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Email Marketing Tips
78% of online shoppers have made a purchase as the result of clicking on an email link, so it's no wonder that 54% of small businesses surveyed rated email as the top online promotion driving new and existing customers to their websites. Some of you are either skeptical or hesitant about using email as a marketing vehicle. Many of you may think email marketing is intrusive, annoying, daunting and confusing. I have three words for you; GET OVER IT. An estimated 60 billion emails are sent by Internet users daily. With this number continually growing, if you don't start to embrace this great marketing tool, your business may not live to regret it. I'm going to help you understand some of the basics of email marketing so you can begin to realize that it is not something to be afraid of, it is something you can do to help grow your business today, tomorrow, a month from now, a year?well, you get the picture.
The Dos and Don'ts of Email Marketing
Don't try to email the masses using the email program on your computer. Email programs such as Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora and others were not designed for mass emailing. Sure, they can send a message to multiple people, but if you are trying to market using email, these programs just don't have the tools and the horsepower necessary to get the job done right. First, there are no tracking capabilities with desktop email programs and if you can't measure it, you can't manage it. Second, most service providers allow only 50 emails to be sent at one time. Third, sending mass email using these programs does not meet SPAM law requirements and is just plain unprofessional. Most mass emails sent this way will not even reach their destination due to strict and unforgiving SPAM filters in use today. SPAM has become such a problem that even email that you want sometimes gets caught in the filter; your unprofessional attempt has no chance! Finally, most people sending mass email using these programs don't do it correctly. They put all the email addresses in the "To:" field, which lets every recipient see everyone else's email address. Even worse, you run the risk of unscrupulous types adding these people to their lists, which leads me to my second 'don't.'
Don't add people to your list that didn't ask to be on your list. There is a term called "Opt-in." Opt-in is the act of someone asking to be on your email list. They "opted" to be included when you send email which means they find what you have to say worth receiving and they have given you something very valuable in return for this information, their "permission" to market to them. So try not to blow it! This leads me to my final 'don't.'
Don't be annoying. You should not abuse the privilege of someone's opt-in status. The average Internet user gets close to a hundred emails a day. If they joined your list, try and respect their time and permission. Send email when you have something worth sending and don't abuse the right, otherwise it will be taken away. Alright, on to the 'dos'!
Do segment your list. When you use a good email marketing program, you can segment your list to send the most relevant information to the people that can use it most. Doing this will increase the overall results of any email campaign instantly. For instance, Harley Davidson is one of our clients, and we handle their email marketing. They segment their list in a few different ways. For example, Do you own a Harley Davidson Motorcycle or not? If you do, what model is it? Now that they know what model motorcycle you have, they can email you when they have information related to your bike, such as specials on parts, service or gear. If you don't ride, you may not receive emails about upcoming group rides. The point is, by filtering who gets what information, you insure that people only see what is relevant to their needs, and that's how you build a good, targeted, valuable list that people look forward to and even anticipate receiving.
Do use a catchy subject line. However, you cannot be deceptive and the information contained within the email must be relevant. For example, the title of this article, "Fail to email? plan to fail" is catchy; relevant to the information contained within, and is not deceptive in nature.
Do have a plan for emailing. This just may be the most important aspect regarding email marketing. You would not build a birdhouse without a plan, so why market your company without one? If you are one of the opt-in recipients of Barnes & Nobles' email newsletter, you know that it comes out once per week, always on a Wednesday and after 1PM. Why Wednesday at 1:00PM you ask? Because they have a plan. Research has indicated that Mondays and Fridays are bad days to send out marketing material as people are either starting or ending their weeks. Mornings are bad for email as most people are bombarded with email first thing in the morning and adversely, end-of-the-day emails get little attention as people are tired. So, after testing multiple timeslots on Tuesdays and Thursdays, we determined that the largest percentage of people opened and read our emails at 1PM on a Wednesday. Now, if we did not have a plan and a professional email marketing program, we would not be able to determine how to make our email marketing as effective and efficient as it could be. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of constructing proper emails. You are sending communication from your company to another. The end result of sending a poorly constructed or difficult to load and open communication will send the wrong message about your company. Each email you send leaves an impression about your company on the person reading it. Should your email be riddled with typos, marked as "junk" or "SPAM," use ridiculous colors and fonts, take too long to load or just plain poor, how do you think that reflects on you and your company?
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FREE Publicity Reminder
If you want free publicity that increases your exposure on the internet and your business traffic, start by submiting an article to InfoKwik Kansas City News to editor@KC-News.com. I receive several thousand of of visits from readers each month.
Here are some ideas of what you can write about:
PR Story Starters:
How To Get Just a Little PR so you Get a Lot.
Use the following questions to help you brainstorm for potential PR topics. One of the surest ways to get more media coverage is to get some media coverage. Start small, but be consistent. It is a good practice to attempt to get some form of coverage every month. The more successful you are in terms of sheer volume of coverage, the easier it is to get full-length feature coverage. Is that Oprah on the phone!
• Have there been any personnel changes, promotions or additions in your firm?
• Have you taken on a new partner?
• Are you planning to expand your operations?
• Have you landed a significant new project or customer?
• Are you conducting educational seminars?
• Have employees completed industry apprenticeship or certification?
• Are you planning to speak at a professional organization's meeting?
• Have you, or anyone on your staff, received an award in your industry?
• Has a trade association cited you for excellence?
• Have you, or any of your staff, been elected to serve on the board of directors for another company or volunteer organization?
• Has your company sponsored a charitable fundraising event in the community?
• Are you doing anything that is a new trend in your industry?
• Are you mentoring other businesses owners or students?
• Does your business have a high number of women or minorities in management positions?
• Have you supported one or more of your employees through an unusual crisis?
• Do you offer any unusual employee benefits or incentives?
• Have you solved a problem in your industry?
Is your marketing unique?
• Have you started a new department or business?
• Have you significantly expanded your current services?
• Have you moved to new or larger offices or substantially renovated your offices?
• Have you become a new dealer for a name brand product?
• Has your company been in business for 5, 10, 15, 25 or 50 years?
• Have you discovered new ways to use technology in your business?
• Have you discovered new ways to market your products or services?
• Have you increased your sales since last year? Is that unusual for your industry in today's economy?
• What's the income trend in your industry? Are you following the trend or breaking out of the mold?
• Do you have a strong opinion on a local situation or community problem? Can you offer a solution? For example, a construction company might devise a way to organize left-over construction job site materials to benefit an organization that repairs homes for low-income residents.
• The Story Beyond the Story
If possible, you should always try to plan stories that may create other stories. In other words, look at your story idea as a series of news releases.
Email your story to Pat Morgan editor@KC-News.com
Be sure to include applicable photos.
Benefits:
(1) Your link popularity will improve because you will be getting backlinks and traffic from multiple sites.
(2) You will get traffic from your link in your author bio if your articles are good and are read.
(3) You build name recognition and expert status in your chosen field.
(4) Your website will get spidered on a regular basis and you'll benefit because any new pages you build will get indexed quite fast plus any new changes you made to your existing pages will reflect in the index quite fast too.
(5) Promoting your new website this way is profitable because once it has a strong foundation in the search engines, it will be easy for you to build future new websites and get them crawled and indexed. The answer is simply by giving your future new websites a link on your initial new website.
(6) Your search engine rankings will get better.
Below is a good list of article directories or article banks to get you started with your article marketing:
http://www.ezinearticles.com
http://www.articlebiz.com
http://www.articlesfactory.com
http://www.articlealley.com
http://www.searchwarp.com
http://www.articlecity.com
http://www.a1articles.com
http://www.articleheaven.com
Selling Triggers
From Michael Wolf
51 Use holidays as a reason to get free publicity. Write a press release or article about the current holiday. It'll have a high chance of being published. For example, your title could be, "10 Smoking Ways To Increase Your Sales On Thanksgiving Day!" Another example, "How To Turbo Boost Your Traffic On Valentine?s Day!
52 Utilize the free content which is freely available on the Internet. Publish one article on a single web page with your main web site link then upload it as a doorway or lead page. You would then just submit it to search engines and web directories. Also place an ad for your e-zine on the lead page to capture visitors? e-mails.
53 Test your new products on the bottom of your home page or on other pages. You don't want to take away hits from your best selling products until others are proven. You could also take your new products and sell them as upsell or back-end product till they become more steady earners for you.
54 Use a little humor in your ad copy. It could be the little extra push needed to close a sale. People are usually persuaded easier if they're in a good mood. How many times have you let your guard down and bought something when you were in a good mood?
55 Offer a free trial of your product for a set period of time. Don't charge or bill your customers until they have decided to buy it. That should remove any perceived risk for them. For example, if you gave a person a sample of your membership web site and they liked it, they would probably join and pay for a full membership.
56 Make your sales letters or ads sound like it is common sense to buy your product. For example, you could say, "Everyone knows you can't make money..." Another example, "Everyone realizes that designing a professional web site isn't hard like it use to be."
57 Make sure your ad copy sounds like you know what you're talking about. If people sense you don?t, they won't buy. For example, you could say, "I know this product will help you achieve your goals!" Another example, "I guarantee our product will end your fear of snakes forever!"
58 Allow other web sites to sell your product for a percentage of each sale. They can take a percentage of the sale and send you the rest of the order to drop ship. This is one way to set up an affiliate-like program without any tracking software or technology. It works really well for products that have to be shipped.
59 Tell your prospects that you offer a lower price than the competition. If you can't afford to offer a lower price, try different ways to accomplish it. You could find different suppliers, joint venture with other businesses, sell back-end or upsell products to make up for the loss, etc.
60 Sell people the rights to reproduce your product. You could sell the rights straight out for one price or collect royalty payments from each sale they make. You could just create one product or idea and sell it to one or more businesses then let them do all the work. All you need to do is collect the money.
Selling Triggers, Part 7 coming next issue.
Michael Wolf is the owner of http://www.helpfulmarketing.com
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Who else wants to learn the secrets of successful JV
marketing? http://www.instantjvletters.com
Referral Reward $50
If you refer a customer to InfoKwik, you'll receive $50 as a referral reward. Email me or call if you have a referral.
Pat Morgan Email - 816-415-0776.
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• New InfoKwik Newsletter Archive
now online for your convenience.
I've also added a search engine, so you can find subjects of interest more easily.
• New online Keyword and Pay-per-click word research finder for your use:
The Free Overture (Yahoo!) and Google Keyword Suggestion Tool can be found here. I've left the suggested Google AdWord books from last week below for your convenience.
If case you missed the last newsletter, you can find it here.
