Why a Single Call to Action?

Simply put, too many calls to action paralyze the decision process. For instance, one email I received offered me the opportunity to donate, review new merchandise, visit the store website, and make a purchase, all in the same email. Just reading it burned through my allotted attention span for this email campaign; forget about actually deciding which call to action was most enticing. Studies show that you’ll make more sales by offering fewer choices than you will by offering a smorgasbord of options. Why? Ever try to choose between twenty-four different flavors of barbecue sauce? After a while they all start to taste the same.

What Should the Call to Action Accomplish?

Of course, the goal of any call to action is the click. To accomplish that goal, you must persuade the subscriber that clicking is worth his while, and therefore, you must show him how he will benefit by clicking. The single most important question in the mind of your customer is: “What’s in it for me?” Answer this question effectively and you’ll convince him that your product is worth spending money and/or time on.

How Can I Strengthen My Call to Action?

Strong calls to action employ descriptive action words designed to communicate benefit. Some great calls to action include:

• Try It Now (implies low risk)
• Learn More (piques interest)
• Help Me Choose (places focus on reader’s needs)
• Shop Sale Items (implies a great deal)

Above all, avoid the ubiquitous “click here” that asks the subscriber to take an action without communicating any benefit or purpose whatsoever.

The best way to determine which call to action will work best for you is to run some tests. eConnect Email can help you create and test your emails to ensure that the call to action you choose generates the greatest possible response from your target audience. Evaluate your call to action’s effectiveness by measuring click through rates, forwards, unsubscribes, and more.

Subscriber #1: The Newbie

• Profile: This subscriber has just expressed interest in your company by signing up for your email list.
• Email Type: Send the newbie a welcome email that makes him feel appreciated and that encourages him to engage immediately.
• Email Goals: Encourage a first purchase, educate him about your company, promote your website, and let him know you’re glad he’s on board.
• Email Approach: Thank him for signing up and offer him a discount off his first purchase. This is also a great time to let him know what benefits he can expect to receive as a member of your subscriber list.

Subscriber #2: The Supporter

• Profile: This is the loyal gal who loves to shop at your store and opens every email you send.
• Email Type: Respond to the loyalty of this customer by giving her the VIP treatment. Make her feel like a valued customer and she’ll reward you with return visits and recommendations.
• Email Goals: Encourage increased purchasing, offer excellent customer service, and increasing loyalty
• Email Approach: Offer sneak previews for upcoming sales, give special valued-customer discounts, target email creation based on viewing history, send abandoned cart reminders, and provide immediate customer service interactions when appropriate.

Subscriber #3: The Bystander

• Profile: This person has been a member of your email list for a while but has no recent purchases and may fail to open or click on any of your email campaigns.
• Email Type: Seek to win back the loyalty of this subscriber with special offers and “we miss you” messages.
• Email Goals: Jump start re-engagement, understand her concerns, and keep her from transferring loyalty elsewhere.
• Email Approach: Solicit comments by asking for social media involvement or survey responses, offer incentives for purchases or website visits, and seek to make her feel like a valued member of your list.

The goal of lifecycle marketing is to segment your subscriber list based on their customer behavior and then to create targeted emails that encourage greater levels of participation. eConnect Email can help you reach these goals by managing subscriber data, analyzing list metrics, and building segments based on custom criteria.

• Provide great information to keep people reading.

The best thing about the gardening newsletter above was that it provided thoughtful, well-written information. It included seasonally relevant tips that weren’t common knowledge, meaning that every month subscribers learned something new. Keep your subscribers clicking by giving them something worthwhile to read in every message.

• Reward readers for their loyalty.

The second best way to keep subscribers clicking is to provide incentives for them to do so. Don’t just announce an upcoming sale—give your subscribers exclusive access to early bird specials and other offers.

• Create compelling subject lines.

It doesn’t matter how great your content is if your subject line doesn’t communicate well. Avoid spammy phrases and make sure that you don’t over-hype your message. Try testing several different wordings to discover what style works best for your audience.

• Include personal touches.

In addition to using subscriber names, you can further personalize your messages by tracking user behavior and knowing what your subscribers have shown interest in previously with the goal of making each message as relevant as possible.

• Know what constitutes spam.

Show respect for your subscribers by avoiding the appearance of spam at all costs. Don’t flood their inboxes and make sure you’re current on the provisions in the CAN-SPAM act in order to maintain the loyalty of your subscribers.

The best way to earn and keep the trust of your subscribers is to treat them the way you want to be treated. People understand that the purpose of your newsletter is advertising, but they also want to know that there’s something in it for them. eConnect Email can help you create compelling email templates, manage your subscriber lists, and track the effectiveness of your newsletters as you seek to create email campaigns that will boost your click through rates.

While you can hope that these experiences don’t happen to you on a regular basis, they should spur you to think about your own email marketing practices. With a little effort, you can create an experience that lets your subscribers know you care about their preferences by giving them the right to choose.

• Automate Your Unsubscribe Feature

When a customer wants to unsubscribe, let him. You’re not going to win any brownie points by making him wait 7-10 days or by trying to convince him at the last minute to stay. Instead, these tactics will encourage him to report you as spam. eConnect Email automatically handles unsubscribe requests (immediately) and we also provide you with a suppression feature so that you can prevent emails addresses/ domains from subscribing to your mailing list.

• Let Customers Make Their Own Decisions

When you give a customer the option of signing up for your various newsletters, resist the urge to pre-select options for them. Allowing customers to choose the contact options themselves will reduce the number of people who sign up accidentally and then become frustrated when they receive unexpected emails.

• Offer Detail Modification Options

Can your customers modify their contact details and subscription preferences easily? A customer should be able to update his email address or unsubscribe from one newsletter while continuing to receive others. With eConnect Email you can give your subscribers the ability to manage their contact information and subscription options through the preference center. Giving customers the opportunity to choose will make them more likely to remain on the lists they want rather than unsubscribing altogether.

Giving your customers the opportunity to choose their preferences and to say good-bye if they so choose will leave a positive impression in their minds about your company. Even if a subscriber opts out of your list, he’ll be more likely to buy from you later if you haven’t irritated him with your list management practices. By taking advantage of the easy list management options available through eConnect Email, you can create a positive experience for your customers.

Even legitimately requested confirmation emails can be tagged as spam if they make these mistakes:

1.     Include too many references to typical spam topics.

Spammers love to entice readers with free stuff, making lots of money, mortgage pitches, urgent information and money back guarantees. When a spam filter detects this wording in an email, it assigns point values for each reference. If you must refer to these topics, use them sparingly in order to stay under the “This is spam” limit.

2.     Incorporate spammy wording or formatting.

Phrases such as “free gift,” “once in a lifetime,” or “click here” all receive spam points, especially when written in all caps or accompanied by lots of exclamation points. Test your email for effectiveness using eConnect Email’s inbox previews tools to evaluate each message for spammy red flags.

3.     Fail to use recipient’s full name.

Most mail servers will give you a free pass out of the spam folder if you have been added to the user’s address book, if they have emailed you, or if you use their full name in your email. By requiring recipients to provide both first and last names when they sign up for your newsletter, you can ensure that your messages reach their inbox.

4.     Purchase an email list.

This is the cardinal sin of email marketing. Not only is it unethical business practice, but it will also result in lots of bounces and spam complaints. Instead, collect your emails using double opt-in procedures to ensure that the majority of your customers will be expecting your newsletter. At eConnect Email, we take your email list seriously, and we’ve provided a variety of tools that will keep it up to date and targeted, including custom fields and demographics, individual contact histories, suppression lists, and effective list cleansing.

5.     Fail to include an unsubscribe link

The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 requires businesses to include a working unsubscribe link in every email. The link also benefits you by helping target your email list toward those customers most likely to read and remember your messages.

Takeaway

Spam filters hold the power of life and death for your email marketing campaign, but you can stay on their good side by acting upon the five suggestions above when putting together your next email campaign.

• Reduce Volume

Your original subscribers may have been thrilled to receive a daily or weekly email from you, but those who signed up on a holiday whim might not be so excited to have their inboxes full of your promotional emails. As your list grows, the number of people who can be considered casual readers grows as well, meaning that you’ll need to change your sending strategy in order to keep them interested. Consider reducing your volume to bi-monthly or even once a month in order to keep from overwhelming your subscribers. Or, use eConnect Email’s list segmentation feature to choose which subscribers want daily emails and which ones would prefer less frequent emails.

• Monitor Bounces

Large email lists inevitably include bounces, but a high bounce rate eats up valuable time and space and can cause headaches for you and your team. eConnect Email helps you keep your lists clean by monitoring and immediately handling hard bounces and unsubscribes. At the end of the day our goal is to ensure successful deliverability of your email.

• Optimize Subject Lines

If your unsubscribe rate is high and your open rate is low, the problem could be a subject line that fails to connect with readers. Subject lines should look enticing without appearing spammy. Avoid using multiple exclamation points or subject lines that don’t tell the reader what the email contains. Opt instead for short, concise wording that offers something of value to the reader.

• Optimize Content

Take a hard look at the content of the emails you send and ask whether they look appealing and make sure your emails contain information your subscriber will want. If you’re sending daily emails full of fluff, your readers will quickly become frustrated. Take advantage of the email creation tools offered by eConnect Email to test templates, images, and design before you send.  How about trying a A/B Split Test to see what engages your subscribers?

A new year means new opportunities for growing your business through email marketing. Use the above suggestions to ensure you’re connecting and keeping your subscribers engaged.  Do you have a question or suggestion, let us hear you thoughts!

Also, included in this months newsletter is our email marketing recap for 2010.   As always, let us know if you have any questions or suggestions, we are always happy to hear them!

For This Month’s Tips & Tricks – CLICK HERE

Choosing the right day/ time to send your email campaigns can have a huge effect on the overall results.  This being said, we recently published a blog article on this exact topic.  To read our recommendation on the best time to send your email campaign click here.

1.     Craft Your Welcome Letter as a Marketing Email

Don’t settle for a run-of-the-mill boring welcome letter. Instead, use it as an opportunity to start building a solid relationship with your subscribers.  Invite your subscribers to connect with you via social media and include links to additional content about your products/ services. Need help?  We’d be happy to give you some pointers or help you craft and design an effective welcome email.

2.     Use Emails to Follow Up on Cart Abandonment

Cart abandonment rates are astonishingly high, but you can draw some of that lost business back by using emails to follow-up with customers who bailed out before buying. Remind them of their selections and use the email to cross-sell or up-sell. You can also give them the opportunity to leave feedback or offer an incentive for them to come back and complete the purchase.

3.     Use Split Tests to Achieve Higher Open and Click Rates

If you don’t test various options, then you’re essentially guessing what will entice readers.  Split Testing allows you to choose the most effective subject line, call to action, images, and copy for every email campaign.

4.     Give your Subscribers Options

Give your readers the chance to unsubscribe, modify details, or change email preferences without jumping through hoops. Making this process easy leaves a sweet taste in their mouth even if they choose not to remain on your mailing list.  With eConnect Email’s list management options, you can stay on top of subscriber information and make sure your emails reach their intended destinations.

5.     Integrate Social Media with Your Email Campaign

With the rise of social media you’ll want to make sure you adapt your email campaign to the new landscape. You can increase your overall reach by giving your subscribers the opportunity to share your campaign on the various social networking websites (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.).

As you rethink your email marketing initiative, take advantage of the tools and solutions available with eConnect Email in order to further engage and interact with your subscribers.  If you have any questions or there is ever anything we can do to help you out let us know!

1. Consumers want real-time value.

The ability to post instant updates, tweets, and comments have trained consumers to expect those things from marketing campaigns as well.  You can begin incorporating real-time value into your email marketing by tracking customer behavior on social networks and using that data to create automated campaigns that deliver relevant messages based on triggers and auto-responders created with eConnect Email.

2. Mobile versions increase in popularity.

Some experts predict that 2011 will see mobile device sales outperforming PC sales for the first time in history.  Because people check email on mobile devices more frequently than ever before, you’ll need to make sure your email templates/ campaigns are designed to accommodate these users.  Curious how your email campaign will display within a specific email system or mobile devices?  We’ve got you covered, check out Inbox & Mobile Previews, a premium feature available within eConnect Email.

3.     Social media takes center stage.

2010 was the year social media came into its own, and 2011 will be the year that it takes center stage in a wide variety of marketing efforts, including email marketing. You can incorporate you social media efforts into your email marketing campaign by including links to Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites within your email campaigns. You can also include eConnect Email’s built in social sharing tools which will allow your subscribers to share your email campaigns via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Buzz (talk about expanding your reach).  Now also available is a feature that allows you to integrate a Facebook “Like” option into your email campaign, the whole process takes less than 10 seconds!

4.     Social media gives back.

Not only can you use email to help promote your social media efforts, but you can also begin using social media to increase email opt-ins. By placing opt-in opportunities on your Facebook fanpage and in your Twitter posts, you can increase the number of overall subscribers.

5.     Dynamic content becomes the norm.

As people share their opinions and product review information, they’ll become more likely to expect businesses to incorporate this data into their marketing campaigns. Using eConnect Email’s Dynamic Content tools will allow you to create a one-to-one email marketing experience which will keep your subscribers engaged!

As email marketing sets sail in 2011, businesses will need to embrace social media and look for tools that will enhance and engage your subscribers like never before.  eConnect Email can help you stay on course by giving you the tools you need to meet and exceed user expectations every time.