Those are a few possible purposes of your email marketing campaigns. And there are are many ways for your emails to accomplish that.
You can build relationships. You can share testimonials. You can explain innovative uses for your products.
And you can take inspiration from these five examples to develop a totally new, creative invitation that your readers won't be able to resist.
Please note that AWeber's support offices will be closed on the following days as we spend time with our loved ones during the holidays:
As always, we'll be keeping an eye on our service and the support inbox to address any urgent issues.
We'll return on the following Mondays (December 27 and January 3) at 8:00 a.m. EST to answer your questions by phone, email and live chat.
Thanks, and have a great holiday!
Original: Inbox Ideas
Alas, no computer is at hand, so you give them your card or write down their email address. But then they forget to sign up. Or (horrors!) you forget. Or you remember, but still have to take care of getting them onto the list.
Or, you could skip all the hassle with a smartphone solution that gets them signed up in seconds (and yes, you can do this without a smartphone yourself).
Jolly carols play as they crouch in their dwellings Stressing about making their emails compelling When what to their pixel-glazed eyes should appear - The Email Elf, with a plan, and he's ready to share!
It doesn't have a button anymore.
The university found a way to get 72.72% more sign-ups by changing the format of their offer. Keep reading to see how they did it - and the rule that can help you do the same.
The university wanted to make sure they were hearing from as many interested prospects as possible, so they split test two sign-up processes.
The first was their original button. Those who clicked it were taken to a separate sign-up page to enter their details. The second was a complete web form embedded directly into the home page.
With 72.72% more sign-ups, the web form quickly became the university's method of choice. They added the form to pages throughout their site so it would be available whenever visitors were ready to find out more.
There are several ways you might ask people to subscribe. You might use:
Minimize clicks to subscribe.
That's it. The fewer steps people have to take, the more likely it is that they'll sign up.
With a form on each page, visitors just add their info and click once, then continue with what they were doing.
The other methods listed above complicate subscription. Some potential subscribers will drop off.
And unless it's absolutely necessary, don't make the mistake of requiring people to create a whole account on your site in order to sign up for emails. You'll scare away anyone who's not ready, plus anyone who's wary of giving away all their details, plus anyone who doesn't have the time.
These methods will help you collect as many subscribers as possible.
But sometimes, quantity isn't the goal. Some marketers would rather have fewer subscribers who are willing to go through a complicated process - it shows they seriously want the emails.
Is your goal to market to as many people as possible? Or do you have a select crowd that you're aiming for?
Your sign-up process should fit your goal. Should you simplify it for more subscribers or make it more complicated to narrow your audience?
Source: Inbox Ideas
He loves that they "have an amazing ability to tell stories. The coating they put on their movies is more for kids, but the stories they tell are awesome." His favorite Pixar films so far? The Toy Story Series.
Toy Story highlights the importance of leadership and bravery. It emphasizes the use of available resources and the necessity of always having a plan.
Call us crazy, but those things sound just like what you need for a killer email marketing campaign! So what else can Woody, Buzz and the rest of the gang teach you?
Visitors to your website know all about spam. In fact, they probably receive it in some form to their inboxes everyday. The important thing to remember is that you need to set expectations and let them know that you will not be contributing to the number of spam emails that they're inundated with daily.
Make Sheriff Woody proud and do your part to clean up the contaminated waterhole (inbox). Clearly explain what you'll send when interested visitors sign up to receive updates from you, then continually check your messages against the description of what you're offering.
It's natural to worry that your subscribers will lose interest in your newsletters, moving on to shiny, new emails from other companies, but don't fret! Even though your readers will sign up for new newsletters, this is all the more reason for you to focus on quality content.
Make your newsletter the absolute best newsletter it can be. Subscribers that are worth keeping will realize that your emails are valuable, and they'll continue to open them week after week.
It's important to be prepared when you're at the helm of your email marketing campaign. You never know when there will be emergencies that prevent you from sitting down during a given week to create your newsletter.
Never be without some backup content. Keep a few timeless emails ready to send in your account just in case something comes up. If you are in a pinch, there are some last-minute things you can do to make your emails successful. This way, you have no reason to panic when life throws you a curveball.
The marketing world is constantly changing. As an email marketer, you have to keep up or you'll be left in the dust. For instance, Gmail just recently announced the roll-out of their Priority Inbox.
Gmail's Priority Inbox attempts to simplify and automate email sorting for users by figuring out which senders' emails are important, based on how they interact with those emails and senders. This is a big, big deal.
In order to keep up with changes like this, check in with trusted sources in the industry to stay afloat. Our blog, Email Marketing Reports, The Email Wars and Be Relevant! are good places to start
.
Permission is so important. Just like Mrs. Potato Head says, you don't want to talk to any toys or subscribers that you don't know!
You only want to deliver information to people who come directly to your site and ask for your emails. Responsible email marketing requires that you build trust, and how your subscribers judge your brand can seriously affect that trust.
Simply put, permission is the foundation of responsible marketing, and in our eyes there is no other way to email.
Always remember how grateful you are for your contacts. Respect your subscribers when you email them and consider frequency.
Make sure that you stay in touch with your subscribers regularly enough that they don't forget who you are, but not too often that they are overwhelmed.
If it has been a few weeks since you've emailed your list, try sending subscribers something to keep in touch. This doesn't have to be elaborate, there are lots of ways to create content for your newsletters. If you are stumped, try looking for content on your site or recent blog posts.
Email marketing is a smart business choice, no matter what size your company is.
With a little dedication and hard work, your campaign can get better and better, all while improving your results along the way.
For instance, Split testing your messages can show you what works best for you, and rating scales can indicate whether or not customers find your content relevant and helpful.
Have you tried any of these tactics? Let us know which Toy Story suggestions you practice with your own campaign!
Credit: Inbox Ideas
I'll tell ya' who: your friends at AWeber! We have 4 brand new matching email and web form templates. There are holiday-specific Christmas and Hanukkah templates, and we also included 2 all-purpose holiday themes, as well.
This is our second year of making holiday templates and we hope it's a tradition we can keep going for a long, long time. This year we went the extra mile and even came up with a snazzy AWeber themed Christmas carol for you to enjoy:
The season is here so be merry and cheer. We have new holiday templates to finish the year. With Email and Webform templates that match, in four different styles - oh! What a catch. Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas and Let it Snow. All fully designed and wrapped in a bow. Log in to your account; you know what to do. Have a Happy Holiday from AWeber to you!
This year I wanted to do something that was classic and old fashioned but in the best of ways. I also wanted to create something with lots of texture. Hopefully this template achieves both of those things. As far as the color palette on this one goes, you just can't go wrong with red, green and gold. Hope you have as much fun using this template as I did making it.
-- Eric Centeno
Celebrate Hanukkah with this glowing blue, silver, and gold email and web form template. The design is influenced by the traditional symbols and colors of the Hanukkah festival, over a subtle backdrop of glowing candles. Use this template to send best wishes during the festival of light and warmth.
-- Stephanie Yancone
With the other designers creating holiday-specific templates, I decided to create a nondescript template for a more general use. This template has a winter theme with snowflakes and holly. The colors on "Season's Greetings" gives the text a metallic look, giving the whole template an almost holiday greeting card feeling.
-- Dan Hauk
What better way to have fun at work than make a ski resort style template? Being an avid snowboarder, this template was a blast to make and I hope you all enjoy it. I know I'll be crossing my fingers for a snowy winter this year and hopefully I get to ride on a regular basis.
-- Bob Ricca
These templates can be used for many different things such as offering exclusive deals and downloads, sending seasonal store hours. How will you use them?
The new templates are available in your account now, so what are you waiting for? Log in and add some cheer to your newsletter and web form today!
Origin: Inbox Ideas
So you took their advice, read the Getting Started Guide and got to work crafting emails. And they were right! People subscribed, sales were great and you were happy as a clam...but then something happened. Sign-ups dwindled. Now, you get a few new subscribers here and there, but your list isn't growing.
We've heard this before! Not to fret. After the initial flurry of sign-ups when your list is new, it's completely normal to have a slump in growth. Lucky for you, there are some really simple things you can do to rev up your list-building engine and attract new subscribers. Keep reading to find out why your list isn't growing and how to fix it!
This is the simplest part of growing a list, yet such an oversight for so many companies. They know that it's important to have a web form in a prominent location on the homepage, but forget that most people visiting their site won't always land there.
When coming from Google, Facebook or a link shared on a blog, visitors will very rarely end up directly on your landing page. They're probably directed to an article, or a specific page on your site that relates more closely to what they are looking for instead.
Take a look at your current web form. Do you request only a small amount of information, or do you ask for specifics? Although the information you're trying to collect is certainly helpful after the fact, requiring a lot of your visitors at sign up can also be seen as a barrier to entry.
No matter how much value you're delivering to your subscribers, your emails still take up real estate in their inboxes. Visitors to your website, who haven't yet experienced the value you're delivering in your messages, already get a ton of emails every day.
According to Marketing Sherpa's 2010 Email Marketing Benchmark Report, over 70% of email marketers surveyed by consider "competition with social media for recipients' time and attention" an important challenge for 2010.
If you're on the fence about using popular services like Twitter and Facebook, now's the time to test the waters. You may have existing customers on your email list, but social media instantly puts you in the presence of thousands of potential subscribers who are already spending their time on these social networking sites.
Word-of-mouth is one of the oldest and most powerful means of advertising, and email offers the perfect venue for suggesting it to your subscribers. If they're on your list and getting value from your messages, chances are they know others who would also benefit.
List building isn't easy. Demonstrating why someone should give you direct access to their inbox is hard work.
If your efforts don't take the above circumstances into consideration, try a few of our suggestions, then come back and tell us how they worked!
By: Inbox Ideas
On Thursday, November 25, we'll be eating turkey, seeing family, watching football, and generally enjoying the Thanksgiving holiday. Our support offices will be closed, but rest easy — the AWeber software is still coming to work Thursday. We'll be keeping an eye on it to make sure it doesn't try to take the day off, too ;)
We'll be back in the office at 8:00AM on Friday, November 26, so if you have any questions on Thursday email us and we'll get back to you then.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Source: Inbox Ideas
