More than 34% of people worldwide use email. That’s roughly 2.5 billion people, the predictions are that email marketing will continue to grow. Any notion you may have heard that email marketing is dead or dying would be incorrect according to the statistics. Put simply, email marketing is an incredible and reliable method to connect with your audience. It is estimated that out of the 196 billion emails that are sent each day, 109 billion are business email. Now that’s a lot of emails to compete with but it proves that email marketing is a tried and tested method, and is still bringing in results for millions of companies around the globe. 

Why Email Marketing still has a role to play

Email is a big part of our lives. A very big part, think about your own experiences, you probably receive a number of email marketing newsletter daily which inspires your decision to purchase a product or service. This also applies to all of your friends and family too, do you even know anyone without an email address.  Email marketing is also a very personal way of reaching your target customers, emails from your friends and family are alongside email updates from the companies you follow.  

What the Stats Say

As mentioned the number of emails sent and received each year is only going up.  From 102.6 last year to a predicted 126.7 trillion emails expected to be sent in 2022. On average you are getting at least 13 commercial emails a day. Of course, that means nothing if we don’t check them, but with the ease of access and the mail apps allowing us to check emails directly from our phones, it’s estimated that we are checking out emails as much as 20 times a day. Over 50% check their email before doing anything else online. To put that in perspective emails are checked first by 58% off people compared to only 14% of people checking their social media first, or 5% of people checking the news first. 

No matter who or where your target audience is Emails as one of the longest standing methods remains a great way to reach your audience. 

What Practices should be used

If you’re responsible for the success of your day to day email marketing campaigns then sometimes it can feel like there are just so many elements to keep track of.  To help make sure you keep in mind these practices when creating your campaign.  

• Know your audience, your audience is more than just a demographic group, work with them and discover the best ways to communicate your message. 
• Utilize A/B testing, an important element for every campaign, a good email marketer is never done testing whether it’s the CTA, body or subject lines. 
• Follow a checklist, avoid the blushes of a simple error. Before you hit send create a checklist of all the important steps you need to check. 
• Personalizing your emails using the first names of your recipients is incredibly important when wanting to improve results. 
• Along with personalizing for the individual to make your emails relevant to the current season, your audience won’t engage with an email about winter coats in the middle of summer.  
• Track your results, without the proper tracking of whether your emails are working or not you may as well be shooting in the dark. 

Creating an effective email does not necessarily mean it needs to be complicated,  in fact, a good email can be rather simple.  As long as you follow the best practices your results will only improve.    

What Practices should be avoided

For those who are struggling with getting good results from your email marketing campaigns, there is a good chance you might be making some mistake.  But not to worry now you know what you should be doing, here’s what you should avoid: 

• Don’t forget the CTA
• Not having an automated welcome email
• Overwhelming your audience with too many emails
• Not optimizing for mobile display

Email marketing is still thriving and can achieve the results you need for your business but be sure to avoid these practices.  

How to succeed with email marketing 

So is email marketing really dead? Far from it, email marketing is alive and increasingly relevant. It’s the ideal way for you to reach audiences across demographics easily and directly. Remember, if you need help getting the most out of your email list, we’re here to help.  Let’s Talk! 

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Email marketing just like any other is a battle. A battle for the attention of your audience and for them to be responsive to your marketing message. In order to get a response, it’s important to follow the best practices of email marketing.  Once the content of your email grasps the attention of your audience now it’s time for the action. Fortunately, we’re plenty experienced in the tricks of the trade, to help you get the most out of your Call to action (CTA) .      

What to consider when choosing the best CTA

There are several aspects of what to consider when crafting your email, to get a strong reaction from your mailing list you must ensure you cover the trifecta of email marketing: 

• A powerful subject line to get readers to open your email 
• Avoid content of the body of the email 
• An easy to understand CTA.  

Once you’ve inspired them to open the email and have successfully held their interest long enough now is the time to hit them with a compelling CTA they simply must click on. As the saying goes you must strike while the iron is hot, in order to get the most of your CTA.   

What it looks like

Think back to the emails you receive from newsletters you have subscribed to. What are the CTA’s that stand out? Are they the ones that blend in with the text? Or rather the CTA that use bright colours and promote a compelling offer.   

What it says

Your CTA must promote an enticing offer and explain clearly to your audience where they are going to land once clicking. Transparency is an important aspect of many undervalues when composing their email marketing content. 

• Subscribe now 
• Enjoy 50% off 
• Enjoy my free trial 

These are all excellent examples of easy to understand short and powerful CTA’s. Additionally, keep in mind that your CTA must create urgency in order to really get the most out of your CTA. One final thing to remember is that after research it’s been found that CTA’s in the first person can work up to 90% better! Try using “Enjoy my free trial” instead of  “Enjoy a free trial” 

Where it is situated

Adding your CTA at the end of your body of text, in the form of a button is a fantastic way to increase your click-through rate.  Do not be obnoxious with your CTA, make it bright enough to stand out among the body of your email but don’t overdo it. Users often have a distaste for abnormally large lettering. 

Don’t dismiss the subject line

Subject lines are arguably the most important section of your email. Without the user clicking on your email, they will never be able to see your CTA. Keep your subject line short and catchy in order to stand out in the inbox of your audience.  

The importance of A-B Testing

Before you begin your campaign an absolute must of any email marketing campaign is to test your buttons. Make certain that they are sending traffic to the right place and are being displayed as you intended. 

Further to testing your campaign do not underestimate the power of A-B testing, test the colour, size placement and style of your button to find the sweet spot on what gets the most out of your CTA.   

With this information, you will be sure to get the most out of your CTA!

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Why is email marketing beneficial?

Email marketing has been around for what seems like forever, and with good reason. It’s used by thousands of business across the globe and it’s the most direct and effective method of connecting with leads. With the power of email marketing, you’ll be able to nurture your leads into clients and one-off buyers into loyal customers.  Your return on investment is guaranteed to grow alongside your subscriber list.  When it comes to emails there are several ways to see your success, those who may not be familiar, look no further the solution to a better return on your investment is email marketing. 

With email marketing, you’re able to reach highly targeted audiences, on a global scale at such a low cost it is not worth the comparison to Facebook ads or pay per click ads (PPC). While this may seem like a dream you cannot forget the 5 vital email marketing components.  

1.Build a strong Mailing list

The key to your success is a strong mailing list, not only in terms of volume but also content, who is on your list. There is no point building a list of 18-year-old males if you’re selling barbie dolls. Your list needs to represent your target audience.  To build a strong list you can use a variety of methods, using social media ads can be an option to generate leads quickly although there is an upfront cost to using social media ads once you’re list has grown a significant amount your ROI is sure to increase. Social media isn’t the only way to build your list, a mix of strategies would be most effective, consider using your website’s blog to also promote your newsletter.  

Offline methods can also be effective, business cards are an affordable way to spread your message.  Consider adding “Subscribe to our newsletter” on your business cards. If it doesn’t fit on your current design consider having business cards dedicated to promoting your newsletter, the same can be applied to encouraging people to follow you on social media.  Business cards are a cost-effect way to share your message.               

2.Powerful subject lines

The importance of a strong subject line cannot be understated. It’s the first thing the audience will read and potentially their first impression of your brand. You should aim for subject lines, that spark interest and build curiosity. From our experience, the shorter the subject line the better, subject lines under 4 words have received the best open rates. Although this may heavily depend on your industry, it’s best to test the length of your subject lines through a series of emails.    

While it may be tempting to use clickbait to get better open rates,  it the long run it installs poor trust in your audience who frequently open emails from you only yo be disappointed with the content. Your users won’t take the desired action should you deceive them into opening the email. The goal of a subject line is to lure recipients to open the e-mail and to click through to wherever you are directing traffic.  Hot tip – Utilise A/B testing when optimising your subject lines. 

3.Copy and images

An image is worth a thousand words, or so the saying goes.  While this can apply to your email you cannot ignore the copy that goes with your image. You want your audience to be able to glace at your email and understand the central message. In addition to the core message, your call to action must also stand out to the users.  It should be a specific call to action whether you want to the user to purchase or to visit your website the next step to them should be clear.  Personalization is also key, including details such as their name can have huge benefits to your clickthrough rate. 

Perhaps most importantly is using a responsive design, and testing on multiple browsers and devices. You want your entire network to receive the same email. There should be no vast differences in the visual element of your email from device to device as this may affect your ability to measure and optimize your results. 

4.Measuring results

A vital component to perhaps any marketing campaign is how and what you should record.  There are different ways to measure your results when for your email marketing campaign, firstly is to see the performance of your email and secondly is looking at the analytics of where you are driving traffic too. From your email, you should be looking at the delivery rates, open rates and click-through rates.  These numbers will vary from industry to industry it up to you to improve after each email.  On your website or landing page, you need to look for the bounce rate, conversion rate and revenue. 

5.Optimizing 

Although it is mostly low maintenance, an email marketing campaign is not something that you should create one day and then completely forget about the next. To get the best results, monitor the performance of your emails as mentioned. But with the results, you measure you need to also identify areas that need improvement. Then, through A/B test some changes to make those improvements.

One of the most effective ways to streamline your messaging with an audience is email. For any industry or whether a company is a business to business or business to consumer, a well thought out marketing approach can generate impressive results for brands if utilised correctly.

Let’s Talk! 

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Before you even begin you must know your audience, of course, this doesn’t mean personally but put them into a very simple category, 

• Very busy 
• Less busy   

The busier you know someone is appreciative they will be of shorter emails that summarises your email so they can get to the point quicker. If someone is slightly less busy they may even enjoy a friendly email that shows you’ve done your research on them and adds context to what you’re saying. As a rule of thumb, journalists are often extremely busy and your email length should represent that whereas an influencer or blogger, on the other hand, may have more time and would appreciate a longer email that includes compliments about their work. 

Another step you should take before reaching out is doing a bit of research into the prospect and see what kind of topics they cover to see if they’re the right fit for you. 

The final step before outreaching is trying to try to get on the radar, by doing things like commenting on their blogs or social media posts they become somewhat aware of you and trust you that little bit more.  

Now that you’ve done all the scouting necessary it’s time to craft the perfect outreach email. Here are some quick tips you should keep in mind! 

Keep it personal 

Want your emails to get ignored? Don’t include any personalization, at the very minimum you should be including the name of the recipient of the email. On the same note make sure it’s the correct name, you may have accidentally copied the recipients of the previous email into this one or had a typo, regardless proofreading your email for the correct spelling of a name is essential.  

Be Direct

As previously mentioned this will largely depend on who you are sending this too but regardless of how busy the schedule of the recipient is the email you write should include the point of it within the first two lines of the email. This applies to the content but also the design of the email. Don’t include everything in one big paragraph, break it up into short paragraphs or even bullet points if possible.  

Don’t include attachments 

Attachments are inherently untrustworthy especially if they arrive from strangers. A better method of communication is to include links in your email this way you don’t need to include mass information in the email or include any attachments. 

Nail your subject line 

When it comes to open rates your subject line is the most important aspect of your email. An amazing subject line should: 

• Be genuine 
• Be intriguing 
• Be personalized 
• Create urgency  

And perhaps most importantly it should be concise, maxim two to three words. 

The effects of a perfectly designed outreach email can fast track your way to more collaborations and backlink building.  

Unlock your full potential with the perfect outreach email and you’ll see why your email marketing agency takes time to develop the perfect outreach email. 

The post Writing the perfect outreach email appeared first on Yoshiro Digital.

Benefits of Images  

Let’s first discuss some of the benefits of using images. 

Unlike other channels namely Social media email is a message focused channel meaning your focus should be on the message, not the design.  The message should first and foremost be your priority when drafting your email marketing.   With that being said however images can be a powerful tool if used correctly, humans naturally process images up to 10x faster than written text.  If you’re looking to get your message across instantly using images can tell a story, promote a particular offer, or establish consistency between emails.    

Right Ratios

There is a common agreement that using 30% imagery and 70% text, known as the 30/70 rule, is optimal. While it may be tempting to stick with this the best ratio may vary from industry to industry, hospitality, and food industries have seen more success with a higher image ratio. Whereas business to business (B2B) marketing performs better with more text as it will likely have more information to convey.  

The best way to find out what works for your industry is to test it. Start with testing no images vs. images and expand focusing on image heavier emails until you find your sweet spot.  Measure metrics such as CTR (click-through rate) to find out which image to text ratio is best for your business. 

Another side of the argument is to include only an image in your email including any text inside the image, let’s take a look at the pros and cons of using only an image. 

Pros

• Easier to assemble than creating in HTML 
• iPhone and Gmail users download the image automatically 

Cons 

• Some email providers block images by default 
• Images are not responsive and may not be suitable for mobile devices 

Conclusions  

Before considering using only images we first suggest looking at where your emails are being opened more frequently. If your emails have a higher rate of opening on servers such as Outlook or Android you should not use an image as it will be blocked.  On servers like Gmail or iOS give a campaign with images a go and see what kind of results you get. 

Do you have any questions or want to get started with your email marketing campaign?

Contact us today! Let’s Talk. 

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Internet service providers are constantly waging war against spammer wanting to invade our mailboxes. If it’s vital that your emails deliver you should regularly test your emails with a variety of email providers to ensure that they are getting delivered into the inbox and not being lost in the spam folder. Follow these helpful tips to guarantee your email’s get maximum deliverability.

Watch your words

To avoid ending up in spam it’s important to avoid certain phrases and words that spam filters might pick up when analyzing your content. Words such as free, buy, promo may increase your likelihood of your emails being delivered straight into the spam folder. While there are no magical words that will increase or decrease your deliverability sustained use of these types of words may lower your sender reputation and get your emails sent straight to spam. Here are a few other pointers to keep in mind for your email content:

• Only link to sites with reputable domains
• Less is more, keep your email size 30kb or less
• A picture is worth a thousand words, but make sure the ratio of image-to-text is just right

Use a reliable Email Service Provider [ESP]

It’s of vital importance to your email deliverability that you choose an ESP, with a high score on their Internet Protocol (IP). Sending an email from an ESPs with a low score on the IP addresses of their senders are heading straight for spam folders. Avoid this by choosing an ESP that sends only solicited emails and doesn’t send any spammers emails and ban them from using their platform. If you consistently choose to send emails from ESPs with low IP scores your emails will eventually be blocked by major providers like Gmail, Yahoo & Hotmail.

Be genuine

Of course in marketing, it’s vital to get people’s attention, however, avoid using cheap tricks. If you are caught using these cheap tricks it may cause permanent and irreversible damage to your email deliverability. What may have worked in 2000 no longer works in 2020, it’s important to be genuine and avoid purposely deceiving your audience. Avoid these methods if you want to maintain a high email sender reputation:

Deceptive subject lines: Subject lines starting with “Re:” or “Fwd” for initial contact with are purposely deceptive as it suggests previous communication.

Text within images: Adding text in an image to avoid spam filters removes your sender reputation.

Misleading information: Claiming the recipient won a prize or otherwise false claims do not go down well.

Using hash buster: Adding random keys in the content or subject of your email, for example, “Wi!n fr.e.e pr,iz*e”

Unless you’re an in the world of email marketing you might always feel a step or two behind your competitors.

By utilizing the help of real experts you’ll be able to boost your email deliverability straight away while freeing up your time and energy to focus on other areas of your business that you have expertise in.

Don’t be shy about calling in the pros when necessary. Let’s Talk!

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Email

Weird right? How can you use email marketing to increase your email marketing list? Seem’s impossible but it’s not with these amazing and simple techniques.

1. Create entertaining, valuable and re-marketable content. The number one way to ensure your mailing list remains the same is to create content that your audience wants. This may be the most simple thing on the list but is often overlooked.
2. Encourage sharability, include social sharing buttons or “email to a friend” this is a great way to increase your network with minimal effort.
3. Add a link on employee signatures, if you feel like your employees are spending time answering email’s that your email marketing content solves add a link in their email signature leading people to a landing page dedicated to getting subscribers to your email list.

Content

Although it’s often overlooked by some, the content you use in your email is essential when maintaining your mailing list and can even help to grow it.

1. Use offer, an offer doesn’t necessarily mean slashing your prices it could be an e-book or something of value. You can use this “offer” to either generate more leads by asking for their emails before they can get the offer or to maintain your current list if you use it as exclusive content.

Social Media

Your social channels are one of your most powerful tools when it comes to growing your mailing list. It’s a great way to reach a new audience who are perfect for your product or service.

1. Host a contest, promote your content through your social media accounts and encourage participants to enter on your website using their email address.
2. Use an offer, remember your offer doesn’t have to be a price offer. Promote your e-book or free resource on social media that requires an email address to acquire.
3. Use your Facebook page’s button to link to your landing page dedicated to growing your mailing list.

Website

Your website is where most of your social traffic points to, for this reason, it’s essential to have multiple methods to collect the users’ email address.

1. Get feedback from your web visitors, use a live chatbox or a short form that requires users’ to include their email when they send feedback or ask a question.
2. Use short forms’, it’s easy to fall into the trap of adding too many felids but this will make your form unappealing, create forms’ with fewer fields, once you initiate contact you can start collecting more information.
3. Use your blog, if you don’t have a blog on your site, get one! Use your blog to collect blog subscribers, you can then upgrade them to more actionable items.

Whether you want to grow your mailing list or develop quality email marketing campaigns our expert team is here to help, contact us today to learn more about our email marketing services, Let’s Talk.

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Which one of those options sounds better to you? Most business owners like having loyal customers.  Loyal customers plus a quality product and services equal to lifelong customers who are devoted to your brand. 

The easiest and most cost-effective way to do this is with email marketing. Despite the popularity of Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, email marketing is still king when it comes to increasing sales and engaging with your customers and would-be customers. 

Want to unlock the secret to awesome email marketing campaigns? Listen closely… 

Step 1: Recognise your goals

Before you start running you need to walk, think bottom line what would you like to achieve with your campaign? Before deciding on a strategy, creating opt-in forms or testing tools first ask yourself do I want to:  

• Drive more traffic to your product pages
• Encourage past customers to buy again
• Encourage would-be customers to buy for the first time
• Sell more products
• Develop personal relationships with your customers 

Obviously most business owners will be drawn to one goal and that’s great! In order to be more successful, you should be thinking about more than one goal. Focusing on 1-3 primary goals can help develop your strategy when thinking of your goal keep in mind the SMART goal technique (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound).  

Step 2: Choose the Right Tool 

After establishing your goals the next step is an effective marketing strategy. This involves trying out lots of different platform’s each one offer’s something unique so it’s important to find one best suited to your needs. Keep in mind ultimately it needs to help you scale and automate your email marketing campaigns. Here are our favorites for you to check out:  

• MailChimp
• Campaign Monitor
• Remarkety
• Rejoiner
• Aweber
• SendinBlue

Step 3: Keep building

Once you’ve established your goals and the tool you would like to use you need to be actively building your mailing list. The easiest way to do this is with a pop-up form on your website but that might not be enough in order to collect the most leads you need to place a variety of opt-in forms in different places throughout your website, for example:  

• Within blog posts as content upgrade offers (learn more about content upgrades here)
• In blog sidebars and footers
• On active product pages
• In pop-ups and welcome mat screens that appear whenever a new visitor lands on a page within your website

It’s important to keep in mind that your goal isn’t to overwhelm or spam website visitors with these from’s, your goal is to make it easy for visitors to sign up. Offer visitors something of value when signing up, for example, a special offer. As always it’s vital to track results of your opt-in forms in order to measure and optimize the placement and frequency.    

Step 4: Value

Remember in step 3 where we suggest giving visitors something of value by signing up? Well now’s the time entice your subscribers with offers.  Offers are the easiest and quickest way to turn would-be customers into just customers. Who doesn’t like it quick and easy? Here are some examples of offers that you may want to use. 

• Coupons for new subscribers
• Free shipping for returning customers
• Promo codes for people who abandoned their shopping cart before purchasing
• Special campaigns for seasonal time periods like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, New Year’s, or any other holiday that aligns with your specific business.
• Refer-a-friend discount

With these offer’s you are giving potential customers the little push, they need to become loyal customers. Once you begin with your offer’s it’s then time to optimize with time-sensitive deals and exclusive email specials. 

Step 5: Test, Optimize, and Analyze Everything

In order to truly run a successful email campaign, you need to test and optimize everything!     

You need to change things week by week, the ultimate purpose of testing your emails is to zero in on the most effective tactics in order to drive the most traffic and conversions.  Here are some examples of tests you can initially run: 

• How often you email your subscribers each week
• The discounts you share with subscribers
• Plain-text emails vs. photo-heavy emails
• Adding more offers and CTA’s in your transactional emails (order confirmation, shipping confirmation, thank you emails, etc.)
• The size, colour, shape, and placement of CTA buttons that appear in your emails

Testing is only half the battle – the other half is measuring, tracking and analyzing your results this way you can make informed desitions when you decide to optimize your campaigns.

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