Category Archives: Blog

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Three Enormously Bad Landing Page Copy Techniques

Do you have a landing page that is under-performing or not converting at all? If so, consider the fact that many landing pages out there follow three extremely flawed approaches for content creation. If your landing page falls into one of these three categories, it’s likely that any promotions, ads or other monetary boosters you try will fail as well, sinking more of your hard-earned money into a failing endeavor. Similarly, it’s unlikely that changing the design or aesthetics of your landing page will help.

 

Three Bad Landing Page Copy Strategies

So what are these three horribly horrible approaches to creating landing page copy?

1. Guessing at What Your Lead Wants to Read. This is how many landing pages are done: simply trying out random messages that might or might not have worked on other landing pages, to see the results. Unfortunately, this takes a lot of time and ultimately, costs you a lot of money in sales. Sure, guessing right the first time can be extremely easy and lucrative, but what are the odds you’ll guess right? Do you really know what you consumer wants to read, or are you too close to the sales aspect of the product to listen to the true consumer needs? Remember, guesswork is costly and most of the time, flat out wrong. If this is how you created your landing page, it’s time to reevaluate your under-performing copy.

2. Looking to the Competition. Okay, so every online marketer looks at what their competition does in order to keep their finger on pulse of the industry, but some of us use the competition as our basis for research. Figuring that the competition has done their marketing homework, we “borrow” from their landing pages and rewrite copy in the same vein as their copy. We figure, “They must know what they’re doing, so I’ll just do the same, we have the same demographic, after all.” But what if they are just guessing? Or what if they are dead wrong? You just anchored yourself to your competition’s success and furthermore, there’s now nothing to truly differentiate your two landing pages. Why should customers go to you instead?

3. Cliché Ad Copy. Finally, many marketers will turn to tired, old, boring and used cliché messages that they think sound good, they don’t. These messages don’t scream, “Buy me now!” They scream, “Help! I was written by a lazy marketer who might also be extremely corny!” Your message and copy need to mean something. If you aren’t the best-selling product, don’t call yourself that. Empty copy leaves prospects guessing. Be specific in the problems your product solves, it’ll be that much more impressive.

 

What’s the Right Way to Approach Landing Page Copy?

Now that you know the wrong way to approach writing copy for your landing page, what’s the best way? A little technique called Voice of Customer, or VOC. VOC is a marketing technique that relies on knowing your customer demographic in order to create viable copy that speaks directly to them in a language they prefer. VOC writing relies heavily on your understanding of your prospect’s problems and pain points, in other words, what do they need solved and what problems do they have with the solution you’re presenting.

When you know this, you can market the product or service in a manner that speaks directly to the lead, thereby eliminating friction. When you know their wants and needs, you can prioritize them accordingly, deconstructing each bit of friction with every line of copy on your landing page. This brings greater satisfaction to the lead as they read down the landing page and ultimately, all but guarantees the sale.

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Making Your Call To Action More Actionable

The standard call to action has become far too recognizable for the Internet savvy masses who know a hard sell when they see one. They know when they click “Sing Up Here” that they are likely going to receive spam. They know that when they click “Buy Now” they are going to have to spend money. And while these will still work for products and services that customers are actively looking to purchase or sign up for, it becomes a harder sell to pull off when you’re marketing niceties rather than necessities.

 

Writing a More Actionable Call to Actionable

When you have a product or service that you’re marketing which can best be described as “nice to have but not something I can buy on a budget,” you have to really think smarter about your pitch. This all culminates in the call to action, a place where you should be removing the final friction in the prospect’s mind, getting them to click on that button.

 

To illustrate the best way to accomplish this, let’s look at three great strategies:

1. Illustrate Product or Service is Risk Free. If you are offering a service or product that is risk-free to try, show this through your call to action. A great example of this is Crazy Egg who uses the very successful CTA, “Show Me My Heatmap.” The prospect knows that they can get a sample of the service at no cost with no pressure to buy unless they like what they see. This works best with products or services that provide an ongoing report. Seeing your heat map for your website is going to help you, yes, that’s the point. But imagine seeing it constantly and with increased tracking statistics and analytics. That’s the selling point after the CTA.

2. Demonstrate Customization. Another way to really capture a lead with your CTA is to let them have some fun within the system before asking for the sale. For example, Manpacks is a website that allows users to bundle up their own “manpacks” consisting of manly things like razors, condoms, shirts, etc. Their CTA is very simple and very effective: Build Your Manpack. It speaks the language of men, mainly to “building” and the idea of customizing your own “manpack” before you have to part with your money at the POS further engages the prospect.

3. Give Actual Action. Finally, a great way to really get your CTAs more clicks is to actually put the action right into the wording. Perhaps the most widely-known use for this is with the eCard industry. Instead of saying, “Sign Up for an Account” or some other common CTA, the biggest eCard suppliers use some variation of “Send an eCard Now.” The CTA doesn’t bring up the costs or any mailing lists, it simply says to send the card now. This works well with any type of service where you can send a gift to someone, but is translatable across the boards. What is the final action that will take place? “Get Your…Now.”

 

Language and Results

As you can see, the CTA is more about how you word things and less about what the client is actually doing, at least, that’s how the client should perceive things. There should be a tie in with emotions through the language wherever possible. The “Manpacks” CTA does an amazing job with this, build something and feel more manly!

Unfortunately, not enough marketers spend enough time on their CTAs, instead just slapping up the standard “Click Here” bit.

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What Did We Learn from the Ice Bucket Challenge from a Marketing Perspective

So now that the ice bucket challenge craze has died down, and we’ve had a few minutes to not be frightened by every video we see of our friends and family pouring water on their heads lest they say our names, it’s time to analyze the social phenomenon. As any successful internet marketer can tell you, everything that happens on social media is related to marketing, whether we choose to see it or not. So even if you think the ice bucket challenge has nothing to do with how you make your living, think again. 

Here are some key points to take away from the ice bucket challenge while you’re setting up your next social media marketing campaign. These tips will help you achieve a higher level of virality, though probably not as high as seeing Hollywood’s celebrities dump your product over their heads!

 

Low Participation Barriers are Key

People want to participate in online challenges and events. They want to be part of the trend and they don’t want to have to buy any crazy ingredients to do so. What was so brilliant about the ice bucket challenge? It took ice, water, a bucket and a camera to participate. It’s safe to assume that the population of people who frequent social media has access to ice and water free of charge. It’s also fairly likely that they have a bucket around. And a camera? Name the last phone you saw that didn’t have a video camera.

Takeaway: If you want people to participate in your social media marketing campaign, make it easy for them to do so. The less friction there is between initial contact and participation, the more people will engage. Throw in some forms to fill out, specific sites to upload the videos to or an entry fee and the ice bucket challenge is a failure.

 

Self-Promoting Mechanisms Work via Social Invitations

The “challenge” aspect of the ice bucket event was brilliant. This plays right into peer pressure, with your friends and family looking “directly” at you from the camera and calling your name out. To drive the point home, they tag you in their post and everyone knows that you’ve been called out. You have to respond or you’re a horrible person who wants people to die! (Okay, not really, but that’s how it seems!)

Takeaway: Any marketing campaign where people are sharing the idea of their own free will, directly with other people is a winner. You don’t have to do anything to spread the campaign; it does it on its own. Keep in mind that the ice bucket challenge was initially only a three-person challenge, meaning you aren’t calling out a whole crowd of people. This makes it much harder to “hide” or get lost in a sea of tagged names. You’re in the spotlight and you must perform (or be shamed on social media), thus spreading the campaign once again.

 

Pay Attention to the Time Frame

There are two interesting factors built into the ice bucket challenge that have to do with time, both of which play directly into the success of the campaign. First, the urgency that is created through the issuing of the challenge, you have 24 hours to complete the challenge or you have to donate $100 to ALS. Now, forgetting the fact that people are dumping ice water over their head to avoid donating money to a good cause, focus on the fact that a deadline for action has been set, urgency created. Second, think about how short these videos are, 60 seconds was the longest one I saw and that was from a self-professed camera hog. Keep the content short and fun (yes, I do want to see some of my family members drenched in water and screaming, call me sadistic) and you’ll be successful.

 

Takeaway: Timing is important in that you:

1) Create a sense of urgency by building in a timetable during which the participants must act or face consequences AND

2) Keep the campaign short, sweet and fun.

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Are You Testing your Unique Selling Propositions Enough?

Conversion rates are all-important to marketers. The more we know about our products and how our audience perceives them, the better we can market these goods and services to increase conversion rates. Unfortunately, many marketers overlook one of the most important adjustable aspects of their products, the unique selling propositions (USPs).

 

What are Unique Selling Propositions?

USPs are the features and attributes of a product or service that sets it apart from its competition. It’s what makes the iPhone not the Android. It’s what makes a Mac not a PC, it’s what differentiates one product from another and causes a buyer to buy. The unique points of your product or service that you’re selling online should shine through in the product description, giving you a simple and fast way to get the USPs up onto your website.

 

Testing your Unique Selling Propositions

Of course, this all seems pretty simple if it weren’t for one thing, chances are, you’re not the manufacturer, simply a supplier or point of sale. As an internet marketer, you’re likely going up against tens, hundreds or even thousands of other websites and marketers selling the exact same product or service. That means these marketers are out there looking at the manufacturer’s product description and putting the standard USPs up on their sites.

So now, what you have is an over-saturated market full of non-differentiating sites, all vying for the same customers with nothing more than a small profit margin to work with to sway a conversion. Yes, there is SEO and sales and marketing funnels and a ton of other things that can help you out here, but that’s not the point of this article!

The point here is that a simple test of your USPs and how they are displayed and arranged can make your product or service seem different to a buyer, even if it isn’t.

 

Steps for Testing and Optimizing your Unique Selling Propositions

Here are simple and easy to follow steps that will allow you to increase your conversions by paying more attention to your USPs:

1. Identify all USPs.
First, find all of the USPs of your products and services. These are simply the strong selling points that appeal to consumers. Take careful note not to put your own prejudices in here as not all USPs are of equal importance in the minds and eyes of your audience. They are what matters, not your opinion, so be sure to identify all USPs.

2. Place the USPs in Prominent Positions.
Next, start testing the USPs by placing them prominently throughout your site. Mention them on social media and highlight them in the product descriptions. What you are doing here is testing the waters.

3. Track and Monitor Results.
Next, be sure you track all of your USP placements to see which ones affect the highest rates of conversions. Some selling points will resonate more with your demographic than others, these are the USPs you want to continue to highlight.

4. Segment Your Audience.
As you keep testing different USPs for your products, you’ll begin to notice that certain USPs work better than others even within your target demographic. For example, you might notice that some trigger words work better with men than with women and among those men, some USPs work better in the 14-26 year old demographic. The more you are able to segment your audience, the better you will be able to reach them with targeted ads that harp on the right USPs.

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The Art of Blogging for Viral Shares through Emotional Connections

BuzzSumo recently released a report on the top 10,000 most-shared and viral articles on the Internet. While some of the results were obvious (e.g. having a picture increases your virality), some results are worth taking note of. For instance, did you know that long content with more in-depth research gets more social and email shares than shorter articles? Or that there are certain emotions that you should aim to tap into while creating content to up the content’s viral factor?

It’s true. So aside from the obvious take away about writing some more long-form content, what can you do with your blogs and content to tap into the right emotions to trigger shares?

 

Create Awe

The largest number of viral content shares out there were lumped into the emotional category of awe, 25%. That means that 1 in 4 of the top 10,000 most-shared blogs and articles out there were able to awe their audience. Whether this was with amazing facts, unique photos or breaking news isn’t really the point here, the point is that you need to shock and amaze your audience with your content if you really want it to go viral.

A great way to do this is to present visually stunning graphics with mind-blowing facts and data connected to a personal story that takes the reader’s breath away. You want them to be so struck with awe that their immediate reaction after reading the content is, “I have to share this with so and so.” Of course, not every blog you write can be awe-inspiring; sometimes the info you have to share just isn’t that exciting. But try to approach your content creation from this point of view and if you can figure out an angle, go with it. If not, try being humorous.

 

Evoke Laughter

Humor and laughter came in with 17% of the most-viral content out there, meaning that if you can take your reader away from the mundane life he or she is leading or get their mind off of the mindless drivel you are talking about, do it. Laughter is a great way to get information and data out there, not just for viral purposes, but for creating an impression with the customer as well.

Of course, not everyone can be Adam Sandler and not every situation is appropriate for comedy, but throwing a few funny analogies out there isn’t that difficult. Just make sure they are appropriate and not cliché (nobody wants to hear a knock-knock joke unless it’s clever!). If you want to be subtle about it, you can even just have funny subtitles, like maybe instead of writing “Evoke Laughter” here, we could have written “eVoke Laughter with Funny eMails.”

 

Be Amusing

While laughter and amusement are closely associated, it is noteworthy that BuzzSumo separated the two emotions, with “amusement” claiming stake to 15% of the most-shared content out there. While humor and laughter can be amusing, this isn’t the only way to capture this viral emotion. Quizzes are amusing, in fact, 7 out of every 10 of the most-viral content out there is a quiz. Find different ways to amuse (and involve) your audience through your content and you’ll see a ton of success.

 

Stay Away from Sadness and Anger

Unless you have a strong business model built on sadness and anger, try to stay away from evoking these emotions. For instance, tapping into sadness to get donations to kids in Africa or abused pets will work for virality, as will getting people so angry about ISIS that they share videos, but this generally doesn’t go over well in the internet marketing world.

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The Importance of Unique Relevant Content

No matter what type of website you have, for Internet Marketing there are 3 words that mean more than anything else

Content is King

These three words should be remembered at all times and used as a reminder that on site SEO (search engine optimisation) is just as important as off site SEO for two particular reasons:

Search engines do assess the quality of content and it can elevate your rankings

It is ultimately what will impress potential customers and encourage them to buy.

Although we are talking about improving your search engine rankings in this email, the second point is an important one to remember because your website should still be designed with your customers in mind. Online marketing should take care of the search engines.

The content you need is…

a) High quality,
b) Unique to your site
c) Relevant to the products and services you are attempting to sell. If it does not check all three points then you are getting it wrong.

High quality content will not be crammed with keywords but will instead contain keywords scattered in the text to remind search engines of its purpose. It will be well written, make sense and be completely unique.
Unique content is exactly what the label suggests so it should be written specifically for your site rather than copied from someone else’s site. There are tools you can use to make sure that your content is unique so investing in one of them may not be a bad idea.

Finally, the content on your site should always be relevant to the topic in question. For example; if you sell hardware goods then putting up content about women’s fashion is not a good idea. So what difference does it make?

Most people that are new to maintaining a website will dismiss content as one of the last things they need to worry about but this is simply not the case. Having relevant and unique content on your site can make a world of difference to your rankings. It fulfils many of the criteria set by search engine algorithm for high ranking and can also help to draw traffic to your site.

After all, visitors need to be able to find what they are looking for.

With all of this in mind, you really must take the time to look at the content on your site. You need to make sure that it is of a high quality as well as being unique and relevant. However, there is another aspect of content that you absolutely MUST consider.

The concept of fresh content Fresh content is not a difficult concept to grasp. In fact, it is pretty simple to understand so you should have no difficulty with it. It is literally adding more articles, information and other such content to your site on a regular basis.

There are plenty of ways that you can add fresh content on a regular basis but there are some that are more popular than others. For example, most major sites have a blog or an article section that content is added to whereas others choose to have an RSS feed added. Whichever you decide to do, you should update it at least once a month if not once a week to achieve the results you want.

Why add fresh content?

Now you know what fresh content is and how to add it, you need to consider why you need to put the time and effort in. Well, it is primarily to attract two things to your website:

Spiders -No, not the eight legged kind but rather the search engine kind. Spiders crawl your site to update your ranking periodically based on the content there. If you do not update your site then a search engine may well visit less frequently in future. If you update it regularly then you will find that spiders drop by and your rankings change on a more regular basis.

Humans – If you want to build trust and invite visitors to come back again and again then fresh content is the way to do it. It gives the impression that your customers mean a lot to you and can keep your visitor number and conversion rates high.

There is one other point that should be made about adding fresh content on a regular basis and that is the overall effect it has on your site. It helps to build authority. The more relevant and fresh content you add, the greater the authority your website seems to have on the topic. This not only improves your ranking but also increases the number of other people and companies that are willing to link to you.

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How to Get the Search Engines to Send Thousands More Customers to Your Site

At its most basic level, search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of enhancing and promoting a website in an effort to boost the number of visitors coming through from the search engines. The majority of your visitors are expected to arrive via the popular search engines and SEO configuration helps to boost visibility when users search for your particular product or brand.

SEO comes in many forms, and there are relevant factors such as the words used on your page or the way other websites link to you: in some cases SEO simply means the designing and structuring of a website in a way that search engines can understand.

But in addition to discovering specific phrases and terms for the engines and building proper links, SEO isn’t just focused on the engines; it’s also about making sure the sites are better for people.

If you’re trying to figure out the whole SEO thing but find yourself more confused, don’t stress, you’re not alone. Hopefully we can help you to understand SEO better and how it will result in more profits for your business.

Why Does My Site Need SEO?
As we mentioned earlier, the majority of web traffic originates from a search query in the search engines.

What makes search engines so unique is the fact that they can provide targeted traffic, which means that you can directly draw in people who are specifically looking for what you offer. Once you understand that search engines are the roadway that facilitates all this, and learn how to make sure your site is found by popular search engines, you won’t miss out on the many marketing opportunities made possible by search.

A search query is the phrase a user types into a search box in order to find information about something, so your website needs to be configured in a way that its anchor text aligns with relevant search queries. For example if your website sells wedding dresses then it would be very important to make sure your website gets displayed on the search results when someone types in a query relating to wedding dresses.

When site owners invest in SEO, it leads to an impressive return on investment. It really does have the potential to significantly boost your rate of return when compared to other forms of promotion and marketing.

Is it true that search engines can’t “see” my website without SEO?
Modern search engines are pretty sophisticated and use advanced algorithms to search for sites when queried but they still need assistance in order to crawl the web more deeply and provide users with the best results for each query. Remember that while there are proven SEO strategies to make sure your site gets thousands of visitors every month, the wrong SEO can get your site buried deep in the search results where no user will ever come across it.

Aside from making sure content is available to search engines, good SEO also enhances site rankings in order to make sure content is placed only where common searches will locate it. You might have noticed how competitive SEO marketing is, and companies that invest in SEO will have a huge advantage over their peers.

How do I do SEO for myself?
SEO is fairly complex but once you understand the basics, it makes a huge difference. There is a lot of information about SEO available on the Internet and it can be accessed for free.

Depending on the time you have for learning this information and the type and complexity of your website, you may find you need an expert to handle things more smoothly. There are hundreds of experienced firms such as ours out there practicing SEO. We assist many local businesses just like yours and will be delighted to provide an SEO solution for your business.

How much time should I invest in learning SEO?
If you are serious about improving your search rankings and be familiar with SEO then it would be advisable to put in time and effort into it. There are three main factors you need to pay attention to:

• On the page SEO
• Off the page SEO
• Violations

As you will learn, within each group exist subgroups and each of these subgroups contains individualized SEO factors that you as a site owner should pay attention to.

Effective SEO factors have to work in combination. No single factor will be successful so it wouldn’t make sense to focus on creating a great HTML title if the content on the page is low quality. Likewise having hundreds of links can boost rankings significantly but that only works if they are quality links. Establishing multiple factors can increase the chances of success just as negative factors make it harder to achieve success.

On the page ranking factors
On-page search ranking factors are those types of factors that fall under the publisher’s control. Consider the type of content you publish, perhaps you provide a number of HTML clues that make it easier for people and the search engines to ‘see’ your website, and perhaps you’ve spent time creating effective site architecture to help the search engines. All these factors fall under on-page rankings and are within your control.

Off the page ranking factors
These are the factors that publishers do not directly control. A long time ago search engine developers learned that relying entirely on publisher controlled signals wouldn’t work so in order to yield the best results they had to gain more control. For example, some publishers may try to make themselves appear more relevant that they actually are.

Due to the high number of web pages in existence, search engines cannot rely on ‘on the page’ clues. The engines need to go through more signals in order to yield the perfect result for any specific search.

Violations and penalties
Understand that search engines want publishers to perform SEO on their pages because it can improve their search results. Major search engines such as Google provide assistance in the form of simple guidelines, videos and how-to posts as a way to encourage good SEO practice and make it easier for their users to find your site.

But despite all of this training, some publishers still engage in “black hat” techniques as a way to get to the front of the line and for this they get punished. Engaging in spam or black hat SEO tricks can get your pages penalized and the ranking dropped; in some cases the website can get banned from the search engine entirely.

These violations are basically little tricks that web developers use to exploit search engines into giving a higher ranking, usually by manipulating the search engine’s understanding of true authority and relevancy.

It sounds very confusing. I need time to think about it.
Although it sounds daunting at first it can be learnt, but most businesses simply don’t have the time to do this as they are too busy running their businesses. However, we need to stress that businesses can’t afford to snooze when it comes to perfecting their SEO strategy. This is not meant to scare your into action, it is just a simple fact. It needs to be done if you want your business to stay ahead of the competition.

However, because if it so important we can understand if a business is sometimes reluctant to hire an outside company to handle their SEO strategy. You might not want to give up direct control of this critical component of digital marketing, or you may be looking to reduce your costs.

However, there are even more compelling reasons you should outsource your SEO rather than keep it in-house (or even worse, decide not to do it altogether). Outsourcing has five main advantages that make it an appealing option for businesses:

1. No More Waiting

When it comes to running a business, there are a lot of items that take priority over SEO on your to-do list. Due to its complexity and ever-changing nature, many businesses put SEO off until the company has the time and resources to handle it properly. But the longer you wait to handle it, the further you’ll fall behind your competitors. They will be getting the sales that might otherwise have gone to you. Outsourcing SEO can help push up the timetable without sacrificing other projects.

2. Keeping up With SEO’s Constant Evolution

Unfortunately, SEO isn’t something you can just set and forget. Google makes hundreds of changes to its algorithm each year and if your company lacks the resources to stay on top of it, then it will prove ineffective or even damaging in the long run.

For example, when Google changed its algorithm to crack down on SEO tricks focused on short-term results, one company lost 20 percent of its search visibility overnight. If it had hired experts to follow these announced changes and implement above-the-board SEO strategies, the company could have maintained its search market share and even used the algorithm change to its advantage.

3. Making More Money

Perhaps like many businesses, you worry that paying someone else to do something for you is going to end up costing more money than just handling it internally. In reality, it’s different for each company.

To put things in perspective, what are the costs of doing it on your own, and what are the results you expect? Where are you positioned in search engines today, and what is that ranking costing you in new sales?

While it may cost more in the short term to hire externally, the ROI from increased traffic will often put you ahead.

4. Gaining Built-in Expertise

While your company may have employees who know their way around SEO, it’s unlikely that they’re as experienced and knowledgeable as people whose companies like ours do it for a living. SEO agencies have clients in diverse markets, with deeper and wider exposure to the impacts of algorithm changes and other search-centric issues. They’re also paid to stay on top of every change and trend in the search business. Spending your resources training employees to be experts internally, rather than outsourcing, can waste both time and money.

5. Focusing on the Big Picture

How can good SEO benefit your business? By letting someone else handle the details of SEO, it frees you up to concentrate on the results and how they can contribute to the growth of your business. SEO agencies live and die by the results they return, so their goal is to deliver the results you want so they can stay in business.

While you still might decide to handle SEO internally, it’s important to consider both options and choose the approach that works best for your business. Assess where you are in the SEO game, and determine whether you need help.

Do you have technical SEO issues? Are you suffering from content issues? Do you have a bad backlink profile? Is the way your website is set up actually harming your SEO?

You may not have the answers to these kinds of questions yet, but you can start to wrap your head around the problems you might have by hiring a partner to audit your strategy. This is also a good way to vet an SEO agency without committing to anything for an extended period. You need to know that the company understands your business and knows what kind of results you want.

How Not to Harm Your Rankings and Lose Sales
Remember, SEO is not a short-term game. You have to be in it for the long haul. That is why we are so keen to work with you. Our focus is on strategy, not on quick results and easy guarantees that is offered by other companies, which actually harm your ranking in the long term. We can help put you ahead of your competitors, both online and off. Don’t put it off. Act today. We look forward to working with you.

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5 Tips for a Successful Holiday Email Marketing Campaign

With the holiday season right around the corner, it’s a great time to take advantage of some targeting with your email marketing campaigns. Even if you’re so lazy that you simply write “Happy Holidays!” in the signature, it would behoove you to make some effort to bring your customers into the “spending” mind frame that the holiday season always denotes.

 

Five Ho-Ho-Holiday Email Tips that Will Sleigh Them!

With that said, here are some simple and not-so simple adjustments, additions and marketing strategies you can add to your email marketing campaigns this holiday season to capture a little bit of that holiday magic…right in your wallet.

1. Use Holiday Language. Did you see how clever our h2 subtitle was? Okay, maybe it is too cutesy for what you are doing, but don’t be afraid to throw in some “tasty savings” or “stuffed with deals” type language for Thanksgiving sales. Go as far or as subtle as you want, but remember: most people enjoy the holidays and are put in a better mood by people who are enjoying them too!

2. Offer Big Discounts. You already know how much people love to spend during the holidays, but they love to save even more. Use a big deal to get them onto the site and then offer package deals or side items to even out your profits. Remember, the point here is to get the emails open, the click-thrus up and not only give them a deal, but raise your brand or website’s awareness. Even if you break even on a deal, the fact that the customer will remember you in the future and possibly open more emails or buy more products makes the initial investment worth it. Chalk it up to cost of acquisition.

3. Early Bird Specials. Every year we see Target, Walmart and Toys R Us competing with each other on opening hours. Now, we’re to the point where Black Friday sales start on Thanksgiving or even before. The bottom line is that there are no more limitations. Your “Pre-Pre Black Friday Blowout” could be a great way to get traffic to your site. Having an opt-in will allow only those who want to received early bird specials, to receive them, leaving the core of your list unbothered and thus, unsubscribes down.

4. Get Creative. Holidays are all about reindeer games and having fun, so play along with your list. Have a holiday trivia contest where the first ten people to answer correctly on your site get 10% off or a free gift. Keep the games light, airy, holiday-themed and reward incentive. You want people to play along and have fun, but you also don’t want to pester them and have them hit the unsubscribe.

5. Real Time Emails. A great email marketing campaign that is underused is the hourly deals. While this won’t really work year-round, it’s perfect for Black Friday and Cyber Monday because people are constantly checking in for updates on emails. You can either have an opt-in (which would compartmentalize and further qualify your list) or have real-time content that you can update in the body of the email as soon as the customer opens it.

As you can see, holiday email marketing is a fine line to walk between taking advantage of the willingness of your list to get more emails and not bombarding them with so many that you tick them off.