Have You Optimized Your Messages for More Opens?

While working with customers to optimize their email campaigns, I reviewed A LOT of messages. As I was going through all them, I took notes on which ones performed well and I was able to identify some common threads.

Just like I was able to share strategies to get more subscribers and keep those subscribers on your list, I have some tips to help you improve your messages.

Before your subscribers even read your message, you have to convince them to open it. Let’s look at how you can do that…

Grab Their Attention With Your Subject Line

Out of all the emails in your subscribers’ inboxes, you need to make sure your email gets noticed. The subject line will need to get their attention and persuade them to look at the whole message- a big task for just one line.

Here are some ideas you can try out for your subject line:

Once you have tired out different subject lines, you can try split testing different versions of them. This will give you a better idea of what your approach really is.

Get Them to Open With Effective Snippets/ Preview Panes

Your subject line gets their attention, but some email programs will let you take it a step further by displaying more of your email. Make sure your emails are benefiting from this.

Some email clients do this by displaying a snippet. An example of an email client that does this is Gmail, so you can set up a free account and test your messages there. If you look at the example above you’ll see how some of the snippet text appears after the subject.

Other email clients will allow users to see a larger part of the email, otherwise known as a preview pane. You can utilize the power of snippets and preview panes by including compelling content at the top of your message.

To see how a preview pane can help, let’s take a look at how Furniture Crate handles this:

Notice they have the sale notice right at the top, a great way to get subscribers to scroll down.

Southern Plate uses just an image, but it works well for their recipe emails:

You just need to use whatever you think will convince your subscribers to keep reading.

Microsoft Outlook is one email client that uses preview panes, so check out your emails there or have a friend send you a screen shot of what they look like.

More Tips for Improving Your Messages

While you work on getting those opens, we’ll be working on a post that helps improve your message for what happens next.

Fill out the form below to join our blog newsletter and you’ll get the next optimization post right in your inbox.

We’ll also periodically send you the other email marketing tips we publish here. The blog newsletter goes out 2 times per week.

By: Email Marketing Tips

Announcing More Free Email Marketing Guides

Back in May, we introduced free email marketing guides for photographers, fitness centers and real estate agents. You provided some great feedback, including a good number of suggestions for new guides.

There were plenty of ideas for creating more industry guides, but there was also a need for guides that can help explain some advanced processes in email marketing.

So we welcome our newest addition, the Email Marketing Guides Library Page!

Here is what you’ll find there:

Industry Guides

No two business are the same, and a business that is selling a service will have different marketing strategies than a business selling a product. In order to make the most of your email marketing, you want to know the best practices for your industry.

We got your covered with our industry guides! For example:

The steady business of repeat customers can make or break a restaurant. It’s vital that you keep customers coming back.

So you serve delicious food and serve your diners gorgeously… but after they push back their chairs, grab a breath mint and walk out the door, there’s nothing more you can do.

Unless you market with email. Then you can entice them back.

Let us show you how.

Download Email Marketing For Restaurants

Other industry guides are available for:

• Fitness centers
• Wineries
• Churches
• Artists

• Bands
• Photographers
• Real estate agents

Check Out the Library of Guides

Instructional Guides

There are some techniques that are a little more advanced than just creating and sending a message. Perhaps you’ve been avoiding doing more with your campaign because you don’t know how or what you can do.

These new instructional guides can help with that:

If you check your open reports, you may notice that some of your subscribers haven’t opened a message from you in a very long time.

You’re not benefiting from their lack of response. Neither are they. And your delivery rate certainly isn’t

In this guide, you’ll learn how to reactivate the ones that can be saved (and how to “clean your list,” letting go of the ones you can’t).

Download How to Run a Reactivation Campaign

Other instructional guides include:

• Quality Assurance Checklist for Emails
• Segmenting Subscribers

• Web Form Split Testing
• Understanding Email Statistics

Check Out the Library of Guides

There’s Even More to Come

That’s right, we’ll continue to update this page with even more guides to help your email marketing.

We’d still love to hear your suggestions, so feel free to drop us a comment about what you would like to see on the page!

By: Email Marketing Tips

How to Send An Apology Email

When you spill the proverbial milk all over a marketing email, it can be tempting to hold your breath, cross your fingers and hope no one notices.

And since your audience is behind computer screens elsewhere, you probably won’t see many reactions (especially if they’re not on Twitter).

They’ll certainly notice some things; they may not notice (or care about) others. When do you play it safe and apologize? And when do you leave it alone?

Incorrect Info

This one’s a given. If you send out incorrect information, you’re going to have to set the record straight with an email like this one from Wawa:

Though you can certainly give your readers a way to respond by linking back to your site, your emphasis should be squarely on the correction. Since your original message has people operating under false information, corrections are best sent out as soon as possible.

Details Left Behind

It’s difficult to catch every little detail before sending out an email. Sometimes, missing one little detail can mean subscribers get a hugely different message from what you intended.

So it’s important that you fill in the blanks as soon as possible, like Shoo Foo does here:

Now, depending on how long your error went without being corrected and how deep of a discount you’re offering, you may want to consider adjusting the sale to run the way you advertised it.

If that’s not possible, make sure to communicate to subscribers how truly sorry you are for the inconvenience.

Tiny Typos

If you accidentally send a typo, it can be tempting to tell your readers that you caught it, like Shopify‘s first paragraph here. Not only does this help you recoup some dignity, it’s shows transparency, which can build trust in your company – your readers know you’re always giving them the straight story.

But there can be such a thing as too much transparency. No one needs to know every breath your business takes. If a mistake’s tiny enough that readers, if they noticed, wouldn’t care, it’s probably not worth wasting their time by calling it out.

Jokes Gone Wrong

April Fools Day can inspire all kinds of business-to-customer fun. Which, unfortunately, can result in all kinds of customer-to-business panic. Depending on the size of the uproar, you may want to quiet it with an email, like Dreamhost did.

Notice how their apology was tucked among other content in their newsletter? It’s likely that anyone extremely worried about the situation had already sought out the straight story. So this response isn’t urgent, but it does answer any lingering questions.

One more thing – in the case of a misunderstood joke, it’s important not to make anyone feel…less than intelligent. Dreamhost used silly humor; whatever approach you take should be just as gentle.

A Serious Slip-Up

Occasionally, you might really mess up and offer readers something they can’t actually get. Along with your regrets, you may want to send them something to make up for their disappointment, like Dot Perkins does here.

A word of caution, though: it’s poor taste to use apology emails to push an offer. If you’re including a discount or coupon in the message, make sure it’s significant enough to be appreciated. Otherwise, it may look like a poorly masked attempt to make sales.

So When Should You Send That Apology?

Ask yourself these two questions:

• Would subscribers be inconvenienced if I didn’t send an apology?
• Was it a bad enough mistake that I truly do owe them a heartfelt message of regret?

If you respond with a “yes” to either questions, then you’ve got your answer.

What Are You Sorry For?

Of course, we’re hoping you have nothing to be sorry for.

But we do all make mistakes. Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you needed to apologize to your subscribers?

How did you handle it?

Original: Email Marketing Tips

The Hipster Marketing Handbook

Hipsters. They’re elusive, yet they’re everywhere. They defy definition, but you can often tell when you’ve spotted one. They’re an American sub-culture of fashion stereotypes that embraces what’s obscure and makes it cool, and they have plenty of inspiration for email marketing.

Wait, what?

Being “hipster” is often described as a state of mind: An independent attitude, vintage style, a sense of irony. Believe it or not, these pillars of Hipsterdom can improve your email marketing in engaging your subscribers.

Here are four ways to draw some inspiration, whether you’re into labels or not:

Indie Cred

If there’s one thing hipsters are known for, it’s their love of independent art, music, film and fashion. The more obscure, the better. Building indie cred is the first step in forging your hipster identity.

You probably don’t want your email campaign cloaked in obscurity. Instead, take the idea of building “cred” and apply it to your reputation as an email sender. Sender reputation is the indie cred of email marketing and it’s not measured in vinyl. Reputation is influenced by your list, complaints and how well your subscribers know and trust you.

Email Marketing Take-Away:

Build a good reputation and keep it that way by cleaning up your list and engaging your subscribers with relevant content.

Vintage Trends

For the hipster, Grandma’s closet is the cutting edge of fashion. It’s all about the vintage.

Vintage can also be the cutting edge of marketing. Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter offer new and interesting ways to start conversations with your audience, but email is still the best way to build relationships that keep the conversation going.

The Be Relevant! blog indicates that email’s effectiveness is a matter of a passive versus active audience. Someone who takes the time to deliberately request information from you by filling out your web form is already more engaged in your brand than the passive Facebook “liker.”

Email Marketing Take-Away:

Integration with new media is good, but don’t abandon what works for you just to follow the next new trend. Sometimes old but proven is most effective.

A Sense of Irony

You don’t need a pair of horn rimmed glasses to embrace a hipster’s sense of irony. In your campaign, irony can mean doing things that might go against traditional marketing sense.

Smart Insights recently debunked standard advice on subject line length, the best time to send emails and what to do with inactive subscribers. What works well for one marketer might not make sense for your own campaign.

Could sending a plain text message grab your subscribers’ attention better than HTML? Or improve your reputation with a prominent unsubscribe link? Some marketers think so. The point is to test and do what makes sense for your subscribers, which may not always follow intuitive advice.

Email Marketing Take-Away:

Doing what makes sense for your campaign sometimes means going against popular advice. Use tested methods that bring you success, which might not always follow expert opinion.

Living in the Moment

A part of the hipster mindset is being present in the moment, living in the here and now. There’s not much thought for the future, it’s all about being here today.

Kind of like your subscribers.

Your subscribers’ time is valuable, leading to an emphasis on relevancy in your emails. Send content that matters to them to keep them engaged once you’ve captured their attention. We’ve offered some advice in the past on ways to keep your emails timely.

Relevance can increase loyalty and trust. The more you can offer content that speaks to your subscribers’ needs and interests, the more responsive they will be with their valuable time.

Email Marketing Take-Away:

Relevance and timeliness equal valuable content. Your subscribers are living in the moment, and so should your emails if you want to keep them engaged.

Going Mainstream

If you want to put a label on it, being hipster in your email marketing is about reputation, relationships, relevance and sometimes bucking trends to do what works.

Do you stick to the mainstream in your own campaigns or take a more indie-inspired approach? What works best for you?

Original: Email Marketing Tips

AWeber Drupal Module Adds Opt-In Forms to Your Drupal Site

Web forms are a crucial part of any email marketing campaign. Without a form, you couldn’t build your mailing list in the first place.

In most cases, creating and installing a web form is simplicity itself. However, when using a Content Management System (CMS), you may want to work with plugins or modules specifically designed for that platform rather than editing raw HTML.

We’ve got you covered, Drupal fans! Today, we’re proud to announce the AWeber Web Form module for Drupal, using the AWeber API to add signup forms to your Drupal site. Keep reading to get the module running on your site in just a few steps.

What’s Drupal Anyway?

If you’re already familiar with Drupal and just want to get the module installed, just scroll down to the step by step instructions below or take a look at our knowledge base.

If you aren’t familiar with Drupal, it is a CMS often used to build websites. Drupal is an open source project with a wide range of modules like ours available to cater to website owners’ needs.

If you’re interested in learning more about Drupal and how to use it, you can get started on Drupal’s website.

Step By Step Instructions

Note that you will need to have already created your list and a web form on that list before using the Drupal module to add that form to your Drupal site. Also note that this module is made for use with Drupal 7, so you may want to check your version number if you’re having problems.

1. Download the module here.

   Download Module

2. You can unzip and install the module manually by uploading the folder to the /sites/all/modules/ directory in your Drupal install (consult Drupal’s help for more information about installing contributed modules).
3. Log into your Drupal admin, then click the Modules button at the top of the page.



4. Scroll to the bottom of the page and find the “AWeber Web Form” module, then check the “Enabled” box and hit the “Save configuration” button.

   

5. Next, click the Configuration button at the top of the page.

   

6. Here, click “AWeber Drupal” under the Content Authoring section.

   

7. To authorize the connection between your Drupal site and your AWeber account, click the link below the Authorization Key box.

   

   You’ll be taken to a new page where we’ll prompt you enter your AWeber login information and click Allow Access.

   

   Copy the code from the box that appears -

   

   - and paste it into the Authorization Key box back in Drupal, then hit “Authorize.”

   

8. Then, just select the list you’d like subscribers to be added to.

   

   And finally, choose the web form that you would like to add to your Drupal site and hit “Save”.

   

9. Finally, to actually have the form appear, click the Structure button at the top of the page.

   

   Here, click “Blocks”.

   

   On this page, scroll down until you see “AWeber Web Form,” then use the drop down menu to choose where you would like the form to appear.

   

More Integrations to Come!

If you’re a follower of our blog, you may have already seen us talk about some of our previous integrations, such as Facebook, WordPress and Unbounce.

We’re always looking for more services to integrate with, so if you have a favorite, speak up!

Also, if you or someone you know is a developer, take a look at AWeber Labs, home of the AWeber API, and get started on your very own apps and integrations today.

Origin: Email Marketing Tips

Losing Subscribers? 3 Ways to Keep Them From Leaving!

If you have people unsubscribing from your list at about the same speed you’re getting new ones, then your list isn’t going to grow. Fortunately, there are things you can do to fix that.

After I worked with customers to optimize their email campaigns, I was able to put together a list of effective email marketing tactics. I’ve already shared tips for getting more subscribers, but that was only the beginning. Now the focus turns to keeping those subscribers on your list.

In the hundreds of campaigns I’ve looked at, I’ve found three strategies that will help keep subscribers on your mailing list.

Set Expectations

We’ve stressed the importance of setting subscriber expectations plenty of times before and there is a reason why- it works. I noticed campaigns with high subscriber retention all explain what the subscriber will be getting right from the start. When subscribers understand what’s going on, they are less likely to unsubscribe or complain.

Here’s how you can set expectations:

• Start with your web form
  
  The web form is where the sign up process begins, so you need to do a good job explaining what the potential subscriber will get for entering their information.

  Check your form and make sure it lets subscribers know what they’re signing up for. You want to detail what you’ll be sending them and how often they can expect to receive messages from you.

• Have subscribers confirm
  
  The confirmation message is sent immediately after the subscriber submits their information. You can customize the confirmation message so the subscriber knows what’s going on, and what to do next.

  A previous blog post included examples of effective confirmation messages, so you can take a look at those before you start your own.

• Welcome new subscribers

  After subscribers have signed up and confirmed, it’s time to welcome and remind them what they signed up for.

  The welcome message should reiterate what you’ll be sending them, how often they’ll be receiving messages and what they can do if they ever want to stop getting your messages.

• Assess and re-assess your campaign

  After you have set expectations you need to periodically assess your campaign to make sure you are following the guidelines you’ve set.

  For example, if you said you’d be sending twice a week, make sure that’s what you’re doing.

As long as you stick to the expectations you set, you shouldn’t have any subscribers leaving your list due to misunderstanding. However, there are still a couple other things you can do to increase retention.

Create Brand Loyalty

When people begin to associate your brand with positive things, they’ll stick to you.

Everything that comes in contact with your subscribers should have your brand represented. Subject lines can be branded by including your company name in them, and messages can be branded by putting your logo at the top like this example:

Keep in mind that whenever you interact with subscribers and customers, you’ll be creating opinions about your brand. Zappos, for example, has successfully associated their brand with superior customer service. Same goes for AWeber.

Pay Attention to Subscriber Behavior

If someone purchases something from you, they are more likely to purchase from you again.

Keeping this is mind, AWeber allows you to track who’s opening messages and who’s clicking on links.

Setting up analytics will take this one step further. You’ll be able to track sales, clicks through your site even if that URL wasn’t specifically in your message and downloads.

Tracking subscriber activity allows you to use their information to send more personalized messages by sending to segments. Sending messages that are more personalized will help encourage subscribers to remain on your list.

You might also want to consider setting up subscriber preferences right at sign up.

IKEA is a good example of this:

Giving subscribers the option to enter more detailed information about who they are and what they’re looking for will allow you to create messages relevant to what they need.

If you want to learn subscriber preferences right away, you can set up custom fields in your web form and use that information for segmenting, or even to place the subscriber in the appropriate list.

You’re on Your Way!

Using these tips to keep subscribers on your list along with the tips to get more subscribers, will help make your list grow faster. There’s more to come though, so be on the lookout for the next optimization post that will have tips on how to improve your messages.

Fill out the form below to join our blog newsletter and you’ll get the next optimization post right in your inbox.

We’ll also periodically send you the other email marketing tips we publish here. The blog newsletter goes out 2 times per week.

By: Email Marketing Tips

Support Hours – Independence Day 2011

AWeber’s customer support offices will be closed on Monday, July 4th 2011 for the Independence Day holiday.

As always, we’ll be keeping an eye on things to address any critical issues.

We’ll be here on Saturday the 2nd and Sunday the 3rd from 9:00AM until 5:00PM EDT to answer your questions by email and live text chat, and we’ll return on Tuesday the 5th at 8:00AM EDT.

Thanks, and have a great holiday!

Source: Email Marketing Tips