Email Marketing Tips Blog

On Saturday, I will be celebrating my birthday. What does that have to do with email marketing? Plenty!

I’m now on the “mature” side of life . And what may have worked years ago doesn’t necessarily work today.

The kiss of death online – with things changing at the speed of light – is to appear old and dated. As the years go by, you can’t afford to let yourself go or your business could soon be gone.

Reminds me of a commercial where a mom is talking to her kids and their friends and says, “Let’s get jiggy with it”. They all shake their heads before informing mom that “Nobody says jiggy anymore!”

So….take a moment to make sure your autoresponder messages aren’t jiggy.

Many people write a series of autoresponder messages, load them into their GetResponse system, and leave it at that. They’re still sending emails to their list warning them about the millennium bug that will take place when the clock strikes 12:00 pm on December 31, 1999!

Just like going through your closets once a year and throwing out what no longer works for you, you need to go through your autoresponder messages and check the following:

- Is the language still current? This is especially important if you have slang in your emails.

- Are the programs you are promoting in your emails still the best? Or even still around?

- Do your emails include references to dates or news events that will pinpoint how old your messages are?

- Do the links in your emails still work?

- Does your copy refer to Version 1 of a product that is now on Version 4?

- If you quote pricing in your messages, does this reflect current pricing?

This is a perfect time of year to give your messages an overhaul. Why not put them on your to-do list today?!

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

Ask any copywriter to give up his or her swipe file, and I’ll bet you’ll have a fight on your hands.

If you haven’t heard the term before, a swipe file contains great examples of copywriting that you’ve found elsewhere. You don’t copy and paste anything from your swipe file into your own copy, but it serves as inspiration and an excellent example of what works. If you’ve ever struggled with a blank sheet of cyber paper in front of you, having a swipe file to jog some ideas is priceless.

A good example of an email marketing swipe file can be found at Marketing Sherpa’s Email Award Winner Gallery for 2007. There, you will find a number of examples of the following email swipe files:

• Best Email Opt-in Campaign
• Best Email Newsletter for Marketing Purposes
• Best Promotional Blast
• Best Single Welcome Letter to New Subscribers
• Best Autoresponder Series
• Best Triggered Personalized Email
• Best Postcard-Style Campaign
• Best Split-Test
• Best Non-Email Opt-In Messaging

Take the time to go through these examples and save the ones you like to your own swipe file. I can guarantee that they’ll provide inspiration to take your email marketing to new heights in the new year!

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

You can have the best autoresponder campaign or email newsletter in the world, but if nobody signs up to receive it, what’s the point?

One of the ways to build your list is through a landing page. But I’ve seen too many landing pages that try to be all things to all people. The result is a confusing message and poor conversion.

Before creating your landing page, you need to determine your goal. If your goal is to have visitors opt-in to your list, do NOT distract them from doing that.

If this is an opt-in page, this is not the place to sell them your product. Don’t include ads which easily allow them to click out and abandon your site. And including links to all your other web sites will simply distract them and keep them from doing what you want: opting in.

Have you given your landing pages a check-up lately?

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

If you are new to writing email campaigns or if success has eluded you, I’d like to share my #1 tip for writing emails. The best part is that you don’t have to be gifted in order for this to be effective.

The first thing to do is identify your customer. Is this person a man or woman? Age? Education? Location? Marital Status? Children? Why did they sign up to your list? Have they purchased from you yet?

Now, develop your customer in your mind’s eye. Picture them sitting across from you at the kitchen table as you share your news with them.

Write your email to this ONE person. “Speak” your email to John or Jane Doe. Picture how they would react. Would they understand the terminology you are using? Is this something they would be interested in? Why?

Yes, there are many successful “wham, bam, thank you m’am” marketers out there. I’m sure many of them are successful.

But I’ve never been one to go for the one-shot deal. I like to get to know my readers and want them to know me…as a minimum to give them reassurance that I’m a real person with their best interests at heart. They know that I would never recommend products or services unless they were beneficial.

Is this effective? Well, not too long ago I emailed one of my lists about a product that was well-suited to their experience level and interests. The conversion rate at my affiliate site was 45.7%. And this was for a $397 product.

Because of my personal style, I often have people respond to my email campaigns, thinking it is a personal, one-on-one email sent from me to them. People like to do business with people they like.

Try this out for yourself and share your results here!

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

I used to use Outlook Express as my email client, but had so many issues with it that I recently switched to Thunderbird.

A big difference between the two is that remote images in emails are not automatically loaded. You must actually click the link to bring them up.

If you are using images in your email messages, you may unknowingly have this challenge, too.

An email with no images is about as appetizing as shopping the bargain basement of the dollar store. It’s a bunch of of blank boxes with little “x”s in the corner – How exciting! Really entices people to read your content–NOT!

The great part is that with most email clients, readers are given the option to “always load remote images from this sender”. So, encouraging your readers to do this once may cause your images to automatically load for them in the future.

So, here are a few tips to encourage your readers to load those images you’ve painstakingly included.

Ask Them

Put a note at the top of your email that says, “For the best experience, click to always load images”. Believe it or not, sometimes your subscribers don’t have a clue why the pictures aren’t loading – take a second to point it out to them.

Tell Them What They’re Missing

I have an email opened right now which has no alt tags. Not one for six different images.

In addition to keyword-rich alt tags, you might consider creating curiousity with your alt tag. For instance, if I had an alt tag to illustrate this post entitled “I Hate Being Na-ked”, it might cause you to load that image. (Fortunately, for you, there is no such link or image to share!!)

Use It or Lose It

Make your image an integral part of your message. Maybe it contains a map to your location or a discount coupon to be printed. People don’t want to lose out and they will feel compelled to load your images so that they don’t miss anything.

Heck, I did this yesterday from a restaurant who had a discount code in an image. I couldn’t get to the code unless I loaded the image.

Hope these tips get you thinking! Please feel free to share some of your own tips by emailing me or commenting below.

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

DIRECT MAGAZINE recently held an e-mail roundtable among some e-mailers, and asked what they felt had the biggest impact on the industry.

The answer?  How to improve message deliverability.

Some interesting things mentioned were:

• Using multichannel integration.

• Behavior-based targeting.

• List segmentation and why you should use it.

• Why reputation is critical for email deliverability.

• Program approach vs. campaign approach.

Read the full article here.

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

Have you ever received an email with gobbedygook through it?

This occurs when people compose their email messages in a word processing program, especially MS Word, and then paste them into their email client or autoresponder message box.

Instead of seeing those quotation marks, for instance, all your readers see are hieroglyphics.

There are a few ways you can solve this problem:

1.  Type directly into your email without using a word processor at all.  (That’s usually what I do for this blog.)
2. Use Notepad for your message.
3. If you must use a word processing program, be certain to save your message as “Text Only”. After you’ve saved it in that manner, you can copy and paste it into your email.

What’s your favorite quick tip? We’d love to feature it here!

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

In the previous article, Email Copy Cats, I mentioned the importance of scripting your own message when promoting affiliate products by email.

Today, let me move a little further into the product launch topic and examine a few of the pros and cons of being part of the crowd and how to incorporate your email marketing efforts into these launches.

What is a Product Launch?

John Doe has created a new, big-ticket product and wants to introduce it to the marketplace with a lot of buzz and a big bang, ensuring a lot of attention and (hopefully) many sales. He’s going to utilize his stable of affiliates to help him quickly get the word out to potential customers.

In addition to large commissions, John is offering prizes for the top affiliates. In the past, these have ranged from a one-year of a Hummer – to a $10,000 bonus – to a one week cruise – and more.. John knows that if he can create a feeding frenzy among his affiliates, it will spill over and create that same buzz and excitement amongst their readers.

The launch is generally preceded by a report, some emails, or even a free teleseminar designed to create a launch presale opt-in list, tied to the affiliates’ links.  The launch itself is designed to create an atmosphere no different than that created at the Black Friday sales.  Long lines of cyber-squatters hoping to be the first one in the door to get all the bonuses and special limited-time deals.

Pros and Cons of Product Launches

If you are an affiliate planning an email product launch promotion, there are a few things you may wish to consider.  Let me preface this by saying that there is no right or wrong answer.

Advantages

Fast, Quick Sales

You can “get them while they’re hot”. If your list has been dripped on, they may be eager to buy as soon as the curtain drops.  If you aren’t there with an offer, they may buy through  another affiliate’s link.

Piggyback off the Main Product

If your area of expertise is similar to the launch product, you can provide a bonus that “fills in the gaps” and provides a more comprehensive experience for your customer. Instead of being seen as only an affiliate, you can play off the launch marketer’s expertise to showcase your knowledge.

Provide an Honest Review

Many marketers provide their launch partners with a review copy of their product prior to the launch date.

This provides you with a unique opportunity to provide your list with an assessment of the product’s value. For a credible overview, you should always include what you liked and disliked. It’s also important to advise your list of the experience level required to make the best use of the product in question. (This is one of the biggest complaints I hear from those unhappy with product purchases.)

Not everyone will buy, but you will increase your stature among those who read your review as someone who is fair, balanced, and has their subscribers top-of-mind.

Disadvantages

You Can Get Lost in the Crowd

I’m one of those “find the best deal” kinda gals.  If there’s a product launching that I know I’m going to buy, I will take the time to shop for the best bonus package.

If you can’t bring anything to the table in the way of bonuses, you may wish to wait until a week or so after the launch.  There is much less competition at that time and many people get so aggravated with being bombarded with emails that they don’t even read them.

If you wait a bit, you could be the only game in town and take advantage of all the reviews and forum chat out there.  That might be the perfect time to mail to your list.

People Will Unsubscribe

Opening their email client, only to find 15 messages with the same subject line, touting the same product, causes many people to simply unsubscribe from all of them.  This is especially true if there are pre-launch, launch, and post-launch emails which have been cut and pasted and sent off to “all my personal friends”.

In this scenario, people aren’t unsubscribing specifically from your newsletter. They are fed up with everyone and deleting themselves from all of them. By not being a part of the launch day fray, it’s less likely it will happen to you.

Whether you decide to promote during or after the official launch, I can’t stress enough that your promotion should be in YOUR voice with YOUR thoughts and YOUR personality. Don’t simply copy and paste the suggested emails provided by the marketer.

If in doubt, put yourself in your customers’ shoes!

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse