How do you Create Marketing Emails that Will Generate Instant YES?
When a well-crafted email hits your inbox, you open and act on it because it grabs your attention. These emails might look simple and natural. Achieving a clear, balanced and persuasive message takes time and effort, but it is worth it. In order to create an email that will generate positive results (people clicking your Call to Action), here are steps that need to be taken into consideration. Think of these steps as a logical staircase where you need to move from one step to another.
- Make your messages consistent and persuasive
Human beings like consistency. It is hard-wired in our brains. For example, once someone decides to do something, they would strive to make all future behavior to match past behavior. If there is a mismatch, the person immediately begins to feel that something has gone amiss somewhere. It is the same with the emails you receive.
An email campaign should have a consistent message to elicit an action. Emails that have a consistent and persuasive message always outperform those that don’t. A consistent and persuasive email should lead one to take an action.
An inconsistent message is one whose parts don’t add up, i.e. they offer contradictory information.
Example
Suppose that your email is something like “Unbeatable Discount on iPhone 6 this Week”, yet the headlines says, “20% off on all smartphones,” with many types of smartphones being presented.
Although the email may not be factually wrong, it is inconsistent and you are likely to lose some customers. Your message will be more successful if all the components agree.
- Use high quality and relevant images
Use images that are not only relevant to the offer, but also high quality and original. Showing stock images is an instant click-killer. Make sure your images supports the main messages and that they reappear on your landing page—the page your customer will land after clicking the Call to Action button. This will make people feel that they have landed on the right page.
- Have a great presentation layer
Treat your promotional email like a shopping window. The more inviting the presentation, the more likely people will want to enter your shop. Just having a great product is not enough to make people want to buy from you or sign up for your services. Having an inviting presentation layer in your email will grab the attention of your subscribers.
- Precision Targeting is Indispensable: Target the right audience
In theory, it would seem like sending an email to everybody will increase your sales, but that is not what expert marketers do. When it comes to sending email campaigns, targeting the right audience is very important. According to Marketing Sherpa, sending an email to untargeted database is counterproductive. Unfortunately, many small business owners do this all the time.
Collecting email list and blasting everyone that is on that list with an email campaign is akin to shooting in the dark, and it is a bad habit that you need to stop immediately. Why would you want males on your list to receive email offers about "fashionable bras" that you recently launched? Wouldn't that be shooting yourself in the foot?
Highly targeted email campaigns experience 208% higher conversion rates compared to the “batch and blast” emails. As a marketer, you need to rise above the mediocrity and segment your list. Optimized email marketing pays off big time. Marketers that use email segmentation record a higher ROI compared to aimless emails. Moreover, email segmentation drastically reduces opt-outs.
Here are the steps to take if you want to send targeted email campaigns:
- Target a high-value segment
Now that you have an email subscriber list, it is time to separate the wheat from the chaff. A good way to find valuable segment from the list is to look at your list bearing three factors in mind:
- How recent is the subscriber? Subscribers who have done business with you recently are more likely to respond to your email campaign.
- How often does the subscriber buy? Subscribers who purchase from your more frequently are more likely to respond than others.
- How much does the subscriber spend? Subscribers that have spent 50% more than your average subscribers are more likely to respond to your emails.
This is not the be-all and end-all email segmentation check list, but it is a good starting point.
- Target using demographics
If possible, divide your list into specific groups to enable you send personalized, targeted and relevant messages. Without further ado, here are five main demographic features you can use to segment your list:
- Geographical locations: if you are serving cross-border markets, dividing your list according to geographical location will make it easier for you to send emails at the right time. This will also ensure you don’t break respective laws and regulations.
- Age: you might have offers targeting different age groups, which means that you can target millennials/college students, baby boomers, little kids and retirees, among others.
- Gender: just as you might want to specifically speak to a college student or retiree, you might want to customize your offers and messaging based on gender.
- Industry: if you have lists that cut across several industries, it is prudent to segment your list based on industry to add another level of personalization.
- Persona: you should study your subscribers and understand them. Know what makes each of them tick and design email messaging around their persona.
Offering exclusive email content to target audiences allows you to offer exact solutions that solve specific needs/dilemmas and supports conversations that will drive your conversation rates and increase your ROI.
Email marketing is still one of the most effective ways to reach and engage with your customers. However, in the absence of effective email marketing strategy, you might not achieve your marketing goals.
Mjrvisuals can help you increase your reach out of that content through our expertise. We run the gambit of visual imagination including video production, digital marketing, video editing, print design, advertising, graphic design, graphic animation, motion graphic and media design. Be part of our portfolio of clients and let us tell your story to the world. Click here to visit our website: mjrvisuals.com/
Are you Utilizing the Power of YouTube Marketing
If you have been ignoring the impact of YouTube marketing, then you have been committing a cardinal marketing sin. There are some shocking statistics that will show you just why YouTube marketing has become a big hit. Nielsen report shows that in the year 2011, internet video streaming views increased by 35% compared to only 0.2% increase in television views in America. Mobile video viewing also increased by 20%; therefore, it is clear that internet video marketing (like YouTube) is now more popular, cheaper, and result oriented than the traditional TV marketing. As a matter of fact, the number of people who visit YouTube for entertainment, research, and education is alarming. YouTube is now the second most search engine by volume.
However, something else you should know is that about 35 hours of videos are being uploaded in YouTube every minute, meaning if you take 10 minutes to read this article, you will meet about 350 hours of newly uploaded YouTube videos. So what? So, it means that if you are thinking of using YouTube to advertise your products, then you should bear in mind that competition is extremely high; so, you need to approach it with some plan if you hope to achieve positive results. In other words, just uploading a video does not necessarily mean that you'll automatically get YouTube hits.
The following are two suggestions to get you started on how to get positive YouTube performance:
1. Just like a website, content is king, and good quality is paramount. Please invest some time to create a quality and compelling video before you upload. Potentials customers should find your videos useful, engaging, and attractive to view. If you let them feel like they have wasted their precious moment viewing you video, be sure that the video will never go viral, or worse still, they wont come back. The rule of the thumb is this: the video should address the needs of the viewers. Anything else is thrash. Therefore, invest some time in researching on what the customer needs and create something relevant. For instance, it doesn't help uploading a video that talks about meditation, yet you are selling cars. In that case, you would want to talk about 'how to maintain a car'.
2. Since it is Google that owns YouTube, you have to play by Google Search optimization rules to get an edge. For instance, in order for the video to be findable, it must have a title, good descriptions, and tags, among others. Also, you should create a brand if you want to attract and retain customers. This doesn't have to be done with massive investment; all you need is to be consistent with your content, create a similar backgrounds, create a playlist for the most popular videos, and choose an appropriate layout.
All in all, taking your business online is not an option in this internet age if you are to stay profitable, and relevant. YouTube presents you with one of the best channel of informing the online users about your presence; hence you should take advantage.
Cheap Marketing Ideas you can implement on your Online and Offline Business
Don’t have many bucks to spend on your small business or start-up? Establishing an efficient marketing strategy is sometimes a challenge for small business owners in Australia because they are unable to allocate considerable funds for marketing; most of them operate on a shoestring budget. You don’t have to break the bank to market your small business in Australia.
Moreover, very day, we hear from small business owners who think they need special skills to reach their customers. Many of these Australian small business owners eventually get overwhelmed by the number and the complex marketing options available, and end up sitting on the sidelines because they are confused where to start. In this article, we will look at 77 local marketing ideas for small business owners in Australia.
Positioning and branding
- Build brand identity
Building your business brand identity can have a big impact
- Add emotion to your brand
Emotional branding is defined as the successful attachment of a specific emotion to a brand.
At one of the Business Marketing Association (BMA) conferences in Chicago, Jay Baer asked a room full of roughly 1,000 B2B marketers, “Are you more interesting than my wife?”
Can you think of the people you have had an emotional connection with in your life? How did they impact on your life? Now think about the brands and see the common threats among them.
It is true for brands as it is for people: to break through in modern marketing, small business owners in Australia need to be more interesting and relevant in the moment.
Brands need to connect with people in the way a close friend would—through emotion—in order to build, long-lasting, and quality relationships. There are huge opportunities for retail stores to take advantage of emotional branding.
According to one research, smell is powerful when it comes to persuading someone to buy a product. Stores using certain scents in their stores have been found to have a 30% increase in sales.
A study by University of Wollongong and Murdoch University in 2012, emotional branding is becoming widely used globally. According to Dr Steve Bellman of Murdoch University’s Audience Labs, marketers are tapping into customer’s feelings to market their brands. Another study shows men who show love for their brand beer purchase 38% more beer than the average.
Therefore, emotional branding can lead to substantially more sales without companies having to rely on discounts and promotions. On the flip side, however, creating that emotional connection can be a difficult task.
How brands can connect emotionally
- By telling a story that inspires an emotional connection:according to Beth Comstock, General Electric Chief Marketing Officer, you can’t sell anything if you can’t tell anything. Every brand has stories to tell.
- By allow their audience to be the real heroes: imagine who emotionally connected your brand would be by showcasing how your product has changed lives. Simply give your audience a voice, a platform and face to be heard.
- By being authentic: don’t be afraid to embrace your inner geek. Remain who you are and don’t try to be like who you are not. At Bizify, we try to remain true to ourselves. We try to help startups find their feet and we intend to remain true to that mission.
- By embracing the opportunity to surprise and delight:surprising and delighting customers can be an effecting marketing strategy. Use social media and mobile to spark moments of happiness in customers and you will be surprised at its effectiveness. Coca-Cola has really perfected this art.
- Create an irresistible value proposition
A value proposition is a statement that explains what value you provide to your customers and how you do it uniquely. Establishing a substantive value proposition is critical if you want to stand above the crowd. Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs loose out because they fail to articulate a unique value proposition.
Be clear on what your business stands for. What is your promise? How will you put out a consistent and passionate message that attract the right candidate? This will also help you to hire the right people and develop products and services that are aligned with your unique value proposition.
- Be careful with launching too many brands
The big problem for many businesses is they think more brands will make them more successful but they have neither the architecture nor the capacity to manage a multiplicity of brands well. Businesses can increase profits by deleting none-performing brands. Even though revenue may fall in the process, reducing the number of brands will be beneficial in the long run.
Multiband strategies are likely to suffer from diseconomies of scale because of the hidden costs. By letting go off weak, declining and marginally profitable brands, you will be freeing resources to make your few remaining brands better and more attractive to customers. Thus, killing some brands in your portfolio may sometimes be the best way for your business to serve the customers.
- Package your products
Packaging is an important element when it comes to marketing. How you package your products can attract or repel customers. Is your packaging visually attractive through shape, color, design and does it communicate the right brand ideals. If not, it might be time to revamp the way you package your products.
How to convert your cold leads into hot prospects
No doubt, you have worked hard to get the leads. But the difference between successful marketers and the average is that the successful ones will convert their leads into prospects while the mediocre ones will leave their leads undecided.
However, there is a general misconception among business persons that they should convert every prospect they get caught in the trap of thinking they can while in the real sense, they end up wasting a lot of valuable time in trying to do the impossible. Here are some suggestions on how to turn those cold into hot prospects
Create an email list and add your new lists into your periodic campaigns
If you run a monthly email campaign, you can use it to follow-up on those prospects that have not made up their minds. Some people will be temporarily distracted while others will have their situations change, and the best thing to keep them on track is your periodic email updates.
Simply stay in touch
With so many things happening, your name is more likely to be forgotten as soon as you speak to your lead. Therefore, you must keep in touch to keep your name in their minds. One moment they could think they don’t need to join your business but their situation could change and change their minds. Keep in touch through newsletters, postcards, letters and articles, among other things.
Approach their business executive assistants and learn about their personality
Making use of Executive assistant is important as this will help you to know the person you are dealing with and the best approach to take. They might also be able to give you the reason why you were not successful in making the sale so that you can approach the person differently in the future.
How important is the sale? 
The thing you should ask yourself is how important the sale is going to be. If the sale is important, you need to determine other approaches or actions you are willing to take to make the sale happen. You need to find creative ways of convincing the lead(s) to buy supposing the sale was the most important thing in your career.
As already mentioned there is nothing you can do if your lead suddenly turns cold and proves difficult to convert to prospect despite doing everything possible to convince them. Rather than live in denial, you should gather courage and move on. Remember you need to focus your energy on other opportunities. It is important to bear in mind that you only have a limited time to do your business and you cannot spend long periods on one prospect. Actually knowing when to quit and move on is one of the key strength of entrepreneurs.
Spinning your wheels trying to convince unmotivated prospect to change their mind is a self-defeating approach. Even if you succeed in converting them, you will not get much value from them. Simple question to ask is: “what is the best use of my time right now?” dropping a potential lead may be difficult but it is worth it.