Category Archives: Email Marketing

Is this the reason you’re not making the sales you deserve?

I read an article today by Dr Greg Chapman over on the Australian Small Business blog.

He wrote about the importance of addressing customer concerns, fears or objections in your advertising.

If you’re NOT doing this in your marketing it could be creating a logjam in your sales pipeline.

And we ALL know how painful a logjam in your pipeline can be!

The basic idea is this:

If you figure out what scares, worries or keeps your potential customers awake at night …

… then show how your product or service addresses those concerns …

You’ll sell more product and make more money.

Dr Chapman used a recent iPhone ad as an example of doing it right.

Watch the ad here so you know what I’m talking about (it’s funny, so you’ll have a good laugh) —

Dr Chapman then admitted that although he thought the ad deserved the title of “AD of the Month,” — presumably as a model for how small businesses need to run ads to address their market’s biggest fears or concerns — he doesn’t actually believe the ad.

He said:

“Whether you accept these assurances from Apple, whose business model includes the monetizing your personal information, or not, is up to you. Personally, I would trust them just as far as I could throw an elephant.”

My thoughts:

Great advice, as far as addressing the concerns, fears, or objections of your market. But …

Seems to me there’s a deeper objection Apple are not tackling here.

Namely, although they offer data privacy, many people don’t believe them. Which is a problem because …

In advertising and marketing …

A benefit that is not believed is as good as not having a benefit.

My suggestion:

How about an ad and email campaign that says in essence:

“If you’re one of the millions of iPhone users worldwide, you trust your personal data is kept safe when using your iPhone. But, with consumer skepticism over data security at an all-time high, we thought you’d appreciate it if we took a moment to explain the 6 steps and 5 precautions Apple takes to guarantee your data is kept away from prying eyes. First, we …”

And so on.

Anyway, big takeaway is that Dr Greg Chapman runs an excellent blog for small business owners at https://www.australiansmallbusiness.net.au/

Go read some of his excellent articles today.

And …

If you need specific help with email marketing, subscribe to my email newsletter below or contact me here to start a conversation.

Processing…

Success! There's something waiting for you in your inbox

Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.

Have you been sin binned? How to stop your emails landing in spam folder hell

Just occurred to me that a handful of my subscribers — possibly you included — don’t realise I don’t just write emails … but …

I also help you through the technical side of getting those emails set up in your email account if necessary.

And…

I help you prevent your emails landing in spam folder hell!

As an example of this … today I set up (in mailchimp) a 5-email welcome series that I wrote for a client last week.

I didn’t just set it up … I created signature files for the client’s emails …

I also set up the timing for the automatic emails to go out —

In this case we’re sending automated emails immediately after someone subscribes, then 3 hours, 24 hours, 48 hours later, and final 6 days after the first email goes out.

I won’t go into all the reasons for the timing of these emails. But suffice to say …

There’s method to my madness.

There’s ALWAYS method to my madness.

And, as one final step for this client, I set up email domain authentication to get his emails to land in the subscriber’s inbox instead of …

The dreaded spam folder.

Have you set up email domain authentication for your email address?

If not, you may be landing in the spam folder more often than you think.

And that’s not good. Because the fastest way to die a slow email death is to send all your emails to your subscribers spam folder.

And get this:

Some email services such as gmail send your emails to the spam folder automatically when you use an ESP like MailChimp or GetResponse or Active Campaign. And this WON’T change, no matter how compliant your email message, until you verify or authenticate your email domain.

It’s not enough to ask subscribers to whitelist your emails.

And it’s not enough to send emails that are spam compliant in every other respect.

Why?

Because these email services want to protect their own reputation. To do that they don’t want their uses receiving spam. So they block anything that could potentially be spam — starting with mass email from services like MailChimp .

Think of it like this.

If you’re a teenager holding a wild party while your parents are away, the last thing you want to do is tip your parents off that a party is going down.

So what do you do?

You do everything you can to convince your parents you’re having a sedate weekend at home. You tell them you’re probably going to hit the books all weekend and maybe watch a movie if you have time.

You DO NOT tell them you’re having the neighbours with a bad reputation for starting out-of-control house parties over for a few drinks.

This would drive your parents nuts.

And they’d be so on edge they’d either invite your uncle Ted over to keep an eye on you … or cancel their plans for the weekend so they can stay home to watch you themselves.

Basically you’ve been sin binned

If you don’t want that, you need to show your parents they can trust you.

In the same way, email readers like gmail, yahoo, outlook and so on want to know they can trust you before they allow you to have free reign over which of their customers you send emails to.

To gain these company’s trust you need to authenticate your email domain.

Make sense?

(Here’s how to set up email domain authentication if you use mailchimp)

Just take my word for it.

Anyway, if you want automated emails written for your welcome series…

Or your abandoned cart series …

Or your product upsell series …

Or whatever …

And you also need help with the technical side of setting all this up ….

I can help.

Just reply to this email, tell me what you want (even if you don’t know what’s possible) and let’s chat.

Oh, and I also do broadcasts emails if you need those.

Hit my services tab at the top of the page to find out more …

Or subscribe to my email newsletter and I’ll tell you all the ways I can help, along with 2-3 helpful tips each week to improve your results with email marketing.

Subscribing is free, and you can do it here:

Processing…

Success! There's a surprise waiting in your inbox…

Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.

When to segment your email list and when not to

I grew up on a farm.

In a Christian family.

So segmenting or separating sheep from goats and wheat from chaff was an easy concept for me to understand.

So when I began working with a small creative training company back in the late 2000’s the first thing I did was set up an entry strategy that allowed website visitors to receive content most relevant to them via email.

My client at the time sold a range of products suitable for professionals, home users, hobbyists and creative types. If we sent the same email message to all 4 categories of customer our message would be generic and watered down.

It would appeal to some, but not all of the audience on the list.

Segmenting allowed us to send specific email campaigns and messaging that resonated with each type of reader or interest group.

Segmentation also meant we could run more promotions, more often.

While our competitors focused on launching one product at a time to their whole list, we could launch 4 products simultaneously because we had 4 sub-categories of the market.

With this client, segmentation was probably an obvious move.

But what if you don’t see a definite distinction between types of people on your email list? Or haven’t taken the time to segment your list properly? Is it okay to send generic messages to your whole list?

I believe you can.

It’s not the most effective strategy.

But until you’re ready to get more serious about email marketing and segmentation this insight may help:

I have another client, let’s call him Tom. Right now we send emails to his whole list.

No segmentation.

Everyone gets the same email message regardless of their interests or reasons for subscribing. Buyers and non-buyers alike.

You could say our only form of segmentation is to write emails that resonate with some subscribers but not all.

As a result, those who don’t feel our messages are relevant will eventually segment themselves by unsubscribing or tuning us out.

Again, not the best approach. But, not necessarily bad either. After all, you only want people on your list who resonate with the specific types of messages you want to send.

So here’s what we do instead of segmenting the list:

Before writing an email I think generally about the list as a whole and ask:

“What is everyone on the list interested in?”

From a universal standpoint, everyone on the list is a human being and therefore interested in themselves.

Humans also love stories.

So a safe bet when writing an email is to tell stories with a human-interest element, that benefit the reader in some way.

So I ask:

“What stories are both universally interesting and relevant to the work my client does?”

This question elicits a lot of answers.

For starters, I can write about what’s happening in my client’s life. After all, it’s his list … and people subscribed to get more information from him.

Second, I can write about industry related topics that may affect his subscribers – keeping my emails focused on what’s happening in the subscriber’s “world” is a sure-fire way to get and hold their attention.

Finally, I can write about people who are getting the kind of results my client delivers. People are always interested in the success stories of others.

So you see, even without segmenting the list, I can keep the emails general but specific enough to reach everyone in some way.

You can do the same.

Then, when the time is right, you can use segmentation strategies to build sub-lists based on more refined segmentation or interest criteria.

Hope this helps.

If you like what you’re reading …

Subscribe to my email newsletter for 2 or 3 hot tips each week you can use to get better results with email marketing.

Processing…

Success! Check your inbox for a surprise gift that could …

Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.

What’s better — sending valuable content to your email list … or a barrage of product promotions?

If you have to write marketing emails you’ve probably sat at your computer at some point wondering what the right balance is between useful content and promotional emails.

And it’s a fair thing to wonder.

Thousands follow Gary V’s “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook” methodology which advocates sending at least 3 “information only” emails to every promotional email you send.

But frankly, that’s an oversimplification. It may be true with social media, but email is different. As proof …

Many companies promote an offer in EVERY EMAIL THEY SEND … and get away with it just fine.

Still others send ONLY free content, with the assumption “They’ll contact us when they’re ready to buy, so we don’t need to pitch in our emails“.

Who’s right?

According to Hubspot, who have a few terabytes of data on such things:

“The key to crafting a successful email marketing strategy lies in creating trust with contacts and building genuine, long-lasting relationships with them“.

The good news is …

You don’t need to compromise.

With the right approach — and a little thought — you can build long-lasting relationships … AND … promote your products or services in every email you send.

I’m using a couple of different approaches to help clients achieve this right now.

And I write about it occasionally in my 2-3 times a week email newsletter, which you can subscribe to below:

Processing…

Success! You're on the list.

Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.

The 2 Most Important Words In Marketing

There are thousands of important words (or phrases) in marketing like list building, targeting, demographics, psycho-graphics, offers, PPC, content marketing, credibility, emotion, needs, wants, desires and so on.

The list is practically endless and could fill 100 books.

But there are two words that help you understand more about marketing (and how to do it) than any other words or phrases.

Why are these words important?

Because they describe the mechanics of marketing and put into fresh perspective what to do in any medium or media to get results.

In short, they simplify your job as a marketer and make your life easier.

The first word is … sequence.

The Greek mathematician, Archimedes is credited for saying “Give me a place to stand and with a lever long enough I will move the whole world”.

In marketing terms this can translate to, “give me the contact details of all the people with the types of problems I solve, and let me send them a sequence of messages and I’ll convert a high percentage into customers”.

There’s power in sequence.

For example, 12 emails, with a carefully planned message, sent over a 3-4 week period will have greater impact than a single email.

Think about your best relationships.

You may have hit it off the first time you met, but the relationship was built over time, in a sequence of events that built the relationship to what it is today.

And your relationship will be sustained by a future sequence of events, starting today.

It’s a sequence of events, not a single event, that shapes our view of the world and the people in it.

So when you think of marketing in terms of a sequence you have the power to shape people’s views of you, your company, and your products and services.

The second most important word in marketing is … integration.

Integration — in marketing terms — means using multiple mediums or channels in your message sequence simultaneously.

For example, if you discover your best prospects are Accountants, why limit yourself to just sending DMs to Accountants on LinkedIn? Why not create a list of Accountants and send messages on LinkedIn, email, direct mail, phone calls, and personal visits in a carefully planned, integrated sequence of communication?

I’m sure if you think about it you can come up with many more mediums to integrate into this approach.

For example, what about re-targeting ads on Facebook and Google?

What about an endorsed mailing from clients you’ve already worked with who may be in your prospect’s circle of influence?

Anyway, a sequentially integrated approach will have far greater impact (and results) than simply running an ad on Facebook or sending a single email.

How are you using sequence and integration in your marketing?

Want more useful marketing ideas to grow your business?

Subscribe to my email list and I’ll send you short lessons and ideas to help you succeed at marketing: