Five Strategies to Generate Leads Through Mobile Marketing

THE influence of internet in our everyday lives is undeniable, but the role of mobile devices is just as impressive, having in mind the fact that the study shows the mobile has urged 70% of US-based companies to transform their business and user experience.

Hence the rise of mobile marketing, as a branch of marketing focused on promotion and customer acquisition through mobile devices. Mobile marketing requires creating seamless user experience by optimizing your website and thinking about responsive design, and this has become one of the most important tasks companies have to focus on.

As a company representative, you are already aware of how leveraging your presence online is important, but here are some strategies to help you generate leads through mobile marketing.

Simple call-to-actions

When creating call-to-actions (CTAs) you should have in mind that mobile devices will load the page differently, and this will affect user experience. Instead of going overboard with the design and creating content-rich landing pages, try to keep it simple. Simpler design of the landing page on a mobile device has proven to be more effective, as the screen itself is much smaller than a computer screen. Therefore, provide the necessary information only, and pay attention to the CTA button. Make sure it is large enough for users to tap on, and make sure the text on the button is not too long, as otherwise, the users might have difficulties reading it.

Optimized content for mobile devices

When thinking about mobile optimization, you should start by analyzing the behavior of mobile users. The users reach for their mobile device when they need specific information, and they need the answer fast. Regardless if they are waiting for a bus or at the dentists’, the users usually have a couple of minutes to find the information they need. It is also known that mobile users are very impatient, which means that they will wait a couple of seconds for a page to load before they quit the page. Finally, most mobile users will not bother themselves going through the entire content on the page, rather they would only scan the text in order to find the information they need.

This pattern in user behavior helps you determine what optimized content for mobile devices means – it is simple, fast, and it provides useful information. Make sure the page is not heavily populated with content, banners, and other possible distractions, as users will prefer simpler design. Use headings, highlight the key points of the text and make sure your content is easy to digest. All of this, compiled with fast and responsive page creates positive user experience and helps you generate leads.

Clickable phone number

As opposed to PC consumers, mobile users are likely to take action. For example, if a user is searching for the best coffee in town on the mobile device, this usually means that the person is planning to have coffee in the next hour or two. The same goes for other brands or industries, users need information about a product or service quickly, as they are going to take action.

This is the reason why you should make your phone number clickable. When the user visits your website and finds the information he needs, you should make it easier for him to reach you by allowing him to tap on the phone number and instantly call you. Otherwise, the user will have to copy and paste the phone number, or even memorize it in order to be able to dial it. This takes much more time and effort, and time is something which most mobile users are not willing to waste. User being ready to get in touch with you is the user who is most likely to become your customer, which is why you should consider this as a great opportunity to generate a lead.

Progressive profiling

Progressive profiling is a technique used with form filling, where the system gradually collects information and learns about user preferences. This means that you can keep your forms short, as you avoid repeating the questions. Even though you might be tempted to learn as much about the consumer through all sorts of questions, it is known for a fact that the shorter forms have much better conversion rate. Using this type of forms, you can add a couple of new questions each time, as the system already gathers the data from the previously filled in form.

In the same time, learning more about the user preferences helps you deliver more personalized experience and thus provide relevant content, which is more likely to convert and help with lead generation.

Coupons and discounts

Coupons are a well-known strategy in lead generation, and expansion to the mobile market has simply transferred the platform through which the coupons are redeemed. Businesses have been very creative with strategies to use mobile devices to promote their business and generate leads. Some of them offer coupon codes or loyalty discounts, while other businesses give away something in return for a check-in, like, or review on social media. Therefore, a diner might be offering a free milkshake for the users who check in using Foursquare, as they know this will help with boosting the exposure on this social network. Mobile users have a habit of browsing the social networks for recommendations, suggestions and information about the places they wish to visit. Business can leverage this opportunity and offer bonuses, gifts or discounts for those users who post reviews or ratings on social media. User reviews are known to be much more effective than ads.

Coupons and discounts are always a win-win strategy for both parties. Consumers get more value for their investment, while companies drive different actions on social media spreading the reach and brand awareness while at the same time making their products more fun and approachable.

In the end, it all comes down to understanding your business, its demands and opportunities, because this is what helps you choose and apply strategies that will benefit your company the most.

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12 Tips for Christmas Email Marketing Campaigns

 Christmas is well and truly just around the corner. Take a look at our 12 Christmas email marketing top tips to help you build and send fetching, festive email campaigns.

Analyse

Take the time to view and analyse past email marketing campaigns to see what worked well and what didn’t. Once you have acquired this knowledge you can plan your future festive campaigns to give them the best chance of getting good engagement rates.

Research

Spend a bit of time researching what’s hot and what’s not in your industry and check out the competition to see what they have up their sleeves. Try and incorporate these trends into your email marketing to show that you are also on trend.

Set A Goal

Whether it’s to get 20% more opens or 30 more clicks than last year, it’s good to set a goal as it gives you something to work towards. This way you can also aim towards improving results and statistics which always goes down well!

Plan

The old saying ‘failing to plan is planning to fail’ is something to abide by here. Without having a plan of action for your email marketing it’s bound to not do as well as it could. Take a bit of time to sit down and think about individual emails and overall email campaigns. Look out for key dates and content that can be included to target specific audience members.

Punchy Subject Lines

As potentially the most important part of an email, your subject line needs to be powerful and punchy to encourage the recipient to read on. The best subject lines create excitement, urgency and curiosity. This can be done using personalisation or even emojis! Just be sure to keep them short and snappy.

Engaging Content

Probably one of the most important elements of an email – the content. Create engaging content by including clear images, gifs and easy to ready text.

Mobile Optimised

The festive period is a busy time, people are out and about on the move so you want to be able to target them whenever and wherever they are. Do this by ensuring your emails are optimised for mobile. Up to 75% of emails are opened on mobiles or tablets so it’s crucial that you make them compatible with mobile viewing!

Clear CTA’s

Call to actions are essential, they catch the readers eye and give them direction/instruction. Whether this be ‘BUY NOW’, ‘SEE MORE’ or ‘SHOP’ make sure they are direct enough to encourage recipients to click through to your website.

Test

Before any campaign is sent it’s imperative to carry out the necessary tests and checks. This includes making sure your email looks correct across multiple platforms, any spelling mistakes, images load properly, link errors, plus split and multivariate testing. For peace of mind, it’s always handy to have someone else take a glance as a fresh pair of eyes may notice things you haven’t spotted!

Dynamic Content

Some of your subscribers will be previous customers and you will have details of their last purchases. Use this to your advantage and tailor emails using dynamic content to include products relevant to recipients. This way you will have a much better chance of engaging them and potentially making another purchase.

Automation

Automation is crucial for email marketing these days. It allows you to set up multiple workflows for customer journeys including welcome programmes, nurture programmes, basket abandonment programmes, loyalty scheme programmes and many more!
Find out more about our visual marketing automation system, Maxautomation.

Review

Once an email campaign has been sent don’t just forget about it! Use this time to review and analyse how the campaign did. Without tracking and analysing results how will you know if they have been a success or not? Take the time after each campaign to look at delivery rates, open rates, click through rates and conversion rates.



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17 Things to Know About Working with a Content Writer That Could Save You Thousands

It’s truly important for you to understand how web content plays a pivotal role in driving traffic to your business website. More traffic means more business for you regardless of whether you choose to write it on your own or hire a professional writer. 

Content writers need to commit on a full-time basis, especially when they contribute towards content marketing. Content writers are in a position to create blogs on various niches whenever the need be. But you won’t find it easy when you’re into another field.

How the professional content writers can help you stick to your budget:

1. Publish content every day: Content needs to be published every day, and here lies your biggest challenge as a blogger. It creates a solid foundation for your marketing strategy. By hiring a professional writer, you’re assuring yourself of a reliable source of engaging, attractive and authentic content regularly.
2. Achieve great content regularly: It doesn’t need any special mention. A professional service has yields quality content and that too without any mistake and typos.
3. Get improved search engine rankings: A professional content writer will always be able to provide you with content based on the specific keywords chosen by you. This is quite crucial for your business. A content writer should be able to focus on the business needs, which helps in making your products and services more appealing to your prospects. This way, he ends up saving much in terms of your promotional cost. Even when your keywords rank well in search engines, then can’t convert prospects unless the message is vivid and appropriate.
4. Avail more accountability: A professional writer places the right words whenever he gets an opportunity. You save much of your hard-earned money by hiring them as they project more accountability. Eventually, they turn out to be more convincing to your audience.
5. Update site content every day: In order to keep your content appropriate and fresh, you must continue to update t on your site. A content writer saves much of your research cost by studying the changes within the industry and sharing them on your site. A unique and natural presentation will always ensure a huge influx of traffic.
6. Share fresh concepts and ideas: It’s truly challenging to come up with fresh ideas o a regular basis. You may be wondering what to write on or how to begin with, but your writer is aware of all potential resources that get updated regularly. Your website or blog viewers won’t ever experience a lack of information as they develop this habit of visiting your platform frequently.
7. Measure your writing necessities: Your writing necessities are bound to increase when your business expands. Your demands are most likely to be met by a content writer. Content publishing doesn’t seem to be so expensive nowadays, and content writers deserve much credit for this. All you need to do is to share your requirements with the writer in advance.
8. Save more money: Hiring a professional content writer won’t compel you to invest much towards maintaining an in-house team. All you need to pay for is the piece of content for which you place an order. You’ll neither need to occupy a certain office space for this purpose nor would you have to invest on furniture and electricity. You’ll pay your writer only after the content gets delivered to you.
9. Turn the brand easily recognizable: In order to gain more business from your target audience, you’ll need to gain much of their trust. This way, they’re likely to get more familiar with your brand. People tend to remember your content once they become aware of your presence. They will find it easier to come across your services once you publish authoritative content. A professional content writer is naturally equipped to provide you with authoritative content worth great quality.
10. Develop a uniform content stream: Reliability is certainly an important factor that determines the true impact of your content-marketing campaign. Even the smallest of gaps might push you in the wrong direction.
11. Explore most promotional channels within your reach: Your content writer will provide you the opportunity to check out the true potential of all social media platforms for sharing content about your products and services. Alongside driving more traffic to your business blog or website, it will develop brand value across all popular channels like Blogger, LinkedIn, Guest Posting, Twitter, and Facebook.
12. Engage the right audience on social networking websites: It keeps your audience engaged when you continue to post authoritative content about your business across various social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. Content that comes from your own business blog or website is of more value to your viewers. They will get an opportunity to interact with you directly by asking questions and sharing their views. That’s why it’s important to hire a content writer who’ll do the needful.
13. Popularize your brand in reputable websites: A good piece of content that’s submitted with a reputable website will help you fetch quality back-links. You won’t need to spend much time on your business website as your content is supposed to write natural content with hand-picked sites. With time your brand gets a much-deserved exposure within the target market.
14. Engage your viewers with your blog or website: A few article or blog posts aren’t enough to engage your viewer. People begin to reciprocate when fresh content get published on your blog or site regularly. The cycle continues as it draws more audience in the future.
15. Achieve better conversion rate: Your conversion rate is bound to increase when you start posting content that seems more compelling. It has nothing to do with your effectiveness in pulling visitors across social media sites or the performance of your site across major search engine. More compelling content yields a better rate of conversion for your site.
16. Achieve extra subscribers for emailing updates: Your website is bound to achieve more appropriate traffic when you create your own mailing list. You’ll find it easier to push viewers for subscribing to your mailing list. They are bound to visit your website more frequently when your website gets updated with valuable information on a regular basis. Under such circumstances they are more likely to subscribe to your mailing updates.
17. Broadcast email marketing programs regularly: Content that you write for your email marketing campaign tends to prove more important than that of your blog or website content. It even helps you in achieving more relevant audience. These viewers are likely to visit your website once they read through your email messages. They are even more likely to be converted after they relate to your messages. All of your email-marketing campaigns are bound to fetch more value through high-quality content.

Imagine the amount that you’re bound to save in terms of brand promotion and fast conversion by hiring a content writer. You can always invest it in some other channels that fetch quick returns for your business in the near future.

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15 Cheat Sheets Every Successful Digital Marketer Needs

It’s not easy being a digital marketer today. You need to know and do everything from content strategy to writing and editing, SEO, social media marketing, analytics and so much more.
So how do you stay on top of it all?
(I’ve developed my own cheat sheet for content marketing ROI – because that’s the biggest challenge I hear from marketers today.)
But here are 15 cheat sheets from some amazing sources that will make your life easier and help you get the results you want from your digital marketing efforts.

1. The Anatomy Of The Perfect Blog Post

How do you create the blog posts that will get your audience’s attention and stand out from the sea of content out there on the web? This infographic gives you the blueprint for writing a great blog post, everything from the headline to intro, main copy, visual elements and social sharing.

2. The Periodic Table of Content Marketing

This periodic table highlights the eight areas that are key to your content marketing success. You’ll find everything from content marketing goals to content formats, types, topics and metrics you need to track to deliver great content your customers will love.

3. The Web Developer’s SEO Cheat Sheet

For SEO newbies and experts, this cheat sheet from Moz includes all the SEO best practices you’ll want to know to keep your websites SEO and search-friendly, including HTML elements, social metadata, URL and hyperlinking tips.

4. Everything You Need To Be A Social Media Rock Star

This handy infographic shows you everything you need to know about image sizing for your social media profiles, keyboard shortcuts, best days and time of day to post on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube and Instagram, to help you get the most out of your social media marketing efforts.

5. The Ultimate Inbound Marketing Checklist

This eBook-like cheat sheet walks through all the key components of a successful inbound marketing campaign and how you can go about accomplishing each, everything from blogging to social media, lead generation, email marketing, marketing automation and analytics.

6. The Ultimate List Of Blog Post Ideas

Running out of topic ideas for your next blog? This comprehensive infographic shares over 50 content topics and types that will surely fire up your inspiration today and help you create quality, valuable content to keep your audience coming back for more.

7. A 50-Point Checklist For Creating The Ultimate Landing Page

Don’t think your landing pages are delivering the results you want to see? Here’s a checklist you can use to make sure you’re not missing any of the key 50 elements that will help you build a remarkable landing page that converts.

8. The Ultimate 101 List of Copywriting Awesomeness

Creating compelling content is no easy job. This cheat sheet covers 101 writing do’s and don’ts to help you write great content that engages and converts.

9. Content Distribution Strategies For Blogs Of All Sizes

Creating valuable content is only half the battle. If you can’t get your content in front of your target audience, you’re not going to get the traffic and conversions you’d like to see from your blogging efforts. This checklist from Buffer shares 11 effective strategies they’ve learned from content promotion experts to help you get your content out there and make sure it is seen by as many of your target customers as possible.

10. The Ideal Length Of Everything Online

Wondering what the optimal length is for your social media and web content? SumAll and Buffer pulled together this amazing infographic that summarizes the ideal length for your tweets, Facebook and Google+ posts and more.

11. The Ultimate SEO Checklist

This infographic from SEO & Digital Marketing agency LeapFroggr is a must-have for any digital marketer’s toolbox. It includes practical SEO tips and best practices you can implement, everything from market and competitor research to on-page and off-page SEO, to ensure your great content and websites are getting searched and seen by your target audience.

12. A Complete Conversion Rate Optimization Checklist

How do you make sure your web pages are attracting and converting your target audience? Here’s a helpful checklist that walks you through the 6 essential steps to successful conversion rate optimization, so your target visitors are taking the action you want them to take.

13. Google Analytics Metrics and Dimensions Cheat Sheet

If you’re new to Google Analytics or need a refresher, here’s a great cheat sheet that provides a comprehensive overview of all the Google Analytics metrics and dimensions you’ll want to be tracking to measure and improve the ways customers engage and interact with your website.

14. SEO Best Practices For Blog Posts

Totally new to SEO but want to optimize your blogs for SEO and search ranking right away? This infographic offers six important SEO best practices you can implement today, with a checklist you can hang to your wall as a quick reference for future blog posts you’re creating.

15. The Ultimate Google Algorithm Cheat Sheet

With Google constantly updating their algorithms, it’s hard to stay up-to-date with it all. This comprehensive article from Neil Patel helps you understand some of the key ranking factors that will impact your website ranking in search results.

What other cheat sheets and resources do you use to improve your digital marketing efforts? Please share your ideas below!

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12 Places For Your Email Opt In (besides your sidebar)

As you may already know if you’ve hung around ConvertKit for a while, we get a little excited about nerdy cool ways to increase opportunities to build your email list. And while overall audience numbers continue to grow thanks to followers, likes, retweets, and favorites, building a solid email list remains the number one way to lay a strong foundation for your business.

It’s often said that the average blog conversion rate is 1.5-3% (meaning 1.5-3% of the people who visit your website become subscribers to your email list). Depressing? Maybe not if you have 35,000+ page views each month. But what if you have 6,000? Or 1,000? Or 500? That percentage starts to look like smaller and smaller numbers on the conversion side and that fact alone can keep any blogger up at night.

We like you to get your sleep (you need it since you’re running a badass business) so let’s pump that average conversion rate up a bit, shall we? Here’s a fun fact: ConvertKit users consistently see high conversion rates (with landing pages converting at 10%-40%!). How is that possible? 2 things:

• Their forms are clean, easy to use, and look really pretty (here, a little vanity is okay)
• They use a variety of forms in unique, inventive ways

It’s fairly common knowledge that sidebar opt ins convert really well. If you’re looking for a place to start with your opt in form, start there. Ideally, you’re building out a strong foundation for your email list with multiple opt in box locations. (Some real quick math: more locations + more eyes on your opt in = more conversions) Not sure where else to look? Try one of these options:

After blog posts

Think about your favorite blog posts. You’re reading and scrolling and reading more. You’re having ah-ha moments and high-fiving the screen. You get to the end of the post and you want more. So you hit up the comments section and maybe tap the share button on your favorite social network, but really you wish you could do more. So off you go looking for an opt in box so you can get on their email list and never miss a thing.

Now imagine your readers on your own site. They have that same love and excitement at the end of one of your posts. You have a captive audience and, since you’re a smart cookie, you offer them an opportunity to opt in to your email list right then and there. They’re stoked! No need to scroll and click around looking for that opt in box since you’re providing one right there. How nice of you!

Look at how ConvertKit user Nina Hendrick makes it happen on her blog below.

With content upgrades

Nathan wrote about this one a few months ago and it bears repeating. If you haven’t yet tried content upgrades at the end of your blog posts, you could be missing out on some crucial moments to engage with your audience.

Remember that super-excited-ready-to-take-action reader from above? Imagine you’re now offering the downloadable checklist of the exact steps you’ve just outlined in your post. Or a printable recipe for the cake you’ve just described. Or the templates for the note-taking system you’ve laid out. Those, my friend, are content upgrades and they are the incredibly valuable little add-ons your readers have been searching for. Asking for their email address in return is more than reasonable.

Bonus points here: content upgrade subscribers are often the most engaged subscribers on your list. Get them into the right email sequence after they sign up and you could find yourself in touch with some of the most powerful consumers of your products and services.

At checkout in your shop

When your customers checkout from the product side of your business, you typically grab their email address to send them a receipt. ConvertKit integrates with WooCommerce to allow for a checkbox so your purchasers can choose to get your newsletter. You could also automatically add them to your email list like Kim Sorgius is up to over at NotConsumed.com.

In a homepage feature box

The homepage falls into one of the top 5 pages visited on a website, especially by new visitors. Using a feature box on your homepage directs those new visitors to join your email list.

A clear call to action in a well designed feature box can have a big impact on your business. The call to action may or may not include an opt-in freebie (like Barron Cuadro’s Lean Wardrobe eGuide shown below).

On a custom landing page

A custom landing page is useful for so many reasons. Your reader is focused on the single task of signing up to your list without distractions, they are already highly engaged to be on that page in the first place, and they’re just so clean and user-friendly! We find them so useful, in fact, that we make it possible to build landing pages right inside your ConvertKit account. You can host them with us or on your own WordPress website (via our plugin) or even with one of our integrated products like LeadPages.

We have one our customer success team is pretty proud of:

In your website footer

Scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll…. hello footer. Don’t let your footer be an afterthought with a few social buttons and a copyright disclaimer. Our eyes and brains naturally come to rest when we scroll to the bottom of a page so take advantage of that brief moment of pause and invite your scroller, er, reader to subscribe to your email list.

It’s a little-used bit of virtual real estate but one with a big impact. See how Patt Flynn makes use of his footer below.

On your Facebook page

Think Facebook Pages are dead since the algorithm changed earlier this year? Think again. Facebook Pages are alive and well. The reach might not be the same as it used to be, but your readers, fans, and followers still find themselves on your Facebook Page from time to time and you can use that to your advantage.

If you don’t already have a call-to-action button enabled, go get one now. When your fans click that handy button at the top of your page (seen below on Claire Pelletreau’s Facebook Page) they are directed to a page of your choosing (might we suggest a ConvertKit landing page?) to get themselves added to your email list.

Facebook is one of the most powerful social media platforms. Are you making the most of it?

….which leads to….

As a Twitter card

Twitter cards are one of our favorite secret weapons here at ConvertKit. They’re simple to add right from any form in your account and they can have major impact.

A Twitter card is a one-click sign up option inside of Twitter. Offering a free course or e-book? Invite your Twitter followers to get involved by clicking the button and signing up to your email list without ever leaving Twitter. Paul Jarvis always has a Twitter card pinned to his page and his list grows every single day. Coincidence? We think not.

On your contact page

If there is a page on your website where a visitor is more primed to be in touch with you than your contact page, please show it to us. Seriously, nothing says “I want to hear from you!” than a click on over to your contact page.

Make it easy for your visitors to continue to get your emails by adding a checkbox to your contact form (like Mike Vardy does on Productivityist shown below) or add a full opt in form on that same page. You could even take it up a notch and add that opt in form to the thank you page that your viewers hit once they’ve completed the contact form. Have fun with this one. After all, they’ve expressed they want to be in touch with you so the fun had already begun!

In a popup box

For better or for worse, pop up boxes convert. In fact, depending on your settings, pop up boxes can triple or even quadruple your conversion rates.

Pop up boxes certainly get a bad rap, though. In fact, most people hate them. Why? They are notorious for showing up the second you land on a site, reappearing every time you navigate to the same page (even after you’ve already subscribed), and then there are the pop ups you can’t X out of. Terrible.

We take a friendlier approach to pop ups at ConvertKit. With our optimized pop ups, you can choose if you want to have it show after a set period of time (like Abby Lawson does with her pop up shown below), once the reader has scrolled a particular percentage down the page, or if you’d prefer to wait until they show intent to leave the site. You can also keep the pop up from showing to the same visitor every time they land on your site. These nicer approaches to pop ups make them even easier to implement on your site and test the conversions out for yourself.

On a slider

So if pop ups are the brassy and bold playground bully of conversions, sliders are definitely the much more polite kid who wants everyone to play nicely together and maybe share some Oreos after recess.

With a slide-in opt in box, otherwise referred to as a “slider”, you’re able to trigger an opt in box to appear at a set time period and in a discreet location. ConvertKit has the ability to add sliders to your opt in game plan and you get many of the same features of a pop up (scroll percentage, time spent on the page) without the abrupt nature of a standard pop up.

Take a look at how ConvertKit user Dennis Field utilizes this technique on his blog below.

On your YouTube channel

YouTube is the biggest video platform out there, and it’s one of the least-common places bloggers think of to grow their email list. Subscribers? Sure! Email list? Hmmmmm. Now’s the time to turn those YouTube Subscribers into Email List Mega-fans. If YouTube is how you reach your audience, make use of that channel to get people onto your email list.

Amy Schmittauer runs Savvy Sexy Social on YouTube and invites her 37,000+ YouTube Subscribers to join her email list by making use of YouTube cards and custom landing pages. When you watch her videos and click on a card at the end, you’re directed to a brief landing page that collects your email address in order to get the free gift she offers on the video. She also has one of these handy subscribe buttons on her main YouTube page for any visitors who are subscribed to her channel. Now that’s savvy.

….which leads to this landing page….

On your about page

Your About Page also hits that “Top 5 Most Visited Pages” list on your website, so adding a call to action on a page with tons of eyeballs on it is a smart move. As your readers get to know you better, their mind starts to wander to how you can help them, what they can get from you, and maybe that cat video they meant to watch earlier. Keep them on your site and away from cat videos with an email opt in right on your About page.

Putting this particular call to action in the middle of your story, like Krista Stryker does below, or at the bottom of the page. Or go crazy and throw it on the top of the page as a welcome mat. No matter where you place it, having an opt in box on your About page increases email signups and maximizes your conversions.

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While there are probably at least 5 other places you can add your email opt in for maximum conversions, this list ought to get you off to a good start. How many of these tactics are you implementing already? Which one (or two) will you add to your game plan? Let’s hash it out in the comments below and increase email opt in conversions around the world this week.

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Five Metrics to Analyze in Email Marketing

ONE of the main worries that businesses who are trying to reach customers through email marketing have is whether the message is going to reach the customer at all. We all receive numerous emails on daily basis, and it’s often impossible to really go through each and every one of them, which is why a certain percentage of email messages is never opened.

In order to fully understand the process of email marketing and analyze its success in terms of goals achievement, every business should analyze the following metrics:

Click-through rate (CTR)

Majority of marketers state that this is the most important metric to analyze in email marketing. It represents the number of people who clicked on one or more links in your email. Using this metric you are able to analyze the performance of your campaign, as you can see the number of people who have been encouraged to take action, in this case clicking on one of the links. As a result, you can analyze the success of your message, as low click-through rate is surely an indicator that your message doesn’t get response you were hoping for.

Click-through rate is also important as a way to get email recipients to visit your website. As you grow your business, your email database will expand. You can be sure that among email recipients from your database, there are those who haven’t visited your website in a while, and email marketing is a great tool to encourage them to go back. More clicks means that more people are interested in your brand, your offer and your content that is shared through email marketing, so this is one of the metrics to pay attention to if you want to improve the performance of email marketing strategy.

Conversion rate

Another very important metric for email marketing analysis is conversion rate. Unlike click-through rate, which focuses on the number of clicks, conversion rate is a metric that tracks the number of users who clicked on the link in the email and then completed an action, which is considered a conversion. A conversion can be any action that a business owner deems valuable, such as generation of a lead, filling in a form, completing a survey, claiming a coupon, making a sale, etc. A conversion is actually a goal you set up in your email marketing strategy.

The percentage of conversion rate indicates the percentage of people your email marketing campaign has managed to encourage to perform a certain action, which is why this is a great indicator of whether the email marketing strategy is good or not. Ultimately, this metric helps you determine if, and to which extent you have managed to achieve your goals. As such, this metric is an important element of the process of evaluating the overall performance of your marketing strategy.

Email sharing rate

Implementation of analytics into email marketing helps you find out the rate at which your emails are shared (or forwarded), which is a very useful metric to have in mind, as it basically shows if the users consider your emails relevant and worth sharing/forwarding.

Valuable and high quality content is one of the basic pillars of internet marketing nowadays, and email sharing rate is an indicator of the content quality in emails that you share with your customers or potential customers through the email marketing campaigns. High email sharing rate is certainly an indicator that the content you send through emails is relevant and informative for the recipients, which is why they consider sharing with their email contacts, resulting in increasing the online influence of your brand. This metric also helps with figuring out which type of content is the most shareable, valuable information that helps you improve your content strategy.

Bounce rate

Bounce rate represents the percentage of emails that have never been delivered to the end users. Unlike previous metrics, which help with monitoring success of your campaign and the extent of goal achievement, this metric is important for a different reason.

Internet service providers take into consideration bounce rate as one of the factors to determine the reputation of the sender. This means that if the providers detect that you have a bounce rate that is too high, your emails might get marked as spam. Subsequently this has a negative effect on the email deliverability in the future, as your future emails might automatically be marked as spam, in which case they will completely skip the user’s inbox, ending up in spam instead. In order to avoid this, make sure that you monitor this metric and remove all the addresses that have bounced from your email list. Ultimately, this will help you with email deliverability in the future email marketing campaigns.

ROI

Overall return on investment (ROI) is the indicator of the successfulness of the email marketing campaign. As with every business strategy, email marketing requires an investment, having in mind a number of costs that come your way. However, email marketing is also a great strategy to generate revenue, hence making it profitable for your business despite the expenses.

In order to analyze the return on investment, you should divide the total revenue with the total expenses associated with email marketing. The estimates will assist with determining whether to invest more in email marketing, or perhaps you need to focus your efforts on a different strategy.

Finally, email marketing monitoring is essential due to the fact that you’ll be able to access the performance of your email marketing, as well as of any other strategies, such as content promotion, paid advertising etc. Constantly monitoring the metrics results in you being able to adjust and improve the strategy used in email marketing, with the purpose of maximizing the goals success rate. Email marketing doesn’t work as a standalone strategy, and you need to coordinate your goals and your plans with other segments of the company, in order to achieve higher goals and increase sales through online promotion.

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