Email Marketing Will They Read What You Say?

In amongst the hoards of email messages your customers and prospects receive on a daily basis, there are those that stand out as ones that are very likely to be read.

What are they?

They’re the ones that are personal to the recipient. If I am your friend, or your colleague, your parent or your boss and I send you an email that is a direct one on one communication, how likely are you to open it? Unless you delete it by mistake, I’d say you’re almost certain to open it.

You’ll be slightly less likely to read an email from someone you know, that has been sent to numerous people such as a chain email or one that has obviously been forwarded by a number of people before it reaches you. Further down the list of email priorities are those from people you know of, but have not met, such as companies you’ve asked to receive communications from, and lists that you’ve subscribed to, such as a headline roundup sent by a newspaper.

Of course, right at the bottom of the list is spam, which most savvy computer users can now recognise without opening. They see that it’s from someone they don’t know, and has a subject title that is completely irrelevant to them. Of course the spammers have long since been wise to this and that’s why you’ll receive something that says “Just one more thing…” in its subject header only to try to sell you cheap Viagra when you click onto it.

Familiarity

The more familiar we are with the person who has sent us an email, the more likely we are to open it. We human beings take comfort in familiarity. Things and people that are familiar to us make us feel safe; McDonalds, soap operas, brands, and favourite items of clothing – are some such examples. A successful email marketing campaign creates an air of familiarity between you, your customers and prospects, so how do you go about achieving this status?

Personalising Emails

People are getting wise to their name being used in a subject header, so it’s important to make the rest of the subject line both interesting and relevant to them.

The best way to achieve this is to ask yourself what it is that they would want to read, and tailor your communication around the answer to this one question. Once you’ve mastered this and people have opened your email, don’t disappoint them. Deliver. Work on building rapport with the people on your list. Remember that they are individuals who, if you give them something that they value, will trust you and grow to like you/your brand/your communications -but this takes time to establish and has to be done skillfully.

Remember that relevance and persistence are vital: the longer someone stays on your mailing list, the more likely they are to come to you when they are ready to buy.

Let’s hear your comments and questions below!

Email Marketing When and How Often?

You may have slaved for hours over your email campaign, and your copy could sell snow to the Eskimos, but there’s one problem: if your intended recipient doesn’t open your email and read it then all your efforts have gone to waste. So how do you ensure that your emails are opened? The reality is that you can’t, but timing and frequency are both important factors to take into account when it comes to giving yourself the best chance of reaching your customers.

Who Are You Mailing?

There is no absolute timescale or frequency, because when and how often you send emails will depend not only on who you are targeting, but also your reason for getting in touch with them. Rather than concentrating solely on when you think you are most likely to get your message across, put yourself in your customers’ shoes. Target business people during the day, between 11am and 3pm, on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. Consumers are most likely to be at their computers between 5pm and 8pm during the week, and during the day on Saturday and Sunday.

When Isn’t A Good Time?

Clearly, three AM on a Tuesday is hardly likely to be a good time to catch people alert and ready to read your emails, but sending at 9am during the week might not be either. You are the expert at your business, and you (presumably) know your customers, what they want and the solutions you are selling to them. It follows, therefore, that every email you send them must be relevant to them. If it doesn’t look interesting, by which I mean relevant, they’ll drag it straight to the trash. Make it too gimmicky or sales oriented and you could do your reputation harm. Your targets receive so much junk in their email folders each day that your communication needs to have as good a chance as possible of being read.

So How Often Should You Send Them?

Again, this varies depending on what you are trying to achieve. Send your communications too infrequently and people will forget to contact you when they’re ready to become a customer. However, if you’re the really annoying person who sends mindless, irrelevant emails to them twice a day then they’re very likely to get fed up and unsubscribe. If you send them information that is interesting to them, relevant to their wants or needs, and is well written – the chances are they will read them. If they don’t have time on one or more occasions, at least they’ll want you to keep them coming.

Think Like Your Customer

Of course, you can’t possibly be expected to know exactly when all your recipients are having a good or bad day, are distracted by something exciting, are fuming about something at work, or are simply too busy to open any emails other than the ones that are flagged as urgent. Similarly, people’s buying decision are cyclical and broadly fall into three categories: they can be happy with the status quo, interested and looking around but not ready to part with any money, or red hot and ready to buy. Show a series of emails to people on different days and you can be sure that they won’t always respond the same way.

So each time you send an email during your campaign, monitor the responses you receive. See how many respond positively, and how many unsubscribe requests you get. Over a period of time you’ll establish the best timing for your marketing communications, at regular (and predictable) intervals – and if your emails are relevant and engaging, people will look forward to receiving them.

As always your comments and questions are appreciated

Just recently had an interesting experience on twitter, which led to this interview with David Lomas and his unique e mail magazine product.

Please feel free to leave comments below. If you would like to find out more on e-mail magazines please click here

A great deal of thought must go into your Opt In strategy, as you already know your opt in list will become the most valuable part of your business and on average potential customers will require 7 point of contact from you before they make a purchase.

It therefore stands to reason that more Opt Ins, over time, will result in more sales.

Some time ago you could gather a huge amount of Opt Ins simply by offering a free subscription to a newsletter. However, these days you’ll get better results if you offer a little more incentive for you visitors to opt in. This could be a free report, audio download or even something sent through the post.

In another article I’ll cover some ideas you can offer to your visitors but for this issue I’d like to talk about the different kinds of Opt In tactics.

The Static On Page Opt In Form

The static Opt In Form will usually sit on a web page, always visible, containing your Opt In offer. This usually appears either at the top right or top left of a web page and should immediately be visible to a visitor on your website.

If not then you’ll get far more Opt Ins if you move your opt in form up to the top left or top right of your web page, if visitors have to scroll to see you’re your opt in form then you’ll be loosing a huge amount of potential subscribers and customers.

You should expect to sign up aprox 10% of your visitors into subscribers using this kind of form

Hover, Drop In Opt In Forms

The Hover Ad or Drop In Form drops in over the top of your web page and contains your Opt In offer and Opt In form. The visitor is then clearly presented with your Opt In Offer & Opt In Form. They can then either close your drop in ad or subscribe.

We’ve found that a drop in Opt In form seriously out performs the statics version and saves you extra space on the web page itself, although you may want to use both.

You can decide weather or not the drop in ad shows only onece per visitor or each time a visitor lands on the page and is definitely something you should test.

You should expect to sign up aprox 10% to 20% of your visitors into subscribers using this kind of form

The Squeeze Page

The squeeze page is designed to do one thing and one thing only and that is to collect opt ins from visitors.

The squeeze page is a page dedicated to your opt in offer and visitors have only 2 options. A) Sign up for your newsletter. B) Leave your website.

Now although that might sound a bit harsh they collect far more opt ins than any other strategy and is something you should definitely test.

Usually the squeeze page contains a video & a freebie for signing up or entering their data and is usually used as a pay per click landing page rather than the home page.

You should expect to sign up aprox 15% to 40% of your visitors into subscribers using this kind of form. I’ve even heard from people who experienced 50%.

Try testing the different opt in strategies and see which works best for you.

Generating leads and following up with potential customers is vital the success of your internet business. Statistics show that on average a visitor will require 7 points of contact before they make a purchase.

Whilst this is an average and will vary depending on the product or service you provide, collecting data from your visitors and following them up with great information about your product or service will greatly improve sales.

This is probably one of the most powerful strategies available to us as online marketers yet widely under used and in many cases completely overlooked. What’s more is that the whole process can be completely automated.

Think of a visitor looking for information about a product or service. They will more than likely use a search engine which will deliver thousands if not millions of websites appertaining to their search phrase.

The visitor will then start clicking through the results back and forth until they either make a purchase, enquiry or life gets in the way and they give up all together.

Now if your site was one of the ones this visitor clicked on and you didn’t collect their data, then I’m afraid they’re gone for good and you have no way of getting back in front of that person again.

However, if you collected their contact information you can continue to build a relationship with them until they’re ready to make a purchase.

There are many ways you can achieve this. The most basic way is to ask them to subscribe to a newsletter.

However, you’ll get far better results if you’re a little more creative, for example, why not give away a free report on the information they are looking for and then set up an auto responder series which automatically sends out follow up’s asking if they found the information useful or if they have any questions etc… The possibilities are almost endless.

So what’s the easiest way to set this up?

We have used many different software products in the past but by far the easiest way to get started is to use a service like icontact.

Icontact is extremely cheap and easy to use and with a free trial you could be on your way in just 5 minutes.

We’ve found that using a service such as icontact allows you to quickly and effortlessly start building relationships with your visitors without the need for purchasing expensive technical software.

As always any questions can be left in the comments box below or why not e-mail me on jp@marketingtipsuk.com

Jon Stringer
Marketing Tips UK

Building a list. Yes, everyone wants a big list and they want it fast! Why?

Well quite simply owning a big list of subscribers gives you the ability to create income on demand.

But don’t loose sight of the bigger picture!

Before I give away my list building strategies I wanted you guys to read this fist.

List building is extremely important. However, your time and effort will be in vain if you don’t give value and build continuing relationships with the people on your list.

People who subscribe to newsletters and lists expect good quality information on a regular basis and if all you do is market to you list over and over again you’ll soon have them unsubscribing or simply ignoring your messages.

On the flip side, don’t be afraid to send e-mails to your subscribers.

If your subscribers are not seeing quality information coming through on a regular basis and you eventually do decide to send them an offer, more than likely they will have forgotten who you are and why you’re sending them the information.

This could lead to them unsubscribing or worse still issuing a spam complaint against you.

Tip: Try to find a balance between regular monthly newsletters and occasional offers.

Tip: Avoid sending offers in your newsletter and keep the information within it valuable for the reader.

This way you’ll have a far higher response rate on your offers and they’ll appreciate all the great information you’re sending them in the meantime.

Tune in next time when I’ll be showing you some great mailing software, opt in strategies & offers to increase your subscriber rate.

Please feel free to leave your questions and comments below.

Jon Stringer

Marketing Tips UK