What are you building to serve your audience? What products or services are on your horizon? What ideas are you ready to make a reality?
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ConvertKit’s 30 Day Landing Page Challenge
ConvertKit wants to celebrate your big dreams and help you kickstart your next idea with this month-long challenge geared around landing pages.
I love landing pages.
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In just 10 minutes you can have a fully designed and branded landing page live and ready to share with the world.
With that in mind, ConvertKit is hosting this challenge to help you get your next idea up and running with a landing page to gain as many new subscribers as you possibly can.
For one creator who can set up a landing page that grows their list by over 100 subscribers in one month, ConvertKit is giving away a grand prize of:
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There are also more great prizes for anyone who doesn’t quite reach that level too!
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The challenge starts on April 1st!
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I bet you didn’t think April was going to be this fun, right?
The makeup of an email newsletter can vary tremendously. Some businesses include entire articles in their emails, others send a list of headlines with a teaser paragraph and thumbnail and some just list out headlines.
What works best, in terms of engaging recipients and getting people to click? We asked Stephanie Miller, vice president of member relations at the Direct Marketing Association. As a digital marketing expert, she helps businesses connect with the people, resources, and ideas they need to optimize their response and revenue.
Her first message: there’s no magic bullet that solves this question. However, here are five strategies that will help you arrive at an email campaign that works for best your audience.
Think about your users
It may seem counterintuitive, but putting an entire article in a newsletter can create a better experience for your readers. They can open your email on their computer or mobile device, read your content and then delete or forward it when they’re done. Most businesses want to strike a balance between the user experience and the needs of the business. “It can be a really good experience but, of course, you don’t have any clicks to be sure that they’re reading anything,” Miller says.
Listing a series of articles and links instead of entire posts seems like a solution, but it’s not always the user-friendly option. “You risk people skimming and not clicking on more than one article or not clicking on any articles because they’re on their device and maybe it’s just kind of clunky. Then they miss the content,” says Miller.
Sending too much content can also be stressful for some audiences, especially if they’re busy and don’t have time to read everything.
Explains Miller: “You really have to think about the experience and think about, ‘Is my objective to get the content and create a good experience that’s content-driven, or is my goal to drive them to a website?'”
Test everything
The best layout for your specific email newsletter depends on your audience, and the best way to determine an ideal format for yours is to test several options. “You don’t know what’s going to work best, so you test it,” says Miller. “You can certainly gather ideas and try some best practices, but you never know for your particular audience what’s going to resonate.”
Tracking the rate at which recipients click on the links in your emails over time is one way to test how changes affect audience reaction. Running split tests—where half of your readers get one format and the rest get another—is another way. Talking to your readers, via surveys, on the phone during support calls or in person at events is also key: ask them whether or not they find value in what you’re sending them and why. Use that feedback to guide your decisions and modify your newsletter layout, if needed.
Be relevant and consistent
Email subscribers like to know what they’re getting. If a reader finds a subject line intriguing they expect to be able to find that content easily when they open your email. Make it difficult for them, or worse yet, create a misleading subject line, and you’ll leave readers frustrated or annoyed.
Smartly segmenting your list, or targeting specific groups in your list with highly relevant content, is another way to make sure the recipients of a particular message are interested in the content, which will boost the rate at which they click.
Make links visible
“You want to make sure that your content is visible with images turned off,” Miller points out. Making sure that you have links within the text of your email for your readers to click even if the images, such as a call-to-action button, don’t load is essential.
Have any advice of your own to add? Share away in the comments.
This post contributed by guest author, Yael Grauer. Grauer is a Minneapolis-based freelance writer and editor. Find her online at Yaelwrites.com.
Using email marketing is one of the most important aspects of growing your online business because it allows you to build a loyal list of customers who trust you. It offers you the opportunity to upsell your customers on products or services you are not promoting on your website.
In fact, email marketing is so powerful that it can quickly bring growth to your business if you do it well. When you build an email list, you will have an entire community that is different from those who converge on your website. It means that they have willingly opted-in to receive more information from you. You can endorse your products, recommend other products, and even sell them high-priced items.
Moreover, email marketing is a flexible and convenient way to grow your online business. However, before you start sharing anything with your subscribers, you have to do a test to determine how often you should market to your subscribers. You also have to test different kinds of email content to see which will convert well.
After reading this article, you should know what email marketing is all about and how to make use of it in growing your online business.
How to Setup Your Email Marketing Campaign
Step #1: Choose an Email Provider
The first step you need to take is to select an email provider. You can choose from several email providers with varying account features and fees. You may want to start with a free account to test things out first.
When you first get started, you will probably only have a small subscriber base; most start with less than a hundred subscribers. MailChimp is a popular provider that gives you the option to start with a free account. Once you grow your subscriber base past a certain threshold, you would have to upgrade to a paid account.
Another very popular email provider is Aweber. Aweber offers lots of features, and is very inexpensive which is helpful especially when you are just starting out. Aweber offers custom templates for a newsletter, automation of blog updates, creation of multiple lists, and other useful features. If you have fewer than 500 subscribers, you would start with an account fee of $19 a month for unlimited emails. Since Aweber also uses a sliding fee scale, the more subscribers you have, the more you pay.
Step #2: Setup Email Lists
In order to grow your business, you need to create an email list. Your blog readers can sign up for your email list on your blog to read more of your content or receive updates about things you don’t post on your blog. You need to focus on this list as it will be how you bring people into the foremost part of your sales funnel.
If you already have a client base, you should create a separate list for them. As clients, they will need more diverse content than new subscribers. Since you have already established a relationship with them, it will be much easier to offer them new products and services.
To make your email lists more successful it is important that you do not spam them with too much content. That is why we mentioned in the introduction that you should first determine how often you should market or send content to your list. Doing this properly will help you to retain your list members for a long time.
Now that you have a list in place, what are the things you can offer your subscribers?
You can offer your subscribers information such as tutorials, a guide, white paper, or a training course in a monthly newsletter. This is the sort of content your readers will be glad to have in exchange for their email addresses. You can use a collection of the posts on your blog to develop a tutorial or a training course or design a professional PDF file or a powerful PowerPoint presentation.
Another way is to hire a ghostwriter to write a white paper or a guide for you. Once you have this ready, you need to show your visitors how to get the guide or the training course by displaying it conspicuously on your website. You can do this by creating an opt-in form on your website.
Step #3: Creating Opt-in Forms on your Website
Now that you have learned how to create an email list and what to offer your subscribers when they join your list, you need a way to obtain their email addresses.
Depending on your email provider. there are different opt-in forms that you can create to obtain email addresses. Essentially, you should have at least one opt-in form on your website. The most popular is the sidebar opt-in form that goes in the right or left corner of your blog. Research shows that the right corner converts more than the left side so you might want to keep that in mind when selecting the placement of your opt-in form.
Another popular opt-in form placement is below every post on your website. This can be very effective because it can serve as a call to action. Your readers have just finished reading your post, and they can easily subscribe to see what else you have to offer or read more of your posts. This is where the guide or training course you have created earlier comes into play. Simply use a call to action such as “Subscribe to this blog and get free access to our guide/training course as well as exclusive information only available to subscribers.”
#4: Build a newsletter for your subscribers
While most of the content that goes on your website will automatically be available to your email subscribers, a newsletter takes things a step further by ensuring that your subscribers can have access to exclusive information only available to subscribers. However, you have to make this content unique and helpful.
If you want your customers to appreciate your content, make it a habit to send them the newsletter every month. Package it with lots of actionable, useful content—which you can easily come up. You will be providing value to your subscribers while growing your online business.
Conclusion
If you use email marketing right, you can easily build different income streams for your online business. This ultimately will give you more capital to expand and grow your business. Pay close attention to the steps above, take action, and be consistent in your email marketing campaign.
No matter how perfect an email you send, there will always be a small number of causalities (aka “unsubscribes”). As reported by MarketingProfs, the average unsubscribe rate is 0.25%. That may sound negligible, but if you have an email marketing list with 2,000 subscribers, that’s 6 potential customers lost!
Luckily, there are ways to minimize your loss, and one of the best ways to keep unsubscribes at a minimum is to use list segmentation. By targeting specific groups within your list, you can greatly improve the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns.
Why Segment?
Increase sales & engagement You probably wouldn’t sell San Francisco Giants T-shirts to your customers living in St. Louis (go Cards!). If you know your customers in one region have a preference for some products or services over others, you can target those groups with special offers for the things they most likely want. You may want to offer a special on air conditioners, for example, to a geographic area where temperatures are high on average. If you have a winery, send special emails to your Chardonnay lovers about your white wines. Or if you offer services, create a series of tips or how-tos for people currently using one of the services so they can get more out of it.
You can also segment your lists based on ‘engaged’ users who open and/or click your emails often. These users interact with your emails frequently and will give you an excellent understanding as to what content they desire or like the most via opens and clicks.
Reward customers Segmenting is a fantastic way to say, “Hey, thanks!” By offering special discounts to your repeat customers, you’re able to show appreciation and sell at the same time. You can also observe their buying behavior and offer them more of the products or services they buy the most while reducing the number of emails they receive about items they’ve shown no interest in.
Avoid being seen as spam When you email too frequently, your emails run the risk of being marked as spam by recipients. This can be avoided if you’ve managed their expectations at the time of sign up by letting them know how often they’ll receive email from you. When you segment, however, you also send fewer emails to the same list and curb some of this risk.
Tips for Better List Segmentation
Collect enough information to segment When your subscribers sign up for your email list, capture the information you’ll need to successfully segment your list. For example, if you want to segment by geographic area you’ll want to collect your recipients’ zip codes. If you want to target them by a preference, you’ll want to ask more specific questions. In our winery example, you’d want to know if recipients prefer red or white wines. Adding a question or two to your opt-in form will make segmenting your list much easier down the line. If you find that you haven’t been collecting the right info, you can always ask your readers to update their preferences.
Review purchase history You may have a monthly newsletter that goes to everyone and then more targeted emails that advertise specific products or services. Use segmentation to create lists of people in your database based on past activities such as purchase history or those who clicked a buy link in your email. Offering special promotions to your customers that you know already buy from you can lead to increased sales and help maintain a loyal following. Or, try creating segments based on where your customers are in the buying cycle. Have they just signed up for your service, but not made a purchase? Are they still in the “free trial” stage? Send emails to these specific audiences to either get them to use your service, help them through any other process they may need, or to eventually make a purchase.
Use your email reporting toolsYou may not have a lot of geographic information on your customers – but that’s okay! If you’re using VerticalResponse or a similar ESP, you can use the information you already have in your email reporting. Use your reporting to see who clicked certain links in your emails. For example, if you had a sale on candles in your last email, you could send a new, targeted email with a special offer for candles to the people who clicked that link.
Of course, you can do much more than that! Segmenting your email marketing lists is a lot easier than you may think. If you’re a VerticalResponse user and you want to know how to use our segmenting tools to create targeted mailing lists, read our text tutorial and/or watch our video, “Create Targeted Lists Using Segments.”
Segmenting your email marketing lists can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be, but every little effort helps in keeping your customers satisfied and your lists growing. Even if you run a small business, you can benefit from segmenting. We’d love to hear you segment your lists.
Before the rise of the Internet and everything mobile (now up to 56% of opens in September), the news used to take time. We’d have our coffee and read the paper page by page. And we knew exactly what to focus on: what was above the fold. That’s where the biggest stories broke each day. If you weren’t sure you wanted to buy the paper, what was above the fold would also serve to entice you to buy, since most newsstands displayed them like so:
Source: New York Times
Now, the news is instant and 24/7, sometimes in as few as 140 characters. Even though the sight of an actual newspaper may be foreign to many cellphone-happy millennials, the term “the fold” has stuck around. For email and web design alike, “above the fold,” is still used to indicate relative importance—and also acknowledges the shrinking attention spans of readers today.
For email marketers, the fold has been a longstanding concern, whether that’s trying to optimize emails to render correctly in Outlook’s preview pane or for newer preview functionality like that in Inbox by Gmail. Marketers know they only have a short amount of time to grab the reader, which made “the fold” a clear demarcating line.
Because of widespread belief that attention spans have shortened and that people don’t read, marketers became obsessed with cramming their important information and CTA above the fold. But scrolling is actually easier than clicking, and subscribers come to expect it. While you can still lead with your most important content, you no longer have to. We’re here to debunk once and for all the idea of “the fold” in email.
SAY GOODBYE TO THE FOLD, HELLO TO “THE SCROLL”
According to Alex Williams, VP & Creative Director at Trendline (and a speaker at Litmus Live in 2016), mobile also has a fold: it’s called the “scroll.”
What does this mean?
Above the scroll means that you have to entice your reader to scroll down—show them why they should read your email in its entirety—by providing compelling and memorable content up top. The goal is to set expectations that your content will be relevant and interesting all the way down the email, and to be memorable right away, thus initiating the scroll.
In the above example from one of my favorite daily newsletters, theSkimm, you can see they don’t lead with the most important piece of information (well, #Hiddleswift was kind of a big deal). Instead, they break each section of the email into sections, just like a newspaper.
SUBSCRIBERS THAT DIDN’T CLICK ON YOUR HERO IMAGE, BUT ARE STILL SCROLLING, ARE BIG OPPORTUNITIES. —ALEX WILLIAMS
Because the information is relevant and easy to understand, they’re counting on subscribers scrolling all the way to the bottom, rather than clicking on the first piece of content without reading anything else.
USE THE ENVELOPE TO TEASE YOUR CONTENT
Back in the days of print marketing, the envelope was key to that first step in subscriber engagement: the open. Known as the Johnson Box, this gave mail recipients a window into your mail offer. Designed to draw the reader’s attention to the key message, it also served as a way to entice readers to open the letter—just like the subject line and preheader text in email today.
Regardless of the type of email you’re sending, initiating a scroll starts as early as the envelope in your email’s subject line and preheader text. Experiment with teasing an article in your subject line or preheader text that isn’t found until lower in the email. This can build up anticipation to get to the reason the subscriber opened the email in the first place.
In this example from TrackMaven’s newsletter, the content from the subject line (“35 Top Twitter Chats,”) isn’t shown until below the fold. Instead, they lead with top news stories from the past week. The top content is still relevant (and since they include it in every newsletter, expected), but to get to the content teased in the subject line, you need to scroll.
DIFFERENT EMAILS, DIFFERENT GOALS
However, this doesn’t mean “the fold” is completely useless. As with most things in email, the answer is: “it depends.”
When it comes to promotional email, marketers tend to send out three different categories, which relates to the three main areas of the marketing funnel:
Awareness emails can take a variety of forms, but in general, they introduce the subscriber to something new, such as a blog post or infographic. The goal of these emails isn’t necessarily to sign up or buy your product but to increase familiarity and encourage people to visit your website. They may already be aware of your company (after all, they did give you an email address), but not everything about what you do or what you stand for. Awareness emails are about content consumption, which is a one-way interaction.
Engagement emails build that 1:1 relationship with the subscriber, sometimes with personalization, recommendations, or an ask for feedback. This could take the form of a welcome email, survey request, sales outreach, gated ebook, or an email like our TEDC ‘16 tickets on sale email that encouraged folks to interact with with the email more deeply. Engagement emails ask for more than reading a piece of content. They’re about building a relationship, which requires two-way interaction.
Conversion emails focus on completing a sale or purchase. This may be advertising a promotion, re-engaging the list, or asking for signups for a webinar. The ask and goal of the email is clear.
(Want to brush up on your definition of conversion? This article talks through exactly what it means.)
Each type of email requires a different mindset because you’re asking for a different level of commitment on the part of the subscriber. When you set your goals for your campaigns, enticing the scroll makes sense for some categories but not for others.
AWARENESS EMAILS
Awareness emails buy time, rather than buy clicks. How can you get your subscriber to keep reading for two more seconds, and then two more after that? The more they read or see, the higher the chance there is of something happening. Make your awareness emails creative, interesting, and above all, incomplete.
That doesn’t mean leaving the subscriber completely hanging or not finishing a sentence. It means keeping the curiosity gap high at all points in an email, so that they’re constantly wondering, “What’s next?” and satisfying them at each scroll.
This product update from Trello doesn’t shy away from showing multiple pieces of news or completely different calls-to-action. The idea is to make people aware of new features, not sell them (though some of those features might require a plan upgrade).
This email doesn’t have a sale or promotion until the very bottom. Instead, the focus is on re-engagement and awareness—hey, here’s what you might be missing!
ENGAGEMENT EMAILS
Engagement emails start the conversation with your subscribers in a deeper way than awareness or conversion. They’re to be used sparingly, as they can be incredibly powerful.
To promote Litmus Live 2016, we decided to gamify our email to build excitement, increase engagement, and have a little fun. To reveal our third city, users sent in guesses via Twitter, which then populated a dynamic Twitter “collage” at the bottom of the email itself. We expected it to take 3-4 hours to get 500 shares using the hashtag #TEDC16. (Read why our new hashtag is #LitmusLive here, short version: politics.)
We were blown away 90 minutes later when we hit the mark! Our audience relished the opportunity to engage with us. The entire email worked together to reveal the city and encouraged subscribers to open the email again and again for updates. This completely flips the idea of a “fold” on its head, since our subscribers checked the email continuously to see new Twitter feed updates.
CONVERSION EMAILS
Conversion emails are usually short and to the point, with one ask, so it’s completely clear to the subscriber what action you want them to take. It might be a sales promotion, but it might not. Whether you’re focusing on buying a product or encouraging them to read an article, conversion emails focus on getting the click.
Because of their direct nature, conversion emails often benefit from having the CTA above the scroll to close the deal. It’s fine to include more options after the “scroll,” but those should be more opportunities for them to learn about that same one objective.
In this example, General Assembly is clear about what action the reader should take: request a syllabus to learn more about their digital marketing class. The objective is clear, to the point, and there’s no need to scroll—you can’t miss that big red button.
This email is a great example of how to focus on exactly what you want your subscriber to do in the top section of your email, but still, include information below for those who do want to scroll. It’s clear what action they want you to take.
DON’T DESIGN EMAILS IN A VACUUM
REMEMBER, YOUR MOST IMPORTANT JOB AS AN EMAIL DESIGNER IS TO GET THEM TO OPEN THE NEXT ONE. —ALEX WILLIAMS
When you design emails, you have to think about the overall subscriber journey. Each email isn’t independent—every awareness email you send can ultimately contribute to that purchase when a subscriber does receive a conversion email.
The most important thing to remember about the scroll? Set up expectations as a brand that provides compelling enough content that subscribers will want to scroll—and keep scrolling.
All of us think we know how to write a newsletter. What could be simpler? Now think again about how many bland newsletters you see in your inbox everyday. Follow these best practices to send email newsletters your subscribers will actually open and read.
1. Determine if you really need a newsletter.
Ask yourself if you’re doing a newsletter because you have consistently relevant content to share with your audience or if you’re just following what everyone else is doing. If your answer is the first one, then proceed. Make sure, though, that you set clear, measurable objectives. Are you aiming to drive more leads, close more deals, boost retention? Knowing what you want to achieve lets you focus your efforts, set goals, and measure success.
2. Set expectations.
Do subscribers know what they’re signing up for? Be clear up front about what they’ll be receiving from you. Is it an early glance at new products, special coupons and discounts, inspiration, or how-to information? Make sure you’re meeting customer expectations and not bombarding their inboxes with content they didn’t want.
It is also a good idea to say how often they will hear from your brand. Once a week? Once a month? At the least, you should quickly establish a routine cadence with subscribers and stick to it. Your subscribers trusted your brand enough to share their email addresses. Abusing that trust is a good way to land in a spam folder or with high unsubscribe rates.
3. Keep content balanced.
Unless you’ve set clear expectations otherwise, your newsletter should not be a coupon book. A good rule of thumb for newsletter content is 90% educational and 10% promotional. This allows room for a focused call to action but makes sure that the large majority of content is meant to serve the customer first.
4. Stick to your brand.
Like all communications you send, your newsletter should adhere to your brand’s standards for design, voice, and tone. Don’t be afraid to have fun, though. Users who subscribe to your newsletter tend to be the ones most engaged with your brand and ready to hear from you.
5. Think mobile first.
According to Litmus, “Fifty-four percent of email is now opened on a mobile device.” And that number is projected to continue growing. You should be thinking mobile, mobile, mobile. Follow responsive or mobile-optimized practices when designing your newsletter templates.
This means keeping content limited to fit on a mobile screen. Make sure buttons are large enough to tap. Also, limit image sizes to avoid lagging load times. For more tips on designing mobile-first emails, check out the Email Design Toolkit.
6. Keep your newsletter exclusive.
Your newsletter subscribers are likely some of your most engaged brand fans. Reward them with exclusive or early access content.
7. Test, track, and refine your newsletter.
Keep going back to the goals you set at the beginning. Measure what’s working well and what needs improvement. Are you hitting your goals? If yes, good job. Go ahead and set higher ones. If not, ask why. Then continue tweaking and testing your newsletters until you do.
Done well, email newsletters are a great way to stay connected with your audience and keep them engaged. Get started building exceptional email journeys today.
You’ve put time and effort into creating an email you’re sure will interest and intrigue your audience. Now you just need to get them to open it.
The subject line is the gateway to your email content. If your subject line doesn’t quickly grab your reader’s attention and tell them exactly what they’ll find inside your email, you’ll lose out on valuable opens. Here are eight tips for keeping your email subject lines clear and concise.
1. Keep it short and sweet.
A good rule of thumb to follow is to keep your subject lines to 50 characters or fewer. The key is to use as few characters as possible to get your message across. An analysis of more than 40 million emails found that three to four words is the ideal length for a subject line.
2. Avoid spam triggers.
Avoid obvious spam trigger words like “Free offer,” “Order now,” and “Incredible deal!” Even if these words don’t automatically trigger spam filters, they may decrease your open rates.
These words tend to set off readers’ radars and distract from the more substantive message you want to get across.
3. Stand out.
A picture is worth a thousand words. Used sparingly and cleverly, emojis can stick out from a cluttered inbox and draw attention to your email, while saving on characters. Don’t rely on them to convey your entire message, though, since not all email clients support them.
On the flip side, NO ONE LIKES BEING YELLED AT!!!! so cool it with the caps and exclamation points.
4. Follow rules for clear, concise writing.
Subject lines are like any form of writing, and the same rules for writing clear, concise essays or articles still apply.
Avoid adverbs. Stick to the active voice. Don’t use two words where one will do.
5. Use groups and segmentation.
You can improve your email open rates by segmenting your lists and sending tailored emails only to groups to whom they are most relevant.
This allows you to be smarter and more targeted with your email content and avoid inundating your subscribers’ inboxes with too many messages or cramming too much content into a single email. It also allows you to keep your subject lines concise because you can focus on conveying a single message, rather than many.
6. Personalize.
If you’re keeping with the curve, you’re already using machine learning to personalize email content. (If not, check out Salesforce Einstein to see what you’re missing.) Take personalization a step further and use your data to personalize your subject lines.
Using your recipient’s name can cut through the clutter and make your message more direct and relevant.
7. Keep your email concise.
If the body of your email is concise and direct, it will be simpler to write a concise and direct subject line. Instead of trying to fit multiple, disconnected messages into one email, choose the most important to focus on for both the email and subject line.
If your email strategy calls for multiple messages — a newsletter, for example — make your most important message more prominent in the email body, and draw from that single message or theme to inspire your subject line.
8. Conduct A/B testing.
What works for one brand’s audience won’t necessarily work for another. Whenever you try something new, test it against your status quo to make sure it’s a tactic that will work with your audience.
