Web Marketing Strategy Update

Email has a come a long way. From the dial-up AOL “You’ve got mail!” days to today’s high-speed, wireless, and mobile accessible email, there’s no denying that email has played an integral part in the advancement of the internet. It didn’t take long for businesses to realize the sheer power that email could hold in marketing their business. After all, email was quick, efficient, and most of all: free.

So began the age of email marketing. But along with that came it’s ugly and uninvited cousin: SPAM. And we’re not talking the canned and mysterious pinkish meat that almost resembles pork.

Spam is every email owner’s nightmare. Spam is what dilutes email marketing from an awesomely effective method of reaching clients and customers, to a taxing game of “Filter -Through-the-Credit-Scams-and-Enhancement-Pill-Emails”.

Luckily, email servers have gotten smarter these days and incorporate spam filters into their service. These filters let in the good emails, and keep the bad ones out. At least. That’s the idea.

Unfortunately, some email filters may be a tad too sensitive. These filters often times land good emails into the junk folder. Below are 5 simple tips to help your emails stay away from the junk folder.

1. Avoid special characters in your subject line.

   There is NOTHING more obnoxious than seeing words surrounded by an explosion of brackets, asterisks, and tildas.

2. Stay away from spam triggering words.

   #1! Free! 100%! Guarantee! Order NOW! Those are just few spam triggering words. When you draft your emails, ask yourself: ‘Do I sound like a sketchy car salesmen?’ or ‘Are my word choices going a little overboard?’ or simply ‘Would I, myself, honestly want to receive an email that sounds like this?’

   Chances are, if you answered “yes” to the first two questions and “no” to the last, you might have yourself a spammy email. Try your best to stay away from sales-y phrases and hot-words.

3. Content/Image ratio is important.

   Be mindful of your images! An email composed entirely of images can likely send you to the junk folder. Make sure that if you do attach images, you have sufficient text to counteract them. More text then images is recommended.

4. Attach a text version of your email.

   Here’s a backend hint for sending emails: have a text version available. Believe it or not, not everyone can access HTML emails. And if they don’t get HTML emails, chances are you’ll land in the spam folder.

   It’s a fact of life. The best way to combat this is to have a readable non-html version available. Don’t discriminate against non-html email recipients, they have feelings too!

5. Only send emails to organically created lists.

   Email lists should be collected and created entirely by your business. Nevermind renting or purchasing those lists -not only will that land you in the junk folder in a heartbeat, but you’ll also be wasting your time and money. Grow your own email list by having people sign-up, subscribe, or opt-in on their own. That way, they’ll expect an email from you, and now automatically mark your message as spam.

There you have it: Five easy ways to avoid the junk folder and get your important email in the inbox, where it belongs. Email marketing by far one of the most successful marketing tools on the market. Don’t be bogged down with junk. Happy emailing!

Rona Cerillo is a mobile text campaign aficionado and marketing specialist for Trumpia, an SMS and multi-channel marketing service provider.

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If you want to make this your best financial year yet, then email marketing should be an integral part of your online business.

Increasingly people are only purchasing from people who they know, like and trust. And the easiest way to build that relationship with your prospects is through the power of an automated email sequence.

While simply using email is enough to increase your sales, like any aspect of marketing it can be improved. Whether you are new to email marketing or a seasoned pro, these 5 email marketing tips that will help you build better relationships with your prospects and increase sales.

1) Sell The Click Not The Product

One of the mistakes that many online business owners make is to try and sell the product within the email. Selling the product is the job of the sales page on your website. The job of the email message is to sell the “click”. You want your reader to click through from your email to your sales page. Trying to sell too early can actually decrease the likelihood that they will buy.

Some of the best ways to increase the likelihood that they will click on your link is to create a sense of scarcity such as only having a limited amount of time to take up the offer. Or you can make the link seem mysterious so that the reader wants to discover more information. Nobody can ignore finding the answer to a secret.

2) Concentrate On Quality Not Quantity

The quality, not the quantity, of your email list will determine its profitability. Don’t be solely focused on increasing the opt ins. Instead, focus your attention on getting the best possible leads to join your email list.

That means being very targeted in how you approach sourcing your leads. A list with 100 people, who are incredibly interested in finding a solution to their problem, will perform much better than a list of 1000 people who are only slightly interested in what you have to say.

3) It’s OK To Email Often

Some businesses owners are scared to email often because that it will increase the amount of unsubscribe. However if you are sending out good quality content you should not be afraid to mail every day. You can even include an offer with your emails. However, you must also include valuable, free information that helps your reader with whatever problems that are facing. Remember, if you lead with value then mailing frequency will not hurt sales.

4) Use An Interesting Subject Line

As the famous copywriter Joe Sugarman once noted, the sole purpose of headline is to get the viewer to read the first line. The same could be said of the subject line of an email. It doesn’t matter how good the offer is or how interesting the email, if the subject line isn’t interesting it won’t matter because nobody will read it. If you want to increase your sales then writing better headlines should be your first step. Writing good email subject lines doesn’t require that you become a creative genius. Simply copy what is already working for other marketers.

Here is a little trick. Create a new email account and sign up for some of the email newsletters of the best marketers in your industry. Every couple of days check your inbox and scan through the email subject lines. See which subject lines make you want to read the email. Then make a note of this subject line and change it slightly for your own email marketing. By using this method you will be using only the most effective subject lines (get more email marketing optimization tips from Pure Leverage reviews).

5) Include a P.S.

Studies have show that end of an email is the second most viewed part of an email. Many people will skim over the content with their eyes naturally falling on the end of the email. Others will skip right to the end, after reading your opening paragraph. This is why it is key that you include a P.S. at the end of your email. By including a sales offer in your P.S. you will increase sales without having to do a lot of work.

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One of the nice things about online marketing is you can get nearly instant feedback about what you’re doing. This is also true for email marketing. Let’s look at the metrics that you should focus on to analyze how well your email marketing is performing so you can refine your efforts for greater success:

Delivery Rate

Although this metric isn’t super detailed, it’s the best way to ensure there isn’t a technical problem or glitch with your email marketing setup. As long as the majority of emails you send are being delivered, you’ll know that everything’s good with your server and all your other configuration details.

When you’re looking at your delivery rate, you may also notice a metric known as bounce rate. It simply refers to the percentage of emails that aren’t successfully delivered to an inbox. Hard bounces are permanent errors, indicating that the email address isn’t valid and should be deleted. Soft bounces indicate a transient error, such as full inbox.

Growth

It’s very useful to not only know if your list is growing, but also how quickly and by how much. The reason this metric can be useful in guiding your email marketing is because it can help you pinpoint what works best for bringing new subscribers for your list.

For example, if you notice a week where your growth rate is especially high, you’re going to want to look at what type of content you published on your blog that week. If you realize that the type or focus of what you published was different than normal, it’s probably an indication that you should continue doing more content in the same vein.

Unsubscribe Rate:

It’s inevitable that people will leave your list. Interests and priorities change, so you should expect to see a low, but relatively steady number of unsubscribes. Of course it can also be the case that some people are not satisfied with or even dislike the content you email them. And it’s usually the latter that leads to the sudden spikes of unsubscribes that you need to keep an eye out for, so that you can track what caused offense and avoid repeating the same mistake again.

Click-throughs

The reason this metric is absolutely crucial is it let’s you know how many people actually looked at the email you sent. You can craft an incredible email, but if very few people open it, the results the email generates are going to be minimal. This truth is why learning how to write effective subject lines is so important. While there is a fair amount of art to writing killer subject lines, by using click-through data, you can get feedback on what you’re trying instead of feeling like you’re stumbling around blindly.

Shares

One of the big benefits of email is it not only allows you to connect with potential and existing customers, but it also makes it easy for those people to share with others. If you send an email that someone feels will be useful for a friend or family member, they can forward it with just two clicks of their mouse.

What’s helpful about looking at how much of this type of activity is being done is it will give you insight into what types of emails are most appealing. Since what people want can vary by industry, getting this feedback can put you on the right track. For example, one business may discover that emails with special discounts get the most traction, while another business may find that they get the most traction from email content that’s focused on educating and informing.

Craig Klein is the President of online CRM and email marketing company www.SalesNexus.com, which is headquartered in Houston Texas. Circle Craig on Google+ to learn more.

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If you are a webmaster looking to increase sales and conversions, establishing a quality relationship with bloggers is crucial.

Long gone are the days where you could throw a few dozen cheap backlinks at your site, buy 2 cent traffic or stuff keywords to rank better.

Bloggers often have tens of thousands of followers, bloggers can rapidly direct traffic to your website, and bloggers can provide essential backlinks to increase your search engine presence.

All online relationships start the same way, outreach. But it’s critical that you get it right. The difference between a good outreach email and a GREAT one could make our break your entire online marketing efforts.

Here are 5 Tips to Craft a Killer Outreach Email

Be Sincere:

Make sure your outreach emails are sincere. Be sure to quickly address the blogger by their first name. Do not say “dear blogger”, “Dear Webmaster” or “hello CEO”. Any intelligent person can see right through these. Think of how you would react to an email that is clearly a bulk email sent solely for their gain.

BAD Example: “Dear Webmaster, I read your blog it is great value content…”

GOOD Example: “Hey John, I read yesterday’s blog post on the overtime playoff victory…

Offer Value to the Blogger

Refrain from begging. Webmasters and bloggers know the power that they have, they know the potential in their network. That being said — bloggers and webmasters can be very helpful. Just like anyone else in this world, they want to do things to better themselves (or better their website). Think of what you have to offer. If you are a graphic designer, offer to make a new logo. If you are a web designer, offer to help them with their website. Many people reading this are experienced search engine optimization, tell them you will promote their site if they help promote you.

Telling them you’ll help “promote” their website isn’t going to cut it. If you actually do plan on promoting their blog in exchange for their help, explicitly tell them how you are going to do it.

BAD Example: “I will promote your website on my network in exchange for a link”

GOOD Example: “I’m a graphic designer. I’d love to make you a new logo if you could help me out”

Keep them short

Make sure your outreach emails are short. Many top bloggers get bombarded with dozens (if not hundreds) of messages per day. Your email needs to get right to the point — you don’t want to fill an email with any unnecessary words, thereby making it harder to get through the Email.

I usually write my E-mail first, then cut out all unnecessary words. For an outreach E-mail, try to keep it under 150 words. You can always right much more in follow-up E-mails after you build rapport with the blogger.

Establish Credibility to Increase Conversion Rate

With emails, it’s often hard to tell the difference from spam and real emails. Make sure to clearly show your credibility. (Link to your LinkedIn page, your Facebook page, your website, your bio, etc)
Adding something as simple as a thumbnail of your photo to the bottom of the email can drastically increase the chance of a conversion. Bloggers are afraid they are responding to automated system (often time they are).

Get to Know the Bloggers

Make sure to find the right bloggers and be sure to focus directly on them. Research their blog, follow them on social networks, and get a feel for the blog before sending out any outreach.

There is no one size fits all E-mail that will work for every blogger. Rather then message a larger number of bloggers, focus on a smaller group that you can actually manage. Correspondence takes time and effort (especially when you actually write real responses)

Conclusion & Other Tips:

• If you can help it, do not use an “@Gmail” or “@Yahoo.com” E-mail, use a branded E-mail to your website — It looks more credible.
• The shorter the better!
• Use Excel (or any management software) to help manage correspondence. Remember: it takes time before getting the end result.
• Once you establish a relationship, ask them if they can refer you to other bloggers (chances are, they can)
• Don’t make it seem like the E-mail is solely being sent for your benefit.
• Spell check!

Jesse Leimgruber studies Computer Science & Stanford University and is an Internet marketing / SEO consultant at Rank Executives, who offer a variety of Link Building & SEO Packages for webmasters that are all based on blogging, webmaster outreach and White Hat SEO tactics.

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