10 Tactics To Reboot Your Email Marketing List

E-newsletters, webinars, SlideShare info-graphics and other email marketing content can go as flat as an open bottle of champagne after a while. Business in the 21st century is sort of like show business, folks. Gypsy Rose Lee said it best, “You’ve gotta have a gimmick.” You need to know how to hold your audience and you’d better know how to recognize when they stop paying attention.

The content you provide must be considered relevant and obvious sales pitches will eventually cause a drop-off in the email open rate. Attention spans are short and email in-boxes are filled to the brim. You can’t afford to lose control of your “room”, i.e., your list members. Presumably, your list is populated with clients, prospects and referral sources, the life-blood of your business. How do you build and maintain a robust list?

Try these tactics:

1. Examine your stats and identify the non-readers. Studies show that on average, 60% of marketing emails are never opened.

2. Prune the list. Facing up to audience members who’ve fallen out of love with you takes courage but like any love affair that’s over, it’s best to move on. Carol Tice, who founded the Freelance Writer’s Den and maintains a formidable list, periodically emails non-readers and asks if they’d like to remain on the list. Non-responders are removed. A purge improves the open rate statistic and ensures that the creative energy and hard work invested in your content marketing will be appreciated.

3. Ask list members to update their email information. Your open rate could improve just by allowing readers to have emails sent to an alternate address.

But that’s not all…

4. If your open rate continues to drop, evaluate your subject line. A well-written subject line is a siren song to potential readers.

5. Include a tempting call to action and maybe name it in the subject line. A survey, free webinar (hosted by you or someone whose expertise you trust), or a white paper on a subject of interest to your readers re-establishes your relevance and will persuade a percentage of non and infrequent readers to click and engage.

6. Think mobile. In July 2014, Forrester Research reported that 42 % of emails from B2C retailers are opened on smartphones and 17 % are opened on tablets. Customize your email communications for responsive design, so that reading will be easy on mobile devices.

7. Keep a regular schedule. You may prefer to publish on a given date or day of the week but whatever you do, adhere to a predictable schedule. Readers appreciate it more than you may realize. Make readers anticipate receiving and reading your communications.

This next one is a biggie…

8. Build your list. Organically and with permission, build your email marketing list. You should have met each person on your list at least once. At the email campaign launch, send to all business contacts along with an introductory message that announces the debut, explains the benefits to readers, reveals the frequency (weekly or monthly) and provides an easy and effective opt-out. Resist the temptation to add to your list the names of everyone who hands you a business card. When speaking with people, do mention your email marketing campaign, give examples of the subjects covered and how often you send. Ask if they would like to receive at least one and let them know that if they choose to opt out, that can be easily and quickly done.

9. Personalize. Whatever service sends out your emails should include a greeting to each individual recipient.

10. Sign me up! On your website and social media, allow interested parties to sign up to receive selected email marketing communications, register for webinars, or receive a copy of any white papers.

Content marketing is the new advertising and emailing your content remains an effective way to reach clients and prospects, including those who no longer answer the phone. Create a robust list by continually adding and purging members and enable your campaigns to deliver optimal ROI (as you define it). Draw in readers with relevant content and intriguing subject lines. Format in responsive design to include those who prefer to read on mobile devices. Fulfill expectations by publishing on a regular schedule.

Thanks for reading

Email marketing means more than just sending out mass emails to everyone who has ever bought something from your business. A properly conducted email marketing campaign can be complicated to put together, but if you know what you are doing, the rewards can be great. Read on to find out how to do so.

Be sure of all the colors you use in your email are neutral. If colors are too bland, the customer may not want to read the article. On the other hand, if the colors are too bright, it could frustrate the reader. Try to stick with neutral colors, like black, gray, and white.

Let your readers choose the layout of your content. Any messages with images, graphics and JavaScript is likely to get eaten by software filters and never seen by human eyes. Send out basic text or rich text format including a link to your website, and the option of an HTML version for those that want it.

Try engaging the customer using the subject line of the email. Your email must grab your reader’s attention the minute it lands inside of their inbox, otherwise it may go into their trash. If you have a weak or uninteresting subject line, that is exactly what will happen. So try spicing up your subject line with some creativity.

If you have images or graphics, put them on the left side of the email message. Make sure that your call to action element is always on this side. Research has documented that this location produces almost double the number of clicks to your product, service or website than placing these elements anywhere else does.

Consider using text emails instead of graphically intense HTML emails for your campaign. You may be thinking that the graphics will engage your reader more, but it’s usually not the case. Many people today have trained themselves to delete emails with lots of imagery, assuming they are spam. As well, those images often trigger spam filters, meaning your message is never received by some people on your email list!

In order to banish all concerns about spam and ensure that no one on your subscriber list is there by mistake, consider employing a double opt-in strategy. Your first message should require some sort of additional action, like replying or clicking on a link, to make certain that the reader wants to receive further emails.

The emails you send out should entice your customers. People will buy something from you if you provide them with a reason to do so. Offering free shipping for orders over $50 is a good example of incentive.

Try customizing your messages for your email recipients. Try including their name in the email so that it feels more warm and personal. This can help build better relationships with your customers, and they may be more inclined to read what you have to say in these personalized email messages.

Running a great email marketing campaign can seem like a daunting prospect, but do not let your fears prevent you from getting started. As you have seen, it does not have to be a onerous chore. If you remember the advice you have read in the preceding article, you should be able to put together a highly effective campaign.

When people feel like they’ve connected with you, they’re more willing to buy from you because they’ve learned that they can trust you. Email marketing is an effective way to connect with your readers and build that trusting business relationship.

Personalization and Business Balance

It’s impossible to send an individual email to each person on your database. You need to invest in email marketing software, often called an autoresponder, that will automatically personalize the email with the recipient’s name and then will deliver your message to them.

When you send out your emails, you’re going to want to have a balance between personalization and business content. Have the recipient’s name in the greeting and then personalize a few lines after their name.

Time For Business

Then you can talk about the reason for the email. This part should be in the middle of your email. You can talk about the new business product you’ve come out with or a review of someone else’s product.

Remember to be yourself as you’re writing your emails. Write like you were sending it to a friend. If you wouldn’t send an email to a friend, don’t send it to somebody on your list.

Personalize, Business, Personalize

If you have a lot to say in your email, use bullet points or a numbered list to make it easier to read. Don’t forget when you’re writing the email to include the links they’ll need to the product or review.

After you’ve finished dealing with all the new business you want them to know,end the email with one more bit of personalization. You might sign off with something like “Going to try watch my favourite TV show now!” or, “Hoping to get the work done so I can go out and enjoy the sunny weather!”

If this were a formula when you use email marketing to connect with your audience, it would be P-B-P: Personalize, Business, Personalize.

Autoresponder Software

An autoresponder automatically responds with an email when somebody signs up to get your newsletter or free e-book. There are two types of emails your autoresponder can send to build a relationship with your audience. These are follow-up emails and broadcast emails.

Follow-Up Emails

Follow-up emails are a pre-written set of emails that load into your autoresponder. These are important because you want the person who joined your list in September to be sent the same helpful information as the person who joins in December. All of your new subscribers will get the emails in the order that you want them received.

Broadcast Emails

Broadcast emails are sent to your entire list irrespective of when they signed up to receive information from you. This type of email usually deals with subject areas that are current, like a sale or time sensitive special offer.

Messages In Your Email Campaigns

Your message series should share some really good content and should contain information that can genuinely help your subscribers. For example, if your subscriber joined your list in order to learn more about traffic generation, then your message series should contain information about how to generate more traffic. You could include different ways to generate traffic in each message to keep your subscriber anticipating your next email.

Of course, you will want to create a more in-depth product about traffic generation that you will promote to your subscribers. The secret here is to send good, quality information through your messages that will leave your subscribers wanting more. And of course, you will offer them your traffic generation product that does exactly that!

Here are a few things you may want to include in your message series:

• A series of articles about different ways to generate traffic;

• A short PDF report that goes into more detail about a specific traffic generating tactic;

• A video you’ve recorded that shows how to use a specific tactic to generate traffic;

• An audio recording that talks about how to generate more traffic;

• A short workshop on traffic generation. This could be a live workshop or a recorded one.

When creating information for your subscribers, always focus on building a relationship. Ask yourself ‘What information can I create that will help my subscribers with their business or with what they want to achieve?’ No, you will not get any immediate sales by following this plan. However, you will be building a relationship that will create a list of raving fans that will eagerly purchase from you in the future.

More info to chew on.

You want to create high quality, helpful content and to give it to your subscribers for free. Your main objective should be to get your subscribers to anticipate and READ your next email as they know you will supply them with the information they want.

Your message series should be never-ending. As soon as you finish promoting one product, continue the entire series with content and promotional emails related to the next product you are creating.

Do count your newsletter as one of your content messages even though it is not included in the message series. You would send your newsletter followed by another content message. Then a promotional email followed by two more content messages. Next you would send out a promotional email.

PLEASE NOTE: Since you will have subscribers who joined different lists, not all of your subscribers will be on your newsletter list. In the very first message in this series, you may want to offer them a subscription. Only send your newsletter to those who are on that particular list.

If you want to send out more promotions, you could include a PS at the end of your content messages which promote a product. Just don’t use any pressure! Your subscriber wants information, not to be bombarded with sales messages.

Here’s an example:

Your Name

P.S. For more information about (the subject of your article), you may want to check out (product name and link).

Or you could use product reviews as both a content and promotional email. You would write an honest review about a product and then include your affiliate link at the end of your message.

PLEASE NOTE: Since people downloaded your ‘ethical bribe’ for information about a problem they want to solve, the first few emails in your campaign could expand upon a subject you talked about.

As a closing note.

Only expand on one or two topics. Tell your subscriber they can read more about whatever subject the ethical bribe is about inside it. And of course, you do not want to expand too much as you want your paid product to be the final solution.

Keep in mind that 95% of the people who downloaded your ethical bribe will never actually read it or read it in its entirety. So by sending them more detailed content, you will reinforce their desire for the information you will be sending them and for which they downloaded your ethical bribe in the first place.