4 Important Stats about the Best Times to Send Emails Posted on April 24, 2019April 24, 2019 by Jessica Lunk There’s so much that goes into crafting a perfect marketing email. You’ve got to create that snappy subject line, quick and engaging copy, and wrap it all up with the perfect call-to-action. It’s tempting to get lost in the excitement of a new campaign, pat yourself on the back for a job well-done and push your new email campaign right out of the nest—but, wait! Have you considered the time you send your emails? Sure, they’re all going to your client inboxes, but we’re going for engagement here. Let’s enhance those open rates. General wisdom says the best time to send an email is Tuesday at 10 a.m. After crunching the numbers, most studies state that Tuesday at 10 a.m. is the best general time to send your marketing email. What this number doesn’t account for is—well, literally anything else. If you’re not familiar with your audiences’ demographics or are sending a general email without any open data, this is a good starting place. After all, you need to discover your particular list’s email habits. Think about your ideal recipient’s lifestyle. Are they night owls? Are they at their desk from 8 to 5, but home on the weekends? If you have a guess, great! If you’re more inclined to use actual data, tap into Google Analytics to see what times are most popular for your website visitors. Set up an A/B test in your CRM to have your email send out at two different times on the same day—first, at the baseline Tuesday at 10 a.m. and second, at the time you think your customers may be active. Track the results. Don’t be afraid to experiment. You’ll soon find that ideal time. Mid-week emails can help you snag the attention of traditional business-to-business customers. Mondays are a hectic mess. Workers are too busy trying to get into the swing of the week through copious cups of coffee and morning meetings to spend meaningful time with their inbox. Whether you’re selling business-to-business or organizing a webinar, you’ll want to get your email in front of relevant eyes once the week has slowed. To ensure that it has a fighting chance of being noticed in the inbox, use your CRM to schedule your email to be sent on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. According to several studies, later weekdays will return the highest open rates for business clients, with Tuesday – Thursday open rates reaching nearly 20%. Weekends are a goldmine for retail and recreational emails. It’s the weekend, who wants to think about work? On Saturdays and Sundays, business and finance emails see a considerable dip in engagement and emails sent. Over the weekend, we all want to partake in a little fun. Messages related to hobbies, arts and entertainment, or retail sales tend to peak the interests of their subscribers on the weekend. In fact, according to a study by MailChimp, more than 20% of hobby companies and over 15% of retail companies find that weekends are the optimal time to contact their clients. Remember though, people aren’t glued to their computers all day on the weekend. To take advantage of the opportunity to get in front of eager eyes without as much competition, you’ll want to cater your email for mobile delivery. If you aren’t comfortable with creating responsive mobile layouts, an email builder like Hatchbuck can make the task easy. Use a responsive template to ensure that your message looks great on any device. With the variety of email clients out there, the way your email looks can be vastly different from platform-to-platform. Keep your message simple with short paragraphs and a large, apparent call-to-action button. Cold emails get the most responses before and after work. If your business plan involves reaching out to clients through cold messaging, hold off on that send button. While the end goal is to have a conversation, you’ll get lost in the shuffle if you send that email during the chaos of daily business. Your best bet at getting your cold message in front of a decision-maker and receiving a response is to send your email between 5-6 a.m. or after business hours from 7-9 p.m. To ensure you hit that timely sweet spot nationwide, use your CRM to set up segments by time zone. Stagger your email by these segments to ensure each message reaches the inbox at an optimal viewing time. The data available for email marketing is staggering, and sometimes it’s difficult to apply it to your business plan. Experimentation with time and day is one piece of the successful email puzzle. When you find success with your sending time, see if you can improve your results with tweaks to your subject lines, visuals, written content, or by making your emails more personal. Just remember that to find a successful path in email marketing, you need to continually test, record your results, and keep a vigilant watch on your message analytics. Now, let’s get those emails queued!
How To Set 5, 10 and 15-Year Goals For Your Business Posted on April 22, 2019April 22, 2019 by Jonathan Herrick Not long ago, coming up with a five, 10 or 15-year plan for your business was a pretty straightforward process. In fact, if you didn’t have plans like these in place, you were probably falling behind. But today, thanks to advances such as artificial intelligence and new digital technologies, many B2B business owners find their industries changing overnight. It’s hard to plan for next year, let alone do long-term planning. That said, it’s hard to run your business with no plan at all. Even if you never act on half of the plans you make, you’ll be better off than if you charge into battle with no idea of what you’re going to do in the scenarios that come up. Here’s how to do five, 10- and 15-year planning (if relevant) in a time of rapid change. Step up your Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analyses. The days when a small business could do this kind of 360-degree scan of its business environment in the annual meeting have passed. The opportunities in front of your business this year are likely to be very different next year. If you don’t act quickly, the ship will have sailed. The same holds true for threats. They can come up quickly, and if you’re not prepared for them, it may be hard to react from a position of strength. That doesn’t mean you should operate in a panic, act on every opportunity for fear of missing out or go after opportunities before you’re ready. What it does mean is you should frequently be thinking about situations in the marketplace, so you have time on your side when you do act. Knowing the score will help you come up with plans that are realistic and actionable. Sometimes, the opportunities and threats may be one and the same, depending on how you frame them in your mind. For instance, let’s say you run a B2B public relations firm. A new technology that helps publicists identify media professionals to pitch has arrived in the marketplace, and some of your competitors are using it. It’s enabling them to lower their headcount and therefore, charge less than you do. Your SWOT analysis might identify this as an opportunity for you: You could subscribe to a technology like this, too, and gain a competitive advantage over the firms that are not using it. Or it might be a threat you need to navigate around, if you don’t want to adopt the technology or can’t afford to invest in it. In that case, you may want to offer something different from the more automated firms in your industry—perhaps a new spin on high-touch service. Choose the right time frame for your industry. If you work in a very fast-changing field like technology consulting, coming up with a 10- or 15-year plan may not make sense. A five-year plan may be as far off in the future as you want to go. In a slower-evolving field, though, it could make sense to draft a longer-term plan. You won’t be able to get as granular in plans that extend a decade or more into the future but committing to big goals, like coming up with a succession plan and selling the business by year 10, so you can retire, can help you stay focused on what really matters to you. Start with the big picture and then fill in the details. If you’re not sure where to begin with your plans, work on your big goals first. Perhaps you want to grow from a one-person company to 10 people or break a certain revenue goal by year five, for instance. Then look at how you’ll get there. What do you have to do this year to move the needle on those goals? Are there certain personnel you need to hire? Trainings you need to send your team to? What is the business strategy your goal will require? How will you act on that strategy? And how will you handle the financial side of these things? Beyond that, how will you track your progress? Are there key performance indicators (KPIs) you will assign to your big goals? Overwhelmed? Many entrepreneurs find that Gino Wickman’s book Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business and be a valuable asset in planning. Keep revising. A plan is only valuable if you act on it, so don’t leave it tucked away in a computer file or desk drawer. Spend some time every month looking over your plan to make sure it’s current and updating it to reflect new developments, priorities and goals. Once you see how much you’ve already accomplished, you’ll feel motivated to keep planning—and to see those plans through. It’s hard to know what the future has in store for any of us, but putting together a plan – no matter how short- or long-term – will ensure that you’ve got the long-game in mind. And if you want a cheesy idiom to bring things full circle, we’ll be happy to oblige: “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”
How to Create a Winning Marketing Automation Proposal in Under 30 Minutes Posted on April 19, 2019June 10, 2021 by Guest Author Depending on who you speak to, marketing automation is either the greatest thing since sliced bread or a really scary concept. But there’s a reason so many people are jumping on the bandwagon: automation can save businesses hours and even days when building out a sales and marketing process. As an agency with a multifaceted skill set, you are uniquely qualified to help those marketing automation newbies get a head start – and to potentially add recurring revenue in the process. A marketing automation proposal template can help you develop a game plan for your clients in a jiff – saving you time and maximizing your profit. Let’s break down the elements you’ll need for a marketing automation proposal that’s sure to win you business every time. Objectives + Value Proposition This section of the proposal should be customized as much as possible. You should identify parts of the potential client’s sales and marketing process that should be automated along with what this automation will accomplish in the long-term. Most importantly, build value. Show the prospect what’s in it for them – How will marketing automation create efficiencies in their business and add to their bottom line? Why should they want to partner with your agency? How is your agency uniquely-suited to meet their needs? Depending on the project and the client, my agency changes this section up. For example, here’s a screenshot of the “Objective” and “Client Needs” sections from Mod Girl’s $10K Audit and Strategy Proposal template: Pro tip: if you want to snag my entire $10K proposal template for landing your next big project, I made it available for download for free here: www.modgirl.agency Scope of Work This portion of your proposal is crucial. It’s where you list out exactly what you’re planning to do for the client. However, you have to walk a fine line when you’re listing out recommended services in your marketing proposal. You don’t want to overwhelm the prospect by listing out every single minute detail – but you also don’t want to cause confusion because you didn’t give them enough information about the services you plan to provide. For a marketing automation proposal, you’ll want to go fairly in-depth with your scope of work. You’ll need to outline exactly what you plan to automate, any content you’ll be involved with creating, the tools you’ll be using for automation and so on. But don’t go overboard here. You don’t need to walk through every single form you’ll be creating or landing page you’ll be building. It’s vital that the scope of work outlines what you’ll be doing and what benefits the prospect will gain by working with you. At the same time, your prospect doesn’t want or need a 1,000 page document explaining exactly what you’ll be doing every minute and hour you’re working for them. Your scope of work should focus on the big picture. Timeline Here’s where you lay out proper expectations. While timelines change and depend on many factors, you need to provide the prospect with project milestones and deadlines. Many deadlines might be dependant upon client approval so you need to make that very clear when laying out campaign timeframes. Here’s an example of what a campaign timeline might look for at Mod Girl Marketing: Investment A question every prospect will almost immediately ask is: “how much is this going to cost me?” In the investment section you should list out, very clearly, how much your services will cost your prospect. Avoid overcomplicating it. Make it as easy as possible for them to understand. And make sure the payment terms are transparent. For example, if you require a 25% deposit before beginning work and the remaining 75% within 30 days of work completion, make sure that is clearly outlined in this section. For agencies quoting multiple services, make sure you itemize everything. Unless you’re only quoting one service, you should never group all costs into one line. By bundling multiple services into one line, not only do your services appear more expensive to the prospect, but you increase the opportunity for scope creep – every agency’s worst nightmare! With that in mind, it’s also important to add an asterisk to your “Investment” section that states your standard hourly rate for any tasks that fall outside the outlined scope of work. Here’s how we do this at Mod Girl: Next Steps To wrap up your proposal, tell the prospect what they should expect next, but keep it simple! At Mod Girl Marketing, we say the following: Official agreement will be provided and digitally signed upon acceptance. Please let me know if you need any additional information or have any more questions. We look forward to working with you soon to help you automate your sales and marketing process more efficiently. Then I wrap up the proposal with my byline and headshot. I list my contact information (phone number and email) and any related press mentions. Here’s a byline I used recently for marketing proposals for healthcare clients: Agreement I always recommend going over prospect proposals over the phone. This makes the experience more personal and avoids any confusion. Once your prospect agrees to the terms outlined in your proposal, you’ll need to send an agreement. This agreement should include an NDA and early termination clauses to protect you and your client. To reduce confusion, send this after the client says yes to the proposal. Since you’ll review the proposal with them on the phone, you can easily include this as part of your follow-up email after the review call. Conclusion Marketing proposals can be an incredibly effective way to attract and win new agency business. And they’re even more valuable when you’ve got a template to quickly build off of. When building out a marketing automation proposal, be sure to outline every step of the process clearly and transparently so your prospective client knows what to expect and you set your future relationship up for success. Author Bio Mandy McEwen is Founder & CEO of Mod Girl Marketing, a digital marketing agency based in California. She is the creator of 8+ digital marketing courses where she helps marketing consultants and startup agencies scale faster. She was listed by Search Engine Journal as a top 12 SEO expert and was named a top 10 agency growth coach by BloggerLocal. Mandy’s Facebook group, Mod Agency Insiders, was named a top marketing group to join by Inc.
6 Simple Strategies for More Thorough Market Research Posted on April 18, 2019December 15, 2022 by Allie Wolff In today’s marketplace, the buyer holds all the power. Developing and adapting your marketing strategies to match the needs, desires and expectations of your audience is the key to success, and it’s the foundation of stellar customer service. But in order to get to that point, you absolutely must perform in-depth market research. This is what will ultimately help you understand exactly where your buyers are and the best way to target them with your product or service. Not sure where to begin? Follow these six easy steps to get started. Define your buyer persona. Before you can start to figure out how your customers are making buying decisions, you need to first understand who they are. This is where creating a buyer persona comes into play. A buyer persona is a fictional representation of your ideal customer. Some of the key characteristics to identify in this persona include: Age Gender Geographic Location Job Title Income Major Challenges There are loads more characteristics you could add to your own buyer personas depending what you’re selling and how much information you need on your prospective customers. Identify a segment of that persona to engage. Once you’ve got a general idea about who your target audience is, the next step is to identify a representative sample of that audience so you can learn more about their actual characteristics, buying habits and challenges. Ideally, you should focus on people who have recently interacted with your brand, whether it was making a purchase or purposefully deciding not to buy. You may also wish to expand your research to include individuals who have purchased a similar product or service from a competitor. Engage your participants. There are a number of different ways you can approach this step. For instance, you might conduct an in-person focus group, send out an online survey or engage in individual phone interviews. Regardless of the method of engagement, you may also need to consider offering some type of incentive for their participation. Rewards can help motivate people to give up some of their precious time. Prepare a list of questions. Being prepared in advance will help to ensure that you get the most out of your market research activities. Whether you’re running a focus group, survey or interview, you should always come ready with a discussion guide so you can use your time wisely. While there’s no one-size-fits-all approach, your questions should be open-ended as opposed to yes/no. Identify your competition. The next important step in your market research involves learning more about who your primary competitors are. Keep in mind that this may be more than just Company A and Company B. For instance, you may also be competing for your customers with a specific division of a larger corporation. That’s why it’s important to be thorough and dig deep with this step. Focus on identifying both your industry and your content competitors. Summarize your findings. The final step involves pulling everything together into a report that you can then use to guide your marketing decisions. Feel free to add what you’d like, but you should at least include the following details in your summary: Goals of the study Who the participants were What you learned What the buyer journey is like (i.e. awareness, consideration, decision) Action plan for how you’ll proceed Performing market research is an essential part of running a successful business. And thankfully, with the right approach – such as the six steps above – it doesn’t have to be an overwhelming process.
Does Your Marketing Agency Have a Client Retention Problem? Posted on April 17, 2019April 17, 2019 by Jonathan Herrick As an industry, marketing experiences a lot of ups and downs. When the economy is in good shape, companies are willing to spend more on marketing efforts and try new approaches to sell their products and services. When the economy takes a downturn, though, these same companies are more watchful and expect greater results for the same marketing spend. If a company isn’t satisfied with its marketing or ad agency, they may take their budget elsewhere in search of better results. Even when things are going well in the economy, many companies are finicky when it comes to marketing budgets. Is this a problem that your agency is facing? It’s not always easy to tell if client turnover is just a fluke or part of a bigger problem. Fortunately, if you do have a turnover problem, there are ways you can deal with it before it spirals out of control. Do You Have a Problem? Has your agency been losing clients lately? If so, that’s obviously a problem … but it may not be a sign of an ongoing turnover problem. Look at the last few clients that have left your agency and consider how long each was a client for. Look back into your records at previous departures and check how long each of those were clients as well. Has the number of departures increased over time, especially in comparison to the number of new clients? Are you losing long-term clients, or are they primarily short-term clients that seem to just be testing the waters? Losing a few clients as isolated incidents doesn’t mean that you have a major client retention problem. It’s not ideal, but it’s something you can recover from. However, if you’re starting to notice patterns in your losses or an acceleration of losses over time in comparison to new client onboarding, then you may have a major issue developing. Why Do Clients Leave? There are a few different reasons why clients may choose to leave your marketing agency. Common reasons for turnover include: Lack of Connection: The client’s wishes and the agency’s process just don’t jive, and the client isn’t getting exactly what it wants from your agency’s strategy.Lack of Communication: If a client doesn’t feel like an agency sees them as a priority, they may keep looking until they find an agency that does.Lack of Consistency: While an agency’s first marketing push may knock things out of the park, most clients won’t stick it out if there isn’t a well-designed follow-up.Lack of Quality: Few things can kill an agency faster than producing low-quality work that reflects badly on a client’s image. There are a number of other reasons that clients may choose to part ways with agencies as well. A lot of them even fall on the client’s side of things, relating to internal decisions or changes in corporate culture. Since you can’t do anything about client-side issues, take a moment to focus on what you can do on your end to improve client retention. Possible Solutions to Your Turnover Woes If you do discover a client turnover problem within your agency, it’s not too late to take steps to correct it. Assuming your marketing agency doesn’t have a specific problem that can be addressed directly, examine how your agency interacts with clients and what you can do to improve the quality of those interactions. Every client should feel like they’re your most important client. Don’t let one client overshadow another, no matter how large or small. Maintain frequent communication, even between major initiatives, and make sure you never come across as distracted or uninterested when on a call or doing any other work with a client. As far as the client is concerned, in the time they have with you, they should be the only client on your roster. The same applies to the work that you do. When your team is on task, there are no “small clients” or “big clients,” but each and every one should receive the same effort to connect to their core brand and deliver results within their budget. The best way you can fight a client turnover problem is to show your clients that they matter, regardless of the size of their budget or where they are in the marketing cycle. Looking to the Future Once you have a handle on how to approach potential issues causing turnover for your agency, it’s important to keep from falling back into old habits. A renewed focus on your clients is a great place to start building a reputation as a high-quality agency that puts its clients first. Even difficult clients deserve your best effort, and the more often you put forth that extra effort, the more often you’ll be recognized as an agency that really cares about its clients’ needs. Even if you don’t have a turnover problem, it’s not a bad idea to examine how you come across to your clients and whether that image could be improved. The work you put in now will pay off significantly down the road, especially if the effort is proactive instead of reactive. Even big clients want to feel special, and when they leave other agencies, they’ll be looking for someone like you to fill the gap.
5 Marketing Agencies That Are Killing the Social Media Game Posted on April 12, 2019December 20, 2023 by Allie Wolff Can you remember the marketing and advertising world before social media? What was once a private club for teenagers has exploded into a worldwide phenomenon where Instagram and Facebook have bizarrely transformed into verbs, and humans are tweeting rather than talking and pinning rather than creating collages from old magazine scraps. An ongoing survey by Social Media Examiner found that almost 90 percent of marketers believe that social media has increased exposure to their businesses. Around 78 percent also report increased website traffic. These figures have remained more or less unchanged since 2014. Having a strong showing in social media can help your agency achieve other results, including: Attracting new clients who might not have found you otherwise Cultivating a brand image at little or no additional cost Increasing follower interactions, giving your agency more insight into consumer needs Fine-tuning your agency’s online reputation Obviously, mastering social media is essential if you’re a social media marketing firm — and it’s also an important factor if you want to compete with big players. If you want to be the best social media marketing agency, or if you just want some tips for your strategy, here are a few examples of agencies that are killing it. 1. Disruptive Advertising In addition to helping its clients win at social media marketing, Disruptive Advertising itself is a true master of the social game. With frequent posts on social media that highlight not only its own blog but also useful information and occasional bits of fun, Disruptive has thousands of followers on social media and currently holds a 4.9 out of 5.0 review score on Facebook. If you’re looking to emulate a company’s social media success, their platforms are a great place to start. Where to follow them: Twitter: @DisruptiveAds Facebook LinkedIn 2. Elevated If you take a look at the social media presence of Elevated, it’s clear that the team likes to have fun. Touting “100% transparency + 0% BS,” the company’s experts get results without the double-speak and buzzword-laden approach of some other digital marketing companies. Looking at its social feeds, you can see the company also goes out of its way to let potential clients get to know its employees and get a feel for the company culture as a whole before initiating the first contact. This ensures a deeper connection with clients, which should result in long-term business relationships and continued success for the growing company. Where to follow them: Twitter: @Elevated_Com Facebook LinkedIn 3. The Creative Momentum With a social media presence on six different platforms, The Creative Momentum is a perfect example of how to maintain a broad social media presence and use it to drive results. The company is able to showcase its blog posts through platforms like Facebook and Twitter while also providing engaging visual content through YouTube and Pinterest. They even highlight these platforms in the middle of their website, which helps direct visitors to engage with them on social media. With over 8,000 followers on Facebook alone, it’s clear that this approach is working for the company. Where to follow them: Twitter: @creativemomentu Facebook LinkedIn 4. Sachs Marketing Group Another agency that puts its social media presence front and center is Sachs Marketing Group. Sachs has won numerous awards and is a leader in SEO and digital marketing. The company is active on multiple social media platforms and has convenient links to them at the very top of its webpage. On social media, it balances both its serious side and its fun side, helping visitors see just how knowledgeable its experts are while also making its content engaging. This can be a difficult balance to strike, but Sachs does it perfectly. Where to follow them: Twitter: @Sachs_Marketing Facebook LinkedIn 5. Ignite Visibility At first glance, the social media presence of Ignite Visibility seems very straightforward and professional. You’ll see a lot of blog links and backlinks to informative content that’s useful to clients and digital marketing pros alike. Once you start reading through the posts, though, you’ll get a number of glances at the people behind the team. Glimpses of training meetings, planning events, and even random bits of silliness like trying out bean bag chairs pepper the firm’s social media presence and give visitors a feel for the people behind the genius that’s on display. Where to follow them: Twitter: @IgniteV Facebook LinkedIn Mastering Social Media Of course, these firms just provide examples of how to use social media to your advantage. Some of them specialize in social media marketing for clients, so it makes sense that they’re able to practice what they preach and run a tight social media ship. If you want your agency to fully take advantage of social media and become one of the greats, you don’t have to emulate any of these companies specifically; instead, look at how their social media presence reflects the values and personality of their agencies. See what they’re doing right and what gets the most engagement. Take those lessons and apply them to your own company’s social media activity, making the experience and voice wholly your own. Who knows…your agency might end up on our next list!
How Much Should You Tell Your Employees? Posted on April 11, 2019April 11, 2019 by Jonathan Herrick There is a lot of talk about transparency of leaders and companies, but how transparent should you be? In many cases, if your team is armed with all the facts, then they can better execute in their role and help drive the company forward. On the flip side, sharing too much information can be distracting and even detrimental to company culture and employee engagement. So where do you draw the line? The benefits of transparency There are many benefits to being transparent, and one of the most pertinent is that of trust. Trust cannot be cultivated if transparency is not something which flows from the top tiers of the organization. If you commit to transparency, it has to be something which everyone takes seriously; otherwise, that trust will be lost. Without trust, it can be difficult to motivate your staff to take risks and even tougher to empower them to make the best decisions for your business. Read Jonathan’s full article on Entrepreneur.
5 Email Nurturing Tips That Will Improve Your Open Rates Posted on April 9, 2019October 25, 2023 by Jessica Lunk When it comes to email marketing, it’s easy to get a little complacent. Our emails become part of our weekly routines. When it comes time to put them together, you might find yourself slapping them together without as much consideration as when your outreach campaigns were shiny and new. But when your email marketing isn’t optimized, your open rates can take a nosedive. Let’s improve your open rates with a few simple ideas you can implement immediately. 1. Segment, segment, segment Before you ever start your email design, revisit your contacts list. It’s time to segment. Though it’s easy to assume that the more eyes on a message, the better, you can frustrate and alienate your potential customers by sending them messages that they have no interest in. Use customer activity to track relevant information about them, like what they’ve downloaded in the past or if they signed up for a list but haven’t bought anything yet. Think about important aspects of your customers that might alter your marketing messaging — physical location, age, interests, and general demographics. Use this information to create segmented lists. These lists will allow you to target your content directly to the relevant eyes. The more relevant the information is to an individual customer, the more likely it is that you’ll earn their open. 2. Freshen up your list Segmentation can only go so far in keeping your list relevant. There’s likely a wealth of email addresses in your database that just aren’t engaging with you, and maybe even some who have limited deliverability or have unsubscribed. Maybe the customer isn’t interested in your products, they’ve changed their email address, or perhaps they’ve built a cabin and gone off the grid. Whatever the case, those stale email addresses aren’t helping your open rates. While it doesn’t hurt to delete your unsubscribes, take a different approach with inactive readers: try contacting them one more time. An effective method would be to send out a quick survey with an enticing coupon or free resource. If the clients respond, great! You have new data to get them properly segmented and back into your marketing routine. If they don’t, well, it’s time to part with those moldy emails and focus on gaining new ones. Also, when adding new addresses, don’t forget to conduct email validation and add verified emails to your database. 3. Get personal Email is a personal thing. These messages that you send are going directly into the computers and pockets of your clients. Their inbox is their domain and is tailored to their eyes only. So, why would they want a generic message? With a fresh and segmented list, you can easily customize the content of your emails to fit the needs and tone of the particular demographic you’re shooting for. Make your emails personal. Use their names, refer to their past purchases, and speak to them like a friend. Marketing automation allows you to set up relevant content within your messages easily, so you can quickly fill in customer-specific blanks with minimal setup. 4. Make your emails interactive Interactive emails can do amazing things, and the launch of Google’s AMP for email, interactive elements are going to start popping up more and more in your inbox. Functional forms, live shopping carts, and instant log-ins are giving customers more and more reasons to click. However, many of these interactive elements seem intimidating and may be out of reach (and budget for SMBs). If you’re running a small shop, you may not have the resources to create a robust, customized website that can handle these types of emails. There’s a lot of smaller interactive elements you could include, though. How about a link to a video that educates your clients on a new, exciting way to use your product? Animated GIFs can add a visual flair to your email without the length or production of a video. Even simple, moving elements can liven up an otherwise dull email. Always remember, though, when using interactive elements to design an alternate version for browsers and email clients that don’t support your chosen elements. Unfortunately, we still have a long way to go before interactivity is standard in every app. 5. Subject lines are the heavy lifters You can spend all your time and marketing budget on the most fantastic email content, but a lousy subject line can fail you every time. We’re all guilty of slapping a subject line onto emails at the last minute. After all of that time crafting the content, images, and elements, it can feel like an after-thought. Your subject line is expected to do a delicate dance between avoiding the spam box, dodging delete, and enticing your customer to peek inside. Try creating subject lines that form a sense of mystery. Keep them short and sweet. Create a sense of urgency if your message is time-sensitive. Finally, try mixing it up a bit. Emojis can help your subject line get noticed and add a splash of fun if it fits within your brand. Don’t be afraid to experiment with your subject lines. Set up simple A/B tests to see what works best for you. With just a little bit of elbow grease, your email list’s open rates will be on the rise again. Don’t be afraid to try new things with your email marketing — just remember to test your open rates and diligently track your results.
You May Be A Leader, But Do You Have What It Takes To Be An Entrepreneur? Posted on April 5, 2019April 5, 2019 by Jonathan Herrick The conventional wisdom is that people who thrive in the corporate world can’t make it as entrepreneurs. As the thinking goes, they’re too dependent on the perks and rhythms of corporate life to thrive in their own business. The reality is more nuanced. Many corporate leaders have to be so entrepreneurial in their daily work today that running their own business isn’t as big of a transition as it once was. In fact, many corporate refugees find that running a business is a perfect way to put their skills to work and build personal wealth. That said, running a business is not for everyone. Wondering if you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur? Here’s are some key things you need. Internal motivation. Every leader needs to be somewhat self-motivated—but when you work for someone else, you always have a boss to backstop you if your drive wanes. As an entrepreneur, you truly are your own boss. There’s no one to nudge you along if you hit a discouraging period in the business or promising you a trip to Hawaii if you meet a sales goal. If you’re thinking about starting a business, take an honest look at how self-motivated you are. Many people do their best work in situations where they are motivated by someone else, so if that’s the case for you, you may be happier in a great job than running your own business. A risk-taking spirit. It’s one thing to bet on a new product or service with your company’s money. It’s quite another to risk your own savings. To be an entrepreneur, you’ll have to do a lot of things on your own dime. The payoff may be far in the future. Even if you bring in outside investors, they’ll want to know you have skin in the game. Some people are comfortable making educated bets on their good ideas. Others find it nerve-wracking. How do you know if you’re up for it? Try taking some small risks with your money on small but necessary startup expenditures for your business. Let’s say you’re a seasoned corporate marketer and want to launch a B2B marketing business. There are probably a few things you need to buy to get started. Maybe you need to register the URL for your future website. Perhaps you’d benefit from investing in a class or short online seminar that will teach you a new skill you can later sell in the business. Or maybe you need to consult with an attorney about some legal questions on business formation. Commit to making that investment this month. If you don’t have much extra money available, find a creative way to come up with it, using your own resources. For instance, sell something you don’t need anymore on Craigslist. View this as a test. Do you pull the trigger and invest in your business by your deadline or find some reason not to do it? If something is holding you back on making this small investment, you may not be comfortable with the idea of using your own money to grow a business. You might be happier in a corporate setting, where the company is taking on all of the risk. Those who did make the small investment have probably already moved onto step number two to get their business going by now. If you’re in this camp, it’s a good indicator you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur. A passion for the journey. Being an entrepreneur is an unpredictable path. You’ll have many adventures and perhaps some misadventures, too. You won’t always know where things are leading and will have to go on gut instinct. You’ll know whether you enjoy the journey or not by how you feel when you’re working on your business in the few hours you can find outside of your job. Are you in the flow? Does it feel like you’re involved in your life’s work? Do you wish you could do more of what you’re doing—even if it ‘s hard–and less of the other things you do? These are all signs you will enjoy the ride. If you’re not feeling much excitement or alignment with your true purpose, there’s no shame in recognizing that, as well, and sticking with traditional jobs. There’s no right or wrong decision when it comes to working for someone else versus working for yourself. The point is to be true to yourself and what matters most. So if you’re intrinsically motivated, not averse to taking a few risks and have a passion to lead, you may want to dive into the entrepreneurial game. After all, you miss every shot you don’t take in life.