By Rahimah Sultan

Advertising Disclosure: Marketing Success Review may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links posted on this website. There is no expense to you.

Going forward, marketers may face unique challenges that will change how we approach digital marketing.


The top content marketing strategies are still personalized marketing, extended use of multimedia, and exploring new digital channels.




What is AI?


We all basically know what AI is, as we see and use it daily. However, this is the definition from Wikipedia:


 Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by humans or by other animals. Example tasks in which this is done include speech recognition, computer vision, translation between (natural) languages, as well as other mappings of inputs.


We must reconsider the use of MI (marketing intelligence) and AI (artificial intelligence). MI typically focuses on interpreting worldwide consumer trends while market research focuses on customer preferences for a specific company.


Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are changing the way businesses operate and revolutionizing the approach to digital marketing.


By controlling these technologies, businesses can operate more efficiently. They can give their customers personalized experiences and automate tasks, thus freeing up time to focus on more strategic endeavors.


AI has the potential to help with lead qualification, customer engagement, and product demonstrations for sales. The use of AI-generated salespeople can help companies provide high-level customer service and save time and resources. However, it’s important to strike a balance between AI and human interaction, as there are still consumers who prefer the personal touch of a real human.


Smartphones now have privacy controls to prevent too much sharing of certain data on sites like Google and Facebook, so marketers now have less data to use for understanding customers and personalizing marketing efforts. We’re also moving toward a cookie-less future, as Google will phase out cookies by the end of 2024.


Do not ignore the use of artificial intelligence in digital marketing.



What can we do to stay relevant?



HERE ARE FOUR STRATEGIES TO EXCEL AT MARKETING

1. First-Party Data

As third-party data continues to be phased out, first-party data will probably be the most valuable source of information. Rely on your own resources to get customer data instead of purchasing information from outside companies. Respecting customers’ privacy will benefit you.


You can source first-party data from:

Social media interactions
Website visitor tracking
Digital forms and surveys
Customer service interactions
Marketing email and text message responses



2. Run Pay-Per-Click Ads

Run pay-per-click ads with first-party data. If customers visit your website and look at a particular item and leave, you can retarget ads on other sites to entice them back. This is, however, becoming harder to do since Apple’s privacy updates are making that more difficult, and cookie-less browsing is taking its toll.


Many marketers are turning to Facebook’s Custom Audiences or services like Google’s Customer Match. These use a custom audience list that businesses create with first-party data, then match the list to users on the ad platform. Now, an ad funnel can be created to deliver personalized ads to customers based on first-party data.



3. Email And Text Message Marketing

Focus on email and text message marketing. Two of the most valuable first-party data sources are email and text message marketing. You can target specific customers and segments through these marketing channels. You can divide your email list by location and send out location-specific promotions to customers. Consumers like personalized emails based on behaviors like purchasing history.


This gives you a way to track which customers open emails and text messages and how they respond to the content. Using this data, you can customize your marketing to current customers based on how they respond to certain promotions.



4. BRAND AMBASSADORS

Work with brand ambassadors and influencers. They promote businesses more personally than a pop-up ad on someone’s social media feed. Brand ambassadors are familiar and friendly faces offering product recommendations, and that boosts your brand’s authenticity.


Don’t put all your marketing budget into one or two strategies, which will put your business at risk. Instead, use a diversified approach. Your ads are still relevant. So, keep running them, even without cookies. But, also, invest in email marketing and text message marketing. To reach the most customers, use the most effective content marketing strategies together to fill the gaps where some strategies are weak or where you’re not reaching customers. By using diverse strategies in tandem, you reach the most customers and aren’t significantly impacted by changes.


This information on artificial intelligence in digital marketing will help with your marketing.

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by Rahimah Sultan

Advertising Disclosure: Marketing Success Review may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links posted on this website. There is no expense to you.

Our introduction to email, before the World Wide Web as we know it today, was AOL and its message – “You’ve got mail.”

Since then social media replaced it with tweets, likes, and status updates.

Here are some steps that need to be taken in order to be invited into people’s mailboxes.


You can read the article here



Get Your Business System With Autoresponder Here

by Rahimah Sultan

Advertising Disclosure: Marketing Success Review may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links posted on this website. There is no expense to you.

You may think that, with the rise of social media marketing and digital technologies, marketers and businesses would shift away from email marketing.

That’s not the case. Email marketing is still a dependable tool. Research shows that, in the future, email will become some of the most widely used and popular communication platforms.

There is a range of effective and free email marketing tools that you can check out for organizing and scheduling your various marketing campaigns. Then decide what best suits your needs.


Why should you stick with email marketing?


Worldwide use of email is increasing because it allows you to:

1: Personalize

Email marketing allows for personalization. You can create customized content for your consumers based on their buying patterns, behaviors, and more. You can use automation software tools to see where your customers are in a sales funnel and create specific content for them.


2. Have Better Outcomes Than Most Other Marketing Channels

Email marketing delivers a better ROI (return-on-investment) than some other marketing methods.

For the best results, you should regularly monitor the metrics of your email marketing campaign by checking your click-through rates, engagements, bounce rates, and other factors.


3. Cut Costs

Email is both inexpensive and straightforward. You don’t need a large budget to advertise, or to produce and print ads, so there’s no need to hire a digital and video production crew.

You may need to hire a professional graphic designer to create pleasing visuals along with first-rate content.

Also, email is an effective way to connect with potential customers on mobile phones.


4. Create Brand Loyalty & Connections

You can use email marketing campaigns to improve brand awareness among your customers.

For example, you can send informational content concerning your mission and values, and interact with your targeted groups.

More than likely, with a better understanding of what you’re about, potential customers will be willing to engage and connect with you.

So, create consistent, long-term email marketing strategies to keep consumers anticipating your next email.


5. Integrate Seamlessly With Other Marketing Means

If you’re using other marketing methods, you can integrate them. You can seamlessly integrate your social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, by placing those platform icons in emails and asking readers to follow you.

To show consumers’ a preview of your business’s Instagram profile, you can display a collage of Instagram posts in your emails.


How can you future-proof your emailing strategy?


Use these three tips to keep up with the future of email marketing.


A) Use time-based triggers

To help keep your strategy relevant, use time-based triggers for your automation, like:

1. Follow-up emails set to go out a certain amount of time after your initial email
2. Automatic emails on birthdays
3. Follow-up emails for users who interact with your site
4. Abandon cart emails

These triggers reach users at the right time after completing a desired action.


B) Always keep your subscribers foremost in your mind.

You want them to engage with your business, so always think about what will be the best experience for them. You might add an interactive element or change a button color.


C) Test emails

Since the future of email marketing is always changing as well as subscribers’ interests, and tastes, you should always test your emails.

Testing lets you know what’s working for your audience. You can test many elements of your emails including subject line, button colors, image choices, personalization, length, CTA, etc.

Testing lets you know what your audience likes or doesn’t like, so you can continually improve your campaigns.

Keeping on top of email marketing trends is necessary for keeping your email marketing approach current and effective.

Keeping your audience uppermost in your mind when laying out your email marketing campaigns will help you deliver emails that drive success.


Get Your System With Autoresponder Here

by Rahimah Sultan

Advertising Disclosure: Marketing Success Review may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links posted on this website. There is no expense to you.

If you’re just now thinking about setting up a blog, the first thing you need do is start building your list, on the first day.



Why Build a List First?

You need to start building your list ASAP! It’s absolutely necessary if you want to run successful email marketing campaigns and reach people who are truly interested in your business.

Despite the popularity of social media channels, email marketing remains one of the most used digital marketing techniques.

If you want a successful business, you need people to market to.



What is Email Marketing?

Email marketing as defined in Wikipedia, is the act of sending a commercial message, typically to a group of people, using email… Email marketing strategies commonly seek to achieve one or more of three primary objectives, to build loyalty, trust, or brand awareness.

An email is often the first step in a customer’s journey with you, the initial communication.



What is the Connection Between an Email and Your Blog?

You can think of your blog as your main base of operation, the place where you send people for your products/services or any related information. It’s a marketing tool.

It is also the place you can acquire their information in order to begin a relationship with them so they can get acquainted with you, and begin to like and trust you.

These are the people who will receive your emails. This is a part of your list building. Once your blog is set up, you can strategically place opt-in forms on it asking visitors to fill in their information – full name and email address – so you can contact them. Stick to the basics, name and email. Nobody wants to fill out much more than that.



How Do You Get People to Give up Their information?

1. Pick an email marketing service. I use Host Then Profit (affiliate link).

If you’re just starting out and your budget is tight, you can use a free service. You’ll need to check around and compare the pros and cons so you can choose one that best suits your purpose.

2. Place opt-in forms on your blog.

3. Give visitors a reason to give you their email address. Offer them an ethical bribe (subscriber bribes, lead magnets, opt-in bribes, free offers, free gifts, and content upgrade).


Most people won’t give you their email address out of the goodness of their heart, even if they like you.


Freebies are proven lead magnets.


Give them a free worthwhile gift.


Your subscriber’s bribe should be simple.

Don’t fall into to the trap of trying to get too large and creative with your lead magnet, which could end up in you not creating one at all.

You can educate your visitors by giving away free downloads filled with actionable tips and helpful tools they can use.


Some things you can give away:

Free blog articles
Emails with coupons
Videos
Tutorials and courses
Templates
E-Books


You can start with a one-page simple short PDF checklist offering tips on a particular subject.



To build an email list from nothing you need:

 1. To understand your audience

Decide who will be your audience — name, job title, work, demographics like age, gender, education, etc. In other words, create a persona.

You can find out a lot about people through social media channels.

2. A website

Your blog will, eventually, become your website.


In the meantime, you can use a landing page, a single-page website that contains your email opt-in form.


You can use any of the services below to create an opt-in form.


Some of them have free trial periods.

Landerapp.com
iContact.com
Hubspot.com
Leadpages.net
Wix.com


Note: Some advertising channels require that you have a multi-page website that includes pages such as Contact, Terms of Service, and Privacy Policies.


3. An email marketing service. I use Host Then Profit (affiliate link).


4. A great offer, a free worthwhile gift.


Now that you have some pointers on what to do before you start blogging, start building that list.

Hosting and More

by Rahimah Sultan

Advertising Disclosure: Marketing Success Review may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links posted on this website. There is no expense to you.

Email continues to be an essential part of daily business and consumer interaction.

Since an email account (i.e. email address) is required to sign up to any form of online activity, it  is essential to the overall Internet experience including social networking or any presence on the Internet.

Over the years, email marketing strategies have changed, although effective email marketing is still key to any marketing strategy. The best online marketers use email.


Why do the Best Online Marketers Use an Email Marketing Strategy?

Because it produces results. Email marketing technology has advanced in that the software is becoming more powerful, and advanced features are now more accessible due to the growing number of affordable options on the market.

One email marketing trend that’s really taken off is the use of AI (Artificial Intelligence).

AI tools have come a long way recently. You can use them to help create subject lines, calls-to-action and content which can produce a substantial boost in campaign results.

With AI, after you’ve created your email marketing campaign, you can opt to have it sent at a specific time and on a certain day or you can use the “send at the best time” feature.

You do not have to send all your emails at the same time nor should you always be selling. Just send a few that offer tips or something that may be of interest, then send one offering one of your products or services for sale.

Another aspect of AI is personalization of emails.


Why Personalization?

Personalization can increase open rates. If people see their name in an email they’re more likely to open and read it, thus giving you an opportunity to follow up with them which can lead to more income.

When it comes to personalization you can complement your email with tools like live chat, SMS, push and more. You can do research and find the tools with the options that fit your needs.

While personalizing your emails, you may also want to use segmentation.


Segmentation

If you are expanding or want to grow your business you might consider using CRM (Customer Relations Management) software instead of spreadsheets. CRM works like a task manager. While using a spreadsheet you may track:

Name
Email Address
Phone Number
Type of customer
Date of purchase


With CRM you can start with an email address and add the things already mentioned plus whatever else you want such as:

Lead scoring (A feature that enables you to have a more complete view of how clients are interacting with you.)
Multiple contacts
Notes
Current sales stage of customers and prospects
and more


Make your emails engaging and offer good quality content and solutions to problems. Do not email just to introduce new products or services. No one will want to open them until they’re ready to know what you’re selling or they’re ready to make a purchase.

Make sure there’s a strong reason to open your emails, regardless of whether you’re selling something or not.


How?

Be sure your emails are valuable to your reader in and of themselves.

Include relevant educational content like tips and inspiration to maintain subscribers’ interest, while building trust in your product or service. When collecting signups set expectations from the beginning by pointing out the value you’ll offer. Then, stick to that promise and you’ll grow a list of engaged subscribers to convert when the time is right.

So, in order to have effective email marketing your strategy must be well planned and include the tools you need for efficiency and effectiveness. Be personable, informative and engaging in your emails. Set expectations from the start, keep your promise,  and build trust.



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Advertising Disclosure: Marketing Success Review may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links posted on this website. There is no expense to you.

Email marketing is an integral part of everyday business. Having a solid game plan when you send out an email to your subscribers is the first step to seeing a higher conversion rate.

Sometimes, even if you follow every email marketing tip there is, you have no guarantee of total success. There is always room for error. Here are nine email marketing mistakes to avoid.


1) Sending Out Poorly-Focused Content

Do not send the same email to all your subscribers. Everyone on your email list is interested in the same content. Segment your audience. Do this by having different opt-in forms that offer different information and freebies.

If you have a blog you can place an opt-in form in different areas for your visitors. For instance, your blog’s main focus may be Internet marketing which includes different sub-topics like home-based business, affiliate marketing, marketing information, etc.

Place a relevant opt-in form offering a freebie in each of these categories. When people opt in, they’ll be added to a particular categorized list. As the site owner, you can then send relevant information to this list of subscribers instead of inundating them with irrelevant emails.


2) One-Way Conversations

You want your readers to get to know, like and trust you. Make sure they have a way to connect and interact with you. Your email should be personable and identify you and your company.

At the end of your emails, initiate a two-way conversation by asking your readers if there is something in particular you can help them with, and include a link to your social profiles.


3) Lots of Offers and no Information

When someone subscribes to an opt-in form, they want useful information and not a bombardment of sales and promotional emails. There’s nothing wrong with promoting your products and services in an email. Just be sure to include useful content.

This can be an informative video, a link to a useful blog post or a great infographic. At the end of the email, you can mention any promotions you have and always add value by actually giving away something for free. Constantly promoting your products and services without giving away anything of value for free will only annoy your subscribers and push them to unsubscribe.


4) Unclear Call to Action

To ensure people see your CTA (call to action) for your awesome freebie or discounted product you need to be sure the CTA is clear. Send out an email to your loyal subscribers to let them know about your offer and include a link.

If that link is hidden in a small piece of anchor text, some of your subscribers will have a hard time finding it. Boldly highlight the link, add bright buttons or ask people to click on a picture to get to your landing page. A few considerations are:

1. Make what you need very clear by including words like ‘Head here’ or ‘Click here.’
2. Very clearly highlight the text that leads to the landing page.
3. Repeatedly mention the CTA throughout their email.


5) Belabored Subject Line

Get to the point! Although you want to make the subject line interesting, if your subscribers can’t figure out what your email is about, they become annoyed. A few tips:

1. Keep it short

Make sure your subject line fits in the subscribers’ view screen. There’s no point in having an awesome subject line if they can’t read half of it.

2. When possible use numbers

Examples:

Join 475 people who signed up for my free online course today!
Happy Valentine’s Day! 50% off all our products.
Here is why 85% of small businesses rely on email as their primary acquisition source.

3. Be personal

Use the name of your subscribers in the subject line.

Hi (first name)! Want access to my free new course?


4. Tell your audience what’s inside (be truthful)

Make your subject line descriptive and honest. It should immediately help your readers figure out what is inside the email.


6) A Welcome Email

Sending a welcome email to your subscribers is fine. Just don’t make it a generic one. Make it informative and useful. Include a great freebie or a link to resources that are only for your subscribers. Make a good first impression by saying something other than just ‘hello.’


7) Attention to Data

If you’re not paying attention to data you could end up with an enormous amount of information each time you email subscribers. This includes the open rate, the time of day when most people opened your email, which links they clicked on, etc.

This data can help you improve upcoming email campaigns you’re working on. You can figure out what’s working, what content your audience likes, and what to get rid of permanently.

Optimizing your email marketing campaigns requires four clear factors:

Personalized emails
Clear headers to optimize email marketing open rates
Clear CTA to optimize email marketing click rates
Updated email list


8) Quantity Over Quality

Focus on the quality of your subscribers rather than how many. Every so often you need to clean your email lists.

Remove those people who are not opening your emails. In the long run, you want only an engaged list of subscribers. Most email marketing services have a ‘Clean Up Inactive’ feature that makes this process very simple.

Doing this will reduce your monthly outgoing cost. You may be paying for a plan that is dependent on the number of subscribers you have.


9) Sending Emails at the Wrong Time

Many studies say the best time to send emails is in the late morning during work hours, at around 10-11a.m. If you send emails when no one checks them, your campaign will probably fail.

Use the tips in these nine email marketing mistakes to avoid to help you build a large list, and create relationships with your subscribers by focusing on a good email marketing strategy.


Hosting and More

Advertising Disclosure: Marketing Success Review may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links posted on this website. There is no expense to you.

Although email marketing is over 40 years old, it’s as strong as ever. It may be even stronger since brands have shifted to digital marketing channels due the ever-changing marketing landscape.


What is email marketing?

Email marketing is a method used to send emails to your customers and prospects to get more conversions. The aim is to convert one-time buyers into repeat customers and to get prospects to make their initial purchase.

An email is often the beginning of a customer’s journey with you.


Two reasons email marketing works:

You control who to focus on, and
You get more conversions


How do You Succeed With Email Marketing?

To succeed with email marketing you must first build your list.

Use your website or blog to get people to sign up for your emails. Place a form on your site with a CTA (call-to-action) asking for your visitors’ name and email address. Add a sign-up form on your “about us” page.

Another way to get signups is by using a lead magnet. This offers something free in exchange for their contact details. This can be a resource guide, an ebook or something else. It must be relevant to your target audience.

Make sure your sign-up forms are not too long or complicated. People might just skip over them and move on. Limit the requested information to one field, an email address, or two maximum that includes a name.


Designing and Sending Your Emails

Designing and sending emails to your subscribers is probably the most important part of the total email marketing process. You can create them yourself, which can be very time consuming and expensive or you can use templates from third-party websites.

A lot of sites provide free email templates that you can customize and use. As a business, there are different kinds of emails that you might want to send to your subscribers.

You’ll certainly want to send a transactional (confirmation) email that goes out immediately after someone takes action on your site. You can also use these to sell, upsell, and boost engagement.

Then there will be follow-up emails with relevant and timely information regarding what you’re offering.

Here are some things you’ll want to do:

— Use attention-grabbing catchy subject lines
— Use action words and verbs that encourage people to take action
— Add a stat or number to subject lines to add credibility and create curiosity
— Keep subject lines light and creative by adding an emoji
— If possible, personalize your email subject lines with their names to grab the target’s attention
— Remember your mobile readers and keep your email subject lines short and simple

One important thing you should NOT do is use words like “free” or “deal” that may trigger filters to send your email to spam folders.

Give your customers a good experience by putting them first throughout their journey with you. Email is often the beginning of their venture with you.

When you use a human-centered approach and put your customers and their needs first, you’ll be rewarded with their loyalty.

Email marketing continues to be a mainstay in the marketing world, and email marketing is the perfect marketing channel for relationship-building.

It’s a simple, direct and cost-effective way of connecting with your leads, and is still one of the most used digital marketing techniques.


Hosting and more

By Rahimah Sultan

Advertising Disclosure: Marketing Success Review may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links posted on this website. There is no expense to you.

How Do You Create a Responsive Email List?

Although creating and growing your subscriber list is not easy it’s not rocket science, and it’s absolutely necessary if you want to run successful email marketing campaigns that reach people who are truly interested in your business.


What Are Email Lists Used For?

Email marketing is still an extremely useful way of reaching customers, despite the popularity of social media channels.

Email marketing offers many ways for a business to generate leads in the sales process. You can use email to generate brand awareness and fans through regularly emailed newsletters announcing sales, recommending products and services, or sending cart abandonment reminders.


Where do Businesses Get Email Lists?

There are two main ways to get email lists:

1. Buy from a third-party source
2. Build your own from scratch


Buying an Email List

We’ve all received unsolicited emails promising $1 million to our bank account if we give them our account number. We should all know by now they’re not to be trusted.

Well, the same goes for people trying to sell you ready-made email lists. So, now you think you can get started immediately without spending time building your own lists. Sometimes you’re offered free lists.

Remember, “If something sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t.”

You could be breaking the law, but most likely violating the CAN-SPAM act in the U.S. and GDPR in the EU for not getting expressed consent from the recipient before sending them email. And, you probably won’t get the results you’re looking for.

Put yourself in the other person’s place. What would you do if you receive an email from a company you’ve never heard of? You would probably delete it or mark it as spam. Either way, it’s a bad idea to send emails to someone who hasn’t requested to receive them from you.



Building Your Own List

To generate better leads and increase your conversion rate, you need to build and grow a list of people who have opted in to receive emails because they want to hear from you and have a genuine interest in your brand or offers.

You can also get more relevant information such as the products they like, their communication preferences, and demographic information other than name and location.


Now, how to create a responsive email list.


How do You Grow an Organic List?

To successfully grow an organic email list you need to:

1. Take Advantage of Your Own Network

You can take advantage of your own network by thinking of at least 10 people who would be interested in receiving your newsletters. Send an email to these contacts asking permission to add them to your list. For compliance, you need to retain records of securing their permission.

You can optimize the homepage of your website, to make it easier for people to join, by adding an opt-in form. Be sure the form is simple and quick to fill out.

2. Optimize Subscription Forms

Create subscription forms to capture your signups’ details. This could be a popup, a static web form, or a landing page. If you want a good signup rate the design, copywriting, and position of these forms are crucial.

Initially, only ask for what you need. You can get information for segmentation later based on the user’s action and what they read or view on your website.

3. Incentivize Signup

People don’t give up their contact details for free. So, you need to offer them an incentive and provide value. For example, this could be an e-book, a webinar or a competition.

4. Add Share Buttons

Recommendation by others is a great way to grow your list. By putting share buttons at the bottom of your emails, people can easily send them to anyone they think would be interested, or share them on social media.

5. Use Paid Ads and Social Media

Your newsletters should only be one part of your marketing strategy. Use paid ads as well as social media channels to tie your business together to drive people to a signup form or landing page where you can get more customer details.

These people are highly valuable leads and subscribers, as they have already shown an interest in your company or offer.


How do You Manage and Use Your New Email List?

The point of building a list is not to collect as many email addresses as you can. You need to keep a clean list by deleting subscribers who are not opening your emails or clicking any links.

Do this about every six months or so. Doing so will decrease your email marketing service bill, and you’ll get better click-through and open rates.

Most email marketing software provides the necessary reporting and analytics functionality, so you don’t have to manually prune your list. The software helps you understand who is opening emails and engaging and who is inactive.

Once you have that information, you can try to re-engage these recipients by setting up a win-back campaign. If that doesn’t work, remove them from your list.

As you grow your list, you can start to create segments based on past interactions and demographic information. This allows you to send more relevant, personalized emails to help boost click and conversion rates.

Building an email list from scratch takes time and patience. There are no shortcuts. It’s all about quality over quantity. Having an email list of a few people who are interested in what you have to offer is better than a list of 1,000 who don’t care.

The hard work begins when someone subscribes to your list. This is why you need to send relevant content, personalize your emails, spend time perfecting the copywriting and design, and be useful and helpful.

You can use these tips on How to Create a Responsive Email List and get started now.


Advertising Disclosure: Marketing Success Review may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links posted on this website. There is no expense to you.


Your Autoresponder and More

by Rahimah Sultan

Advertising Disclosure: Marketing Success Review may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links posted on this website. There is no expense to you.

What is email marketing?

It’s basically self-explanatory. The Wikipedia definition is:

Email marketing is the act of sending a commercial message, typically to a group of people, using email. In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered email marketing. It involves using email to send advertisements, request business, or solicit sales or donations. Wikipedia


Email is one of the most trusted communication channels available to marketers. You have to have an email address to perform many things online including online banking and opening a Facebook account, so just about everyone with internet access has a valid email address.


The most successful email marketing campaigns begin with a targeted email list of qualified leads who are interested in what you’re offering.


What are the types of email marketing?

There are many. In this article I shall discuss four main types of email marketing:

Welcome
Email Newsletters
Transactional Emails
Behavioral Emails


1. WELCOME EMAILS

Welcome emails are the first communication you’ll have with prospective customers. You need to nurture your contacts and give them a chance to get to know, like, and trust you.


Welcome emails should offer a personal touch and introduce you without a sales pitch. You need to build a relationship and work on giving a good first impression. They should illustrate your knowledge and expertise and pave the way for future contact.


2. EMAIL NEWSLETTERS

An email newsletter works well for B2B (Business to Business) communication. You can use it as a method to educate customers and prospects about your products, as well as showcase employee profiles, company projects, and relevant graphics. Hubspot is a good marketing CRM (customer relations management) tool that’s free and you can upgrade later to grow your business. (I get no fee for this. It’s just a suggestion.)


When creating an email newsletter You should consider a variety of factors including:

Content length
Type of information
Placement of images and text
Design
CTA (Call to Action)


As you work on your newsletter layout and content creation, remember your goal and be sure you’re working toward it by prioritizing the design and positioning of calls-to-action.


The advantages of email newsletters are:

Creating Brand Awareness: A newsletter, like a newspaper, creates a certain anticipation in readers. They get into the habit of receiving it, so make sure you’re sending it at regular intervals, be it daily or weekly, thus building a habit in your email subscribers which allows them to recognize your brand and associate it with a positive experience.


Repurposing Content: A newsletter usually contains already published information. You can do quick summaries of your most popular blog posts and link to the articles from your newsletter. This will bring your subscribers back to the company website and connect them with more company content.


Diversification of Content: You can use an email newsletter to include different kinds of content important to your business or organization. That can be popular blog posts, new offers, upcoming events, discounts, etc.


3. TRANSACTIONAL EMAILS

Transactional emails are usually initiated by a prospect or customer interaction with a website or an app. For example, password resets delivery information and receipts, email receipts, invoices, billing statements, and order confirmations.


Transactional emails are used to enable a transaction already agreed upon by a customer and shouldn’t market or promote any product or service or generate additional revenue.


Usually, transactional emails don’t require permission, whereas you MUST get customer consent to send marketing emails. And, with marketing emails, there must always be an unsubscribe option for the customer.


Be sure you’re compliant with email sending laws in all the countries in which you do business.


4. BEHAVIORAL EMAILS

Behavioral emails are automated emails sent to people who have given their permission to have emails sent to them that may contain advertising materials, offers, company digests, invitations to events, video reviews, and other content.


These emails are sent after a user interacts with a business on social media, the company’s website, email, and other channels. They help increase customer engagement and sales. With behavioral email, site visitors receive different types of emails, depending on their specific actions.


Email marketing principles are the same for anyone, not just big businesses.

Almost everyone who has Internet access has at least one active email address.

Email marketing gives you the opportunity to build personal relationships with your audience.

Email makes it easy to combine all your marketing campaigns.


Email marketing is easy to manage, gives you full control, and allows you to establish a direct contact with your customers.


Although there are more, these four main types of email marketing will help you with your marketing strategy.


Your Autoresponder and More

by Rahimah Sultan

The highest performing email strategy used by business is the autoresponder. Autoresponders provide the user with context while building trust, and they:

Allow you to continually show your best content.
Allow you to deliver the same high-value experience to every new subscriber.
Are great places to mention related offers without sounding dishonest.
Make sure your new subscribers do not forget you.

As a business owner, two of your biggest concerns are likely finding new customers and not having enough time in the day. So, email marketing is essential to growing your customer base.

The email autoresponder is a valuable email marketing tool that gives you the opportunity to share new content, build an email list or start promoting your latest product or service.

An autoresponder is a series of emails, generally focused on a particular topic, sent in a preset sequence at scheduled intervals. This process can begin when someone opts in to your general email list or you can create new lists for those who want the content.

Select a smart topic for your autoresponder in order for your autoresponder series to be a hit. To do this you can select some of your current customers and ask them via email, phone or survey what they would like to see from you.

Social media is a great research tool or you can check out some blogs in your niche and look at comments and what is being shared.

Check your own content for shares, comments, and analytics. If your site has a search tool, see what visitors have searched for. You can also use keyword research to check the popularity of various keyword searches in your niche.

Here are a few free tools you can use instead of paying for high level keyword suggestion tools.

1. Google Adwords: Keyword Planner

Google has been a favorite for many years

2. Adword & SEO Keyword Permutation Generator

It’ll point you toward some ideas that you may not have previously considered. The downside of this tool is that the list you get may not make sense, so you have to sort through it for the keywords that make sense for your site or content.

3. IMforSMB Bulk Keyword Generator

Although this tool is good for particular types of sites such as local service companies, you can still use it by replacing some of the keywords with your own, in the search results.

4. Keyword In

Use this for a simple way to combine your keywords and generate a list of potential keywords.

Although I’ve only listed four free keyword tools, you can “Google” keyword research tools for more. Now, let’s move on.

1. Decide what you want to accomplish with your autoresponder.

A. Send new subscribers a sequence of welcome emails

When a prospect or customer clicks on a link and makes a purchase or when anyone signs up for your newsletter or membership in your program, they should get an immediate response via your autoresponder, to show your appreciation for their time and effort. This email can contain a free thank you gift, a link to a how-to-set-up something or a series of educational emails.

B. Use it as a lead magnet to attract new subscribers to your list

This could be a free mini-course or a free challenge that promises to send a series of emails with lessons, over the course of a certain time frame of several days or weeks.

C. Create a sales funnel to make sales on autopilot

You can incorporate educational videos, sales videos, and follow ups to sell your products/services.

D. Promote up-sells and cross-sells

To get repeat customers, you can set up an autoresponder sequence for those who have purchased a digital camera, for example, and offer them accessories for it, or you can send a re-order reminder to customers who have bought skin-care products.

2. Segment your list

You can divide your list into smaller groups such as buyer persona, interests, stage in the sales cycle and more.

By doing this you can send specific and more relevant information to each segment for better results.

3. Choose the proper email software

Do your segmentation from the moment someone subscribes to your email list. That way you can present offers based on how they found your content, whether a visitor has already opted in to another offer, etc.

You’ll need email automation in order to schedule and send your email series.

4. Set up your entire email sequence

Decide on a schedule, how many emails to place in your autoresponder, and the delivery intervals.

You may want to send them on consecutive days or space them out over a week or longer, or only once a week. Test what works or emulate a series you’ve seen and like.

Decide how your emails should look. You can use plain text or HTML, sidebar or single column, many images or one or none. Whatever you decide, be sure they can be easily read. Use short paragraphs and leave plenty of white space.

Conclusion

The highest performing email strategy used by business is the autoresponder. Most businesses can use autoresponder email marketing as an effective automated tool to build and grow their business.




Get Your System With Autoresponder Here

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