Greetings if you have decided to incorporate e-mail marketing as part of your marketing campaign. While the decision to step into this new arena is easy, getting results requires a lot of hard work.

In order to set up a fruitful email marketing campaign that garners a wide customer base, you must focus on providing value to the recipient. If you fail to offer value and only try to sell, recipients will tend to lose interest and unsubscribe.   

Select the Type of E-mail

One of the very first steps is to identify the objective of the campaign and recognize to the target audience is. Keeping these 2 factors in mind, find out kind of e-mails your company should send out. The content must be both useful and engaging.

Begin this by looking at your personal experiences. Go through e-mails that were sent to you from other companies and read through them from the perspective of a customer. Recognize how some of them are nothing but sales pitches. This is something you want to avoid.

On the other hand, there are some savvy companies which send e-mails that readers find interesting and informative. That is your aim! You want to convey the message, without overwhelming or irritating the reader. Note that, sometimes, incentives such as coupons can excite the customers.

Focus on Quality and Frequency

You must understand no one has the time to read long emails anymore. Keep is short and simple. However, do not send multiple short e-mails. Receivers often get annoyed if companies send to many emails within a short span of time.  The frequency depends on typeof business, but it is ideal to send maximum 2 or 3 in the first week, and then gradually decreasing the number.

What You Need to Know About Auto-pilot Programs

Even if you use the auto-pilot option for your program, you cannot ignore the importance of monitoring and evaluating the program. You must analyze the statistics and go through customer feedbacks.

Analyze Results and Take Actions

Assess the situation and act accordingly. For example, if you think the number of people who have recently unsubscribed is too high, you can do the following to improve the experience for user:

1. Boost value
2. Reduce the frequency
3. Shorten the e-mails
4. Limit the amount of selling per e-mail

If you find that number of unsubscriber is low, you can increase the frequency subtly. Some spontaneous mails can be queued in addition to the scheduled e-mails.

Provide Incentives and Watch Your Database Grow

If you provide the right incentives, nothing can stop your e-mail database from growing. All subscribers are important as those who do not buy now, may be potential customers. Give customers a very strong incentive to sign up for the e-mail subscription. This could be a coupon, a discount code, or a gift.

If you can build a successful email marketing campaign, it will not only add profits but also provide brand recognition and recall to your company.

It gets better…
We know what you’re thinking, you now know what you need to do to run a successful email campaign, but how do you get more subscribers? Well we wrote a blog on just that subject right > here

The post How to Build a Successful Email Marketing Campaign appeared first on Prime Eight Blog.

Ok, so we talk to a lot of business’s starting out and looking to grow. Most first time meetings someone will mention that they have got a load of emails.

We ask:

“wow that’s great, so did you create a landing page and collect these emails through people who have opted in or bought perviously?”

The response (1 out of 10 times):

“Nope. We know a guy who scraped a load of emails”
OR
“I’ll have to check where the emails are from”

Both are bad news. First of all, how don’t you know where you got your emails from? That’s useless.

Second of all, email marketing is based on permission. Something you don’t have. So, your “list” is worthless.

The Biggest Scammer We Met

We even had a particular meeting with a scammy individual…

(Who has been reported to the Met fraud division, and has left the country, due to an unrelated business matter)

Who had access to 600K+ emails and for some reason didn’t understand why non of these emails turned into sales when he spammed them. c’mon man. What are you thinking? you don’t even understand the basics of product market fit.

Scraping email addresses can seem like a fast way to build a list of contacts, even if you think they’re relevant emails — you’re just going to introduce your website/product or service as a spammer. Not the best start. Right?

People know when they receive something they didn’t sign up for. You’re just hurting the reputation of your business.

(Harvesting emails in this way is illegal in many countries, including the United States. In fact, the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 specifically prohibits the practice. )

There’s a very good reason professional marketers do not harvest email addresses through scraping.

Because it doesn’t work.

We know you may have read about some large business’s starting off by scraping emails, and spamming….but we find this hard to believe.

Email harvesting risks
Here’s some other issues.

• You could be flagged as a spammer by email clients and ISPs
• You could be suspended by your SMTP service. No professional SMTP service permits marketers to send unsolicited emails.
• Your bounce rate could skyrocket.
• Your company could be fined by local authorities. Each country has different laws regarding unsolicited emails, and different punishments for violating those laws.
• There’s a case that it effects your SEO badly too.
  https://searchenginewatch.com/sew/opinion/2421290/your-email-marketing-may-impact-your-rankings

CLIFF-NOTE: you know why those scam spam emails you get are so badly worded? You know the one’s — from a Nigerian Prince?

Some reasons:

• To filter out smart users who would immediately recognise the scam, thus ensuring that only the most gullible users respond.
• To read in a way that people with money might imagine a Nigerian would write
• To get past spam filters

Anyway, scraping emails?

Just don’t do it. It’s not smart & its not at all worth it. Build your business properly.

We’d like to hear your thoughts either way.

The post Why You Shouldn’t Mass Scrape Emails & How Doing So Can Ruin Your Business Before You Even Get Started appeared first on Prime Eight Blog.

It’s likely many of your audience members are suffering from email overload. When you’re receiving tens or hundreds a day, it’s hard to stand out. If you use email as a campaign tool, you need to differentiate yourself from newsletters, other organisations, and other emails that your audience is receiving.

It’s imperative that your emails spark interest, starting with your subject line, and ending with the content inside. You need a great subject line to get the open, and you need the content to prove to your readers that your message is worth their time.

How can you boost click through rates?

1.Numbered lists

Lists are great to use to help your audience understand the information provided. When you make it look easy for the reader, there’s a better chance your emails will be opened. The number also signals how much content there is in there for the reader, so make sure you’re providing enough information to get them reading! It also tells them how much time they might need to read the email, which can help produce quality opens, as people won’t be opening, seeing all the content, and clicking away because it’s too much.

2. Using questions

Engaging your audience is a great way to facilitate more opens; posing a questions has been proven as a great method. Using questions can spark engagement with your readers and improve click lines.

There is a line, however, when using questions — something like “What do you have to say?” would likely perform better than a spammy-looking subject like “Would you like to make $100 instantly?”

3. Focus on audience interests

Knowing the personality of your target market can help, as you can utilize information you know about them to engage. For example, a headline that uses a favoured sports team can garner more attention than one that uses a generic sports headline.

Depending on the amount of information known and level of outreach, it’s possible be incredibly detailed with your emails, customizing them for your customer. This means you can take advantage of visible customer segments and tailor emails to the audience.

4. Use symbols

Using symbols can help your emails stand out more. Some may even use emoji if it suits their message or demographic. Unicode symbols are also recognized by a wide range of email services, and can help you add some visual interest to your subject lines.

As an example, if you have the correct information, you can connect with your audience on a cultural level. Using information you know, (e.g. you’re sending a birthday email out to a segment of your audience) use the zodiac symbol to help your message stand out.

5. Use wit

Puns, rhymes, and jokes add interest and can increase your open rate. Make it company-relevant as well — e, g. if you’re in the pet business, you can try a play on words, such as “You’re Pawsome!”

6. Timing

The saying tells you that timing is everything, and it’s true. Being strategic with your send time can help you see results. If you’re in the restaurant business, for example, sending a message to your audience just before a meal time that you’re open for would likely result in increased engagement due to the likely hunger levels of your readers.

7. Pretend it’s Twitter

If you’re on Twitter, you know how to say a lot with a little. The 140 character limit has probably made you frustrated at one point when you try to talk about the latest in your world.

However, this is a great approach to take in your email marketing strategy. You want your emails to be short, precise and to the point. For example, if you want to promote your newest products, imply introduce the topic, add a preview, and indicate where those that are interested can go to see what you’re promoting.

8. Use a Call to Action

Adding a Call to Action can incite urgency in readers, which can lead to higher opens. If you can’t fit it in naturally (e.g. Don’t Miss Out! 50% Off), you can add it in brackets at the end of the subject line. Something like “Shop Our Shirt Sale [Ends Tomorrow]” uses both a call to action and sparks urgency.

9. Utilize Preview Text

When viewing emails in an inbox, both the subject line and a preview of the email content are shown. Using the preview to further elaborate on your subject line or adding more information can help increase your open rate.

It can help complete the hook of the subject line — for example, Buzzfeed commonly uses a generic statement that is explained by the preview text, starting the engagement with their audience that much sooner.

10. Adding Trigger Words

Certain terms can appeal to readers in that it triggers an action like an open. For example, using terms like ‘free delivery’ can increase open rates, as compared to emails that don’t use those terms.

11. Be Specific

Make sure your audience knows why you’re contacting them! If your subject line is vague and uninspiring, your audience will not know the purpose of your email, nor will they feel compelled to know more.

As an example, LinkedIn is incredibly specific as to why they’re reaching out. Whether they want to let you know about new posts from your connections, or if a contact has joined, you’ll know immediately based on the subject line.

12. Incentivise

Saying thanks may not be enough when someone opts-in to your email list. Turn a casual reader into an engaged customer by giving them another reason to engage with you. Examples include a discount with a first-time subscriber code, an immediate call to action, and drawing attention to the benefits of receiving your emails.

Need some headline inspiration?

1. “Jane, You Might Like These” — personalization is a great way to grab attention!
2. “You Only Have 6 Hours Left!” — create urgency with your subject line
3. “6 Tips To Accelerate Your Clicks” — provides a preview of your content without describing any one tip in general.
4. “How To Be Productive” — touting benefits is a great way to get people reading.
5. “You’ll Love What We Have Today” — emphasizing personalization without having to use a name.
6. “Surprise! 24 Hours Only” — intrigue your readers with something that’s unexpected.
7. “Where to Eat, Now” — combine this with a strategically scheduled send out time and capitalize on how your readers are feeling.

The post 12 Hints to Boost Your Email Clicks (and 7 Strategic Subject Lines) appeared first on Prime Eight Blog.

PLUS: (Judging by the previous years) Email will outlast any social media outlet.

Directly contacting your audience gives you the opportunity to bring a visitor or reader back to website over and over again. Whether your e-commerce business is having a promotion, or you’ve added new content to your website that you want your audience to see, direct email has a lot of value in your relationship with your audience.

Here’s the crooks of it: You’re not going to get new subscribers if you don’t ask.

So….

How can you get more email subscribers?

Here are ten tips to get you ahead:

1. Give away something.

Offer something in exchange for an email address. Whether it’s a white paper, a pack of royalty-free graphics, a t-shirt, or anything that makes sense for your company, being able to deliver it by email is a great way to get subscribers. Make sure that you obtain the necessary permissions (e.g. an opt-in) when you are getting email addresses.

2. Use all the copy available to you.

On many online articles, there will be a line of text underneath the title — that’s the byline. It’s a great spot to offer a service, such as alerting readers when new posts are made. When someone signs up for the updates, they’re opting in to getting your emails. This is similar to the Instagram post notifications feature, which allows users to be notified when a certain user posts.

3. Use a widget.

Having a space on every page dedicated to getting email subscribers is a good thing. You might choose to use a widget on the sidebar of your page to ask for emails. However, if you have any significant length of content, that area will disappear as readers scroll down to continue on with your article. For maximum impact, make the widget stand out to really draw attention to it.

4. Use tools.

Familiar with website tools? Try our favourite Opt-In monster , a set of tools aimed at collecting emails. There’s so many options to help grow your list with opt in monster or sumome. Below are a few ideas.

There is a fine line to be toed when it comes to these tools. Overuse could be seen as intrusive and lead to a negative perception.

Make it a menu option.

If you have the background knowledge on how your users are navigating through your website, there could be a big opportunity here. This works best in combinations with the method of giving away something. If you add a link to your giveaways in your menu, you can collect subscribers through that option as well.

Prompts after exit intent.

This method relies on Javascript to track cursor and keyboard actions of website visitors . When the script senses the visitor is intending to leave the website (certain cursor movements or keyboard actions), a pop-up will appear, giving you the opportunity to ask for an email address.

Content specific extras. 

Again, this tip works best when combined with having something to give away. That give away, however, has to be relevant to why the reader is on that specific page in the first place — maybe you had a great article, interesting photos, or a how to guide. By making your content cohesive and beneficial for readers, and including a bonus that builds on what you’ve written, you can get more people wanting to hear what you have to say.

Welcome gate.

Usually shown to first-time visitors of a website, the gate is a subscription box that loads before the webpage is shown. The gate can be modified to be shown in front of any page that any newcomer visits, just the homepage, or a strategy that suits your needs. You don’t necessarily have to give something away for this, either. Simply state what you intend to deliver to the reader that submits their email address, and follow through.

Landing pages.

This can be used in conjunction with promotions through other channels. If you have a social following that you interact with, promote yourself through a link to a landing page that asks for an opt-in. Whether you’re giving something away or providing more information, you’ll be able to funnel a casual audience member (e.g. passive follower on Twitter) to an engaged audience member (one that opts in to receiving your emails.)

Contests.

Continue to convert your casual audience members to engaged ones by giving them a reason to engage. As an example, run a poll on your website to get your readership’s opinion. Ask for the email address to count as a vote, and get their opt-in through this method. You could further the interaction as well by giving something away (a white paper, templates for their own use, etc.)

No matter what tip or tips you use, you still have to get people to your website! Like all businesses, you rely on traffic, and converting that traffic into sales. How can you get more traffic?

Be the poster child.

You might have hated that one kid in your class growing up — always the example that you were supposed to follow — but if you can be that person, it can pay off. When you use someone else’s advice, let them know, and share the impact that it had on you. Dig for resources online, track the ones you use, follow them to a T, and then let the creator know what you did, how you did it (which should be exactly as outlined in their original resource), and what the impact was.

After you share with the creator, share with your audience! Your readership deserves to know what makes you successful, as it may help them in the future. Let the original creator know, again, about your success and how you shared it with your own audience. The original creator may share your results as an endorsement, helping lead traffic back to you.

The social formula.

There are a few steps to the social formula. What it consists of is:

Writing your content — a blog post, an article, whatever suits your company. It has to be great quality, and of significant length. Do your research — what are people looking for? Try to find comments in other articles about the topic you are writing about, and make sure you’ve addressed them in your own content.

Make a list — find the current most-shared articles on the topic of your original content. You can use buzzsumo.com to find these. If your topic was on “how to grow website traffic,” you would probably use terms like build a website, increase site traffic, and so on. Using Buzzsumo, you can find who’s shared an article — voila, you have now found your audience.

Next, contact them! There are many ways to get the email addresses of this audience. Reach out to them and explain that you noticed they shared the article in question, and that you’ve written content that has more information about the subject. Link them to your post, and watch the traffic come.

Reach out.

You probably see this yourself as you surf the Internet — users commenting on blogs, joining forums, talking to Facebook groups, all the with the intent to increase traffic to the content they’re promoting. How can you do this yourself?

If visitors are coming your site because of Facebook, use it! For example, let’s say that you have a website that you want to share with small business owners. See who on Facebook is in your target market, e.g. groups specifically for small business owners in an appropriate geographic area. Join these groups and engage with them, genuinely. Add feedback on posts and comments, read what is relevant to them at this moment via shared articles, and more.

As you continue to engage with the community, make posts yourself. You don’t necessarily have to be promoting your website itself, but contribute to the well-being of the group. This brings you to the top of mind, and drives more traffic to your website. Don’t spam, though — you need to show since interest and deliver on what you say.

With the amount of tactics outlined above, it can be overwhelming to know where to begin. Some will be more appropriate for your website and email list than others. Gaining email addresses and driving site traffic takes time, but all it takes is starting on one — and maybe only one — tip to get the ball rolling for you.

Hope this helps.

http://www.slideshare.net/joemurfin/how-to-get-your-first-100-email-subscribers

The post How To Get Your First 100 Email Subscribers appeared first on Prime Eight Blog.