Tag Archives: mailchimp

5 email marketing best practices to skyrocket your open, share and click rates

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Email marketing is still one of the top most effective digital marketing techniques, according to a recent survey of small business owners.

If you’d agree, and you have an email list you’re regularly marketing to, than please accept my pat on the back!

You’re much farther ahead than so many business owners at staying in touch with existing and future customers alike.

As us marketers are so fond of saying “the money is in your list”.

Because, if you haven’t contacted your customer in 90 days, they’re not your customer.

Here are 5 best practices to help you get the money out of your list; increasing your email open and click rates.

Use your customer’s name. Repeatedly.

Your name is your favorite word of all time.

And it’s the same with your customers. Make your emails stand out from the never ending stream of emails in your customer’s inbox.

Most email marketing software companies, like Mailchimp, have a “shortcode” that you can use in the first paragraph of your email to pull your customer’s first name from your list and display it in the email you’re sending.

Mailchimp’s shortcode is [F*NAME] – use it, and watch your open rate soar.

Refine your email subject.

Watch buzzfeed.com and the front page of Reddit for trending topics. You’ll notice a pattern among so many top stories on these sites. They pique your curiosity.

Try creating curiosity in your customer, by creating an enticing headline that promises answers and solutions…as soon as they open your email.
For bonus points, use your customer’s name right in your email subject headline.

Use the Social Sharing Options.

You cannot receive what you do not ask for.

Asking for likes and shares on social media is a great way to get, you guessed it, shares and likes on social media.

Make it easy for your newsletter subscribers by taking advantage of the sharing modules provided with most email marketing providers.

Add in a little blurb explaining why someone should share that is in line with what they care about.

Recently we devised a share-line for a niche women’s boutique that was promoting an invite only event.

We crafted a line that was along the lines of “Don’t keep this secret to yourself; share with a friend. “ to appeal to the woman’s pride at having the inside scoop in a coveted industry.

Links, Links and More Links.

If your newsletter isn’t linking back to your website, it’s time to change that, like, yesterday.

With email marketing’s sophisticated tracking tools, you don’t want to miss the opportunity to see who’s engaged with your brand.

Tracking the amount of link clicks, as well as the click-ees themselves is a savvy way of determining what content appeals to who.

Create links in the text, the image as well as the headline. Make it easy for your subscribers to get to your website.

Have a call to action.

What goal do you have for your email campaign?

Whether it’s clicks to your website, calls to your location or social shares, you have to be explicit about what you want.
Make it easy for your subscribers to do what you ask by making the call to action the most visually prominent part of your newsletter.

I really like Mailchimp’s big orange button, for an unmistakable call to action.

5 Proven Ways To Increase Blog Post Engagement

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blog post engagement

1. Evaluate your blog post’s headline.

Is it catchy enough?

If you’re struggling with catchy headlines or coming up with something that rolls off the tongue or piques your viewers’ interest, go to BuzzFeed.com and check out some of the headlines there for inspiration.

Is it Catchy Enough?

(above- Buzzfeed.com encourages readers to spend hours on their site, clicking headings that pique our curiosity)

You want to pique reader interest so ensure your headlines play on our curiosity.

Pay a lot of attention to your headlines. About 50% of the effort you’re putting into your post, you should be putting into your headlines.

2. Pay attention to your formatting.

Make sure that your posts are easy to scan, not necessarily read.

  1. Use short sentences.
  2. Use lots of white space
  3. Summarize key points in bold headings
  4. Bold key points
  5. Italicize sparingly
  6. Use bullets and numbering
  7. Provide at least 3 links to resources you mention in the post

Pay attention to your formatting

(this post from LinkedIn has all the right ingredients to encourage me to keep reading)

3. Use images and multimedia.

Historically, posts that are shared the most are the ones that have up to 15 images.

So at least use one image. If you can include a video as well, absolutely go for it.

People want to see photos and they want to see videos more than they want to read a big wall of text.

The most successful posts used images to show someone exactly how to do what they’re describing in the post, not just what to do.

Tips on using images:

  1. Take pictures using your smartphone or screenshots
  2. Pay for stock images
  3. Use free images found on the internet – search Creative Commons licence on Flikr.com for example.

HOT TIP on images:

See the eyeball heatmap image below. For any of you unfamiliar with a eyeball heat map, it tracks the amount of time people spend looking at various parts of a webpage. The longest times are red, followed by orange, yellow and then green.

According to KISS metrics, having an image of either a baby or a lady looking at the text you want someone to focus on, will encourage them to do so.

Hot tips on images

4. Longer blog posts are actually better

Recent studies show that posts over a thousand words are getting shared more and more often because they provide more value.

Instead of just skimming the surface of your topic, dive a little deeper. Provide a little bit more information and details to your audience and you will get rewarded.

5. Ask for what you want.

The very last thing a lot of folks forget to do is ask for interaction.

Ask for people to share your post with their network. Ask for comments and you will receive!

That’s your One Minute Tip. If you found this valuable, please consider sharing with your network. And if you don’t ever want to miss a tip, subscribe to my YouTube channel for weekly tips in your inbox. Thanks so much for watching.


Video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l9RXALzJyY

Control Your Email Habits Before They Control You

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blogsAs a small business owner, few things are more important than good productivity and effective time management. Unfortunately, these aren’t always easy to achieve; especially when there’s Facebook to check, blogs to read, and a steady stream of emails to reply to.

Unlike Facebook and blogs though, email is something that no small business owner can or should avoid in the working day. The problems come when too much time is spent reading and rereading them while taking no action.

As we use MailChimp for our email marketing campaigns, we’re able to monitor our subscribers’ email habits. A few of the trends we’ve noticed from looking at this information is rather shocking; some people are actually opening our emails on up to 21 separate occasions.

Clearly this is a huge waste of time, and has prompted us to share a few tips on how to control your email habits before they control you.

Self-control with a self-timer

Assigning yourself a set amount of time for each task every day is a great way to ensure you don’t spend too long on just one and neglect the others. You can even set aside times for getting your fix of the non-work websites that are usually a constant temptation and distraction.

One of the most popular time management systems is the Pomodoro Technique, a method of assigning yourself medium length blocks of dedicated work time, usually around twenty five minutes long, interspersed with short breaks of five or ten minutes.

Giving yourself twenty five minutes of concentrated email time, perhaps two or three times a day if need be, will help to focus your mind on the task at hand, while giving yourself a guilt-free five or ten minute window to check Facebook or browse some blogs to refresh your mind in between.

Accountability looks good on paper

If you find yourself quickly checking your email and taking no action constantly throughout the day, it might shock you to learn just how many times you do this, even if the accumulative time spent doing so isn’t that much.

Every time you turn your mind to your email, no matter how briefly, you’re taking it away from all the other important tasks that need your attention too.

It’s natural to tell yourself you don’t do this too often while underestimating the real figure, but having a pen and paper with you and keeping a record of how many times you idly check your email throughout the day will help you see just how often you do so, which will in turn give you the visual evidence you might need to control this habit.

This technique isn’t restricted to just your email habits, either. Keeping track of how many times you unconsciously open a social media page or look at blogs you don’t actually read can help you cut down on that habit too.

Another type of game theory

One irrefutable fact of life is that people are more likely to work on tasks if they enjoy them. Another fact of life is that nobody enjoys wading through a backlog of emails. The obvious solution here then is to somehow make email a fun endeavor, and eliminate the boredom that constantly drives people back to browsing social media and non-work related blogs. If only there were a way.

Welcome to the Email Game.

Easily found on Google, the Email Game is a web application that turns the task of clearing your inbox into something enjoyable, which of course helps motivate you to get through them quickly, eliminating the bottleneck that is your inbox and freeing you up to get on with the next thing on your to-do list.

Take control of your email habits today

Spending time on email every day is unavoidable for small business owners, but nurturing good habits can ensure that time is spent well rather than wasted. Every minute saved on not idly checking your inbox can be spent on something more productive.

It can even be reassigned and become time reserved for browsing social media, reading blogs, or any other leisure activity that can help relax your mind and maintain your concentration on the important tasks of the day.