#EmailChat Recap: Email Testing 101

“Test, test, test!” – Every email marketer ever

Split testing is one of the best ways to make improvements to your email campaigns… yet only a small percentage of email marketers are doing so consistently. What gives?

Testing doesn’t have to be complicated, costly or time-consuming. Just ask the AWeber community, who shared their tips for painless email testing in yesterday’s #emailchat.

Here are seven rules to keep in mind for running a successful split test of your own:

1. Looking to improve your campaigns? Testing is non-negotiable.

• You’ll discover if the type of content you’re sending is working, or if you need to switch gears – @KristenWritesIt

• With all the tools we have to create more relevant emails, testing informs us which combination of them works best – @stephanhov

• Testing is a low-risk way to determine if something is right for your email marketing strategy without the commitment. – @oliviadello

2. “If you’re not sure, test!”

• If I’m having trouble making a decision about a subject line, content length, etc., that usually inspires a new test! – @missmontesa

• Always testing new things! You never know what your subscribers like, until you test it. – @litmusapp

• You can test anything, as long as there’s a business decision behind it. I’d rather test things that grow engagement. – @stephanhov

3. But only test one thing at a time.

• You should test one thing at a time in your email—it will help you draw conclusive results. – @litmusapp

• Testing just 1 thing at a time will help you pinpoint exactly what worked & what didn’t. – @KristenWritesIt

• In most cases, you should only test one thing at a time. (That’s why it’s called an A/B test.) – @oliviadello

4. The longer the test, the more accurate the results.

• Definitely depends on the sample size. The longer you test the higher the confidence. – @tnrt

• The more time, the more data. – @oliviadello

• For subject line tests, I wait up to a week before declaring a winner. – @KristenWritesIt

5. Your results will reveal opportunities to test further.

• As @KristenWritesIt mentioned, there’s ALWAYS room for improvement. Use your results to determine your next test! –@oliviadello

• Sorry to link drop but I have a step-by-step testing process here http://bit.ly/1mAxk0C  – @stephanhov

6. Email copy is an easy thing to test.

• I love testing subject lines and seeing how little changes impact open rates! – @missmontesa

• Video vs. non-video, different images, CTA copy (action words vs. non-action) – @KristenWritesIt

• CTA above or below the product – @TheChuabacca

7. But don’t be afraid to think beyond the subject line.

• Think beyond the subject line! Test things like frequency, timing, text v. HTML, personalization, etc. – @oliviadello

• Split test today…are my sub’s more likely to click on a text link to my blog post, or a button? – @stephanhov

• Test your CTA copy – a few ideas in this post: http://bit.ly/22bgYeK – @KristenWritesIt

And that’s a wrap.

Join us next Thursday, February 4 for the next #emailchat. The topic? Email automation.

And don’t forget to follow us on Twitter (@AWeber) to stay up-to-date with the latest news, events and more.

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Time-Saving Email Marketing Tips to Take Back Your Day

Strapped for time? Feeling frazzled? Wondering if you’ll even have time make it to the end of this blog post? (It’s ok if you don’t, you won’t hurt my feelings.)

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you’re the perfect candidate for email marketing. Email helps you make meaningful connections with your tribe using very little time.

It sounds like a catch-22, doesn’t it? It’s not – as long as you’re spending your time wisely. But that doesn’t always happen.

Try these time-saving email marketing tips the next time you find yourself wondering, “Where the heck did my day go?!”

Spending too much time creating content? Try…

Email automation

According to this survey, email marketers spend the bulk of their time on content. It makes sense, right? Great content helps you grow and connect with your audience.

But many marketers are spending too much time creating content. I get it. It’s hard to come up with original content on a regular basis, never mind finding the time to sit down and compose an email or *shudder* an entire series of them.

That’s why email automation exists. With email automation, you can take content you already have and turn it into a welcome series or email course. You can even link multiple email campaigns together. That way, you’re not creating a ton of new content. You’re simply organizing your existing content into shorter, digestible emails that keep your subscribers engaged over time.

Try these email automation ideas:

• Welcome campaign
• Email course
• Linked campaigns

Curated content

Curating content positions you as a thought-leader and saves you time. Here’s how to create a curated email newsletter:

• Bookmark articles with your subscribers in mind. What kind of news will keep them in-the-know?
• Make a short list of the most interesting and relevant articles in your newsfeed (three to five is a good number to aim for).
• Add those articles to a newsletter and add a short description about why people should read them.

Check out this post to learn more about curated content.

Spending too much time trying to grow your list? Try…

Wishpond

Growing your subscriber list is one of the biggest challenges an email marketer can have. It’s also a huge time-suck, especially when it comes to researching all the tools you need to create pop-up forms, landing pages and more.

Lucky for you, Wishpond has all of those tools in one place. It’s a platform where you can create Facebook contests, pop-up forms, landing pages and easily track your campaigns within the app. If you’re an AWeber customer, you can connect Wishpond to your AWeber account. Check it out!

A mobile sign up form app

You never know when you’ll meet a potential subscriber. Why not be prepared with an easy way to add people to your list, right in your pocket? A mobile app, like AWeber’s Atom app, lets you add new subscribers anytime, anywhere.

Facebook

There are lots of little ways Facebook can help grow your list fast. Try linking Facebook’s call-to-action button to your hosted sign up form or landing page. Add a sign up form to your Facebook page. Once you have those in place, promote your premium content on Facebook and let people know that if they want to see more, they can sign up for your list.

A hosted sign up form

Does the thought of creating a sign up form and adding it to your website make you break into a cold sweat? It shouldn’t – and it’s super easy to do, I promise. But there is another way: the hosted sign up form. You can create one in five minutes or less, then share it everywhere.

Spending too much time managing your subscribers? Try…

Kickbox

A massive subscriber list can only help you when those subscribers are engaged. Unfortunately, a lot of people avoid purging their list of inactive subscribers simply because list clean-up can be time-consuming.

Enter Kickbox, a tool that lets you easily check up on your list’s health and clean it up in minutes. As a result, you get better deliverability and a more active list. Check it out.

Salesforce

Want to know which of your Salesforce contacts are subscribed to your email lists? The Salesforce app integration will tell you! Learn more about keeping tabs on your contacts with the Salesforce app.

Segmenting

If you have multiple email campaigns (for customers and prospects, for example), sending the right content to the right people can get tricky. Plus, you always want to make sure you’re sending relevant content to your subscribers.

Segmenting your list based on specific subscriber interests lets you quickly and easily send relevant content to your audience. That means you can send an email only to your prospects who didn’t click through to buy your ebook in your last email. Or message those who did with another ebook they might like.

Take back your time today!

Email marketing is designed to make your life easier. Use these solutions any time you feel like time isn’t on your side.

Want to get an even better handle on managing your time? Check out these five time-tracking tools.

How do you save time with email marketing? Tell us in the comments!

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How Threddies Uses Email Marketing to Connect with Crafters and DIYers

As Elana Donmoyer slowly rolled her collection of handmade clothing and accessories around the parking lot of a Phish concert over a decade ago, she never thought her humble efforts to fund her trips to watch her favorite band would someday transform into a business that would help support her family.

As a crafter and DIYer back then, Elana saw other crafters struggling to find hair accessories in the right colors and quantities.

“Folks were buying basic styles at the drugstore or supermarket and adding on to them,” she said. “But there was no source for these basics by-the-color. If you wanted 50 pink elastic headbands, you’d have to buy assorted packs and pull the pink ones out.”

Elana saw an opportunity, and with $500 and a lot of hard work and bootstrapping, Threddies.com was born.

Threddies offers an extensive in-stock inventory of basic and fashion hair accessories in a huge selection of colors.

With a background in retail, launching Threddies just made sense for Elana.

“I am fortunate to have been raised in retail, wholesale and apparel manufacturing, so I knew what to do once I had the concrete vision,” she said.

When it came to growing her new business, she knew selling from a rolling rack in a concert parking lot wasn’t realistic in the long run. So she started a retail and wholesale website and began selling to crafters and DIYers all around the world.

She also understood the value of email marketing and started building an email list early on (high five, Elana!).

4 email marketing lessons from Threddies

Here are four lessons Elana and her husband Jason (who’s also AWeber’s very own Android Developer) have learned since using email marketing to grow her business (and how you can make them work for you):

Take advantage of every opportunity to build your list.

Most of Elana’s subscribers have come organically from her website and word-of-mouth. But recently she’s found great success using AWeber’s Atom mobile app to add subscribers on the go at trade shows, fairs, festivals and bazaars (take that, pen and paper!).

Pro tip: Download the Atom mobile app and customize the design to match your brand or business.

Be genuine in your emails.

When Elana first started email marketing, she found that she was trying to sound a bit too buttoned-up in her emails. Over time, she’s learned to lighten up her tone and be more conversational.

“Be genuine,” Elana said. “We’ve found that people respond best when you’re being yourself – a bit candid, with some humor. Nobody likes boring, dry content!”

Pro tip: When writing your emails, remember that you’re speaking to a person, not an email address. Write as though you’re talking to a close friend. You’re also speaking to one person, not making a speech to a bazillion people at once, so get personal with your emails.

Deliver relevant, timely content.

Elana uses email marketing to keep Threddies top of mind with her subscribers. Although her core line of basic accessories doesn’t change very often, she does switch up fabrics, add new colors, and introduce new lines of fashion accessories, so she uses email marketing to make sure her subscribers are aware.

“Our customers like the periodic updates, but, of course, they like the sales the best! When it’s the end of the season and we’ve got inventory to move, email marketing is a great way to get the word out about special deals and make it happen.”

Pro tip: Understand what your subscribers want and deliver it. In Elana’s case, her subscribers love the seasonal sales she offers.

“Email marketing is also a great way to reward loyal customers with the occasional discount or private sale.”

Make time for email marketing.

As a mother and entrepreneur, Elana has to balance her time at home and in her business. But she doesn’t leave her time to chance. Instead, she makes sure to schedule in time for email marketing and other business to-dos.

“With so much to do to keep a business running, it’s easy to let these things go if you don’t specifically make time for them,” she said. “If you don’t make time for it, there never will be time for it.”

Elana has also found ways to squeeze in time when there isn’t a lot to go around.

“It’s all about stealing moments when you can – the mobile app has been hugely helpful for this,” she said. “Waiting in line at the grocery store, waiting for the kids to get off the bus. Five minutes here and there can really add up, if you use them wisely!”

Pro tip: Create an email editorial calendar to stay on track with your email marketing. If you’re crunched for time, use these tips to build your list and these tips to send quick emails today.

Big plans for 2016

With 2016 underway, Elana has big plans for growing Threddies this year.

“I plan to add more colors, sizes and fabrics to our line of in-stock basics, and to expand our popular private label program.”

As Elana grows her business, she’ll continue growing her subscriber list, too.

Whether you’re just getting started with email or you’ve hit a growth rut, fear not. Growing your subscriber list and your business doesn’t have to be scary. Check out our free, seven-day email course to learn simple organic list-boosting tips.

The post How Threddies Uses Email Marketing to Connect with Crafters and DIYers appeared first on Email Marketing Tips.

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Retailer Success Stories: Retailer Uses Localized Marketing And ‘Human Experience’ To Drive Email Subscribers And Sales

Based in Racine, Minnesota, Danny’s Meat and Catering didn’t have the bigger budget to capture his audience on larger channels like TV, print and radio. Even though marketing locally on those channels can be relatively inexpensive, for Danny – a small business – it wasn’t a budget-friendly option.Related Articles

1. The Weekly Wrap: Lord of the Inland Empire
2. The Benchmark Email Community and Social Network Tools
3. The Benchmark Email Community is Great for Social Media Marketing

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Retailer Success Stories: Retailer Uses Localized Marketing And ‘Human Experience’ To Drive Email Subscribers And Sales

Based in Racine, Minnesota, Danny’s Meat and Catering didn’t have the bigger budget to capture his audience on larger channels like TV, print and radio. Even though marketing locally on those channels can be relatively inexpensive, for Danny – a small business – it wasn’t a budget-friendly option.Related Articles

1. The Weekly Wrap: Lord of the Inland Empire
2. The Benchmark Email Community and Social Network Tools
3. The Benchmark Email Community is Great for Social Media Marketing

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Planning for Next Month’s Goals: Priming for Success in February

Even though you might still be knee-deep in planning for the year, setting aside a content or marketing pow-wow to discuss what you’re going to do in February is crucial.Related Articles

1. 8 Great Ways to Improve Your Holiday Email Marketing
2. Creating an Email Marketing Plan - Who Is Your Audience?
3. Does Best Buy’s Email Promotion Got Game?

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[Podcast] Episode 007: What do I write in my emails?

Welcome back to another episode of the Ask Me About Email Marketing podcast, the show where we’re talking about all things email marketing and no questions are off limits.

This has been quite the week! First, I was snowed in over the weekend, leading into Monday. (Check out the “Dude, Where’s My Car” moment that I had on Sunday morning.) Typically, we try to record and wrap up episodes on Monday for a Tuesday release, but unfortunately I was stuck at home.

Of course while trapped inside, my two kids managed to get sick and then passed that bug on to me. But the show must go on!

Today’s episode answers a question we receive quite frequently: “What do I write in my emails?”

Listen to my response below:

Our answer to this question comes in the form of a new 7-day email course: What to Write in Your Emails.

In addition to the course lessons, you’ll receive 20+ email content templates that you can customize with your own content. These templates will help you overcome that inevitable writer’s block!

We’ve been running this course for a few weeks, and so far the team has received some great feedback from participants.

Want to check out a sample of the course? Check out this blog post.

Ready to dive right in: Sign up for free here.

Want to be on the show? Here’s how you can participate:

• Use the widget below to record and send us a question about email marketing.
• We’ll select a question from the submission pool and track down one of our in-house email marketing experts to provide an answer.
• We’ll record their response, package it up with your question and release it as a new podcast episode each week. Plus, each episode will include bonus resources to help you level up your email marketing.

There are so many topics to explore in email marketing. So if you’re struggling with design, content, analytics or just getting started, leave us a message with a specific question and we’ll start answering!

A few notes on submitting:

• Introduce yourself, and your business/email marketing venture. Please don’t share any spammy URLs.
• Keep your question brief. Anywhere between 60-90 seconds would be ideal. Two-part questions are okay, too!
• Keep it clean. We won’t accept any submissions with disrespectful or vulgar language.

If we select your questions, we’ll air it. By submitting a question, you are agreeing to allow us to use your full, submitted audio clip on our podcast and in marketing the podcast and AWeber.

Ready to ask a question? Click the green button below!

The post [Podcast] Episode 007: What do I write in my emails? appeared first on Email Marketing Tips.

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The 411 on Mobile Apps

The world of mobile devices and the myriad of ways we use them is continually growing and evolving at a sometimes head-spinning rate. We’ve talked about mobile-friendly websites before, and the importance of responsive design for your business. But what about mobile apps? Are they really necessary given the myriad of marketing options that exist for small business? It only takes a handful of statistics to show the staggering opportunities that exist for businesses who invest in mobile marketing.

• Mobile commerce is now 30 percent of all U.S. commerce, and mobile commerce sales are expected to reach $142B in 2016.
• In 2015, the number of people in the U.S. who only use mobile devices to access the Internet exceeded the number of people who only use desktop computers to do the same.
• Fifty-two percent of the U.S. population looks at its smartphones multiple times per hour.

It can be hard to know how to start building your mobile marketing strategy. Indeed, there are many directions your business might go, all with their own unique potential benefits. With the enormous growth of mobile and the opportunity for expansion in that space, today, we will focus on mobile apps.

Why apps? To begin, 89 percent of consumers spend their mobile media time in apps. Additionally, it’s much easier to stand out among the 26 apps that the average mobile user has on their smartphone, versus the millions of different websites that are accessible through a mobile browser. And, with new technology that’s available to businesses today, it can be quick and easy to develop and launch a mobile app.

We sat down with our own mobile marketing expert, Angie Murphy, to ask her a few common questions small business owners have about creating a mobile app.

Q: I have a mobile website. Isn’t a mobile app the same thing?

On the surface, it can seem like a mobile website and a mobile app would serve a similar purpose for a business, but, in fact, they have different – and complementary – uses. Mobile websites are informational, and an excellent way to help people to find out about your business. Mobile apps are functional. They are good at driving return business and cultivating loyalty among your customers.

Let’s say a new customer discovers your business by doing a Google search on their mobile phone. Your mobile website comes up, and they click on it to see where you’re located and your hours of operation. The customer makes a transaction and learns about your mobile app, which they download on their phone. You then use the app to deliver a coupon to your new customer. They open your app and enticed by the coupon you offered, they purchase with your business again. Now that they have your app, you award them loyalty points for each transaction they make. This motivates them to interact with your business again. And so on.

Q: How can my business benefit from a mobile app?

There are a few major ways that your business may benefit from having a mobile app.

Reward loyal customers to encourage repeat business:

An app provides you with an easy way to recognize and reward your most valuable customers. For example, you could create a digital “punch card” that tracks purchases and rewards repeat business. Or, you could set up “check-in” functionality that unlocks special offers when a customer visits you. Everything is stored on the customer’s phone, which they probably have with them every time they visit your business.

Communicate with your customers anytime, any place:

An app gives you the opportunity to communicate with your customers 24/7. Need to send out a message about a sale? Confirm a reservation? Invite guests to a special event at your store? Use your app’s push notifications. Statistics show that up to 60 percent of people open push notifications and about 40 percent engage with the app immediately following the notification.

Create Revenue Channels:

In-app features such as online shopping carts, product catalogs, food ordering, and mobile reservations provide additional opportunities for your customers to interact with your business.

Gain Valuable Insights:

App metrics give you relevant details about how your customers are interacting with your business. For example, while social media or online advertising might give you a number of impressions, an app gives you visits, check outs, purchases, search data, and more.

Q: How would my customers find out about my mobile app?

There are many ways you can let your customers know about your mobile app. A few suggestions:

• Promote it on your website
• Send out an email campaign
• Post about it on social media
• Put up signs or hand out flyers
• Give your customers a special offer to motivate them to download it

Q: Isn’t it really expensive to develop a mobile app?

Five years ago, the answer to that question would have been a resounding “yes.” At that time, the average price tag to build a custom app was $100K or more. But technology has advanced. In fact, we now have a brand new service that makes building apps scalable and affordable. If you’d like to learn more or get early access to our new program, fill out this form, and we’ll be in touch shortly.

© 2016, Angie Murphy. All rights reserved.

The post The 411 on Mobile Apps appeared first on Vertical Response Blog.

Lawrance Vavra: Music Management Jedi and Co-Captain of the Deckstar

Lawrence Vavra co-founded Deckstar with his friend and business partner Matt Colon.Related Articles

1. Lawrance Vavra: Music Management Jedi and Co-Captain of the Deckstar
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Play Nice in the Inbox: 7 Tips for a Well-Designed Newsletter

A big-shot marketing pro and hefty budget aren’t required to successfully market your small business. In fact, businesses everywhere use email marketing as a powerful tool to build customer relationships and attract and retain new clients. No matter your business, email marketing can work for you.

If you’re not already leveraging the benefits of an email newsletter, it’s time to jump on the bandwagon. Successful businesses work to ensure their newsletter designs are visually appealing and engaging to keep customers from immediately clicking the delete button.

Create a well-designed e-newsletter with these helpful guidelines for newbies:

1. Define your goals

Before you even think about your design, you’ll need to decide on a purpose for your newsletter. Are you trying to drive traffic to your website, talk about new products, educate and inform your readers, or all of the above? Your goals will be the force behind the design and distribution of your content.

2. Don’t neglect the subject line

Just because someone signs up for your email list doesn’t mean he or she is actually going to open every email. This is where the subject line comes into play. The key is to give your readers a reason or incentive to click on the email right away. Get creative with a new, out-of-the-box subject line for each email you send.

3. Start with a header

A header should include the title of your newspaper, your company name and logo. There’s no need to find someone with graphic design experience, because you can easily create your own header using online DIY tools like Share As Image and Pixlr. Let your logo inspire the color scheme, using your company’s colors for borders and fonts to create a cohesive layout.

4. Stick with traditional fonts

A newsletter is not the time to start experimenting with fancy fonts. Pick one basic font, like Arial or Times New Roman, and use it consistently throughout the entire email.

5. Keep it organized

Don’t intimidate your readers with one giant chunk of content. Instead, break it down into short sections with subheadings so it looks and reads more like a newspaper. If possible, use a template through an email service provider. This allows you to simply select a template, upload your photos and start writing.

6. Harmonize with social media

Take your email marketing efforts even further by linking with your social media accounts. Include links to each social account where current and potential customers can click to follow you on the channel of their choice.

7. Balance your content

Your email subscribers want to know: What’s in it for them? They didn’t join your mailing list just to read about your products or your latest promotional offer. As a rule of thumb, your newsletter should be 90 percent educational and only 10 percent promotional. Stay away from self-promotion and focus instead on creating a relationship with your customers by providing them with educational and relevant content.

Get ready to launch your email newsletter and watch it thrive. Grab the attention of your audience with a clean design and digestible content. With these tips, you’ll increase readability and customer engagement in no time at all.

Hungry for more newsletter tips? Join our upcoming live webinar Building a Newsletter that Keeps Customers Talking – Weds. March 2, 11AM PST, brought to you by VerticalResponse and its parent company, Deluxe Corporation.

Editor’s Note: This blog post was originally published on the Deluxe blog on January 21, 2016.

© 2016, Contributing Author. All rights reserved.

The post Play Nice in the Inbox: 7 Tips for a Well-Designed Newsletter appeared first on Vertical Response Blog.

Fundamentals of Monetizing Your Blog with Email Marketing

Ask any blogger how they got started blogging and they’ll likely tell you it started out of a passion for a particular topic, whether that’s teaching people how to sing or sharing helpful photography tips or educating others on the importance of essential oils. (We’re passionate about email marketing, which is why we blog about it.)

The unique thing about bloggers is that most aren’t looking to earn an income when they’re first getting started. It’s simply a natural expression of their passion and desire to share their knowledge or solve others’ problems.

But there comes a point for most bloggers when they start to think, “I’ve got a good number of people reading my blog. I really enjoy writing. I wonder if I can make money at this?”

The most effective way to monetize your blog is through email marketing. For starters, it’s highly personal – people have to opt-in to receive your emails, which means they are expressly saying, “I want your emails.” Plus, email marketing is more effective in converting customers than other marketing channels, including social media and search engine marketing.

Monetizing your blog isn’t difficult and it doesn’t have to be intimidating either. Here are three steps you should follow to begin monetizing your blog today.

Step 1: Determine what “product” you want to sell.

If you already have something to sell, great! You’re ahead of the game. Skip to the next section. If not, keep reading.

To begin monetizing your blog using email marketing, first you need something to sell.

Now, you may be thinking, “Duh! Isn’t that obvious?” And you’d be right. But for many bloggers, this can be the hardest step.

Finding something to sell doesn’t have to be intimidating. Providing the knowledge from your blog in a different form is a simple way to start finding something to sell.

Here are several examples of “products” you can sell as a blogger:

Services

Providing a service can take your expertise to the next level. For example, if you have a fitness blog where you share all of the latest and greatest ways to trim the fat and get fit, you could consider offering coaching services over the phone or online. This adds another dynamic to who you are and what you can offer.

Bonus: You can also offer others’ services as part of an affiliate program (like the AWeber affiliate program) and promote that on your blog. Just make sure whatever affiliate service you represent is relevant to your expertise and existing audience and is something you use and are passionate about.

eBooks

You’ve already spent hours pouring over engaging blog posts, so there’s absolutely no need to reinvent the wheel. Simply turn your most popular posts into an ebook or an ebook series.

For example, Running Shoes Guru packages and sells three of its ebooks to subscribers and website visitors.

Courses

Courses can take various forms, including email courses, video courses, live courses and more.

As with ebooks, you could get your ideas for courses from your most popular blog posts or even from readers’ comments or questions. Are there common themes? What skills do you have that others can benefit from in this type of format?

The course could be something they log into or they buy as a DVD or series of DVDs. Whatever format you decide, it can be an effective way to generate revenue from your blog.

For example, singing coach Felicia Ricci, offers a free signing course, and sells a full course to her free course participants.

Memberships

Creating a membership program is a fun way to create a following and generate revenue. These programs provide members with exclusive incentives and discounts, something you don’t offer anywhere else.

An example of this would be Chris Ducker’s Youpreneur community, where he provides exclusive content, coaching and more to fellow entrepreneurs struggling with the challenges of becoming an entrepreneur.

Live Workshops

Your audience has connected with your blog content. A great next step would be to allow them to connect with you personally through a live workshop.

These can be especially effective if you have a local audience, where you can hold local workshops. But you can also do these workshops in the form of a webinar, blab or Google Hangout.

Photography blogger Courtney Slazinik runs a live workshop where she teaches up-and-coming photographers how to take better photos.

Step 2: Build an email list with valuable content.

Now that you have something to sell, you need people to sell it to.

Many bloggers make the mistake of trying to sell their services, courses, workshops and more exclusively on their blog and social media. But the truth is most people aren’t ready to buy the first time they arrive on your blog or see your pin, “gram” or Facebook post.

Email marketing is a way to invite your readers to continue the conversation until eventually they are ready to buy.

Your first step with email marketing is building an email list of subscribers.

The key to building an email list is the same as blogging – you need to provide value. Luckily as a blogger, you’ve got this covered – you’ve already been providing value on your blog.

Start building your email list with your blog readers. They’re your best potential buyers because they already value the content you provide.

Invite your readers to sign up to receive the latest updates from your blog, or offer another incentive for signing up. Many of the examples I shared of things you could sell can also be used as incentives, but here are a few other examples of incentives you can offer:

• Templates
• Checklists
• Webinars
• Videos

Step 3: Use email autoresponders to nurture and sell.

With something to sell and subscribers coming into your email list, you’re ready to monetize your blog with email marketing. And you do that through emails autoresponders (aka email automation).

Autoresponders are a series of emails that are automatically sent to your new subscribers after they subscribe, saving you time and effort so you can keep your focus on your passion.

The first email in your autoresponder series is your welcome email. If you offered an incentive upon sign up, this is typically when you would deliver it. Your welcome email is also the first email your subscribers receive from you, so it should set the tone for the types of emails your subscribers can expect from you.

Your welcome email may also be your best opportunity to make a sell because welcome emails on average have the highest engagement rates of any email you send your subscribers. Be sure to introduce them to your product and encourage them to purchase.

Expand upon your welcome email with a welcome series. All additional autoresponder emails should continue to provide value to your readers. For example, if you’re a wellness coach, your welcome series could share top blog posts, more about you and your business, a survey of your subscribers to learn more about them and their interests, and more.

If you’re offering multiple incentives, which means multiple autoresponder series, you can link them together into one autoresponder series once each of the other series concludes. This allows you to continue the conversation further.

Pro Tip: Use email autoresponders after your readers have made a purchase to continue the relationship you have with them. Add additional “products” you can sell to your buyers. The best business is repeat business!

Tools to make monetizing easy.

Now, a note on the more technical side of monetizing your blog: how to handling transactions.

There are a ton of e-commerce solutions on the market. One of the great advantages of these services is that many of them integrate with email marketing service providers like AWeber.

• PayPal
• Clickbank
• Etsy
• 2Checkout
• Shopify
• WooCommerce

By connecting or integrating your ecommerce solution with your ESP, you can automatically add customers to your list and continue to nurture your relationship and attract repeat business.

Monetizing your blog is easy with email marketing.

Monetizing your blog is easier than you might expect with the help of email marketing. By determining what you can sell, building your list, and using relevant autoresponder emails, you’ll be able to keeping your focus on your blog and passion.

How are you monetizing your blog? Share in the comments below.

The post Fundamentals of Monetizing Your Blog with Email Marketing appeared first on Email Marketing Tips.

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dineLA Restaurant Week: Fill Up On Marketing (and Food)

dineLA Restaurant has a lot to work with when it comes to marketing and social media engagement. Let’s take a look at how they have used these platforms to get the crowd ready to get their grub on.Related Articles

1. Beyond Benchmark: Underused Email Marketing Strategies & More!
2. New Feature: Put Clickable Twitter, Facebook & LinkedIn Buttons Anywhere in Your Emails
3. The Benchmark Email Community and Social Network Tools

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Test Post for Kapost

© 2016, Derek Overbey. All rights reserved.

The post Test Post for Kapost appeared first on Vertical Response Blog.

15 Must-Haves for a Solid Email Marketing Program

You’ve heard how a targeted email campaign can transform your marketing communications into a thing of beauty, bringing in new leads, increasing your revenue and creating customer loyalty.

Now, a month into the New Year and your 2016 planning, you have a chance to make a fresh start by launching a new campaign or even beefing up your old one in a medium that continues to be extremely effective. 

Email marketing is both your entry point, leading new customers to your business – and your anchor, connecting all your other marketing together. Says Jayson DeMers in Forbes, “You can draw people to your blog by offering snippets of content, or you can drive up your following numbers by inviting people to share deals on social media. You can also use your other marketing channels to invite people to sign up for your email list, resulting in a closed, cohesive system that nurtures your overall customer base as one unit.”

Here are 15 ambitious steps you can take to transform your email marketing:

1. Vow to grow your email list to expand your marketing capabilities. The number of ways to do that boggles the imagination (check out these 50 and these 24). Some ideas include website and social media opt-in forms, collecting addresses at point of sale and incentivizing employees to gather them for you. Also, consider the use of a lightbox (an online data-storage function) to create pop-up invitations to enroll as the user scrolls to a browser or reaches a certain scroll depth.

2. To prevent falling behind on your campaign mid-year, create an email marketing plan that projects multiple messages, anticipating holidays and special events through 2016. Work backward from preferred launch dates to set deadlines for writing content. Shooting for three to five emails monthly is a good idea, as is creating how-to videos and tutorials about your business or website.

3. Ensure your emails are mobile-friendly in design and content, since nearly 60% are now read via mobile device. Analysts predict in the next five years marketing via smartphone will become even more sophisticated, with responsive design increasingly boosting smartphone conversion rates. 

4. Segment your list, fine tuning which kinds of messages you’ll send to targeted groups. Thirty-nine percent of email marketers realize better open rates through segmentation, says research by eMarketer, while 28 percent see lower opt-out and unsubscribe rates, and 24 percent see better email deliverability along with increased sales leads and greater revenue. 

5. Offer as much personalization as possible, using data-gathering tools and customer surveys to your advantage by recognizing birthdays and anniversaries, referring to previous purchases and shopping patterns, and otherwise making readers feel valued. Location demographics, for example, allow you to mention events, landmarks, or stores near the reader. In a 2016 study of marketing firms by Emailmonday.com, 76 percent of respondents predicted email communication will be completely personalized in the next five years. In the future, analysts expect even more highly optimized 1:1 emails that allow for customized communication for each recipient within a single email broadcast.

6. Develop a welcome program, a series of follow-up emails to new subscribers introducing them to your company, products, and website. The emails can be automated by interval or triggered by customer action. Let readers know they’re coming, differentiate them from other kinds of emails in the subject line, and avoid hard-sell techniques. The first email should contain a warm welcome and thank you for subscribing, while subsequent messages might include a reinforcement of the benefits of subscribing, a special thank you offer, helpful information about your products or services, or links to your social media sites. Clear calls to action and appealing images are recommended.

7. The truth can set you free, so it’s wise to monitor response rates so you can adjust future marketing plans. Track open and click rates, revenue and conversion, unsubscribes and bounces, and use your website’s analytics tools to gauge reader behavior after click through. Industry-wide, email marketing is increasingly providing data for the analytics that drive other marketing efforts.

8. Following up with automated emails when recipients don’t open initial emails can increase your open rates by 30 to 40 percent. They all should include different subject lines. The first should come three days after the original, be shorter than 500 words and reinstate the benefits of your product or service. Subsequent messages could mention why your product is necessary and how it’s used, offer testimonials or reviews, solicit questions, and/or include an FAQ section.

9. Continually test your campaign and use the results to tweak further strategy. Consider a schedule for the testing of one campaign variable each month; those could include copy length and content, time and day of the week, frequency, call to action, and/or design. Also consider a heat map test of your website, a graphic display showing which areas are most frequently scanned by visitors so you can strategize where to place calls to action.

10. Pay more attention to creating effective subject lines, since they’re the primary factor influencing whether your audience will actually open the email. In general, the subject copy should be short (40 to 50 characters) and as straightforward as possible; it should change each time; leave out all capital letters and exclamation points, and avoid words like “free” or “percent off” to keep from being weeded out by spam filters. What works best? A question, a call to action, a sense of urgency, the mention of a benefit to customers, and/or a mention of the recipient’s name or city. Don’t use the space to mention your company, since that’s apparent in the “from” line. Consider studying popular click-bait sites like Buzzfeed that lure readers in with fun, short and punchy subject lines and preview text. How might you incorporate some of those techniques into your own campaign?

11. Listen closely to customer feedback. Survey subscribers about likes and dislikes, using the data to create more effective content and up-front value propositions. Use preference centers on your website to allow customers to dictate their druthers when it comes to content, format, and frequency. Be gracious and quick with those who ask to unsubscribe, since the last thing you want is to be perceived as a spammer (perhaps ask them if you can decrease email frequency or limit the content to certain categories).

12. Include opt-in forms as well as forwarding options on all social media networks, including LinkedIn. You might even email those who mention your business on social media, inviting them to opt in.

13. Sign up for other email campaigns and newsletters to compare what your competitors and industry leaders are doing. Consider whether to adopt their ideas and techniques.

14. Pay attention to industry trends. For example, some marketers are beginning to use modular templates for email campaigns that allow for faster switching out and editing. Others are moving away from coded emails toward tools that put more design control in their hands, while some are trending toward kinetic email that includes more videos and sophisticated animation. A relatively new method known as “double opt in” allows a reader to simply send a company a blank email to receive an opt-in email in return.

15. Take a hard look at whether your content is offering enough value to recipients. Instead of a constant sales push, think in terms of “sticky” content — bits of useful, fun, and/or humorous information in small, easy-to-digest portions that might capture readers’ attention and keep them coming back for more. Messages that are less sales-oriented work to develop brand awareness and customer relationships, paving the way for possible purchases.Other tips: Strive for original content, not just a recap of what everyone else is already saying. Tie your content into holidays, pop-culture happenings, and current events when applicable. Don’t go overboard with too many links. And gifs and videos can be powerful additions, too, since visuals are processed by the human brain in about a tenth of a second.

Other tips: Here’s how to make content marketing, email, and social media work together in harmony.

“Modern email marketing isn’t about making a sales pitch or attracting as many clicks as possible — it’s about providing value to your users,” adds Demers. “It isn’t enough to send a simple promotional email or a short list of new content on your site. Serve them well with better designs, more appealing copy and better offers. Free giveaways, discounts, and special deals are all winners.”

Hungry for more email marketing savvy? Join our upcoming live webinar Creating a Successful Email Weds. Feb 3, 11AM PST, brought to you by VerticalResponse and its parent company, Deluxe Corporation.

Send your next email for free using VerticalResponse.

© 2016, Contributing Author. All rights reserved.

The post 15 Must-Haves for a Solid Email Marketing Program appeared first on Vertical Response Blog.

Don’t Know What to Write in Your Emails? The Answer is Here

If your job requires you to write email content, there’s nothing worse than coming down with a case of writer’s block.

However, there may also be some of you who find that instead of a temporary block, it’s more like a chronic, long-term obstacle between you and The Greatest Email Ever.

To help you overcome the hurdle of creating content, we recently launched a seven-day educational email course called What to Write in Your Emails. Throughout the course, you’ll receive one email a day that will help inspire new content ideas, improve your writing skills and build your confidence in creating awesome emails.

You’ll also get all of those tips packaged nicely in a downloadable PDF guide, along with over 20 free, fill-in-the-blank content templates so you can start sending emails right away.

A Sample of the Course

To give you a little sneak peek into what the course entails, here are three tips for creating engaging content for an automated email series:

1. Promote the benefits of your product.

If you create a welcome email campaign to teach new subscribers about your business, you’ll want to inform them about the products or services you offer, as well as their benefits.

Whether you focus on one or a few different products in a single email or over the course of multiple emails, you’ll want to make sure you’re properly communicating their value.

Here’s an example of what this might look like:

Hi [first name],

Have you ever tried [insert your product/service] before? Here are three ways you can benefit from [insert your product/service]:

[Insert benefit #1]
[Insert benefit #2]
[Insert benefit #3]

Want to learn more about what [insert your product/service] can do for you? Check out [insert your website title and link].

Thanks for reading!
[Insert your signature]

2. Share a case study.

Telling people the benefits of your product or service is one way to convince them of their value. Another great way to show your business in action? Sharing a case study.

A case study is a story of how your business’s product or service helped to solve a customer’s problem. It can be presented in many forms, such as a blog post, eBook or even a video.

The main purpose of sharing a customer case study is to show how your products and services can be applied to a real-life situation. And just like any story, it helps the reader (aka, your business prospects) identify with your customers and their needs, which helps them understand how they might benefit from your business.

Here’s what your email might look like:

Hi [first name],

I’d like to introduce you to [insert case study subject’s name]. [Insert your case study subject’s name] is [insert their occupation and/or other relevant info like age].

[He/she is or they are] trying to [insert their goal]. To do that, [he/she is or they are] using [insert your product/service].

So far, [insert your case study subject’s name] has seen these results: [explain any positive results]. Ultimately, [he/she] hopes [or they hope] to [insert a bigger goal they want to accomplish]. To achieve this, [insert your case study subject’s name] will continue using [insert your product/service].

Here’s what other people are saying about [insert your product/service]: [Insert any quotes you have from people praising your business].

Want to try [insert your product/service] for yourself? Click here: [insert a link to your website here]!

If you have any questions, I’m here to help. Contact me today! [Insert your contact information].

I can’t wait to hear from you!

[Insert your signature]

3. Ask for feedback.

Although you can make many inferences about the success of your emails by viewing your opens and click-through rates, there’s one thing the data doesn’t always tell you: how your emails made your subscribers feel.

Asking your subscribers for their feedback at the end of your automated email series allows you to learn more about your audience and their needs, which can shed light on how you can further help them.

To elicit feedback from subscribers, simply ask them. You can either encourage them to respond back to your email, or you can send them a link to a survey using a free tool such as SurveyGizmo or SurveyMonkey.

Check out this example email below to see how this might look:

Hi [first name],

I hope you had a chance to download and read the [insert gift you sent in your welcome email] [I/we] sent you.

If you didn’t get a chance to download the guide yet, here’s the link again: [insert link to gift].

I want to be helpful to you, so let me know what is the #1 question you have when it comes to [insert your industry]? What do you struggle with?

Is it [insert 2-3 questions someone might have]?

Whatever it is, [I’d/we’d] love to hear it. Just hit “reply” to this message. [I/we] read every message.

[Insert your signature]

Sign up to the course for more tips!

Email can be an incredibly effective tool for staying connected with your audience and growing your business. But you need to start sending engaging and valuable emails to make that happen.

So if you struggle with sending regular emails or lack inspiration to create engaging content, be sure to register for the course:

Start My Free Course Now

The post Don’t Know What to Write in Your Emails? The Answer is Here appeared first on Email Marketing Tips.

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Keep Up With Image Trends Thanks To The Benchmark Email Flickr Integration

Integrate your Flickr account with your Benchmark Email account to personalize your email marketing that will tell a story about who you are and what your business does.Related Articles

1. New Benchmark Email Feature: Flickr Image Integration
2. Top 5 Ways to Use Images to Improve Email Marketing
3. Facebook App Allows Users to Join Subscription Lists Instantly

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Keep Up With Image Trends Thanks To The Benchmark Email Flickr Integration

Integrate your Flickr account with your Benchmark Email account to personalize your email marketing that will tell a story about who you are and what your business does.Related Articles

1. New Benchmark Email Feature: Flickr Image Integration
2. Top 5 Ways to Use Images to Improve Email Marketing
3. Facebook App Allows Users to Join Subscription Lists Instantly

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#EmailChat Recap: Tips and Tricks for Creating Responsive Emails

More than half of all emails are opened on a mobile-device (53%, according to Litmus). So what does that mean for email marketers?

In yesterday’s #emailchat, we asked our guest Tweeters to share their tips and tricks for creating responsive emails. Here are 7 ways to make sure yours are mobile-friendly:

1. Keep content “snackable.”

• The same content as desktop, just in a format that is “snackable” and full of imagery so that it’s memorable. – @jskyles

• Limited space = get to the point fast! – @KristenWritesIt

• Keep your content short and to the point. – @emwillits

2. Less is more when it comes to images.

• Sparingly. Too many can look cluttered and messy on a small screen. – @oliviadello

• I’ve learned to avoid using images with text imposed in the image itself. Doesn’t always scale well. – @tnrt

• Don’t feel compelled to always include images. Test out variations to see what your subscribers actually want and expect – @ClickPop

3. Smaller screens require a little more planning.

• I typically make headlines a bit smaller, and paragraphs a bit bigger for smaller screens. – @r_kimberlyc

• As a general rule, take a mobile first approach to email design and progressively optimize – @ClickPop

• Make sure your content is to-the-point. Try shortening your subject line and avoid “fluff”. – @oliviadello

4. Litmus is the go-to tool for testing email campaigns.

• @litmusapp gives you a great environment for testing html emails on all sorts of clients – @ClickPop

• I think we are all going to mention @litmusapp here but they even have great resources in addition to the products they offer – @r_kimberlyc

• If you have a variety of devices around the office, test it and view it yourself! – @missmontesa

5. “I like big buttons and I cannot lie.” – Justine Jordan

• Make sure buttons are wider on mobile to make sure they’re easy to touch and have one clear call to action – @r_kimberlyc

• We recommend a minimum size of 44x44px and making them bulletproof: http://bit.ly/1l9SwD0 – @litmusapp

• Nothing worse than a link that is IMPOSSIBLE to click. (And my fingers aren’t even big!) Size your links/buttons accordingly. – @oliviadello

6. Optimize the entire user experience.

• Make sure that you’re linking to responsive landing pages, etc. – @ClickPop

• Sign up forms should be responsive as well! – @missmontesa

• Pretty sure we nailed it today: concise content, big buttons and a whole lot of testing. – @oliviadello

7. Need inspiration? Take a cue from these brands.

• I really love @etsy’s emails. They use images, buttons & content really well. – @missmontesa

• @TabletHotels emails always look stunning on mobile. – @KristenWritesIt

• I read @casualspectator emails almost exclusively on my phone and love the experience. – @ClickPop

Want More?

Join us every Thursday at 12pm ET for #emailchat. And mark your calendars for next week’s chat as we talk email testing. Follow us at @AWeber for updates. See you there!

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