How do you engage prospective customers with email marketing? The subject line. Before a customer even decides if they want to buy something, they have to open your email first. Before they open the email, they usually decide if your email is worth opening. So, the first place you have to capture their attention is the subject line.
Subject Lines with the following characters have been shown to have better results:
· Correct spelling and grammar
· Sense of urgency
· Personalization
· Offer
· Not spammy sounding
· Be interesting but not deceiving
These are just the basics, but by starting here, you’re on your way to a much better open rate and hopefully conversion rate.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Friday, July 24, 2009
PubCon 2009
For those particularly interested in SEO/SEM, affiliate marketing, social media, web 2.0 and more, consider attending PubCon. Registration for PubCon Las Vegas 2009 opened up on July 14, 2009.
When: November 10-13, 2009
Where: Las Vegas Convention Center
Work hard and play hard – after all, it is Las Vegas! :)
When: November 10-13, 2009
Where: Las Vegas Convention Center
Work hard and play hard – after all, it is Las Vegas! :)
Friday, July 17, 2009
Customer Ideas and Involvement
Sometimes the best ideas come from your customers. After all, they are the ones looking to purchase from you, utilize them to help drive your business to the next level. As a company, your best interest is the customer because if you can sell or provide them what they want or are interested in, they are more likely to convert.
It seems that, in general, people like to have a say in the things they buy, own, or consume. Take the example of food – while McDonald’s McCafe is growing up its own customer base rather quickly, there still many die-hard Starbucks fans. Taking the facts of coffee quality and price aside, you’re left with options. I see that McCafe is trying to give the customer more options but at Starbucks you are pretty much free to customize your coffee any way you want.
An article in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) titled, “The Customer Knows Best,” gives several examples of companies who have involved their customers or prospects in the design of a product or just tried to get ideas from the people to generate discussion. This works because if the customer has invested their time and opinion into what you are producing or selling, that product or service will be more suited to what they desire, thus making them more likely to buy.
One example from the WSJ article is about Local Motors Inc. (small-scale auto maker) who started to let people upload designs onto their website. They give out prizes to the designs they like best and then incorporate those designs into the cars they build. Another example I have is from our very own company. Awhile back we held a contest to engage customers to help create a design for one of our pens. The outcome was a great success as we were able to receive some awesome contributions, but people very much enjoy the winning design.
Bottom Line: Engage your customers, you may learn something you didn’t know about and can use to drive sales or leads.
It seems that, in general, people like to have a say in the things they buy, own, or consume. Take the example of food – while McDonald’s McCafe is growing up its own customer base rather quickly, there still many die-hard Starbucks fans. Taking the facts of coffee quality and price aside, you’re left with options. I see that McCafe is trying to give the customer more options but at Starbucks you are pretty much free to customize your coffee any way you want.
An article in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) titled, “The Customer Knows Best,” gives several examples of companies who have involved their customers or prospects in the design of a product or just tried to get ideas from the people to generate discussion. This works because if the customer has invested their time and opinion into what you are producing or selling, that product or service will be more suited to what they desire, thus making them more likely to buy.
One example from the WSJ article is about Local Motors Inc. (small-scale auto maker) who started to let people upload designs onto their website. They give out prizes to the designs they like best and then incorporate those designs into the cars they build. Another example I have is from our very own company. Awhile back we held a contest to engage customers to help create a design for one of our pens. The outcome was a great success as we were able to receive some awesome contributions, but people very much enjoy the winning design.
Bottom Line: Engage your customers, you may learn something you didn’t know about and can use to drive sales or leads.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Optimize Your Website for Success
In this economy, people are taking a lot longer to buy, doing research, and looking for the best deal. I came across an article from ClickZ on “Optimizing Your E-Commerce Site: Three Levers for Success” and feel that it provides a great sum up of how you can improve your website to hopefully grab that next sale or lead. Here’s a quick rundown:
Audience
Understand your core demographically, geographically, and behaviorally.
· Do you have consistent messaging across the site?
· Are you targeting your core customers in the way most appealing to them?
Offer
Utilize the 4Ps: Product, Pricing, Place, Promotion
Product
· Is your product presented in an appealing and information way?
· Do you offer anything special with the product – guarantees, upsells, cross-sells?
Pricing
· Can you sell in bulk or groups?
· Is the pricing consistent across all channels?
· Can you offer special pricing?
Place
· Where do customers land?
· What will drive them to make that last purchasing step?
Promotion
· Offer shipping promotions.
· Coupons for future orders.
Creative
Focus on: benefits, call to action, media/format, response channels, and branding
· Test images/photographs and copy.
· Button language/placement.
· Use of colors – easy to read.
Even if you’ve considered all of the above in optimizing focused on your audience, offer, and creative, a very important piece of the puzzle is measuring your results. Look at visitors, sales, and costs. Have any of these increased, decreased, or stayed the same since your tests or optimizations? How about compared to last year? Test and measure, test and measure, and continue to make adjustments to find the sweet spot.
Bottom Line: It’s a tough economy, fewer people are buying, but people are still buying, encourage them to buy from you.
Audience
Understand your core demographically, geographically, and behaviorally.
· Do you have consistent messaging across the site?
· Are you targeting your core customers in the way most appealing to them?
Offer
Utilize the 4Ps: Product, Pricing, Place, Promotion
Product
· Is your product presented in an appealing and information way?
· Do you offer anything special with the product – guarantees, upsells, cross-sells?
Pricing
· Can you sell in bulk or groups?
· Is the pricing consistent across all channels?
· Can you offer special pricing?
Place
· Where do customers land?
· What will drive them to make that last purchasing step?
Promotion
· Offer shipping promotions.
· Coupons for future orders.
Creative
Focus on: benefits, call to action, media/format, response channels, and branding
· Test images/photographs and copy.
· Button language/placement.
· Use of colors – easy to read.
Even if you’ve considered all of the above in optimizing focused on your audience, offer, and creative, a very important piece of the puzzle is measuring your results. Look at visitors, sales, and costs. Have any of these increased, decreased, or stayed the same since your tests or optimizations? How about compared to last year? Test and measure, test and measure, and continue to make adjustments to find the sweet spot.
Bottom Line: It’s a tough economy, fewer people are buying, but people are still buying, encourage them to buy from you.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
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