Email Marketing Tips for Emails that Convert

Email Marketing Tips for Emails that Convert

While email marketing may be one of the most powerful weapons in your arsenal, it is most likely one of the most underused. When done right, an effective email can turn readers into paying customers.

But if you’re not seeing the conversion you were hoping for, it can be frustrating. Read on to find out if you’re making any of these 6 deadly email marketing mistakes how to fix them.

Subject Line

Your subject line is overhyped and it doesn’t match with the body copy. We’ve all read articles like “How to come up with a subject line that gets your email opened.” They’re even websites like subjectline.com that will give your subject line a “score” based on how likely it gets opened.

However, subject lines that get you more “opens” don’t necessarily lead to better conversions. Sure, baited headlines might get more clicks, but after some time people stop trusting brands that practice such tactics. When an email has very little substance to offer, it’s only a matter of time until people begin to mark it as spam.

As a result, you must keep your subject lines simple and to the point. Always remember, the best subject lines don’t sell what’s inside, they tell what’s inside. You want the subject line, to some extent, to encourage people to click but if you constantly let down your audience with the email content it will have a long-term adverse effect.

CTAs (Call to Action)

Your email may contain too many CTAs. Every business has a specific goal with its email marketing campaign. This might be to get more clicks to a blog post, to get readers to sign up for a webinar, or share free content to build and segment a mailing list.

With this in mind, it’s important that your emails include no more than two CTAs. This would help you to eliminate confusion which in turn would encourage you recipients to take your desired action.

Marketers usually try to do too much in one email campaign. Having more buttons in a single email doesn’t mean more clicks. Keep your goal and CTA clear and simple.

Plain Text

You haven’t offered a plain text link. Plain text emails are the digital equivalent of a typewritten letter – no images, no special fonts and no hyperlinks. While they may not look as attractive, they play a significant role in any email marketing campaign.

Simply put, not all of your readers will have email clients capable of displaying HTML emails. In other cases, bandwidth limitations may prevent your readers from seeing HTML links.

In such cases, plain text links give readers an alternative. You might not be able to show off your amazing graphics. Most email campaign managers such as Mailchimp, Mailerlite, and Get Response include an option for plain text links when creating email campaigns.

Permission

If you didn’t get permission before sending emails, you could actually get into a serious legal trouble for adding people to your list without their permission. Always check your country’s laws against spam.

Too many businesses take shortcuts and buy email lists or compile them in unethical manner. Spam hurts the reputation of your business big time. Once people start marking your email as spams, you come under the “spam radar.”

Understand that for you to send emails to people, you must have their explicit permission first. For instance, if you collect business cards at an event, you shouldn’t add those email addresses to your mailing list.

At the same time, also understand that just because someone opted into your email list once, maybe for a contest or digital download, it doesn’t mean that they necessarily want to hear your marketing messages. Your emails to such subscribers might be perfectly legal, but they won’t necessarily convert well. It’s also a good idea to remind readers why they received the email in the first place.

Segmentation

Your email list isn’t segmented. As a rule of thumb, segmented lists results in a higher open rate and click rate than non-segmented email lists.

As a marketer if you’re not taking advantage of segmentation, there’s a good chance you’re missing out on potential revenue. One way to segment your email list is through creating buyer personas. With this tactic, you’ll send different emails to different customers, depending on their demographic and psychographic preferences.

For example, if your persona is a young lady in her mid 20s, then you can come up with a subject line that millennials can relate to. For this tactic to work, you need a lot of data about your customers, as well as a way to plug this data into your email tool.

An alternative tactic is to segment based on content consumption patterns. With this tactic, you can send customers different content-types and topics. Based on their consumption choices, you can fine tune your messages further.

For instance, suppose you have a list of 10,000 subscribers who signed up for your marketing newsletter. Now suppose you sent a guide to email marketing to everyone on your list, and 5,000 of your 10,000 subscribers opened and read the guide. These subscribers have now shown that they’re interested in email marketing.

 

Personalization

You’re writing emails as a company, not as a person. I’m sure you’ve received emails like this “no-replyAtsomedomainDotcom.” Instead of starting a conversation with customers, they just want to throw information at you. They miss on building meaningful relationships and engagement opportunities.

 

This is exactly what great email marketing does: it creates conversations!

Email marketing can be a tough nut to crack, especially if you want immediate monetary conversions. However, if you follow the tips above, you’ll see improvement in your email marketing ROI.

 

7 Questions to Help You Develop Your Leadership Skills

7 Questions to Help You Develop Your Leadership Skills

As an avid reader and student of personal development, I have found that there are often contradictory points of view from many of the leading experts. Every leader encourages what they believe is the most important leadership behaviors, traits, and characteristics. After reading tons of books, blogs, and tips on leadership, I realize that effective leaders have a clear, teachable leadership point of view and are willing to share it with others.

Leadership expert, Ken Blanchard, offers seven questions to develop your own leadership point of view.

  1. Who are the influencers (key people) in your life who have had a positive (or, in some cases, negative) impact on your life, such as parents, teachers, coaches, mentors, or bosses and what did you learn from these people about leadership?

When we ask people who most impacted their lives, seldom do they mention bosses or other organizational leaders. More often they talk about their parents, grandparents, friends, coaches, or teachers. What did you learn from these people about leadership? How did their influences help your leadership point of view evolve?

  1. Think about your life purpose. Why are you here, and what do you want to accomplish?

Leaders need to have a clear picture of why they are doing what they are doing. It saddens me to think that I can only think of a handful of people who have a clear sense of purpose in their lives. How can you make good decisions about how you use your time, talent, and treasure if you don’t know what business you’re in?

  1. What are your core values that will guide your behavior as you attempt to live your life “on purpose?”

Most leaders suffer from what I call a “CV Syndrome.” CV (Core Value) Syndrome is a serious lack of awareness on the leader’s core values that results in an inconsistent and inadequate life. The implications of not curing this disease is debilitating, resulting in a life full of regrets and guilt. The important thing in life  is to decide what’s most important. The truth is every person values things differently. Some people value wealth, power, and prestige while others are more concerned with safety or survival. The key is to start with a long list and then narrow it down.

  1. Given what you’ve learned from past influencers, life events, your purposes, and core values, what is your leadership point of view – your beliefs about leading and motivating people?

Your beliefs are the essence of your leadership point of view. These should flow naturally from the people who have influenced you and from your purpose and values.

  1. What can your people expect from you?

Leadership is not something you do to people, it’s something you do with people. Letting people know what they can expect from you underscores the idea that leadership is a partnership process. It gives people a picture of what your behavior will look like under your leadership.

  1. What do you expect from your people?

Because leading is a partnership process, it is perfectly reasonable—in fact, it’s imperative—that you let people know what you expect from them. It gives people a picture of what their behavior will look like under your leadership.

  1. How will you set an example for your people?

Your leadership point of view should let others know how you will set an example for the values and behaviors you are encouraging. As most parents know, people learn from your behavior, not from your words. Leaders must walk their talk. Developing a leadership point of view, by following the method above, creates a clear path for you to follow.

 

Tis the Season to be Thankful: Benefits of Showing Gratitude as a Leader

benefits of showing gratitude, thank you

It’s a no brainer! Showing gratitude makes relationships thrive and makes trust possible. It is a powerful act that encourages, clarifies, motivates, includes, and unifies.

When we are thankful, people feel valued and they feel part of something bigger than themselves.

But showing gratitude is good for you too.

Being thankful puts you in the right mindset to lead effectively. Gratitude and humility are interconnected. They reinforce each other. We alone are not responsible for who we are and what we do as we can be greatly influenced by those around us. That is the essence of leadership. We are never truly self-sufficient.

Being thankful essentially helps us to protect from ourselves. It is amazing how much gratitude plays into avoiding poor behavior and wrong thinking. Gratitude sets a boundary on our thoughts by making us mindful of others. It helps us to avoid going where we should not go because we are both more self-aware and more aware of our environment.

Gratitude requires that we slow down and reflect. It is the basis of emotional intelligence. It puts other people first. While empathy has been found to be essential to leadership, empathy is not empathy if it is silent. It must be expressed outwardly.

Studies have shown that being thankful is an antidote to depression. It has the power to heal and move us forward.

It improves relationships and is a remedy to envy and greed. It eliminates a leader’s tendency towards entitlement. Grateful people find more meaning in life and feel more connected to others.

In these changing and uncertain times, gratitude is a leader’s ally. Being thankful allows a leader to appreciate where they are and the resources they have at their disposal to face whatever life throws at them. A habit of gratitude gives us perspective. It doesn’t ignore the negative but instead, it moves us towards a solution and helps us to remain focused and persevere.

Gratitude can’t just be something we do is has to be who we are as a leader. More than a behavior or even a mindset, it must come from the heart. It must be our guiding principle.

Leadership begins and ends with gratitude.

How to Achieve A Work Life Balance

work life balance

Are you on the wheel?

Do you find yourself too busy all the time? Running as fast as you can to keep up with all of your responsibilities and commitments? Do you feel frustrated, stressed, or tired?

Many people feel they’re running on a hamster wheel spinning around and around and can’t seem to get off. This seems all too common these days with people trying to achieve the elusive work life balance that everyone talks about.

The secret is to get off the hamster wheel!

Well, you may think, “That sounds easier said than done!”

5 Ways to Achieve Work Life Balance

1. Start the day right: Develop a routine every morning where you take a few minutes to connect with yourself. For those of you who are spiritual people remember your connection with God, spirit, Christ, your higher power or whatever name you use for something greater than yourself. Get yourself into a peaceful and focused space before you start the day. You can pray, meditate, visualize, read, write, whatever it may be.

2. Feed your soul all day: Find a way to feed your soul for a few minutes each day. It can be going outside for a minute, playing some music, or positive affirmation.

3. Review your options: Busy people have 6 choices to make to help them achieve a work life balance.

    1. To reduce the amount of activities they have.
    2. To delegate or get support with their activities.
    3. To reduce the tendency to be a perfectionist and people pleaser.
    4. To set boundaries so that there’s a limit to how much you will do. In other words, say “no”.
    5. To accept that it’s busy right now, but make new choices so it will be not be as busy in the future.
    6. To let go of extra tasks, responsibilities and your own expectations that aren’t necessary right now. What is your choice now? How you enjoy life more and be the busy bee less? How can you reclaim your spirit and have more peace and calm in your life right now?

4. Remember to have fun and laugh: Fun and laughter will get out you off the wheel and bring a greater happiness to your life. Many people put fun low on the priority list after handling their responsibilities. What if you knew if you had fun you would be more productive, and bring a better perspective and outlook to every situation and task in your life? You could have more energy and be more resourceful in dealing with the demands of everyday life.

5. Remember what’s worked before: What have you done before when you were too busy? What were the lessons you learned from the busy times? What could you do differently this time?

Work on applying these 5 tips to help you get closer to your own work life balance!

Quiz: Are You A Leader?

are you a leader

Rarely, do people think of themselves as a leader but we all lead in some way or fashion within our five circles of influence. Those five circles being self, family, team, organization, and community. Leadership most often equates to influence. And many of us are in a position to be influential.

So, the question isn’t  “Are we leaders?”  instead the question should be, “What kind or type of leader am I?”

Use the following 20 questions developed by
Leadership expert Oswald Sanders to help you determine whether or not you’re an effective leader.

  1. How do you identify and deal with bad habits? To lead others, you must master your own habits.
  2. How well do you maintain self-control when things go wrong? The leader who loses control under adversity forfeits respect and influence. A leader must be calm in crisis and resilient in disappointment.
  3. To what degree do you think independently? A leader must use the best ideas of others to make decisions. A leader cannot wait for others to make up his or her mind.
  4. How well can you handle criticism? When have you profited from it? The humble person can learn from petty criticism, even malicious criticism.
  5. Can you turn disappointment into creative new opportunity? What three actions could you take facing any disappointment?
  6. Do you readily gain the cooperation of others and win their respect and confidence? Genuine leadership doesn’t have to manipulate or pressure others.
  7. Can you exert discipline without making a power play? Are your corrections or rebukes clear without being destructive? True leadership is an internal quality of the spirit and needs no show of external force.
  8. In what situations have you been a peacemaker? A leader must be able to reconcile with opponents and make peace where arguments have created hostility.
  9. Do people trust you with difficult and delicate matters? Your answer should include examples.
  10. Can you induce people to do happily some legitimate thing that they would not normally wish to do? Leaders know how to make others feel valued.
  11. Can you accept opposition to your viewpoint or decision without taking offense? Leaders always face opposition.
  12. Can you make and keep friends? Your circle of loyal friends is an index of your leadership potential.
  13. Do you depend on the praise of others to keep you going? Can you hold steady in the face of disapproval and even temporary loss of confidence?
  14. Are you at ease in the presence of strangers? Do you get nervous in the office of your superior? A leader knows how to exercise and accept authority.
  15. Are people who report to you generally at ease? A leader should be sympathetic and friendly.
  16. Are you interested in people? All types? All races? No prejudice?
  17. Are you tactful? Can you anticipate how your words will affect a person? Genuine leaders think before speaking.
  18. Is your will strong and steady? Leaders cannot vacillate, cannot drift with the wind. Leaders know their’s a difference between conviction and stubbornness.
  19. Can you forgive? Or do you nurse resentments and harbor ill-feelings toward those who have injured you?
  20. Are you reasonable optimistic? Pessimism and leadership do not mix. Leaders are positively visionary.

Question:

Which areas do you need to work on to become a better leader?