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Do You Make These Common Email Marketing Mistakes?

When you're new to email marketing, it's easy to make mistakes. You're excited, and you want to get your message out and tell the world! Before you push that button, find out about some common errors (and how to stop them cold).

Mistake #1: No text alternative for HTML emails

Many companies block HTML email messages (to stop unwanted email and viruses). The images are missing, the links are disabled, and the email is either unreadable, or worse, sent to the spam folder. Create your email in two versions, text and HTML.

Mistake #2: No welcome email

Nearly 35% of emailers in a study conducted by Silverpop last year forget to do this. By the time the customer gets a message, they've forgotten they signed up, and hit the spam button.

Mistake #3: Only a global opt-out

If you've got several email marketing newsletters, offer specific opt-out options. Allow people to continue receiving your web design tips newsletter, but opt-out of your industry events newsletter.

Mistake #4: No global email opt-out

B to B magazine just forced me to click on a link, uncheck all options separately, and then send 4 emails back and forth to customer service before I could opt-out! It's not only bad business practice, it violates FTC rules.

Mistake #5: Selling too hard

Be helpful (not pushy). Write email newsletters that deliver useful information, not a sales pitch. If the subject line asks people to do something (before giving a reason why), click through rates will drop.

A Super-Easy Way to Get More Web Sales

Are your Web site visitors clicking on your content? Do they sign up for your newsletter? Download your e-book? If not, here's a copywriting trick that will help. It's easy, it's quick, and it jolts people into doing exactly what you want.

All you have to do is... ask. That's right. Just ask. No bells, no whistles, no fancy fireworks. Just ask. Make it clear and make it simple.

Say something like, "Click here to order" or "Vote for Pedro." Spell out exactly what you want people to do. Check your email marketing systems to make sure everything works the way it should. Try it. Let me know what happened.

Four Keys to Marketing That Rocks

1) The offer

2) Information

3) The call to action

4) A way to respond

Five Things Your Web Site Must Have

1) A big, fat benefit on the front page:

"Cut Your Energy Bills 25%" or

"Lose the Mess and Reduce Your Stress."

2) Clear reasons why your customers should use your services.

Explain what they'll get and how it will make their lives easier (hint: quality, price, and service don't count unless they're off the charts like Zappos or LL Bean).

3) A clear niche marketeting strategy

Exhibitors at music industry trade shows? Green technology companies? You need to pick one and then tailor your message to fit those people (and those people only). Don't try to be all things to everyone.

4) Contact information

Put your address and phone number prominently on the site. You're asking people to buy something from you; you'll need to look trustworthy.

5) Testimonials

Use your customers' actual words (and pictures, or video if you can). Someone else's praise is far more powerful than anything you can say about yourself.

Three Steps to a Better Brochure

Have you put a lot of time and effort into a brochure or web site marketing without getting good results? Here are three ways to fix it.

1) Make a connection and build trust

If you sell golf equipment, make your company the place to go when golfers have questions about how to drive the ball further or improving their putting skills. You'll be the natural choice when your prospects are ready to buy.

2) Be helpful

Which would a golfer rather read, "All About Our Golf Clubs" or "Five Ways to Improve Your Swing"?

3) Sell to an "ideal customer"

Many businesses make the mistake of trying to sell to everyone. Instead form a clear picture of exactly who you're trying to sell to. If you have more than one, create different "buyer personas." Returning to the golf example, you might have one set of materials for older golfers and another for people new to the game. Each will have different problems, questions, and concerns.

Which is Better: Email or Snail Mail?

Email is a great way to keep in contact with current customers or prospects. Use it to share tips on how to use your product, or create an online course.

Sellers of video games can reveal strategies for how to get past the three-headed monster guarding the cave with the buried treasure. It's also a good way to send new offers or reminders about special occasions. What better way to interact with your customers than at the exact time they want to buy something?

Use snail mail to generate new leads or for services with a longer sales cycle. Everyone looks at their mail, there's no spam filter, and everyone has a mailbox. It's also much easier to get snail mail addresses.

If you're concerned about the costs of a large mailing, try a small sample first, check the results, and then send a larger mailing to the lists that got the best results. Another way to cut costs is to use direct mail postcards to send leads to your Web site.

Five No-cost Ways to Market Your Business

Since the recession is cramping many marketing budgets, here are five tips for promoting your company, without spending a cent.

1. Build a Google Pages Web site
2. Write articles and send them to trade publications in your
field.
3. Create a Squidoo lens. It's a one-page Web site that focuses on a single topic. Share your expertise, and strut your stuff, but don't spam people with "me! me! me!."
4. Answer questions at Yahoo! Answers and LinkedIn.
5. Sign up for HARO - Help a Reporter Out. It's a free service with queries from reporters who need sources for stories.

21 free marketing tips.

Simple Ways to Boost Your Email Marketing Response

The most important thing is the subject line. A poor one can get your message trashed, instead of read. It should be short and punchy (about 40 characters). Put the most important words at the beginning (Easy HTML Tricks or Get More Clicks on Your Emails).

The first paragraph should summarize the benefits and the offer, have a call to action and a link. Talk about what's good for your customers (not about yourself). Skip the company history, the guarantee (unless it's astonishing), and the great service. Focus on what's remarkable about your product or service.

Flesh it out with benefit statements (not features) and bullets (interspersed with two or three more calls to action and links). People scan (not read), so make the content easy to digest.

Break it up into small pieces, and use asterisks or dashes to highlight individual points. The whole thing should be about a page or a page and a half long (if you printed it out).

More email marketing tips

Love Your Solution, Not Your Technology

Sony ran an ad two years ago with a headline that said, "It's not the first Blu-ray Disc Player on the market. It's the first Sony. (Isn't that the same thing?)"

The headline says nothing about what the customer will gain by buying the product. Will I be the first to own one? Does it install in minutes, without complicated instructions? Will I get cinema-quality sound and picture?

Whether your advertising budget is $50,000 or $1,000, it will be better spent if you take the time and effort to think about what your customer will gain from your product, rather than what you'll get.

How Does Google See Your Site?

If you're stumped for keywords, or wondering if google sees your site the way you want them to, try this idea. check your site, or just one page, against Google's free keyword tool. Just enter the URL in the search box. You'll get dozens of keywords, as well as graphs showing the volume of searches for each.

One client of mine, a company that runs executive leadership programs, discovered that Google thought their site was focused on vacations! There were too many references to the location of the events and not enough about the events themselves.

Got Benefits?

Last year, B-to-B magazine (April 4, 2007) reported the results of a study that found that 89% of ads reviewed failed to include benefits. So, if nobody is using them, why do you need them? And what are benefits anyway?

A benefit is something about your product or service that makes your customers' lives better. Some examples are a dentist with a treatment that promises instantly whiter teeth or a pizza place that guarantees delivery in 15 minutes.

Highlighting benefits such as these in your advertising will make your product more appealing. If it's more appealing it stands out from the crowd of competitors. People will then want to buy it, so they too can enjoy those benefits (whether it's whiter teeth or hot pizza).

Benefits can also help you stand out from your competitors. Imagine if you offered that guarantee and the people competing with you didn't. Which do you think your customers would choose?

Are You Making This Common Online Marketing Mistake?

A few months ago, the MSNBC Web site had an ad for a great looking pair of brown boots from Shoebuy. In the grip of a serious case of shoe lust, I clicked on the ad, and was sent to Shoebuy's home page, rather than a page with the boots I wanted to buy.

I clicked on a link marked "boots", but I didn't know what style or brand they were, and couldn't find them anywhere on the site. I finally left in frustration. No sale!

An ad from LL Bean for a winter jacket sent me straight to a special page with a big picture of the jacket, the price, and a headline, repeating what I saw in the ad. I could click on that to find out more, buy the jacket, or look at gloves and boots, which were right underneath the coat.

If you're using banner ads, don't send your prospects to your home page. Instead, create a page that repeats what they saw in the ad and makes it easy to respond. The easier it is, the more likely you'll get a sale.

Is Your Web Layout Broken?

A social networking site I belong to had a bit of a mishap recently. It's normally got a white background, black type, and splashes of orange. However, a minor update somehow returned the site to its default settings - leaving a dark green background, yellow type, and a site that was virtually impossible to read or even look at for more than a minute or two.

How does your site look? Is it legible? Easy to navigate? If you're not sure, have someone outside your company have a look at it. Ask what's wrong (not do you like it?). See what kind of feedback you get.

Marketing Your Business with Trade Publications

1) Keep up with what's going on in your industry and get information that will help you manage or build your business;

2) Stay up to date with the challenges your customers (or potential customers) are facing; and

3) Submit articles and get your name, and your business, in front of readers who are potential prospects. Just remember to offer information and solutions, not a sales pitch! To find out more, visit Trade publication directory.

Speak English, not Gobbledygook

Last year, US BlackBerry users were hit by an outage that lasted several days. At the time, the company said, "The system routine was expected to be non-impacting with respect to the real-time operation of the BlackBerry infrastructure, but the pre-testing of the system routine proved to be insufficient." (Market Watch, April 20, 2007).

Huh? How about something like, "We had trouble updating our system. The backups didn't work correctly. We've fixed the problem and we're offering a month's free service to our customers to compensate them." It's easy to understand, and it's good customer service. So, skip the jargon and use plain English instead. Your customers will thank you.

What's In a Name?

A new produce store just opened near me. It's called "U Don't Know Nothing Produce". Do you suppose they only want dumb customers? Or are they trying to insult the neighborhood? Has too much text messaging caused them to forget how to spell?

When I questioned the workmen putting up the sign about the name, they said the store was owned by the same people who ran the "Amish Market" about 10 blocks away. I wonder why they didn't call the new store Amish Market Two, or something similar. What does the name of your company say to your customers?

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