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How to Win Back Online Shoppers Who Fail to Check/Abandon Cart

Shopping cart abandonment is a huge problem for businesses of all sizes. There is a multitude of reasons that customers abandon their cart but there are ways to win them back. The trick is in knowing how to get, keep and win over customers who will complete their shopping experience with you the first time and every time thereafter.

It is not enough to simply persuade a customer to complete the checkout process; you want them to come back again. With the right tips, your customer base will grow and customer retention will help you keep them coming back repeatedly.

Customers overwhelmingly abandon their cart before completing the checkout process and your business is not the only one suffering the consequences. In fact, Baynard recently published cart abandonment rate statistics to have all the statistics in one place. The results are staggering. While the percent of e-commerce shopping cart abandonment rates fluctuate between the sources somewhat, the average shopping cart abandonment rate is 68.53 per cent.

Use a simple design on your page to give customers what they want now. Keep the links to a minimum.

Keep it simple

It is imperative that your site is easy to read and easy to navigate. Customers do not want to click through a dozen links to get to the product or service they came to your site to purchase. They will quickly abandon their cart in favor of another company where they can easily find and purchase what they want or need.

Make your site mobile-friendly. Many shoppers use their mobile devices to make online purchases. If they cannot easily make their purchase and complete the checkout process from their mobile device, you risk losing many customers who will go to another online site that is more mobile friendly.

Using email

Avoid endless popup messages badgering the customer to sign up for your email list – this is very off-putting.

Instead invite people to sign up to receive emails from you via an opt-in form on your website.

The idea is to develop a relationship with your customers by providing them with information, tips or insights that they will find useful and worth reading.

This will make them more likely to trust you and if they trust you then they are more likely to buy from you.

Send a welcome message to those who do sign up and then have a follow up series which has been specifically designed to give your email subscribers the kind of information they are looking for. RocketResponder has been designed to fulfil this role without you having to spend too much time on email marketing.

Make sure the email subject line has your business name so the customer does not delete it before reading it, thinking it is spam. That way you only get customers who are truly interested in receiving your emails.

No surprises

Keep customers informed up front to avoid sticker shock near the end of the checkout process. Customers want to know what their total cost is upfront before they reach checkout. Hiding add-ons such as shipping charges, processing and handling fees creates sticker shock for some customers when their $29 item is now $50 at checkout. When customers can easily link to your shipping charges or other fees upfront, it increases the chances of a completed sale. Customers do not want to feel you deceived them by hiding additional fees and charges until the very end of their shopping experience.

Offering customer perks shows the customer that you have their satisfaction in mind. Perks such as free or reduced shipping, loyalty bonuses for repeat customers, free returns if the customer is not satisfied with their purchase and live customer support are just some ideas that help to build trust with your customer base. Making these perks easily visible and not hidden somewhere is crucial.

To get customers to complete the checkout process, you have to give them the incentive to do so. Making the checkout process simple and with minimum time involved can contribute to customer satisfaction. Customers do not have time to go through a lengthy or complicated checkout process. Keep it simple and watch your shopping cart abandonment rates decrease.

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Increase Your Subscribers Response Rate

One of the first things people do when they get online is check their email accounts. Some do it first-thing in the morning, while others run to it whenever they need a break from work. This shows what a powerful tool email can be for reaching your customers. However, it’s one thing to get your messages into their inbox and another to get them to open them. If they’re not clicking on the links inside, your marketing strategy isn’t working.

Here are some tips to increase your response rate:

1.) Personalize Your Messages

One of the most important things you can do is use their first name in the message. Everyone is attuned to the sight and sound of their own name. You’d be surprised how a simple personal touch can boost the success rate of your campaign. If you use it in the subject line, more of your recipients will open their messages. If you use it within the body of the message, you’re more likely to hold their attention and get them to click through it.

2.) Keep a Clean List

Your campaigns will be much more effective if you’re able to maintain a clean list of subscribers. There are tools and software available that you can use to verify the validity of addresses in your list. This allows you to focus on those that will actually receive your emails.

On a related note, you should always make it easy for your recipients to unsubscribe. Run a search for unsubscribers before each campaign and add them to an exclusion list. Clear out any outdated email addresses and check your delivery reports frequently.

Be aware that third-party monitoring services will “blacklist” you if your low deliverability rate leads them to believe you’re nothing more than a spammer. The cleaner your list is, the less likely it is that the ISPs will either block you or route your messages to the junk folder.

3.) Get to the Point

Once you get your subscribers to open your emails, the last thing you want is to lose them. Get to the point quickly so they won’t think they’re wasting their time. All it takes is one poorly-written email to leave them with a bad impression.

4.) Offer a “Secret Discount”

Everyone appreciates a good discount and your campaign emails will seem a bit more personal if you extende a special offer to a select group of subscribers that happens to include them. The trick is not to give away the actual percentage of the discount until they’ve clicked through the message. Let their curiosity guide them, instead. Although this might seem to contradict the previous tip about getting to the point right away, there’s a difference between getting their attention right away with the prospect of a discount and giving them all the details.

5.) Provide Contact Information

Don’t give your subscribers the impression you’re hiding from them. Always provide customer care contact information, in case they have questions. You can either include an email address and phone number, or a link to your company’s customer care page.

6.) Use a Strong Subject Line

The first thing your recipients are going to see is the subject line and it will largely determine whether they open your email or not. The objective is to provide a clear and strong reason to open it that grabs their attention without being deceptive. Be direct and state your intention (such as a benefit, matter of urgency or call to action) in as few words as possible. Also make sure your company’s name is in the “from” field, rather than a person’s name, department name or email address.

7.) Pay Attention to Your Subscribers

If you don’t keep a close eye on your subscribers, you’ll begin losing more of them with each campaign. Every recipient who unsubscribes does so for a reason and if you want some insight as to why, you’ll have to put yourself in their place. Are you emailing them too often? Are you customizing your emails so they don’t all get exactly the same message? Are you keeping them interested? Imagine yourself on the receiving end of your email campaign and ask yourself the tough questions.

Increasing your subscribers’ response rate isn’t rocket science. On the contrary, it comes down to some simple guidelines that are often overlooked. Don’t ever let your subscribers feel like they’re just numbers. Address them by name, tell them right away why you want their attention and give them a good reason to open your emails. Keep this up while maintaining a clean list and you should notice a significant improvement.

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5 Ideas to Guide Your Follow-up Series

They say that a follow-up series is a great idea to engage your prospects and customers. You agree and want to create a series that helps generate additional conversion and builds more trust in your brand. Where is a small business owner to begin? Here are 5 steps and a few leading ideas to begin generating a follow-up series that continues the conversation.

Begin the Conversation

1. Begin with a ‘thank you’ page. Reassure the customer that they have made the right decision for a purchase or an email opt-in. Give them access to the promised product or downloadable. Point out that the item will arrive shortly in their email but that some email may end up in a junk folder. If they choose to whitelist your email address, further communications should appear in their primary inbox.

2. The first in a series of auto-responder emails then begin. Welcome them to the subscription service and remind them of the company and previous communications. Offer any links that may have been missed and offer support with any related processes. Soft pitch any related programs that can be of benefit to the client.

3. The second email mentions the product or newsletter name. Remind the addressee of how to use or incorporate the downloaded files. If there are additional useful resources that can be useful, offer them to the client.

4. The third email can recommend products, resources, newsletters and membership sites that would help the client. Inquire as to if they have begun using the product or opt-in items. Review the benefits of the related item. It is also possible to ask for a testimonial as to the company, opt-in or product that has been used and how it addressed their specific problem.

5. The fourth email offers your help. A personalized domain name lets subscribers feel that you want to build a personal relationship with them and are available to hear any concerns that they may be having. Make them feel special by informing them that only valued subscribers or customers like themselves have access to more tailored support services from you. Answer responses personally. Consumers want to feel like there is a real person on the side that has cared enough to read over and individually respond to them.

Provide Valuable Content

Vendors or companies that continually provide educational content over special deals generate more trust. Your company has positioned itself as an expert that cares about their needs. The strategy of offering content of educational value leads to long-term relationships and creates loyalty of customers to a brand.

Perhaps a client has ordered a new sink for their bathroom. Materials such as repairing leaks, regrouting tiles and the latest bathroom vanity trends can be segmented and divided into a series. A free video link can also accompany the emails that help home owners to fix small issues or rethink their space. Be a resource to customers and prospects and they will maintain their subscription.

Ensure that all correspondence is quickly followed up by a tailored email. Whether the prospect called or emailed for further information, take the time to personally reach out to them and to check about the progress of a concern or to offer additional help. There are free templates to follow up on responses from email opt-ins, to respond to interest shown by prospects at tradeshows or for further types of interaction. Be available to customers and prospects alike by keeping the lines of communication continually open.

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9 Reasons Why Using Email to Reach Clients Is Smarter Than You Think

Email is an essential business tool in this interconnected world. It stands as one of the most useful communication tools to reach clients and prospects when they want to be reached. There is a place for other methods of outreach but email remain a top avenue of business communications. Email is an effective tool for delivering your message to clients.

Email is Fast

As soon as you press send, emails are sent over to the addressee’s inbox. It can reach then while they are involved in other activities and doesn’t change message as when one might speak to a third party. Your message stays true.

Email Allows for Elaboration

Emails can hook the initial interest of the recipient and give further details. Attachments such as documents and presentations can be included. Important links to videos and websites can help to underscore your intent. Documents can be stored for later use or downloaded for immediate viewing and review.

Email is Instantly Available

Emails can be saved and archived for later reading or referral. Cell phones keep attachments and vital information handy without having to search for information through physical paperwork and files. All correspondence is portable and convenient to access.

Email is Budget-friendly

Whether using a personal email account or a webmail service, email is a minimal marketing expense. Direct mail still requires materials and stamps and costs more to implement than email during a marketing campaign.

Email Permits Convenient Reponse

From either-direction, whether from B2C or in reverse, clients can respond to emails at a convenient time anywhere in the world. If clients have an issue, they can send a message to businesses outside of operating hours and have their message read at the opening of the following business day. It is easier to clearly send a message that says exactly what is intended by the sender without the possibility of any miscommunication that can occur when leaving messages verbally through third parties.

Email is Global

How much does it cost to send a letter by DHL, FedEx or another carrier? Email is a fraction of the cost and helps to address the needs of customers anywhere in the world without the additional time lost with mailing services. FedEx is still overnight. Email is there now.

Email is Trackable

Businesses will send x number of emails out to interested parties. Businesses can track response rates. They can tell which emails are opened, which addressees click on links and any emails that have bounced back. Email addresses can be easily updated and categorized to reflect active email addresses and the status of the addressee.

Email can be Segmented

One general email blast is less effective than targeted emails to the needs of different groups of people behind the email addresses. The beauty of email is that lists can be generated and updated based on categories of people such as initial leads, interested parties, current customers and those that have not purchased in some time. The message can be tailored to initially interest a prospect, provide more resources, upsell and remarket. Prospects and clients in the pipeline have different needs as they progress towards purchasing or making a larger purchase. Emails allow senders to easily change the category of the email address to reflect the current status of the recipient.

Email can be Evergreen

Successful campaigns and associated materials can be tracked and useful downloadable pdfs, ebooks and free content giveaways can be created to be used indefinitely. Quality content that motivates conversion should be kept and used in future outreach efforts.

Hone the capacity to deliver quality email messages and increase engagement while reducing costs.

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Tips to Follow for Small Business Email Marketing Success

Every single day, more than 100 billion emails will go out and be opened in various mailboxes across the world, technology market research firm the Radicati Group, Inc. found in 2013. While yes, many of these messages will be junk that gets stuck in the spam filter and then sent straight to the trash bin, many other emails that a person gets actually do matter. If you’re a small business owner, you want your emails to count in this category.

Email has been used as an online communication tool since 1993. While many other 1990s computer features like floppy discs and dial-up connections are simply vernacular from a bygone era, email is still as effective and widely used as ever. Therefore, if your company hasn’t tried automated email marketing yet, you could be missing out on a huge and viable means of bringing in new customers and keeping them coming back again and again.

In order to be as successful as possible with your email marketing campaign, don’t over complicate or over think the process. Just like you’ve taken the time to get a professional website (whether you made it yourself or not) and create various social media profiles, it’s time to add an email newsletter area to these sites. This box shouldn’t be hidden off on one corner or at the bottom of your website. You want as many people as possible to know that you have an email newsletter, so put the box where people can see it. Just ask for their name and email address in the box and that’s it, they’re signed up.

Remember that you’re not the only company that a customer does business with. They’re likely signed up to receive the latest about a variety of products and services. Just like always, you have to stand out from the competition and give the customer an incentive to click. The first way to do that is with an enticing subject line. Don’t just title these “small business newsletter #1,” since that’s a snooze fest waiting to happen. Instead, let the email content be your guide. If you have a new product to sell or you’re offering discounts for new email subscribers, put this in the subject line.

When it comes to the body of the email, although it’s a newsletter, don’t write a novel. Provide links to other parts of your company website with news so interested customers can click and learn more. Don’t overdo it on bold text, weird fonts, exclamation points, or huge pictures, as these could turn customers away. Most importantly, you have to stagger out when you email customers. Although the process is automated, reaching out daily is obviously too much. Perhaps you send out the newsletter weekly, twice a month, or monthly. Don’t wait too long between emails, as this could drive away customers as well.

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Enterprising Entertainment: Promoting Your Company With Online Videos

Every investment your company makes has risks, and marketing is no exception. Whenever you pay for new advertising space or content, you take the risk that viewers won’t understand or like what you publish. To minimize the chance of a negative or lukewarm reaction, incorporate corporate videos into your marketing strategy.

Videos keep viewers attention, humanize your company, and let you explain complex concepts in simple terms:

Amiable Animations

Animation is the ideal tool for providing brief, easy-to-understand introductions to prospective customers. Since introductory videos target viewers who have never bought from your company before, and may not have any prior interest in your products, they must be brief, concise, and entertaining. Animations allow you to achieve all of these goals with ease. By synching a voiceover description of your company with illustrations, tables, and graphs, you can provide context and specific details without lengthening the voiceover.

Animations also allow you to incorporate funny or fascinating visuals to entertain viewers. As long as those visuals relate to your company, such animations will both entertain and educate, ensuring that viewers will remember your company positively.

Entertaining Explanations

Animated videos are great for introducing your company’s general services, but when it comes to explaining more specific processes, animation is too expensive and time consuming to perform regularly. Many companies instead use written entries on their websites, and while this can be an effective method, there are limits to relying on a single medium of expression. Supplementing written content with live videos allows you to incorporate music, text, visuals, and occasional animations for a more varied experience.

By including interviews with the employees responsible for each process, video documentation of the services they perform, and music or interesting voiceovers in the background, you can explain each company service in an engaging, enjoyable manner.

The Virtues of Vlogging

Besides explaining company services, you can generate further interest in your business by keeping a regular vlog. Like written content marketing, vlogs bring in new customers who previously had no interest in your product. Unlike written content, however, vlogs are easier to plan. If one of your employees is good at ad-libbing, you can make entertaining vlogs on a regular basis with minimal effort and no prior planning.

Viewers are also less likely to notice grammar mistakes in vlogs, and spelling mistakes don’t apply, meaning you won’t have to spend as much time editing them. As long as the vlogs remain on topics related to your company and avoid offensive material, they’re sure to bring you positive publicity.

Event Highlights

Every time your company has a party, attends a convention, or takes part in some other event, film the event and compile the highlights into a video. By including funny and heartwarming moments, you’ll associate your company with a positive, human image. This will make customers more willing to trust you and remain loyal Just make sure everyone you film consents to appearing in a company video.

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What is Email Automation?

A brief explanation of email automation and how it works for you.

Although emails are an excellent method of communication, they can be hard to follow up on when handled individually. However, methods such as email automation have been created to make such a process possible at the hit of a button. With this being said, here’s a look at email automation works and benefits it can provide to you and your business.

How Email Automation Works

The process of how email automation works is that it enables marketers to send out emails to customers as designated times. As the methods of emailing every individual are far too time consuming when it comes marketing, email automation makes a mass email possible at the touch of a button. In addition to this, email automation allows specific emails to be sent after a customer makes a specific action. Although email automation sounds robotic, it opens doors of communication that can easily make interaction much more personable… without exhausting a customer service staff.

What Email Automation Offers

Email automation offers a lot of perks with very few downfalls. Here’s a look at what email automation can offer for your company:

Overall Effectiveness – With over ninety-percent of the United States population using their email on a daily basis, email automation is one of the most effective and reliable routes to pursue in marketing for many businesses. Making the average value of an order at least seventeen percent higher, emails make it three times as likely to prompt and drive a sale.

Less Costly – Between hours sending individually and response of emails, email automation is the way to go. An interesting fact is that eighty percent of direct mail budgets can be saved by event triggering your emails.

Consistency – Email automation allows you to convey a much more smooth message to your recipients, which results in higher response.

Retention & Engagement – With such an easy and quick way of contacting customers, it makes sending out more notifications that much more simple.

Target Demographics – Email automation allows your company to target specific gender and age groups so that messages can fit the customer appropriately.

Metric Analysis – Figuring out what automated emails work best for your company can easily be deciphered with metric analysis.

As these are only a few of the wonderful perks that email automation can provide, there’s still the question of whether or not email automation can work for your business.

Email Automation & Your Service

As the uses for email automation have many options, choosing whether your campaign is complex or simple is entirely up to you. Here’s a look at how some businesses utilize email automation for their own service:

Email Lists – This is the easiest way to gain followers and keep in touch with people interested in your brand. Being a fail-proof concept, this can also give you an idea of what inventory to push and what product/service you distribute that people enjoy the most.

Series of Emails – Tutorials or tips are a great way to keep a customer interested in your product. Breaking the information into a series semi-daily/weekly emails keeps them interested and wanting to know more.

Purchase Confirmation – These work wonders post-purchase. It not only lets the customer know you’re grateful for their service, but you can utilize it to let them know about other products that may interest them.

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4 Essential Elements of a Good Email Marketing Campaign

Once you have a visitor signed up for your email list, it is time to get down to the nitty-gritty of effective email campaigns. Since your recipients likely get upwards of hundreds of emails a day, it’s important that any email campaign that you launch has these four crucial elements to make it successful.

1. Fashion a Captivating Headline

As your recipients scroll through their expansive inbox, your email subject line needs to both capture their attention so they will notice it and captivate their interest so they will open it. Make sure your subject line is honest, short and exciting, but not so flashy that it looks spammy. In spite of what conventional internet wisdom might tell you, it’s okay to use all caps sparingly to attract the attention of your readers to a special event such as a fantastic sale. Additionally, you need to constantly evaluate the effectiveness of your subject lines and change them up frequently to keep them fresh.

2. Carefully Craft Your CTA

Your call to action (CTA) is going to vary, depending on your objectives for your email campaign, but every email you send out should have one. Knowing when to use a hard sell versus a soft sell will make a difference when it comes to keeping readers engaged at the present time as well as over the long term. When your aim is to make a sale with your email, word your CTA more strongly, urging the reader to take action immediately. Dispensing information to the reader, on the other hand, calls for a CTA that is more inviting and softer while guiding your recipient to take the appropriate action.

3. Pepper Your Email With Links and Graphics

Visually-captivating emails are more likely to be read and acted upon. Make sure that your emails contain appropriate graphics. Your company logo, an image of your product or some other method of enticing your readers to connect and engage with you are good graphics to use. Peppering your content with links makes it easy for your recipients to click over to read expanded versions of your content.

Of course, there is a point when your email contains too many graphics. Be mindful that while almost no one uses dial-up anymore, your readers could be checking their email using a mobile device or have some other circumstance that results in your email loading more slowly. Too many links, too, could be a turn-off for the busy reader of today. While there is no hard and fast rule when it comes to knowing the number of links to use per each email, it is safe to say that one link for each sentence is too much. A better ratio might be using one link per each paragraph.

4. Become a Master at Timing

According to research by some of the industry’s leaders, more people open their email after the noon hour with peak times occurring between 2 and 5pm. That being said, people engage with their email more often during the daytime hours when compared to night time. Taking these statistics into consideration and time your emails so they arrive before lunchtime. An additional nugget of information is that most emails tend to be sent during the week. Tuesdays and Thursdays tend to be the busiest days in regards to the highest volume.

Taking these top four elements to a successful email campaign to heart will increase your chances of a conversion. That being said, like many other elements in business today, you will need to constantly tweak these to stay on top of the current trends.

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Ignoring Customer Emails Leads to Lost Revenue

The title of this blog post might seem like a bit of a no-brainer. Kind of a “well, duh. If I don’t respond to customer emails then I will lose revenue,” moment. However, the fact that we have to write this blog post should tell you something about today’s email marketing environment. To be point blank, the reality of the situation is simple.

The average person sends and receives 121 emails per day. Let’s look at an hour figure to put this number into perspective. The average person spends 13 hours of their work week (based on a 45 hour work week) composing and responding to work emails — not to mention the hours spent on personal email communications. Let’s go one step further to look at the number of words that are typed during those email correspondences. On average, a person will send and receive approximately 42,000 emailed words per year. To put this into perspective, the average novel has 90,000 words. And so the average person reads and / or writes half a novel in email correspondence on a yearly basis.

Now let’s look at the title of this blog again. “Ignoring Customer Emails Leads to Lost Revenue.” Suddenly, with 13 hours of your week spent on emails, you might be able to see how a few lost emails could slip through the cracks. You know the ones — the emails that you read on your way out of the office, or during your commute, or on your lunch break, or any time of the day when you couldn’t type out a response right then and there. The problem with your failure to respond, is that your customer, you know the one that you forgot to email back right away, well he happens to be equally as busy as you. In fact, he’s so busy, he’s probably working on the second half of that email novel right now.

Don’t Ignore Customer Emails

The moral of the story is simple: if you don’t want to lose customers and you don’t want to lose revenue, then don’t ignore customer emails. In case you need additional convincing we have gathered together a few helpful statistics.

According to Bain and Co., a 5 percent increase in customer retention can increase a company’s profitability by 75 percent.

Gartner Group statistics show us that 80 percent of your company’s future revenue will come from just 20 percent of your existing customers.

Lee Resource Inc. joins the customer retention and customer response fray by finding that, on average, attracting new customers will cost your company five times more than keeping an existing customer.

In short, responding to emails is a great way to improve customer retention ratings and thus bolster revenues. Don’t believe us? Let’s look at the 2007 cautionary tale of the 44 percent of major UK who ignored customer emails to the detriment of their revenue streams. Failing to respond to customer emails in a timely fashion will result in lost revenue. This is not a speculation, it is pure and simple truth.

If you want to succeed in today’s competitive environment, then you must not ignore your customers. However, the conundrum remains that if you are bogged down by emails, how on earth are you supposed to keep from ignoring your customers? Once again a simple solution is readily available: email automation. In a world where customer retention is key, email automation is better than a delayed email response or worse ignoring your customer completely. Email automation services can allow you to easily share news, follow-up, or send friendly (often times slightly personalized) reminders to your customers. So, do yourself a favor and remember to take a moment to show your customers that you are not in fact ignoring them and that you do value their business. Your customers will thank you and so too will your revenue stream.

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How to You Use Email to Increase Sales

Email is one of the most powerful tools for online marketing. It allows you to bring customers back to your website and to provide them with ongoing “connections” to your business, product and service. The end result is that you’ll be investing one time in the effort to get a new customer to your website and, once they buy from you or interact with you, they will then come back time and time again. How do you make it happen, though? Here are some tips to help you to do so.

Subject lines are headers in a paper

From the time they open their inbox, your message can stand out or fade in with the rest. It all comes down to the headline you create. View these as a headline in a newspaper – ensure they stand out, provide important information, and pull your reader in. Be sure they are not “spam” titles, which tend to be very sales-oriented. Instead, make them information and provide a solution to a problem or information they really need.

Not all emails should sell to your customers

Every email should have links back to your website and sales pages or inventory. However, your emails need to do more than just offer sales information. For example, if you are a dentist and its fall, provide a few informational articles about getting kids in to the dentist and back in a routine. You may want to offer tips on how to get a garden ready for the summer reason if you are a landscaper. The key here is to provide valuable, interesting, and useful information to the reader. It matters that they get something of value from your emails.

Build your brand with your emails

Emails do more than just provide information on your products and service. They also help you to sell and build your brand among your clients and customers. What you include in these emails will help to form an opinion about your brand and business within the mind of your client. Do you want them to view you as:

Affordable

The expert in the industry

The place where everything is in stock

The brand that solves their problems

The company to turn to for hard to find solutions

This list could go on and on. What do you want your customers to think about you when they need a service or product that you offer? Be sure that is clear in your email marketing campaign.

Offer an incentive

Of course this is a fantastic place for you to offer a special or discount to your readers. You don’t want this to always be the only reason you reach out to your readers, though. Rather, you’ll need to work one-on-one with your client base to create valuable offers that get them to your site and still allow them to maintain a high value of your site and your products. You might do this by offering a discount price on subscription services rather than on purchases for one item. If you have a storefront, send a discount offer when they bring the coupon into the store. Find a way to engage your customers and get them to your site.

Email marketing can help to increase your company’s sales if you put the time and effort into create effective, professional emails and you manage your list effectively. Having a powerful email marketing software program to do this is an important step of course, but so is creating a message that really matters to your reader, not just one that gets sent to the spam folder.

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Are You Giving Your Customers the Wrong Impression?

As you build your client base and email marketing campaign, you’ll likely start playing the game of “what works.” That is, you’ll have to try out a variety of marketing methods, language, styles of interaction, and everything you can think of to get people to click the link in their email and come back to your site. What makes one person click and another not? A good place to start when trying to determine this is looking at the type of impression you are giving your email sign-ups.

How could you be giving your customers the wrong impression with your emails? There are things that could be working against you.

Are you desperate?

One of the biggest bad impressions you’ll give to your readers is that you are desperate for their business. This happens if you send them too many emails in a short span of time. How long does it take before you get annoyed with seeing the same sender in your email inbox? The fact is, you need to ensure you are not sending so much email that they avoid it and unsubscribe from it.

Are you a newbie? Let’s say you make a critical mistake and send your email to your huge list of followers without taking the time to send a test email first. Then, you realize the link in that email is wrong or there is a glaring mistake in the content. Not only do you lose out on potential sales this way, but you also end up looking like you are a newbie, not the industry leader you need to be.

Are you arrogant?

Another big mistake that will give the wrong impression is sending graphic-filled, hard-to-open emails. Sure, you may have a big budget to spend in fantastic graphics (and you think that will make you stand out) but the fact is, no one wants to wait for graphics to open and load. You’ll look arrogant, not a quality that many clients and customers want to interact with through email.

Are you lying?

Let’s be frank here. If your subject line is misleading so much so that it basically lies to your customer or client, chances are good you are going to put a bad taste in their mouth before they open their email. Don’t try to be so clever that you end up making people annoyed with the email message that doesn’t fit the subject line.

Are you unprofessional?

Another bad impression you could make has to do with the way your emails look and present themselves to your readers. For example, are you using email marketing software? This is the only true way to send a sales or newsletter type of message in a professional, organized manner. The good news is once you do this, you can really impress your newsletter subscribers with truly easy to read content that allows them to take advantage of your opportunity.

There’s some good news, though!

If you are not seeing the responses that you want, and you still have peopled signed up for your emails, you still have opportunities to turn things around. To do that, start with outlining the type of impress you do want to provide your readers. You likely want your readers to believe that you are professional, experts in the industry, and worth investing time in. To achieve that goal, you’ll want to improve communications, use email software to ensure you are being professional, and invest in a bit of marketing know-how. Doing so will ensure that every one of your emails gets attention.

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The 5 Mistakes That Will Prevent You From Getting the Sales You Deserve

As a business owner, you may think you are doing everything right, yet your actual sales don’t match up with the goals you have for your business. When you take a long hard look at your current practices, are you guilty of any of these five mistakes that will prevent you from getting the sales you deserve?

1. You Lack a Viable Online Presence.

Think about the last time a friend mentioned a new restaurant to you. Did you reach for your phone or tablet and quickly search for it to gain more information? Most people do. Small companies that lack a viable online presence are missing out on sales. Even if you don’t actually sell a product online, customers want to know what your hours are, what your history is, what services or goods you provide, and your location before they ever step foot in your storefront. With the rapid advances in mobile technology, it’s not enough to simply have a website; that website must also be mobile friendly. What happens when potential customers conduct an Internet search for your business? Your online presence is just as important as your physical location. A great website can also lure customers to participate in your marketing campaigns with attractive opt ins to receive advance notice of sales or special deals via email.

2. Your Competitor Does It Better, Faster, Stronger.

Remember Kodak? The film company was the king in the land of film photography for 120 years. How about now? You probably use your phone to take most of your pictures and that phone isn’t made by Kodak. According to Forbes Magazine, every company serves three functions: social, managerial, and entrepreneurial. While all three are equally important, it is very easy for established companies to become complacent and forget that they have an entrepreneurial function as well. If your competitors are more innovative than you and do it more quickly, you are going to lose out on important sales. In the case of Eastman Kodak, they excelled in the social and managerial areas and failed as entrepreneurs in the digital age.

3. You Offer Too Many Choices From the Beginning.

When overwhelmed with too many choices, potential customers can suffer from analysis paralysis. If you promise the moon and the stars too, not only do they become overwhelmed but you may unwittingly be portraying yourself as a “jack of all trades; master of none.” While you do not need to pair back your offerings, concentrate on those you consider to be your specialty. For example, a construction company may portray themselves as an expert on exterior remodeling without individually promoting that they do windows, doors, soffits, gutters, siding, trim, downspouts, etc. Know your strengths, stick with them, and build your brand.

4. Treating Your Customers as One Size Fits All Components of Your Game Plan.

Customers are individuals. Unless you have an offer of universal appeal, try not to treat all of your customers exactly the same. Divide your clients into subgroups based on the data you have and send targeted emails. The more targeted and personally valuable the email is, the better chance you have of converting your efforts into a sale. What is compelling to one, may not be to another. If you miss the mark too many times, you will find that your emails go unread or worse yet, the customer will unsubscribe from future communication.

5. Your Carefully Planned Email Campaign Ends Up in the Junk Folder.

Your written advertisements are only effective if they are actually read the by the intended audience. If your carefully constructed emails are ending up in your customer’s junk folder, you have a problem. Practicing an opt-in strategy, clearly identifying yourself, and developing a catchy title for your valuable emails are all practices that can help keep you in the inbox crowd.

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5 Strategies for Converting Leads into Buyers

Unless your marketing campaign includes automated emails, it’s doomed to fail. That may sound apocalyptic but, unfortunately, it’s the truth.

Whether your company is adding a blog to its website, promoting a new product or service or simply maintaining close customer relationships, email represents one of the most effect channels for communicating, engaging and ultimately, persuading potential buyers to make a purchase. Why, you ask? Because email:

Sends real-time messages to consumers searching for cutting-edge information that gives them an advantage over other consumers.

Grabs attention by addressing leads with personalized information–first name, geolocation, etc.

Lets you stay in constant contact with your leads (remember the old adage “out of sight, out of mind”?)

Can be compared against “test” emails using different content, graphics and subject lines. Sending two different versions of one email to leads and examining what kind of response you receive to each email lets you know right away what works and what doesn’t.

Is shareable in an instant. Gone are those awful days of trying to reach just a few customers by spending a lot of time and money on snail-mail campaigns. Email marketing strategies can have your products and services known to virtually thousands of leads via Gmail and social media.

And the really good news is that there are even more ways to convert leads into buyers!

1. All You Gotta Do is Show Them the “Money”

In this case, “money” means “proof” that supports the benefits your leads will enjoy if they purchase your goods. Proof could include customer reviews, offering free product samples, testimonials and BBB accreditation.

2. Come and Get Yours Before They’re All Gone!

There’s something about being told a great product is on the verge of selling out that converts leads lickety-split. Savvy businesses that have profited by relying on this behavior often create a genuine product shortage by limiting inventory or selling a product only for a certain time period.

3. Reach, Engage and Nurture, Nurture, Nurture!

Don’t stop your email marketing efforts just because you find new leads. Since the majority of new leads are not yet convinced that your product or service is worth entering their credit card info, you’ve got to nurture those leads like newborns while building their trust and establishing a long-term commitment to your business. You can do this by developing a failsafe email marketing plan that cultivates personalized relationships with all your leads.

4. Once Upon a Time…

A business began sending emails to customers that told compelling, emotionally engaging stories centering on their products and services. Since these emails did not reek of “sales-y” talk or scream spammy headlines, customers began looking forward to reading “storytelling” emails that naturally developed a sense of belief and trust towards the business.

And they started making purchases–a lot of them!

5. Make Leads Feel a Bit Uneasy–-Just Don’t Scare Them

Arousing curiosity colored slightly with a sense of uneasiness makes it really hard for customers to just walk away from your emails without turning into amateur detectives. By understanding the needs and desires of your audience, you can start an automated email marketing campaign with a few “story-telling” emails hinting at what may happen to them if they didn’t use your services or products. Follow up those emails with fascinating info about your products and scenarios describing the many benefits of purchasing your products.

Those flesh-and-blood leads are out there right now, just waiting for you to push their “persuade me” button and boost your conversion rates into another dimension. It’s never been a better time to start working on your next automated email marketing campaign–today.

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What is A Follow Up Series?

Email marketing has quickly become one of the most powerful tools available to businesses both large and small. The wonderful thing about email marketing is that the same marketing and advertising tactics that are being used by the big corporations can also be implemented by the small business owner as well in order to get big results. The trick to great email marketing is in understanding some of the different tactics used and the timing of when to use what.

An email follow up series is all about timing. Once you have effectively obtained a lead, they have opted in by offering their email address, the real work of landing the sale starts. Your email follow up series is the tool that will help you finish convincing the lead that you are the choice they should make, or to encourage the lead to continue making purchases.

Use Your Tools

Most small businesses which are using some type of email marketing software or marketing automation software have at their fingertips email follow up series capabilities, but most companies do not put this important tool to work. Why? Because most business owners feel intimidated by the prospect of mapping out their objectives and then writing up the pre-arrange emails. What these business owners do not realize, however, is that an email follow up series is a small time investment which will continue to build your business, land sales and increase your revenue for a long time to come.

What Is a Follow Up Series?

A follow up series is quick simply a series of email messages which are automatically sent out to leads (potential or returning customers) with more information or encouragement to make a purchase or respond to your message in some way. Your email follow-up series is quite literally the best and most authentic way to engage people in your brand and get them committed to be a part of your online community as well as a “free” advertiser. People share brands and messages that they enjoy and believe in.

What Should A Follow Up Series Consist Of?

A follow up series of emails should consist of a couple of different kinds of messages.

Thank You- The thank you message should be sent immediately after a purchase or after an opt in. This will also offer an email confirmation to cement the address to your list.

Let’s Get Started or Welcome- This message or a variation of it is a way to reach out to the lead to connect on a deeper level. This is a good time to invite them to share your brand on their social media, making sure that sharing capabilities can easily be done from the email itself.

This Way to Great Content- This message will refer the lead back to your website where they can find new, relevant content (articles, blogs, offers) to help them in whatever niche your product, service or brand promises to assist them.

Make the Most of…- This message will offer your lead tips to ensure success with the product, brand or service. This is also a great time to encourage your lead to share content with others who might also need this brand, product or service.

Bonuses- Everyone loves bonuses and free gifts. At this point in the relationship with your lead you should offer a bonus of some time. The most inexpensive way to keep leads interested is with free content. Content is free for you because you can create it, and it appealing to the lead because it will continue to help them along whatever path they started out on with your product, brand or service. Bonus content can come in the form of free e-books, articles, videos, tutorials or webinars.

How Pleased Are You?- This message will seek to engage the lead on an even deeper level by giving them the opportunity to offer feedback. Feedback can be offered in the form of a testimonial. This has a twofold purpose. One is makes the lead feel special and necessary to the brand and two it provides you with important marketing feedback which can help you improve your marketing strategies.

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When To Resend An Email To Boost Your Open Rates

Email marketing works best when you are in tune with your subscriber list to the extent that you are providing the sort of content they want to receive.

This results in higher open and click-through rates and maximizes the chances of getting your subscribers to go on and take the action you want them to take, such as buying goods or services from you.

But sometimes an email may arrive at a really inconvenient time when your subscribers have so many other pressing things going on that your email gets overlooked.

This is why we introduced RocketResponder Resend which will automatically send the same email again to those subscribers on your list who did not open it first time round.

When To Resend An Email

If you are in the habit of sending an email to your subscriber list every day then it is probably not a great idea to automatically resend them all a couple of days later.

In fact if that is how you email then you might want to make very sparing use of this feature. Think of it as like using a highlighter pen.

If you highlight a couple of the most important phrase of concepts on a page of text, it will really make them stand out.

If you highlight nearly every word then you are left with a confusing mess which defeats the whole point of the exercise in the first place.

So if you are a regular email sender then only use this feature to highlight those emails which are so important that you don’t want your subscribers to miss your message…and leave it at that.

In resending an email you are targeting those people who either did not see your email first time round or were not motivated enough to open it when it first arrived.

Sometimes a second ‘nudge’ is all it takes to get the email opened. And again, if you use this feature sparingly, your subscribers may well think that if you have gone to the trouble to send the email again, then your message must be important.

Of course some of your subscribers may just think you made a mistake and hit the ‘send’ button again by mistake. This is not a problem because they may go on to open it anyway now that their curiosity has been piqued.

Time Intervals

You can experiment with this to see what works best for you.

If you are emailing your list on a weekly basis, or thereabouts, then you certainly might benefit from sending your most important emails out after two or three days.

If you send a monthly newsletter or something similar then you might want to leave a longer interval, five or six days for example.

Email marketing agency Alchemy Worx tried the resend technique for their own subscriber list on an email campaign to get signups for a subject line prediction tool.

On the initial send they got an open rate of 23.6% and a click through rate of 4.3%.

When they resent the same email five days later they got an open rate of 11% and a click through rate of 3.5% – lower than the original email but these are all opens and click throughs which would have otherwise not have happened.

But something else happened which really took them by surprise…the number of sign ups generated from the resent email almost doubled as the graph below shows.

Resending key emails can be a very powerful tool indeed. Give RocketResponder Resend a try for yourself and see how it works for you.

#email tips #marketing tips #Resend #resending email #RocketResponder Resend

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RocketResponder 'Save as Draft' Makes Writing Your Emails More Flexible

At RocketResponder we have always given people the option of sending emails immediately or at some date in the future.

This is important because there are some messages that you will want to get out right away and others that you want to write now but send out at a specific time and date.

Having the flexibility to write and queue up emails in advance is one of the huge benefits of using an automated email service such as RocketResponder.

However there are also times when you start writing an email and realize that you can’t finish it right now.

This might happen, for example, if you:

run out of time

get called away to do something else urgently

realize you don’t have all the information that you need to finish the email

find that the inspiration to write is not with you right now.

So with that in mind we have made it easier for you to save your email so that you can return to it at some point in the future with RocketResponder Save as Draft.

If you have not finished your email then just press the “Save as Draft” button at the bottom of the screen and then come back as soon as you are ready to continue.

We have also made a slight change to the way you queue up emails to be sent in the future.

The default option is to send immediately so if you want your email to go out right away then press the “Send Immediately” button when you are ready.

(However you might want still want to send yourself a test message first. See the post “Why It Is Important To Always Preview Business Emails Before Sending” for more information about why this is a good idea.)

If you want to send at some time in the future then just click the “Edit” hyperlink to the right of “Send Time” and you will be able to enter the date and time you want your email to go out.

When you have selected the date and time you want your emails to be sent then just hit “ok” and, don’t forget that you can now choose to resend emails to those who did not open them first time round. To use this function then check the resend box and enter the resend delay you want (between two and 10 days.)

#RocketResponder #save as draft #sending email

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Why It Is Important To Always Preview Business Emails Before Sending

Automated email marketing systems like RocketResponder are designed to save you a lot of time and effort.

It is so easy to fire off an email, hit send and have your words of wisdom hit the inboxes of everybody on your list while you are free to concentrate on other things.

However it is worth just slowing down a little bit and doing one last step before hitting the ‘send’ button.

No matter how many times you have checked through your email on your screen there will be times when you only spot a mistake after it has been sent.

It is even worse when one of your subscribers replies with a message such as “Hey I am really interested in that offer you just made me…but is there a link I am supposed to click?”

Yes, forgetting the link in emails is something that happens to us all. Sending people to a completely wrong URL or having a link that does no go anywhere at all is another common error.

This is why we have a ‘preview’ feature which allows you to send your email to just yourself before making it live.

That way you can make a last minute check for errors, check that your links work and that you are saying what you really want to say.

This worked really well for me just a few hours ago.

I had written an email, was happy with the way it looked and used the preview function as a final check before sending…and I was horrified at how it looked.

It should have looked like this…

But the three tiny social media icons you see in the top right hand corner had been blown up about ten times their normal size on the version I received. Not the biggest problem in the world but it did look ugly.

As it happened it was a glitch on our end, but one I would not have noticed had I not previewed the email.

Once it was pointed out, it was something we were able to fix in a couple of minutes. When you preview business emails, it gives you a chance for one final check that everything really is good to go.

Get into the habit of doing this because spending just a little extra time on your emails could save you a lot of time and effort in the long run.

#preview feature #top tips #using email preview

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