June
12
2012
A simple but effective technique to increase your website conversion rates without getting more traffic is to get visitors to your website to say ‘yes’ in their head in response to some simple questions. If that happens enough times the momentum created will make more of them buy or opt into your list.
If used strategically this technique works very well. You can use it on squeeze or landing pages, sales letters and one time offers, thank you pages, promotional emails and solo ads and social media like Twitter.
Let’s have a look at how you can apply this technique…
Squeeze Pages
Squeeze pages need to be short and to the point and only using questions works well. The trick here is to ask questions you know the prospect will answer with a yes. If applied correctly, this technique will help you to get more opt ins to your email list than before.
Sales Letters
For sales letters you need to choose where you put the question section. A good place is at the end of the sales letter in the recap section, i.e. the area where you are repeating what buyers will get. This usually comes after the price justification section where you show them why your product or service is worth the money you are asking for.
You have to shift the conversation from telling customers what they getting to asking a question that will trigger a positive affirmation. You can do this by saying something like “How can you know if this is right for you?” and then add your questions.
One Time Offer Pages
The most effective way to apply the question technique on one time offer pages is to tie the questions into the product or service they just bought and less into the one time offer. Use the questions as a lead in to the one time offer rather than in the summary section of the offer.
So, when somebody has bought one of your products or services you could follow up with questions like “Want to save time? Or “Want to put into practice what you learn immediately?”. You should aim to find questions that are specific to the product or service the customer has bought.
Thank You Pages
Thank you pages are the most valuable. When a customer has just completed a purchase and lands on that thank you page they are happy and enthusiastic and are ready to get started.
Enthusiasm is a powerful selling force which you can exploit. Ask them three simple questions and get them to take the most valuable action to you. Rather than asking them to buy something else it is often much more valuable if they refer you to others. Because their enthusiasm is high they will be happy to share with their friends.
So, ask them a set of questions and get them to fill in a ‘tell a friend’ form. To make this more attractive you could offer create an incentive for them to share your sales page. Be aware though that this might lead to junk email addresses entered for the sake of getting the prize.
Promotional Emails
‘Yes’ questions work well in promotional emails and solo ads. You can put them at the beginning of the email. As before, your questions have to be specific to the product or service you are promoting.
Twitter is there to get clicks and the best way to do this is to use the question technique. Use only one question per tweet.
To apply the technique in your business, make a list of questions and choose where to use them. Then test where they work best for you.
Another quick tip that is one of the fastest, easiest and most reliable techniques for boosting your website conversion rates is to focus on your bounce rate, specifically on your most visited pages with the highest bounce rates. Many people miss out on this but the payoff is almost always significant.
Sort your web metrics by the pages that get the most visits. Then do a secondary sort by bounces. The top two pages of that list will be your biggest offenders. They are the pages that both attract and lose the most attention. Focus your efforts on fixing the problems there and you really will see a spike in conversion.
May
28
2012
Remember the main truth about traffic? All traffic has value. Well there’s an important corollary to that truth: You can’t get value for free.
But what about free traffic people get from blogs and articles? Sorry, there’s no such thing as totally free traffic. Blogs and content marketing are great but not for getting traffic. It is true you can generate some traffic with blog or article content. But there are three big problems with this strategy.
First, producing quality content takes time. A lot of time. And that’s a cost. It’s called opportunity costs. Whenever you sit down to write a blog or an article, you can’t work on developing your latest product, you can’t optimize your marketing and you won’t have time to check results, or test, or have time to properly service the customers you have if you have any, that is.
Second, your source of free traffic can disappear literally overnight. Recently, Google implemented a new search algorithm called “Panda.” It was designed to enhance search results by blocking bogus results that come from what are known as “content farms”, i.e. online article repositories that contain little more than keyword-laden garbage linking back to irrelevant sites. Within weeks of implementing this change, many top-ranked sites’ visibility decreased by as much as 97%! And then came “Penguin” targeting spam content.
Third, and most important, you simply can’t scale “free.” Any ‘free’ traffic you may get from blog or article marketing is unpredictable. You don’t know when or if it will show up. And because of that you can’t build your business on it by analysing regular results. There is no such thing as truly free traffic you can count on. Something to keep in mind when you are assessing your traffic goals.
If all traffic has value, how do you measure it?
The key to measuring the value of traffic is its source, i.e. where it comes from when it gets to you. There are many traffic sources e.g. from websites or blogs that cover topics similar to what you provide information on or sell, through search engines, from a joint ventures or affiliate mailing where someone, usually a ‘guru’ in the field, mails their email list of customers on your behalf.
The source determines how potentially targeted your traffic is, and the more targeted the traffic that comes to your site is, the more value it has. It’s a simple relationship of supply and demand. A more targeted prospect means there is a higher degree of interest in your product or service. It means a prospect who is more ‘qualified’, i.e. more ready and willing to make a purchase. And this fired-up, ready-to-spend traffic is what every internet marketer wants.
When you discount all the looky loos and tire kickers, you end up with a smaller, much more restricted supply of qualified potential traffic. Therefore the more targeted traffic is, the greater the demand but the smaller the supply. This equates to higher value of targeted traffic and this is what you should be aiming for.
Less targeted traffic will be less receptive to your marketing message, is less ‘qualified’ and requires more work on your part to generate a sale. The pool of prospects will be larger but on the whole this type of traffic is less valuable. Your aim should therefore be to get more valuable traffic.
How do you do that? You buy the most targeted traffic you can afford. That may sound a little obvious, but you can’t imagine how many people try everything under the sun other than that when they are starting out. They do things like take out ads in the wrong media because they can get a deal on the rates. Or they want to focus on getting “free” traffic while they get started, never realizing that nothing is free.
If you’re serious about succeeding internet marketing, you’ve got to test your approaches. And to get the best results, you need to test with the best, most targeted traffic you can.
(Source: Rich Schefren – The value of traffic)
May
25
2012
If you were relying entirely on Google or any other search engine for traffic, you have a flawed business model. Putting all your eggs in one basket can be a costly mistake.
However, if traffic to your website was effected by Google’s Penguin update all is not lost.
1. Diversify you traffic
One of the best measures to guard against over-reliance on one way to generate traffic to your website is to diversify your traffic. Depending on your niche there are other traffic sources you can utilise, e.g. email and social media marketing. Social is a big part of Google’s future plans, so get in on the action.
Setting up a Google+ business page, a Facebook fan page or a Twitter account does not require any investment. Depending on the nature of your online business and your target audience, you should be present on at least 2-3 major social networks. Getting social doesn’t just mean opening accounts but putting in the effort to grow and engage followers over the long term period.
To do this share useful content daily. It will generate shares by other people and help you spread your name and brand across. Your shared content doesn’t have to be your own. In fact, only sharing your own content will harm your relationship with followers over time.
Also consider advertising on social networking platforms with ads linking to your social network page instead of your website. Not only does it save cost will also help you to increase your count of followers/fans etc.
To make your fans/followers feel special and appreciated, launch contests, quizzes or freebies every once in a while. This increases your engagement rate and helps you retain your followers/fans. Twitter retweet and hashtag contests, for example, are a great way to generate tons of natural inbound links which will help your search engine rankings.
2. Develop a long-term content strategy
Content is still king and your website will be less successful if you are not providing valuable content on a regular basis. Both the Penguin and Panda updates rewarded websites that produced high quality content for their users, so it pays to develop a long-term content strategy.
A study conducted by eMarketer in 2011 shows that blog posts, webinars and other virtual events, industry whitepapers and videos are the best types of content you can create.
There is no secret formula when it comes to blogging frequency but o start with you should be blogging once a week. If your traffic grows and your audience is receptive to your content, consider increasing the frequency. Quality articles get liked, tweeted and +1?d, giving you extended visibility and SEO benefits. Think carefully before you outsource content creation cheaply to other parts of the world, poor quality content can actually harm your online business.
Depending on the type of business you’re in, creating short videos to support your blog is also advisable. It can be in the form of short tips, how to guides, product reviews or client testimonials. Also ensure you publish your videos on major video social networks like YouTube and Vimeo for additional exposure.
3. Improve the user experience
Both Google Panda and Penguin updates have been cracking down on websites offering a poor user experience. Google considers web pages with high bounce rates as less relevant to users and will eventually push them down the rankings.
Take a look at your web analytics statistics for the last couple of months. If you notice high bounce rates on specific pages or a low numbers of page views per visitor ratio, revise your content. Click the link to find out how you can improve the bounce rate of your website.
If you include these 3 elements in your overall SEO strategy you will not only increase your overall web traffic but ensure that future Google updates do not penalise your website.
May
22
2012
All traffic has value. Many people would agree and immediately emphasise that this is precisely the reason why they need more web traffic. The common thinking is if only I could get more traffic to my site I would make more sales. Not so …
What you have to understand about making money online is that any sales you make need to be profitable enough for you to succeed. You can still fail even with a lot of traffic if you don’t have the the business to monetise the traffic. And that is an issue that has nothing to do with web traffic. Simply attracting more prospects to your site will not increase your online business revenue automatically.
For anyone to make a profit online, you need some maths to go into the traffic equation. You need to work out whether each sale generated by the traffic to your website will, at the very minimum, cover the costs of the product or service you are offering. If you don’t do that you will end up loosing money on the traffic you get. And people then struggle to make up the difference by trying to get more traffic. They work longer hours, cut back where they shouldn’t, focus on everything but the real cause of their problem which only worsens the situation.
So, the real questions to ask yourself are these: Is my business traffic-worthy? and “How can I make more profitable sales?”
To know if your business is traffic worthy you absolutely have to know how much you can afford to pay to attract web traffic. In other words, how much would you spend to get a new customer? This number has nothing to do with what you have in your account or how much credit you can get from your bank. This number is based on what is traffic worth to YOU!
In order to understand what traffic is worth to you, you need to know how much money you can extract from the average visitor to your website. And the only way to know this is by examining your actual sales figures, not some hypothetical value based on your prices. You can’t base your traffic strategy on assumed sales, at least not on a long-term basis.
The value of every visitor that comes to your site will vary depending on what they buy. Some visitors are worth zero while others are worth hundreds or even thousands. And among all that data is the number that determines how much you can profitably spend to get more customers, i.e. your average visitor or click value.
To work this out you simply divide your total online business revenue (sales, upsells etc.) for a given period by the number of unique visitors to your website over that same period. Your average visitor value is also the maximum you can pay for a visitor to your site and still break even.
Applying this simple calculation will help you to become successful in your online business. Once you have determined whether your business is traffic worthy and how much that traffic is worth to you, you can focus your attention on how to make sales more profitable so that the average customer value actually increases.
May
19
2012
There are several types of emails you can employ in your email marketing campaign. The type of email you create will largely depend on your focus. Naturally, the content of your emails will be different if you want to create awareness of something, convert prospects into buyers, building trust with your subscribers or promote your product or services.
Whatever the purpose, your emails will usually be either editorial or promotional. Editorial or promotional emails can be short or long, depending on the complexity of the message and how quickly you want people to follow your call to action. Let’s have a look at the different types of emails in more detail.
Short Editorial
A short editorial is the best email type for product alerts, updates, press releases, tips of the week or information on product launches. The emails should be short and to the point with the purpose of informing your subscribers. Make sure the balance is more towards editorial content rather than promotion, although you may have some promotional content in the email.
Long Editorial
A long editorial email provides quality content to your subscribers or delivers more information on a product, service or event. These are typically newsletters, longer press releases, white papers or industry guides. The main goal is to inform the reader. Long editorials are not sales pitches, so refrain from overly promoting, however, if you introduce products or services there can be an element of further information on how to obtain them.
Short Promotional
Unlike the editorial, a promotional email has a very specific call to action. It should be designed in such a way as to move the reader away from the email and on to the sales process as quickly as possible. Short promotional email are direct and for them to be most effective it is best just to have one key message. e.g. buy this product/service, sign-up for a free trial/newsletter etc. The short promotional email must be worded in such a way that it shows to the recipient a clear benefit by following the call to action.
Long Promotional
The long promotional email allows you to present the benefits of your product or service in more detail. It can also be used for multiple product and service offerings in one email. Long promotional emails are ideal for more complex messages or bundled deals that require greater explanation. The focus of the email is on selling and that should be reflected in the content.
Understanding the purpose of each type of email will help you to create a more effective email marketing campaign. If you want to learn how to further increase the effectiveness of your email marketing campaign, check out the special email and video persuasion system that we have developed.
You might also find our free email marketing seminar of interest. Simply input your details into the box on the right to get immediate access.
May
13
2012
It’s true you need an email marketing list (ideally a customer list) in order to succeed online but it’s what you do with the list that really matters. Your earning power greatly depends on the relationship that you have with your subscribers on the list.
Size does not matter. You do not need large numbers of subscribers to earn a decent living from online marketing. I know of people who have several tens of thousands of subscribers on their list but earn very little money from it. The reason for that is because they bombard their subscribers with promotion after promotion. People don’t join your list because they want to be constantly marketed to, they join because they have a problem to solve or a goal to achieve.
The most important thing you need to do with your email marketing list is to build trust with your subscribers. Without trust your list will never be as responsive as you want them to be. So how do you build trust with your list? Here is how it works. People need to get to know you before they can like you. They need to like you before they can trust you.
The best way for people to get to know you is for you to provide them with something of value. Many new internet marketers are worried about this because they do not consider themselves to be experts. You don’t have to be a ‘guru’ to teach others. Use your own experience of a subject and/or investigate it thoroughly. Don’t wait until you know everything there is to know about a subject before you begin sharing your knowledge. Start when you have something to share and build on it. But don’t write about things you know nothing about.
Developing a trust relationship with your subscribers on the list also involves appreciating and rewarding their loyalty. Treat your subscribers not merely as a means to make money but as friends and communicate with them in that way. Think about their needs and do your best to help them.
The odd reward will certainly be much appreciated by your subscribers. This could be anything from an information product in the public domain to something you have specifically created for your subscribers. The very best thing to do is give away something of real value and from which you can’t possibly profit. People will see that you are sincere and will reciprocate your sincerity when you recommend products.
Uncover the needs of your subscribers by asking your subscribers. Also read their comments on your blog, if you have one. Add a genuine contact email to your website so that subscribers can ask questions.
Once you know what your subscribers need and want, offer them solutions. The key here is to make a recommendation based on your experience and/or your own research and not just promoting products that have just been launched. Only promote what you know works. Stress the benefits of the product or service, i.e. what they will do for your subscribers, not just what they can do, i.e. its features.
And finally, tell your readers the specific action you want them to take. Bear in mind that not all actions involve buying something. You might want them to subscribe to a new list or download a free trial.
If you follow this blueprint you will be doing very well. If you want to learn more about email marketing, sign up to our free online seminar. Just fill in your details on the right.
May
9
2012
Many people would agree that internet marketing has become harder than it was 10 or even 5 years ago. But with a simple ‘tweak’ to your understanding of internet marketing, converting prospects into buyers, i.e. increasing your web conversion rates becomes a lot easier than ever before. And it’s all to do with psychology.
Research into human behaviour has shown that every single person on the planet is driven by avoiding pain and gaining pleasure. These are our primary motivators. Want to know what this has to do with internet marketing, web conversion rates and your website? It’s this…
If website visitors associate more pain with buying what you are selling or promoting than with pleasure, they won’t buy. It is as simple as that. When you understand this, you can influence people so that they associate buying from you with pleasure.
In our lives, our believes decide our actions. If we believe that we will get pleasure from something, we will do it. If we think something will cause us pain, we will usually avoid it. As an internet marketer you therefore have to focus your efforts on people gaining pleasure from the products you are selling or promoting.
When people land on your website or the website you are promoting as an affiliate, they will unconsciously make an instant decision on whether or not what you are selling will cause them pain or pleasure. Instantly. Why?
When we are born we have zero experiences of the world. Everything we experience is new. As each day passes, we gain new experiences. This is fine for very young child, but if you carried on like this into adult life, would never get anything done as each encounter with people, situations and things would be a new experience. This is inefficient, so the brain forms ‘associations’.
For example, if you touch a boiling kettle it gives you pain. The brain builds an association that boiling kettles can hurt you. If it didn’t form this association, then every time you saw a different coloured or shaped boiling kettle this would be a new experience and if you touched it and it might hurt you. Not an efficient way of learning.
Forming associations happens completely unconsciously and it rules your life in good and bad ways. Throughout the day we are all make associations with people and things we see but we don’t normally realise we are making them. The only thing we know is the way we feel. So within an instant of seeing something, because of associations based on their past experiences, people make a positive or a negative decision.
What has this got to do with internet marketing? Everything! If your website looks the same as other sites in your niche, you are running the gauntlet of people’s negative associations affecting your business. Let’s face it, most people these days will have had some negative experience on the internet. In order to avoid that, you want your website to look different to other websites in your niche and your communications with your subscribers stand out in a positive way too. This way you can bypass the unconscious negative associations visitors to your website may have.
If you do things differently to everyone else and build positive associations, i.e. pleasure with spending time on your website and eventually money with you, people will buy what you sell. If they buy what you sell and like it you can sell and promote other products to them again and again. In time other website owners will want to promote your site because it sells so well thus building your customer list for you. This is the real secret of high web conversion rates.
So how do you create these positive associations? Through a very specific email and video persuasion system that we have developed. To access it, click the link.
You might also want to check out our free email marketing seminar. Simply input your details into the box on the right.
May
8
2012
Your emails are likely to be filtered and rated against various criteria with a spam score being attributed. Getting through these filters can mean the difference between your emails being delivered into the spam folder or the recipient’s inbox.
There are a few things you can do to increase the likelihood that your emails are being classified as junk mail. It is not an exact science and different spam filters, firewalls, and Internet Service Providers may use different, often changing criteria to filter and assess content. Even if the email is filtered into the contact’s junk mail folder, they may still report it as spam. The following guidelines will help you to prevent this as much as possible.
1. Keep it short. An effective email subject line is precise and no more than 8 words or 60 characters as most email providers will cut off longer subject lines.
2. Content filters will scan and mark the words you use in your email, so not use words in your subject headline commonly used by spammers. This includes words like ‘free’. Use complimentary, giveaway, or zero cost instead. Other words to avoid are ‘save’, ‘discount’, ‘viagra’, ‘Nigeria’, ‘porn’ or ‘gamble’.
While these words on their own can cause problems, words in conjunction with the obvious spam words, e.g. ‘replica’, ‘quality’, ‘enhanced’, ‘hard’, ‘stamina’, ‘college’, ‘diploma’ and ‘improve’, can also increase your spam score.
Phrases to avoid are ‘no obligation’, ‘click here’ or ‘click below’, ‘click to be removed’, ‘order now’, ‘no risk’ or ‘low risk’ or ‘risk free’, ‘money back guarantee’, ‘you have been turned down’, ‘spam’ or ‘spam legislation’.
The more times you use a word, the higher your spam score. The spam score is an amalgamation of several criteria, so the odd single use of some words may not automatically cause your email to be classed as spam.
3. Avoid punctuation used by spammers such as exclamation marks, or even worse multiple exclamation marks, and multiple dots in your email subject line. Currency and percentage signs in are also out.
Do not capitalise whole words. This screams at people and don’t use different fonts in your subject line either.
4. Bad grammar and spelling mistakes are attributes of spammers. Use the spam checker when previewing your email. It is also advisable to set up test email accounts at commonly used free email providers to see if your email comes through to the inbox or lands in spam. Don’t use deliberately misspelled words or gaps in words in your email subject line like this one - fr!ee m o r t g a g e - in an attempt to fool spam checkers.
5. When personalising your emails do it properly or not at all. Non-personalised or badly personalised emails may attract spam complaints or increase your unsubscribe rates.
6. Don’t use italics and very large fonts in your email as they will increase your spam score. Replace large text and titles with images. Keep a good balance between text and images. Avoid image heavy emails and never send emails containing one image only and no text.
7. Don’t embed images in your emails. Spammers send emails with images as attachments or embedded within the email. To avoid this host your images online, either through your image library or on your website.
8. Spammers often use white text to add content that’s not seen by the recipient in order to get through email content filters, therefore use white text on a colour background sparingly. If you do use colour text on a colour background, make sure there is a strong contrast so that it is easily readable.
9. Don’t use forms in your email. None of the major email programme supports forms and including one might look like spam. If you need people to fill in a form, host the form on your website or a third party site and include a link to it in your email.
If you want to learn more about email marketing sign up to our free online seminar.
(Source: Dotmailer. co.uk – Getting your email past the spam filters)
May
6
2012
The ability to write great email subject lines is one of the most important skills you need to develop to be successful in your email marketing campaign. After all, unless you have a great subject line your email may not get read and you may not make any sales. Most internet marketers struggle with writing highly effective email subject lines.
To make this task easier, to having a blueprint to follow helps. Below are five blueprints that have been proven to work. Not only will they increase your open rates, they can also help boosting your sales.
1. Succeed expectations
This is a great result-driven email subject line that is likely to get people to open up your email and take a closer look. For this blueprint you use the classic combination of something your subscribers want with a way to get it. By including phrases like “this works like crazy” you are not only telling them how to get what they want but also that the solution you offer is very effective.
Obviously, what you are offer must be highly interesting to the reader, and must be directly related to what you are going to share with them in the email itself. This subject line blueprint works equally well for content and promotional emails. It works because it promises to reveal something that produces results your subscribers want to achieve.
Example: For Losing Weight Fast and Effortlessly, This Works Like Crazy…
2. Fear of failure
This subject line blueprint is the exact opposite of the first one. It hints at not producing results and plays with your readers’ fear of failure. For this blueprint you talk about what they want and combine it with a negative statement that tells them why they can’t have or achieve what they want.
Who could resist not finding out why? Not many. If the result is something that they really want to achieve, then people would want to read your email to find out what might prevent them from achieving it.
Example: Why Your Email Marketing Campaign Won’t Make You Any Money
This blueprint enables you to reveal a mistake or a problem and then offer your product or service as a solution.
A much stronger version of this subject line blueprint predicts utter failure and ruin. Subject lines in this category go beyond sharing a mistake (see below) to the point of revealing something that can have a devastating effect on the reader, if they fall victim to it.
This type of subject line creates awareness of a potentially destructive pitfall and provides a solution. The language is strong in that it could ruin the efforts made to succeed.
Example: This Ruins Most New Marriages…
Be careful not to overuse this blueprint or it lose its power. Also don’t use it for things that your subscribers might consider trivial. This type of email subject line is best used for promoting products that can have a dramatic impact on a person’s life. The best way to approach this to to provide a brief solution in the content of your email, so you do actually give your subscribers useful information, and then lead them to an offer which explains the solution in detail and allows you to make a sale.
3. Curiosity
Another variation of the second blueprint is to offer some sort of warning or caution. The blueprint focuses on a negative result and describes things your subscribers want to avoid if they are going to achieve the results they are after but also offers a solution. This is one of the easiest types of subject lines to create.
Example: The Biggest Mistake Dieters Make And How You Can Avoid It
The emphasis here is on the word ‘biggest’. This isn’t just any mistake, it’s the the number one error people make regarding a particular topic. This creates curiosity and curiosity will get people to open your email to see what it is. They may also be concerned about whether or not they are making this particular mistake.
Curiosity plus benefit, i.e. offering a solution is a winning combination, therefore adding the words ‘and how to avoid it’ works very well with this type of email subject lines.
Another variation of the curiosity blueprint is to craft a subject line along the lines of: ‘Something every xxxx needs to know’. Need is very powerful word and gives the impression that something is a necessity. This will motivate readers to open your email.
Putting a special emphasis on newcomers like ‘first-timers’, ‘beginners’ or ‘newbies’ will increase the power of this type of subject line. Because they are inexperienced, they are likely to be eager and want to know what they need to know in order to succeed.
Example: Something Every First-time Buyer Needs To Know
4. Promise of quick and effortless gains
People want to achieve results instantly and with as little effort on their part as possible. This blueprint plays to their desires and is a great motivator to open your emails. The key for this blueprint are words like ‘fastest way’ or ‘easiest way’ in your subject line. This isn’t just a way to achieve your goals or solve a problem; it’s the fastest and/or easiest way to succeed.
Example: The Easiest Way To Make Consistent Money Online
This blueprint comes with a health warning. Don’t make outlandish claims, promise reasonable gains. People have to believe they can actually achieve what you claim in the subject line or your emails won’t get opened. A subject line that promises to show the reader the ‘fastest way to make a million dollars online’ is much less appealing as most people don’t believe they can realistically achieve this, at least not to begin with.
A variation of this blueprint is to offer a shortcut. Something that is faster and/or easier, gives an advantage or reduces expense or effort is highly desirable. Subject lines following this blueprint are amongst successful in email marketing campaigns.
Example: Here’s A Shortcut For Boosting Your Online Revenue
To make this blueprint even more powerful, tie in a product, software or service that fully or partially automates the shortcut you are offering. This will increase your sales.
5. Checklists
The checklist approach provides your subscribers with a set of instructions that they can follow to make sure they do things correctly and get the results they want. Checklist are short and to the point and therefore manageable. This is highly desirable. Therefore this type of subject line is another great way to increase your open rate.
Example: Here Is Your Perfect Subject Line Writing Checklist
The checklist allows you to provide useful steps and make recommendations in the content of the email as well as to refer readers to your products or services on entries in your checklist. It’s one of the best ways of making money from your email marketing list.
Master these blueprints and you will never be short of ideas for killer email subject lines that make you money. If you want to learn more about email marketing sign up to our free online seminar.
(adapted from Charlie Page: 10 Headline Blueprints; http://charliepage.com/10-headline-blueprints)
May
4
2012
The subject line is the only part of your email marketing campaign that subscribers are almost guaranteed to see. It’s one of the most important elements of your campaign. If you get it right, your open rates will soar.
Research has shown that 35% of recipients would open an email specifically because of the content of the subject line. So here are some top tips for creating email subject lines that get your emails opened.
1. Your subject line has to accurately reflect the content of your email. To ensure a good match it is advisable that you write the content of your email first and then craft your subject line.
2. Keep your subject line as factual as possible. Don’t use your subject line to sell, just tell subscribers what it is you have for them. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t put an offer in your subject line if this is your key message. If you do so, be clear about the offer, benefit or proposition of your email content and communicate that and only that in the email subject line.
Intriguing email subject lines can increase your open rates but specific, relevant subject lines are more likely to generate clickthroughs. If you are using a mysterious subject line, make sure you deliver and your subscribers aren’t left feeling disappointed or misled when they open your email.
Put yourself in your subscribers’ shoes when you write your subject line. What would trigger your interest and make you want to read more?
3. Seek inspiration from your own inbox or sign up to email newsletters relevant to you and see what you can borrow. Create a swipe file. When you see a great subject line copy it and use it for inspiration. Of course. Never use anyone’s copy word-for-word without express permission but you are free to draw inspiration from great marketing. After all, why reinvent the wheel?
4. Carefully consider the length of your subject line. One key factor to determine the right length will be the devices your subscribers are using to open your emails. If a significant number open your emails on small screens of smart phones short subject lines are more effective. The general rule of thumb is 60 characters.
5. Avoid the use of capital letters and exclamation marks in your subject line. This looks like spam and may get filtered out by spam filters. Ideally you should run your email through a spam checker. It will tell you if your email will be considered spam or not and highlight which words, if any, within your email content score highly as spam words, allowing you to alter your copy before you send your email.
6. Don’t rush into publishing your email. Take your time and ensure your subject line and the content of your email are free of spelling and grammatical mistakes, so use a spell checker. Sloppy emails give a bad impression and can affect your sales.
7. Split test your email subject lines to find the best one. Carefully consider the criteria for success. Email open rates are not the only measure. If you have a call to action in the body of the email measuring clicks is more worthwhile, or clicks to open rates.
If you want to learn more about email marketing sign up to our free online seminar.
(adapted from Dotmailer.co.uk: 10 Top Tips for Writing Winning Email Marketing Subject Lines; http://www.dotmailer.co.uk/blog/email-marketing/10-top-tips-for-writing-winning-email-marketing-subject-lines/)
