Email Uplers

A Deep Dive into ‘SFMC Automation Studio’ – Part 1

Fri, 15 Jan 2021 08:39:05 GMT

This article is the first article in the series of articles dedicated to Automation Studio within Salesforce Marketing Cloud. Automation Studio has also been covered briefly in the previous blog post here. This series is intended to cover the Automation Studio within Salesforce Marketing Cloud in detail.

Automation Studio is a Salesforce Marketing Cloud feature or tool or application used to perform activities like:

Filtering data
Importing data from Secure STP locations
Segmenting data
Preparing data for Journey Builder
Data management activities
Scheduling the activities for immediate or future time period
Any kind of batch processing

This list is a sample list, and the automation studio has more use cases than enumerated here. We can say Automation Studio is the tool that performs the automation in a batch form or one-time format of various heavy-duty activities within Salesforce Marketing Cloud. It serves the purpose of the ETL (Extract Transform & Load) tool within Marketing Cloud.

Implementing Automation studio sometimes requires the knowledge of SQL in certain scenarios, hence, this feature is more apt for roles like System Admin, IT Managers, Developers, etc. However, marketers can also use the Automation Studio for some use cases like Filter activity, Email send, etc., and it’s always good to understand the technology.

Use Case or Scenarios

Use cases help you to apply Automation Studio most appropriately. So, let’s check out some:

Import and merge the customer data: Customer’s dataset – with data like products purchased information, customer preferences and opt-outs – resides in three different external systems. This dataset needs to be brought into Marketing Cloud to run campaigns. This can be resolved with the following approach.

There will be three activities used here:

Import the files from three external systems via File import activity in Automation studio.
Use SQL query activity to transform and combine the data from three different tables into a single table with only relevant fields.
Push the resulting dataset into a single table and then use it to run campaigns.

Flag to gauge the interest of the subscribers: If you want to understand the usage of a coupon code, and feel that it has been utilized below a certain level, you must send an email to your subscribers. This can be resolved with the following approach, which involves two types of activities:

Import file activity will be used to import the coupon codes from external systems into Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Post that, Verification activity will be used to trigger an email to the identified email address if the unclaimed coupon code is less than a certain number.

Automation Studio modules

This section will detail the various features/tabs within Automation Studio that will help to understand the details of Automation Studio.

Activities – Activities are the building blocks for any automation. Activities perform specific tasks or actions like extracting the data or transferring the data. One or more than one activity can be clubbed in a flow to create a single Automation. Activities can be clubbed in the following fashion:

Parallel or single-step activities: Stacking the activities in parallel or within the same step makes them run in a single step before moving onto the next steps.

Serial or multi-step activities: Activities can be designed in multiple serial steps and they will be processed serially, i.e., one after the other.

There are multiple types of Activities within Automation Studio. Here are some:

Email send
File import
Filter
Wait
Verification
Others

We will be covering each activity in detail in the upcoming articles along with specific use cases.

Scheduled Automation – This is a recurring automation that can be configured within Automation Studio. This can be set with a specified frequency of hourly, daily, weekly, monthly and yearly sends.

Scheduled Automation can also be used to run the automation with a single frequency, i.e., for manual runs.

Use case: You want to send birthday emails daily. Scheduled Automation is configured to run daily and uses the customer’s birthday data list. Then, automation uses Email activity to send emails to the relevant customers.

Triggered Automation – This automation is triggered in nature, i.e., it gets initiated as soon as a file with specified pattern name or with specific file pattern is dropped on the Enhanced FTP folder. This is different from scheduled automation as it allows you the flexibility to initiate the automation on a non-regular basis, i.e., when there is a file drop from an external system.

Use case: Let’s consider the same birthday use case.. Based on the definition, as soon as the file is placed on Enhanced FTP, the automation should get initiated and then it should send the birthday emailer to the relevant customers.

Automation – This is the overarching automation feature that makes use of all the previous features and then creates an automation based on the use case. It has a blank canvas to design the automation based on the use case and you can then use the click & drag features like scheduled or triggered automation, various Activities to fill the design canvas. You can design the Activities by grouping them in steps so that you can manage them effectively.

Automation also allows features like:

Summary – This tab displays the summary of the automation activities, recent activities, and basic details like name, external key, etc.

Workflow – This tab shows the design of the automation, including the scheduled or triggered automation and all the activities used in the automation.

Activity – This tab displays the health status of the past automation runs and the other details relevant to it. It also has an option to send the notifications of job’s success or failure to the relevant people like IT managers, Admins, etc.

Run logs of all automation activities are visible and the feature allows you to filter based on the date ranges, status (errors, success, all, completed, In progress). This tab also provides the option to stop a running automation.

Health chart gives a glimpse of Success percentage, Error percentage and the Average time for completion of jobs.

Wrap up

Automation studio is an essential tool within the Salesforce Marketing Cloud platform. It does the heavy lifting of data along with its slicing & dicing. In this article, we learnt about the Automation Studio basics, the relevant use cases, and the various components of Automation Studio like activities & types of automations.

In the upcoming article, we will be covering the key activities in detail within Automation Studio along with their use case. It will also cover the detailed steps to execute the Activities in Automation Studio.
For a detailed understanding of Automation Studio, Please visit the link.

The post A Deep Dive into ‘SFMC Automation Studio’ – Part 1 appeared first on Email Uplers.

This Valentine’s Day Reach For Your Customers’ Hearts, Not Inboxes

Thu, 14 Jan 2021 01:00:02 GMT

No sooner the tinsel décor of Christmas and New Year comes down than it’s time to paint the town red with hues of love. With people seeking to express their love and gratitude to their significant others and loved ones through gifts and special gestures, Valentine’s Day presents a mega retail opportunity. According to the National Retail Federation, Valentine’s Day spending in the year 2020 touched the $27.4 billion mark, coming a close second to Black Friday shopping!

Of course, this is a seize-the-day kind of a break for businesses across the board. Yes, Valentine’s day gift-giving has long surpassed the stereotype of cards, flowers, and chocolates. Today, anyone from retail businesses to B2Bs and even nonprofits have ample scope to cash in on the spirit of love.

But with nearly every business in every industry vertical trying to woo customers, how do you say ‘will you be mine?’ in a way that your buyers won’t be able to say no to? Well, leveraging the hottest email marketing trends to craft promotional messages that tug at your audience’s heartstrings is certainly an approach you can bank on.

10 Ways to Create Inspired Valentine’s Day Campaigns

Any occasion centered on gift-exchange is a great business opportunity for retail businesses, be it eCommerce or brick and mortar. Valentine’s Day is no exception to that norm. The effectiveness of email marketing in driving up sales during such times cannot be overstated with its personalized nature, wide outreach, and high ROI.

But not all emails are created equal. To make your subscriber’s heart skip a beat with your offers, you have to nail the messaging, visuals, and CTAs, all at once. Here are 10 ideas that will help you create Valentine’s Day campaigns that inspire engagement:

1.Catch ‘em early

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A report suggests that unlike birthdays or Christmas, people don’t plan their Valentine’s Day shopping much in advance. A sizeable 46% of buyers begin their shopping process in early February. Naturally then, most businesses time their V-Day email campaigns to coincide with this timeframe.

You can beat your competitors to the punch by launching a pre-Valentine’s Day sale, just like the one launched by Simple Canvas Prints, and give your sales some momentum by catching some early birds who like to plan ahead. Some lucrative discounts and special offers that are thrown into the mix along with a countdown timer, will give your subscribers just the right nudge to explore your products and make a purchase.

2. Personalize it

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Personalization has emerged as a key factor driving customer experience in the present times. From personalized services to customized products, a touch that makes buyers feel that a brand is speaking solely and exclusively to them can prove to be a driving force for engagement. Even more so on an occasion where people want to make their loved ones feel special and appreciated.

That’s why pitching customized gift items is a surefire way of making your subscribers sit up and take notice of your offerings. Uncommon Goods nails that brief in this Valentine’s Day email with a quirky headline and a handpicked selection of some of their best-customized gifts.

3. Craft a story

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MilkBook, a brand that customizes photo books and albums, has taken a rather offbeat path to pitch their services to their subscribers for Valentine’s Day. Rather than just promote products, the focus here is to strike a chord with the reader by talking about a shared experience – that of the Coronavirus pandemic that disrupted all of our lives in some way or the other.

They’ve astutely woven into the narrative how the brand helped create smiles and happy memories even during this tough time, followed by a soft nudge to place Valentine’s Day orders well in time with a simple yet impactful line – ‘Our handcrafted photo books & albums take time to create.’ By making their products seem aspirational and instilling in the reader some real FOMO, this brand sets an example for clever email marketing.

4. It’s okay to not paint the inboxes red

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Hearts, red monochromes, roses, and all things symbolizing love become so ubiquitous around this time of the year that breaking away from these tried-and-tested visuals may well be your best chance at getting noticed.

Take this Valentine’s Day recommendations email from Hulu, for instance. Instead of going all red and mushy on their readers, they have taken a less beaten path to capitalize the trending dark mode to create their promotional email. With a GIF of a bright fluorescent green heart throbbing in the center, this email has immense potential of getting noticed and driving engagement. It does so by simply standing out in a sea of red hues.

5. Illustrations are endearing

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Custom illustrations have remained a raging trend in the world of email marketing from 2019 through 2020, and it’s likely to remain that way in 2021 as well. The reason why this visual element has become so popular is that these stick figures have an endearing, almost heart-melting, quality. So why not leverage these when appealing to your customers’ hearts is what you’re aiming for.

Restaurant recommendation app, Resy, shows us how illustrations can be used simply yet impactfully to create engaging emails. This promotional Valentine’s Day email has a clean, clutter-free design meant to celebrate the one focal visual element – the illustration of a date.

6. Get GIF-FY

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Speaking on email trends that contribute to crafting stellar messaging time after time, the impactful GIFs just cannot be left out. This email by marketing agency AWeber is proof that holidays like Valentine’s Day aren’t just a gold mine of sales opportunities for retail businesses but also B2B operators.

Notice how smartly they’ve used an eye-catching, ‘hearty’ GIF to pitch their GIFs for businesses to use in their Valentine’s Day emails. The crisp and pointed message also makes it easier to process and engage with the email.

7. Don’t forget the singles

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Valentine’s Day may be a celebration of love but there are a lot of singles out there too. It’d be a mistake to miss out on this sizable population of singles or those nursing a freshly broken heart in your email marketing campaign. So, use those data insights from your CRM to good use to segment your user base based on their relationship status, and create a separate email campaign for the unattached.

This email from the meditation app, Calm, making a case for self-love and care is a fitting example of how you can connect with this segment of your user base or target audience to optimize engagement this Valentine’s Day.

8. Look beyond romantic love

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Even though pop culture may make it appear so, Valentine’s Day is not just a celebration of romantic love. Statistics indicate that people also tend to buy gifts for their family members, co-workers, friends, and pets as an expression of their love and gratitude. It’d be an oversight to not factor in these shopping needs in your email marketing campaigns. If you’re a jewelry brand, for instance, you may want to curate pointed emails pitching products for a potential buyer’s mother, sister, friend, daughter, granddaughter, besides their wife or girlfriend. Case in point: this email by The Bradford Exchange pitching handcrafted jewelry for granddaughters.

9. Pepper your subject lines with love

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Your subject line is the gateway to the success of your email campaigns. After all, you cannot hope to drive leads and conversion from unopened emails. While there is no magic formula to create subject lines that will motivate people to open your Valentine’s Day emails, you can surely improve your odds by focusing on grabbing eyeballs long enough to garner intrigue.

Creating targeted subject lines that convey the context yet evoke curiosity is a reliable way of crafting subject lines that generate more hits than misses. Take, for example, this subject line by Paper Source – Love Is in the Air (Shop New Arrivals!) – which captures that mood of the season and tells the recipient what’s on offer in a single glance.

10. Court growth

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To expand the outreach of your email marketing campaign, you have to press the pedal on your acquisition initiatives. This Valentine’s Day, readjust your focus from what you can offer your customers to what they can offer you – referrals and signups! Your email outreach can grow exponentially if your subscribers share your newsletter with their contacts.

So, why not give them an incentive to do so and make it a win-win. You can draw inspiration from this personalized campaign created by Ritual where they take their subscribers on a trip down memory lane before asking them for referrals. And of course, sweetening the deal with a bonus offer.

The Takeaway

Understanding and preempting your target audience’s needs can give your email marketing initiatives a competitive edge. To create campaigns that drive better engagement and higher conversions, you need to address your users’ needs in a manner that resonates with them. The choice of email templates, color palettes, visuals, and interactive elements all play a crucial role in making your Valentine’s Day emails stand out from the crowd and leave a mark on the readers’ minds. From GIFs that your subscribers will remember you for to engaging interactive elements, our experts can cherry-pick the best-suited elements to help you with designing and coding stunning Valentine’s Day emails.

The post This Valentine’s Day Reach For Your Customers’ Hearts, Not Inboxes appeared first on Email Uplers.

A Guide to Effective Email Marketing for the Pharma Industry

Wed, 13 Jan 2021 07:17:05 GMT

With the COVID-19 pandemic continuing to create havoc worldwide, the Pharma sector is in a great position to make a real and lasting difference to humanity – and generate a positive reputation for itself. Email marketing is an effective way to do both in a non-intrusive yet personalized way.

In late 2019, the average email open and click-through rates for the Pharma industry were 18.58% and 2.25% respectively. By mid-2020, the open rate was up to 21%, while the click-through rate was 8.94%. In fact, the open rate for Pharma was slightly above the average open rate across all industries. And in 2020, email was the top modality (44% in June, up to 60% in July) for pharma-to-physician communications.

All these numbers clearly indicate that Pharma email marketing works. Period.

Pharma email marketing is a powerful medium for communication, information-sharing, and engagement, particularly if implemented as part of a multichannel marketing approach. But this requires marketers to focus on a few key strategies.

In this guide, we will cover 5 strategies that can empower Pharma companies to deliver value to their audience through email marketing while boosting the value of brands in a post-COVID world.

Why Pharma Companies Need Email Marketing

Traditionally, pharmaceutical companies have relied on sales reps to initiate contact with physicians and healthcare professionals (HCPs). But lockdowns and social distancing norms due to COVID-19 have reshaped the role of reps and other face-to-face communication. With a well-thought-out, well-designed email marketing campaign, they can share important information with HCPs, and also acknowledge, encourage, and support them with their ongoing frontline efforts.

But the general public is also a wonderful potential audience for pharma email marketing. The pandemic has generated panic, fear, and worry among them. Plus, they are looking for relevant and timely information from credible sources. Email marketing provides a powerful means for disseminating information related to the pandemic, preventive measures, medicines, treatment methods, vaccines, etc., and for delivering humane-centric messaging to raise morale and avoid panic.

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5 Powerful Strategies for Effective Pharma Email Marketing

With email marketing, your Pharma company can reach your audience in an engaging manner and nurture deeper, one-to-one relationships that will endure long after the pandemic is over.

#1. Personalize every email

Personalization is the key to standing out in the inboxes of a distracted and impatient audience. And this is especially important for the Pharma industry since they also need to get past the avalanche of “fake news” in the wake of COVID-19.

With personalization, each recipient – whether it’s HCPs or consumers – feels as if they are being personally addressed. They also feel like they are talking directly to another human being, which encourages them to open, click-through, and even reply to emails.

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What parts of the email can be personalized? Virtually every part!

Subject line
Content blocks
Offers or discounts
Specific information relevant to that consumer
CTA links or buttons

Today, email personalization can be done very easily with the right Email Service Provider (ESP), even better – an automation platform or CRM. And do remember that personalization does not mean infringing on subscribers’ privacy. Just maintain a balance!

#2. Engage with great content

Too often, Pharma companies send long emails with too much content and/or too many links. Create valuable content so that it fits into the audience’s busy schedule and meets their needs. Address their issues and make it more engaging with visually enticing graphical elements. Also, use relevant headlines for each section, and break up large chunks of text with bulleted lists, infographics, or text boxes.

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Create relevant, short, and engaging subject lines that will capture the attention of your recipients, and encourage them to open each email.

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If you have already produced content for your website or blog, and know which content resonates with your audience, you can repurpose content for your email campaigns.

Content should promote the brand’s trustworthiness and thought leadership, and coax the reader to connect with it. Wherever appropriate, it should also provide a strong call for action – at least one in every email so the reader knows exactly what is expected of them.

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The CTA doesn’t have to be “sales-y”; it could be something as simple as downloading a white paper or registering for a webinar.

Other great content ideas for Pharma emails:

Short videos or interviews from reliable professionals
Unique and verified advice
Case studies and evidence-based insights (especially for HCPs)

#3. Manage deliverability

Email deliverability is a key success factor for Pharma email marketing. If few recipients actually open your emails or click on links within them, it indicates a deliverability problem which usually happens because the email landed in the recipient’s Spam folder, or because their email address itself is invalid. With poor deliverability, you lose on massive opportunities for subscriber engagement, information-sharing, and brand-building.

While organically creating a list is an important email marketing best practice, subscriber segmentation is a good way to ensure that the right email is sent to the right person. More importantly, when an HCP or patient sees an email that’s relevant to them, they are more likely to open it. Segmentation can also help to “optimize” send times in order to send emails at a time when subscribers are most likely to open them. Some ESPs, like Salesforce Marketing Cloud include a “send time optimization” feature, which can increase email opens and click-throughs.

Good content, interesting subject lines, and high-quality visuals can also help increase deliverability, and so can “real-time” emails, i.e. emails that are personalized based on each opener’s personal context the moment it is opened.

It’s important to ensure that the email does not include any spammy words like “free”, “prize”, or “$$$”. Otherwise, emails will be caught by spam-filtering software and land straight in the recipient’s Spam folder. Try these ideas:

Use your ESP to scan email content to identify and remove words, phrases, and patterns that could trigger spam filters
Always ask recipients to whitelist your email address
Ensure that all email addresses in your list are real and valid. Prune your list regularly
Never use deceptive subject lines
Always use clear from field names like newsletter@yourcompany.com
Warm up your IPs before launching your campaign

#4. Optimize for mobile

In 2019, mobile was the most popular reading environment, accounting for 42% of all email opens among the general public. Moreover, HCPs are particularly busy individuals, which is why studies have found that 60% of physicians read email primarily on their Smartphones. This is why it’s important for Pharma email campaigns to focus on the mobile experience for both HCPs and the general public.

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Here are some tips to create mobile-ready Pharma email templates:

Reuse pre-built mobile templates and content modules to save time
Break the email body into small, easily readable chunks of text
Use italics, bold, and bulleted text
Highlight the most important elements in the email
Test all images, buttons, and links to ensure that nothing is broken
Simplify scrolling and navigation
Place the most important content (or CTA) above the fold
Use short subject lines and pre-header text to entice readers to open the email
Create browser-agnostic emails

#5. Always do A/B testing before final sends

A/B testing can be a game-changer in current COVID-influenced times. By trying out different templates for your email campaigns, you can bring greater innovation and freshness into your communications and retain the interest of your subscribers.

You can do A/B testing for different elements, including:

Subject line: length, word order, word choice
Content: length, tone, layout
Images and visuals
Personalization: subject line, salutation, body copy, offers
Call to action: button vs link, action type, word placement

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You can also test for:

From name
Headline
Links in copy (e.g. social media)
Closing text
Send time
Text-based vs graphics-based templates

To get the most accurate results, test one element at a time, and as large a sample as possible. Also, follow this robust process:

Define a hypothesis about why a particular variation might perform better than the other
Create the email template variations in your ESP
Choose the subscriber lists to send each version to, and the size of your test groups
Select the relevant performance metric (open rate, total unique clicks, total clicks on a selected link, revenues earned, etc) and run the test
Monitor the results and compare them to the selected metric(s)

A final word

The Coronavirus outbreak has escalated the demand for high-quality, relevant, and timely email marketing communications. Pharma companies that invest time and effort into designing and deploying useful emails will see an impact on their brand value, even after the pandemic is over. If you are part of a Pharma company, we hope these five strategies enable you to reshape your brand’s email marketing approach.

At Email Uplers, we have supported numerous premium brands implement memorable email campaigns, and would love to assist you as well. To discuss your project, get in touch with us.

The post A Guide to Effective Email Marketing for the Pharma Industry appeared first on Email Uplers.

5 Proven Design Practices to Make Your SFMC Email Campaigns Shine

Mon, 11 Jan 2021 13:37:31 GMT

How do I create my next email template in Salesforce Marketing Cloud?

It’s pretty straightforward: collect email addresses, segment your subscriber list, create personalized content, set up testing and post-campaign analytics, and let ‘em rip!

Right?

Not exactly!

All these steps are undoubtedly important. But it’s also critical to pay attention to another essential part of the process: email template design.

With a host of intuitive creation tools, built-in Salesforce email templates, intelligent predictive AI (Einstein), plus numerous powerful capabilities – Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC) makes it easy to create memorable, 1-to-1 emails. In this guide, we will focus on the design aspects of SFMC email marketing, and show you how you can enhance your email’s designs. So whether you are a Salesforce Marketing Cloud consultant, email marketing specialist or a newbie designer, get ready to explore these tips. Your next email adventure awaits!

The Critical Elements of a Great Email Design

Why is email design important?

No matter how great your content or how timely your campaign, if your design is not impressive, your entire campaign can fail. Your recipients are busy, impatient and distracted, so if your email’s design doesn’t impress them, they may simply ignore or delete your message.

To capture the attention of your audience, your email design must be engagement-worthy. This means it must be:

Visually appealing
Contain easy-to-read copy, thoughtful images, and an intuitive layout
Consistent with the brand’s aesthetics and values
Easy to navigate, read, and understand
Perfectly synced with other email elements (e.g. content)

5 Best Practices to Make Your SFMC Email Campaigns Shine

So how can you create kick-ass email designs that deliver value to your subscribers and ensure rich rewards for you?

Here are 5 of our favorite best practices – all tried-and-tested and verified by the email experts at Uplers!!

1. Choose your colors wisely

Email marketing offers some amazing opportunities to go wild with colors. But don’t go too wild – your email’s legibility depends on it! Choose complementary colors, preferably those that match your overall brand’s colors (website, logo, marketing collaterals, etc.). Also make sure that your text and colors don’t clash. Avoid “vibrating” colors or colors with low visibility that hurt your readers’ eyes and stop them from opening your emails.

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Your audience may consist of several color-blind subscribers, or subscribers with some other visual challenges. So always choose colors that don’t reduce their visibility.

Other color tips:

Choose complementary and contrasting colors for text and background
- Use dark-colored text against a white (or other light) background for the email body
- Use white (or other light) text on a darker color for a CTA button

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Test that your email colors are visible to all people with a free tool like Are My Colours Accessible?
Test drive differently-colored emails with A/B testing

2. Don’t over-experiment with fonts

It’s also important to choose the right fonts for two reasons: to ensure that text renders correctly on your reader’s device, and to ensure that they can actually read it!

As far as possible, choose “web-safe” fonts like Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica or Times New Roman because they usually render correctly across the web and all kinds of devices. If you have an established email marketing design team, or are working with an expert Salesforce Marketing Cloud consultant or experienced email marketing expert, you can experiment with other fonts. But you should still avoid using cursive, curly-q fonts. Legibility is the key.

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3. Add ALT text to images and buttons

When working on email design, it’s easy to forget about ALT text. But if you do, some of your readers will simply see a blank space where a button or image is supposed to be. Adding ALT text will enable your subscribers to understand what they’re reading, even if the HTML doesn’t render properly or if their email client blocks images by default. ALT text will also guide them towards a particular action, e.g. “Read More”, “Click here” or “Buy Now”.

Add ALT text to every image, link and button in every email. If you have created landing pages, hyperlink this text to these pages.

4. Plan your template’s layout and pick the right elements (engaging GIFs, fun illustrations, etc.)

Consider using a modular framework for each type of email message. Determine if one Salesforce email template with different modules will fit all your needs, or if you need different templates for different emails.

In addition to bright, cheerful colors (that match your brand), graphics, photos and other visuals can make your email engaging. For example, GIFs can be a fun way to catch the eye of your audience. Combine a GIF with useful, relevant content to give users a compelling reason to click on a button. You can also create a GIF of your website or a product demo to create curiosity or intrigue.

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Use interactive elements in your email to raise the “oomph” factor, such as:

Countdown timers
Video

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Accordion menus
Image carousels
Maps
Quizzes
Live polls
Image/button rollovers

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Illustrations are also a good way to maintain your reader’s attention all the way to the bottom of the email. Add an illustration next to each content section to break up the monotony and enhance the email’s look-and-feel. You can also incorporate branded images to give your brand more of a personality, and to generate greater brand recognition and recall.

Organize your layout with user experience (UX) in mind:

Check if the layout looks cluttered, especially on mobile
Strategically organize all written and visual content so the email is easy to navigate and consume
Leave empty/white space throughout the email

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Check that no sections of the copy are cut off

Whatever graphical elements you use, make sure they have a “purpose”. Your template should not contain too many animated GIFs or interactive elements. It should also not contain any auto-play audio elements. Add context and interest through photographs. But avoid stock photography that doesn’t align with your message, brand or subscriber. Appeal to subscribers’ emotions and communicate functionality.

5. Polish your CTA

Distinguish your call to action through colors, text choice and correct placement. It should clearly stand out from the rest of the copy. It should also be clear and unambiguous so the reader quickly understands what action you need them to take:

Buy a product
Sign up for a service or subscription
Take advantage of a sale, special offer or limited-time discount
Download a resource
Recommend the brand to a friend

Don’t be afraid to use multiple CTAs throughout your email, especially if the different prompted actions are all closely related, and meet the email’s main goal. You can also include the same CTA more than once.

Other CTA best practices:

Position one clear CTA at the top of the email, with additional CTAs in the remainder of the body.

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Add a CTA above the fold for maximum eyeballs and engagement.
Make sure that the contrast between the CTA text and background color is high enough to be easily legible.

Some more “big picture” ideas

We hope these five ideas inspire you to develop and design beautiful emails that your subscribers love. To wrap up this guide, here are some more design best practices to build a successful email campaign:

Incorporate vivid visuals that connect with your brand’s persona
Test all colors, fonts, images and CTA buttons/links to make sure the email renders correctly across platforms and devices
Also test it without images to see what your email looks like with a weak connection
Don’t overcomplicate the design
Create mobile-optimized emails so they look great on any device and for every email client

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(iPhone X)

Maintain consistent look and feel so it’s easy to identify any email as your brand’s content
Add a clearly visible unsubscribe button or link

Finally, a great email design always focuses on readability. To make sure that your email is readable:

Divide it into bulleted text and sections
Each section should follow a logical flow
Include spacing between text and white spacing between text and graphical elements
Keep sentences short
Place your most important content at the top

To know more about perfectly-designed Salesforce email templates and how they can take your brand’s value into the stratosphere, talk to us!

The post 5 Proven Design Practices to Make Your SFMC Email Campaigns Shine appeared first on Email Uplers.

How to Create Abandoned Cart Workflow using Klaviyo’s In-built Editor

Mon, 11 Jan 2021 08:26:07 GMT

Abandoned cart emails are quite crucial & important for eCommerce business to have regular flow of revenue and also to make sure you don’t miss any chance to convert. Abandoned cart is a flow / series of HTML email templates sent to records who have added products in the cart, but haven’t completed the purchase.

Not all the abandoned carts are intentional. There can be many reasons why someone abandons the cart – either they weren’t able to complete the purchase before the session got expired, their credit card information wasn’t right, etc. Whatever may be the reason behind leaving the website without making a purchase, very often it isn’t because they are not interested in the products. Most brands today have started creating separate cart abandonment flows for customers vs non-customers to avoid promoting discounts to customers who are already aware of your products & services.

Migrate Abandoned cart from eCommerce to Email Marketing Platform:

Nowadays, most of the eCommerce platforms provide abandoned cart automation. For example, if you use Shopify or Magento – It provides Magento / Shopify cart abandonment automation. However, for better customization, segmentation, and dynamic automation, you need to customize the content of emails, add more than one business email template, etc.

In Klaviyo, you can create customized cart abandonment automation – add branches in the flow, customize the content of emails, add series of emails, delays, etc.

However, you need to make sure to switch off the automation in eCommerce platforms once you have the flow Switched on in the ESP (Klaviyo).

Building Cart-Abandonment Workflow

To create cart-abandonment flow in Klaviyo, you need to go to the Flows tab and then click on the Browse Ideas button.

Here, you can choose from a number of pre-built flows offered in the Flow Library, or create a flow from scratch. For building Cart abandonment Flow, Click on Abandoned Cart Reminder (Standard)

When you select Abandoned Cart Reminder flow, a prebuilt email series of 3 emails would be available for you to customize the delays, content, design, etc. All 3 emails would be available for you to customize. The current templates are created using Klaviyo’s in-built drag & drop editor.

Now, let’s try to see how you can customize the email templates using in-built editor:

Klaviyo’s default Abandoned Cart flow contains a dynamic content block and go-to-cart button that is unique to each ecommerce integration. This content block is what allows you to include an image, link, and other information about the product in the email. The go-to-cart button allows you to navigate back to their cart.

As these blocks utilize tags that are unique to each integration, it can be challenging to rebuild them on your own. We highly recommend saving these blocks before editing the default email or swapping out the template. This way, you can completely customize the design of your email, without worrying about affecting its functionality.

By default, the abandoned cart block will pull in all the items that someone has left in their cart. To change or limit the number of items displayed, you can edit the block.

If you accidentally delete either of these dynamic blocks, you can re-add Klaviyo’s default Abandoned Cart flow to your account from the Flows Library in the Browse Ideas tab.

How to save blocks and reuse them

When you hover over or click a block within an email template, you will see a star icon. Once you have a block formatted the way you would like it, you can save it by clicking the star icon.

Name a Saved Block

When you click this icon, you will be prompted to name your saved block. Give it an easy-to-find name like “Header” or “Footer.”

Access Saved Blocks

To access a saved block, you can drag the Saved Block icon into your template.

Then, you’ll be prompted to choose a saved block from the dropdown.

Once you’ve chosen the block you would like to reuse, click Insert Block to add it to a template.

Manage Saved Blocks

You can manage saved blocks by navigating to the Email Templates tab in your account. Then, toggle to View saved blocks. From here, you can view an inventory of all your saved blocks as well as delete them.

How to customize dynamic product block and the limitations

It’s easy to customize dynamic products. By clicking on the block you will see the left panel in the columns. Here, you can customize the width of the column as well as add more columns as per the requirement.

In the 2nd tab, ‘Row’, you can customize both Columns.

Benefits of using In-built editor

Klaviyo allows you much more customization and targeting than your eCommerce platform’s default abandoned cart flow. In Klaviyo, you can:

Fully customize the content of the email
Add multiple emails
Branch the flow based on things like the value of the item in the cart

Limitation of this process compared to Custom HTML route

Using in-built blocks, you can drag the section available and update it according to the design. The benefit of using in-built blocks is that you can save this section and re-use it in other emails.

This Editor is useful if the design is simple and can be created using the modules provided. However, for a design having background images (text overlaying on image), this won’t work. In such a case, you will have to go with custom code emails. But if the emails are created using the custom code, re-using it in other emails is not possible. Also, editing will be difficult for those who have no knowledge of HTML.

Wrapping Up

For email marketers, it is always difficult to make edits in the HTML code for content change in Klaviyo, as they are not HTML savvy. However, using the inbuilt editor with the dynamic content block of Klaviyo can help them to make the copy changes on the go without altering anything in HTML. It also gives flexibility for marketers to re-use the block in other campaigns by saving the content blocks in the Saved block.

Need assistance with creating and setting automation workflows in Klaviyo? Our certified experts can help.

The post How to Create Abandoned Cart Workflow using Klaviyo’s In-built Editor appeared first on Email Uplers.

Personalization Builder: The Recommendation Setup in Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Thu, 07 Jan 2021 12:15:09 GMT

Personalization Builder, powered by Einstein, delivers the next best product, content, or offer to every individual customer through product and content recommendations for email and web. Every customer interaction is an insight. With every click, download, view, and purchase, customers are giving data about their preferences. Personalization Builder combines user behavior with algorithms and your unique business rules to build a user profile of affinities. SFMC specialists can use this profile to determine the most relevant content and products for each customer in real-time.

Edition Required: While Email Recommendation is available in Pro edition, in Corporate and Enterprise Edition, you get Email & Web recommendations.

Go to Einstein Email Recommendation under the Einstein option on the dashboard.

Under Email Recommendation, you will see 3 options:
- Options & Configure
- Code Implementation
- Einstein Recommendations Creation

We need to start with the Options & Configure option:

Under the first option, you need to set up the catalog. Here, Einstein will combine website data or catalog data along with user behavior to determine content and product recommendations for individual users.
- If you plan to do the product recommendation & cart abandonment setup, you need to go ahead with the product Catalog Type.
- If you want to promote content, then you need to go ahead with the Content Catalog type.
- You can also go ahead and select both options if you want to use them together.

Next, you would need to finalize the attributes you want to track in SFMC. SFMC will use these attributes to enhance the recommendations.

Below are the details of the Product catalog attributes and their definitions.

When you select both Product & Content Catalog, separate options would be provided for both.

The next option is to manage the user tracking:

When you enable User Tracking, it helps you associate users’ browsing sessions with known users (registered users). Einstein Recommendation will create a user profile when someone registers an email address on your website, logs into an account, clicks the link in the marketing cloud email.
Moreover, Custom User attributes will help you to modify recommendations :
- Boost Category X based on a user’s loyalty status
- Emphasize specific clothing to match a user’s known gender
With the help of localization support, you can provide recommendations in multiple languages. It is recommended if users can select the language that is to be displayed on your site.

In the next option, you would be able to manage the activity that you want to customize. Please note that page views are collected by default.

Category View: When enabled, it tracks users’ view category or product on your website.
- Category Bought: Users who viewed this category page also bought these products
- Category View: Users who viewed this category page also viewed these items
Insite Search: It will provide recommendations based on users’ search keywords.
- Search Bought: Users who searched this term bought these products
- Search View: Users who searched this term also viewed these items

Please note that if you have Audience builder enabled in your account, you would be able to create segments based on user search behavior with the personalization Builder Dimensions.

Cart Activity: It helps you to manage two things:
- View Bought Last Cart: Users who viewed this product in your cart also bought these products
- View Veiw Last Cart: Users who viewed this product in your cart also viewed these products

Brands use this feature to leverage cart abandonment reminder emails. It is recommended that you use “trackcart” code to update a user’s cart and profile whenever the user updates an item in a cart.

Purchase Activity: It will store details about the user’s purchase activity by giving extra weight to items with attributes similar to items purchased.
- Bought Bought: Users who bought this product also bought these products
- Click Bought: Users who clicked this product also bought these products

The Final Summary page will show a summary of all 4 Options – Catalog, Attributes, Users, and Activities.

Once the Options & Configurations are finalized, you need to coordinate with your development team to implement the code on the website.

In order to get all the codes based on your options & configuration selection, Please click on Integration instructions. It will provide all the codes that need to be added.

While adding code, you would need to replace the “INSERT_EMAIL_OR_UNIQUE_ID”, “ INSERT_PRODUCT_CODE”, “INSERT_CATEGORY”, “INSERT_SEARCH_TERM” – with dynamic code to pull the unique identifier.

Once you have placed the code, SFMC will start collecting data immediately. However, depending on your website traffic, it will take up to one month to detect enough activity to enable algorithms.
You will be able to see the details on the Status page about the data collected for individual categories.

In order to leverage the data collected using Einstein recommendation, there is one additional step.

Under the Status tab, go to Settings:

Under Data Extension Settings, Enable Einstein Data Extensions:

Once you enable the Einstein DE, data will be populated into prebuilt DE under Audience builder.

Wrapping Up

While there was no direct option to set up behavioral triggers in SFMC earlier, with the latest feature, it is possible for marketers to set up cart abandonment, browse abandonment, and abandonment wishlists. The Salesforce Personalization Builder helps predict and automate important decisions, thus enabling you to deliver a good brand experience with precise segmentation and automated targeting.

Our SFMC Certified professionals can help you set up cart abandonment, browse abandonment, and other e-commerce Journeys in SFMC.

The post Personalization Builder: The Recommendation Setup in Salesforce Marketing Cloud appeared first on Email Uplers.

Using Gradients to Make Your Email Designs Look Classy

Tue, 05 Jan 2021 13:39:02 GMT

Let me take you back to the college days!

Remember those PowerPoint Presentations you spent hours designing and redesigning?

If yes, this screenshot will look pretty familiar…

I am not sure about you, but I used gradients in the background for all my presentations. I just loved gradients.

I was really good at choosing the most visually aesthetic gradient without getting too loud with the designs.

Now, I will share another interesting thing with you.

Does this image ring a bell? Well, yes! I am talking about the most loved photo and video sharing social media app – Instagram.

On 11th May 2016, they redesigned their logo and added a rainbow gradient color scheme to it.

It instantly took me back to the good old college days and that rainbow gradient of Microsoft PowerPoint (AGAIN).

Obviously, design geeks took some time to reignite their love for gradients but in 2018, people started using it and expressing their love for this wonderful design trend.

Designers started using gradients to add more visual appeal to the flat designs. You can also add a color overlay to photos or textures to the background with the help of gradients.

Even email marketers are not behind when it comes to incorporating this trend in their email campaigns.

In addition to interactivity, AMP emails, monochromatic layout, and minimalistic designs with pastel colors, gradients will emerge as one of the most promising email design trends for 2021 and the years to come. Brands have already started using this element in their emails and it has resonated quite well with the email subscribers.

Before we check out some wonderful examples of gradients in email designs, we shall sort out the basics.

So, what do gradients look like?

Gradients or color transitions refer to the smooth blending of one color into another. If you like vibrancy, you can have a transition of multiple colors too. According to your brand personality, you can use subtle gradients or bold ones.

You can either have gradients of similar colors like different shades of red or totally different or contrasting colors like yellow and purple. Rainbows, sunsets, and the sea (along with the sand) are classic examples of the most picturesque gradients we have witnessed in real life.

Advantages of Gradients in Email

If someone asks me my favorite design trend in email, my vote will go to gradients without any second thought.

You can reinvent new possibilities with attractive color transitions of gradients. It gives a more sophisticated feel and a fresh look to the emails.

Gradients not only impart a “retro” look to the designs but cut through the noise created by ordinary graphics.

It will create a memorable design and help to create a strong connection with your subscriber.

Some designers use gradients in such a way that it looks like a new color in itself.

Users will start relating the gradient you use with your brand, just like people relate the rainbow gradient with Instagram.

Our minds are programmed in such a way that we always move our eyes from a lighter to a darker area of the gradient. Gradients help to reinforce the visual hierarchy by guiding the eye movement.

Gradient designs that have a halo type area will draw the user’s attention to the main message to be conveyed.

You can even use gradients in the typography to make the copy more readable and highlight the important words.

I guess by now, you must be quite convinced about the usefulness of gradients in email.

Let’s see how brands are adding gradients to email designs and making them more appealing to the subscriber.

Take a look at these fine examples.

1. BAGGU

Such a soothing email!

BAGGU has sent out a gradient in email with four different color shades – green, pink, yellow, and blue.

What catches the eyeballs is the way they have used gradients in the background and tried to give a similar feel through the three images that they have added.

Overall, it is a minimalistic and subtle email that is sure to impress the email recipient.

2. Tracksmith

Like we mentioned in our infographic on Email Design Trends 2021, email geeks will combine two or more graphic trends to stand out from the crowd. Tracksmith has done exactly that.

They have combined the power of gradients and animations to highlight their Summer arrivals. This email perfectly demonstrates how gradients can reinforce the eye movement and prompt the user to scroll further.

Click on the image to view the live email.

3. Instagram

I know I have mentioned Instagram too many times in this article, but I just could not help it.

Take a look at this email and you will understand why…

See that gradient effect added to the CTA? It is in sync with their brand logo and other design elements you see in their mobile App. Now, that’s a clever way to increase brand recall and (almost) establish ownership of that gradient.

4. 1973 Ltd.

Monochrome gradient – If you like that paradoxical design element, you will love this email by 1973 Ltd.

Whether it is the animated hero image or the gradient background, more power to the entire team who was involved in the creation of this email.

I guess they live by the quote: Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication!

Here again, I would like to mention about the consistency that 1973 Ltd. follows in all their emails.

Take a look at another email from them.

What’s commendable is that even their website follows the same approach.

5. allset

Rather than adding a gradient in the entire background of the email, allset has added it in the first fold to promote their new app and website. Also, check the CTA that is perfectly contrasting with the background.

In the next fold, they have included the new features to get people to check out the new look and experience.

6. Simple

I loved this concept.

Simple has informed the subscribers that their app is now available in Dark Theme in mobile as well as desktop.

They have used white-to-black gradient to convey their message and get people to EMBRACE THEIR DARK SIDE.

7. reMarkable 2

reMarkable 2 has used a basic gradient theme with a white halo to advertise the world’s thinnest tablet.

The rest of the email has a simple layout but it conveys the purpose of sending it. That’s all that matters, right?

8. J.Crew

Any sunset lovers out there? Well, then, this email is for you.

They have used the most commonly encountered gradient in the best way.

See how J.Crew has used the hues of crimson red and orange to promote their “Bye Summer, Hi Fall” event.

Wrapping Up

In case you are worried about the coding hassles that go into creating gradients in email, let me relieve you of your apprehension.

Just leave your coding woes to our email experts and we will create a beautiful gradient email for you.

…Or you can get a gradient image designed and add it to your email with the help of <img src> tag. Simple, right?

Keywords : Gradients in Email Designs

URL :

Title :

description :

The post Using Gradients to Make Your Email Designs Look Classy appeared first on Email Uplers.

Lead Forms in Marketo: A Handy Virtual Manual

Wed, 23 Dec 2020 07:33:00 GMT

Do you take your lead forms seriously?

Well, Kudos to you, if you do!

If not, nothing is lost and you can still invest your time in optimizing your lead forms to get better results.

According to Pardot, the quality of leads and lead generation are the top two challenges that B2B marketers face. The reason being, 40% of marketers reported low conversion rates on poorly optimized pages.

The bottleneck competition in the marketplace has made it imperative to optimize the lead forms on landing pages.

Let’s understand why lead forms play such a significant role in getting your conversions.

Importance of Lead Forms

Expedia increased its annual profit by $12 million simply by deleting one field from the lead form.

They removed the field of “company name” in the second variant of the lead generation form as it was confusing the visitors. Most of them added the billing address of their bank rather than the personal address.

Ultimately, it led to failed transactions and high bounce rates. This does not imply that only the lead form is important. However, if your headlines, visuals, and CTAs are in place but the form is not, it would hamper the entire experience for the user.

What makes creating forms a challenge?

The primary problem with “forms” is that no one likes to fill them.

Your prospects are scared of being spammed while some simply hate it because of the effort it takes, in comparison to the value they get.

There are people who avoid filling up the form because they are apprehensive about sharing confidential information.

Just like there is a workaround for every problem, the workaround for this is to optimize the lead forms based on the preferences of your target audience, the industry you belong to, and business type.

For instance: If you are a SaaS business owner, it makes sense to ask the visitor’s company name, the industry, and its strength of employees. On the other hand, ecommerce business owners must try learning about the visitor’s preferences. Based on these details, you will be able to send relevant promotional messages to the subscriber. Here, it hardly makes sense to ask about the prospect’s company name. Ask questions that are most relevant for your business and would allow you to better personalize future communications.

An interesting study has suggested that visitors do not look at the “required fields” in a form, so they think that all the fields must be filled out.

Now, in case you have too many fields on your form, it will get too overwhelming for the user and they will abandon the form right there.

Marketo revealed that a five field form performed better than a seven and nine-field form.

Now, that you have a basic idea about the importance of lead forms and their challenges, let’s come to the most crucial question of how to create these forms.

Based on the lead generation or CRM tool that you are using, you can create forms in different ways.

Since Marketo is the most popular CRM, we shall focus on how to create lead forms using Marketo, in this article. It is absolutely simple and hardly needs any technical know-how. If you are a fan of DIY marketing, this is an ideal option for you.

Let’s take a look at the stepwise method.

A. Creating a Form

Go to Marketing Activities.
Select the respective program.
Click on New and go to New Local Asset.
Click on Form.
Create the form by providing the form name.

B. Changing the Form Theme

Select your form from the tab of Marketing Activities.
Click on Edit Form.
Navigate to Form Settings.
Choose the Form Theme according to your preferences by toggling back and forth.
Click on Next if you want to edit other things in the Form.
Click on Finish if you want to change the Form Theme only.

You can choose the theme from this list:

i. Simple

ii. Inset

iii. Glow

iv. Round

v. Dark

vi. Shadow

vii. Plain

C. Adding a Form Field and Editing the Field Label

Go to Marketing Activities and select Edit Form after choosing the form.
Click on the + Sign.
Pick the field you want to add to your form. Note that first name, last name, and email address are the default fields added to every form created in Marketo.
Once you have added all the required fields, click on Finish.
Click on Approve and Close.
If you want to edit the Field Label, select the concerned field. You will be able to edit the label.
Click Finish.
Click on Approve and Close.
In case you want to make a field required, go to Edit Form. Click on the field you want to make compulsory. In the Behavior section, select “Is Required”. Bingo! That’s it!

This brings us to the next question about the “Thank You” Page.

Whenever a user completes a form, it is a good practice to express gratitude to them. Thank You Pages come into the picture here.

D. Setting a Thank You Page

Once the user has filled the form, you can either display the thank you message on the same page or redirect them to an external URL, Landing Page, or Dynamic Thank You page.

Go to Edit Form after selecting the form from Marketing Activities.
Click on Settings from Form Settings.
Scroll down and go to the section of Thank You Page.
In the Follow Up With field, you can either select Stay on page, External URL, or Landing Page.

In case you select External URL or Landing Page option, provide the link on which you want the user to land.

Just make sure that the landing pages are approved in Marketo.

For marketers who want to go a step ahead and personalize the experience for the user, dynamic thank you pages are the best bet.

Just click on Add Choice in the “Thank You Page” section.

You must use the logical operators based on the field that you choose.

For example: In Choice 1, you can provide something like:- If Product Interest is Email Design and Coding, Follow up With “Stay on Page”

In Choice 2, you can set:- If Product Interest is Landing Page Design and Coding, Follow up with Landing Page. Provide the URL as discussed previously.

A default page will be displayed for all other responses. Your default page can either be the same page, an external URL, or a landing page. Make the right choice.

Click on Save.

You will see the details of the conditions you have set. If everything is good to go, click on Finish. Click Approve and Close.

E. Previewing a Form

To preview a form, first of all, select the Form from Marketing Activities.
Click on Preview from Form Actions.
You will be able to preview the form.
In case you need to edit it, go to Edit Draft.

F. Approving a Form

Go to Form Actions and click on Approve. That’s all you need to do to approve a Marketo lead form. Once a green checkmark gets displayed beside a form, it can be added to a landing page.

Additional Features of Marketo Lead Forms

These are the basics of Marketo Lead Forms. In addition to these, it is possible to change the style and color of the Submit button, font style used in the form, and resize the label or field width in a form. If you are a coding geek, you can even edit the CSS of a Form Theme in case you want to add a theme that is not included in the seven default themes.

Didn’t I tell you Marketo is the most powerful tool for all your lead generation and CRM needs.

Now, you know why!

Over to You

If you are looking forward to exploring everything that Marketo lead forms have to offer, just get in touch with our Marketo certified experts.

We would love to help you out.

The post Lead Forms in Marketo: A Handy Virtual Manual appeared first on Email Uplers.

2020 Salesforce Marketing Cloud Review: Email Uplers Looks Back On the Year That Was!

Tue, 22 Dec 2020 10:40:32 GMT

Back at the end of December 2019, the world started celebrating the advent of the third decade of the third millennium. But no one was prepared for the chaos that 2020 would bring. Now, in the last few weeks of the year, the Uplers team hopes that your 2021 is more joyful and less stressful than 2020!

And on that positive note, here’s a look at some of the key developments in the world of Salesforce Marketing Cloud in this past year. With this brief Salesforce Marketing Cloud review, we provide a quick overview into the key SFMC features that were released in 2020. We hope this article empowers you to plan your best-ever email marketing campaign in 2021!

2020 Salesforce Marketing Cloud Review: The Top 7 Developments!

During any given year, there are five Salesforce Marketing Cloud releases: January, March, May, July and October. Most new features are made available within a week of the release.

So what were the top features in each 2020 release?

1. Einstein Messaging Insights & Einstein Copy Insights

Release: January 2020

Powered by its Einstein AI engine, Einstein Messaging Insights enables marketers to easily monitor journey and batch email performance. With its Notification Center, you can easily review KPIs in order to find anomalies, and optimize areas that are currently under-performing. So if there is a sudden or unexpected drop in email open or clickthrough rates, you will be able to see these statistics on the dashboard so you can take immediate action to address the gaps in your campaign’s performance.

For example, say, your “Welcome” series emails were successful in the past, but are suddenly under-performing now. In the past, you may not have realized this problem quickly, but with Einstein Messaging Insights and its auto-alerts – you can do exactly that. You can gain insights about the factors that may have influenced performance changes, and then make the necessary code updates to level out or improve performance.

Source

The January 2020 release also included Einstein Copy Insights. This feature enables you to optimize (the copy of) subject lines and make them “pop” with AI-driven insights around which language features, elements, words or emotions are most likely to drive subscriber engagement.

Source

2. Distributed Marketing Quick Send Enhancements

Release: January 2020

Distributed Marketing Quick Send Enhancements enables email marketers to combine the best of both worlds – personalized, one-on-one messaging with bulk sends. With this feature, you can send out personalized emails to a large audience of up to 25,000 subscribers in one go. You can also incorporate additional journey builder activities such as engagement splits to quickly integrate quick send messages into other workflows. This allows for even more out of the box custom personalization options.

But unlike emails sent from traditional email clients, Quick Send emails can actually power future decisions, such as prompting a subscriber to take a certain action based on engagement behavior. Plus, you can continue to use dynamic content and personalization even for bulk send emails.

For the complete list of January 2020 features, please click on this link.

3. Interactive Email Builder Block in Content Builder

Release: March 2020

Ideal for marketers who want to gather more information from their subscribers, the Interactive Email Builder Block in Content Builder enables you to build forms that render directly in a recipient’s email client. Since the subscriber does not have to leave their email client, it reduces friction and thus improves the user experience. Typical use cases for this feature include progressive profiling, surveys and product reviews. Salesforce Marketing Cloud templates are also available to create other types of interactive emails including:

Lead form: to capture or update information from leads
Case form: enables subscriber to create a case/service request
Empty: start from scratch to create any kind of interactive email form or content

Source

For a complete list of March 2020 features, please click here.

4. Path Optimizer in Journey Builder

Release: May 2020

With the May 2020 release of Path Optimizer, marketers can now experiment in Journey Builder with tests based on email engagement metrics or other outcomes. Available in the Flow Controls section, this tool allows you to keep the journey running with new entrants receiving the winning path. This way, you can ensure that all future contacts entering the journey only proceed down this path.

You can place many Path Optimizer activities within the same journey in order to optimize different population segments or milestones. Plus, you can continuously adjust your email marketing strategies, and make relevant improvements based on previous iterations. You can also test and optimize the flow, cadence, frequency, channel, and content of all activities and messages within the context of a customer’s journey.

For a better understanding of May 2020 features, please click here.

5. Behavioral Triggers in Journey Builder

Release: July 2020

Behavioral Triggers in Journey Builder is one of the key features of SFMC’s July 2020 release.

Behavioral email marketing, also known as “triggered” email marketing, is a type of consumer-driven marketing that enables brands to more easily reach out to, communicate with and serve their audience with content that appeals directly to them.

With this feature, you can configure the flow of abandoned cart, abandoned browse and abandoned wishlist data into SFMC, and use this data to send highly-personalized email messages, while increasing opens, click-throughs and conversions. You can even configure suppression rules to ensure that you don’t send too many follow-up emails to a subscriber.

With the new content block in Content Builder, you can easily create personalized emails (e.g. abandoned cart) that encourage the subscriber to come back and complete their purchase.

Source

For a better understanding of July 2020 features, please click here:

6. Einstein Engagement Frequency (EEF) v2

Release: October 2020

The new version of Einstein Engagement Frequency uses a personalized contact-level model to maximize open rates and minimize unsubscribes. It uses real-time send metrics to automatically segment contacts based on how often they prefer to receive emails from your brand, and then determines the optimal number of messages to send to each subscriber to keep them engaged.

Other key Einstein enhancements in the October 2020 release include:

Einstein Content Selection: Review the attributes created for a subscriber profile and evaluate them for possible bias
Send Time Optimization: Send your messages when they’re mostly likely to be opened (and thus enhance engagement)
Einstein Content Tagging: Tag your marketing assets, and understand the common features of content that is performing well (or poorly)

7. Customer 360 Audiences

Release: October 2020

Have you ever wished for a single “source of truth” on all your email subscribers so you can consistently deliver the personalized experiences they crave? With Customer 360 Audiences – you can.

This feature (the last in our 2020 Salesforce Marketing Cloud review) enables you to capture, unify, segment and activate all your customer data, and then use it to design personalized messaging across every touchpoint, including email. With its Identity Resolution feature, combine profile, behavioral, and transactional data from disparate sources into one Unified Profile, and build a 360-degree view of every customer.

You can also build marketing segments to ensure that you send the most relevant content to the right group of subscribers at just the right time. Customer 360 Audiences also includes on-the-fly segment analytics and AI-driven insights so you can build the right audience and always deliver the right email message.

For a better understanding of October 2020 features, click here.

Wrap Up

So there you have it: the 2020 Salesforce Marketing Cloud review by Uplers!

We hope this carefully-curated list helps you improve and perfect your email marketing strategy in 2021. If you still need help with Salesforce Marketing Cloud, get in touch with us at email@uplers.com
Wish you a happy and peaceful 2021!

The post 2020 Salesforce Marketing Cloud Review: Email Uplers Looks Back On the Year That Was! appeared first on Email Uplers.

Email Uplers makes it to Digital.com’s list of ‘Best Email Marketing Agencies Of 2020’

Tue, 22 Dec 2020 10:37:34 GMT

We have some great news to share!

Email Uplers has been featured in the list of ‘Best Email Marketing Agencies of 2020’ released by Digital.com, a leading independent review website for small business online tools, products, and services.

Digital.com, with the intent to help small businesses and startups find the best email marketing agency for their business, recently carried out a 40-hour assessment of 100+ agencies across the web to come up with this list of the 15 best. The selection was based on specific criteria, including the extent of marketing services offered by the agency (beyond email campaigns), the range of industries catered to, and the size of the agency.

We are on cloud nine.

In case you are new to Email Uplers, well, we were earlier known as EmailMonks. We’re a full-service email marketing agency that caters to all email marketing needs ranging from email, landing page, and banner development to email deployment, campaign analysis, and beyond. Here’s where you can read more about this announcement that has us all excited and certainly more motivated.

The post Email Uplers makes it to Digital.com’s list of ‘Best Email Marketing Agencies Of 2020’ appeared first on Email Uplers.

10 Email Marketing Strategies to Increase your E-commerce Revenues

Mon, 21 Dec 2020 11:31:48 GMT

At the center of all marketing efforts in e-commerce is email marketing. According to Data and Marketing Association, for every $1 you spend on email marketing, you can expect an average return of $42. Email marketing, when done correctly, can be responsible for a good percentage of your total e-commerce revenue.

People are almost drowning in the enormous amount of content thrown at them online. For businesses, the result can be likened to shooting one’s head off on a busy road – very ineffective. But you can print the same message on fliers and distribute them. In email marketing, the first thing is to ”distribute your fliers.” You can start by launching an awareness campaign. Your strategy should be positioned to get people on your email list as well.

Any successful online retailer knows how important and reliable email marketing is in improving eCommerce revenue. When you can put together strategies that work and consistently follow them through, you will get the desired results.

These email marketing strategies will improve your email marketing campaign and revenue drastically:

1. Personalization

2. Welcome Emails

3. Incentives

4. Notifications

5. Segmentation

6. Re-engagement

7. Optimization

8. Call-to-action

9. Integration

10. Automation

1. Personalization – send your emails like letters

Imagine distributing a letter addressed to specific individuals instead of a flier. The way the recipients will treat both will most certainly be different. Okay, enough of imaginations, but you get the drift.

Personalized emails are not treated the same way as a ”mass-produced” email, shipped to anyone who cares to open it. Be specific. Let your audience feel special. You can achieve this by utilizing the power of automation. Again, statistics don’t lie. An email has an average open rate of 20.81%, but when you personalize your emails, you have a chance to get a 50% higher open rate!

“Hi James, I thought that I should take a moment to tell you about some of our new products. If you have a minute, you can check them out here (link provided here).” Now, wouldn’t you click on that link? You sure will, James!

2. Welcome Emails – A warm welcome never fails

We can’t talk about an effective email marketing campaign without talking about open rates. Welcome emails have an average open rate of 82%. You are probably nodding your head right now – that’s high! Statistics don’t lie. With such a high open-rate, your welcome email is primarily an opportunity to make a lasting, positive first impression. Furthermore, you can pass some useful information about your online store and products.

You might want your audience to also know about a promotion or you could throw in a coupon in your welcome email because of the high open-rate. Let’s talk about incentives.

3. Incentives – who doesn’t like discounts?

This is where you tell your customers about a promotion or a coupon in your email. Beyond welcome emails, incentives are an excellent strategic addition to your email marketing campaign.

Incentives can motivate people to take action, from signing up for your mailing list to making their first purchase. Incentives can be tied to an event or a holiday, for instance, a “Christmas sales promo with a 50% discount.”

4. Notifications – talk about your latest arrivals

Some apps on your mobile phone notify you when there’s new content or a message. To increase your e-commerce revenue, you want to tell your customers about your new arrivals. Remember the personalized email to James?

This is an excellent way to inform your customers about new stocks. You can also re-engage customers that abandoned similar products in their carts. This strategy will be most effective for online stores that get new stock regularly.

A regular basis doesn’t have to be every week. If you get new stock a few times a year, you can launch a “new arrival” campaign strategically for those periods.

5. Segmentation – know your audience

Segmenting your mailing list will help you speak to your customers’ specific needs and interests. For instance, if you run an online fashion store, Maureen’s needs and interests will be different from James’.

Segmentation will help you send content that each customer is interested in. This will improve your clicks and open rate, which in turn improves your revenue.

6. Re-engagement – remind shoppers about items left in their carts

As we have seen, segmentation helps you easily engage with customers who have left items in their online carts without purchasing them. Almost 70% of online shopping carts are abandoned, and online stores can recover up to 30% of cart abandonment via email marketing.

7. Optimization – you are looking at more mobile users than you realize

Let’s consult statistics again. According to Statista (August 2020), ”The number of smartphone users worldwide today surpasses three billion and is forecast to further grow by several hundred million in the next few years.” Interestingly, the number of global email users is slightly over three billion as well.

A sizable number of that statistics access their emails on their smartphones. Many get their emails via their mobile phones only. And a good number who do so on other devices also access their emails on their mobile phones.

8. Call-to-action – what do you want your audience to do?

Call-to-action is an excellent way to inform your audience about what action you want them to take after reading your email. So, you should do a fantastic job of conveying a degree of urgency in your messaging.

Phrases like ‘hurry now’, ‘offer ends at midnight’, ‘click now to redeem’, etc. can be used to influence your customers not just to act but to act immediately.

9. Integration – email marketing plus social media marketing equals magic

Most of your customers are on social media. Connecting with your customers on social media helps you build a strong relationship with them.

You can be at your customers’ touchpoints throughout their journey to making a buying decision. This many times involves getting information from more than one platform.

10. Automation – let’s be honest, you can’t do so much without it

According to Forbes, ”Automation is the future. Marketing automation, in particular, can turn a lean marketing team into a force to be reckoned with, allowing startups and growing businesses to compete with large-scale enterprises in the war for customer attention.”

You can leverage data journeys to send personalized emails and perform other actions based on your customers’ actions.

The bottom Line

ECommerce is growing exponentially today, fuelled in part by the number of brick-and-mortar businesses moving their operations online due to COVID-19. This can be overwhelming, but technology is here to help. In Canada only, the eCommerce market is projected to hit the US$ 40M mark by 2025. In other words: there’s no better time for online sellers to embrace marketing automation and really make a difference when it comes to increasing revenues.

The post 10 Email Marketing Strategies to Increase your E-commerce Revenues appeared first on Email Uplers.

A Detailed Guide to get you started on B2B Email Marketing

Sat, 19 Dec 2020 05:54:44 GMT

Index

Introduction
What is B2B email marketing
Difference between B2B and B2C email marketing
How to begin with B2B email marketing
B2B email examples you need in your toolkit
Common B2B email marketing Strategies
B2B email marketing Best Practices and TIPS
Final Thoughts

Introduction

In earlier times, commerce and trade were simple. You get a commodity in exchange for a commodity (barter system). As the civilizations evolved and advanced forms of trading were invented, business was divided into subtypes based on the clientele. Some brands directly sold to the customer (D2C brands), some did business with the customers (B2C brands), and some did business with other businesses that acted as the middleman between seller and customer (B2B brands).

In the digital era, B2B businesses are using digital marketing strategies to identify, target, interact, and engage with their prospective clients. Irrespective of marketers’ newer technological advancements, email is still leading the pack for lead generation and customer retention. In fact, email is considered the top free organic distribution channel by 87% of B2B marketers, and 85% of marketers use email for content marketing. On the other side of the spectrum, 86% of businesspeople prefer email over other business communication channels.

This is an indication that adopting B2B email marketing early on can help you score better engagement. Better engagement leads to more qualified leads, which in turn means increased conversions. Being a marketer, you know that increased conversions mean increased revenue for your business.

What is B2B email marketing

As we stated earlier, B2B email marketing is when a business sends marketing emails to other businesses. B2B is all about sending the right email to key decision-makers of a business with a longer lead nurturing stage than B2C email marketing. Unlike B2C email marketing, where you need to send emails that match customers’ emotions and wants and motivate them to take the impulsive action, B2B email marketing has a longer wait cycle.

The goal in B2B email marketing is to remain at the top of the customer’s mind when they are ready to make the purchase decision. The tone differs from B2C email marketing, as the message needs to be more logic-oriented than emotion-oriented. The sales pitch in a B2B email would be data-oriented and will highlight the return on investment for the customers when making the right choice.

Differences between B2B and B2C email marketing

Above, we have mentioned a few differences that set B2B email marketing apart from B2C email marketing. In this section we shall explore the core differences by classifying them under five major categories:

1. Audience

Even though the end customer is a real person, the audience for a B2B brand would be narrower. This means a B2B marketer has a better understanding about the prospects’ pain points.

2. Content

In the end, it eventually boils down to what would be the returns on investment they make. B2B customers are thus more interested in receiving case studies, whitepapers, or customer testimonials. Data in the form of graphs, charts, or reports are always present in a B2B marketing email.

3. Requirements

B2B customers are not affected by how your products/services make them feel but are more interested in learning the value of your offerings. They wish to understand what they shall gain from working with you.

4. Customer Journey

While the overall customer journey stages are similar for both marketing types, the difference is in the time spent at each stage. B2B customers spend the most time in the lead nurturing stage while the sales and after-sales aspects are comparatively smaller.

5. The overall cost of conversion

The longer path taken to convert someone means increased marketing cost. On the other hand, the average order value for B2B is much higher than that recorded in B2C, so ROI for B2B email marketing is still high at the end of the day.

These five differences result in the following changes to be expected from a B2B email marketing campaign:

A. Logic precedes Emotion

While everyone loves brilliant storytelling, it should revolve around the value addition you bring to the table. While a data-driven email copy drives B2B email marketing, creating urgency using crafty words, or countdown timers don’t work effectively. Bulk order discounts or dedicated resources are great ways to get your customers to consider your offer.

B. Formal tone

In B2B email marketing, there is a chance that you may have access to professional information of your prospects that you can use to personalize your email copy. Use it as an icebreaker to start a conversation and make the email relevant to them without over-bearing. B2B customers don’t want to be treated like a name in the mailing list but don’t expect to be treated as the next-door neighbor as well. Moreover, different people have different tolerance for humor, so use it sparingly.

C. More emails

The customer wouldn’t jump onto buying your offerings in the first email itself. Since the average order value is much higher than B2C, it requires enough considerations and analysis before your customer decides to go ahead with the order. This means you need to send more emails that are lead nurturing in nature and complement their thought process.

D. Finer Segmentation criteria

Different people have different expectations of your brand. Additionally, your prospects will take different amounts of time to progress through a customer journey stage. This means you need to create different segmentation criteria that help you send them the correct communication that assists them to progress as per their preferred speed.

E. Fixed Sending Times

In the case of B2C, your customers would check their emails any time of the day in the pursuit of getting a good deal. For B2B customers, the only mode of interaction is through their business email address. So, they are only approachable during office hours and generally are in the process of clearing out the previous day’s emails in the morning, so avoid the early morning rush.

How to get started with B2B email marketing

Now that we have set the expectations from B2B email marketing, let’s move towards learning about which tools do you need for effective B2B marketing and how to begin planning your email marketing campaigns.

★Tools required in B2B email marketing

Man’s affection towards tools has been there since early prehistoric times. So, it is natural for a marketer like you to use tools for managing every aspect of your marketing efforts. Based on what other marketing channels you are using for B2B customers, the overall tools required can be divided into two broad categories:

1. Email Marketing Related

a. Marketing Automation: Not every email needs to be sent manually. Automation can help you create custom email workflows that send specific emails based on the user-end actions that act as triggers. More on this later.
E.g. Drip, Convertkit, SendinBlue

b. Email Sending Program: In B2B, it is all about reputation and presentation. People tend to give more weightage to an email sent from a business domain email address over a free-to-use email service provider such as Gmail, Yahoo!, Hotmail, etc. Moreover, if spamming or heavy email send volume is suspected, Internet service providers can blacklist your IP address (thus blocking your emails from reaching your customers). An ESP allows you to send emails from your business domain but using their spectrum of pre-whitelisted IP addresses. This way, you can be assured of your emails’ maximum deliverability.
E.g., MailChimp, Hubspot, Marketo

c. Lead Capture tools: Email marketing relies heavily on your prospects’ email addresses that you collect in exchange for an incentive. Pop-up signup forms or lead generation material such as ebooks, whitepapers, or any other downloadables kept behind a signup form can help you collect email addresses from your prospective customers. This is along with demographic details such as company name, employee strength, contact information, etc., that can be used to serve better-personalized content to them.
E.g., Optimonster, Hellobar, Thrive Leads

d. Landing Page Creator: This is another lead capture tool but requires special mention as it is different from other tools and is vital for email marketing. You can consider landing pages to be a bridge between two emails; the information you collect in them can affect the next email you plan to send.
E.g., Unbounce, LeadPages, Instapage, Wix

e. Graphic Design Programs: Sometimes, you may need a visual to include in an email, but a designer’s unavailability would be a hindrance. A graphic design program can allow you to create attractive visuals on the fly without relying on a designer or designing skills. It can be helpful in tight situations where you can’t afford to wait for a designer.
E.g., Canva, Stencil, PicMonkey

f. Customer Relation Manager (CRM): The brain behind the operation is a robust CRM. It stores the information about your leads, prospects, as well as customers and automatically updates the profile whenever an action is taken. This way, you can easily track the progress of a customer and make necessary tweaks in your email strategy. A CRM also helps significantly in list management and cleaning activities.
E.g., Hubspot, ZOHO, Oracle CRM, Salesforce

g. eCommerce platform (for B2B eCommerce brands): Applicable only to the brands that deal in B2B eCommerce, platforms such as Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce is where you can create product listings, make a sale. Based on the actions taken on your product page, the eCommerce platform sends relevant information to the ESP that sends the eCommerce emails. Consider the storefront to be the counterpart to the traditional websites.

2. Cross-channel related

a. Website Analytics: For measuring campaign performance and analyzing website traffic, an analysis tool is vital. It helps you identify key sources for website traffic and provide other demographic information such as age, location, the device used, time spent, etc. A must-have for anyone who has a website.
E.g., Google Analytics

b. Heatmap tool: To provide a customized user experience, you need to understand your customer’s actions on your website. Using a heatmap generation tool, you can identify the key locations on your website that observe maximum interaction.
E.g., Hotjar, Crazyegg

c. Blogging Platform: As we stated earlier, 85% of marketers use email for content marketing. This means you need to have a blog section that features diverse topics related to your customers’ interests. Moreover, a blog is a great way to draw inbound traffic to your website. Most searched topics paired with appropriate SEO optimization can help your blog become the topmost search result for your customers’ query.
E.g., Blogger, WordPress

d. Social media automation: While most compete social media against emails, they are marketing channels that together synergize. Social media is great for gaining visibility when a post is sent when your customers are most active. This needs additional tools that automate the process and makes it easier for the customer.
E.g., Hootsuite

★ Developing a plan

As we have mentioned earlier, B2B email marketing takes time to become successful. Thankfully, email has the power of personalization paired with the ability to reach the recipient’s inbox at the most opportune time. When done correctly, it can generate insane revenue for your business. All you need is a concrete plan that takes care of all the pitfalls and is flexible enough to accommodate any changes.

Step #1 Identify and Understand your Target Audience

In B2B email marketing, you are not targeting one person; you are targeting a group of people who handle different roles in a single organization. Different roles face different challenges, and so you need to conduct extensive market research and learn how you can deliver your offerings as per the needs. Understand the pain points of your prospects, explore how your product/service will help them solve these problems without having them to jump through hoops. Aim to create an email campaign that focuses on educating them about your offerings rather than providing a sales pitch to your prospects.

Step #2 Create an individual customer persona

Based on what you learned from the market research, the next step is to create an individual customer persona for different customer types. E.g., someone in the higher management position would be more interested in becoming early adopters of new technology. In contrast, those in the mid-level would be more concerned about the cost and the training required. Based on such granular observation, complete the different aspects of a customer persona such as

The challenges they face
What grabs their interests
Their expectations
Goals or their definition of success
Role in the company
How they interact with your competition (only if applicable)

Based on your completed persona, you will know which persona type to target, and this helps you create the content for email campaigns.

Step #3 Create S.M.A.R.T (Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-based) goals

How do you plan to measure the success of your email campaigns? When you create goals and set objectives, you give your email marketing campaigns direction, and the goals become the yardstick to measure success. The trick is to make S.M.A.R.T goals which is an acronym for goals that are:

Has a specific end result – ‘Improve the open rates by 5%’
Has a measurable aspect – ‘Using better segmentation methods to improve open rates’
The end goal needs to be attainable- ‘The open rate needs to increase from 2% to 5%’
The goal should be relevant to business objectives- ‘Focus on onboarding more travel agencies’
Should be time-bound -‘The results should be attained by the end of financial year’

Avoid broad goals that are open to interpretation as it will create conflicts and confusion. A joint discussion with your team helps you list out what your business wishes to achieve, assign responsibility to individual stakeholders, and set deadlines for individual tasks that help create the big picture, i.e., your email campaigns.

Step #4 Implementing Pre and Post send ‘rituals’

The final aspect of a B2B email marketing plan is defining the pre-send and post-send ‘rituals’ (tasks). The reason for calling them rituals is that these are the tasks that you and the team should perform without fail to ensure smooth operations.

The pre-send tasks cover everything that needs to be done before you send an email campaign or set an email automation workflow to action, such as:

Email Copywriting
Email template design
Template Coding
List Cleaning & Segmentation
Final Proofreading and Template testing
Campaign Set-up

This ritual aims to complete all the activities required to make your email campaign ready to send.

The post-send tasks include:

Introspection
Identifying the parts of the emails that worked
Measuring the campaign performance

The aim is to learn something from the campaign and implement the learnings in future email campaigns for greater success.

★ B2B lead generation strategies

As we have stated earlier, email marketing is incomplete without appropriate emailing lists. Unless you follow the unethical act of purchasing your mailing list (which would crash your marketing campaigns no matter what), you need to put in efforts towards collecting email addresses from interested clients. People only tend to share their email addresses if they are getting something valuable in return, so you can’t directly approach a client to share their email address without providing any worthy temptation.

Some of the most common B2B lead generation strategies are:

Offering lead magnets (Case studies, Whitepapers, Research Reports, Comprehensive “How-to” Guides) or gated content
Option to subscribe under popular content
Exit-intent Pop-up forms
Retargeting ads
Webinar registrations
Freebies

★ Define the Customer Journey & Segmentation Tactics

While comparing the differences between B2B and B2C email marketing, we mentioned that the customer journey for B2B email marketing is similar to B2C except for a longer lead nurturing stage. The overall customer journey stages are:

Awareness
Consideration
Purchase
Retention
Advocacy

In the case of B2B email marketing, the ‘consideration’ stage is further divided into:

Research – Where the prospect delves deeper into your products/service page to understand what you are offering, checking testimonials & reviews on the way.
Demonstration – Where the prospect takes a trial of your offering to get a first-hand experience
Consider – Where the prospect considers your offerings’ pros and cons and compares them with the existing solution.
Decision making
Negotiations – Where the wrinkles in understandings are ironed out, the customer moves towards finalizing the deal.

The purchase stage is more of delivery and integrations, and the retention stage is more about sharing the knowledge base, asking for reviews/feedback, and providing post-sale support. So, the entire B2B customer journey can be summed up as:

Awareness
Consideration
- Research
- Request for Demo
- Consider
- Decision making
- Negotiations
Purchase
- Delivery & Integration
Retention
- Support
- Feedback
Advocacy

B2B email campaigns’ segmentation variables are no different from B2C segmentation, focusing on the demographics and behavioral variables. In B2B email marketing, segmentation works best when starting with segmentation on a broad level and moving down to make it finer. The most common B2B segmentation criteria are:

Demographic (Industry, Company size, Geographical location)
Operating Variables (Technology used, Service Capability)
Purchasing Approach (Nature with Relation, Purchasing criteria, Purchasing policies)
Situational (Urgency, Size of order)
Behavioral (Loyalty, Turnaround for order placement)

As mentioned earlier, each lead will progress through the customer journey stages at their own pace. So you need to ensure that the segmentation criteria don’t overlap at any point.

★ Automation workflows

Automation is a boon for marketers as it automatically handles repetitive tasks such as welcoming new subscribers, sending order confirmations, webinar reminders, etc. without human interventions. This frees up time for the marketers to focus on other important tasks or other marketing strategies. Every time a user takes an action, it triggers a condition in the pre-set workflows. An email relevant to the triggered condition is automatically sent as a result of the user’s actions.

Email automation is versatile enough to be used at any stage of the customer journey but the most important B2B email automation is the drip email campaigns. Drip campaigns allow you to send a series of emails where the next email is determined from the result of the current email. This way the subscriber receives the right kind of information as per their choices. While lead nurturing email campaigns and drip email campaigns are synonymous, they have a slight difference. A newsletter email is an example of a lead nurturing email where all the subscribers receive the latest emails irrespective of the duration from joining. In drip campaigns, all subscribers receive the same email while onboarding but the subsequent email changes based on the user behavior.

B2B email examples you need in your toolkit

Welcome Email

HelpScout sends out an introduction welcome email to their new subscriber. They have highlighted three important links to allow the user to login, check the help docs, or book a demo.

It is a good idea to share their email address to let people reach out to them. Featuring the photographs of their team members adds a personal touch to the email.

(Source: Delivra)

Get Started Email

Once a business owner signs up to Amazon Web Services, they send out an email with three tips to get started. It is a good way to prompt people to take action and use their services.

(Source: Really Good Emails)

Feature Announcement Emails

Slack does a great job at explaining the features to its users. In this email, they have shared actionable tips to make the most out of their platform. The CTA “Explore Slack Tips” will pique the subscriber’s curiosity and prompt them to click.

(Source: Really Good Emails)

Lead Nurturing Email Newsletter

Salesforce has sent out a drip email to their prospective clients. Through this email, they have talked about their resource center, developer forums, and their guided learning feature of Trailhead.

(Source: Really Good Emails)

Webinar Invitation Email

Webinars can be very valuable for B2B sector marketers to acquire new customers, retain the existing ones, or get people to make the purchase. Take a look at this webinar invite by Listrak. They have informed the users about what the webinar will be about and the notable speakers who will share their domain expertise.

(Source: Automizy)

Re-engagement Emails

Winning back the dormant customers and getting them to take action once again are important aspects of B2B industry. See how informz sends out a re-engagement email that lets the users confirm if they want to receive future emails. It is a good way to maintain your list hygiene and keep it up-to-date.

(Source: OpenMoves)

Whitepaper/ Case Study promotion emails

If you want your business to grow, you must share your well-researched whitepapers and case studies. It would instil a sense of confidence in the subscriber’s mind. Recurly Research sends out a short and sweet email to promote their insightful research article. It will build brand credibility too.

(Source: Really Good Emails)

Feedback Emails

Asking the customers for their feedback plays an integral part of every business. Here’s how Tailor Brands has created their feedback request email. They have incentivized the user so that they are keener to share their feedback.

(Source: Really Good Emails)

Upsell Emails

Shopify sends out a nice post-purchase email to upsell their services to a client who has created a Shopify store. They have endorsed their Partner Program that would help the customers to grow their web designing business. The copy of the email gives detailed information to the reader about its features and encourages them to “JOIN”.

(Source: Really Good Emails)

Transactional Email

Here’s an example of a transactional email by Wistia. Although it is designed pretty well considering the minimalistic approach, it would have been great to mention other services and upsell or cross-sell.

(Source: Really Good Emails)

Interactive Email

Moo sends out an interactive email with a GIF followed by a CTA “Snip the String”

Once the user clicks on the CTA, it will display a landing page that reveals 15% discount offer along with the coupon code.

This is a great way to show, rather than tell, and win the subscriber’s heart by telling a story.

Common B2B email marketing Strategies

Focus on Lead Nurturing

As we have been mentioning multiple times, your B2B email marketing is only as effective as your lead nurturing campaigns. This is where your prospects begin considering the pros and cons of providing business to you. If you fail to bring them to your side at this stage, you can experience extended wait times and easy poaching by competition. Hence, give ample consideration while planning your lead nurturing email campaigns.

Take efforts to find a personal connection

Emails have the ability to be personalized based on the customer profile and past behaviors. Yet, sometimes this might sound too robotic and you need to find that personal connection to gain an edge. If you exchanged cards during a conference, use the reference to start the conversation. Browse which pages or specific products are they browsing, and craft your email copy accordingly.

Push your prospects towards marketing or sales based on interest level

Everyone has different expectation levels as well as perception of your brand. So, some prospects may convert quicker than others. It would be a wasted opportunity to continue keeping them in the same customer journey milestone. So you need to put in periodic checks to prune out achievers among your mailing list and progress them quicker than others.

Re-engage efficiently

Just like with B2C email marketing, B2B customers can also become dormant after a while. It is important to address the dormancy at the starting signs itself, as you have better chances of re-engaging such prospects or customers then. This also allows you closure on those subscribers who left for good.

B2B email marketing Best Practices and TIPS

As we move towards the end of the article, it is important to shine light on some of the B2B email marketing best practices that brands should follow.

Pen a concise Email Copy

Your subscribers have a mountain of emails to clear, and unless you don’t provide a concise email copy, your email may not stand a chance of getting read. While email subject lines need to be eye-catching and relevant to the copy inside, it is important to limit your subject lines between 36 to 50 characters. The science behind the range is that different email clients allow a different range of characters to be shown in a subject line.

As per a research conducted by Backlinko, the subject lines of different ranges performed as per the graph below, and the subject lines of 36-50 characters inched on gaining the most open rates.

Similarly, people tend to skim through the email copy once opened and are discouraged by a wall of text. Campaign Monitor found out that ‘an email copy length between 50 – 125 words has a response rate of above 50%.’ Moreover, break the text into smaller chunks for better readability.

Keep a conversational tone

As we mentioned, subscribers hate being treated as a name on the mailing list. This is evident from the cut-dry and straightforward interaction they have with most B2B emails. By utilizing a conversational tone with your subscribers, they are better engaged and feel competent interacting with you. Moreover, the conversational tone helps the subscribers connect with the person behind the brand and build a more potent & lasting relationship.

Use Images and Visuals

Human eyes are more receptive to visual information than textual. By including images, graphs, charts in your emails, you cut down on the email copy, making it crisp and more intriguing for the recipient. Include images of your clients while sharing their testimonials in emails. This allows the subscribers to associate a face with the review and build trust in your brand.

Ask these three questions while creating an email

Each email you send needs to have a purpose. Contemplate every email you wish to include in an email campaign. Ask yourselves the following three questions:

What are you offering?
How will it help the reader?
What should they do next?

Based on the answers you get, create the hook, offer, and call to action. When the email copy makes you take action, consider that your subscribers would also do the same.

Final Thoughts

B2B email marketing may seem intimidating at the first glance, especially for those starting out or coming from the B2C market. The article covers most of what to expect in B2B email marketing and prepares you for managing your email campaigns. Closely monitor your email campaigns and analyze the campaign performance; this will help you make the essential changes to your strategy and ensure the open and conversion rates remain up.

The post A Detailed Guide to get you started on B2B Email Marketing appeared first on Email Uplers.

Salesforce Nonprofits: 7 Ways Nonprofits Can Make the Most of Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Fri, 18 Dec 2020 13:01:56 GMT

Nonprofit organizations are a breed apart – committed to a cause and willing to go the extra mile to selflessly serve someone in need. And although their mission is never to line anyone’s pockets with money, they do need resources (such as funds) to further their mission and achieve their goals. And to do this, they need to find, connect with, and build lasting relationships with lifelong supporters. Email marketing is a powerful way to do this.

Source

With SFMC, nonprofits can create targeted and personalized email campaigns to engage their donors, clients, and partners with the right message at the right time. They can automate multi-step journeys, set up targeted triggered emails, and analyze their efforts to make smarter, faster decisions, and create a bigger impact for their mission. With its powerful suite of tools and functionalities, SFMC is a highly-effective Salesforce nonprofit ESP, even for nonprofits that don’t have an in-house SFMC specialist or large email marketing team.

Here are 7 ways nonprofits can make a real impact with SFMC, a powerful Salesforce for nonprofits ESP solution.

Target and segment the right supporters

With SFMC, a customizable Salesforce for nonprofits, nonprofits can easily find and target new and prospective constituents. They can collect specific data, and do deeper and more precise segmentation based on multiple criteria. They can also get rich insights into constituents’ preferences and behaviors across multiple channels, including email. Based on this information, they can design email campaigns to engage with them with relevant, empathetic messaging.

Source

For example, if they find many prospective donors located in a certain geographic region or interested in a particular program, they can send them targeted communications with relevant updates about that program or up-to-date information about upcoming fundraising events to increase impact and move them towards a particular outcome (eg. donation).

And if constituents typically take action on certain emails on a certain day or at certain times, they can control their send times to ensure that the most impactful messages are sent out on that day (or time). Using the Einstein Send Time Optimization feature in SFMC Journey Builder, they can automatically determine the optimal send times and ensure that the sends happen even without manual actions.

Source

Create 1×1 cross-channel journeys for richer engagement

Regardless of its mission, size or target community, every nonprofit needs constituents, i.e. donors, volunteers and supporters, who are committed to its cause. And to do this, engaging with them over their entire journey is crucial.

Source

With SFMC Journey Builder, nonprofits can create intelligent, personalized and connected journeys to nurture each constituent so they remain committed to its cause. Based on these journeys, they can email a prospect, and once they open it, they can follow up with other emails providing more information about their work, mission and goals. If they don’t open the message within a certain time frame, they can follow up either with another email, or by engaging in other ways, say, social media, advertising or mobile. They can also easily modify these journeys based on their interactions in order to update their email marketing strategy that has the best chance of converting them from casual supporters to strong allies to passionate advocates.

Quickly create and deploy powerful email campaigns with SFMC templates

With the non profit Salesforce Marketing Cloud, nonprofits can build highly personalized and timely email campaigns to target constituents with messaging around a specific topic or theme. Thanks to built-in SFMC templates and content blocks, they don’t have to create new email designs from scratch (unless they really want to). Templates can contain merge fields that can be easily populated based on the target contact. This means that one template can be effortlessly individualized for thousands of people in just a few clicks. This way, they can send world-class curated emails to both individuals (e.g. case updates, or donation acknowledgments) or to mass audiences (e.g. invites to fundraising events, donation campaigns or newsletters).

Leverage predictive analytics to personalize each email with ease

With SFMC’s predictive analytics capabilities, nonprofits can easily create or modify tailored content based on constituents’ profiles, preferences, interests or behaviors. With the capabilities of non profit Salesforce Marketing Cloud, they can add personalization at multiple levels: subject line, greeting, copy, etc.

They can also send behavior-triggered emails when a particular constituent takes a specific action at any stage of their journey. For example, they can monitor the pages people frequent on their website, and then send emails with messaging specific to that page (or content) to keep them engaged for longer and more likely to convert (whatever their conversion goal might be).

The power of automation is also within their hands with SFMC, the most user-friendly salesforce nonprofit ESP. For example, a triggered email can be set up to automatically send a donor a thank you email.

With the drag-and-drop functions, personalized scripting language, and interactive content like carousels and weather reports in Salesforce, nonprofits can connect with and delight their constituents with real-time, hyper-personalized messages.

Stay connected with subscribers and convert them into passionate supporters

With SFMC, nonprofits can stay connected with their constituents to keep the conversation going and gently convert them into supporters and even advocates – no matter where they are. And if they need their subscribers to take a certain action, they can make it easy for them via surveys, forms and other types of “interactive” content.

Source

With interactive emails, subscribers can directly engage with the nonprofit and its mission by tapping, clicking, swiping, etc. without leaving the inbox. This ease of use can boost email opens, clickthroughs and engagement. Thus, nonprofits can not only tell constituents that their opinions matter, but also deliver extraordinary user experiences that keep them coming back for more. Ultimately, it enables them to build deeper relationships with constituents who passionately believe in and support their mission.

A/B test to create impactful email campaigns

In addition to designing meaningful email campaigns, SFMC, as a Salesforce nonprofit ESP, also enables nonprofits to improve their email marketing strategy and increase their chances of meeting their campaign goals – before the campaign is sent out. This can be done via A/B testing.

A/B testing – also known as split testing – enables nonprofit email marketing managers or their SFMC specialist (if they have one) to set up multiple versions of a campaign. Then, by sending these emails to different subsets of the audience, they can determine which version is likely to drive more engagement with the entire constituent list. For example, for emails about donation appeals, they can test different subject lines (i.e. two email versions, each with a different subject line) to see which one brings in the most donations. They can also test different imagery or copy when asking subscribers to sign up for the next volunteering activity or fundraising event. With Email Studio, nonprofits can also test for pre-headers, from name, CTA text, send times, etc., depending on their campaign goals.

Analyze performance and impact, and take concrete steps to improve

SFMC provides strong analytics and reporting capabilities so nonprofits can measure how well their campaigns resonate with their supporters. They can track their impact with real-time information and also fine-tune their messages to ensure that they reach the right constituents with the most targeted messaging every single time.

Source

With Datorama, the ideal source for Salesforce nonprofit intelligence, they get a single source of truth for assessing campaign performance and impact. They can even share progress with other people across or outside organization (e.g. volunteers) with beautiful, easy-to-use interactive dashboards to make smarter, faster and data-driven decisions. And on the basis of deep, real-time insights, they can gauge their performance, make smart decisions quickly, and optimize their campaigns over time.

Wrap Up

Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a powerful Email Service Provider for nonprofit organizations, allowing them to nurture contacts, spread their message and meet their goals. They can also track their campaigns and capture the right data in order to extract valuable insights and ensure that their communications are always sensitive and relevant. With SFMC and email marketing, nonprofits of all shapes and sizes can increase awareness, engage constituents in personalized, relevant ways, and build long-term relationships that make a tangible impact.

The post Salesforce Nonprofits: 7 Ways Nonprofits Can Make the Most of Salesforce Marketing Cloud appeared first on Email Uplers.

Should you add interactivity to your landing pages or not? Resolving the dilemma

Fri, 18 Dec 2020 13:01:20 GMT

A landing page is one of the most “mission-critical” elements of your online marketing strategy. Let’s assume that you have been burning the midnight oil and making every effort to design compelling landing pages. Of course, we cannot overlook the conceptualization meetings, creation of wireframes, drafting, discarding, and rewriting persuasive copies, and designing different creatives.

Now, what if even after all these efforts, you do not get the desired results?

Well, amidst all the gloom, there is a silver lining.

You can think out-of-the-box and design unique landing pages that will increase visitor engagement and contribute to higher conversions.

So, what can you do to make the landing page designs unique?

The answer is:- a “visual and interactive marketing strategy”.

Talk to the customer with the help of rich imagery, videos, or other interactive features.

It will take the customer experience to the next level and amplify the performance of your landing pages.

Before we discuss “how” to add interactivity in landing pages, let’s discuss why you must consider creating interactive landing pages.

Interactive content brings twice the engagement when compared to static content. No wonder, 62% of B2B marketers are already using it.
Video landing pages can increase conversions by 86%.
Giphy has revealed that 500 million active users view GIFs for around 11 million hours.
64% of customers are more inclined to buy a product after watching a video about it.
Content Marketing Institute has reported that the top 3 reasons to invest in interactive marketing are engaging the audience, educating them, and building brand awareness.

Don’t these facts sound convincing and exciting?

That’s why most marketers have adopted interactive content to differentiate their brand and grow traffic.

To help you get started, we are here with some tips and tricks to create interactive landing pages that bring results.

1. Add animations to your landing pages.

GIFs and cinemagraphs work wonders for your landing page, making them visually attractive and getting more people to convert.

These animated images can be used to display your products and their features. GIFs work as an autoplay video to show how the products work.

The advantages of using GIFs are that they have a small file size. Therefore, it will not add to the website loading speed.

Here are a couple of examples.

See how Slack has demonstrated the use of their platform with the help of clever animations. These visuals clearly let the visitor know how they can make the most of Slack and enhance communication with the team members.

Another variation is illustrative animations. District0x.io has set the perfect example of using animated illustrations to explain their product.

Cinemagraph is a type of GIF animation that shows minor repeated movement, that emulates video clips. In a way, cinemagraphs are the connecting link between photos and videos, with a WOW factor.

Like cinemagraphs can be used in emails, they can be incorporated in landing pages too.

Here’s an example of a landing page by weltrade. They have made the elements come alive by using cinemagraphs. In comparison to GIFs, cinemagraphs can have more colors and leave a clear impression. You might misinterpret it to be a video only to realize that most of the image is static.

2. Make your landing pages more engaging with videos

Adding explainer videos to your landing pages can facilitate communication with the visitor and boost sales. They can help you reach a larger audience while boosting customer loyalty and retention.

Here are a couple of examples that show how powerful videos can be.

Adobe has used a beautiful video for their product Creative Cloud.

You can even go a step ahead and include personalized videos on landing pages that give a feeling of exclusivity to the reader.

Besides SaaS companies, eCommerce websites can also use videos like Spinning.com has done.

They have explained their product in the background and once the visitor scrolls through, they have another video that explains their apps. The music of the video, as well as visuals, are catchy enough to keep the visitor hooked to the site.

3. Converse with your prospects

Ask questions through your landing pages and let the prospects answer you.

Let me explain.

A/B Tasty has thought out their landing page carefully.

Once someone “requests a demo”, A/B Tasty will show them a landing page asking them about the team they belong to.

Based on the choice they select, they will display relevant copy explaining more about their features.

It will prompt the user to provide his or her details and book the demo call.

You can even include a quiz on your landing page to gather more information about your subscriber and determine how aware he or she is about your niche.

4. Tell a story

This is my favorite part. I love stories. I am sure most of you reading this would be nodding your head on that. Use the same tactic for landing pages. You can add a tint of humor or emotions to your story and close the deal.

Moo just nails the principle of “showing” rather than telling, through their email landing page.

Their email shows a string with a balloon tied to it.

When the email recipient will click on the CTA “Snip the string”, they will be redirected to a landing page that continues the story after snipping the string.

The landing page shows a popped balloon, revealing a 15% discount offer and the coupon code.

Isn’t that a great way to engage the customers? Obviously, the reader will be curious to know what happens after snipping the string. That’s the thought behind designing such an email and landing page.

In addition, you can use chatbots on the landing pages to employ conversational storytelling.

Lego has nailed this strategy with their artificially intelligent chatbot Ralph.

If you are a marketing professional in the finance sector, you can include calculators on your landing page for deposits and loan EMIs.

5. Use interactivity in your holiday marketing campaigns

Occasion-based marketing works well if you make interactive landing pages. During such days, the customer is in a cheerful mood and will respond well to images, GIFs, and videos.

See how Nordstrom has used GIFs to reflect the vibes of Holiday season and Christmas.

Hippo Video has also revamped its landing page to match the Christmassy mood.

I am tempted to share one more example. (I have also shared it in the article on “Holiday Landing Pages”.)

Stop Aging Now has used a great idea to reveal their discount offer through their email landing page.

Take a look at their email and landing page.

Once you click on Carve Now, you will see this landing page that allows you to reveal your offer.

However, there are some disadvantages that you must bear in mind while adding interactivity to your landing pages.

i. It might lead to a broken layout on mobile devices or smaller screens. You must create responsive pages so that they render well across all devices.

ii. Adding flashy GIFs can cause photoepileptic seizures in patients of photosensitivity. Therefore, it is prudent to refrain from adding animations with flashing rates between 2 Hz to 55 Hz, considering visually impaired users.

iii. Interactivity in landing pages might increase the loading speed of the page and lead to a higher bounce rate. Make sure you test all the web pages, especially the interactive ones, for speed before making them live.

Despite these drawbacks, interactivity is something you should not shy away from using because it can make your landing page come alive.

Wrapping Up

So, did you see how interactive landing pages can significantly enhance the user’s experience?

If you loved the examples we shared and are inspired to design one for your own business, just get in touch with us.

We will design an even better landing page for you.

And of course, we can design interactive emails and banners too, for you.

Just CONTACT US and our experts will help you out.

The post Should you add interactivity to your landing pages or not? Resolving the dilemma appeared first on Email Uplers.

A detailed guide to Cross-Selling and Upselling in post-purchase Emails

Thu, 17 Dec 2020 04:58:54 GMT

That’s the most epic example of increasing sales through cross-selling.

We have encountered this question so many times at McDonald’s or Burger King, right?

Subway uses the same strategy to upsell and get us to pick some add-ons like egg and cheese with the sub.

That’s enormous business opportunities.

Your sales executives are responsible for quite a lot of conversions. There’s no doubt in that. However, marketing professionals and customer success managers also contribute to making sales. Moreover, once a lead gets converted and purchases from you, marketers can encourage them to make another purchase and retain them.

It is possible through cross-selling and upselling.

Let’s understand these two terms in detail.

Suppose you have purchased a mobile phone from an eCommerce website.

Within 24 hours, you will receive an email thanking you for the purchase and promoting mobile accessories.

This is cross-selling. In other words, it refers to encouraging the purchase of products that are relevant to the previous purchase.

Upselling, on the other hand, is when you get the customer to purchase something that will add to the expense of the primary product. For instance: If a customer has purchased a basic subscription to your service, you can upsell and prompt them to buy an additional integration that would take their experience to the next level.

Now, what do you think is the best way to reach out to your customer to cross-sell or upsell?

Well, if you ask me, my answer would be “EMAILS” out of all the options like product page, checkout page, or the thank you page.

You know why? —

Because they can be personalized, automated, and deployed at the right time. You can also send out triggered emails based on the customer’s activity.

Other digital marketing channels do not have the power of reaching the right person at the right time. Therefore, the safest bet continues to be email marketing.

Cross-selling and upselling bear maximum results when you propose your recommendations to existing customers. When they have already purchased something from your website, they are in that frame of mind where they are more open to ‘listen’ to you and consider your recommendations seriously.

According to reports, post-purchase engagement is the best way to increase overall satisfaction.

Conversio carried out a study wherein they assessed 12.1 million follow-up emails and 24.5 million digital receipts that eCommerce stores had sent back in 2016.

They concluded that the average open rate of all follow-up emails was 40.5 % with a 6.4% click rate and 0.7% conversion rate.

Digital receipts had an open rate of 65%, click rate of 10.4%, and 1.4% conversion rate.

Companies yield an average of $0.25 additional revenue for every digital receipt sent with upsell or cross-sell suggestions. It is interesting to learn that 96% of the feedback received from receipt and confirmation emails is positive.

It is clear from these figures that follow-up emails are more likely to get results for your business.

What if you combine the power of post-purchase follow-up emails and relevant recommendations for upselling and cross-selling?

It would not only impart a pleasant experience to the subscribers but also increase your conversion rate and ROI.

Furthermore, Adobe has revealed that the average probability of conversion for a new prospect is around 1%. The same figure increases to 9% in the case of an existing customer. What’s more exciting is that they spend five times as much.

Cross-selling and upselling can increase the value of your company by 30% and customer retention by 10%.

Advantages of Upsell and Cross-sell marketing tactics

It increases the average order value and yields better profits
It boosts customer loyalty
It increases customer awareness about the kind of products or services you deal with
It leads to a lower customer acquisition cost

With these facts and figures in front of us, let’s jump to how you can use post-purchase emails to reinforce your cross-selling and upselling strategy. (We shall discuss the upselling strategy in the later section.)

Tips to Cross-sell and Upsell Through Post-purchase Emails

1. Always choose the right products or services

Relevance is the key to cross-selling and upselling. If a customer has purchased a home decor item from your store, you must consider cross-selling something related to that product. It should complement the previous purchase.

Take a look at this example:

Amazon has tactfully chosen the book recommendations for John that go very well with the Kindle content he has purchased previously. You can use predictive analytics and Artificial Intelligence to execute this strategy.

Alternatively, you can upsell by suggesting a better version of the same product. However, the former option sounds more impactful in this case.

On the other hand, if the customer has purchased a mobile device, you can try suggesting device protection or warranty extension in an attempt to upselling. This applies to SaaS products as well.

A fortnight ago, I signed up for Calendly trial version in order to manage my time better and streamline the scheduling of meetings.

After the 14-day trial period ended, they sent me an email reminding me to “UPGRADE” and continue using their service.

Take a look at their email template

As soon as I clicked on the CTA, they redirected me to a screen explaining the two pricing models.

Obviously, I am a Calendly Pro customer now!

That’s the power of post-purchase emails that upsell in the right way.

2. Personalize the recommendations

According to Accenture, 75% of customers are more likely to purchase if the retailer is aware of their purchase history, recommends purchases according to that history, and uses first name personalization to address them.

Always, personalize the cross-sell and upsell suggestions based on the past interaction of the customer.

Suppose If you are a marketing agency offering digital marketing services to a customer. Y, you can either promote more advanced services to upsell or cross-sell your content marketing or guest blogging services.

Let’s understand it better with another example.

Namecheap allows you to purchase domains, website hosting, security certificate, etc.

When I purchased a domain name from their website, they immediately sent me an email that promoted their hosting services, security certificates, and other apps to integrate with the website. It is a great example of the cross-selling email.

Also, they have highlighted their domain name services to upsell.

3. Use the right tone

The words you choose play a huge role in getting conversions for your business. When you are sending out an upsell or cross-sell email, you must add some power words and persuasive language.

You must let the subscriber know what he or she is missing out by not making the purchase according to your recommendations. Also, add visuals that support your message and inspire the imagination of the customer. Consequently, it would increase the likelihood of winning the customer.

4. Incentivize the customer

In your post-purchase email, you can share a coupon code or discount offers along with the products to upsell and cross-sell.

As an example, you can give $5 off on mobile accessories to a customer who has just purchased a mobile phone from your portal.

You can even offer free shipping or same-day delivery to convince the customer to purchase.

The same applies to SaaS businesses too. They can share a discount coupon code and encourage the customers to make the purchase.

Moreover, you can promote referral marketing in your post-purchase emails or allow the customers to redeem points for every purchase.

(Even I have purchased things I do not really need just to increase the points and get premium benefits for being a VIP customer.)

5. Create a sense of urgency

Try to create a sense of urgency by using words like “Hurry”, “Limited-time offer”, or “Sale ends today”. As already discussed, recent customers might be vibing on the shopping spree which makes it easier to convince them to purchase. If you tap on the “Fear of Missing Out” instinct of the customer, you can get them to make an impulsive purchase that will add to your ROI.

6. Never forget social proof

Always include social proof by featuring testimonials or customer reviews about the product. Include phrases like “Customers who bought this also purchased….”.

It will create a kind of peer pressure on the customer while building trust and confidence in the brand.

If you are a SaaS business, you can share case studies about how a brand used your service and boosted their business growth. It will inspire the customers to make the purchase and pursue success.

7. Harness the power of THREE

While cross-selling and upselling, you must remember that customers are more receptive to patterns. Did you ever wonder why brands always share three products as recommendations? Well, the reason is that “THREE” is considered to be the most attractive number. The same principle applies to the pricing structure set by brands.

Take a look at this example by Amazon.

8. Time the email right

Yesterday, I ordered groceries from a local eCommerce store and immediately after making the payment, I received an email, thanking me for the order. They informed me that I could edit my order and add more items to the previous order.

Now, that’s what I call a winning upsell and cross-sell strategy. They have set the automation in such a way that the customer is likely to ponder over the products he might need and add some more things to the order.

9. Experiment with down-selling

In case your upselling tactics do not work, worry not!

There is a backup plan too.

Instead of offering a premium product or something that is more expensive, opt for down-selling and promoting a product at a discounted price.

You will be able to set algorithms in CRM tools like Salesforce that will allow you to evaluate the customer behavior. If the customer is a discount shopper or someone who always sorts the products as “Price: low to high”, you can promote lower-priced cheaper items in the post-purchase emails.

It will make the customer believe in you that you care about their economical preferences. After all, many of your customers are looking for cost-effective products that are not too heavy on the pocket.

Wrapping Up

Once you have figured out the kind of audience you cater to and your marketing goals, you must formulate your cross-sell and upsell strategy to get maximum returns.

In case you want to design a winning post-purchase email with an attractive upsell/cross-sell section, just get in touch with experts at Email Uplers.

We would love to help you out and get more conversions through your emails.

The post A detailed guide to Cross-Selling and Upselling in post-purchase Emails appeared first on Email Uplers.

10-Point Checklist to Create Memorable Email Campaigns with Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Tue, 15 Dec 2020 12:13:13 GMT

In today’s noisy email marketing landscape, how can you stand out in a subscriber’s inbox?

The answer: Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC).

SFMC offers numerous intuitive creation tools, built-in SFMC templates, an intelligent predictive AI engine (Einstein), plus powerful segmentation, personalization and testing capabilities, so you can deliver tailored, 1-to-1 emails to every subscriber, every time.

To help you build a successful SFMC email campaign from the ground up, we have created this simple to-do checklist.

Ready to deliver the exceptional experiences your subscribers expect and deserve? Let’s get started!

#1: SEGMENT your subscriber list

Split your email list into more targeted segments to better understand your audience, which can ultimately enable you to increase customer retention, create brand advocates, and generate more sales.

SFMC supports segmentation by demographics, behavior, psychography, geography, etc, so you can create different segments like: new users, active subscribers, disengaged subscribers, frequent cart abandoners, etc.

Source

Design your email campaigns around these segments to ensure that subscribers always get relevant and timely emails.

Model your data to analyze the relationships between subscribers with other data objects like orders, visits, and support cases. You can also apply data filters in Email Studio with relevant attributes like country, last name, etc. For large data sets or multiple data extensions, or to target a very specific segment, run SQL queries in Journey Builder.

#2: Create compelling SUBJECT LINES

A great subject line will stand out in your subscribers’ inbox and make them want to open your email. Make it intriguing, interesting and unique. Limit the length to 70 characters, and don’t be afraid to experiment with emojis.

In SFMC, Einstein Copy Insights provides powerful language-related insights to help you craft better subject lines. With machine learning and statistics, this feature identifies language features related to punctuation, tone, emotions, phrases, etc., and assesses their impact on open rate. Use this information to create subject lines that are most likely to appeal to your audience, and thus increase email open rates.

You can also include incentives to increase open rates.

“Free shipping on orders of $50 and above”
“Receive a free Tee with purchases over $200”
“Buy in-store and get 20% off on your next purchase”

Make sure incentives are backed by a warm, human-sounding email copy!

#3: Create personalized CONTENT

Personalized content is one of the most critical success factors in modern email marketing. SFMC makes it easy for you and your SFMC specialist to add personalization at multiple levels: subject line, greeting, product recommendations, copy, special offers, promotions, etc.

Here are 4 ways to get started with personalization in SFMC:

Collect customer data through Smart Capture forms and define it as an entry source in Journey Builder
Set up a Preference Center so your subscribers can update their details, needs, preferred frequency, etc.
Send behavior-triggered emails when a subscriber takes a specific action at any stage of the customer lifecycle.
Leverage SFMC’s dynamic content capabilities to personalize content based on:

Demographics
Preferences
Purchase history
Subscriber details

You can also use drag-and-drop functions, personalized scripting language, and interactive content like carousels and weather reports to delight subscribers with real-time, hyper-personalized messages.

#4: Check and remove SPAM

To keep your emails out of spam folders, maintain an optimal number of sends based on what subscribers ask for. Also ensure that you don’t use “spammy” words in content that will trigger spam filters, and automatically move your emails to the spam folder. Use Content Detective in SFMC Email Studio to identify and remove such trigger words before email sends.

Some more tips to keep spam complaints down:

Never buy email lists. Purchased lists tend to generate very high unsubscribe and spam rates
Add your brand’s physical address somewhere in the email
Avoid using ‘No reply’ in the sender’s email address (see #5 below)
Make it easy to unsubscribe (see #6 below)
Break down your content into smaller, more easily consumable chunks

#5: Check the SENDER’S email address

In addition to subject lines, the from address can either encourage or discourage subscribers from opening emails. Your subscribers are more likely to open your emails if they know they were written by a human being, e.g. jack@amazonian.com.

An email address containing “No reply” (e.g. noreply@yourcompany.com) annoys subscribers because it is generic, impersonal, and prevents them from responding. A non-branded sending address also goes against CAN-SPAM regulations that protect the right of US recipients to opt out of marketing emails.

#6: Add an UNSUBSCRIBE link

No email marketer or SFMC specialist wants to lose subscribers. But, if someone wants to leave, making it harder for them to do so will just annoy them even more. Hard-to-find unsubscribe links in tiny fonts or low-contrast colors can generate spam reports, so add your unsubscribe button right next to your email address, or at the end of your email.

Source

Tip: If a subscriber tries to unsubscribe, it may be because they receive too many emails from you. Give them the opportunity to personalize their experience and select the type of emails they want to receive. A Preference Center (see #3 above) is a great way to potentially halt that unsubscribe.

#7: Add clear CTAs

Use a clear CTA with every email. This can increase conversions by giving readers the choice to take a specific action.

Useful tips:

Keep CTA copy specific and short
Use attractive colors for the button
Use white space
Show CTA before the fold
Test the links, make sure they’re not broken
Optimize link/button for mobile

#8: In every email, the design is as important as the copy, so make sure you get it right.

Use the ready-made SFMC templates, and reusable content blocks to save time and get your emails out quickly. Include high-quality visuals, color palette, fonts, styles, etc., that sync with your brand’s design guidelines. Include relevant brand elements like logo, tagline and physical address.

Add ALT text to every image and button so users can understand what they’re reading, even if the HTML doesn’t render properly, or if their email client blocks images by default.

Add interactive elements wherever possible: videos, countdown timers, quizzes, image carousels, interactive maps, accordion menus, live polls, etc.

Source

Create both HTML and plain text emails. HTML emails are rich in visual, interactive and media elements. But they might not render properly in all email clients. But with plain-text emails, you can still share information and provide value, and thus reach more subscribers.

Finally, create responsive and mobile-friendly designs by taking care of these elements:

No broken links
Images load properly
Easy scrolling and navigation
Short subject lines: 25-30 characters
Use pre-header text
Short copy that’s readable on a mobile screen

#9: Set up TESTING

Before sending out an email, test it on a small group within your target audience using A/B testing. Set up different versions and send each to a different group. The version that generates the best results, say, most opens, clicks or conversions, should be the “winning” version which you can send to the remaining subscribers.

In SFMC, A/B Testing must be set up in Email Studio. You can test different elements, including:

Subject line
From name
Content areas
Images/visuals
CTA text
Send time

Useful tips to run a successful A/B test:

Define a hypothesis and goal
For more accurate results, test as large a sample as possible
Randomize your contact list and choose the same sample sizes for both versions
Test as early as possible
Test only one variable at a time
Wait at least 24 hours before declaring a version as the winner

After finalizing the email version, preview it within SFMC Content Builder to ensure it renders appropriately.

Source

#10: Set up ANALYTICS

Once you send an email or finish a campaign, review its performance in terms of:

Open rates
Click-through rates
Conversions
A/B test results
Bounces
Spam complaints

Also look for answers like:

Are customers clicking on your emails more than the industry average?
Which content chunks do they engage with more?
Have store purchases increased?
Which designs perform better?
Do buttons do well or text links?

Use the tracking reports in SFMC Email Studio to dig deeper into the data, to gauge performance, and to improve over time.

Wrap Up

We hope this checklist gives you a strong foundation to build memorable email campaigns to engage with subscribers, and convert them into loyal fans. If you still need help, our email marketing experts SFMC specialists can help.

The post 10-Point Checklist to Create Memorable Email Campaigns with Salesforce Marketing Cloud appeared first on Email Uplers.

How to Set Up A/B Testing in Marketo

Mon, 14 Dec 2020 10:10:39 GMT

A/B testing is a crucial aspect of email marketing. As the name suggests, A/B testing allows you to send two or more variations of an email to different subscribers. According to the performance of these campaigns, you can then send the winning version to the remaining subscribers.

Every ESP or CRM has a different interface according to which the steps for A/B testing vary. Here, we shall discuss how you can carry out A/B testing through Marketo. We chose Marketo because it is one of the most robust platforms and is quite popular among the masses.

If you are looking for a step-by-step guide to A/B test your Marketo templates, this article will clear all your doubts about it.

Let’s get started.

First of all, we shall understand how to add an A/B test.

1. Adding an A/B test

Before you can add an A/B test, make sure you fulfil these preconditions.

Create an Email Program.
Define an audience either by a Smart List or by importing a list.
Choose an Existing Email or Create an Email for an Email Program.

Once you have completed these steps, you are ready to execute A/B testing.

Just follow these steps below:

Navigate to Marketing Activities.

Choose your email program.

You will be able to see “Add A/B Test” under the title “Email”.

Click on that and Voila! You are good to go…

Now, we shall move on to the different test types.

a. Subject line A/B testing

Once you click on “Add A/B Test”, a new window will open that will allow you to choose the test type.

Click on the Test Type drop-down and select “Subject Line”.

The Choice A will show you the subject line of the selected email.

In the Choice B, you can write the subject line of your choice for the test email.

If you want to test more emails and add more subject lines, just click on the plus sign.

Make use of the slider to select the percentage of the audience who must receive the A/B test.

Then, you will define the A/B test winner criteria. (We shall discuss it later in this article.)

b. Whole Email A/B Testing

Just like you have selected ‘subject line’ in the previous point, select the “Whole Emails” test type to test the entire emails.

Just select the emails that you want to include in the A/B testing.

Move the slider to adjust the test sample size and click on Next.

c. From Address A/B Testing

Let’s say you want to determine whether “Email Uplers” works better as the from name or “Kevin from Email Uplers”.

From Address A/B testing comes into picture here.

Choose “From Address” for Test Type and then select the From names and email addresses.

For example: Kevin from Email Uplers, kevin@uplers.com

Email Uplers, email@uplers.com

You can add more versions too, but avoid adding too many of them.

Adjust the slider to choose the sample size and click on Next.

d. Date/Time A/B Testing

Figuring out the best time to send the emails takes trial and error. You can take help of A/B testing and see what time works the best to drive email conversions for your business.

All steps remain the same as in the previous points. Just choose “Date/Time” in the test type and pick the date and time when you want to send the test emails.

Adjust the test sample size with the help of the slider and it is done.

Now, once you have set the A/B test, you have to provide the A/B test winner criteria.

A/B Test Winner Criteria

Defining the A/B test winner criteria is the most important step in this process.

Default winner criteria options are:-

Opens
Clicks
Click to Open %
Engagement Score

There is one more option known as “Custom Conversion” which will let you pick an event as a conversion with the help of triggers and filters.

Just look for the trigger that matches your preference and drop it into the canvas.

Next, you must define the trigger.

Remember that you do not need to set the filter to “Was Sent Email”.

The triggers will apply only to the people who have received the email.

Click on Close.

Besides the winner criteria, you must also choose how you want to Declare Winner.

It can either be Automatic or Manual.

In the former option, Marketo can automatically send out the winning email at the scheduled time. On the other hand, if you choose the Manual option, you can review the results and then decide to send the email. The platform will wait for you to choose the winner once they send you the report of the results. You will have to define the date and time to send the report in case you have chosen the Manual option.

Schedule the A/B Test

After setting up all the parameters, you must schedule the A/B test.

Pick the date and time to send the test email and winner email.

Send Test and Send Winner must have a gap of 4 hours at least so that you get enough time to get the results. If you are sending the emails to a larger audience, you can wait for a day or so.

You can even add notification recipients to get updates about the test results.

The last step is to approve the program, provided that you have already defined your audience and chosen the email.

To approve an email program, just go to “My Email Program” from the Marketing Activities and click on Approve Program under the Approval title.

This is important because the email will not be sent unless you approve the email program.

Points to Remember

1. You will not be able to use the test email for any other program.

2. In case your database has duplicate records, those subscribers will get the test emails as well as the winning versions. Therefore, you must always find and merge duplicate people in your database.

3. Do not set the sample size to 100%. In case you do so while working with a static list, the test email will be sent to everyone in the audience. As a result, there will be no winning version to send anyone.

If you set the sample size to 100% while working with a smart list, it will send the test email to everyone in the database at that point of time.

Whenever the email program will run in the future, all the subscribers who will qualify for the smart list will receive the email as they are included in the database.

4. It is possible to add multiple emails but it is advisable to avoid this as it can slow the testing process.

Conclusion

Email marketers who are struggling to figure out what is working for their business should certainly take the A/B testing route. It will help them to optimize their email campaigns for best results and enhance the conversion rate.

If you still have any questions about how to do it, just reach out to our Marketo experts and we would love to help you out.

The post How to Set Up A/B Testing in Marketo appeared first on Email Uplers.

The Significance of Retaining Existing Customers with Email Marketing: Exploring the ‘Why’ ...

Sat, 12 Dec 2020 11:49:42 GMT

There is always a sense of anticipation and, with success, a sense of joy and satisfaction in making new contacts. We could say this is more so for businesses, as they can also look forward to what these new contacts mean for their bottom-line and future growth. But, sometimes, in all the activity and excitement of searching for new horizons, the hard-won vistas right in front of you get overlooked, don’t they? This can apply to your customers, too.

Though businesses will freely acknowledge the wisdom in holding on to their existing customer base, this is often not borne out in substantial, consistent marketing efforts. As a company constantly nudging over competitors for a lucrative niche, you need to realize, if you have your customers coming back for more, you can win with a greater ROI; what’s more, it will cost you much less than it would to strike out to build a base of new names.

Most often—and with the current tools on offer—all it takes to make sure your customers keep buying into your brand is a series of simple, well-intended, and aptly framed communication. And, with the messaging mode of email still standing strong, retention email marketing is your best bet to keep that customer database vast and constant.

How to Make Email Marketing Work for Those Already in the Loop?

Too often, companies focus their on prospects and the larger audience. But, consider how easy it would be to get your message across to someone who is already listening—that is, the majority, if not every single, of your existing customers.

Here are a few ways you can structure your email marketing efforts to reach your customers and to make sure they don’t stray too far.

1.Reminder Emails to Keep Them Engaged

Set up your email automation platform to keep pinging your existing customers—individually and with personalized emails—with relevant updates, information, and reminders. You might tend to wait for the customer to make their next purchase based on their idiosyncratic requirements or stick to sending out mass, half-hearted emails to your entire customer base regarding new products or services. Neither of these approaches tends to work in the world of information overload and short attention spans.

Instead, you can benefit by reaching out to your customers actively if you haven’t ‘heard from them in a while’; that is to say, your repeat customer hasn’t shown any purchase activity for an extended period. Typically, the lapse of a 90-day period would be a good trigger for your ‘hey, we are still here for you’ reminder emails. Keep the message simple and genuine, and make sure to address the ‘what is in it for me’ factor. These can also integrate a definite ‘push’ or ‘nudge’ element, diplomatically framing in a ‘do not lose out’ messaging. Udemy has done a good job in the below sample, clearly putting out the relevant details, adding an inventive, and setting up for a higher CTR.

Source: Reallygoodemails.com

Ideally, your retention email marketing campaigns should also focus on following through on purchases and subscriptions. Thus, some of the templates of reminder emails you can set up for existing customers can be:

Cart abandonment
Expiry reminders (for accounts and subscriptions)
Specific updates (to products and services)
Upselling and cross-selling

2. Targeted Content Marketing To Make Them Feel Involved

In the era of social media and influencer marketing, brands need to constantly work on making customers feel valued and involved. You will have to focus a significant part of your email marketing campaigns on maintaining a communication loop with existing customers.

Source: Reallygoodemails.com

This is one area where you can get creative—both at the broader form-level and with the specific template. For instance, with the ever-increasing amplification of applications and software, customers appreciate guides and analysis related to the product or service. In the above email example, Truebill has rendered a simple, clean, and personalized template to share relevant service use-related insights.

Another area that brands often tend to downplay in customer communication is periodic and relevant company updates. Instead of sticking to a drab, one-way communication of broad-based numbers, you will be best-served to read the pulse of purchase patterns and market trends. Then, devise an email marketing campaign (single or drip) to regularly share what would be relevant and interesting for the customer.

This can also take the form of templates rich with ‘brand buzz’—recent testimonials and media coverage that will reassure your customer of their association with a popular and successful brand. So, do consider these email marketing examples to keep your customers in the loop with some contemporary content marketing:

Support and reports
Product and service updates
Brand /company updates
Social proofs

3. Communicate for Loyalty and to Prevent Churn

Too often, marketing can turn passive after a purchase has been made. This can be the case more so with repeat customers. Seen from the perspective of the new-age customer (one who is spoilt for choice and truly believes in the maxim of ‘customer is king), this might seem like you are taking them for granted. According to Forbes, about 68% of customers tend to abandon ship as they start feeling neglected by the company and feel like an inconsequential part of a crowd.

To make sure your customers don’t fall into this statistical group, your email marketing has to proactively reach out to customers and create a sense of appreciation and acknowledgement. You can set up your automation platform with varied and personalized emails that mark key events.

You can start with a simple, perfectly worded follow-up email to a product purchase or service sign-up. Essential elements to include in this template would be a ‘welcome’ note, a brief introduction of the brand and product, and clearly set apart details of customer helplines. This would serve the all-important business goal of making the customer feel heard and helped along.

A variation of a follow-up email that brands are increasingly resorting to is the survey. If aptly personalized and timed, a short feedback form can elicit frank and relevant customer insights. Uber, for instance, has worked on effective templates with helpful and clearly set apart CTA buttons. The fact that they have the intent clear in their minds and it is well communicated is sure to generate prompt customer response.

Source: Reallgoodemails.com

Summing up, these are some of the types of emails that will help you retain loyal and informed customers:

Follow-up
Anniversary celebrations (to mark special occasions, perhaps with a discount/offer)
‘Thank You’ notes (these don’t need a special occasion)
Milestone marking for customers
Feedback

9 Hot Tips for All Your Retention Email Marketing Efforts

Collect details smartly
Keep your subscribers list updated
Be proactive at all times
Segment and target for the best results
Focus on goal, content, and design—at the same time and equally
Don’t underestimate the power of a newsletter
Personalize, personalize, personalize
Provide helplines and feedback channels
Give the customer the option to opt-out (unsubscribe, that is)

Wrapping Up

There are multiple benefits to retaining your existing customers, both in terms of numbers and the more nebulous, long-term benefits: increased orders, enhanced order frequency and value, brand loyalty, word-of-mouth promotions, and a positive brand image would be just some of them. In today’s crowded marketplace, your email marketing campaigns have to be geared towards identifying every single opportunity to communicate with your current customer base. It goes without saying that this entire process has to be proactive and standardized.

So, tap into the power of retention email marketing today. Set up those threads of simple and effective messages today to build a strong web of long-standing, ever-returning customers.

Need help with creating retention email designs that work? We can help.

The post The Significance of Retaining Existing Customers with Email Marketing: Exploring the ‘Why’ and ‘How’ appeared first on Email Uplers.

How to Impress Your Audience with Interactive Emails in SFMC

Sat, 12 Dec 2020 09:56:02 GMT

Interactive games…

Interactive OTT…

Interactive social media…

Then why not interactive emails?!

Interactive emails are a great way to break through the clutter to connect with audiences and enhance their brand experiences.

Kapost says that “interactive” content generates 2X (70%) more conversions than “passive” content (36%). The report further states that interactive content is the “new compelling force ushering buyers into pipelines”.

Epsilon, a 5-decade old management consulting firm has also seen a 40% increase in email engagement with live time-of-open content, aka interactive emails.

So, what exactly is an interactive email?

Can we send interactive emails through Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC)?

Can interactive emails help a brand win more customers? What are some of its other advantages?

In this article, we will focus more on questions 2 & 3. However, if you are new to interactive emails, or are not a Salesforce marketing cloud email specialist, we provide a quick overview in the first section. Otherwise, feel free to jump directly into the remaining sections.

Interactive content drives email engagement and results. Get ready to find out how!

What is an Interactive Email?

An interactive email contains content that your subscribers can directly engage (i.e. “interact”) with, by tapping, clicking, swiping, etc. – without leaving the inbox. So this could involve filling out a form, submitting a review, playing a video, etc.

Unlike regular email marketing where your main goal is to get a user to view your content or click on a link to a specific landing page (e.g. eCommerce store), with an SFMC interactive email, you can get your reader to complete some action that then triggers a particular event, all without them leaving that email. The idea is to encourage the audience to take a more active role in engaging with the content, while delivering a delightful user experience that keeps them coming back for more.

There are many powerful ways to deliver an interactive experience in your emails:

Videos
Interactive product carousels
Interactive email forms
Quizzes
Image/button rollovers
Countdown timers
Progressive disclosure
Click to call buttons
Live polls
Live local weather
Store locators
Interactive maps

You can include one interactive element or many, but make sure you use them strategically.

Benefits of Interactive Emails in Salesforce Marketing Cloud

The main advantage of an interactive email marketing campaign is its potential to boost user engagement. Often, customers leave a brand because they feel that it doesn’t care about them as individuals. But through interactive emails – especially the ones where you ask for their opinions, inputs, or feedback – you tell them that they are being heard. You tell them that they matter, and not just for transactional reasons. This is why interactive emails can help your brand retain existing customers, and also win more new customers.

Here are some more benefits of sending interactive emails through Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

Increased number of clicks

Interactive content encourages users to participate more fully in the email marketing experience. The attractive elements that make them a dynamic part of the campaign give them the motivation to click or swipe on links, and in general, take some proactive action. Moreover, since they get some value without having to leave the email, interactive email marketing campaigns provide a “friction-free experience” that leads to a growth in the number of clicks. If designed strategically and with a focus on the user, interactive emails can also get more visitors to landing pages.

More qualified leads

Instead of wasting time or effort on chasing every prospect, you can design interactive lead forms to capture or update information from your leads. You can then use this information to understand which leads are “qualified”, so you can take the right actions to target them for additional email marketing campaigns, and ultimately move them closer to conversion and purchase.

Higher conversion rates

Increased interactions lead to better conversion rates, more sales and more profits. This can also lead to a substantial growth in the email list. With these results, you can design relationship and loyalty email marketing campaigns, which can lead to a virtuous cycle of greater brand recall, more loyalty and more sales.

More audience data

By embedding progressive profiles and lead forms in emails, you can collect a goldmine of information about your subscribers. You can use this information to create other personalized email campaigns that keep them engaged and connected with your brand. Through other interactive elements like surveys, reviews and polls, you can understand what your audience thinks about your brand, and what actions they would like you to take to improve their brand experiences.

This data, which gets collected in the data extension, can also be used outside SFMC. For example, with a lead form, you can use Journey Builder to put this data into Sales Cloud to follow up with those customers. You can do the same with a case form and Service Cloud.

Ultimately, all of this generates a two-way feedback loop that can benefit both your brand and your audience. Result – loyalty, stickiness and raving fans!

In the next couple of sections, we cover some useful information about creating different types of interactive emails in SFMC. For more detailed insights, take a look at two of our other articles here and here.

A Quick Guide to Interactive Emails in Salesforce Marketing Cloud

SFMC makes it incredibly easy to design and deploy interactive emails. Through Journey Builder, Content Builder, and a number of pre-built Salesforce email templates, you can set up and customize new and creative ways to engage with specific target audiences.

Templates are available for multiple interactive email use cases, including:

Progressive profile: to solicit subscriber preferences
Review: to gather feedback
Lead form: to capture or update information from your leads
Case form: enables subscriber to create a case/service request
Empty: start from scratch to create any kind of interactive email form or content

You can add interactive functionalities to any kind of email using the simple drag-and-drop functionality in Content Builder.

Choose the email form block in Content Builder and the CloudPages destination as your thank you message. Choose (or create) a data extension to capture user responses when they submit the form. Then set the visible and hidden fields. For visible fields – which are the customers’ input – set the visible label and the data attribute which is the field name in the receiving data extension. Personalize hidden fields – fields containing data you need passed into the data extension (e.g. email address), but won’t appear to the customer – through the AMP script or with personalization strings.

You can also add multiple buttons, clickable display images, and add unique design elements like padding, margins, border or button colors, etc. When working on the design, you can even define “fallback content” for users whose email client does not support interactive content.

Once you’re done, you can preview the interactive email form or send previews to test users.

Interactive Email Examples in Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Here are a few amazing examples of interactive emails sent through SFMC.

i. Countdown timer

Source

ii. Account feature activation

Source

iii. Appointment booking

Source

iv. Videos

Source

v. Image carousels/rollovers

Source

vi. “Accordion” menu

Source

Wrap up

Interactive emails generate buzz for your brand by encouraging greater direct participation from your target audience. Through an attractive and considered approach to design, presentation and content, you can not only help a user make a more informed choice, say, about a purchase, but also delight them, and keep them coming back for more. Other benefits like increased click-throughs and conversions are also within reach. So if you have never used interactive content in your email marketing strategy, now is a great time to start! And if you need a professional email marketing agency with experience designing memorable interactive campaigns, contact us at email@uplers.com .

The post How to Impress Your Audience with Interactive Emails in SFMC appeared first on Email Uplers.

The benefits of combining the power of CRM and your ESP

Wed, 09 Dec 2020 07:23:28 GMT

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is an integral part of every business model. It helps to not only collect customer information but also get a clear picture of how your marketing campaigns are performing.

As far as marketing is concerned, with time, it has expanded to emails, social media channels, and every other platform on which you can find your target audience.

Therefore, you need INTEGRATIONS!

That’s the fundamental principle on which marketing strategy works today. It can be the integration of third-party tools like Zapier, payment gateways, mobile app notifications, and many other complex applications into the CRM or your ESP and marketing automation tool.

In this article, we shall focus on the integration of CRM and ESP, and how it can make your marketing strategy more effective.

First of all, let’s start with understanding these terminologies.

ESP refers to Email Service Provider. It is a platform that allows you to send out emails to your prospects and customers.

CRM, on the other hand, takes care of “retaining” the existing customers and nurturing a positive relationship with them.

If these two powerful platforms come together, you can create a detailed profile of all your customers and make the communications more relevant for them.

Here’s an interesting fact:

In the B2B sector, the sales cycle is longer, and therefore, it becomes all the more important to nurture the relationships with prospects. According to a study, 63% of the people who request information about your product at this point in time will not purchase for at least three months and 20% will take more than 12 months to buy.

Now, imagine having to keep track of all details like who was approached when and the kind of interaction they had with you. Exhausting, right?

That’s where the integration of CRM and ESP can prove to be useful.

With that overview in mind, let’s dig deep into the advantages of combining ESP and CRM.

1. Expanding the possibility of segmentation

The advantages of segmentation are pretty much obvious. Having a segmented list can help you send different messages to different people according to ‘their’ preferences. Let’s say, you have segmented the subscriber list on the basis of customer activity. This will give you a direction to the customer’s position in the sales funnel. For instance: someone who has visited the pricing page or requested a demo or downloaded a couple of resources from your website is more likely to make the purchase rather than a random lead that has just signed up for your email list but has not even opened any of the emails.

The catch here is that all these “detailed” pieces of information are not available in the ESP. You will need a CRM for that. After you integrate the ESP and CRM, you will be able to micro-segment your subscribers beyond the basic parameters like demographics and geographical location.

Here’s how you can micro-segment your user data.

2. Setting a new dimension on personalization

We have come a long way from personalizing emails by the first name. Now, we receive personalized emails based on the micro-segments discussed in the previous point.

Consider this example:

You just ordered a red dress for the Christmas party. After an hour or so, you receive an email promoting matching studs and accessories to go with it, accompanied by a “TRY NOW” CTA.

Wouldn’t you be tempted to spend some extra bucks for the same?

That’s how helpful CRM and ESP integration can be.

Without a functional CRM-ESP integration in place, you will not be able to go beyond mediocre emails with basic personalization.

3. Keeping up with the expectations of the customers

Most businesses face the challenge that they cannot cope up with the multiple touchpoints that a customer has.

A typical customer’s journey is spread over four stages, namely awareness, consideration, decision, and brand advocacy.

For the marketer, it translates to acquisition, activation, retention, and referrals – all this ultimately leading to conversions and revenue.

Of course, this can get pretty overwhelming for an average marketer. Marketers make extensive use of emails to support the customer’s journey and guide them toward the bottom of the sales funnel.

Email marketing automation comes in handy here. It has become a marketer’s best friend as it not only facilitates personalized messaging but also increases productivity. So, the primary requisite for this is accurate customer information that is easily accessible from a single platform. If you do not have a holistic view of the customers, you will not be able to send out targeted communications in line with the customer’s journey.

Remember that your customers will not always have a straightforward journey. It might have twists and turns that must be recorded in some database. Hence, it is imperative to have your email service provider connected with the CRM.

Let me give you a simple example:

Recently, I signed up for a free content marketing course on a website.

They asked me to fill up some details in Typeform, like my current employment status, my challenges, and the objectives I wish to achieve.

Based on the choices I made, I immediately received an ‘automated and personalized’ email according to the segmentation criteria.

It explained to me the next steps and shared some tips that would help me to achieve my goals, as a salaried professional.

Now obviously, if I had selected “Student” in the current employment status, I would have received a different email with some other action plan. That’s the power of combining a CRM and ESP. It will allow you to send out emails with customized content based on “If-else” conditional statements.

Things to Keep in Mind in the Context of ESP-CRM Integration

1. Field mapping

Field refers to a part of the user profile that has the customer information like first name, last name, age, etc.

Your integration should identify the equivalent fields and allow you to map them with each other.

According to me, field mapping is the most crucial aspect of CRM-ESP integration. I say this because, without field mapping, you will have to enter the same information into two different platforms. Can you imagine the workload in that case?

Another important thing is that if there’s a significant change in the customer’s journey, it will be instantly fetched in the ESP from the CRM.

A simple example of this is that if you modify a lead’s status from prospect to customer in your CRM, your ESP will not send them nurturing emails anymore.

You cannot really expect someone to manually check the ESP each and every time, before sending out emails to prospects. CRM-ESP integration will automate this process for you.

A recommendation: ConvertKit is a great platform as it will allow you to integrate your CRM, Typeform, Zapier, and most of the popular third-party tools.

2. Automatic Syncing

While you are making up your mind to choose the CRM and ESP integration, you must check how the data syncs between the two platforms.

From my personal experience, I have noticed that some integrations update the data in the ESP every 60 minutes. While this may be “okay” for some marketers, it has several limitations when you want the changes to reflect immediately.

For instance: A customer might register for an event at 3:37 PM which will trigger the campaign that you have scheduled at 4:00 PM. However, if your customer data does not sync before 60 minutes, the activity would not be registered in the ESP until 4:30 PM. Ultimately, your customer will miss out on receiving the campaign.

3. Out-of-the-box Integrations

Out-of-the-box integrations do not need any manual intervention for the setup. Generally, you just have to go to the CRM or ESP’s app store and pick the platform that you want to integrate. Provide your credentials or security keys and it will be done.

That’s how easy it is!

The advantage of these integrations is that it leaves no room for human error and can be done without any technical know-how.

4. Value Proposition

See to it that the integration does something that could not be done with siloed operations.

If it does not add any value to your marketing automations, it does not make sense to give another platform access to your customer’s information. Always think of the security of your customer’s information like a guardian looks after kids.

Wrapping Up

CRM-ESP integration can yield huge rewards when implemented in the right way. You can start by choosing the appropriate ESP and CRM that add to the robustness of your marketing strategy.

If you are still confused about how this will work, just get in touch with our experts and we would love to help you out.

The post The benefits of combining the power of CRM and your ESP appeared first on Email Uplers.