Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse

Top 5 Mistakes Bloggers Make With Their Email Marketing Campaign

Chad Goulde — Tue, 21 May 2013 12:36:48 +0000

The key to your blogging success is based on building solid relationships with your audience. However, many bloggers make major mistakes when it comes to their email marketing campaigns. These mistakes can be very costly, causing you to lose subscribers. That’s why we’ve put together a list of five common mistakes bloggers should avoid when creating email campaigns:

Mistake #1 – Only sending emails when you’re trying to sell something

Although the premise behind your email campaigns is to increase sales, your readers don’t want to know this. Bombarding readers with loads of “salesy” content is counterproductive. Your readers subscribe to your list in order to receive valuable information related to your industry or niche. If they feel that you’re emailing them anything less, they’ll quickly unsubscribe.

Many savvy bloggers rely on the 80/20 rule when it comes to email content. Ensure that 80% of your content brings value to your subscribers. When it comes to service and product offers, this should be no more than 20% of the total content of the email.

Mistake #2 – Not being consistent with your emails

When readers subscribe to your email list, they’re expecting to hear from you regularly. If not, it won’t take very long for them to forget all about you. In order to nurture the relationships created by your email campaigns, connect with your audience on a consistent basis.

Mistake #3 – Spamming (the big no-no)

Spamming is about sending unsolicited emails to people who really don’t want them. However, some savvy bloggers also insist that sending out too many emails to subscribers may be considered spam to them. Yes, they did give you written permission to email them when they subscribed to your list. But, they never expected you to fill up the inboxes with numerous pieces of crud.

Be strategic when you create your emails. Also, never send out so many that you drive your subscribers to click the “unsubscribe” link.

Mistake #4 – Not relating to the needs of your subscribers

Are you a subscriber on any email lists? If so, you know how often the same blogger will send updates about a new product launch. These multiple emails tend to say the same thing over and over. This is very frustrating to your subscribers. Ask yourself, if you were one of your subscribers, what type of emails would you find valuable? This will help you relate to your audience and provide content they can actually use.

Mistake #5 – Not proofreading your email content

This is a common mistake that numerous bloggers make every day. Whether you’re creating a blog post, writing a blog comment or sending out email marketing campaigns, you need to be professional. No matter how much you’re rushing to get your content out on schedule, never skip this step. Your subscribers will notice your grammatical and spelling errors. Many will be turned off and simply unsubscribe from your email marketing list.

What are your tips for avoiding email marketing mistakes?

Author Bio

This article was created by Chad Goulde, a savvy blogger for The Blog Builders. Get more tips for your email marketing campaign from blogbuilders.com.

Top 5 Mistakes Bloggers Make With Their Email Marketing Campaign is a post from: Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse

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Visualizing the Magic of Autoresponders 2.0

Jim Ducharme — Fri, 17 May 2013 11:51:21 +0000

Occasionally what may seem like a little thing is what sets a product apart from all others. Sometimes it’s the feature designed for you to never give a second thought about, makes you love the product most. Such is the case with GetResponses AutoResponders 2.0 Visual Follow-up Interface. The VFI resembles a calendar and allows you to visually plan, deploy, monitor, track and optimize an automated campaign over days, weeks months and so on.

Now, you know you’ve invented or designed something really great when it’s so intuitive that most people don’t even think about it. Apparently we’ve done that with the VFI. It’s both visual and tactile and so natural to use, you don’t really even notice it.

The secret of the VFI seems so simple one can be forgiven for wondering why no one ever thought of it before. It takes the visual processing load off your mind so that you can focus on the analyzing and acting on the data at hand to optimize your email marketing campaign.

Look at it this way. In ordinary interfaces, you are faced most often with something only a bit better than a blank slate. You have to contend with a linear process of fields, radio buttons and drop down lists. Your brain has to take this rather lacklustre data and craft it into a visual representation which you can use. We’re visual creatures. We function best when we look for and use patterns to optimize our analytical powers and creative genius.

So, even in a linear basic interface, our brains still try to visualize patterns to put things into some kind of curve they can see — this helps us better see past performance and optimize to improve future effectiveness. We do this without even thinking about it, because when you are lacking that visual representation, your brain naturally creates one to help you understand the data at hand.

I’m no neuroscientist, but I do know that crunching visual data is rather process intensive. So, if you don’t have an effective visual representation to work with, your brain is using an awful lot of precious processing power it could better put to use on such things as optimizing your automated campaign and of course, the message itself.

Now, we still have some radio buttons and drop downs in the process, but even the “if” and “then” statements have been clarified and optimized as visuals to reduce the befuddlement some of us feel when confronted by complicated Boolean logic.

It seems so simple doesn’t it? A visual representation of your triggered autoresponder campaign which allows you to see each message in the cycle, allowing you to optimize it simply by dragging and dropping a message wherever you want it to be. Right from here you can access the details and analytics of any message in the cycle with a click. If a message doesn’t perform well on one day, simply drag and drop it onto another day or change or replace it completely.

Sometimes the most amazing magic does the simplest things and sometimes the simplest things do the most amazing magic.

So tell us, what do you really love about the new interface for GetResponse auto responders 2.0? What would you to change or add?

Share the automation sensation with the world!

By commenting to win one of these cool GetResponse tees!

Visualizing the Magic of Autoresponders 2.0 is a post from: Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse

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How to Upsell with Email

Jordie van Rijn — Tue, 14 May 2013 10:01:56 +0000

Every good retail shop salesman knows that the item people come looking for isn’t always all they need or what they end up buying. And an upsell to a higher priced or additional product is worth suggesting not only from a service standpoint, but also from revenue standpoint. You have nothing to lose by including upsells. In fact, you’ve got everything to gain. How can you use email to upsell to your email list?

How ecommerce websites use email to upsell

Ecommerce and services are no exception. If you look at smart website design, they include cross-sell and upsell techniques in the form of “You might like…” or “Others who bought this item also bought….” matching the page you are on with additional items. It is amazing what we can learn from looking at email marketing tactics used by Amazon for example.

But often this is not what happens in email. And because the attention span of your subscribers is limited, you have to put in the effort to make the offers pop just like you would with your email subscription form.

Other ways to think about upselling

One of the ways to do upsell to your audience is to present the offer in a different way. For that you can certainly give credit to Olive Juice in the example below. The main offer is an outlet sale. But then it puts a spin on it with the Sunday Bazaar.

Presenting the items as “one-of-a-kind pieces” with “styles and sizes very limited!” (Translation: These might very well be the leftovers and one-offs from previous seasons that you would normally find in the outlet.) Two different ways of presenting the same product. One however, highlights the exclusiveness and therefore validates higher prices / lower discounts.

Vistaprint is an example you can learn a lot from. It may very well be the king of overdone upselling and an annoying email program. It’s business cards and other items are low price, but they present you with so many other offers on your way to the checkout page.

It’s emails, too, know how to work it aggressively, with “You May Also Like” and “Save 20% Off Your Next Order.” It’s too much, especially with their very high email frequency. nstead of hollowing out your database by scaring people away and over doing it, I like to think of email as a way to build loyal customers. Let me state that I don’t like the Vistaprint email program. But signing up for their program (by buying something) can give you lots and lots of ideas. Just tone it down a lot for your own program.

Transactional emails: specific or generic?

Now this is where things gets really interesting. Transactional emails, such as bill notices, are a great opportunity for upselling. Sometimes called transpromo, transactional emails with a promotion in them get an above average open rate and because you know what the customer bought, it is a shoe in to find matching products and services for that product.

But the offer can also be more generic IN the email and more elaborate ON the site. You do need an email marketing tool that is able to handle sending automated emails though, just like a birthday email or a welcome email.

In the Verizon email below, customers are reminded that they might be eligible for an upgrade (translation: upsell).

Upselling not only helps increase your Average Order Value, they help introduce your customers to other items on your site. But just because you’ve segmented your email list in a certain way doesn’t mean you have to limit your marketing efforts. Take off the blinders and, as always, test. You might be pleasantly surprised at the results.

Don’t forget, customers DO need to opt in for your email program in order for you to keep sending them emails. And if they haven’t yet, the biggest upsell might be to get them on your list.

How to Upsell with Email is a post from: Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse

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“3 Little Words” That Build Business Relationships

Jack Price — Thu, 09 May 2013 11:59:12 +0000

It’s me — again! And I have a question for you. What do romance and business have in common? Let’s see . . . both involve building a relationship, both require courtship, and both require that someone, probably you, take the initiative. A relationship can blossom into romance with 3 little words: I love you. But do you know the 3 little words of business relationships? Here they are, revealed for the first time, right here on GetResponse blog…

“Buy my stuff!”

No, just kidding. In fact, “Buy my stuff” language — at the wrong time — can come across like “pickup lines” in a singles bar. Hit-and-run types may do well in the short run. But it’s not a recipe for building long-term relationships.

However, reluctance is rarely attractive in business or in romance. At some point, you have to make your intentions clear.

Part of it is something called telegraphing — those little signals that you have something on your mind. So too in business, everything should make it clear that you’re not doing this as a hobby, you’re ready to do business.

Flexible approach

But just to be clear — looking the part isn’t enough. You have to ask for the sale AND build long-term relationships. So how to strike a balance?

Simple. Provide plenty of opportunities for both. In business as in romance, persistence is more effective than pure skill.

Building customer relationships is a process. And “process” is the inspiration behind GetResponse’s Autoresponders 2.0 innovation.

Here are a few real-world scenarios that can be mirrored your email marketing.

1. Show them around.

If a customer stopped by your place of business, you’d show them your office, maybe introduce him to your employees, and explain what you do for customers. And you’d do it in a friendly way.

How to do that with autoresponders? Just choose Create Autoresponder then click Subscribed. Then choose or create messages to help your new subscriber get to know you — anything from one message to . . . well, there’s no limit. But I’d narrow it down to the essentials.

Now every time a new person subscribes to your list, they’ll receive the same great series of messages to show them around.

2. Follow up.

What happens when the new subscriber is all done with your orientation series? In real life, you’d think of an excuse to reach out again.

In the virtual world, set up an autoresponder series that picks up where your initial messages leave off. Just choose Create Autoresponder then click Autoresponder sent.

What kind of content? That depends on your business. Maybe an educational series comes next or a series of introductory offers. This is your chance to find out what interests your new subscriber.

3. Read the clues.

Imagine you’re a car salesman. A couple walks in. The man sneaks a glance at a zippy sports car. The woman eyes a cute little convertible. But when they get to the minivan, they open the door, look inside and try out the seats for comfort.

A good salesman knows — this couple needs a family vehicle.

And if you send a subscriber several emails, and she clicks a link inside only one of them, you can assume that’s the kind of content that interests her. So send more.

Easy to do with an autoresponder. Choose Create Autoresponder then click the Clicked icon. That sends an offer or in-depth information related to the link she clicked — automatically.

4. Give more of what they like.

Certain emails just won’t appeal to some readers. But for readers who open your emails why not design some special additional content?

Choose Create Autoresponder then click the Opened icon. Then create a message to go out after the subscriber opens a designated email. Maybe you could send a survey to find out what else interests them.

5. Offer more of what they buy.

Let’s say a customer makes a purchase in your ecommerce site, and the system sends them to a Thank You page. The Thank You page can trigger an autoresponder message. Like what? How about an add-on purchase, upgrade or coupon for a future purchase? Your imagination is the only limit.

To get started, choose Create Autoresponder then click Goal reached. You’ll be prompted to set up a goal and create or assign an automatic message.

6. Plan something special.

Stores have sales events. For a virtual business, you can schedule a sale for each individual subscriber. For example, you could send a personalized message or special offer to be delivered 45 days after they subscribe. Or 137 days. Whatever.

Choose Create Autoresponder then click Time-based. Fill in the blanks, and every customer receives an email based on the timing you choose.

7. Respond to changes.

Surveys are a great way to get to know your subscribers. Not everyone will fill them out. But those who do may be your very best prospects.

What if you find out that a customer moved from Boston to Los Angeles. Maybe you could send an invitation to a local meet-up or direct them to good local websites. Or what if a subscriber changes her name from Miss Jones to Mrs. Smith? Depending on your business, that could open up very specific opportunities.

Choose Create Autoresponder then click Data changed. Now get creative and think of common scenarios that apply to your business. Then ask yourself: how’s the best way for you to respond to changes?

8. Help them celebrate.

A department store recently sent me a $10 gift card. Why? My birthday is this month. Pretty smart. I’ll make it a point to stop by and make a purchase, and I’m sure I’ll spend more than ten bucks.

Just choose Create Autoresponder then click Birthday.

Now, there’s no reason your message has to be assigned to date of birth. It could be their one-year anniversary as a subscriber. Or their wedding anniversary. Or any special date you choose.

Frequency and relevance

As you can see, Autoresponder 2.0 includes multiple tools to control frequency. And they can make your emails feel more like personal emails.

The more personal, the more relevant; the more relevant, the better the relationships — and the sales.

“3 little words” of business

In your romantic relationships, it’s a good idea to say I love you at every opportunity.

Frequency matters in business relationships too. Autoresponders let you say the “3 little words” of business relationships — the same ones I used to begin this post:

It’s me — again!

Oh, I don’t mean you should use those words literally. It’s more of a mindset — your personal commitment to show up again and again to add value and make your business relationships stronger.

You can do it. Autoresponders 2.0 can help.

Got a question? Ask in the Comments section below. We’ll be glad to reply.

“3 Little Words” That Build Business Relationships is a post from: Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse

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Open This Email for Free Beer: Deceptive Subject Lines

DJ Waldow — Tue, 07 May 2013 15:04:30 +0000

Imagine for a moment that you are scanning your inbox one Friday afternoon and you see an email with the following subject line: Open this email for FREE BEER! You are a beer drinker (and it’s Friday afternoon) so you immediately stop what you are doing, tune out everything else in the world around you, and open the email.

As the images of the email begin to load, you can practically taste the beer. You close your eyes and envision a nice Hefeweizen, but let’s be honest, any free beer will do.

Your excitement quickly fades and turns to anger and you realize you’ve been duped! There is no free beer … even though you did as the subject line instructed. Nope. Instead, it’s an advertisement for an upcoming conference – one you have absolutely zero interest in attending.

While the above scenario is 100% made up (though I personally do like a good Hefeweizen), it’s not all that far from the truth when it comes to email marketing and subject lines. There is a fine line between creating an email subject line that is creative versus one that is deceptive. While both can lead to a subscriber opening your message, the later not only is likely to create resentment, it’s also illegal.

According to the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (PDF), the United States law that governs commercial email:

“It is unlawful for any person to initiate the transmission to a protected computer of a commercial electronic mail message if such person has actual knowledge, or knowledge fairly implied on the basis of objective circumstances, that a subject heading of the message would be likely to mislead a recipient… regarding the contents or subject matter of the message…”

If you are anything like me, you are not interested in being fined or going to jail.

So, how do you write creative subject lines that will lead to more opens, more buzz, and – ultimately – more clicks and conversions?

A few suggestions:

Earn the trust of your subscribers FIRST.

I cannot understate this very important point. Too often we try to get “cute” with our subject lines before our readers really know and trust us. Take the time to build and nurture the relationship first, then test getting creative.

Test creative vs. “dull and boring.”

Building on the first suggestion, be sure you properly test your subject lines. If you’ve been sending the same type of subject line for years, be careful to not suddenly do an about face. This may actually turn off a large chunk of your audience. Instead, test these new, creative subject lines to a smaller portion of your email list and see how they respond.

Pique interest in the subject line and create wow in the body.

A compelling subject line can be the difference between someone opening your email or ignoring it (or deleting or marketing as spam). And after all, if there is no open, it’s quite difficult – if not impossible – to read the email, click a link, and/or take an action. However, once someone has opened your email, if you don’t “wow” him or her with the content – answer a question, include a great offer, elicit a smile or laugh – the great subject line becomes meaningless.

What examples do you have of creative email subject lines? Which ones were so compelling you just had to open?

Note: I wrote a similar article – with a slightly different spin – for MarketingProfs. You can read it here.

Open This Email for Free Beer: Deceptive Subject Lines is a post from: Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse

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Case Scenario: Autoresponders for Daily Deals

Karolina Kurcwald — Mon, 06 May 2013 12:59:34 +0000

For daily deal sites email has always been the primary means of communication. And they’re probably one of the few types of businesses where an email a day is acceptable by the subscribers (or even desirable, though tiring at times). For the sender the question is, with this kind of frequency and volume of emails, how can you optimize your email marketing while still keeping it interesting for the subscribers? Automation is the key.

In another case scenario for using Autoresponders 2.0, we took a closer look at how automated messages can work for daily deals. We’re describing a few tactics that might be very useful but of course these are just examples. What’s more, they can actually be used in other industries, too.

Watch the video below to see the four tactics we mention:

Send a welcome email immediately after sign-up.
Schedule a message sequence over a specified time period to introduce your offer or add some tips. Set the emails to be sent at the same time of day, preferably in the morning when inbox engagement is high (for best send times check our infographic).
Follow your subscribers’ preferences. Send the offers according to what links they clicked in previous emails (setting up the “Clicked” autoresponder). If your subscriber changes their preferences or details such as the city they live in on your site, automatically send them tailored messages based on the new interests or location (setting up the “Data changed” autoresponder).
Say thank you! Use the “Goal reached” autoresponder to be able to send customized messages after a purchase that originated from your newsletter.

Find out more about the different types of Autoresponders and how to use them here.

Stay tuned for more. What kind of industry-related use scenario would you like to see next?

Case Scenario: Autoresponders for Daily Deals is a post from: Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse

The post Case Scenario: Autoresponders for Daily Deals appeared first on Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse.

GetResponse Brings You Live Video of the Email Insider Summit!

Jim Ducharme — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 21:20:29 +0000

Twice a year email marketing thought leaders gather with senior marketing people from the world’s biggest brands to do some serious mind-sharing at the Media Post Email Insider Summit. It’s always a lively event with plenty of thought provoking panels and educational presentations. From Wednesday May 1st till Sunday May 5th, you can see it all live online as GetResponse sponsors the live video stream from the event! I’ll also be there (your intrepid man in the hat) participating, interviewing the thought leaders and tweeting away. There are a number of ways you can follow along live with us.

Live Video Stream – Sponsored by GetResponse

The live video stream sponsored by GetResponse, will bring the action to thousands of email marketers around the world. Join us live or catch the recorded video stream later! Both pages will have the live stream on them, but the Ustream page will have the videos recorded and available for you if you miss the live event.

Twitter

The Twitter channel will be #MPEIS and you can bet you’ll get lots of insight, pithy quotes and even a few good one-liners. If you have anything you’d like to share with me about the event, please drop me a tweet @hugeheadca

Some of the topics we’ll be covering

Acquisition strategies
Responsive design
Finding gold in data mining
Multi-Channel marketing (AKA Omni-channel marketing)
Dealing with abandoned shopping carts
Creating great email content

You can find the agenda here.

Be there!

Join GetResponse in sunny Florida for what’s sure to be some great email marketing inspiration as we stream video live from the Media Post Insider Summit!

Catch the live stream from the event here.

You’ll also find the live stream and later, the recorded videos here.

GetResponse Brings You Live Video of the Email Insider Summit! is a post from: Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse

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How Birthday Emails Bake the Cake

Jordie van Rijn — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 11:03:21 +0000

It’s relatively easy for a company to set up a Birthday Email campaign. All you really need is a great idea for the content of the mail, the birthdate of your newsletter subscribers and an email tool that supports sending perfectly timed emails based on profile fields like a date.

Birthdays are loved

The ease of implementing the birthday email and the results you can get from them are the two main reasons why it is so loved by marketers and the second most used event-driven email, just after the welcome email.

Birthday emails are also loved and most of them appreciated by your subscribers. “It’s my birthday and I’ll buy if I want to….” That could be the theme song for customers who sign up via email for birthday freebies, and when the offer is right, redeem them either online or in-store.

Not all birthday emails are created equal

As I mentioned the great idea for the content is where the balloons, cake and presents are presented. Let’s look at a few examples of birthday emails, in an effort to see what is so good about them and where they could be improved.

1.

Houlihan’s does a great job of branding with its email sign-up page, thank-you landing page, welcome email and birthday email. It’s evident that Houlihan’s doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Houlihan’s emails and website have a tone that says: Fun. Reflecting the kind of experience you’ll have when you visit the restaurant. They even take their birthday-singing competitors to task, offering subscribers free food “without a side of humiliation.”

It is a pretty cool and fun email, but it also looks as if they are scared people will actually let someone else use it. Asking for an ID, only being able to view the email 3 times? No photocopies? You can consider building in some kind of security to prevent abuse, but this sends a very mixed message if you ask me. They are giving something away, but only in combination with a purchase AND the celebration for Houligans continues because they are probably bringing friends.

2.

Urban Outfitters takes it a bit more easy. The email celebrates your birthday month as opposed to your actual birthday. You could be pleased that they’re celebrating all month long… Anyway, you get 20% off your next purchase. Not too shabby, and pretty reasonable for UO because in fashion discounts are pretty common.

But it is a missed opportunity to make the email truly memorable. There’s no personalization in the email, and it seems a bit cold too because the email is rather generic. The timing is probably off too, not everyone is thinking of their birthday a month beforehand. That is an email marketing engagement killer, if it isn’t timely… what do you think people will do with your email?

Some companies send the monthly message to reduce the time they need to schedule an email every day. This highlights the importance of sending using a tool that can automatically do this for you. (and asking for the day too, instead of just the month).

3.

Cold Stone invites you (and your friend) to enjoy a free Creation – a buy one, get one free, that is. This is why birthday offers make so much sense. It’s unlikely you’ll go all by yourself to celebrate your birthday. So the cost of offering a free entrée, free dessert or whatever is offset by the fact that the birthday celebrant will be bringing along at least a plus-one.

Cold Stone personalizes the email further, with dynamic content pulling in the location of a store near you. That is a great idea. However, it looks like the dynamic area is causing an image rendering problem:

Don’t forget to always check your email rendering, and best to also subscribe yourself and your colleagues to receive your emails too. So you can (easily) spot the problems. Or your emails might be beauty-challenged, without you knowing it.

Conclusion

Birthday emails are great and all of the above emails probably perform very well. But to make it a truly memorable moment, think about how the recipient would feel once they see your email in their mailbox and always double-check!

How Birthday Emails Bake the Cake is a post from: Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse

The post How Birthday Emails Bake the Cake appeared first on Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse.

5 Email Tips for Do-It-Yourself Copywriters

Jack Price — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 11:56:36 +0000

A few years ago, readers were loyal to their newspaper. One reason was scarcity — often a town had only one newspaper. The same held true for early email newsletters. But today’s readers have options, and people won’t read poor content. Copywriting is a must-have skill. So let’s start with . . .

Getting to the point

Some email newsletters wander around, expecting readers to tag along. If you do that, you may be losing everyone but your mom, (and she hangs in there just because she loves you.)

Sure, it takes a few minutes of writing to get your creative juices flowing; ideas rarely never gush from my fingertips onto the screen. And my first idea is usually a stinker.

Tip 1: Delete your opener

So after you’ve written a few paragraphs and feel like you’re really getting into your subject — stop. Read your first sentence and ask yourself whether it is essential.

As you read down the page, keep asking that question until you find the first thing the reader needs to know. Everything above it probably can be deleted — like pruning a rosebush to make it healthier.

Tip 2: What’s next?

OK, you’ve identified the first thing the reader needs to know. What’s the very next thing?

It’s not easy to identify the very next thing; you may write, fail and delete many times until you finally get that oh-so-satisfying feeling of nailing it.

Tip 3: Cooperate with your brain

Computers operate sequentially. Your creative brain, on the other hand, likes to wander around.

So if you have trouble finding that very next thing, try starting with your ending and tinker with that for awhile. Or maybe write some benefit bullet points; (we’ll cover those in a future post.) Perhaps you have a great call-to-action in mind.

Write in any order that feels comfortable. Then trust your writing skills to make those seemingly disconnected thoughts line up.

Tip 4: Incubate your ideas

When you get used to the idea that you don’t have to write sequentially, pressure lifts from your shoulders. That’s when you’ll discover an interesting phenomenon.

If you distract your brain by working on something else, something deep inside you keeps tinkering with the idea that got you stuck. Stephen King calls it the boys in the basement — those guys somewhere deep inside you who keep on working while you’re mowing the lawn, taking a shower, and even while you sleep. They’ll come up with something interesting and pop it into your conscious mind the next time you work on the piece.

I know . . . it sounds spooky, and it is. But if you relax and learn to trust the boys in the basement, they’ll help you out.

Tip 5: Edit

When the first draft is done, your work is just beginning. Now your goal is to get your ideas in the right order, choosing the best words possible. One great writer put it this way:

Write drunk; edit sober. —attributed to Ernest Hemingway

Figuratively, of course Write freely, just to get ideas on paper. Then switch into editing mode, with ruthless attention to detail. You’ll know when you’re done when you find yourself deleting a comma then adding it back in the same place.

The copywriter’s responsibility

Your job is to think for the reader, or more accurately, to think on behalf of the reader — to put words, sentences and paragraphs in an order that is easy to absorb. Your copywriting skills enable you to literally enter the reader’s mind and change it. What a responsibility!

Writing isn’t a process for getting words onto the screen; it’s as a highly disciplined form of thinking. And if your thoughts aren’t clear enough to organize into sentences, paragraphs, and an entire newsletter, you’ve got a little more work to do.

So get to work — right now. Shut the door. Close your browser. Turn off your email. Ignore the phone.

And just write for 30 minutes.

I guarantee that at least one idea will come to you. And that idea will lead to another and another. With practice, your ideas — and your copywriting — will get better and better.

In a future installment of this series, we’ll talk about time-tested copywriting formulas that help you face the blank page fearlessly.

Stuck? Use the comment section to ask a question. We’ll be glad to help.

5 Email Tips for Do-It-Yourself Copywriters is a post from: Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse

Open This Email for Free Beer: Deceptive Subject Lines

The post 5 Email Tips for Do-It-Yourself Copywriters appeared first on Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse.

6 Email Marketing Spring Cleaning Tips

Jim Ducharme — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 14:53:16 +0000

Ah spring! It’s a pretty big deal up here in Canada where the running joke is that we only have two seasons: Ten months of winter and two months of road repair. It’s a time when I have to watch out for my wife sticking price tags on my valuable collection of stuff in the garage. It’s also a time to reassess and renew and a good time to revaluate your email marketing, too. What better way to remind you of that than turn “spring” into an acronym for email marketing?

urvey: Run a survey or series of surveys to find out what your subscribers want from your emails. You could simply ask them, but setting up a GetResponse survey and perhaps offering them some kind of incentive will generate a lot more responses. You can offer an e-book or report as that incentive or a discount code of some kind and so on. It’s easy to do with GetResponse too! Just click “Surveys” on your dashboard toolbar to set one up in minutes! You can also check out this video tutorial on creating surveys.

ush: Push yourself beyond your comfort zone. This doesn’t mean you have to jump out of a perfectly good airplane or such. It just means you should try something you haven’t tried before. In life, that could be something as simple as trying sushi for the first time. In email marketing it could be something as basic as running that survey I mentioned earlier or revising your sign up forms or changing the text of your calls-to-action.

enew: Make a commitment to renew your email marketing campaign by building it. List growth doesn’t just happen; you need a plan to bring in more subscribers. Check out these 21 list building tips from a webinar we did last year with Dr. Dave Chaffey from SmarInsights.com.

nnovate: When I say innovate, I mean with your subscribers. You don’t have to invent something completely new and amazing. Take inspiration from other email marketers, revise for your particular approach and try something different.

etwork: There are tons of groups and online communities (let me introduce you to some folks from one of the biggest) for email marketers! You can find them on Linkedin or Facebook and of course, you can also find lots of forums too where email marketers share their insight. Google and ye shall find.

o: Consider this post a buffet where you can choose which morsels of insight to consume and how much you want to try. Don’t bite off more than you can chew and get so bogged down in planning that you don’t act. Try one, see how it works then try something else. Just trying one thing can change everything for your marketing campaigns.

What do you plan to change or try this spring in your email marketing?

6 Email Marketing Spring Cleaning Tips is a post from: Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse

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Case Scenario: Autoresponders for Online Coaching

Karolina Kurcwald — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 12:39:46 +0000

Automated messages are a great way to build a lasting relationship with your customers. Over the next weeks, we’ll be presenting you with some use case scenarios to show you their full potential. Of course, what you do with them in the end is entirely up to you and your imagination. But for now, let’s meet Bob Green who is looking for some career guidance online.

If you provide online coaching, Autoresponders 2.0 can come in really handy. By adding your subscribers to automated campaigns you can send them one-to-one, targeted communications that’s based on their online behavior and preferences.

Watch the video below for some very useful tips on creating an Autoresponder sequence that includes:

a personalized welcome message just after sign-up
tips and educational content sent in regular intervals
extra educational resources based on the specific links your subscriber clicked in the previous emails.

For more ideas, just hit “Play”!

How are you using automated message sequences?

Case Scenario: Autoresponders for Online Coaching is a post from: Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse

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Ideas from the Inbox: Preheader

Hanna Andrzejewska — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 09:30:25 +0000

Are there great email tips and tricks that you’ve heard like a million times, but never really had the chance to see how they work in practice? Welcome to GetResponse new cycle, where real-life examples bring dry theory to life. In “Ideas from the inbox” we review and analyze the contents of our email inboxes to find out which email marketing campaign strategies work best to improve your email performance.

The subject line is the first area that can help you boost reader’s interest and distinguish you in his crowded inbox. You can find examples of how to add glamour to your subject here and here.

But there’s one more area that can work magic in the modern inbox environment: the preheader.

What is the preheader?

The preheader is the top section of your newsletter. Located above the headline, it’s the first section subscribers see when they open your email . . . or before! Most email clients automatically display the first text line of the email in the message preview (typically 40-100 characters). The preheader is exactly what your recipients see next to the subject line. It’s an opportunity that you can’t afford to waste.

Why include a preheader?

A well-crafted preheader can boost open and click-through rates (CTR) at the stage when subscribers scan new emails:

A preheader makes the “long tail” of email marketing even longer. What does that mean? It’s an extra 40–100 characters that add to your subject line, emphasize it, and make it more powerful. Your preheader conveys additional marketing content to your readers — before they even open the email.
A strong call-to-action (CTA) used in the preheader can urge the reader to check out the message and prepare him to navigate wherever you want them to go.
Your preheader can be an eye-catcher — a distinguisher and incentive to grab that particular email (in case your eye-catching subject line fails to).
What’s more, it helps deal with the “formalities” — such as the white-listing request, unsubscribe link, forward to, and view online — and keep them in order.
It also imposes attention to good email structure; once you start organizing the sections of your email into a neat layout, you get a better idea of what is important and what might be redundant.
A preheader can help increase brand recognition, especially if your subject line is too short to include your brand name.

Below are a few tips on how to make the most of your preheader and some good and not-so-good examples, subjectively selected from my inbox.

What to include

Snippet text summarizing your offer

Substantial incentive

Link to view email online (but not right after the subject line)
Request to add email address to address book
Link to forward to friend or post on social media profile

What to avoid

Don’t give too much information – preheader does’t really have to have it all.

But don’t underestimate the preheader’s role and position either. Make it visible and “good-looking”.

Avoid repeating yourself.

Don’t start with: “View online” – it’s such a waste of the valuable “preview” space.

Avoid adding “Unsubscribe” link at the beginning.
Don’t include the date of your newsletter, especially in that place and especially if you send to global lists.

Ideas to try

Include hyperlink to help impatient subscribers navigate straight to landing page.

Experiment various text and background formatting options: your preheader can look cool!

Use a CTA in your preheader to increase urgency

Include an unsubscribe link (but not right after the subject line).

If your email is one of a series — a weekly update, online course, etc. — you can change the subject line to attract attention, and provide the name of the series in the preheader to increase recognition and add consistency to your message.

Coming soon

Is this helpful? Stay tuned for more in this series of tips and tricks you can use immediately to make your email marketing campaigns more successful.

Ideas from the Inbox: Preheader is a post from: Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse

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Break These Email Segmentation Best Practices

Jordie van Rijn — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 14:48:58 +0000

Best practices are a great place to start improving your email campaigns. But sometimes, it’s OK to break those “rules” and best practices. In fact, it’s probably even better. Take email segmentation for example. Let’s look at a few commonly accepted best practices and see why it might be a good idea, profit-wise, to change up the rules.

Segment soon

Many email marketers recommend sending segmented and fully personalized emails to new subscribers right away. If your sign-up process includes a form to select preferences (which it should), you’ll have a pretty good idea of which segments the subscriber falls into.

However, there are plenty of cases where you want to break this best practice. In an effort to make email sign-up as painless as possible, you could also go the route to only ask for an email address to get on the list. The only downside is that it will take some time to collect and analyze data before subscribers can be effectively segmented.

Here’s where a communications preference center comes in handy. Note that I refer to it as a “communications” preference center, not an “email” preference center. That’s because you can capture valuable data on how your subscribers prefer to be contacted – that goes beyond email. Find their sweet spots, then capitalize on them.

Check out this preference center for Honda Power Sports. Subscribers can choose from the vehicles that interest them – motorcycles, ATVs & MUV or scooters. They also can drill down to sub-types within each category. Now that’s product based preference segmentation.

Age-inappropriate

While crafting age-appropriate messages for your emails looks like a best practice in email segmentation, don’t make assumptions about the online behavior of certain age groups.

If your business caters to an older audience, that doesn’t let you off the hook designing mobile-friendly emails and a mobile version of your website. According to the AARP, baby boomers account for about 40% of paying customers for wireless services. This segment is definitely mobile. So don’t assume this segment isn’t web- or mobile-savvy.

If email messaging and/or format are condescending to any segment of subscribers, they will be less likely to engage with – and buy from – your brand.

Another big email marketing no-no is to craft an email which looks like it is geared towards a certain age group, but actually isn’t. So you use these stock images of people aged 50+, hoping that it connects with the audience. While the most appealing imagery and their mindset might be totally different.

The gift of gender segmentation

It’s easy to assume that opens, click-throughs and conversion rates will be higher for women who receive feminine-themed emails. The same would apply for men, following strict better email marketing practices.

At holiday time, we see a lot of marketing to the opposite sex, as the Blue Nile email below illustrates. To truly cater to this segment, the email could have included some self-purchase suggestions as a secondary message, such as tie clips, cufflinks, etc. Make sure your database reflects who is the recipient. It’s not uncommon to see people register for an account on your ecommerce site because they want to buy someone a gift.

Gift giving is also appropriate when you look at age segmentation. I often use an example of an email by a television channel for 50+ audience. They offer a Donald Duck bed sheet as a prize for their contest. What?! Just give it some thought why that actually might be a touch of brilliance.

Geographic location

For a local brick-and-mortar business, it makes sense to target your emails to those within a certain radius of your location. National companies, however, may want to revisit how they segment their products by geography.

For example, marketing snow shovels in February to residents of the northeast of America is great, but you could mix it up and offer them summer clothes as well. In a case of tunnel vision you might forget that these people also go on vacation or might have moved without telling you, so look for hidden opportunities there. (comments to this tip are welcome below)

Email segmentation

The point is, once you segment your list, realize that it’s not set in stone. And while some of the ideas above might not be recommended all of the time, it is good to mix it up, keep your email marketing fresh and break the rules every now and then. Maybe try to look to the side and step away from the preceived notions. Maybe use an uncommon segmentation strategy and periodically take a look at your segments and think of ways you can cross-market to maximize your selling potential.

How do you segment your emails today?

Break These Email Segmentation Best Practices is a post from: Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse

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5 Ways Your Customers Can Provide Your Email Content

Martin Lieberman — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 10:44:30 +0000

Email marketing is one of the most important tools in your communications toolkit. So why is it always so challenging — and time consuming — to come up with content that’ll engage your subscribers and lead to results? It doesn’t have to be that way. Your customers, fans, followers, and subscribers can provide the content for you, saving you time and making your email messages even more effective.

It’s true: A 2012 comScore study found that when user-generated videos were used to feature a product, it was 18.7% more effective. And when they were used with professionally-produced videos, the combo was 35.3% more effective!

With that in mind, why wouldn’t you want to include content from your customers in your email campaigns? The good news is that it’s already being created. You just have to find it and use it.

Here are five ways to do that:

1. Collect Photos

Instagram, Facebook, and other sites prove that people love taking photos. Ask your customers to snap a quick pic of themselves using your product, attending one of your events, or simply showing off your logo in a unique place. Or, have a contest for the best photo of something on your menu, or the most creative way someone has taken advantage of your service. To better find the photos you want, make sure customers are tagging you on Instagram.

2. Share Videos

If a photo is worth 1,000 words, a video can say even more. And they don’t even have to be slick or professional (see above). For example, instead of sharing your product-use advice, ask your customers to shoot a short video offering their own tips on how to use your product. Or ask a survey question and pick a winning submission. Or ask them to let you know why they shop with you or use your service — other customers’ endorsement will be a powerful tool for increasing sales.

3. Highlight Reviews

Speaking of which, your loyal customers love you — and chances are good they’re already singing your praises on Yelp or some other reviews site. In your email newsletter, you can highlight a review of the week and thank the person who posted it.

4. Blog posts

Set up a Google Alert for your business’ name. Then, whenever a customer raves about you, shares their experience with your business, includes your name in a blog post, you’ll know. Include an excerpt from this blog post in your email newsletter, and include a link so your subscribers can read the rest of the blog post.

5. Ask Questions

One of the easiest ways to incorporate the voice of your customers is just to ask them questions. For example, “What would you name our new dish?” or “How did you spend your last vacation?” Or, you can simply ask a poll question, such as “Are you happy winter is almost over? Yes or no?” Have your readers share their answers on your Facebook Page, then collect the answers or tabulate the results and include them in the next issue of your newsletter.

Ask for Permission!

One important note: Before you use your customers’ words, photo, or video in an email, it’s a good idea to ask permission — even if, in the case of Instagram, it’s in the terms of service that content can be used by a third party.

Chances are good people will be excited to have their opinion or photo/video given added exposure, and will then share your newsletter with others, but you don’t want to take the risk of the opposite result — especially because, for example, customers don’t think of their photos as being “marketing content” when they post them.

How are you using your customers’ content in your email marketing messages? We’d love to know! Share your thoughts in the comments section below, and maybe we’ll even use your responses and ideas in a future blog post.

5 Ways Your Customers Can Provide Your Email Content is a post from: Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse

The post 5 Ways Your Customers Can Provide Your Email Content appeared first on Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse.

Webinar Recording: Autoresponders 2.0

Karolina Kurcwald — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 12:33:55 +0000

We just broke our webinar record – yesterday’s Autoresponders 2.0 webinar was visited by 929 people from all over the world! That was really amazing (imagine the discussion on the chat!). Many thanks to everyone who attended. If you haven’t been able to join us or would like a replay, we have a recording for you. Enjoy!

During the webinar, our Education Expert, Mack Gorski, talked about time-based and action-based Autoresponders, scheduling and optimizing Autoresponder messages and planning, creating and managing successful marketing campaigns with Autoresponders 2.0.

There were a lot of very interesting and detailed questions asked on the chat by the attendees so we decided to include the discussion part in the video – you might actually find the answers to some of your questions, too. The Q&A session starts halfway (at around 00:30) while the first 30 minutes are taken by the actual presentation.

Hope you enjoy the recording – let us know if there’s anything else we can help with!

Webinar Recording: Autoresponders 2.0 is a post from: Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse

The post Webinar Recording: Autoresponders 2.0 appeared first on Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse.

Autoresponders 2.0 Are Here [UPDATED]

Karolina Kurcwald — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 10:15:25 +0000

So here we are, finally launching the brand-new Autoresponders 2.0. From now on, it’s easier than ever to automate your follow-up campaigns and manage one-to-one communication with your subscribers. Let’s walk you through the feature to see what’s changed and how you can put it to work for best results.

We’ve been waiting for this moment for the past few months and we’re finally able to say — Autoresponders 2.0 are ready for you!

With the new, re-designed feature, you can now enhance your email marketing campaigns with automated time-based and action-based messages.

Although time-based follow-up messages have been available for a very long time, action-based messages are a completely new addition.

Autoresponders 2.0 in a nutshell

Both message types are now available from the Create Autoresponder tab in your Dashboard menu.

Unlimited time-based messages per day and per cycle: a much more intuitive interface than the “old-school” follow-up messages
Action-based messages in a neat list: send messages based on actions and events — such as, when the subscriber:

opens a specified message
clicks a specified link in a message
signs up to one of your campaigns
reaches a goal you’ve set (e.g. a download or purchase)
changes personal details (such as city or product preference)
receives a specified autoresponder message
reaches a birthday, anniversary or other special date you designate

Each type of autoresponder is clearly marked. So just choose the one you want, then use the intuitive (and I mean really intuitive) interface to create and activate your message.

From the same screens, you can manage autoresponders and contacts, drag ‘n’ drop any message to a different day, and show statistics.

To see all this in action, take a look at the video below:

What about existing follow-ups?

When you log in to your account today, you’ll see all your follow-up messages displayed in the new timetable view — on the exact days you assigned.

You can now manage and edit them, specify the time of day (including time zone differences) and see how many subscribers receive a message on a particular day — all in one interface.

Watch a video that summarizes the changes:

Autoresponders 2.0 great ideas

To learn some practical applications for the new autoresponders, watch our blog. We’ll be publishing inspiring case studies in coming weeks.

And be sure to join us for a free webinar during which we’ll show you around the new feature and answer your questions about it.

Webinar: How to boost your marketing with Autoresponders 2.0

Date and time: Wednesday, April 10, 12:00 PM EST

Register FREE:
https://getresponse.clickwebinar.com/Success_with_Autoresponders_2_0/register

Let us know what you think of the new feature and how you plan to use it — as always, we’re really curious to know.

[UPDATE]

And we have some gadgets for the authors of the most insightful comments – such as these cool T-shirts!

Autoresponders 2.0 Are Here [UPDATED] is a post from: Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse

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Email Marketing Mobile Optimization [INFOGRAPHIC]

Karolina Kurcwald — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 20:29:26 +0000

Mobile email optimization might seem intimidating, but, as the smartphone market continues to grow, so will the need for emails tailored to mobile screens. Since 2010, the number of smartphone owners using mobile Internet has grown 45%, and it’s showing no signs of stopping now.

Smartphones take over

Not only are smartphone users becoming more prevalent, usership registers at 40% and higher among age groups under 55. One in four people over 55 years of age are also smartphone owners. In the U.S., three of every four people use their smartphones for email.

Email design can be challenging enough, but the changeover from desktop caught a lot of people off-guard. The technology is there, so customers expect the market to keep up.

Tech-savvy businesses have met this challenge by using mobile optimization and communication software to engage their customers. Just as they’ve used traditional email marketing, they’ve now included mobile-optimized email marketing in their campaigns.

With the swell in smartphone use and ownership, an automated email campaign that isn’t optimized for mobile could hamper any initiative.

Mobile opens on the rise

According to data we collected in the nine months between June of 2012 and March of 2013:

mobile email opens increased more than 30%
iPhone and iPad email opens grew from 3.88% and 2.99% to 17.50% and 8.93%, respectively
Android opens swelled from 5.04% to 8.46%
BlackBerry email opens went from 0.01% to 0.24%, (which doesn’t look like much, but is a huge leap, and indicates just how important mobile email marketing optimization is).

Mobile design tips

The first step to mobile optimization is keeping it simple. From the subject line to email content, follow the rule of the shorter it is, the sweeter the return will be.

Clear up any clutter that may bury links. Which is worse: the customer missing the link, or the customer having a hard time clicking the link? Fingertips are much fatter than cursors. Apple^® interface guidelines recommend at least 44×44 pixels as a minimum for a target area.

For design, simple things like font size can be tricky. Again, this can differ across platforms. Apple automatically increases font size to 13 pixels, and anything between 16-18 pixels is rendered as either medium or large on Android™ devices. The rule of thumb from designers is: 14 pixels for text, and 22 for headlines.

When focusing on Android and non-iOS^® platforms, you do need to watch your dimensions (Apple will automatically resize). On Android and Kindle devices, that means keeping the calls to action visible at about 320px for smartphones (the limit for Kindle Fire is about 600).

Test, test, test

The best practice of all is to test, not only on desktops, but on a variety of devices. Make sure your content is easy to read on any screen. Make sure you catch any differences between platforms—Android and iOS might be making the same function happen, but not in the same way.

Examine the email. What does the subject line say? Limit subject lines to 60 characters. Are there symbols that don’t show up correctly? Adjust accordingly.

Don’t forget your landing page!

Once you’ve optimized your email marketing campaign, don’t forget the next important step—optimizing your landing page. You don’t want to send subscribers to a page that takes forever to load; they won’t hang around. Replace heavy data codes like Flash with HTML5 or CSS.

Time to get mobile

Understand that mobile devices are just that: mobile. Ensure the messages you send are concise, and get right to the point. If customers are reading on a tablet or smartphone, they’re most likely multitasking, or on the move. Use analytics data to determine when the majority of people check their email, and schedule blasts with tools like GetResponse autoresponder programs to catch your customers at the best time—and with the right content.

Above all, email optimization for mobile platforms depends on your understanding of the recipient’s habits. Mobile users spend only 5.3% of their time on email or instant messaging. That means you only have seconds (or even part of a second) to grab attention with a subject line or a header.

With nearly half of the mobile market dominated by smartphones, effective mobile email marketing is essential for companies looking to create a successful presence in today’s information-driven marketplace.

Are you optimizing your emails for mobile?

Email Marketing Mobile Optimization [INFOGRAPHIC] is a post from: Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse

The post Email Marketing Mobile Optimization [INFOGRAPHIC] appeared first on Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse.

Brand-Boosting GetResponse Contest Wins IAC Award!

Hanna Andrzejewska — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 13:49:52 +0000

As we’ve often said, the best strategies for brand promotion are those that engage and entertain your audience. GetResponse recently proved it, winning the Crystal Award in an Internet Advertising Competition (IAC) sponsored by the Web Marketing Association (WMA). The award is for Best Email Online Campaign for our Email Template Design Contest promoting the groundbreaking Email Creator.

About our contest

When we launched Email Creator in May last year – we knew we had a revolutionary solution. But to convince our audience, we needed more than just a catchy slogan. We decided to give our users a hands-on experience, mixed with a bit of fun. So we created a contest (with some nice prizes) to launch Email Creator.

Participants submitted email templates they designed using Email Creator. The GetResponse community cast their votes for an Audience Award for their favorite design. And a panel of independent judges — all email experts — awarded cool prizes for three top winners.

View a summary of the online campaign here.

About the IAC Award

Our strategy engaged the GetResponse community by making them active participants in the campaign, not just passive recipients of an advertising message. The IAC honored GetResponse, naming our promotion Best in Industry for the Best Email Online Campaign.

Read more about the prize here, and view all the industry winners here.

About contest marketing strategies

Contests offer an attractive marketing vehicle small business can use to create awareness and acquire new clients. They can speed up social media participation, increase brand awareness and generate leads. They can recognize or reward customers and fans or simply to make your relationship with your audience more personal and informal. Contests give your brand a face.

MarketingSherpa and Mashable provide some great tips on how to boost your brand with a well-designed online competition.

You can also find ideas on our blog.

Still not convinced? The Internet is filled with great ideas for online competitions.

Or maybe you’ve got your own favorites — let us know what inspires you!

Brand-Boosting GetResponse Contest Wins IAC Award! is a post from: Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse

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6 Tips to Avoid Your Subscriber’s Spam Folder

Kristi Hines — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 10:46:51 +0000

Did you know that almost 800 tests are run on each email to determine if they are spam? It’s almost a miracle that most, if not all, email misses the spam folder. Of course, they do say, “Don’t worry too much about specific rules within SpamAssassin. The rules catch spam. If your email isn’t spam, you shouldn’t be matching the rules. Even if you do hit an occasional rule, unless your email actually is spam, it shouldn’t score high enough to be a problem.”

While most businesses do not deliberately send spam, there are some seemingly innocent things that can contribute to a higher than average spam score. And there are some not-so innocent things that can contribute to more messages ending up in your subscriber’s spam folder. Here are some things you can do to lower your spam score and get more messages in your subscriber’s inbox.

1. Don’t opt-in your email contacts, LinkedIn contacts, etc.

Only people who sign up for your mailing list should be on it. Don’t import your email contacts, LinkedIn contacts’ emails, or other list of people who have not explicitly asked to be on your mailing list. Otherwise you are opening the door to having your emails marked as spam and having people note that they did not subscribe when they unsubscribe.

If you would like your email contacts and LinkedIn contacts to subscribe, find a way to ask them. Add a link to your newsletter sign up page in your email signatures when sending regular correspondence. And add a link to you LinkedIn profile for new contacts to discover.

2. Avoid automatic opt-ins.

One of the reasons many people mark newsletters and other email marketing messages as spam is when they feel they were subscribed against their wishes. This often happens when someone is making a purchase for the first time and the shopping cart automatically checks the Subscribe to Newsletter or similar box.

It may hinder the speedy growth of your mailing list, but be sure to let people choose whether they want to subscribe on their own. Hopefully they will remember that they made this decision and therefore your emails will be welcome.

3. Deliver what you promise.

If your opt-in says that you will only receive occasional, relevant emails from your business, then deliver just that. Don’t start sending them daily emails or messages from your partners.

4. Make unsubscribing easy.

You don’t have to worry about whether more people will unsubscribe just because your unsubscribe link is easily noticeable. You do have to worry that people will start marking your emails as spams because the unsubscribe link is hidden or missing altogether and they are tired of receiving your messages.

5. Clean up your HTML.

If you are sending HTML newsletter, make sure the coding is as clean as possible. For example, don’t design your HTML newsletter in Microsoft Word and paste it into your template. Microsoft tends to add a lot of extra formatting code that is not necessary, some of which could raise your spam score higher than necessary.

6. Lower your link to text ratio.

Too many links in the body of your message can set off a spam alert. As you increase the amount of links you include in a message, you should increase the amount of informational text as well to balance them out.

What other advice would you add on lowering your spam score and avoiding the spam filter? Please share in the comments!

6 Tips to Avoid Your Subscriber’s Spam Folder is a post from: Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse

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Marketing Automation: The New Shape of Email [SNEAK PEEK]

Hanna Andrzejewska — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 14:02:34 +0000

Email relevancy and timing are key factors behind your campaign success. Providing recipients with exactly the right content at exactly the right time has always been the marketer’s utmost priority — yet so often missed. And now GetResponse has developed the technology to help you achieve it – effortlessly and effectively. New Autoresponders 2.0 (coming soon) will forever change how you do your marketing.

Responding to your subscribers’ actions and genuine needs has now become possible. Listen to the creators of Autoresponders 2.0 and discover the potential of marketing automation they soon will unlock for you.

Watch Autoresponders 2.0 in action:

Launching this spring the new Autoresponders 2.0 are a completely new quality of email marketing.

They will give you almost unlimited power to schedule responses triggered by recipient behavior and let you address them with customized, perfectly timed and personalized messages.

Time-based autoresponders will let you create perfect email sequences, with many options to choose from that were unavailable until now:

Multiple emails per day
Day-of-the-week selection
Advanced timing control
Quick message editing
Drag’n’drop sequence management
and much more

With the action-based messages, you will be able to schedule messages to be delivered when your subscriber performs the desired action, or when a certain event occurs, e.g.:

When they sign up
When they click a link or open a message
When they complete a transaction
When their personal information is changed
When it’s their birthday
and more.

Autoresponders 2.0 will forever change the way you do your marketing.

Can’t wait to start using them?

Stay tuned – Autoresponders 2.0 “go live” this spring.

Marketing Automation: The New Shape of Email [SNEAK PEEK] is a post from: Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse

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Social Sharing Boosts Email CTR By 158% [REPORT + INFOGRAPHIC]

Karolina Kurcwald — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 13:42:56 +0000

Social media keeps evolving dynamically – sometimes it’s hard to keep track of all the changes! The way the email-social relationship develops is equally dynamic. And from what we’re seeing, it’s definitely for the better. We’ve just updated our research from last year that shows even better results of email-social integration. On this occasion, we’ve put together a free special report and an infographic – read on to grab them both.

If last year’s findings didn’t convince you to share your emails, maybe this year’s will?

Why should you share?

The major finding of the GetResponse analysis is that the number of users who include social sharing buttons in their emails increased from 18.3% to 29.4%. Compared to last year’s results, that’s an increase of 61%.

What’s even more striking is the exceptionally high performance results for newsletters that included social sharing buttons. Those emails had an average click-through-rate (CTR) 158% higher than emails that didn’t include social sharing. Check out yourself:

[click for an enlarged version]

Highlights of the infographic

Facebook was included in almost every social email becoming the most popular sharing option. Its popularity increased by almost 9% compared to 2011. Twitter came a close second, almost doubling its result from the previous year.
LinkedIn noted a huge leap – the number of emails that included it increased from 8.5% last year to 68.1%. No wonder since the service kept its position of the top performer in email CTR.
Marketers not only share more frequently, but also on more social channels. The number of marketers who included 3 social sharing icons increased from just 7.4% in 2011 to almost 40% in 2012. An even larger bump can be observed for 4 and more icons that were previously used by just 0.1% (now used by 34.9%).
It’s interesting to see how Pinterest is performing (not included in our previous research) with a result of 46.4% of marketers who included social sharing.

Email marketing + social media integration

Social sharing can bring great results (hope you’re now convinced) but it will require some effort to optimize it. To help you with this, we put together a special report containing:

market research and industry benchmarks
more findings from our latest social sharing study
tips and techniques you can use to increase the effectiveness of your email and social communications by successfully integrating the two.

To download the report, click here:

Do you integrate your email marketing with social media?

Social Sharing Boosts Email CTR By 158% [REPORT + INFOGRAPHIC] is a post from: Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse

The post Social Sharing Boosts Email CTR By 158% [REPORT + INFOGRAPHIC] appeared first on Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse.

Make Your Sign-up Form Pop!

Jordie van Rijn — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 18:22:51 +0000

Growing you email list is a survival technique. About one third of your list will become inactive each year. So you better start promoting it! The great thing is that building a larger, engaged list of subscribers is also a way to get better results from your email marketing and increase your email marketing ROI. Last time I gave five tips for growing your email list from your own website. But how do you make your subscription offer stand out?

Use eye-popping contrast

Make sure your sign up gets enough attention. How? By using a stand out format and contrasting colors. Just like an email newsletter, contrast draws attention to the subscription box. So for instance, if the base color of your whole site is blue, make the sign-up box orange. For added effect, use a contrasting “Submit” button color. If the sign-up box is placed on a blog, make it stand out among other elements (like advertisements) that are placed close to it.

Make a separate sign-up page

Most blogs and sites that have a sign up box on their site don’t have a separate sign-up page. A giant missed opportunity! A separate sign-up page makes it easy to link and promote your subscription in other channels and social media. For instance when using twitter to grow your email list, you might want to tweet that your newsletter is sent tomorrow. A tweet is too short to include “And look at the bottom of the page for the signup form”.

High-traffic pages deserve special attention

You probably have them, one or two pages that attract much more traffic than others. For instance, a page with a popular email marketing blog post, a category page where all your articles on a given topic come together or a page with discounted products. These deserve extra attention. Insert a link inside the page text. Or highlight a context-appropriate subscription reason (discount on your next purchase on a sales page).

Of course if you create different subscription boxes and rotate them on the site, they will, after a while, show which one has given the largest number of subscriptions.

Direct the eye to your subscription form

Bryan Eisenberg, the author of the optimization book Always Be Testing, knows what a converting sign-up box should look like. And as a conversion specialist he knows the power of email marketing. (thank god!). So his own site is designed to get the visitors converted into subscribers. Can you tell which trick(s) and techniques he uses with his sign up?

Another great example of “the power of looking at your form” can be found in the Obama email campaign where they used it on almost all of his opt-in pages.

Make it stand out – use a non-regular format

You might say that the web is ruled by conventions. We expect the website navigation to be at the top or left, we expect clicking on the logo to bring you to the home page. We expect a lot of things.

Same goes for subscription forms and boxes. By that definition, you wouldn’t want to get too creative with the way your forms work. But in grabbing attention, unconventional or custom formats can work perfectly. Yoast does a good job by adding his signature cartoon to the subscription box. I myself, do a terrible job on my site.

Quality content matters

That brings me to the last point, if you are offering mhèh content, it will make it a lot harder for you to gain new subscribers. If people know you or your company has something interesting to say, they will be eager to sign up. I have seen large sites spend a lot on SEA to get new people to their site and then lose them because of…. well… they didn’t pay attention to content quality, that isn’t just the way to lose your current signups but it will also make it harder to get new ones in!

So, are you making your sign-up forms pop?

Make Your Sign-up Form Pop! is a post from: Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse

The post Make Your Sign-up Form Pop! appeared first on Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse.

GetResponse and AdRoll present: Roller Disco ad:tech SF

Hanna Andrzejewska — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 14:42:46 +0000

The GetResponse team is quite busy preparing for the coming ad:tech San Francisco. This year, apart from our booth in the expo hall, you can meet us at an ad:tech afterparty – the Roller Disco Party. Exclusively for ad:tech attendees.

Ad:tech is coming soon: Apr 9-10. As usual it takes place at Moscone Center West, and as usual GetResponse will be there at booth 2638, ready to answer all your questions about email marketing, demo our latest features or simply have a chat about coming e-marketing trends and innovations.

If you’re interested in all things digital — especially the potential of the newest online marketing technologies — ad:tech is the place to be, as the largest digital industry marketplace.

And there’s still time to register — simply follow this link.

Time to party

Once you register for ad:tech, be sure to visit the GetResponse booth and collect your free invite for the Roller Party, exclusively for ad:tech attendees.

This year we’ve teamed up with AdRoll, the top retargeting platform, to throw the best ad:tech afterparty — Roller Disco — the place to party, once the expo hall lights are down.

Join us for a night of roller skating, snacks and networking in the friendly and relaxed atmosphere of Mezzanine — SF’s no. 1 party venue.

Get your free invite at the GetResponse ad:tech booth, or click here to register.

Details

Ad:tech SF 2013, Apr 9-10, Moscone Center West, 747 Howard St, San Francisco, CA 94103

Roller Disco Party, Apr 9, 7PM-12AM, Mezzanine, 444 Jesse St, SF

GetResponse and AdRoll present: Roller Disco ad:tech SF is a post from: Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse

Countdown to ad:tech San Francisco 2012

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Customer Spotlight: Building a Brand That Matters

Karolina Kurcwald — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 11:37:10 +0000

Today we are pointing the spotlight in the direction of Dewane Mutunga, a New Yorker, brand strategist and founder/CEO of Connected Experiential Marketing LLC. In an interview with GetResponse Dewane tells us how he uses email marketing to help other businesses find effective ways they can build and manage their brands using… email marketing.

Can you tell us a little about your business and your experience using email marketing?

I’m a brand strategist, consulting with businesses on ways to effectively build and manage brand equity. My focus revolves primarily around email marketing, social media, and experiential marketing efforts like live events and sampling campaigns.

Email marketing is my core lead nurturing and customer retention tool. It’s the virtual glue that makes everything stick together.

Why is email so important to your business as a marketing channel?

Email is a great marketing channel for several reasons, for starters it’s the biggest social network. Research shows that there are approximately 3 billion email accounts in the world. That’s more than all the major social networks combined. My point, it’s the Internet’s standard means of communication.

Aside from that, the main reason I focus on email is because it allows me to scale the relationship building process like no other channel does.

Tell us about the success you’ve experienced as a result of using GetResponse.

Investing in GetResponse has been one of the best things to happen to my business. There are some unique features that have allowed me to manage campaigns and grow my email list by over 100 percent, while saving unthinkable amounts of time putting campaigns together.

What is the biggest mistake people make in email marketing and how can it be avoided?

Trying to follow all the “rules.” The gift and the curse of email marketing is that the are so many different things to test, tweak, and adhere to.

We marketers need to understand that our audience is our audience. If you want to know what works best and what doesn’t, test and make adjustments from there.

If you could give one email marketing tip to others, what would it be?

“One email, One message”. It should be painfully obvious what you want people to do. The more options you give, the less action they’ll take.

What is your biggest email marketing challenge this year?

The biggest challenge is always creating the most relevant and cohesive experience possible. Making sure that your email marketing works in part with your other marketing efforts to create a consistent message to your consumer.

If you’d like to be included in our Customer Spotlight series, let us know!

Customer Spotlight: Building a Brand That Matters is a post from: Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse

The post Customer Spotlight: Building a Brand That Matters appeared first on Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse.

5 Important Spots to Place Your Opt-In Forms

Kristi Hines — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 15:36:38 +0000

Are you ready to increase your business’s mailing list? If so, you need to place your opt-in forms in the places that will be most noticed by visitors to your website. And you don’t want to place them just anywhere – you want to place them in the spots where visitors will be most likely to want to sign up. The following are five places you can incorporate an opt-in form for your mailing list and the benefits of each.

Landing Pages

For starters, you will want a page on your website dedicated to grabbing email sign ups. This is a page where you tell visitors why they should subscribe to your mailing list.

In this example of a landing page created by Unbounce, you get a page dedicated to people who are ready to buy a home. There is one goal to this page – getting someone to submit his or her email address. The page tells you who should sign up (prospective home buyers) and why (because they want a new home on-time, on-budget, and in 99 days). In exchange for this goal completion, the company is offering a free guide.

The benefit of having a landing page devoted to your email list is that you can refer to it anywhere to help build your mailing list. For example, you can use it as the target link for paid advertising on social networks and search. You can also include it in:

your email signature,
author bio on sites you contribute content to,
forum signatures,
social profiles,
or anywhere else you have an online presence.

If you offer free content like they do in the example, you will increase your number of sign ups drastically. Instead of just asking people to come and sign up for your mailing list, you can market it by saying “Download your free guide to ____ today!”

Free Download Pages

Speaking of free downloads, if you are offering any free content for visitors to download – ebooks, whitepapers, in-depth reports, video tutorials, etc. – then you should have your visitors subscribe to your mailing list in order to receive it.

Most people will happily enter their information in exchange for something they perceive as free valuable content. Best of all, you can use different types of free content to gauge what your subscribers most likely want.

For example, a digital marketing agency can create free ebooks on social media, search optimization, blogging, and other online marketing strategies. Then they can segment their subscribers based on the free content they signed up for and target their promotions accordingly.

Sidebars

If your business has a blog, and your blog design includes a sidebar, then this is the perfect place for another opt-in form. Blog content tends to drive organic search traffic, which turns each of your blog posts into a landing page for your website. As such, you’ll want to optimize each piece of content with your opt-in.

Since visitors coming to your blog are there for content, your best bet is to entice them to sign up for your latest content. This way, each time you publish a new piece of amazing content that your subscribers would enjoy, you can send them an email with that piece of content or a digest of your latest content along with a mention of your current promotion.

Alternatively, if you want to keep mailing list subscribers from your blog content focused only, you can send them blog post links that have strong calls to action within them and updates on other content offerings such as free downloads, webinars, etc.

At the End of Blog Posts

Another great area to convert visitors into subscribers is at the end of your blog content. Once someone has finished reading a great post, they are likely to want to keep up with your upcoming blog updates. Don’t miss out on capturing them when they are most interested!

Headers & Footers

Last, but not least, get signups throughout your website by including a simple opt-in form in your website’s header and footer. This way you catch people where they are most likely to look – in the places where they can discover what content you have on your website.

These are great spots to capture someone’s email list when they are in a hurry and don’t have time to otherwise deep dive into your content. Just be sure to give them a good reason to enter their address and you are set!

While the header may not give you a ton of room to convince people to subscribe, the footer should give you plenty to promote free downloads and discuss the benefits of joining your mailing list.

What other areas do you place your mailing list opt-in form in order to increase signups? Please share in the comments!

Kristi Hines is a freelance blogger, ghostwriter, and social media enthusiast. Follow her on Facebook and Google+.

5 Important Spots to Place Your Opt-In Forms is a post from: Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse

The post 5 Important Spots to Place Your Opt-In Forms appeared first on Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse.

Email Marketing Tips - Blog GetResponse

Top 5 Mistakes Bloggers Make With Their Email Marketing Campaign

Mistake #1 – Only sending emails when you’re trying to sell something

Mistake #2 – Not being consistent with your emails

Mistake #3 – Spamming (the big no-no)

Mistake #4 – Not relating to the needs of your subscribers

Mistake #5 – Not proofreading your email content

Author Bio

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