Those businesses even tend to overlook email marketing altogether, which is a big mistake, considering it is really effective.

One part of the problem is that the businesses who do email marketing – don’t do it well. They don’t know how to write or create emails in the right way to achieve great success. Think about the recent emails in your inbox from businesses, and think about how many you were excited to open.

The reality is that most businesses just don’t do well when it comes to producing effective emails. Rather than using this medium to connect and engage with the customer, they instead focus on milking them for money. This tends to lead to those emails ending up in the Spam folder, or with recipients choosing to unsubscribe.

Assuming you constantly send out “mediocre at best” emails, then the reality is that your subscription list is essentially worthless. It will only get worse if you don’t change your email tactics.

According to research, emails are potentially 40 times more likely to convert than social media campaigns, but only if the emails are focused and engaging.

To be told that your email marketing stinks may not be an easy pill to swallow, but the good news is we are going to reveal 5 major tips on how to write or create emails and achieve amazing success through email marketing.

To write or create emails successfully, let’s now go through 5 major tips:

Tip #1: Deliver a Killer Subject Line

Making the email body to be as engaging as possible is great – but it’s all for nothing if you don’t give any thought to the subject line.

It’s the subject line that serves as the first impression to the email recipient, so it’s critical to come up with something that is exciting and compels people into opening your email. The email subject line should speak directly to the recipient and give them an idea on what’s inside and should appear as if it’s in their best interest to open the email.

Here are some recommendations to use:

• Short Subject Lines are Best: Ideally, a good subject line is around 6-10 words long. You can deliver a big punch without getting too wordy.
• Address a Current Problem: Email recipients are more likely to click and open subject lines that address an issue they are currently facing. For example, assuming you are trying to sell marketing services, you might use a subject line such as: “5 Ways to Improve Your Marketing Skills Starting Today.”

Wordstream is a highly effective tool to have in your marketing arsenal, and they offer 9 different subject line options that will help you achieve the results you desire:

1. The Simple, Straight to the Point Email Subject Line – Something like, “Your Order is Being Processed Now.”
2. The Humorous Email Subject Line – For example, “Deals That Make Us Proud (Unlike Our Nephew, Steve)”
3. The Controversial Email Subject Line – For example, “Why Your Teenager Knows More About Social Media Than Your CMO.”
4. The Single Word Subject Line – For example, “Hi”
5. The Numbered List Subject Line – For example, “3 Reasons You Should Schedule Your Consultation Today”
6. The Personalised Subject Line – For example, “David, Great Dining Deals Available Close to Home!”
7. The Question or Punctuation-Heavy Subject Line – For example, “Last Chance! Do You Want to Save 50% Today?”
8. The Scarcity Subject Line – For example, “Ends Today! Get in now Before all our Deeply Discounted Jeans are Gone.”
9. The Mysterious Subject Line – For example, “It’s all ends in 3 short days…”

Tip #2: Be Smart with Your Header

If you are using email templates via email marketing and management platforms like Aweber, Mail Chimp or Constant Contact they most likely have a pre-filled header section. But you are free to customise and you should, in order to make use of that prime real estate – which is your header area.

Think of the header area as “bonus space” in between your subject line, and your greeting. It allows you to expand on your original subject line, or a place to explain a little about the content of the email. Creating a 7-10-word subheading that makes the recipient want to read the email in its entirety is the primary goal with this tip.

Tip #3: Let Your Personality Shine

Allow your personality to come alive.

There is an assumption that business emails need to be dry and impersonal – but that is not the case. Write the email as though you were talking face to face with the recipient, which means adding your unique personality.

Spacing is also crucial, as being faced with a text-filled page can be daunting to some. Make your point, but do it in a way that is straightforward, and holds the reader’s interest at the same time.

An email template is an excellent starting point for your newsletter or offer message, but it is your personal touches that make it unique and interesting. Adding a simple PS at the end of your text not only adds a little extra value and urgency, it also makes the reader feel as though you are confiding in them.

Tip #4: Try to Include Images

With spacing being important to make the text seem less daunting, images can also perform the same task, while also adding some flair to your emails. Try to steer clear of the usual, tired stock images, and use the following sites to find unique photos that are the right fit for your content. Note: be aware of the rules for commercial use before using any image.

Here are some great websites that offer excellent free images:

• Pexels
• Compfight
• Photo Pin
• Pixabay
• Freeimages
• Stockvault
• Unsplash
• MorgueFile

Although images are great, but you can draw even more attention using gifs and videos. These types of images are becoming increasingly popular in email marketing, and there are a few places online where you can create your own gifs:

• GIFMaker.me
• MakeAGIF.com
• GifDeck

Tip #5: Design Smartphone-Friendly Emails:

Smartphones are what many people use to connect to the internet nowadays, with as many as 67% using mobile devices to access their emails. Make sure that your email provider offers responsive design, which will ensure your emails fit the screen on which they are opened.

Summary And Conclusion…

When it comes to achieving great conversions as a local business, there’s really no better ROI than a well-executed email marketing campaign and it should still be considered an important part of your total marketing strategy. Here is a recap of the tips to use to write or create engaging and successful emails:

1. Deliver a Killer Subject Line.
2. Be Smart with Your Header.
3. Let Your Personality Shine.
4. Try to Include Images.
5. Design Smartphone-Friendly Emails.

You can see that the 5 tips listed above on how to write or create emails are not rocket science, and are pretty easy to implement. Apply them to your next email marketing campaign and judge for yourself. It is going to take some time and effort to dial in. But I’m sure that you will see positive results if you take a little extra time to deliver something of real value to the leads and existing customers who subscribe to your email list.

To discover our Online Marketing Services that we provide in helping local businesses grow, simply access our services website via the link here.

The post How to Write Emails Successfully as a Marketing Strategy to Boost Business appeared first on Market Business Online.

Then I have some good news for you as a local business owner. More importantly, you can highly gain more paying customers and increase your sales automatically. And if you are anything like me, you probably want to automate things as much as possible.

So, let me further explain what exactly is Email Autoresponder?

It’s basically an Email Marketing system that allows you to create and send follow-up email messages to your target market on autopilot. Besides, it helps you to automatically capture targeted leads and build a list of paying customers….

You achieve this by adding email Autoresponder ‘opt-in’ form to your web pages. For instance, your website visitors complete an ‘opt-in’ form in exchange for your valuable incentive or free gift. You are then capturing hot leads that easily convert into paying customers.

You can simply generate regular business 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year on autopilot.

You can stop losing many leads and sales!

Perhaps you are now wondering how effective is email marketing in today’s competitive business world? Well, here are some valuable stats:

Most consumers, 74% prefer to receive marketing messages through email rather than any other form of communications. (source: Merkle).

That might be why another majority – 66% of consumers have purchased something online as a direct result of an email marketing (source: Direct Marketing Association).

At the beginning of last year alone, the total number of email accounts worldwide was 3.6 billion. Of those accounts, 91% of email account holders checked their email every single day. That’s a lot of consumers to reach via email marketing in a short period of time. (Sources: Radicati & ExactTarget).

Email marketing has a better ROI (Return On Investment) than any other form of marketing at 4,300% (source: Direct Marketing Association)….

Imagine what effect this can have on your business, using email Autoresponder?

And of all devices used to open emails, there is just one that overtakes a quarter of the market all on its own. The fact is 25% of all emails opened on mobile devices are on an iPhone. (source: Email Client Market Share). But why is this important?

Mobile users nowadays highly access emails on their Smartphones. This means you can now easily and instantly reach potential buyers who are not just tied to a computer, but also via mobile…

Having said that, it’s important to make both your business website and email marketing campaigns mobile-friendly. As 69% of users will delete emails that they can’t open or view properly on their mobile devices (source: Litmus). Besides, 6 in 10 users who visit a mobile-unfriendly website will leave and go elsewhere (source: Google).

You see, without doing email marketing, you are potentially losing many sales….

And when done effectively, it can take your local business up to a whole new level. Don’t let your competition leave you behind.

Hope you find this post very useful. You can actually get further information here about Email Autoresponder and follow-up system to generate more leads and sales on Autopilot.

The post Email Autoresponder Generates More Sales? appeared first on Market Business Online.

In a nutshell, the biggest email marketing mistake to make as a small business owner is “lack of effective Follow Up system”.  (And I will be providing some useful tips later).

That’s right!  Without having a powerful email ‘Follow Up’ system and strategy will cost you sales big time!  The bottom line is you need to ‘tactically’ chase your hot leads to win more sales!  This is a process consistently applied by many accomplished online marketers.

And when I started out online, it was one of the first things I learned how to do.  For any business, the importance of getting this part right cannot be overlooked. In fact, studies have shown that potentially around 80% of sales are lost due to lack of ‘Follow Up’.

Your sales can literally explode with powerful ‘follow up’ system……

So, how can you effectively implement ‘Follow Up’ to maximise sales? Here are 5 key tips:

(1) Use High Quality Autoresponder To ‘Follow UP’

You certainly require a highly reliable automated ‘follow up’ system for your small business marketing.  And that means setting up an email Autoresponder.  It allows you to store a series of ‘follow up’ messages that will automatically go out to your prospects. These are people that joined your Email List from your website but have not purchased anything yet.   In other words, they are the leads you capture online from your site.

I must emphasise that using a quality Autoresponder is so important for your small business marketing. Otherwise majority of your emails won’t get delivered. You set everything up once and the system automatically sends the ‘follow up’ emails to your prospects.  And it functions 24 hours a day on auto-pilot. Highly time-saving, quick and easy process. No hanging around your computer laboriously emailing people! How good is that?

(2) Set Up ‘Follow Up’ System To Act Immediately

Providing your offer is interesting, prospects generally buy after receiving about 6 ‘follow up’ emails. For instance, you can put 6 different email messages into your Autoresponder.  Programme your first message to automatically go out immediately.  Then set up each of the remaining messages to be sent every 2 days.  This way, you are striking your leads whilst they are hot!

(3) Educate Prospects Via ‘Follow UP’ Series

As part of your marketing campaign, your automated  ‘follow up’ emails should powerfully educate your prospects about your business to develop trust. Your target market will expect nothing less. You should also communicate the main benefits of your offer to your prospects.  It’s a case of what’s in it for them.

For example, connect emotionally with their concerns or problems via your emails. Then demonstrate that your product or service highly meets their needs.  Ensure your email series are benefit orientated without coming across aggressively.  With this approach you’ll sell more.

(4) ‘Follow Up’ Prospects With Special Incentives

Motivate your prospects through your ‘follow up’ emails with a special incentive to entice them into a sale.  In the process, create a sense of urgency but with delicacy to try and close the sale.

(5) Be Consistent With Your ‘Follow Up’ Messages

Avoid moving the goal post.   Which means you have to be consistent with your offers.  Because the last thing you need is to create confusion in your prospects minds that could discourage them from buying your stuff.

My Last Words – If you find this information useful, then it’s time to move up a notch with your small business email marketing strategies.  Remember, 80% of sales potentially go down the drain due to proper lack of ‘follow up’.  Don’t be part of this staggering statistics.  Besides, you can discover here about Email List Building and please share your ideas by leaving a comment.

The post Small Business Email Marketing Biggest Killer Mistake? appeared first on Market Business Online.

And highly increasing the number of subscribers opening your emails can really be achieved by applying the following strategies….

Eliminate Spam Filter:  The first thing is to learn how to overcome the dreaded spam filter in order to improve your email marketing open rate.  You need to ensure that your emails actually get to the people they are sent to. Things like spam filter breakers and a specific phrasing helper will allow you to sidestep most spam filters.  In addition, always inform any new subscribers to your Mailing List to add your email address to their contact list. So they can certainly receive your future emails in their inbox.

Hook Your Subscribers: Once you get your emails to their intended recipients, you have to hook the subscribers. And that means applying skillfully worded email subject lines that are compelling.  A good subject line will entice people to actually open your email rather than simply dumping it into the delete category. People online usually read sentences from left to right.  For that reason, make the first three words in your subject line particularly interesting to immediately captivate your audience.

Apply Urgency And Curiousity: Two ways that will make a subject line more appealing is to use urgency and curiosity. Urgency creates a time sensitive situation and these calls to action can certainly improve your email open rate. Teasing the email recipient and peaking their interest is an excellent way to draw them in to reading the email.

Create Controversy:  Raise a few eyebrows by using controversy in your subject line as a way of engaging people. While you can easily go overboard here, hitting on a hot button issue can really ramp up the level of people opening your emails.

Find Your Perfect Delivery Time:  Do thorough testing to find the perfect time to send out your emails and stick to it consistently.  This way your email subscribers come to expect it. Certainly this will increase your email marketing open rate.  Just bear in mind that most people work during the day. I personally consider around 9.30am or between 2pm and 4pm (Tuesday to Thursday) as the best times to send out B2B emails.  And for B2C emails, around 5pm – 8pm (Tuesday to Thursday) or between Friday evening and Sunday afternoon.

Perfect delivery time simply gets more people to read your emails

Apply First Sentence Effectively:  Although an engaging headline will tempt people to open an email.  But are you aware of the significance of the first sentence inside your email?  Well, people will be further lured into opening and reading your emails if the initial sentence is as captivating as your headline.  Just before the initial paragraph, you can even paste a link behind a logo.  So that if someone clicks on the logo, they can then be directed to a newsletter on your website.

Provide Exclusivity To Subscribers:  Whenever possible, offer exclusive information or offers to your subscribers. And I mean providing stuff you don’t have available on your site or anywhere else.  For instance, you can give away quality e-books. This will add more value to your subscription service and therefore your email open rate will increase.

Use A Cliff-hanger:  And what exactly does this mean?  When you email subscribers, talk about any irresistible offers or valuable information you have coming up in the next email.  But without necessarily giving the game away!  As a result, every email open rate will be high.  Because psychologically your subscribers will always be waiting in anticipation.

Build Positive Relationships:  Develop excellent rapport with your email subscribers and get to know them well enough to fulfil their needs. Always provide something valuable and relevant to their subscription. Treat your audience as friends rather than a constant sales funnel. Bombarding them with frequent sales promotions is irritating and must by all means be avoided.  As a consequence, more people will read your emails.

By consistently applying the above email open rate strategies combined with effective Email List Building will seriously take your business to the next level. Anything you would like to say on the subject matter?  Your comment would be appreciated.

The post Easy Ways To Vastly Improve Your Email Open Rate? appeared first on Market Business Online.

(1) Offer Fresh Original Content

Keep your website content fresh.  This is a major step often lacking why some local or small businesses find it so difficult to build an email list. To market business online with this strategy, you need to produce current up-to date content.  And if you do, people will be more inclined to sign up to your email list. Because you’ll develop more trust and rapport with your audience by providing regular unique content on your website.  Besides, regular content will bring new visitors to your site.  And as a result, you’ll consistently generate subscribers to your email list.

(2) Properly Position Sign-up Form

Make your mailing list sign-up form visible on your site. Paste it at the top left or right hand side of your homepage. And why’s this so important? Well, by making the form easily seen, your audience do not have to scroll down a page to find it. Also include an appealing graphic (close to the sign-up form) that will attract attention when potential subscribers visit your page.  The more obvious your form appears on your site, the easier it is to generate sign-ups!  And if you are directing people to a single “Sales Page” on your site, make sure you add a sign-up form.  So that if people don’t buy something instantly, they can easily subscribe to receive ‘Follow Up’ Messages.

(3) Paste Email Form On All Pages

Do not limit your email list sign up form to one web page. Post it on more than one page if not on all pages.  You can add the sign up form at the end of an article so if your customers want to subscribe it is readily available.  By using this strategy, you will definitely build an email list fast!

(4) Provide “Freebies” On Your Form

How about offering incentives?  As a rule of thumb, give your customers or potential customers irresistible incentives.  Customers like free items.  Offer a freebie on your sign-up form. For instance, you can give them a quality free e-book, coupon or a chance to win a prize in a sweepstakes. It’s about making your email subscription appealing to your customers. Make them want to subscribe by offering them something valuable that they need. This is certainly one of  the oldest tricks in the book on how to build an email list fast. So, put it into action for great results.

(5) Use ‘Forward To A Friend’ Option

Use email ‘forward to a friend’ function. Be careful about directly asking your current subscribers to have their family and friends subscribe to your email. Since you run the risk that they may unsubscribe from your newsletter.  If your email provider has the forward to a friend function, use that option instead. And make sure your URL link is in your newsletter. Now can you imagine how powerful this is? Well, as one person willingly forwards your newsletter to another, your list will grow faster.

(6) Register With Relevant Forums

Register with online forums that are specifically relevant to your niche. Then add your email listings or a related URL (also known as signature file) to any messages you post. Make sure that this is acceptable with forum administrators before you do it.  Putting this into action will surely give you more publicity and help build your email list for free!

(7) Highly Provide Repetitive Exposure

Never shy away from advertising your website email list building information at every opportunity you get. Just paste it anywhere possible and repetitively. Because repetition works wonders. And a constant reminder to your target audience encourages more people to sign-up. The key point is the more exposure you give your email lead capture form, the faster you effectively build your list.

To learn more, you can watch a quick Video Series on How To Build An Email List.  This will really help your business develop a large customer base. So, check out the videos. Until next time!

The post How to Build An Email List Effectively For Business Growth appeared first on Market Business Online.