Better Business Blog

Email Marketing Essentials: A Checklist for Writing Emails That Get Opened

Note from Lee: It is with great joy that I get to  introduce new TopRank Marketers to our readers here at Online Marketing Blog. Ever since Brooke Furry joined our team, she has been opening up smiles on the people around her. Turns out, she’s pretty good at getting people to open emails too.  Please welcome Brooke as a contributor to Online Marketing Blog! 

If an email arrives in Judy’s inbox and she never opens it, was it worth the send?

Email Marketing is all about the open. Digital marketers who throw their hearts and souls into creating email campaigns with real personality and value know that regular, consistent email campaigns can accomplish great things. But even if you’re sending something you think your target audience will love, who’s going to know, care, or click if you can’t get them to open it?

Unlike the latest social media tactic du jour, email marketing is nothing new.  For over 30 years when the first emails arrived in an inbox, brand emails have had to combat everything from message size limits to spam filters to the Gmail message categories of today. But it’s not time to throw a funeral for email marketing. It’s time to get out the whiteboard and start strategizing.

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How to Turn Bland Text into Sparkling Online Content

Let me guess …

You’re smart. You know your stuff. And you have a sparkle in your eyes when you talk about your favorite subject.

But your writing doesn’t sound like you. At all.

No matter how hard you try, you struggle to find the right words.

You swap one word for another — now your sentence sounds lame. You try yet another word. That’s even worse.

You’re not a boring old fogie, so why do dull sentences sneak into your content?

You know your writing should be more conversational. But how?

It may seem difficult to write content that’s engaging and seductive. But it really doesn’t need to be so hard.

Let’s have a look at the three steps that turn boring (yawn) sentences into sparkling content.

Ready?

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What Does the Color of Your Logo Say About Your Business? (Infographic)

Close your eyes and picture McDonald's famous golden arches. Now, imagine if they had been gray. Would the burger chain be the international success it is today?

The color of some logos is more powerful than the logos themselves -- think the red of Coca-Cola or the pink of Barbie or the rainbow colors of Google.

Color can become a key part of any brand. Whether your logo is red and intense, yellow and joyful or black and mysterious, its colors are announcing something to the customer. As you create the perfect logo, be sure to pay attention to the color messages you're sending.

Check out the infographic below to figure out exactly what your logo's colors are telling potential customers.

Click Here to See the Infographic

 

 

How to Build a Culture of Innovation by Killing Mediocrity

Innovation Suffocates in a Culture of Mediocrity: How to breathe life into company culture to compete for the future

Ideas are a dime a dozen. Everyone seems to have one or more. I just wish that more organizations would appreciate how plentiful and beneficial ideas are to the future of their business. The challenges are all too common. Often, ideas are shared in fleeting moments with the same zeal as observing the weather. Once expressed they recede from view, a moment and opportunity passed, with life returning to its normal, unvaried routine. Also common is the lack of people or processes to do anything with ideas when they are specifically shared with the intention of causing effect or change.

In a world where the expression of ideas is a commodity but the consideration and implementation of them is a scarce resource, how do we create a more inviting culture that fosters their transformation from concept to manifestation?

Click Here to Read Part 1:

Click Here to Read Part 2: 

 

 

 

 

By The Numbers: 30 Incredible Email Statistics

 

Email has spanned the various stages of digital marketing evolution and is still going stronger than ever. It is an excellent communication channel when used strategically as part of a larger digital campaign.

So just how big has email become? Here are a few email statistics that should convince you of the importante of this age-old digital technology.

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How to Successfully Change the Minds of Your Audience when Speaking and Presenting

You can yell and even scream from stage, but if you truly want to change the minds of your audience, it’s going to start with your ability to ask amazing questions that force them to think, reflect, and challenge what they currently believe.

Tomorrow morning I’m going to give a content marketing workshop to about 20 entrepreneurs in the Fort Lauderdale area. Of these 20, the majority will strongly disagree(at first) with most of what I’m getting ready to teach them about a very “different” way of doing sales and marketing in the digital age, a fact that I’ve become very accustomed to while presenting so much on this subject over the past 3 years.

But here is the catch—by the time this workshop is over, I would expect 100% of the people in the room to make a simple statement that sounds like this:

“This makes total sense… and we should have been doing it a long time ago.”

At the risk of sounding rather braggadocios, over the last few years I’ve managed to build a very successful reputation of helping business owners, CEOs, and management teams “see the light” when it comes to this critical subject of content marketing buy-in. And even though I’ve written a lot about this subject here and here, today I want to shed light on an underlying principle of great communication and persuasion that has helped me tremendously on stage and in board rooms—one that YOU could apply in a multiplicity of settings, but certainly whenever you present to a group of 1, 100, or 1000. Here’s how it works:

Click Here to Read More on TheSalesLion.com  

 

The Power of Thinking Big, But Starting Small

How did Google manage to come out of nowhere? And how did it grow to reach$58 billion in annual revenues in 2013 — all in under two decades?

There are many explanations for the company’s phenomenal growth. But one technique small businesses can learn from is the ability to think big, yet take small steps. Here’s how it works.

In a post from Google’s Think Insights, Google’s former Senior Vice President of Adwords and AdSense, now Senior Vice President at YouTube, Susan Wojcicki explains. The process starts with the company’s Eight Pillars of Innovation. One of those pillars, says Wojcicki, is “think big, act small.”

This means the company may have big ambitious goals. But it starts to achieve those goals by taking small steps, one at a time.

Click Here to Read More on SmallBizTrends.com  

The One Question You Must Ask And Answer to Win With Social Media Marketing

“Can we increase our blog readership by 50% in the next 6 months?”

If you’re a digital marketing or social media professional, questions like this are probably pretty familiar.

For many companies, specific goals are a godsend since social media marketing is still a bit of an uncertainty. It gives those who are responsible for implementation something more tangible to focus their efforts on. I’ve seen it happen many times where an objective like this is communicated by a marketing director or VP and the marketing team jumped all over themselves and each other to provide compelling answers.

But I have to just shake my head when that happens.

It’s so easy to jump in to creative ideas and formulating what’s possible with tactics and tools, all focused on hitting that mark, whether it’s 5,000 more Twitter followers, 10,000 more Facebook fans or 50% more organic referred search traffic to the company blog.

But there’s one thing that’s missing. It’s really the most important thing.

It’s more important than a clever social media ad campaign that boosts visits or a contest that attracts blog subscribers.

The thing that really needs to be nailed down when it comes to blogging or any other social media effort, is the answer to this most important question:

Click Here To Read More on TopRankBlog.com  

7 Ways To Be The Most Interesting Person In Any Room

Welcome to Charm School

 

I've posted a lot of research from experts on getting people to like you, being influential, and having great conversations. What's the best way to use all this information to be more interesting?

1. First, don't be boring.

Sometimes the best offense is a good defense. Look at it like the Hippocratic Oath of conversations: Do no harm. We're all terrible at realizing when we bore others because, well, we all think we're just fascinating. The number one tip for never boring anyone comes from Scott Adams: Be brief, be positive. If you're always to the point and stay upbeat, it's extremely hard for anyone to accuse you of being poor company. But sometimes you do need to speak a little longer to make sure things don't get stilted. The Art of Civilized Conversation offers another good tip: Is anyone asking you questions about what you're saying? If not, maybe it's time to end the story or ask the other person a question.

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Five Ways to Grow Your Business Without Adding More Resources

Everyone in business today is being asked to do more with less. There is constant pressure to improve performance, maintain growth and beat the numbers. From large multinationals to independent contractors, increasing efficiency is top priority. Here are five tips that you will help you grow your business, without adding more overhead:

Automate tasks with software. Lots of tools are now available that allow for many manual tasks to be automated. For example, social media management tools such as Buffer or HootSuite let you queue up content and have it post automatically. They also let you manage social media as a team, instead of as individuals. Most blogging software also has similar functions. Set up content to post in advance, which frees you up to focus on generating new material.

Email marketing can also easily be automated. Low-priced software from vendors such as Hubspot and Marketo allow small companies to build automated customer relationship management systems that rival the sophistication of what Amazon has had for years.

Consider what other tasks you can automate, such as billing or accounting. Even public relations teams can set up daily searches to look for relevant articles based on keywords, instead of reading each headline one by one.

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5 Ways Small Businesses Can Win Large Customers

 

When you're just starting out, you need to project an air of sophistication and establish that you have indispensable skills and knowledge.

Most small business owners I know salivate at the prospect of landing a large customer. But having listened to the woes of entrepreneurs in my field and others, I know most don't know the strategies necessary to lure and land that first big account.

I do. When my business partner Ed Moed and I opened our shop from his squalid, one-bedroom apartment in 1995, we had a measly $12,500 in seed money and my Rolodex of leads. We didn't have a single customer, large or small.

While we employed a host of different strategies to get Peppercomm where it is today, these are the five best tips I can share to help increase your awareness, credibility, and attractiveness among the big boys:

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Biggest List of Tools and Free Software for Small Businesses

 

For more such lists of marketing tools and software, check Big Ass List of Marketing tools and software. The list was compiled from WarriorForum and FreelanceFolder.

Note-Taking and Documents 
These tools will help you take notes no matter where you find yourself needing to jot something down. You will also find tools that help you create documents from your notes that you can use or share with others.

1. Evernote. This powerful note-taking app allows you to take a photo with your phone, type in text, clip information from the Internet, use on your desktop, or use on your phone.
2. Google Notebook. This web-based note-taking app also has access to Google search capabilities, Google Bookmarks, a rich-text editor, and labels.
3. Zoho Notebook. This app is a powerhouse with capabilities for integrating audio, video, html, urls, files, and much more. Tools include line, text, freehand, and shapes.
4. UberNote. Another web-based app, UberNote allows you to email or IM notes, bookmark, and access from your desktop or your mobile phone.
5. WebAsyst Notes. Create notes and then organize them in folders, share with others, or access other services such as photo storage, manage projects, and more.
6. Notefish. Save web content on Notefish notes, then organize and share your notes as you like.
7. Luminotes. Described as a personal wiki notebook, this note-taking app lets you create notes, link them together, and stay organized in an easy-to-use format.
8. FruitNotes. This online notebook offers features such as calling from your phone and leaving voice notes, uploading photos and videos, and online sharing.
9. Wridea. Write down what you need to remember, then edit, categorize, and even share your notes with others.
10. Net Notes. This Firefox add-on allows you to save notes on websites into your bookmarks.

Click Here to Read More on Inboundio.com 

Writing Sensible Email Messages

As we've seen before, getting your inbound email under control will give you a huge productivity boost, but what about all the emails you send? If you want to be a good email citizen and ensure the kind of results you're looking for, you'll need to craft messages that are concise and easy to deal with.

First: Understand why you're writing

Before you type anything into a new message, have explicit answers for two questions:

1. Why am I writing this?
2. What exactly do I want the result of this message to be?

If you can't succinctly state these answers, you might want to hold off on sending your message until you can. People get dozens, hundreds, eventhousands of emails each day, so it's only natural for them to gravitate toward the messages that are well thought-out and that clearly respect their time and attention. Careless emails do not invite careful responses.

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How to Tackle Something You Have No Idea How to Do

 

My career has been filled with daunting tasks.

I graduated with a degree in the all-too-general category of business, which didn’t exactly prepare me for any one specific industry. So, when I settled into a career with a healthcare technology company—knowing absolutely nothing about healthcare or technology—I was faced with a tough gig.

My boss would pull me into her office and rush through my next assignment: “Listen, I need you to reconcile our 10 biggest clients’ lists of providers with their billing before we switch to the new accounting software.”

I’d nod and take notes, but inside, my stomach was turning over with a mixture of fear and frustration. I don’t even know where to start, I’d scowl. How does she expect me to do this?

But the thing is, regardless of whether you know how to do something or not, it’s part of your job to make sure it gets done. You won’t always be able to get formal company training, and often, your boss won’t be able to guide you through the task step-by-step; it’s up to you to figure out how to see it through.

After a good deal of frustration, I eventually learned how to take that completely overwhelmed feeling and turn it into something productive. Here’s how.

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10 Crazy Bootstrapping Stories

What these entrepreneurs lacked in funds, they made up for in gumption. Read on for inspiring tales of daring, dedication, and desperation.

There's no question that turning a great idea into a profitable business is exciting. But it's tough, as well, especially if you're bootstrapping. So I wondered--what are some of the craziest things people will do to self-fund their businesses?

Ah, the stories entrepreneurs tell about keeping their companies alive--it's nail-biting stuff! Here are 10 tales of daring, dedication, and in some cases, desperation, to inspire you.

Live in an RV for Years

After selling about $100,000 worth of plastic comb-bound books to interior designers via direct mail, Kimberly Causey wanted to get a real book onto the shelves of bookstores but couldn't afford to professionally print them. Her solution? She bought $200 worth of professionally printed covers for her home furnishings buying guide, printed the interior pages on her home printer, folded and scored the covers and glued them all together in her kitchen using a hot glue gun and a butter knife. Within two years proceeds from her book were supporting her full time, she got an 800 number, and a credit card processing account, and she was regularly driving through the night to appear on morning TV shows all over the southeast.

Click Here to Read More on Inc.com  

12 Simple Ways to Really Improve in 2014

Everyone has room to improve. Here is a monthly schedule of self-improvement sure to make you look back on 2014 with pride.

The New Year brings hope of beginnings and commitments. And yet many resolutions fall flat after a month or two. It’s no surprise why this happens. Many make lists of all the behaviors they intend to change and then try and make it happen all at once. Sadly this approach often ends in failure. It’s hard enough to change one behavior, let alone several at the same time.

So here’s a better approach. Below is a monthly list of traits you can always improve upon, along with practiced methods for making them stick. I’ve linked some articles to help inspire you for each one. Just focus on one behavioral change each 30 days and then add the next.  You may not succeed in absorbing them all, but you’re bound to do better than the usual New Year’s binge. Get a small notebook to help you track your progress and inspire you for the next New Years.

 

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5 Forgotten Offline Marketing Tactics

With the rise in popularity of online marketing, many proven offline methods are simply forgotten when marketing campaigns are planned. Of course, online marketing is hugely important in today’s Internet-connected world, but offline engagement with customers still has unique and distinct value that shouldn’t be forgotten.

If you want to give your business a real marketing boost this year, start looking outside the box. Here are five forgotten offline marketing tactics that don’t require a big marketing budget.

1. Engage in offline guerrilla marketing

Guerrilla marketing is a generic term for the use of unconventional marketing strategies, and because online marketing channels are so narrowly structured, offline is the best arena to flex your small business’s guerrilla marketing muscle. So, starting now, ignore what you know about marketing channels, and let your inner child out to play.

Offline guerrilla marketing ideas:

• Leave sticky notes in random places (bars, coffee shops).
• Use chalk to advertise promotions on a sidewalk.
• “Accidentally” leave a branded pen at the bank.
• Donate branded bookmarks to your local library.
• Use sticky notes to create temporary images on buildings, cars, etc.

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Are Your Emails Too Long? (Hint: Probably)

 

The Gettysburg Address was 271 words long.

Yesterday, I received an email on a company policy change regarding coffee and tea selection that was 350.

I know—coffee’s important. But if Lincoln was able to eloquently tell a divided nation about the importance of humanity and equality in 271 words, I think we should be able to send work-related emails that are just a little bit shorter.

A lot of times, we’re afraid to be brief in emails because we don’t want to sound mean, or because we think we need to give a lot of information or directions to get our point across. And that’s fair. But I think we’d all agree that less email would make our working lives a whole lot easier. And that starts with making each one just a little bit shorter.

Here’s a quick and easy guide to keeping your emails short and sweet (without sounding like a jerk).

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How to Steal Your Competitor's Social Media Followers (It's Not What You Think)

 

Social media is used to build brand ambassadors, drive traffic, and convert sales. While building a social media following can be very difficult, one way to speed up the process is to tap into a fan base that is already established - that of your competitors. Yes, you can steal your competition's followers right out from under their noses.

Stealing is usually a zero-sum transaction, wherein one party loses and the other party wins. But that is not how it works with social media. This guide will show you how to gain followers by leveraging your competition's social networks. So if you want to accelerate your social media game by getting followers from your competitors, here are several tips you should consider:

Start Networking 

If you want to grow your website, you will need to start treating it like a real business. And what do savvy business owners do to get the edge? They network. So start reaching out to people in the same niche as you, in addition to ancillary niches. For instance, if you own a fantasy football website, you might want to reach out to website owners in the following categories: sports, college, men's lifestyle, humor, etc.

Find the Authority Competitors in Your Niche

The best way to start is to perform a search on Google for your main keywords. Choose the most important websites based on: number of followers (Facebook, Twitter), posting frequency, and social interactions. Go through each website and see which one has the best community and the most active fans. As an example, I will analyze websites in the "dog" niche. A search on Google for the keyword "dog breeds" reveals these results:

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Are You Doing Email Wrong? Just Four Steps to Increase Sales

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Email marketing is similar to social media in that it's a marketing tool that's most effective for follow-up, not lead generation.

Consider these statistics about follow-up: 2% of sales are made on the first contact; 3% of sales are made on the second contact; 5% of sales are made on the third contact; 10% of sales are made on the fourth contact; and 80% of sales are made on the fifth to twelfth contact.

Yet... 48% of salespeople never follow up with a prospect; 25% of salespeople make a second contact, then stop; and just 12% of salespeople make more than three contacts.

Effective follow-up equals more sales, yet most businesses do not follow up enough with prospects. Enter drip email marketing: To nurture leads, you can send a series of emails on a set schedule—a drip email campaign—to your prospects until they become ready to buy.

Now, let's talk about how to create effective drip email campaigns. It only takes four simple steps.
 

Step 1: Choose an email software program

The first step is choosing an email marketing program to use for your drip email campaigns.

Here are some of the most popular ones:

• MailChimp
• AWeber
• Constant Contact
• iContact
• Infusionsoft
• Emma

Each of those has pros and cons, depending on your particular situation, so you should research them for yourself to see which one best fits your business needs and budget. For example, MailChimp is a more user-friendly program that helps beginners in the campaign creation process. On the other hand, Aweber is a bit more complicated, but it has more advanced capabilities. Many have free options as well as premium paid versions, so you can choose the program that fits your budget.

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Need a Business Idea? Here are 55 Ideas To Start With

 

This article has been excerpted from 55 Surefire Home Based Businesses You Can Start for Under $5,000 by Entrepreneur Press & Cheryl Kimball, available from Entrepreneur Press .

Today, tens of thousands of people are considering starting a home based business, and for good reasons. On average, people can expect to have two and three careers during their work life. Those leaving one career often think about their second or third career move being to their own home. People who have been part of the traditional nine-to-five work force and are on the verge of retiring from that life are thinking of what to do next. The good news: Starting a homebased business is within the reach of almost anyone who wants to take a risk and work hard.

Click Here to Read More on Entrepreneur.com  

The Art of Crafting a 15-Word Strategy Statement

In the January issue of HBR, Roger Martin sets out some rules for avoiding common mistakes in strategy making. As he writes in “The Big Lie of Strategic Planning”, the first rule is “keep the strategy statement simple.” Rather than a long, often vague document, the company’s strategy should summarize the chosen target customers and the value proposition in one page.

I couldn’t agree more. In my consulting work, I take this idea even further by asking my clients to summarize their strategy in less than 15 words. This statement must identify the target customer, the value proposition, and how the latter fits two requirements:

• Focus: What you want to offer to the target customer and what you don’t;
• Difference: Why your value proposition is divergent from competitive alternatives.

Sounds simple. But it’s more difficult than it seems. The 15-word constraint is a test that often reveals a profound lack of alignment among managers. In a 100-page strategy document you can state everything you want, which makes everyone in the organization feel comfortable. The trouble is that managers then interpret the 100 pages according to their view and aspiration of the company’s strategy. The result: one planning document, many different strategies.

All great business strategies can be summarized in a short headline. Easy to understand and communicate, they convey clarity internally and externally to the customer. Clarity is so important for good strategies that companies should make an effort to understand what it means and how to achieve it.

Click Here to Read More on Harvard Business Review Blog
 

Michael Stelzner on Capturing Emails and Committing to Quality

From nothing to Technorati’s #1 business blog in a little over four months.

That’s quite a story.

It’s Michael Stelzner’s. And on the latest episode of The Lede, he shares two of the most important ingredients in his online success — ingredients that too often get overlooked.

Capturing emails and committing to quality … Stelzner has been steadfast with both since launching Social Media Examiner, and the site’s sustained success is a testament to their importance.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Michael’s early commitment to email
• The specific strategies he used (and you can, too) to attract 10,000 email signups in four months
• The “hardest part” about email campaigns
• How Michael and his team get the information that lets them plan their editorial calendar
• The meticulous editing process each piece of content goes through
• Tips you can implement today to improve your own content quality

We also discuss the upcoming Social Media Marketing World event Michael is hosting in San Diego, where Brian Clark is among the loaded list of presenters.

Click Here to Read More  

 

 

 

Jon Levine on Keys to Affiliate Program Management Success in 2014

Meet Jon Levine, a 13-year veteran of the online marketing industry, who currently works for All Inclusive Marketing as their Director of eCommerce. At the upcoming Affiliate Management Days SF 2014 conference (March 19-20) Jon will speak on how to “Engage & Activate Affiliates Who’ve Since Gone Cold.”

Question: If you were to emphasize one area that every affiliate manager should be paying attention to in 2014, what would it be, and why?

Jon Levine: Mobile and mobile app affiliates. I believe that 2014 will be a big year for affiliates in the mobile space.  With more and more eCommerce being done via mobile, affiliates who specifically target this market or develop apps that leverage affiliate relationships will be successful.

Question: What do you see as the main areas of opportunity for affiliate marketing (and affiliate marketers) 2014?

Jon Levine: I think a big area of opportunity is in data, but I don’t know if 2014 will be the year it becomes relevant. I think that merchants are sitting on so much data, but they’re unwilling to share it.  I believe that this data can be harnessed and used by affiliate partners to see trends or uncover synergies that the merchant never thought possible.

There’s some big hurdles that need to be overcome before merchants begin to freely share their data, but I think there’s a huge opportunity if they do.

Click Here to Read More 

 

Five Tips for Creating Videos That Build Brand and Drive Sales

 

Storytelling through video has become part of the required content marketing toolkit for brands looking to create awareness in their market. Old Spice, for example, sought to refresh a sleepy brand; Jack Dorsey launched a whole new product category with Square Cash; and Red Bull created a movement with its "Gives You Wings" campaign.

The power of video to move consumers to act has played out nicely in the numbers. YouTube users watch more than 6 billion hours of video per month; that's up 50% over last year according to YouTube execs. Meanwhile, Cisco predicts that two-thirds of the world's mobile traffic will be video by 2016. So, clearly, this ship isn't sinking any time soon.

Short-format videos are in 

Let's start with the short-format videos being used on platforms such as Vine and Instagram. They're hot, they're new, and users are flocking to them in droves. Some 59% of the world's top brands are now active on Instagram alone, according to Simply Measured.

What's great about these platforms is that they allow you to tell visual stories in the form of "content snacks," or bite-sized bits of engagement. Much as Twitter has done for microblogging, these platforms force short-form storytelling by limiting the length of the video clip to mere seconds. They also seem much more conducive to sharing, and they're perfect for branding. 

"Brand vines are shared 4x more than other online videos," Heather Taylor, a vice-president at Ogilvy, claims. Furthermore, 40% of the most shared 15-second videos are marketing efforts, Unruly Media found in a recent study. Here are some examples:

Click Here to Read More on MarketingProfs.com