One discouraging trend I’ve found is that some business owners assume when you trade business cards at a networking event, that you have opted in to their newsletter. To me, that’s disrespectful. Ask verbally at that time, or ask permission when you connect via email or social media, before adding anyone to your email newsletter distro list. That’s my practice, and my open rates are consistently over 40%.
Social media can also be used to extend the reach of your email marketing. Most email marketing software will give you the ability to sync your social media and email marketing accounts together. This means that when you send your email marketing newsletter, your cloud based software can also post a copy directly to your Twitter and Facebook feeds.
The more contextually related your page headlines are to the calls-to-action people clicked on, the more likely those prospects are to make the connection that your landing page is for them. A great way to ensure your message match is strong is to write your ad CTA on a piece of paper and your landing page headline on another piece of paper underneath. Then look at your ad copy and turn the page. Does your paper click lead to a matched experience?
Closed-ended experimentation. Consumers are exposed to several variations of landing pages, altering elements like headlines, formatting and layout while their behavior is observed in an attempt to remove distractions that will take the lead away from the page, including the primary navigation.[9] At the conclusion of the experiment, an optimal page is selected based on the outcome of the experiment.
It’s important to note how a number of growing trends revolve around content of value – not promotional content. Things like personalization and subscriber lifetime value, bite-sized content that’s easy to digest, stronger narratives and storytelling, richer experiences… that’s all key to crafting highly engaging emails that will grow your open and engagement rates.
“1. Use a sticky navigation bar: A ‘sticky’ navigation bar can help people explore ‘Edgar’ in a comfortable and controlled manner. People like to explore websites without them feeling that they are losing control. Even if they never use the navigation bar, it can still have a positive impact on the overall experience. Not having control can potentially trigger a feeling of stress which can cause people to leave the site and therefore increase bounce rates. (Think of the analogy of a GPS in your car)
Closely tied to the last point, because cloud based email marketing software is easy to use, this means that you don’t need to engage the services of a marketing or design company to prepare your email marketing for you you. Often adding a third party to the mix means that you can lose valuable time in getting your offering out to your email subscribers.
“The danger here is, that navigation links present the visitor with the opportunity to exit the landing page without them converting. Studies from ConversionXL suggest that removing navigation links from the middle of the funnel landing pages seeing 16% and 28% lift in conversions, while top of the funnel landing pages are seeing an insignificant 0-4% increase in conversion rates.
Like many of the other landing pages in this post, Shopify's trial landing page keeps it simple. The user-oriented headline is just a few words, for example, and the page relies on simple bullets, not paragraphs, to communicate the trial's details and benefits. There are only a few fields you need to fill out before you get started. All of this makes it easier for you to get to the point: selling online with their tool.
Email marketing software will give you the ability to see how your subscribers are interacting with your send. If your email marketing company has analytics, then you can see how many people are reading your mailer, clicking on links or even how many emails are failing to get through. This means that you can fine tune your email marketing to get the best possible results.
As of October 2018 almost 4.2 billion people were active internet users and 3.4 billion were social media users (Statista). China, India and the United States rank ahead all other countries in terms of internet users. This gives a marketer an unprecedented number of customers to reach with product and service offerings, available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The interactive nature of the internet facilitates immediate communication between businesses and consumers, allowing businesses to respond quickly to the needs of consumers and changes in the marketplace.
Email list segmentation works fantastically for brands who gain information about their subscribers. Studies have shown that marketers who use this tactic often boast improved engagement rates as a result. The old ‘spray and pray’ method of sending the same email to every subscriber or customer no longer works, and the companies that see the best results from their email marketing are segmenting data and campaigns to ensure that they’re sending the most relevant message to individuals.
Have been through many rounds of A/B testing. Testing and correction is how we learn and better ourselves. A/B testing your landing page (tweaking individual elements and seeing how they perform against the previous setup) is probably the most powerful tool in creating excellent landing pages. Not sure where to start? Signal vs. Noise provides a nice example of good A/B testing that’s an easy read. There are always things you can do to improve, so don’t ever stop testing!
The IMfSP page is like the Matrix Autoresponder Study Guide for anybody willing to deconstruct it. The name of the autoresponder, the title of the page, super-relevant page graphic, 2nd person “you” point of view, clear call to action—repeated, social proof call-outs, bullet points using the rule-of-three, what-to-expect-next clarifications, clearly defined autoresponder frequency, etc.
The development of digital marketing is inseparable from technology development. One of the key points in the start of was in 1971, where Ray Tomlinson sent the very first email and his technology set the platform to allow people to send and receive files through different machines.[8] However, the more recognisable period as being the start of Digital Marketing is 1990 as this was where the Archie search engine was created as an index for FTP sites. In the 1980s, the storage capacity of computer was already big enough to store huge volumes of customer information. Companies started choosing online techniques, such as database marketing, rather than limited list broker.[9] This kind of databases allowed companies to track customers' information more effectively, thus transforming the relationship between buyer and seller. However, the manual process was not so efficient.
Presentation is everything, or so they say. With this old adage in mind, we’ve compiled our best tips for anyone who wants to send emails that subscribers click into a handy email design guide. We cover each facet of design: content, templates, identity, color, images, layout, fonts, and calls to action. Design is as much science as it is art, and we take the guesswork out of what can seem like the most challenging part of sending good emails.
The brand uses email to increase sales at all points on the customer journey – pre-booking, post-booking and post-holiday. This wide remit means the key aim is to “manage customer interactions of the whole journey rather than a marketing or service touchpoint.” As a result, it has a different strategy for each stage of the customer journey and “email marketing takes on a different type of beast in each of those strategies”.
Email marketing software will also have a whole host of associated features and tools to help you react to these open statistics (contained within analytics). You may start to see trends in how your subscribers are reacting to what you are sending - so you may, for example want to segment these people into different lists. Alternatively, you may see that your open rates are highest outside of office hours.
What we liked: MailerLite’s ease of use makes it an ideal tool for getting started with autoresponders – even beginners can master setting up emails and campaigns fairly quickly. And it’s great that you can use most of the features completely free of charge (as long as you have fewer than 1,000 subscribers). If you do need to upgrade, it’s one of the most competitively priced providers on the market – so it’s a great way to set up cheap autoresponders.
SEO should be a core tactic in any marketing strategy. While it might seem difficult to understand at first, as long as you find the right course, book or audiobook, and devote your time to learning, you'll be in good shape. Considering that there are over 200+ ranking factors in Google's current algorithms, learning, digesting and successfully implementing good SEO tactics is essential to the success of your website or blog.
Your call to action should be bold and catchy. Typically this is a button on your landing page that users click either to subscribe or go on to purchase your product. Dollar Shave Club has a simple landing page complete with a video but their call to action is “DO IT” – not your average run of the mill “subscribe” or “sign up”. Its big, bold and flows really nicely with their branding.
Follow-up with a thank you page. The thank-you page is a great way to guide visitors to other related material on your website that they may be interested in. Providing this added info in the initial landing page would have been distracting and could have led visitors away from making a conversion. However, now that you’ve sealed the deal, the thank-you page is the perfect place to suggest related products, guides and information your audience may find helpful, or links to other parts of your site, such as your company blog.
GDPR regulates how companies treat or use personal data (such as a subscribers email address). If your organisation collects data on EU citizens, since the 25th May 2018 new regulations require businesses to process data as set out by the new legislation. The ICO provides further information on GDPR and it’s requirements, as your service provider email blaster and categorised as the “data processor” and is proud to be a fully compliant service provider:
In fact, by the time a potential customer actually reaches out to a person in your organization, 70% of the decision-making process will already have taken place. Puts into perspective why you need to have online and website-based tools to act as proxies! (See Why ZMOT is Relevant for B2B Marketing: 4 Data-Based Reasons and Inbound Marketing and ZMOT: Perfect Together?)
Below, you’ll see the landing page for Night Notes. It’s an app that helps you focus on taking notes at night, has a simple but effective design that looks current and isn’t cluttered with unnecessary information. Their use of dark colors helps tell their brand story. Their logo is present along with a screenshot of their app so that users can get a glimpse into what they will be seeing if they download it.
For some business owners, they’ll think of a website. Others may think of social media, or blogging. In reality, all of these avenues of advertising fall in the category internet marketing and each is like a puzzle piece in a much bigger marketing picture. Unfortunately, for new business owners trying to establish their web presence, there’s a lot of puzzle pieces to manage.
Webflow, a design tool for web developers, packs a lot of information into just a GIF and three form fields. Having the entire sign-up form on a single line is a nice touch here -- not only does it make the page shorter, but filling out each box from left to right shows users how close they are to clicking the fourth blue button and getting started for free.
If you want to integrate your email with your shopping cart but don’t quite want to spring for InfusionSoft, 1ShoppingCart could be your answer. 1ShoppingCart is a one stop solution for payment processing and email marketing. It allows you to segregate lists and mail only buyers or your entire list. It’s one of the more reputable shopping cart services on the net.
The biggest issue I have yet to resolve is the majority of clients I work with have customer lists in the the THOUSANDS, but have never embraced email marketing. Through personal experience with several of the platforms listed here they will not let you load your current customer list and start emailing. Even if the lists are validated and cleaned through a source like NeverBounce. With the new GDPR rules, they only want emails that have current, ongoing engagement. So in other words, even though you have been in business for years and have a list of current emails from current and past customers, you cannot load them in to these platforms with any success. This makes it very difficult for legacy businesses that now want to start communicating with all their prospects and customers.
3. Email converts better. People who buy products marketed through email spend 138% more than those who do not receive email offers. In fact, email marketing has an ROI of 3800%. That’s huge! And if you are wondering if social media converts even better, think again: the average order value of an email is at least three times higher than that of social media.
