Email Marketing

Email Marketing – Do Website Popups Really Work?

I am often asked if using a popup on a website to gain signups to an email newsletter is a good idea or whether the popup would annoy people and actually dissuade potential customers.

In my experience, the use of a popup will always help to increase the number of people who will sign up for your newsletter, and if it is a ‘clever’ popup then the annoyance levels are kept very low because it can be set to only appear for a particular person once every 30 days or so. In other words they wouldn’t see it every time they came to your website.

Do Website Popups Really Work? image WC website popup

To give you an ideas of the effectiveness of a popup here are some figures that Joy Ugi shared in a recent article where she talks about testing a popup on her website…

“We’d used the popup feature on and off on our old site. There’s a lot of controversy about the effectiveness of popups, also known as light boxes. There’s no doubt that some people could find them annoying, seeing as they do that “popping up” action when subscribers hit websites. What many marketers believe is that the annoyingness leads to negative actions, such as someone leaving their site.

When we reinstated our popup, we wanted to see if these doubting Thomases were right, or if the irritating aspects of the hovering opt-in would get people to take a positive action, such as follow the call-to-action and say yes to receive our email newsletter.

The first step was to design a popup that matched our website redesign, give a value proposition (We Love Email!), and include a call-to-action: Sign up. Next, we released it into the wild to see what it would do. We checked back in a little over a month’s time to see how it was fairing.

The results? We’d received a little over 1,300 new subscribers since the addition of the popup to the website (in just over a month). In the year before the popup went live on our website, we received just 2,058 new subscribers via the website.

Talk about finding hidden gold!

So do popups work for email subscriptions? Definitely. Are they still annoying? They can be, but there are ways to make them less so. For example, we adjusted the settings on our popup so visitors only see it a maximum of three times.”

 

I have seen results similar to those achieved by Joy on many occasions and so am definitely a fan of the popup. Maybe you should test one and see what results you get too?

If you’d like to learn more about Popups, see a working demo as well as learn how I could create a popup for your website at a very low cost, Click Here.

 

Adapted from http://www.business2community.com/online-marketing/website-popups-really-work-0990738

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Email Marketing

5 Tips for Writing Email Subject Lines That Get Opened

5 Tips for Writing Email Subject Lines That Get Opened

Email subject lines are soooooo important!  A poor subject line can mean that your email never gets opened and never gets read. An email that never gets read can’t help you to make a sale, or build your brand with a potential customer, or tempt that new diner to visit your restaurant.

subjectlinesBut writing an attention-getting subject lines can be difficult. People are busy, they receive lots of emails and so it’s easy for them to hit delete – if the headline isn’t engaging.

Getting Attention – and Keeping It

The copywriting trainers at American Writers & Artists recommend the following approach to writing subject lines:

  1. Be USEFUL to the reader
  2. Provide a sense of URGENCY
  3. Convey how the benefit is somehow UNIQUE
  4. Do it all in an ULTRA-SPECIFIC way

The subject line, is a hook. It must grab the reader’s attention – fast. It should also give them a good idea about what’s in the body of the email. It needs to be specific and compelling as well as attention-getting.

Here are five tips for powerful subject lines:

  1. Provoke their curiosity: When you make a headline mysterious enough, the reader will want to read more. That’s why you see emails and banner ads that promise “One weird trick for longer hair” or “Banks don’t want you to know this.” Your mind instantly wants to know what it is, even if you don’t really need hair care tips or reduced interest rates. Likewise, subject lines and headlines are often posed in the form of a question. But if you make it too confusing or cagey, you can risk alienating your reader.
  2. Shock them a little bit: If you want to get someone to read an email about the benefits of a desk that raises and lowers, you could write a headline that says “Stand Up at Your Desk for Better Health.” Or you could get scary: “Is Your Chair Killing You?” Use this tactic with extreme caution. Your terrifying headline could murder conversion rates. You can also bring it down a notch and provide a sense of urgency using time limits (“Offer Ends Soon”) and scarcity (“Get One of Only 10 T-Shirts Left”)
  3. Use humour (sparingly): Before you dive in to being funny, consider how it reflects on your brand. Is this a laughing matter? Are you at risk of offending someone? By all means add some wit and humour into your copy, but do it carefully. It’s very easy for a joke to fall flat or offend someone.
  4. Unpack your adjectives: When you’re trying to write short copy, sometimes adjectives get the axe. Don’t let it happen! They’re the frosting on the subject-verb cake. In the examples below, we don’t just promise you healthier skin. Your skin will glow. We don’t just offer plain old cleansing tips. They’re from professionals. Adjectives are hard to argue with, but you should also base them in reality. Notice we didn’t say “healthy” skin. That’s hard to promise. But it will probably get “healthier.”
  5. Focus on the benefit: When in doubt, remember to focus on the benefit to the readers. Why should they care? What’s in it for them? Many writers sometimes jump in and start creating clever headlines without really thinking about what matters to the people reading it.

 

Formula for a Great Subject Line

There’s no magic trick to creating a great headline. But there are some basic formulas:

  • (What they want) + (when they want it)
    Example: Get Healthier, Glowing Skin in 7 Days
  • (What they don’t want) + (How to avoid it)
    Example: Prevent Acne with 7 Professional Cleansing Tips

 

You get the idea. But since every person is different, your approach needs to be different as well, depending on your business type and the customer you are trying to attract. Start with the formula, but test your execution. Most autoresponder software will allow A/B testing so you can test two (or more) subject lines and see which gets the best response.  This will help you to find out what type of subject works best with your audience so that you can create better email subject lines each time you email your list.

 

Adapted from http://www.business2community.com/brandviews/act-on/5-tips-writing-life-altering-email-headlines-0985707

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Email Marketing

6 Ways to Build a Profitable Relationship with Your Email List

5 Tips for Writing Email Subject Lines That Get Opened

Email marketing is the #1 way to build profitable relationships with your customers.

By making email marketing your top marketing priority, you’ll be able to cash in on relationships that are infinitely more intimate than those cultivated on social media.

EmailMarketingProfitsImageAfter all, receiving a personal email in your inbox is a lot more meaningful than glancing at a post on Facebook that’s been shared with lots of other people.

 

Here are six steps that will help you build a relationship with your email list that you will be able to turn into sales for year after year…

1. Be consistent

Think of your closest relationships with friends and family.

Chances are those relationships include social interactions on and offline, phone calls, and getting together for dinner or coffee on a regular basis.

Your email relationships are no different. Be sure you’re sending emails to your list on a regular basis, which could be anywhere from twice a month to twice a week depending on your brand and style.

Whatever you do, don’t email your list only when you have something to sell!

 

2. Fine tune your subject lines

It’s impossible to build profitable relationships with your list if no one is opening your emails.

Try these subject line ideas to increase your open rates:

  • Include numbers (“5 quick ways to improve your health”)
  • Indicate when there is a [VIDEO] or [FREE REPORT] inside by using brackets and capital letters
  • Ask a question (“Are you making these 3 common mistakes on social media?”)
  • Use “this” and “that’ to create curiosity (“Why I can’t live without this new iPhone app?”)

Be sure to test your subject lines to see which style and technique gets the highest open rates with your particular audience.

 

3. Share relevant content

Position yourself as an expert and trusted resource by sharing relevant content with your list via email.

You might share things like…

  • YouTube videos
  • Product deals and discounts
  • Funny pins or eye-catching Instagram photos
  • Informative blog posts (written by you and by others in your field)

When your emails are packed with great content, readers are much more likely to keep opening, keep clicking, and keep buying.

 

4. Sell less stuff

If every email you send your list is a sales email, people will soon grow weary of opening them.

No one wants to be sold to all the time. A good rule of thumb is the 80/20 rule – 80% of your emails should be packed with great content and helpful resources (see #3 above). 20% should include paid offers for your products and services.

In this way, you treat the customer like you would a friend, cultivating a relationship based on mutual interests.

When you do happen to have a new product or service you’d like to sell, your customer will be far more likely to make a purchase because they’ve already been ushered through your sales funnel with all the great content you’ve been providing. In other words you’ve built your brand and increased your credibility in their eyes.

 

5. Include a call to action

The two most common mistakes regarding calls to action are:

a) Not including one

b) Including way too many!

With each email you send, ask yourself “What do I want the reader to do?”

The answer might be…

  • Click on a link
  • Share your content on social media
  • Make a purchase
  • Visit your store or restaurant

Choose one specific call to action and explicitly ask your customer to follow through on that action.

For example, “To see more details on this product, click here now.”

 

6. Give discounts and freebies

Thank your subscribers regularly with coupons, discounts, freebies, and special offers that non-subscribers don’t get. This n0t only brings you more business, but also rewards people for being on your list, and encourages them to tell others too.

 

By using these 6 proven methods for building a profitable email list, you’ll be grooming long-lasting relationships and customer loyalty while increasing revenue with each email you send.

 

Adapted from http://www.business2community.com/email-marketing/7-ways-build-profitable-relationships-email-list-0973682

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