Email Marketing 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