off, subscribing should be easy and whether you have software or not, I suppose adding people to a list wouldn’t be difficult manually. However, removing people is where email marketing manually fails quickly. You should want to keep your business is a positive light and always looking professional. While you want to encourage people to stay on your mailing list, you don’t want to force them to be on it. This is actually against the law once they bring it to your attention to be removed, and it is in your best interest to only make it easy for them to be taken off the list, but to have it done automatically and immediately once the request is made.

 

#3: Software will help you send bulk emails

After your mailing list grows beyond about 25 emails, you find it to be a very daunting to task to send out newsletters and perform email marketing manually. If you are truly doing a good campaign, it should not be too hard to get 25 people on a mailing list. You run into the risk of having your email provider (including internet providers) shutting down your service because they view you as potentially spamming people. These email marketing software companies have agreements setup where they are allowed to perform these tasks without getting into trouble. Therefore, it takes the liability off of you to a certain degree.

 

#4: Software will help you monitor the performance of your email marketing campaigns

As with any type of marketing, email marketing is a game where you will want to constantly evolve your campaign. You will try new things out, and you want to ensure that you have an easy way to monitor what is and is not working. Without software to do this, it is going to be nearly impossible to really see what type of conversions you are getting from your campaigns. Good software will be able to help you view some of the smallest of things which can make the biggest differences in your success.

Grow by leaps and bounds with software to skyrocket your business: ecommerce shopping cart software, content management system software, and email marketing software by Interspire.

How to Pick an Autoresponder

An autoresponder can really help you convert your traffic into sales. In fact, you may be shocked to know that the vast majority of your traffic is going to fit into one of two categories without an autoresponder. You will have traffic that comes to your website and may purchase something from your website. Others though, will come to your website, leave quickly, and never return. They may forget your URL and may have difficulty finding it again if they wish to make a return visit. An autoresponder though will help you take the traffic that leaves, encourage them to come back, and then make a second choice of whether they would like to buy from you or not.

Tip #1: Be Realistic With Yourself

I completely understand that you want your business to be legitimate. You don’t want to limit yourself to something that will keep you below your competition. And you shouldn’t do this. However, one of the biggest mistakes people make is always getting more overhead on themselves than what they can afford. What ends up happening is that your business will open its doors, there will be a very slow initial start-up period while you are working on getting your name out in the open. The unfortunate part is that it is eating up your savings because you are paying extra for things you don’t need, like huge autoresponder packages. To be quite frank, start with something small. You do not need a package that has unlimited on almost everything. A smaller package that meets your demands at the beginning with an option to upgrade later on is the key.

 

Tip #2: Stick to your initial plans

If your initial plan was to have fairly lengthy messages, find an autoresponder service that will allow you to send those and not limit you to the size of them. You should be able to find a service that will meet your demands. If you are confused, speak directly to a customer service representative to see if they can customize a plan that would meet your needs. They will be willing to work with you to gain your business!

 

Tip #3: Never agree to a year-long contract

Nowadays everyone from web hosting to autoresponders want you to sign your name to a year long contract. The problem is that autoresponders can sometimes be shaky. Owners can change, and it is not always going to be ideal to commit yourself to such a long agreement. You want the flexibility, that if you need to change autoresponder services that you can. If they ask you, or even if it seems like a good deal, I would encourage you to pay the little bit extra and stick to monthly agreements.

 

Tip #4: Are there going to be ads?

The problem with ads being on your messages is that you have absolutely zero control on what is placed there. I have seen autoresponders place terrible ads on some professional quality messages. This certainly is something that people might frown upon. This is not to mention that it draws their attention away from your own message. You would likely find that your conversion rating is less if you have ads on your messages. If you do have ads, always ensure that the autoresponder company has a strict policy about what type of ads are going to be placed there.

 

Tip #5: Stick with reputable companies

As mentioned above, there are hundreds of autoresponder services on the market right now. Some of them are run by people who are really unfamiliar with the market or managing their business. It is not uncommon to see unfortunate people who find a good deal online pay money for something, and then turn around and see the company go out of business because it was a start-up company that failed. You probably will never see a refund and worse, you have wasted your time setting up an autoresponder for your website and will again have to start from scratch on configuring everything. It simply is not worth going with brand new companies that have not been tested if you are serious about your company being successful.

Grow by leaps and bounds with software to skyrocket your business: ecommerce shopping cart software, content management system software, and email marketing software by Interspire.

Email Marketing Triggers

When most people send out an email, whether it is to a huge list or to a single person, each recipient almost always looks at it as an initial means of creating a conversation. Since this is the case, in email marketing you have to expect to get a huge amount of emails back if you have several responsive subscribers and a good amount of emails on your list. The problem is that there may be just too many to respond to manually. Generally, I hate automated emails. However, there is one thing worse than an automated email. That is, no response at all. If anyone sends you an email inquiring about your newsletter or products in it, you should always respond. This is where trigger emails come into play. Trigger emails are not done simply by emails but also through other variables, including people who maybe add a product to their shopping cart but never actually finish the checkout process.

The easiest way to think of trigger emails is basically a system used to allow your email to run by it self, or at least in part. What you do is choose specific conditions in which you would send some type of response. When these conditions are met it will send an email automatically. Those who you converse whether through trigger emails or manually are much more inclined to purchase from you if they think that you care about them than those who are simply ignored. It will make the conversions from your email marketing campaign much more frequent.

One of the most popular techniques, as mentioned above, is to email those who have opted in on a list of some kind and were getting ready to purchase, but never actually completed the process. There could be a wide variety of reasons that they decided not to purchase the item. However, if you take the first step forward and try to help them with their problem then you may find that they will end up buying it. In addition, you might even add that you have a coupon of 10% off on that item along with your trigger email to help them buy from you rather than somewhere else. If knocking a little bit off the price is what it takes, it may be worth it to you!

In most company’s cases, they almost always have one or two items that they consider to be their biggest sellers. The other products generally just make sense to be on the website with it. For example, if you sell spark plugs, you are probably going to sell spark plug wires too. The problem though is that you should not have complimentary products that are just sitting in stock. So a common trigger email is to send an email to someone who just purchased spark plugs from you that will contain a discounted price on spark plug wires or another complimentary product. You could include coupons as well for future purchases.

Trigger emails are great and can do wonders in getting return business. If they are used properly you will even see the conversion rating of your email marketing campaigns increasing. This will encourage those that have opted in on the list to receive emails from you to also buy from you. All the while, you should avoid being listed as spam by limiting the amount of emails you can send to someone.

Grow by leaps and bounds with software to skyrocket your business: ecommerce shopping cart software, content management system software, and email marketing software by Interspire.

Email Marketing Split Testing

If you have read very many good email marketing articles, you probably have read countless times to continue to analyze the performance of your emails that you are sending out. There are so many variations when it comes to what works and what is not working. At the same time, any email marketer with their salt will tell you never to spam your list. The problem now is, if you are sending out only a limited number of emails each year then how are you really supposed to analyze the performance?

This is where split testing comes into play. Split testing is the process in which you test two or more things in the emails you send to your opted in list. So for example, you want to test the format of your newsletter. You might gather three different formats of the same newsletter. Send the first format to the first 1/3rd of your list. The second, to the second 1/3rd. Of course, the third formatted newsletter would go to the last 1/3rd of your list. The benefit here is that you will be able to see which newsletter performed the best.

Not only could you test format, but you could also test out subject lines. You could see which subject line had the best response. So the idea in mind here is be able to determine which subject would work the best so that you can use that format and subject line in the future as well. Maximizing the profit and return of investment of time spent on each email sent.

This may sound difficult and time consuming, and it is. I am not going to tell you that making three different copies of a newsletter or email is easy. It is not. The thing is though is that you can either spend a year just testing what works, or maybe speed up the process by testing out multiple things in a single month. Hopefully it will quickly get you to the place you want to be. Within a few months, you should have maximized the profits you would generate from your email marketing campaign.

A quick tip as well is to split who you are testing randomly by who has been on the list the longest. Naturally, most people who are on your list recently are frequently more interested in what you have to say. It is not that those older opted in people are not interested, it is just they may be used to receiving emails from you. When this is the case, they will be more inclined to delete them unless they are regular readers. This may be something else you need to individually test out, but this has just been my experience. Therefore, when split testing, I would encourage you to take a sample and not just send one format to the emails on your list the longest and then another to the newest ones. Spread it around and if your email marketing software has it available, you could just do it randomly.

Also, never hesitate to continue to test things out. For example, if you have split tested a subject, you found that one subject worked over another. Try to analyze why that one was the most popular. Perhaps you had your product as the first word on the subject line, what about putting a discount like “50% off” in the subject line with it? Would that help, or does it hurt you? Do not just settle on a subject line after you have split tested it one time. You can continuously be improving on it each month, making much more progress on improving your email marketing campaigns.

Grow by leaps and bounds with software to skyrocket your business: ecommerce shopping cart software, content management system software, and email marketing software by Interspire.

Email Marketing Software Selection – The Open Rate

Choosing the right email marketing software is not the easiest process. I am not going to sit here and tell you exactly which one to choose because there are many that have features that bloat them by my standards, but you may find them useful. So, I am simply going to give you one of the features that I think any email marketing software should have as a standard feature.

This single feature is the open rate. This may sound somewhat silly, but it is actually very good analysis to have. What is the first thing you do when you open up your email? Generally, you read the titles. However, the second thing you do is open up those that you want to read. If you have emails that you do not want to read, those immediately get tossed into the delete folder or deleted permanently. From an email marketing perspective, this is a great way to see what is working and what is not working. The email marketing software should give you a rundown of what percentage of emails you are getting opened.

So exactly how do I use the open rate to benefit me?

First off, you should not just have a single number. If the email marketing software only has this, then I would contemplate looking at another. Instead, you should be able to see the open rate on each email you send as well.

The benefit to being able to see the open rate on each email is that you will find what subject lines are working. For example, if you own a car parts store you might send out a newsletter one month on rotors that you have for sale. This may have an open rate of 50%. The following month you might send one out on alternators and have an open rate of 75%. Clearly, there are at least 25% more people interested in your alternators than your rotors. You might send follow-up emails each time you have alternators for sale.

Also, the formatting of your subject line may make a huge difference. Often a mistake I see is that people will put very generic subject lines on their emails. For example, “Awesome Car Products” could be a generic subject some people would use on their newsletter if they owned a car products website. Generally, I do not have much success at this, but you might test it out yourself. The following month though, they might have “Alternators and Other Parts - 50% off”. Generally you will always find the more specific subject line to do better, but again, email marketing is all about testing so I would encourage you to try outrageous things and you may find it will work for you.

You can even get further into the analysis though. I will continue on from the example analysis found above. Now that you know that alternators are of interest and you need specific subject lines for the best results, perhaps it is time to begin very specific analysis. Instead of using “Alternators and Other Parts – 50% off”, you could use the subject “50% off On All Alternators and Other Parts”. How do the two subjects compare? Do you think that having the first word they read as “Alternator” maybe made a difference? Did the discount on the front of the subject have a bigger impact on the reader? All of these come into play in the open rate. It is something you should not ignore.

Grow by leaps and bounds with software to skyrocket your business: ecommerce shopping cart software, content management system software, and email marketing software by Interspire.

Email Marketing Software Selection – Tracking Visitors

There needs to be more to email marketing software than just sending a lot of emails out. You really should be able to analyze the performance of your emails. If you are unable to do this with whatever email marketing software you are currently looking at, I would encourage you to go elsewhere. Generally, there are several options out there, but you do not want to find one with too many features that you do not need, nor do you want to use one that does not have the features needed to figure out how your emails or newsletters are performing.

One of the features that email marketing software should have is the ability to track visitors. There is more to email marketing than simply sending out a random email each month. This will show it. Here is how it works. If you send out 10,000 emails with your newsletter, but 1,000 ends up clicking on a link inside of it, then you know that 10% of your subscribers could be considered “responsive subscribers”. This number would actually be considered to be pretty good. Anything below about 5% is considered poor.

So how do I get this number up? This is where the analysis comes in handy. Are you enticing your readers to click on a link? For example, I have seen some emails that will give the price of products you are advertising in the newsletter directly in it. Generally though, this will severely hurt your responsive subscribers rating. If they have all of the details in the newsletter, this is not necessarily a bad idea if you are getting a higher conversion rating. However, those who may be shopping around may not be enticed to click on the link to actually purchase that item unless they know they will be buying it from you. My personal opinion is that you should try both methods. The overall goal is have your readers buy from you, but if you are getting them to your site then this is a good step in the right direction.

You can also start evaluating the formatting of the newsletter itself. You must find a good balance of giving enough information, but not too much. Most ecommerce stores have hundreds of products for sale. Not each product needs to go on a newsletter. You do not want to just make a huge list that they have to filter through to find a product that they are interested in. Instead, the subject should be relative mostly to what the newsletter is about. If you own a car parts ecommerce store and you already know that your readers are primarily opening emails with the subject related to “Alternators”, maybe it would be a good idea to have your alternators as the primary purpose inside the newsletters. This is not to say that you should not have a link to some of your spark plugs, spark plug wires, and rotors though. These should just be secondary things. The alternators need to be big and extremely visible in most cases. However, the placement of it, whether you align it to the left or the right can even make a difference. All of this can be tested if you are able to track visitors that are clicking links inside of your newsletter.

Grow by leaps and bounds with software to skyrocket your business: ecommerce shopping cart software, content management system software, and email marketing software by Interspire.

Email Marketing Software Selection – Doing the Dirty Work

Finding good email marketing software should not be tough. You want a lot of things to be automated for you when trying to find email marketing software. However, automation does not mean that studying the analysis is going to be automated as well. There truly is an art when it comes to email marketing. I am not going to sit here and tell you that all you need to do is gather a list and send out emails every month to it. This is probably a good way to fail at it. Instead, you really have to focus on what is working, cut the things that are not. A lot of the email marketing software on the market will have everything you need, but only a few you may understand how to use.

For this reason, I would encourage you to find one that puts things that are easy for you to understand. I have spent some time here talking about how open rates and tracking visitors is important to email marketing. However, do you remember me talking about focusing on the subject lines that you have used to determine open ratings?

The list of subject lines you have used, in my opinion, should be held in a single area within the database. You do not want to have to formulate this list on your own. This is part of the dirty work that needs to be completed by the software. The goal here is to be able to efficiently analyze what is and is not working. If you are unable to do this, there is very little reasoning in having the software.

Another thing to think about is the ease of using the software overall. Collecting the database information you need is important, but if you are unable to send emails easily to your list, then what purpose does it serve? You should always find software that is easy to work. I have heard numerous people’s preference on which software is the easiest, so I will not encourage you to only try one. Rather, most email marketing software out there has demos which are very limited. You should still try them out and see what you do or do not like about them before selecting one. Keep in mind that these email marketing software companies have several resources online telling you that they are the best. Just be wary and use your own judgment in determining whether it will work for you or not.

Grow by leaps and bounds with software to skyrocket your business: ecommerce shopping cart software, content management system software, and email marketing software by Interspire.

Email Marketing Newsletters – Customer Retention

I am an avid buyer online. Maybe another word you could use is spender. If I need an item, I do a quick Google search, find a company that looks like it may have been in business for a while, read a couple of reviews, and make the purchase. A couple of years down the road I may need another item of the same kind. I am guilty of not going back to my emails from years before or seeing exactly where I purchased it. Often times I can never remember where I had purchased it. So basically I do the same process as above.

Internet buyers are this way. It is not as though they can go to a local store. They will almost always remember where they went to get a product. For some reason it is not that way when you buy things online. So how do you keep customers around? The answer in short would be newsletters.

If you own an online business, even if it is making sales, you should always ask your buyers if they want to opt in to a newsletter. Many times they will say no, but those that might be interested in seeing other specials you have would be willing to accept newsletters from you.

I will use my dad as a classic example. A few years back he bought an item called an “elmo”. This product is fairly rare, not frequently found in local retail stores. He had no idea where he had purchased that one. We went back online to find another place to buy one. They never were able to keep my dad as a customer. However, had he received a newsletter every month, he probably would have not only remembered, but made another purchase after the other one broke to no fault of the manufacturer or company that sold it to him. Not only this, but they probably would have sold him another Elmo and a projector which he needed that is a common accessory to go with an Elmo.

Another risk is not just the individual buyers, but companies. Let’s say that I own a car repair business. I know that you are probably one of the many places online I could buy from. I might find a rare type of alternator at your website that you could supply. If I do not go back to your website for a long time, I could easily forget where I found it at. Not only this, but when you have specials on items, I may never be aware of them, even if it could put more money in my pocket when buying from you.

See, the idea here is that you want to make your name aware to people. People always use email and it is quickly becoming one of the most used pieces of communication in the world today. You do not need to spam people to gain buyers, you just have to put your name in front of them and encourage them to buy from you. Even if they are not willing to right that minute, they may remember you later on down the road and buy from you then. Email marketing has a lasting effect that cannot be ignored when it comes to customer retention.

Grow by leaps and bounds with software to skyrocket your business: ecommerce shopping cart software, content management system software, and email marketing software by Interspire.

Email Marketing Is Not Spam

When many people think of the term email marketing they often shiver at the thought of using this marketing technique. They begin to think of how their own email’s inbox fills up with unnecessary emails within mere hours each day.  However, I am here to tell you that this is not email marketing done properly, it is just spam. I know if you are reading this that you want to keep your company in positive light and stay away from unethical business practices. Below are ways to not only hold to ethical email marketing standards, but also give you better conversion ratings as well without spamming potential customers.

Rule #1: Always allow an easy way for email recipients to unsubscribe

One of the most frustrating things about getting spam is that you are typically unable to unsubscribe from it. Instead, you have to add them to a spam senders list or create a rule that will filter the emails out of your inbox. You do not want to be grouped with these people. You should always make it easy for email recipients to unsubscribe from receiving newsletters or frequently sent emails.

Not only is giving an unsubscribing option an ethical way to approach sending regular emails to people, but it is also a good way to gain respect. Even those who unsubscribe from your emails will probably remember your companies’ name. They probably just do not want to receive regular updates. However, if they recognize that you are not a desperate company, then they are much more inclined to return to do business with you in the future.

Rule #2: Limit the number of emails each recipient receives

It does not matter how cool or how interested I am in the topic of the emails, if I get too many of them I am quickly growing tired of all the emails. For example, I had a forum that I visited all the time last year send me daily emails of the hottest topics, new members, etc. I was interested in a lot of what was written in them, but I did not feel that I needed a daily email on the topics. It became very annoying, and within a couple of weeks of receiving these, I quickly unsubscribed from receiving them all together.

My personal philosophy of overcoming this is to never send potential buyers more than one email per month. Once per month is frequently enough that you will keep your business fresh on the memory of those who are on your email list. It is long enough though that they will not grow too tired of receiving them. More than not if they just delete your email once per month, they will not spend the time necessary to unsubscribe in most cases. They might delete it, but when they need one of your products, they may return to that email later on.

Rule #3: Be relative to what they might be looking for

I have purposely signed up for newsletters before. When they are done properly, I really do not mind receiving them. However, when the emails are done poorly and without any thought being involved, it can quickly make me unsubscribe. One of the most frustrating things about newsletters is that they are often automatically generated. However, I want to encourage you to put some effort into yours. When you want to sell a specific item, you should carefully look at those who previously bought that item from you. Make sure you target them. You may find that you have better conversion ratings when you do not send emails to everyone on your list and only target specific ones.

It is, however, acceptable to place multiple things into one newsletter. For example, let’s say that you subscribed to me on this page. You are probably most interested in email marketing. It would probably be wise for me to only send you emails that are relative to email marketing. However, in an organized newsletter I could also write brief things about Pay Per Click and Article Marketing as well. You may be less interested in those topics, so they would not be the primary purpose. However, I could track what links you clicked on and determine whether you gained interest in it or not so in the future I might send you a newsletter on other topics as well.

Grow by leaps and bounds with software to skyrocket your business: ecommerce shopping cart software, content management system software, and email marketing software by Interspire.

Email Marketing - Tailoring your emails to the readers

There are several marketing methods that you can use. Within this, I am certainly not going to tell you to that you should not explore what other marketing methods out there. However, my goal is to encourage you to try email marketing if you think it is a possibility for your ecommerce website.

First of all, you should be aware that there some pretty strict rules when it comes to email marketing. In fact, when most people hear about it for the first time they immediately think of the countless spam emails they have sent to their email inbox every day. Fortunately, this is not what email marketing is about. The difference between spam and email marketing is that within the proper way of email marketing you are required to not send unsolicited emails. For example, pulling a random list of email addresses from a database of some kind and sending each of them an email is pretty frowned upon. Not only by those receiving the emails, but also by law. You could end paying a hefty fine if you are caught doing this.

Not only is it illegal, but it will not work. How many times, if ever, have you responded to the spam email that you receive? You have more probability of having your email added to the junk senders list than you do to get someone to respond. I, for one, have never responded or purchased anything from spam that has hit my inbox. Even if I am interested in their type of service or product, I might read the email. If I know that I never subscribed to receive the email then it reeks of unprofessionalism and I will go elsewhere to make my purchase.

So when does it work? 

It works when you have real leads with people who are really interested in your products. I will use a classic example. I have purchased my airline tickets several times online. I ended up purchasing once from a popular company online that sells airline tickets. Every month or so they will send me an email with specials they have going on. Typically, I always go through them when I am looking to go on a vacation. I have probably made at least three or four purchases through them, several times through their email. Their email seems to be targeted to me as they know my routine buying pattern. I do not rent hotels from them normally, but their emails target the area specials from my airport.

The idea here is that I am not simply getting an email from them when I have never purchased from them and have no interest in buying plane tickets online. They know that I buy plane tickets online. They know where I flew from. I am interested in what they have to offer. Maybe not every time they send me something, but if I buy something from them once out of every 12 emails they might send me a year that is worth it for them.

The concept here is that you need to market via email to those interested in your products. If you are not doing this then you may be wasting your time. You will even see better results if you are capable of refining your emails to specific people who might be interested in a certain product. For example, if you sell office supplies and you had someone buy staples from your store, I would encourage you to send them an email each time you have a sell on them. They probably couldn’t care less when you send them emails about specials on laptops or something else.

Grow by leaps and bounds with software to skyrocket your business: ecommerce shopping cart software, content management system software, and email marketing software by Interspire.

Email Marketing – Generating Leads

So now that you have the basic concept of what email marketing is, you probably want to know where to send these emails to. The typical person that you would want to send your email to would be someone who could also be referred to as a lead.

So what exactly is a lead? A lead would be a person that perhaps some type of interest in your product. For example, you should be realistic enough to know that if you sell toy cars that not everyone is going to be interested in this product. However, those who are searching for it online, watch videos of toy cars, or have purchased a toy car from you are perhaps more likely to buy from you in the future than anyone else.

The process of generating leads is extremely important if you intend to do email marketing. This is why creating lists of email addresses and people are so important to do from the very beginning. Even though you may never actually send emails out you should still collect emails whenever possible. You never know when you might find them useful later on. It does not matter what point you are at now, whether you have had your website up for several years or you are just getting ready to work through your sales pitch. If you can find a place to collect emails from your site visitors, you should.

How gathering emails should be done

Generally, there are numerous ways to collect people. Probably the most popular ploy is to offer something for free. In return, you make sure they give you a valid email address. One of the best marketers I have seen used this tactic and is quite successful at it. What he does before he releases a new marketing class that he puts on, he will release a few videos. These videos will give real and quality information to those who watch it. In fact, I loved them and learned a lot from the small tips he offered in them. In the end, he would encourage you to see a few other videos which were private. The only way to see those videos would be to register on his website. He was clear and open with you about it that upon release of his new product, he would be sending you an email to remind you and give you a special deal on the price.

The end result is that I signed up. I got my email that he promised he would send me. I never purchased his product, but many did. I have seen a lot of discussion about it on several forums too. It was clearly a good marketing technique.

Another common way of gathering people on your list is to make those who buy from you give their email to you. This is a good way to retain customers as well. A lot of people will search for something on the internet, they will buy from a company they are not real familiar with, but when they want to buy more of that product they will never know where to find you again. If you send them occasional follow up emails with new specials you are offering you may find that they will buy more products from you in the future. This is not an idea of spamming them everyday, once per month is about right, but could be spread out a little further even if you see fit. Also, the more you can tailor that email to what they previously bought the better. For example, if you own a car parts store and they previously bought rotors off of you, you may consider sending them an email when you have specials on rotors.

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Email Marketers: How to Use HTML

You have your newsletter written and are excited about sending it out to your subscribers. The last thing is to use some HTML to get the newsletter to the level you want it to be and for it to look its best. The problem is, you don’t know that much about HTML. Fortunately, it’s not that difficult to learn and while there are many different things you will need to learn the following tips will help you along the way to ensure that your newsletters look great while displaying correctly across email platforms.

When it comes to background colors and that is that many times they won’t work. This is especially true with email applications that are web based like Hotmail or Gmail. That because the body tag will be eliminated in favor of the web based mail application’s logo. HTML email is not as advanced as some people might imagine and the old methods that worked years ago are still being used. That means if you want the email to have a background color the easiest way to do it is to use a 100% wide table and assign it a bgcolor. Then, you’ll have your background color.
Something else you will need to keep in mind is the plain text version. Lots of coders think about this at the very end and then do a sloppy job. The problem with this is that many spam filters will assume that this is trash and will send it straight to the junk folder.

Spam filters are very sensitive to emails from email marketers anyway so if you do anything a little off it’s likely the email will go to the trash. Don’t let this happen to you. Instead, pay attention to the plain text version of your email and ensure that it is correct so it will be delivered as is. With plain text emails it is recommended to hard wrap them at 60 characters or as many as 70 characters. You need to create a ruler across the top of your plain text editor. Just take any letter and type it 60 times or more across the top. Don’t use Microsoft Word, but rather an editor for plain text. Type your content and when you reach the end of the ruler hit return.

These are just a few tips to help you with your email marketing campaigns and to ensure your HTML is good! Just remember, old school HTML is much better and it will work for you. Just be patient, take your time, and it will all work out!

More Tips for HTML and Email Marketing

There are many tips for email marketers when it comes to HTML and newsletters, emails, and the like. Unfortunately, there is not one standard for HTML emails across all platforms. There are just too many out there and that means when you are designing something and using HTML you need to leave yourself enough room that the display will look good in all programs. You will also need to test your HTML in various programs including Gmail, Hotmail, AOL, Apple Mail, Outlook 2003, 2000, Outlook Express, Eudora, Mozilla, Apple Entourage, Lotus Notes, Comcast, EarthLink, and many others. It’s amazing, but the HTML code will display differently in all of these. Because of this it is important to keep your html as simple as possible. It’s the only way to ensure your code will look good in all programs.

If you are going to use CSS make sure you do it with inline CSS. Linked files won’t work and will fail miserably. You want to use very little CSS and only for colors or fonts if necessary. Remember, you want to incorporate the CSS in a way that if it fails it isn’t so bad! Also, keep in mind that when using CSS you need to embed it below the body tag ever time. Otherwise, it won’t appear because many email applications that are browser based, like hotmail, Gmail, and the like, will take off the body, head, and html tags so they don’t mix in with the actual web page.
Remember, too, that a period cannot begin any of your HTML code or the lines of your email. This is important to keep in mind because quite a few email servers interpret this as the command for the end of the message. Anything below that period will be stripped away and won’t be seen by your recipients. As a result, it is very important to pay attention to your HTML and CSS and ensure that your email is received as intended. If you have CSS that begins with periods then you need to make sure you add spaces beforehand so it won’t appear as if this is the end of the page command.

Now, as much as you might like the idea of embedding movie files, JavaScript, Flash, or ActiveX in your email newsletter or other marketing emails you need to go ahead and forget it. Of course, you can embed it, but the question is why would you when probably every single one of your subscribers has an anti virus program that will block the application from running? That’s the last thing you want so keep it simple even if you prefer the style of the files mentioned above.

Email Marketing: HTML tips

HTML Tips for the Email Marketer
If you are an email marketer and you want your emails, newsletters, and the like to look as professional as possible while garnering the most response then you need to learn a little about HTML. Fortunately, HTML does not have to be confusing or tricky. As long as you can read and follow directions you will be able to include basic HTML in your newsletters and emails and make them look more professional without having to pay a professional to do it. The following tips will help you with your HTML.

Tip #1 Multipart-Alternative
When setting up your emails and newsletters you will want to have the HTML email display in “Multipart alternative format. What this means is that the email has the plain text and the html versions embedded. This is so that all those “plain text” folks out there can still view the email if they don’t choose to see it in HTML. There are several systems that can help you with this.

Tip #2 Images
With HTML you won’t be sending email files as attachments. Instead, you will have the images hosted on your server and the email’s code will have absolute paths to the images. This means that you will have to use your server’s web address in the code so that the images are actually embedded within the email. It sounds tricky, but it’s actually pretty straight forward. Once you try it a few times you will have it down.

Tip #3 Preview Pane
When you are designing your newsletters or other emails for email marketing you need to design it for the preview pane. This will give you a maximum of 600 pixels to work with and 500 pixels is probably playing it safer. The reason why is that the vast majority of recipients will not double click the email to open it to wide screen. So, don’t design it for full screen. Instead, design the email for how it is most likely to be viewed.

Tip #4
Don’t try to use CSS In emails to get the appearance you have in mind. It’s not reliable in email and won’t work right. Instead, use font tags, shim.gifs, and tables because they are what will allow you to create the “Look” you are going for.

These are just a few tips to help you with HTML in your email marketing campaign. Remember, though, that it takes time to get it right and learn all the ins and outs. In time, however, you will have HTML down and creating a newsletter will be easy and fast. Be patient and you will succeed with HTML!

Should You Offer Newsletters in HTML and Text?

You have probably signed up for a newsletter before only to have a question presented to you. Would you like that in plain text or html? Today, the vast majority of people prefer html emails. They are more attractive and overall they are easier to read. Many email marketers were previously of the camp of thought that subscribers should be given an option and allowed to choose between html and text. The reasoning behind this was that there was a big enough core of subscribers that wanted plain text that it was worth the effort. Today’s research shows otherwise. In fact, it shows that people are more likely to respond positively to HTML newsletters, emails, or other marketing material. When you give subscribers the choice between the two you will not only have to keep up with two different formats, but you will also need to keep track of which one is better. This relates to more work than is necessary and a whole lot more stressing. In today’s environment it truly is unnecessary to give readers a chance to choose. That just doesn’t make sense when readers may not fully understand the difference of the other and choose whichever they see first.

It truly is important to choose an HTML email newsletter or other marketing material without giving readers the choice. They will appreciate the HTML email more because it is graphically appealing and helps viewers take in the information in a better and more suited way.

Of course, another reason to use HTML in your emails is that it allows you to track the methods to see which one is putting up a fight. In most cases the plain text emails will flounder and may not even beemaled at all.

HTML is also beneficial in emails because it puts the email in charge of turning over sales. This is truly effective after the marketer knows how to handle it. It’s when plain text is used and the email marketer is brand new that this won’t be successful. In fact, put it plain and simple. If you had to read the email from some email marketers in HTML would you choose to do so? Or, if you had to email someone in the office as well as someone out of the office would you consider html or text? Most people think they would go for HTML Up front and that is truly the best option when it comes to marketing emails.

Benefits of HTML Emails over Text Emails

We have all heard the saying, “You can’t judge a book by its cover.” However, if the cover looks boring it’s not as likely that we will read it as if the book cover is designed in an appealing way. The same thing goes for email marketers and those who are interested in having their emails read should use html emails over text emails every single day. In fact, sending text emails when there is so much technology and simply amazing graphics that could be utilized to one’s advantage just doesn’t make sense. That’s why if you want your email marketing campaign to be successful you need to send HTML emails. The following are just a couple of the benefits HTML emails have over text emails. You should keep this in mind when you begin your email marketing campaign so you truly make the most of your campaign.

Look
First of all, HTML simply changes the look of your email. We all will read and click on links when we see a visually appealing email. When there is HTML within an email that looks interesting and that makes the topic at hand seem interesting then it will grab our attention. In fact, html is all about grabbing attention and redirecting it to where you want it to go. Now, text emails are nothing more than black and white words on words. This won’t grab your attention and in fact readers will be have to be overly dedicated to reading everything that arrives in their inbox to even give it two glances. As an email marketer your goal is to have every email read by every subscriber. This is a big goal and one you may not ever reach, but it is important to strive to reach the goal simply because more readers equals more money. Remember, HTML will keep your readers checking out what you have to offer while text emails will make you look left in the past.

Product Connection
Another benefit of HTML is that the html can create a connection to the product or service being sold. This is really important because increasing sales it what an email marketer works for. Without increasing subscribers and having them check out your newsletters and other emails then you won’t be very successful at this job. HTML emails can help you become more successful and they are definitely worthwhile. The reason that HTML works so well over text is because they allow for a product connection to be made between the product and the graphic. With plain text emails this simply isn’t an option!

Email Marketing: sending HTML VS sending text emails

HTML or Text Emails for Email Marketers
The idea of what type of email to send to one’s recipients has frequently been debated by email marketers. Some believe that text emails are the only way to go while others prefer HTML. Then, there are others on the fence that like plain text with a little HTML mixed in here or there. There are several ways to determine what type of emails you should be sending and it really helps to know your audience. For example, if your subscribers frequently praise your text emails then you might want to stick with this method. More likely than not if you use all text for your marketing email purposes you won’t get much response. There is one easy way to figure out what type of email will work best for your subscribers and that is to test them.

Send out an HTML email to a small portion of your email list and then an email that is exactly the same, but with plain text. Then, sit back and see which one gets more bites. It is almost guaranteed that the HTML email will garner more interest and response than the plain text emails. All too often email marketer forget to test their market, but this is the easiest and most cost effective way to find out what works. When you send an email in text and it doesn’t get returned and you send the same email in HTML and it has a 75% return rate then you will certainly notice that this is a worthwhile way to send your emails. Sure, the test will take a little bit of time and you will have to track the results. But, if you don’t do a small test to find out what type of emails your customers want to receive then you are doing yourself a injustice.

Grab Viewers’ Attention
The point behind the HTML newsletters and other types of correspondence is that it immediately draws you in and gives you a focal point. Ads and other types of marketing material that is drab and without a lot of thought and polish simply won’t be noticed by your subscribers. HTML emails are more popular because they have more graphics and show what your company is all about. HTML emails reinforce the brand while showing readers all types of information from healthy eating and dining out to cell phone plans and saving money.

Spam Checkers More Important than Ever

Ask anyone you know if they like spam and they will probably give you an incredulous look. Now, ask those same people if they have a spam filter or blocker on their email software. Most likely, everyone will respond that they do. Once you have this impromptu research complete you will better be able to understand that spam blockers are really popular because almost everyone hates spam and doesn’t want to waste their time with it. Hence, the spam blockers. The problem here is that many emails are blocked that shouldn’t be blocked and this can cause problems for email marketers. This is especially the case when email marketers are relying on their monthly newsletter and periodic emails with coupons and other important information to help bring in sales. The good news is that just because ISPs blocking potential spam and spam blocker programs is on the rise does not mean that you have to sit back and accept it. Instead, you can use a spam checker.

Spam Checkers
If you have never heard of one before you are certainly in for some enlightenment. A spam checker is a tool that will scan your content, whether it be newsletters, sales letters, or any other written word, and it will give you a spam score. A low spam score means your emails are written and formatted in a way that is not considered spam. However, if you receive a high spam score you can pretty much rest assured that your emails will be blocked and never delivered. The benefit of taking the time to spam check your content is that it will allow you to make any changes that are necessary to reduce the “spaminess” of your content and give it another try.

There are many different spam checkers on the web you can use to help you determine how much spam is in your newsletter or other marketing email. The important thing is to find a spam checker that is efficient and that will do a good job. There are some out there that may be free, but they don’t do a good enough job analyzing your content. Make sure you use a top of the line spam checker to ensure your emails will arrive at the intended recipients’’ inbox. This is worth the time, effort, and money because your sales will improve and your customers will continue to do business with you.

The Importance of Spam Checking

Are you an email marketer? If so, your biggest concerns are probably building a big “opt in” base as well as an outstanding email marketing campaign to bring in sales. However, have you ever wondered whether or not your emails are arriving to their destination? Or, have subscribers commented to you that they never receive their newsletter or other correspondence? If so, you need to sit up and take notice because your email marketing efforts may be being sabotaged by ISPs and email platforms that are identifying your emails as spam. Of course, if your subscribers have opted in you aren’t sending spam, but never the less today more ISPs and email platforms are taking over the reins and simply not allowing certain types of emails to be delivered to the inboxes of subscribers. This may be unfortunate and unfair, but that’s the way the game is being played. In order to fight back it is important for email marketers to use all the ammunition they have. In this case, using a spam checker is usually enough to help you identify if your email might be identified as spam and help you change it to a more acceptable format or wording.

Remember, if you don’t take the time to check your email correspondence with a spam checker there is a high likelihood it will never be delivered to its recipient. Luckily, spam checkers are pretty fast and can give you a detailed report of your content quickly. This allows you to see how your content “grades” and if you need to make significant changes or not. It is likely that the first few newsletters or emails will need to be edited significantly. However, once you are able to identify what is spam and what isn’t you shouldn’t have too big of a problem formatting future content in a way that won’t “trigger” any of the supposed spam checkpoints on various ISPs.

Not only will spam checkers help you become more efficient writing your newsletter and the like in the future, but they will also save you time and frustration trying to figure out where your email marketing campaign is going wrong. In many cases it may not be going wrong but rather not being delivered. That’s why spam checkers are of such importance and why everyone should run their content through a spam checker before ever attempting to email it.

Benefits of Spam Checking Email Marketing Campaigns

There are many benefits of spam checking your email marketing campaigns and if you are interested in being successful then you will not ignore these benefits. In fact, if you do ignore them it is quite possible that you will not have a very successful campaign because many of your emails will go undelivered because they will be marked as spam. That’s something many email marketers are unaware of and it is very important to know and understand. With spam being such a huge problem many ISPs are taking it upon themselves to reduce spam. As a result, they scan emails before delivering them for certain phrases, layout, and key terms. Those emails that meet any of the triggers will not be delivered because they will be marked as spam. Follow the tips outlined below to help create an email marketing campaign that will be successful and won’t be deemed as spam.

Increase Deliverability of Emails
The biggest benefit of spam checkers is that they help you improve the chances of your emails being delivered. There are enough obstacles email marketers have to deal with when it comes to having their emails opened and read and adding the issue of ISPs blocking emails is somewhat frustrating. However, any savvy and smart email marketer will pay attention to what’s going on in the industry and have a spam checker evaluate all content before it is sent out. Emails, newsletters, and the like can all be “graded” to determine their level of spam. Content that passes can be sent out as is, however content that doesn’t will need to be changed enough so that it can meet the spam checker’s qualification of “no spam.

Improve Opinion of Products/Services
Another benefit of spam checkers is that they will help you improve the overall opinion of your products and services. The reason why is that when you use a spam checker you will have an idea of how your newsletter or marketing materials will be received. When your marketing materials pass as not being spam then this is the way the majority of your customers will respond to the marketing emails, too. Today, people are fed up with spam and anything that even closely resembles it will get deleted immediately if it isn’t blocked first by the ISP. So, follow the spam checker’s suggestions and send out a newsletter or other marketing email that is spam free!

Reduce Risks of Spamming
Spamming has many risks within itself and even if you don’t think you are spamming, your recipients might. This is a fine line and one that email marketers certainly have to walk along. What’s important is that when you use a spam checker to evaluate your content you will ensure that everything you send out is on the up and up. That’s really important and it will keep you out of trouble, which could include big fines and other problems!

Check Your Email Marketing Newsletters for Spam

Spam is serious business and it can really cause your email marketing campaign some big headaches if recipients of your newsletter consider your emails spam. Luckily, there are methods to test your newsletters and other emails before you ever send them out to determine if they are “spam” or not. There are many spammers out there and the more there are the more difficult your work as an email marketer becomes. Not only do you have to compete with other marketers for the attention of your customers, but you also have to find ways to keep your email from being considered spam so that it will actually arrive in your intended recipients email inbox.
It may sound incredible, but even Internet Service Providers are taking control of the spam nightmare and filtering out emails that could potentially be spam.

The emails are all filtered for certain trigger phrases that are common with spammers. Writing styles that are “aggressive” as well as certain types of formatting are also considered when evaluating emails for spam. Those that are deemed spam are prevented from being delivered. Unfortunately, there are some emails that are not spam that are blocked by these well meaning ISPs and many times these are emails from email marketers. The best way to get around this situation is to use a spam checker.

What’s a Spam Checker
A spam checker is the best way to find out if your newsletter or other marketing material will be considered spam and kicked out by the recipient’s ISP. All you have to do is submit your marketing material to a spam checker and then wait for it to be analyzed. In most cases the report will be returned quickly and provide a scale of “spam” for your newsletter. It’s basically a ranking to let you know how “spammy” your newsletter is. The benefit in this is that this will give you an idea of whether you need to do some rewriting and editing or if your newsletter is fine as it is. Knowing this up front is important simply because it will allow you to check all of the marketing emails you want to send out before you do. If there is a problem you will know up front and be able to change it. This is much better than sending out lots of emails only to have ISPs delete them or send them back to you.

There are many different ways you can go about checking your email marketing efforts for spam. What’s recommended is that you check every single email that you are planning on sending out to your subscribers. It’s better to be safe than sorry and the effort you put into de-spamming your marketing materials the more sales you will make so it’s definitely worthwhile.

Personalized Emails—Getting it Right

Personalizing emails is not as simple as addressing the email as “Hey, Bob” and that’s it. Instead, there are actually many other things you will need to help you personalize emails and ensure that you are improving the likelihood of converting sales. If you don’t get the personalized emails right then it will probably hurt your sales more than if you hadn’t tried to personalize at all. Consider this. Your name is Mariana but you keep getting so called personalized emails to Mary Anna or Mary Anne. Obviously, this turns you off because you know the email may be intended for you but since they couldn’t even bother to get your name right you don’t want to shop there. This happens all too often and that is why it is of utmost importance to ensure that you get personalized emails right. Remember, too, that just because you have certain information on file does not mean that is the actual information. The subscriber could have made a typo when filling out the forms.

There are many things you will need to personalize emails. One of them is to have outstanding technology that will help you find the information you need, analyze it, and ensure you are sending out the right information. Also, you will need a terrific database in addition to meticulous planning. Tie all of this together with technique and a lot of care and you will have no problems at all when it comes to personalizing your emails. Remember, when you take the time and effort to properly personalize emails it will pay off for you. You will reach more customers, make them feel appreciated and as part of your company. This will make them more likely to buy from you and that’s not something you want to risk losing.

A good way to help you with email personalization is to allow for subscribers to complete additional information about themselves when they sign up. This could be information about where they live, their favorite products, or anything of that nature. Whatever information is provided can always be used to your advantage if you are able to process it and find ways to link it to your products, partner products, and the like. Just keep this in mind so you know how to convert these potential sales and your bottom line.

When it comes to personalized emails for your email marketing campaign keep one thing in mind. Your goal is to increase sales, not turn customers away. If you don’t have enough information to personalize your emails then go the more general route. Once you collect more information then you can personalize emails. It takes a little bit of time and effort, but if you are dedicated you will be able to succeed.

Personalize Emails and Make More Sales

There is nothing more important than making your customers feel appreciated and like they are part of a larger group. The most important way to do this is to personalize emails so the recipient feels like an individual rather than just another “customer.” There are many ways you can go about doing this and if you do it successfully then you will make more sales. Remember, though, that with personalization you must get it right every time. Otherwise, you will do more harm than good.

Multimedia
If you have a customer who has already made a purchase and you are trying to up sell them or cross sell them on other products then you will want to take advantage of the option of using multimedia and/or images. This is incredibly helpful and will allow you to really convert those sales. For example, if a customer recently purchased a new camera then you will want to use a picture of that camera in the follow up email. This lets the customer know that you are aware of his/her purchases and are providing a photo to solidify that. Photos or multimedia of the particular product are very helpful and worth including in your email marketing.

Affiliation
If you know something about your customers use it to your advantage. For example, if they are part of a club, a group, or an organization, you can take this information and make the customer feel special and want to buy from you. For example, if there are customers you know are a member of a particular chamber of commerce simply state that you are offering them a discount because they are a member in the chamber of commerce of that particular city. This works best with offers that are very relevant and this should not be overused. However, it does have its perks when used properly and it can really help you.

Know Your Recipient
One thing that is really important is that you only use information that you know about your recipient. Don’t take any liberties and don’t go assuming you know certain things about your recipient. When you do this then you are more than likely going to have the email backfire and potentially lose customers. You want personalized emails to show your customers how well you know them, not how confused you really are. That’s why it is so important to ensure the information you are using is correct and never assuming anything about your customer that they don’t specifically tell you.

The overall goal of personalizing emails is ensuring that you reach out to your customers, create a bond with them, and potentially make a sale because of this. When you get it wrong, you lose customers, but if you get it right you are guaranteed to make some sales!

Email Marketing: The Benefits of Personalization

It is a proven fact that when you receive an email that has your name on it you feel more attached and certainly more special than with a generic email. When people feel like they are part of a group they are more likely to respond positively than when they don’t feel included.

There are many psychological aspects that must be considered with your email marketing campaign and whether or not you personalize emails, and how this affects your customers, is worth thinking about. If you use personalization correctly in your email marketing campaign then you will have a better chance of creating a relationship and a bond between the customer and your brand. This is really important and it is just as important to ensure the personalization is done correctly. Otherwise, you will do more harm than good and potentially lose a customer. That’s why you must understand personalization and make sure you get it right. The following tips will help you personalize an email in the proper way.

Introduction
The first thing you must consider is your customer. Are you writing to a consumer or to a business client? This is important because a regular consumer might warrant an email that begins, “Hi, Sue,” while a business client might warrant more formality or something to the effect of, “Dear Mr. Johnson”. Getting the tone right is important and this means you must know who you are writing to.

References
In your email you want to really create a bond with the customer. So, if this particular customer has recently purchased something from you make reference to that. For example, you could write, “Thank you for buying the Canon Elph digital camera from us.” This lets the customer know you remember them and appreciate their business. Once you have them feeling good about your company and follow up then you can go in for the up sell. Ask them if they need a new battery or memory card for their new camera. Suggest a new camera case or extended warrant. Whatever you offer be sure to link to the product so they can immediately make the purchase!

City
Make your customers feel like they are part of a group or area. Write in the email that “Everyone in New York knows the best pizza” or “The best Chinese food in Raleigh.” You are connecting your reader to a place, their location, and this is important and will help you make more sales. Remember, too, that if you get the recipient and their location mixed up then you will be doing more harm than you are good.

Make More Conversions with Trigger Emails

There is nothing more important to your email marketing campaign than conversions. Without conversions your email marketing campaign isn’t really worthwhile and this is why you should learn some tricks of the trade to take your campaign to the next level. The following information will help you use trigger emails to make more conversions.

Abandoned Shopping Carts
More often than you would like you probably have customers who shop, pick out items, add them to their cart, and then never make a purchase. There could be all kinds of reasons why the purchase was not completed, and they don’t really matter. What really matters is the purchase was not completed although there was interest there. What you have to do is figure out how to get the shopper to complete their purchase. The use of trigger emails in this case is really a good idea because it allows you to set parameters to contact the individual a certain period of time after they have abandoned their shopping cart. A great way to get them back into the site and to potentially make a purchase is to apologize if the checkout process was confusing or not streamlined and that you are working to improve it. Offer them a coupon code to help solidify your commitment to keeping them as customers and you will be surprised at how many make the decision to make a purchase!

In Stock Feature
Nothing is more frustrating for a shopper than to find just what they are looking for at a price they can afford only to notice it is “out of stock.” Most people are shopping to make a purchase immediately or in the very near future. Because of this you will want to do whatever possible to capture their attention and keep them in your store. One option is to offer a feature that will email the individual when the item they want is back in stock in their size, color, etc. Doing this is a wonderful way to contact that customer again and potentially make the sale. Of course, even if they don’t buy the item they have “opted in” and you now have their contact information to send them future emails, discount codes and the like.

Repurchase Email
Trigger emails can also be very helpful for items that need to be repurchased. For example, printer ink cartridges or makeup. When you send a reminder that a refill needs to be purchased you remind the customer so they don’t run out and also increase the odds that they buy from you rather than from someone else.

Basics of Trigger Emails

Consider a trigger email kind of like setting up your email marketing to run by itself, or at least in part. What is required of you is nothing more than choosing specific conditions for a trigger email to be sent. Then, when these conditions are met a trigger email will automatically be sent out without any more input on your part. There are some really good ideas for trigger email that can help you with your email marketing and truly take your email marketing campaign to the next level.

One idea that works really well at getting business is to email those who have “opted in” a week or so after they have placed something in their cart but not purchased it. There could be many reasons they didn’t make the purchase, but sending them an email that the product is still available in their size is a good way to get them to take another look. Similarly, you could send an email with a 10% off coupon or something of that nature. That’s a great way to get the individual to bite the bait and make a purchase. If someone put something in their cart it means they are interested and with a little reminder and potentially a coupon that might be all it takes to get them to buy!

The vast majority of companies have one product that is their big seller and all the other products are just complementary. However, there is no reason for you to have complementary products that aren’t selling. Use a trigger email to contact subscribers after they have viewed one of your less popular products. Give them a great deal as a first time buyer of these products or offer them a two for one special. There are many ways to rope them in, the point is to just get them in and make a sale! With email triggers it is easier than ever to accomplish this. If you find your lower selling products still don’t sell with this method, with coupons, and the like, then you should consider axing them from your inventory. If you can’t make a sale at a discounted price it’s possible you just can’t sell them at all.

Another idea is to use a “Punch card” like you see at restaurants. You get so many punches and then a free sandwich, drink, or something of that nature. You can do the same thing with trigger emails. Each time a person makes a purchase send them an email with their card “punched”. When they finally buy enough to receive a freebie, trigger mail them the coupon!

These are just some of the basics of trigger emails and how you can use them to your advantage. You will certainly see that in no time you are able to increase sales while making customers happy and building your base.

Trigger Emails and Email Marketing

Trigger emails are important because they finally allow you to create a personal relationship with your subscribers. These trigger emails are very personal and can be used to address new subscribers, when it’s someone’s birthday, and for many other reasons, too!

Why use trigger emails?
You might be wondering why trigger emails are such a big deal, especially if you already have an auto responder doing a lot of your emailing for you. The answer to this is that with trigger emails you are able to address each subscriber as they do something specifically, rather than sending a bulk email to everyone at specific times. For example if one of your customers signs up to receive your newsletter, then this would “Trigger” and email to be sent to them thanking them and including a copy of the most recent newsletter. Another fun way to use trigger emails is to have an email sent to your subscribers on their birthday. They will appreciate the thought and feel a much closer connection to your company or product because you “remembered” their birthday.

Triggers are important because they contact subscribers in the very moment they are most likely to read your email, right after they have done something on your site. Not to mention, these emails are a complement to your current campaigns and newsletters. You will find that using trigger emails will create a stronger relationship with your subscribers and that is what you are after.

There are many benefits to triggers and uses you may not have thought of yet. For example, you can have the most recent edition of your newsletter in a new subscriber’s inbox within minutes of them becoming a new subscriber. This is important because if they just signed up they will be interested to read your newsletter. You may even have a special edition newsletter just for new subscribers.

Another option is to use the trigger emails to send out weekly emails for a specific campaign. For example, it could be used for five weekly emails on how to start a business or else a weekly email on low carb recipes. The campaign or topic is up to you, it’s just the trigger email that will deliver it!

A wonderful way to take advantage of the trigger emails is to send a birthday email on or before the actual date that has a coupon to use within a certain period of time. Not only will your subscribers feel happy to have an email wishing them happy birthday but they will also be very pleased to receive a discount, too. This means they will be more likely to use the discount because they can get the product or service at a better price not to mention it is their birthday and they feel like they “deserve” a gift!

Reasons to Split Test Marketing Emails

You might be new to email marketing, but that doesn’t mean you can’t learn all the tricks of the trade to ensure that you make the most of your marketing efforts. For example, if you write one marketing email and send it out you may get good response or not a good response. However, you won’t really know if you could have gotten a better response with a different type of email if you didn’t send out a split test A/B email. You might be wondering what a split test A/B email is. Basically, you simply write and design two marketing emails that contain all of the same information and that are selling the same thing. The only differences would be the subject line, the layout, font, and personalized versus non-personalized emails. Now, take a small sample of your email list and send email A to half and email B to half. When the results start coming in you need to chart the results. The reason for this is to determine which of the emails is the most efficient and bringing in sales.

For example, if email A has a 10% return rate and email B has a 15% return rate then you know to send email B to the rest of the subscriber list and scarp email A. The difference of 5% is huge especially when you are talking about a big subscriber list. Of course, if you had never sent out an email A/B split test you would have never known the difference or what you were missing.
It is important to take note of the differences in the more successful email so you will know what to incorporate in your next email campaign. Keep in mind that you will need to continue split testing your emails in the future because this can make a big difference in the success of your campaign and your bottom line.

It’s interesting that the majority of email marketers don’t take the time to split test their emails. This simply does not make sense because it does not take much extra time to do and it can mean the difference in success and failure of your product or service. If you are worried about time, use an auto responder to help you send out all of the emails and save that extra time to write two different emails and split test them. After the first time you will be grateful that you took the time and effort to do this and will surely incorporate it in all of your future email campaigns.

Five Email Split Tests

There are many different types of email split tests you can use. The following are a few you will want to try just to see how they affect your subscribers. In fact, testing them will give you an entirely new perspective on your subscribers and how you can reach them effectively.

Personalization
You have probably heard that personalizing emails will get you more sales than genral emails. Give it a try in a small email split test sample. Doing this will provide you with a good basis of whether or not personalized emails are important to your subscribers or not.

Time
Believe it or not, but the time you send your email could be just as important as any other element in your campaign. Do an email split test and send one email in the morning, another in the mid afternoon and another closer towards the end of the work day. Doing this could take you a little time up front, but it will let you know the time of day that is most worthwhile for you to send your emails to subscribers.

Privacy
Another option is to send a test email on privacy. For example, send on email that has a disclaimer at the bottom assuring subscribers that their privacy will be respected and that their email address will not be used in any other way other than to send them their emails. Then, send another email that is identical, but without the privacy statement. See which one is most successful for you.

Call to Action
There are the common calls to action and then there are more innovative ways to get people to send you their information. Used your current method in one email and a completely different word in the next email. Doing this could affect your sales and give you an idea of what works for your subscribers and what doesn’t.

Buttons
Another option to try with an email split test is to use a link in one email that will take potential buyers to the product or service page they are interested in. The next email should use a button rather than a link. Then, the results must be calculated and it is important for future campaigns to find out what works early on.

There are actually many tests you can do to see what works for your product and service and what doesn’t. Remember, too, that it’s important to do the test yourself because each set of subscribers is unique to what they believe, what motivates them, and the like. Take this to your advantage and find out the email that will help you maximize your sales.

Benefits of Email Split Testing

There are many benefits of email split testing, most importantly the potential of increasing sales. People who are already using email campaigns to sell their products or services are probably aware of how important their email is in their overall success. However, few people realize the importance of split testing the email to see which one is most successful at bringing in sales. The following benefits are worth taking note of and if you incorporate them into your email campaign then you will benefit financially.

Benefit #1 Better Response
The entire point behind split testing is to find the email that has the best response. This means each email should be written, formatted, and styled differently all the while “selling” the same product or service. This is important because you are trying to compare the way the email is reaching people for a particular product or service, not create competition between different products or services. Once you have two completely different emails on the same product send them out to a small batch of email addresses and wait for the response. Remember to track the success of each email so you can compare later.

Benefit #2 Increase Income
When you send out two different emails and find the one that works the best then you will be able to sell more products/services when you send the email to your full address book. This results in increased income, which is important for your campaign to continue on successfully and for you to continue making money as an email marketer.

Benefit #3 Branding
If you send out the more successful email then you will have more success branding your product. When you increase brand awareness this means more people will buy your product or service. It is really important to have brand awareness so customers can pick you product over competitors’ products.

Benefit #3 More Return Buyers
Once you have a customer who buys your product they are more willing to buy it a second, or third, or more, time around, too. This is important to keep in mind because while one email might not seem like a big deal to you it really can turn into many more sales that you might have imagined.

There are of course many other benefits of email split testing. These are just some of the most important ones you will want to keep in mind and use to your advantage. Remember, there is no good reason not to take advantage of split testing so check it out today and see what it does to your product or services success.

Email Marketing: Split Testing

Are you wondering why your email messages are not performing as well as you would like? Perhaps it’s because you aren’t performing enough A/B split testing before you begin. Sure, split testing can be a little tricky and there are plenty of metrics you will need to keep up with, too, which is probably why you have not been doing as much split testing as is recommended to begin with. However, there are many benefits of an A/B split test and it could completely change how you handle your next campaign.

All you really need to do is send out a small split test to a percentage of your email list. This will provide you important information on how your email is perceived and what changes you should make in the future.

What is it?
Two different emails will be sent with a split test. While the emails both are about the same thing and are “selling” the same thing, they are formatted differently and use different content as well as subject lines. While sending out this test will result in some extra work and analyzing the results, it is completely worthwhile because it will allow you to determine the email that performs the best. Then, the highest performing email will be sent to the remaining email addresses on your list.

This probably does not sound too difficult. In reality, it isn’t. It just takes a little bit of time and extra effort. Many email marketers are not split testing their email campaigns at all and this hurts nobody but themselves. It might not seem like much at first, but if email A produces a response rate that is 12% and email B produces a response rate is 15% that 3% difference can make a big difference and it is certainly with the effort of split testing. When used consistently, A/B email split testing can result in a campaign that is as successful as possible and that truly provides a worthy return on investment.

These are just a few of the reasons why you will want to conduct A/B split testing on your emails before you send them out to your entire email list. It might not seem like a lot at first, but if you have an increase of three to five percent on each campaign over the long term this can result in huge gains as far as your product or service goes.

Email Marketing and Your Small Business

Have you decided it is time to take advantage of the Internet and all it has to offer to your small business? If so, then you will certainly want to focus on email marketing so that you can let all of your customers know about your products and services and keep them up to date with new things going on in your business. You will need to add an opt in list to your website so that customers can subscribe to your newsletter and to receive discounts and periodic information. This way, you know you are only sending marketing emails to those who are truly interested in your products and in many cases past customers.

It is considerably easier to sell to a previous customer than it is to land a new customer so make sure you take advantage of all email marketing has to offer your small business. Remember, too, that when you use email marketing you will want to send out emails often enough to keep customers aware of what’s going on with new products, services, discounts, clearance, and the like, but not so often that it becomes annoying or the emails begin to get deleted without being read. The following tips will help you with email marketing and your small business.

Tip #1 Great Copy
You need to make sure the marketing email has excellent copy so that when you send it out the information just pops out at them. This includes headlines, bold important information with a large font and simply focus on making the email short, sweet, and to the point. Nobody wants to read a long page of information on the company or anything. What they want to know is about discounts, clearance items, or new products.

Tip #2 Personalize Copy
Makes sure you always personalize copy with email marketing. You could use the name of the person and even make a comment about the previous product or service they purchased. This will make them feel appreciated and also that you are paying attention to them. That will reel them in to check out what you are recommending for them.

Tip #3 Follow Up
Don’t spam people, but don’t let a purchase go unnoticed. Send a “thank you” email and include a coupon for a future purchase with it. For example, once a purchase is made send a “thank you” email within 24 hours thanking the customer for the purchase and offering assistance if any is needed. Then, include a coupon for 20% off their next order if made within the next 30 days. You could even offer 50% off certain items if purchased within 7 days. It’s up to you how you offer discounts, but if you are aggressive and offer what your customers perceive to be a good deal then you will make more sales!

Improve Your Small Business Sales

It is time to improve your small business sales and the best way to do that is to come up with some simple ways to make your business stronger. Fortunately, there are many different ways for you to improve your small business sales and one of those is email marketing. This is certainly something you will not want to overlook as it can make a huge impact in your bottom line without requiring much time or money.

Email marketing is a method that you can begin using that will pay for itself time and time again. For example, with email marketing you will be able to collect email addresses of your customers who are willing to receive emails and advertisements from you. This is important that you use opt in email addresses because otherwise you could get yourself into trouble. Simply make sure that you make it easy to subscribe to your website, newsletter, or other information so that your contact list grows and grows.

One thing you can do to increase your bottom line is raise prices. You may think that by doing that you would eliminate many of your current clients; however that is not the case. Most of the time customers consider prices too high because they don’t understand what they are receiving for the price. What is important is that you must present your prices in a way that they will be accepted for the value they provide.

Another thing you can do to benefit your small business marketing efforts is to close more sales. Whatever methods you are using to convert interest into sales needs to be doubled or tripled to make you more money. If you are using a website and email marketing then you need to fine tune the points here, if you are using direct marketing then you also will want to focus on the finer points of this. It is important to evaluate where your small business is sales lie, how many sales you convert, and what you can do to improve your business sales. Many times, simply writing a script for phone conversations and compelling web copy is enough to make your business turnaround.

These are just a few tips to help improve your small business sales. Remember, all businesses are different so all marketing methods will not be helpful. You need to learn what marketing methods work best for your business and then vary them so that you aren’t bombarding your customers with the same information every time and that you are always presenting your business and/or service in a new and interesting light.