“Get closer to your customers. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves.”

–Steve Jobs

Jobs hit the nail on the head years before terms like “customer engagement” and “customer experience” became commonplace in business parlance.

To succeed in today’s hyper-competitive world, organizations must know their customers better, anticipate their needs, and deliver personalized, memorable, and unique experiences rather than generic messaging and offers.

And knowing customers and achieving business success starts with effective customer engagement.

Customer engagement is about personalized communications and delivering connected experiences at every step of the customer journey, rather than fleeting, one-off transactions. A connected email marketing platform like Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC) makes it easier for companies to engage better with customers and get a powerful edge over competitors.

So, if you are looking to take your brand’s customer engagement strategies to the next level with email marketing, this article is for you. Keep reading to know how SFMC can help you truly connect with customers with personalized, memorable email campaigns.

The Importance of Customer Engagement

Let’s consider an industry that’s beset with challenges in the modern era: Retail.

One of the biggest challenges for today’s retail companies is that consumers are thoroughly spoiled for choice. To satisfy their needs, they can choose from any number of retailers. They’re not afraid to switch brands or give a negative review to brands that didn’t satisfy them. For companies, this means that customer loyalty is at a premium.

Today’s consumers are also less likely to trust brands, which affects their loyalty and long-term support. On the other hand, 95% of customers say that if they trust a brand, they are more likely to remain loyal to it.

So, to retain customers and earn their loyalty, retailers must:

• Make customers feel important, valued, and heard
• Understand customers better and meet their needs with tailored products, offers, and discounts
• Deliver seamless multi-channel experiences, both online and in-store
• Provide timely customer support to quickly address queries, and resolve issues or complaints
• Send personalized messages that stand out from a sea of generic marketing “noise”

In short, retailers must focus on customer engagement.

When retailers – and for that matter, all kinds of companies – listen to customers and continually engage with them, they can offer personalized and fluid experiences over multiple purchase channels. They can also deliver exceptional service, make customers feel special with personalized content and offerings, and get the right message to the right person via the right channel and at the right time. All of this is the key to customer loyalty, increased sales, and higher profits.

Effortless Customer Engagement with Data and Salesforce Marketing Cloud

According to Salesforce, 80% of customers say that brand experiences are as important as products and services. Customer engagement is vital in order to deliver seamless and connected experiences.

But how do you get started?

A: By understanding your customers better!

Effective and ongoing customer engagement requires getting a deep understanding of customers, including figuring out:

• Who they are
• Where they live and work
• What they like – and don’t like
• What they want and need
• Why they would choose your brand over other brands

And for this, you need data.

To understand customers, gather data about them, and use it (ethically) to design personalized messaging and offerings. You can then deliver the best experiences that garner customer loyalty, repeat sales, and positive word-of-mouth. And for this, a connected CRM like Salesforce Marketing Cloud is vital.

SFMC provides an integrated, 360-degree view of every customer. Use these insights to:

• Keep up with their evolving needs
• Create tailored email marketing campaigns to meet their demands and expectations
• Leverage intelligent marketing automation to send the right message at the right moment

The next few sections further explore how SFMC can help you power up your brand’s customer engagement strategies to deliver positive customer experiences for long-term business success.

Build Meaningful Customer Relationships with Email Marketing Automation

SFMC offers numerous email marketing automation capabilities so you can:

• Get a complete view of every customer, connect all this data, and engage them in unique ways with relevant messaging via email and other channels
• Create highly-segmented email lists to create tailored campaigns and maintain healthy subscriber engagement
• Take advantage of AI-powered personalization with Einstein AI to engage with customers in hyper-personalized ways they appreciate and remember
• Leverage analytics to continually improve your email campaigns and engagement strategies

With SFMC, you can automate many kinds of emails, including:

• Welcome
• Cart abandonment
• Special occasion
• Event promotions

This event promotion email is well-designed, has a clean layout, and uses white space very effectively – all of which are proven to grab subscribers’ attention. It also includes personalization by addressing the subscriber by name. The importance of personalization for effective engagement is addressed below.

• Product recommendations
• Newsletters
• Transactional (e.g., password resets)

This simple password reset email can be easily automated in SFMC. It’s short and to-the-point and quickly addresses the customer’s problem. It also manages to promote sales without being aggressive or in-your-face.

SFMC provides dozens of readymade templates, a “single source of truth” for every subscriber, as well as powerful capabilities for:

• Audience segmentation
• Send time optimization (Einstein STO)
• Content personalization
• Mobile-friendly emails
• A/B testing
• Analytics

Take full advantage of these features to enhance the way you engage with customers via email.

Deepen Relationships by Engaging with Customers throughout the Customer Journey

Your customers and email subscribers demand connected, seamless experiences at every stage of their buying journey. With SFMC’s powerful journey-building tools, your brand can build 1-on-1 customer journeys across all channels. You no longer have to waste time or money on sending static, one-way messages that customers ignore. Instead, you can engage with them via personalized, two-way communications across every journey touchpoint.

With SFMC Journey Builder, you can:

• Build multi-channel journeys for every customer across multiple touchpoints
• Easily visualize each subscriber’s journey as they move down the sales funnel
• Design tailored messaging and personalized interactions to engage with each customer and guide them towards conversion or purchase
• Automate and scale customized email campaigns for each stage of each customer’s journey

With its intuitive, drag-and-drop interface, you can easily map customer journeys and tell a visual story of customers’ experiences as they engage with your brand. 

Why is journey mapping important?

Because journeys positively increase customer engagement, according to 73% of high-performing marketers. Mapping of journeys allows you to understand customers better, so you can take action to nurture relationships with each customer and deliver greater value with every interaction.

Impress and Delight Customers with Personalized Email Messaging

Personalization is an important aspect of successful customer engagement because:

• 66% of customers expect companies to understand their needs and expectations
• 52% of customers expect to receive personalized offers, up from 49% in 2019
• Personalized subject lines increase email open rates by 26%
• Segmented email campaigns can increase email revenues by 760%

These facts show that email personalization, engagement, and business results are all closely connected. With personalized email messaging, you can engage with your audience of leads, prospects, and customers in 1-on-1 ways that make them feel special. Considering that the average person receives 121 emails per day, personalization is also one of the best ways to win the battle for the inbox.

Once you understand customers better and map each customer’s journey with your brand, you can build personalized email campaigns with SFMC Email Studio and Einstein AI. Use these tools to personalize multiple aspects of every campaign, including:

• Content
• Subject lines
• CTA
• Design/layout
• Graphics

Fitbit’s email makes the subscriber feel special on their birthday. It also provides personalized health information that could be valuable for the recipient.

With SFMC, you can also:

• Segment subscribers to create personalized messaging for each relevant target segment
• Connect with audiences based on what they will do next with Einstein’s predictive scoring
• Use Content Builder to create dynamic content with quizzes, timers, product carousels, etc. that subscribers want to engage with

This email sends information about product availability and prices, which subscribers will see in real-time as soon as they open the email.

• Customize templates to promote meaningful engagements with each personalized email

All these tools and tactics can put you in a great position to improve your engagement capabilities, boost conversions and sales, and ultimately garner customer loyalty.

A Final Word

With effective customer engagement, you can deliver tailored content and personalized experiences. This will empower you to retain more customers, build trust, develop long-term relationships, and increase Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). Salesforce Marketing Cloud is the world’s #1 email marketing platform. Leverage its powerful tools, intuitive interfaces, and advanced analytics capabilities to engage with customers with personalized, memorable emails.

If you need help to get started with SFMC and email marketing, reach out to the Email Uplers team today.

The post How to Power Up Your Customer Engagement Goals with Salesforce Marketing Cloud appeared first on Email Uplers.

Marketo is one of the most popular tools for creating forms, lead nurturing, lead scoring, email marketing, and automation. With an extensive range of native integrations and efficient engagement programs, marketers use this tool to achieve most of the business goals. You can use it to reach out to customers with any upsell or cross-sell opportunities in addition to product updates. Some outbound marketers use it for cold prospecting too and acquire new customers. 

The expert team at Marketo comes up with new features every quarter to cater to the competitive marketplace, considering the changing dynamics of marketing communications. 

The good news is that the January 2022 release is already here with some exciting features, released on 21st January 2022. 

Let’s take a look at what lies in store for Marketo users in the first quarter of 2022. 

1. Additional screens in the next-generation experience

Professionals using Marketo will be able to get additional, refreshed screens in the next-generation experience. The feature comes with an updated design and usability enhancements that can be accessed with a toggle switch. 

• Landing Page Asset Details in Design Studio
• Landing Page Asset Details in Marketing Activities

2. Microsoft Dynamics Integration

• Better targeting functionality

Marketo users will be able to sync the multiselect optionset field type from Microsoft Dynamics. This will facilitate better audience targeting in Smart Lists and Smart Campaigns. 
You will be able to target through advanced parameters like products of interest, preferred modes of communication, and many more. 
The new sync will be compatible with Microsoft Dynamics version 9.X, also including Dynamics 365 Online. 

• Enhanced security with multi-factor authentication

To ensure better security, Marketo will support Server to Server (S2S) that will work as an additional authentication component. It will enable the application of multi-factor authentication, and all authentication and sign-ons will be based on OAuth. The advantage of S2S mode is that it eliminates the need for an extra license as it is based on Application User instead of Licensed User. 

3. Administration

Landing Page Header Security

Administrators will be able to employ Strict Transport Security and X-Frame Options headers on their landing page domains. Consequently, it will complement strong security requirements. 

Apart from these three updates, there are some premium features that will be released throughout the year, irrespective of the quarterly cycle. They are paid add-ons, and you will have to get in touch with the Marketo Engage representative for more details. 

1. Sales Insight

A. Sales Insight for Microsoft Dynamics 

Users will get a holistic view of all the frequent actions like email activities, web activities, interesting moments, and score changes for all contacts in the account

B. Sales Insight for Salesforce CRM

a. New Type Column for Best Bets
Use this feature to get instant insights with a new column labeled “Type” for differentiation between contacts and leads on the Best Bets page.
b. Salesforce Platform API Update
As Salesforce is discontinuing Salesforce Platform API versions 21.0 to 30.0, the Sales Insight package is updated with the latest APIs.
c. Updated Branding
The Sales Insight pages will be updated to conform to the new Adobe branding. 

2. Sales Connect

a. Call Outcomes and Reasons

Marketo will allow users to track the outbound efforts of the sales professionals with their new call outcome and call reason outcomes. The highlight of this feature is that it is completely customizable. You will also get access to new governance to enforce call reason and outcome selection for the calls, new governance to enable or disable call reasons and outcomes, and a new Call Reason and Call Outcome Salesforce Activity custom field to log data to Salesforce. 

This update is especially important for teams using the Call Outcomes feature in Sales Connect. Marketo has launched this update to centralize configuration to the Sales Connect application and impart a smooth experience to manage and create call outcomes. The users will no longer have to add the Salesforce task subject picklist to customize the call outcomes. 

b. Salesforce Activity Detail Customization

When a sales activity is logged to Salesforce from Sales Connect, you will be able to customize the information that is fed in the Salesforce task subject field. As a result, you will be able to capture more sales activity and task data in Salesforce. Currently, there is no feature to allow the admins to configure the information logged to the subject field. Therefore, the new Salesforce Activity Details Customization feature will allow you to customize the pattern used for your activities and establish a consistent pattern defined by the Sales Connect admin. It will also reduce the need for custom activity fields, thereby making the activity details easily scannable for the sales professionals. 

While these two features are paid add-ons, Marketo has also added a free functionality that goes as follows. 

AEP Marketo Engage Destination Connector to Create Net-new Leads
If you are using the Adobe Experience Platform (AEP), you will get the feature to push net-new person records into Marketo Engage from AEP through the AEP destination connector. This will eventually help to maximize the database. While transferring audience segments from AEP to Marketo Engage, users within the segment that are not included in the Marketo Engage database will get added to it automatically.  

Marketo has also come up with some announcements for the quarter. Here’s a sneak peek into the same:

1. Marketo Sky will not be available on 11th March 2022. As they shift their focus on imparting the next-generation user experience, they will add Asset Expiration and Smart Campaign Priority Override to the mainstream experience.

2. Marketo Engage integrators got the functionality to submit to Marketo Forms with the help of a supported and authenticated REST endpoint in January 2021. They released the Submit Form API for the same. However, it had some technical issues owing to which they made some changes in the August release. Later, in October release, they released support for Program Member Custom Fields for the Submit Form REST API endpoint. As integrators will need time to check the changes before onboarding onto the Submit Form endpoint, they have delayed the blocking programmatic POSTs to the leadCapture/save2 endpoint to the January release. 

3. Marketo Engage Subscriptions will have “non-API only” users verify their email addresses after the January release. If their subscription is enabled with Email Verification, directory service authenticated users will get their emails verified automatically. Email Verification will be delayed in the following cases:

i.  Users who have selected the Login in Invite User Dialog

ii. Users with subscriptions that have a single email associated with multiple people within the subscription. 

Such users will be able to get the email verification in the March release. (Details in the point below)

i.  Users who have selected the Login in Invite User Dialog

ii. Users with subscriptions that have a single email associated with multiple people within the subscription. 

Such users will be able to get the email verification in the March release. (Details in the point below)

4. Login in Invite User Dialog will be deprecated in the March 2022 release. As an implication, only one user will be associated with an email address within a subscription. 

Sunsetting of the Domains Without SSL Certificates

Call will fail for Marketo Engage Domains that have not activated SSL Certificates and https://.
In other words, these domains will sunset, and Sales Insight users will run into system callout errors on their Lead, Contact, Account, Opportunity Panels, or Marketo Global page. In case you notice this error, you will have to update your Marketo Engage configuration. Update Marketo Engage credentials highlighted in the Marketo Sales Insight Config section of the document.  

Live Webinar Throwing Light on all the Features

On 27th January 2022, Marketo Product Team will go live on a webinar at 9 AM PT or 12 PM ET, where they will talk about all these latest feature updates. 

Register for the webinar here>>

Wrapping Up

The one thing that Marketo users love is the regular product updates that they bring in. So, are you excited to try out all these powerful additions to Marketo?

We would love to hear from you in the comments below. 

Also, if you are looking forward to starting your journey as a Marketo user, our Marketo experts would be happy to help you. 

Contact us NOW>>

The post Marketo’s January 2022 Release: Advanced Features to Look Forward to appeared first on Email Uplers.

Customer loyalty has become a priority for all businesses, and rightly so. Repeat customers are likely to spend 67% more than new ones, and it’s significantly less expensive to sell to a repeat customer than a new one. Moreover, with the pandemic in hindsight, every business is aiming at customer trust and loyalty. 

However, achieving customer loyalty is no easy feat, and businesses need to work harder than ever to retain customers. Loyalty programs have proven to be an effective method to engage and retain customers. 

Here is a comprehensive guide to how B2B and B2C businesses can enhance the effectiveness of their loyalty programs using email. 

How Can Loyalty Programs Improve Customer Loyalty?

90% of companies have some sort of loyalty program. The question, however, is, do they really offer a positive return on investment? The average customer is a part of 14.8 loyalty programs and actively engages with 6.7 of them. More than 90% of consumers say rewards are important to their buying decisions. 71% of customers consider loyalty programs an important part of brand relationships. 

Clearly, loyalty programs directly influence customer engagement and loyalty. When customers get rewarded, they feel recognized. This encourages them to make purchases again, resulting in customer loyalty. 

Using the right channels to distribute your loyalty program content to your customers is essential to reaping the rewards. Even though a multichannel approach is optimistic, using high-engagement channels like emails that can be customized and personalized must be leveraged to improve conversion rates. 

How to Create Loyalty Program Email Campaigns That Are Beneficial to Both the Customer and the Company

Customer loyalty programs can help you build and nurture customer loyalty. Here’s a step-by-step process to creating a loyalty program that adds value to your customers while benefiting your company. 

Choose an Incentive, offer different types of valuable rewards

The first step in developing any loyalty program is to decide the reward that you’ll give to your customers. Users should have a compelling benefit for signing up, and the rewards must allow them to purchase products with an added advantage.

Discounts may seem the safest option when it comes to rewarding loyalty program users. But that isn’t the only way. Allow users to use the points outside of your business. For example, you can let them use reward points to book movie tickets, buy other companies’ products, or donate to charity. 

Make them Easy to Redeem

Ensure that the loyalty rewards are absolutely effortless to redeem. Your customers have done the hard work by taking the actions you wanted them to take. Your online email campaigns must reflect the customer’s decisions in your database and the promised customer experience must be made available instantaneously. Offline touchpoints must eventually be integrated online to reduce wait times. 

For instance, physical reward coupons are now obsolete as most customers use mobile devices to access loyalty programs. Thus, businesses are investing in QR-code-based loyalty programs to engage mobile users. 

To use QR codes for loyalty programs, use a QR code generator to create a QR code and link it to the rewards page where users can redeem their rewards. Users will be able to scan the QR code to check the reward points they have and redeem them. 

Your outreach mode also plays a role in the effectiveness of your loyalty program. For promoting your program via email, write compelling copy, showcase the benefits upfront, and engage with the customers with long-term brand loyalty in mind. 

Go Beyond the Incentive to Create a Deeper Meaning

As mentioned, loyalty programs have a bad reputation, and many customers think they’re only a clever play to make them spend more time and money. Even if that is your end goal, make your loyalty program something more than money and monetary rewards. Prioritize values and find the “why” behind them to get people more engaged and excited. 

A good example is the loyalty program by Ben & Jerry’s. They create social-themed ice-cream flavors and donate the sales to various charities. 

Creating Effective Loyalty Program Emails

Email marketing is a tried-and-tested method to communicate with your customers. Email also plays a vital role in nurturing customer loyalty and retention. In fact, about 80% of companies rely on email for client retention. 

This makes email an excellent channel for driving engagement to your customer loyalty programs. Here’s an effective blueprint to using emails to make your loyalty program successful and achieve higher engagement. 

Occasional Invitation-to-Join Emails

Do your customers – both new and existing – know that you have a loyalty program? More than 50% of American customers will join the loyalty program of a brand they frequently shop from. Customers appreciate brands that have loyalty programs. So, as soon as a customer comes on board, send them an email informing them about your loyalty program and the benefits it offers. 

Also, the chances are that a new customer may not want to join your loyalty program, but they may get interested after buying a few times. So, keep sending occasional emails reminding your customers about your loyalty program. 

Welcome Emails to New Joiners

Just like you send a welcome email when a website visitor joins your email list, send a welcome email when a customer joins your loyalty program. The email should contain a heartfelt message stating that you are serious about maintaining a long-term, fruitful relationship with them. 

Additionally, you can include details like:

• Their point/reward balance
• Loyalty program benefits they’ll receive
• Tiered benefits (if you have a tiered system)
• How to redeem the points

This welcome email by Starbucks for their Rewards program is a great example of a crisp welcome email.

Purchase Emails to Loyalty Buyers

It’s a common practice among brands to send an email to customers after a purchase. The email often contains a “Thanks for shopping” message along with a receipt. This works fine for regular customers. But when a loyalty member makes a purchase and earns points, send them a dedicated email telling them that they have earned new points. 

Here’s an example from Elf Cosmetics. When a loyalty member buys a product and earns points, Elf sends them an email stating the new points they have earned and their total balance. 

Rewards Reminder Emails

The average rewards redemption rate is only 13.67%. This means if a company issues 100 reward points, more than 85 points go unused. And a customer loyalty program is pointless if members are not using their rewards. 

Most users don’t redeem their rewards because they simply forget about them. To avoid this, you can send them occasional reminder emails. You can use the number of unused reward points as the email trigger. For example, you can send a reminder email when a loyalty member collects more than 500 points. 

Rewards Redemption Emails

Next, you should send an email when a loyalty member redeems their reward points. It can be a confirmation email telling the customer that they have successfully redeemed their points. Additionally, the email can include:

• Information about redeemed points
• Remaining points balance
• Points needed to reach the next tier (if you have a tiered system)
• Available redemption offers

Birthday Rewards

If you want to truly personalize your loyalty program emails, start sending birthday emails. Who doesn’t like birthday wishes? And they’re even better if they come with a small gift. Send loyalty members an email that includes a genuine birthday wish, along with a gift, such as a coupon code or extra reward points. 

In case you’re worried about the ROI, birthday emails have a 481% higher transaction rate, 342% higher revenue per email, and 179% higher unique click rate than promotional emails. 

Similarly, you can also send festive emails on New Year, Christmas, Easter, etc. 

Here’s how Beauty Insider engages with customers with custom rewards and offers, such as a free gift or additional loyalty points on their birthdays, in emails such as the one below.

Loyalty Tier Change Emails

If you have a tiered loyalty program, send an email to your loyalty members when they reach a new level. This includes tier upgrades as well as downgrades. When members reach a higher level, send an email congratulating them and highlighting the benefits of the new tier. When members get demoted, the email should highlight the benefits they’ll be missing out on and how they can reach the higher level again. 

Summary Emails

Monthly summary emails include the changes and updates that occurred in the previous month. These include the new loyalty points earned, loyalty points used, and points balance at the end of the month. Also, highlight any tier changes or other significant events, if any. 

Program Update Emails

Lastly, send an email to all your loyalty program members when you make changes to your loyalty program. For example, suppose you add a new tier to the loyalty program or include more ways to earn or redeem points. Be sure that any changes are communicated to not only the members but also to customers who aren’t a part of your loyalty program. 

Improving Loyalty Program Email Performance

Sending emails to increase loyalty program engagement is a great idea, but numerous businesses are already using it. What can you do to stand out? Here are four best practices to enhance your loyalty program email performance. 

1. Display Tier Information and Point Balance in All Emails

Every email you send to your loyalty members should include their remaining point balance and tier information. This ensures that customers are always aware of their loyalty member status and the benefits they are enjoying. 

2. Send Referral Codes to Loyal Customers

You can show appreciation to your repeat customers by sending a custom referral code to them. This will encourage them to refer your brand to others and bring you new customers. And since word of mouth drives 20-50% of purchase decisions, offering referral benefits to your loyal members can go a long way in boosting your loyalty program engagement.

3. Remind Customers when they Reach a Reward

We’ve discussed that you should send a reminder email when loyalty members have a certain amount of unused loyalty points. Additionally, you can send your members an email when they reach a reward. 

For example, suppose a member has accumulated enough points to buy one of your popular products, but they’re unaware of it. Send an email reminding them what they’re missing out on. 

4. Send Value-Packed Emails

There are many ways to cultivate customer loyalty, and getting customers to join your loyalty program is just the first step. You can take things further by sending them value-packed emails. Some effective strategies brands can use are:

• Invite them to exclusive early access sales
• Send them bonus loyalty points or free products
• Send them exclusive discounts

Wrap Up

Email has always been an effective channel for communication and it works great for loyalty program engagement. Businesses can leverage email to communicate the benefits of loyalty programs and keep them updated. By developing customer-centric loyalty programs and supercharging them with emails, you can drive consistent customer engagement and loyalty. 

The post How To Enhance The Effectiveness Of Loyalty Programs Using Email appeared first on Email Uplers.

You’ve curated your copy, finessed your design, and employed the best opt-in email strategies out there- and of course, they work. Your sales funnel is now teeming with potential prospects, and the market is abuzz with the mention of your brand. So, what next? Step back, and relax? Nope, not at all. Lead nurturing; that’s what needs to be on your agenda next.

Amassing leads is one thing, but converting them to paying customers is a whole different ball game altogether. Once you’ve roped in a customer into your funnel, you need to focus on building a strong relationship with them; convince them that you can (and will) add value to their lives. This is where lead nurturing emails come into the picture. From educating customers about your products and services to addressing their pain points to winning their trust- nurture emails are the full package. Want to find out more about them? You are at just the right place!

Table of Contents:

• Why is Lead Nurturing Important?
• Why Email For Lead Nurturing?
• What is a Lead Nurturing Email?
• Different Types of Lead Nurturing Emails
• Things to Follow While Designing a Nurture Email Campaign
• How to Ace Nurture Emails for B2B Campaigns
• Wrapping It Up

Why is Lead Nurturing Important?

Before we delve into nurture emails, let us wrap our heads around lead nurturing to begin with. Simply put, lead nurturing is the practice of establishing relationships with your customers at every stage of the sales funnel. It is what paves the path for satisfied customers and increased revenue growth. Read on to find out some of the other benefits of lead nurturing.

• Establishes your business as a thought leader- When you’re routinely engaging with your customers to educate them about various facets of your products or services and addressing their queries in the process, they start looking up to you as an industry leader and a figure of authority. Not only does this enhance the credibility of your brand, but it also helps you build an extremely loyal customer base. After all, if you have the answer to all their questions, why would they go anywhere else? 
• Ensures you are constantly communicating with your customers– Be it to create awareness, provide solutions, or obtain feedback, lead nurturing requires you to be in constant and regular touch with your customers.
  
  This serves two purposes-

1. You are constantly on their radar.

2. It makes them feel valued. 

• Learn more about your customers-   Lead nurturing presents you with tremendous opportunities to amass a wealth of information about your audience. It helps you understand the challenges they are facing, what kind of solutions they might be interested in, and how they are responding to your existing competitors. You can segment your leads into various categories based on their responses to your questions and subsequently approach each segment with a unique plan.
• Gather new leads-  When you nurture your existing leads, you are, in effect, laying the foundation for generating new leads and attracting new visitors to your website. When you share valuable and insightful content with your leads, they’ll feel motivated to forward the same to their friends and relatives, expanding your visibility and reach in the process. Another technique with which you can gather new leads using existing ones is by running a referral program. If your rewards are attractive enough, it will definitely spur your leads into action.
• Lets you tap into cross-sell and up-sell opportunities- Constantly engaging in a back and forth dialogue with your customers has two resounding benefits:

– It leaves you with a detailed and nuanced understanding of their profile.

– It presents you with an opportunity to broaden their horizons regarding your offerings.

While the first benefit enables you to reach out to them with relevant content, the second one allows you to unearth a slew of cross-sell and up-sell opportunities. This, in turn, places you well to extract bigger sales out of them. In fact, a study from Market2Lead shows that nurtured leads have a 9% higher average deal size. And that’s not all; they also have a 23% shorter sales cycle. If that doesn’t convince you to nurture your leads, we don’t know what will.

• Saves you money- In case you were wondering, yes, generating new leads is a pretty expensive affair. Sufficiently more steep than converting existing ones. The cost of acquiring a new customer can be anywhere between 5 to 25 times the amount spent in retaining those already a part of your sales funnel. 

Why Email For Lead Nurturing?

With the advent of social media, the population of nurture email naysayers has grown quite steadily over time. Many of them are of the opinion that lead nurturing emails are an ineffective marketing ploy, and brands would be better off investing the same capital boosting their social media presence. Well, we don’t subscribe to that school of thought. 

Of course, social media is an excellent medium when it comes to enhancing your visibility, but when engagement is concerned, email reigns supreme. While the email open rate across industries stands at 22.86%, social media’s overall engagement rate is a paltry 0.58%. Email boasts of a staggering global user base of roughly 4 billion, and 99% of these users check their inboxes daily (sometimes even first thing in the morning). All these factors make email marketing a great channel for nurturing your leads toward conversion.

What is a Lead Nurturing Email?

Lead nurture emails are the messages you send to create relationships with your customers. Now, lead nurturing emails might serve multiple purposes-creating awareness, providing solutions, or fostering brand loyalty- but eventually, they have one objective; to drive conversions. When done right, nurturing emails keep your customers hooked to your business and make them look forward to your communications. The bottom line is, lead nurturing is beneficial for both the business as well as the customers.

However, churning out a lead nurturing email campaign does involve a lot of hard yards. At the outset, keep in mind the fact that your customers register several kinds of interactions with your business- subscribing to your newsletter, reaching out to your customer care cell, making a transaction, leaving feedback, and the like. With a nurture email, you should ideally be looking to intercept them effectively during all these stages. That’s how you can ensure that you’re always on their radar which, ultimately, gives you enough ground to nudge them towards a conversion.

Look, identifying sale funnel stages is not the tricky part. So, you needn’t lose your sleep trying to figure out WHEN to intercept your audience; that’s the easy bit. You need to contend with the “What” aspect of it; that’s what separates the best from the rest. Content is the decisive factor when it comes to lead nurturing campaigns. That’s not to say timing comes second, but even a well-timed nurture email will fail to fetch dividends if it lacks substance. And there’s only one surefire way of coming up with content that is clutch- invest in your audience. Study user behavior, tap into their patterns, and use that to provide your subscribers with exactly what they want to see. Remember, the only thing better than content is analytics-driven content.

Different Types of Lead Nurturing Emails

As mentioned earlier, nurture emails depend on the nature of your customers’ interactions and, thus, they take several forms. In order for your nurture emails to be successful, it is vital that you establish an effective lead nurturing email sequence in place. With the passage of time, some of your customers might start interacting lesser and lesser with your emails. This is where a well-thought-out lead nurturing sequence becomes critical. 

Start with figuring out the possible reasons that might have caused your audience to disengage from your communications. Use your findings to craft your lead nurturing emails accordingly. For instance, how do you lure back a customer who has made their first purchase with you? Send them a recommendation email containing products that are similar to the one they bought; provide them with discounts on the same. That’ll surely get their attention. Likewise, you will need to plan different sequences for different customer interactions. 

Let’s take a look at the various kinds of nurture emails.

Welcome Emails

We’ve said this in the past, and we’ll say it again- a good welcome email is worth its weight in gold. As it is the customers’ first point of contact with your brand, it goes a long way towards securing their trust and loyalty (you know the deal with first impressions). 

Use your onboarding email sequences to educate new customers about your products and services and highlight the value proposition that your newsletter and communication in general poses. That said, don’t go about spamming their inboxes either. If anything, allow them to specify the frequency with which they want to receive their emails. 

Take a look at this simple, well-designed example from Otherland.

Informational Emails

If you’re a SaaS or marketing services company, your reliance on informational emails is likely to be more than the rest in the industry. Your nurture emails will require you to share techniques and tricks using which your subscribers can make the most of your platform. For products that are particularly complex, break down its working in your emails to offer clarity. Use animation, illustrations, and bold typography to elevate the visual appeal. If your product has a free trial, explain what next they can avail from you at the end of the trial period. Operating with a freemium model? Send periodic emails that talk about the benefits of the features available with the premium model. Avoid talking about the merits in and of themselves; instead, elaborate on how those same features can effectively address your users’ pain points.

Wondering how you should go about such an email? Take inspiration from this email by Asana.

Recommendation Emails

Nothing quite gets leads hooked to your business than a sequence of well-curated recommendation emails. The key to getting your recommendations right lies in closely studying the activities of your customers. Analyze their past purchases and browsing behavior to provide them with recommendations that align perfectly with their profile. The more personalized your recommendations, the better the responses you can elicit from your subscribers. 

Here’s an example of an excellent recommendation email from Houzz.

Engagement Emails

The entire process of lead nurturing hinges, effectively, around keeping customers engaged in your communications. This is what makes engagement emails a crucial component of any lead nurturing email sequence. Engagement emails need to be promotional yet relevant at the same time to have a shot at piquing your reader’s curiosity. Along with good content, you can consider using visual elements like videos, cinemagraphs, and GIFs to attract your subscribers’ eyeballs. Further, you can also incorporate gamification and interactive elements to heighten their appeal.

This engagement email from Brooks ticks all the right boxes.

Testimonial Emails

Want to be in your leads’ good books? Win over their trust with positive review or testimonial emails. By sharing social proof from your previous satisfied customers, testimonials build the credibility of your brand and subsequently convince new customers to embark on a journey with you. Get this- as many as 84% of people trust online customer reviews as much as a friend’s recommendation. Not wrong to say, then, that a testimonial email can well be the difference between a lead graduating to the next stage in your sales funnel or not. 

Here’s an example by Ritual.

Retention Emails

Reaching out to prospects who have gone cold of late is always a tricky task. It’s no surprise, thus, that crafting a potent retention email poses headaches to the best in the business out there. Our advice? Get on top of your research before you sit down to write your re-engagement emails. What could cause your customers to click on that unsubscribe link? Is it the content? The email frequency or timing? The email accessibility? Once you’ve gathered these insights, get to work. Remind them why they signed up for your emails and newsletters in the first place, rekindle that spark; basically, give them plenty of reasons to stay engaged. There are many routes brands take with their retention emails- some try to grab attention with tempting offers and deals, some try to solicit feedback to understand where they’re going wrong. Then there are also some who choose to ungate some of their previously gated content. As said already, re-engagement emails are tough; so, to understand what works best for your audience, you must religiously test them out. 

This retention email from GoDaddy should fill you up with some ideas.

Announcement Emails

Whether it is regarding a new feature or an upcoming launch, announcement emails work wonders when it comes to capturing the audience’s attention. That’s not all; announcement emails make customers feel as if they’re a part of the journey, thereby endearing them to the brand. 

A good practice while composing these emails is to keep the most vital message in the first fold of the email itself. That way, the audience instantly understands what the announcement is all about as soon as they open the email. Provide additional details about the features or the updates but keep the email to the point. Your customers don’t need to know everything about it; just what value this new event or feature could add to their lives. But the scope of an announcement email isn’t just limited to sharing an update with your customers and explaining its value to them. It should also focus on coaxing some action from their end. And for that to happen, your announcement emails need to have super-compelling CTAs (call-to-action).

This example from Canva perfectly illustrates how one should go about their announcement emails.

Things to Follow While Designing a Nurture Email Campaign

The last thing you’d want for your lead nurturing emails is to end up in your subscribers’ spam. Follow these tips to avoid that fate and script a winning nurture email campaign.

Use Your Insights To Add Value To Your Content

If your nurture emails present no value to your leads, they’ll eventually start withdrawing from your communications. Factor in your industry insights to ensure that the information you are sharing with your customers either helps them to make the most of your offerings or is something they would be hard-pressed to find elsewhere. 

If there’s any particular topic you want to elaborate on, you can stitch together a series rather than cramming it all in one. Say you want to talk about “The Impact of AI.” Instead of presenting a generic summary in one email, you can present your readers with a detailed picture of various AI applications across industries using multiple emails. The audience always appreciates content that has value and insight. 

If you make a habit of teaching your subscribers something new every now and then, they will start looking forward to your emails, and you’ll find your engagement metrics (and ultimately, your revenue) going through the roof. 

Identify Your Leads’ Positions In The Sales Funnel

With nurture email campaigns, the margin of error is extremely low. At all times, your focus needs to be on churning out content that is valuable and relevant to your leads. This can only be possible if you properly identify the stage they occupy in your sales funnel. 

If it’s an untouched lead, you can’t just jumpstart their journey by bombarding them with your best-selling services and packages. You need to first initiate them into your community and walk them through your mission statement and objective before doing so. Top of the funnel leads are usually at the awareness and discovery stage, meaning they are still trying to identify their pain points and challenges. They’re looking for a credible source of information who can both identify their problems as well as its antidote. Your communication needs to be such that it convinces the lead that your product or service is indeed the most apt fix for their dilemma. 

Likewise, if it’s a qualified lead, you don’t need to waste time explaining to them why your offerings are valuable; they’re already on board. Now, they’re trying to figure out which of your solutions would be most suited to their requirements. Middle of the funnel leads are best engaged with case studies, white papers, and pros and cons lists- anything that offers a deep insight into your products and how they can resolve their challenges. At the same time, you also need to assess whether your offerings are suitable for your lead or not. There’s no point in trying to sell an aquarium to a cat owner, is there?

As you gradually approach your bottom of the funnel leads, keep in mind that they’re already well aware of their problem statement and also the kind of solution they need. At this point, they’re on the lookout for vendors and will likely lean towards those who can best accommodate their terms and conditions. This is when you engage them with live demos, testimonials, competitor analysis, and customer success stories to reinforce the USPs (unique selling proposition) of your offerings.

Segment Your List

Along with identifying their position in the sales funnel, you must also segment your leads on various parameters such as:

• Gender
• Occupation
• Location
• Past purchases 
• Browsing history
• Age
• Interests and preferences, and the like. 

This will empower you to grab their attention with highly personalized and customized nurture emails. Gradually, that’ll make way for improved open rates, click-throughs, and conversions. Segmentation is vital because it helps identify the diverse buyer personas interacting with your business and, in the process, arms you with the requisite tools to cater to them effectively. 

Besides understanding customer expectations, it allows you to foster greater participation and interaction. Further, by sending relevant content, you also lower your unsubscriber rates as well as the risk of your emails getting flagged by your email providers and ISPs (Internet Service Providers). This goes a long way towards enhancing your brand reputation. 

Often, email marketers get too carried away and end up chalking out extremely sophisticated parameters for segmenting their audience. We suggest keeping things simple (applies for both newbies and veterans). Complex segmentation strategies rarely justify the investment (in terms of both time and resources) that go into crafting them. And they can become very confusing for your leads too. 

Start simple, lay a solid foundation, and keep adding to it down the road as and when the need arises. Also, never be too rigid about your segmentation plans. Remember, email list segmentation is a dynamic practice and is largely (if not completely) dictated by the actions and interactions of your customers. The best course of action is to take stock of the latest trends and insights and respond to them accordingly.

Additionally, you must also learn to formulate a new and unique plan for different occasions throughout the year. For instance, you can’t expect your Black Friday and Cyber Monday segmentation frameworks to succeed during Christmas or New Year’s. There’s no concept of “one-size-fits-all” in the realm of email list segmentation. 

Personalize Your Emails

The better you are at segmenting your contacts, the more personalized will be your lead nurturing emails. At the end of the day, the ultimate goal is to greet your customers with messages that align perfectly with their profiles and which correspond appropriately to their behaviors. Think beyond addressing them by their first name. That trend is long gone. Modern-day personalization hinges around reacting to your leads’ interactions. 

While monitoring their actions, keep track of the following:

• Have they responded to their welcome email?
• Have they completed their first purchase with you?
• When did they last open your emails?
• Which kind of emails are they interacting with the most?

Answering these questions will give you enough fodder while writing your email content. 

Nothing tells your customers you care and value them more than a personalized email. It’s very important for you to let them know that you don’t just appreciate their transactions but their very association with you. In this day and age of flooding inboxes, the only surefire way of getting through to your leads and encouraging them to take action is personalization.

Keep Things To The Point                              

Although content does take the front seat in lead nurturing emails, avoid making your emails monotonous and tedious. Make sure the email copy is informative, free of jargon, and precise. While inserting links to surveys and studies is a good ploy to increase the appeal of your message, avoid including anything that doesn’t relate directly to the message you are trying to convey. 

Ideally, your audience should be able to understand what the email is all about the minute they open the email. To make that possible, consider keeping the crux of the email in the hero section itself. Lead nurturing emails are typically prone to information overload. So, our advice would be to just keep enough content that sparks the readers’ curiosity and then invite them to uncover the rest using a CTA. As per the placement of the CTA button, aim to keep one above the fold, right underneath the hero section, so that the readers don’t have to scroll down to find it. If you want to place a few secondary CTAs below the fold, you very well can. 

Maintain Brand Consistency

The tone of emails comprising your lead nurturing campaign plays a pivotal role in determining its success. If there’s a particular voice you use while communicating across other platforms, stick to it while composing your lead nurturing emails too. A consistent brand voice instills trust and confidence in your leads’ minds and inspires them to associate with you. 

Just because lead nurturing emails are intended to educate and create awareness doesn’t necessarily mean you have to adopt a drab and pedantic tone while scripting them. If your brand is known for its casual, informal, and quirky language, make those very attributes shine in your nurture emails as well.

However, a brand’s tone is not defined by just the voice and cadence of its email copy; it also considers the visual elements that are part of its communication, like the color scheme, fonts, and images. When you think of popular brands- Google, Adidas, Coca-Cola, Disney, McDonald’s- their color and logo font instantly flashes in your mind, doesn’t it? As per images, some brands prefer using curated, modern pictures obtained from organized photoshoots, while others prefer vintage images sourced from stock photography websites.

Embrace Automation

As much as lead nurturing is about constantly communicating with your customers, it is equally about sending them the right message at the right time. How do you make it possible? With automation. Many have already hailed automation to be the future of email marketing. It is, without any doubt, going to be responsible for the majority of disruptions that are yet to come in the email landscape. 

With the help of triggered emails, you can respond to your customers whenever their actions or behaviors oblige a specific pre-condition or “trigger.” Confirmation emails that are dispatched moments after an individual completes a transaction are an outcome of this arrangement. It goes without saying, introducing automation to your lead nurturing email campaigns will enhance it by leaps and bounds.

Give Them The Choice of Leaving

We know this seems very incongruous in a blog about lead nurturing, but well, as it turns out, giving your leads the choice of unsubscribing is, in fact, one of the best lead nurturing practices out there. As you would have already figured by now, chalking out a lead nurturing email campaign is a rather demanding affair. So, it’s only logical that it reaches only those inboxes that possess some kernel of interest in your business.

Don’t think we’re asking you to give up on your cold leads; do your research, figure out every possible reason that might be stopping them from responding, and put those insights to action. Despite that, if they still continue to be unresponsive, consider the possibility of letting them go. Cleaning your email list is an inherent part of lead nurturing. Besides, hot leads or cold, including an unsubscribe link (or button) in your emails is pretty much non-negotiable. Just as they had subscribed to your newsletter and emails of their own volition, they have every right to opt-out as well. 

Along with keeping an unsubscribe link, add an “update preferences” option as well. At times, it is the sheer frequency of your emails that might be putting off some of your leads. Allow them to set their own frequency and watch your engagement rates and conversions go up!

How To Ace Nurture Emails For B2B Campaigns

Email marketing and content marketing, in general, become that much more challenging when the arena shifts to B2B companies. Most other rules and practices that hold up in e-commerce, SaaS, offline retail, NGOs, and other industries fall flat on their faces when it comes to B2B. So, what makes them so different exactly?

For starters, the target audience of B2B marketers is relatively small. They sell directly to another business, which effectively means that they’re selling to the decision-making unit of that business. Now, that unit might be any one department or the team leaders of many departments assembled together. 

Now, let’s talk about products. B2B products are typically more complicated and sophisticated than their B2C counterparts, making marketing them a task and a half. Of course, you’d still be marketing to people who speak the same language as yours, but you still need to be able to communicate the merits and salient features of the product as effectively as possible. 

That said, let’s look at a few ways using which you can get on top of your B2B lead nurturing email campaigns.

• Continuously stay on the lookout for industry trends and illustrate how your offerings align with them in your emails.
• Though feedback is an essential aspect of all kinds of campaigns, it holds additional weightage and gravity in the B2B field. This is primarily because the “customer” in B2B dealings is an industry expert themselves, and any suggestion coming from their end is invariably going to improve the product.
• Be clear with the flow of your lead nurturing campaign. Rely on the conversations you have with your leads to determine the progression of the emails you want to send their way.

Wrapping It Up

A successful lead nurturing campaign is hard to pull off, but it can really be a game-changer for your brand and business when executed to perfection. It demands uncompromising hard work, commitment, dedication, and perseverance, but considering the rewards that it showers on you, all of that is well worth it. 

The post A Comprehensive Lead Nurturing Emails Guide appeared first on Email Uplers.

Email marketing is one of the most valuable customer engagement and brand-building tools in your marketing arsenal.

If done well, email campaigns can generate ROI of 4,200% and increase revenues by 760%. With email marketing, you can enhance lead generation, customer acquisition, and customer retention, build trust with a captive audience, and boost your brand’s credibility and value.

However, if your marketing team doesn’t have the capabilities to manage all the crucial aspects of email marketing, outsourcing to an offshore email marketing team may be your best bet. With an experienced offshore team, you get access to knowledgeable experts, can set up campaigns quickly, and even scale up your email marketing program as required.

Nonetheless, hiring an offshore team can also create a few challenges that can affect your email marketing goals.

Fortunately, you can overcome these challenges and get the most from your investment. Here’s how.

Challenge #1: Maintaining control over the project

Who will control your email marketing project or program?

Who is authorized to take decisions that may affect the program’s direction, strategy, or execution?

Who will be the escalation point – at both the offshore partner and your company – when something goes wrong?

These crucial issues can affect the outcomes of your email marketing program. If you don’t consider them early, it could lead to conflicts, delays, and even legal repercussions.

So how can you prevent these issues from cropping up?

Solution

To start with, make sure that your outsourcing contract clearly states who controls what part of your email marketing program. Define clear Service Level Agreements (SLAs) to clarify the boundaries of the project:

• What functions and services will the offshore email team deliver?
• In which situations can they make independent decisions, and when should they involve someone from your firm?
• Which service standards should they absolutely meet?

Make sure the contract specifies to what extent the offshore team can exert control over your email marketing program. This includes specifying what type of decisions they can make, when they can make them, and how they should document their decision-making process.

Also, make the terms of the service contract crystal clear to both your employees and the employees of the offshore team to set clear expectations from the start (more on this later).

Challenge #2: Poor communication leading to confusion and errors

When you work with an offshore email marketing team in a different country, language barriers may affect how the two teams communicate. Even when English is the communication language; differences in dialects, accents, colloquialisms, and other region-specific differences can lead to confusion, miscommunications, and misunderstandings.

Cultural barriers can also affect communication, interactions, interpretations, all of which can hamper the progress of your email marketing program. These issues may also:

• Affect the productivity of both teams
• Lead to rework and errors
• Create friction that impacts collaboration and commitment
• Create a non-accountable culture of “pass the buck”
• Impact the quality of decisions

Solution

When you work with foreign offshore teams, linguistic, cultural and semantic barriers will always exist. However, a cultural awareness program can help overcome these barriers. It’s important to train your staff – especially those who will be coordinating directly with the offshore team – to increase their cultural sensitivity. The training program could help your marketing team understand the offshore team’s cultural and organizational norms, and how they differ from your country’s and organization’s norms. 

Also, before the outsourced email project kicks off, set some rules and expectations around communications. Both teams should avoid country-specific colloquialisms, and flowery language. Everyone should be clear, specific, and to-the-point when talking about project details. All these suggestions apply for both verbal and written communications.

It’s also useful to document all oral agreements (“we will select the template for welcome emails by January 2^nd) and queries (“when should we start A/B testing this drip campaign?”), so that everyone is on the same page.

To speed up communications (and avoid an email avalanche), use communication/collaboration tools like Skype, Slack, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, etc. Also ensure that all stakeholders are involved in important discussions and decisions, and that such decisions are documented in a central, easily-accessible location.

Challenge #3: The team cannot meet your expectations

A skilled and experienced offshore email marketing team can bring a lot of benefits. For example, you can set up and execute campaigns very quickly. Need to set up a Christmas sales campaign but it’s already November? Or create a lead-generation campaign around a special webinar or newsletter? An offshore team with the right knowledge and tools can help you with both.

This is only one reason why many companies have very high expectations of offshore teams. Do you have expectations around:

• Quality (high)
• Timeliness (fast)
• Communications (clear and unambiguous)
• Escalations (minimal)
• Errors (zero)
• Accountability (maximum)

Some teams could meet and even exceed such expectations, but other teams may not be able to do so.

This doesn’t mean that you lower your expectations in all the above areas. After all, you’re investing in the offshore team’s skills, and you should expect a high ROI from your investment. At the same time, you should keep some things in mind.

Solution

We mentioned earlier how a clear contract is essential to overcome challenges related to project control and decision-making. The contract and SLAs can also go a long way towards setting the right expectations from the start.

It’s also useful to identify certain Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to manage the offshore team’s performance, and ensure that they meet your expectations. Here are some KPIs you can add to your agreement with the offshore team:

• Email deliverability rates
• Email open and click-through rates
• Conversion rates
• Bounce rate
• Inbox placement rate
• Subscriber engagement over time
• List growth rate

Keep in mind that the offshore team may not be able to completely control or directly impact all these parameters. However, by identifying relevant KPIs, you can set the right expectations that will guide the offshore team’s performance and execution efforts.

Challenge #4: Securing your intellectual property and data

Data and asset security is a hot topic nowadays. New rules, regulations, and technological developments are changing how companies can collect and use user data in their email marketing programs. Moreover, you may find that all subscribers may not want to share their data with you. This could affect your audience segmentation and content personalization strategies.

To cope with these changes, you must respect users’ private information, implement double opt-ins, establish safe email connections with SPF and DMARC protocols, and remove spammy words from your content.

While all of this is essential to ensure that your email marketing program keeps running without interruptions, it also means that your offshore team will be more involved in the program than you originally thought. You may have to share business or marketing plans, market research or competitor survey results, trade secrets, sensitive data, etc. with them. This may impact the security of your data and intellectual property.

Moreover, if the offshore company doesn’t have strong cybersecurity measures in place, the risk of a data breach is also very high. This may lead to a loss or compromise of your business-critical data, including data that your subscribers – who expect you to protect their privacy – willingly shared with you.

Solution

Once again, a detailed outsourcing contract plays an important role. Include explicit clauses in the contract stating that the offshore email company will protect your IP and data, and the action you will take if it fails to do so.

You should also:

• Have them sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA)
• Follow stringent protocols for data use, processing, storage, and sharing
• Check if they have proper security controls in place to protect your (and your subscribers’) data
• Ensure that they comply with relevant data protection laws like GDPR, as well as email-specific laws like CAN-SPAM
• If you are a healthcare company, make sure your offshore team also complies with HIPAA rules

But even before preparing a contract, it’s crucial to perform due diligence on every email marketing vendor you consider. Take your time selecting an offshore team, and ask pointed questions to confirm that they can protect your data and the privacy of your subscribers.

Conclusion

By working with an offshore or outsourced team, you can save valuable time, lower costs, and even achieve a high ROI on your email marketing program. However, offshoring or outsourcing can create some challenges. Luckily, you can overcome these challenges, and make the most of your investment with the strategies highlighted in this article.

If you want to set up or scale up your email marketing program but lack the required resources, consider outsourcing to a dedicated offshore email marketing vendor like Email Uplers. 

The post Top 4 Challenges in Offshoring or Outsourcing Email Marketing (and Solutions to Overcome Them) appeared first on Email Uplers.

The objective of landing pages is to provide a scaffold to the audience to take action. They can either facilitate customer acquisition or bring in conversions. For this, you must be able to bring people to your landing page and make them click through the call-to-action. 

It is one of the most essential components of inbound marketing that helps to attract, convert, and close the leads into customers.

Landing pages are generally created for the following reasons:

1. To make people sign up for your emails
2. To encourage users to take a free trial
3. To showcase your range of products and drive business growth through conversion

So, how will your landing page get you visits while ensuring that you meet all these goals?

Take a look at these eight tips to create high traffic landing pages that convert.

8 Tips to Generate Traffic to Your Landing Page

1. Reach out to your existing subscribers with emails

People who already know you are keen to visit your website landing page. You just need to attract them with the right offer and call-to-action. As your landing page is generally created for a particular segment of subscribers, it is more likely to generate visits and get you conversions.

So, how will you make the most out of this opportunity?

Here are some tricks to help you out:

1. Incentivize the reader with a discount coupon code
2. Allow the users to download a resource or sign up for a trial for free
3. Provide access to the beta version of your software
4. Add links to relevant blog posts or articles that add more value to the landing page

Besides, you must also make sure that you do not send too many emails that would annoy the subscribers.

Take a look at this email by MarketingProfs in which they have promoted a New Year offer for their PRO membership. 

On clicking through the CTA, the user will be redirected to the landing page that talks more about the offer and how PRO subscription has helped marketers in getting the best B2B education. The landing page becomes even more impactful as they have shared a testimonial from one of the PRO subscribers. 

Also, see how they have placed the CTAs in the first and second fold of the landing page to increase conversions. Needless to say, the landing page is visually clean with plenty of white space to enhance readability. 

2. Invest in an effective SEO strategy

The first step to get conversions from your landing page is making it rank on search engines. Conventional landing pages are not too wordy. As a result, there is not much you can do to add relevant keywords for SEO.  

However, you can carry out on-page SEO for your landing page to get maximum visits. 

For instance: If someone is looking for email design and coding services, you must use the keywords mentioned below. 

i. Email design and coding

ii. Convert psd to HTML email

iii. Code pixel-perfect HTML emails

Prospects searching for something like “Convert psd to HTML email” are sales qualified leads who are keen to make the purchase. Google can identify this purchase intent and give a leg up to your SEO efforts. Using conversion-centric keyword phrases like “How to create an HTML email” and “How to convert psd to HTML email” can be used to bring people to a landing page with gated content that shares detailed insights into the topic. 

3. Repurpose old and relevant content into new resources

It is not always necessary to write new stuff for your landing page. If your content has drawn the subscriber’s attention, you can repurpose it into a different format. 

Repurposed content is a modified resource that is created with a different marketing purpose. It has the same central idea and message as the original content piece. For example: You can repurpose an infographic into a carousel post on LinkedIn or Instagram to cater to a different segment of users. 

Advantages of repurposing content:

1. It helps to save time taken to create new content.
2. You can reach different segments of audience by changing the tone of the content or expanding on a specific section. 

Using repurposed content to generate traffic to landing pages

Suppose you have a landing page to generate free trial subscriptions. To achieve this objective, you must include an inline form in the repurposed blog post. The same applies to your podcasts, YouTube videos, and long form content. Make every platform count when it comes to driving traffic to your landing page. 

4. Utilize the power of paid advertising to increase landing page visits

Pay-per-click or Search Engine Marketing is one of the most effective ways to get visits on your landing page. It works by charging a fee from you every time a user clicks on any of your ads. 

When the user clicks on the ad, they will be redirected to the respective landing page and it will ultimately build your traffic. 
Google Ads is the most popular platform to carry out this strategy, for the following reasons. 

1. Google Ads are easily scalable. 

This means that you just need to increase your PPC budget to expand your sales and get maximum business. It does not require any additional efforts from your end. 

2. They are measurable.

With the help of Google Ads, you can understand what your visitors are searching for. You will also be able to track the cost-per-conversion, conversion rate, and CTR. 

How to make paid search ads work?

To ensure that your paid ads are getting your landing page visitors, you must write a clear copy that lets the reader know “what’s in it for them”. 

Take a look at this example in which they have promised the reader to create a space that elevates their health and happiness. 

5. Leverage influencer marketing

Social media celebrities who have a huge fan following in their community are known as influencers. Influencer marketing has gained immense momentum in the current scenario. It has helped marketers to create user-generated content and enhance brand visibility. As people trust recommendations from users more than the claims from brands, influencer marketing goes a long way in building a loyal audience. Influencers can even share unique discount coupon codes along with an affiliate marketing landing page to increase conversions. 

6. Take advantage of public relations

Just like you are looking for landing page visits and customers, publications are looking for quality content. The same also applies to off-page SEO and guest posting. Suppose you have published a whitepaper or infographic on remote working best practices with an objective to promote your project management tool. You can outreach to relevant websites and guest blogging platforms to publish it and offer you a link to its landing page. Some websites even work with a symbiotic link exchange approach. 

7. Employ social media marketing 

Whether you use social media for organic traffic or take the pay-per-click approach, you can generate considerable traffic through these platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit, and YouTube. The Audience Insights tool by Facebook and Instagram allows the marketers to target people according to their personas and bring maximum engagement for their ads. It also helps to cut down the price of customer acquisition and get the most bang for their buck.  

It is advisable to invest in one or two most relevant channels at the outset and see how it goes. For example: If you are an eCommerce website, Instagram and Facebook would work the best for you. On the other hand, LinkedIn gets the best results for SaaS companies. 

Scaler has created a nice video advertisement to prompt users to register for their free recorded masterclass. 

On clicking the CTA “Book Now”, the reader will be redirected to the registration landing page that explains more about the class. 8323 registered is a good phrase to create FOMO and get more people to fill the form. 

8. Organize contests, both online and offline

Contests work wonders in shaping up the relationship with subscribers.
They help to tap on the competitive instinct of the subscribers and boost brand engagement. You can promote these updates through emails, social media posts, and paid ads to increase participation. All these will redirect the readers to the landing page. The same goes for events. You can create a landing page to get maximum visitors and make your event a grand success. 

Wrapping Up

Your landing page must consider the type of business and the kind of people you are catering to. Test what is working the best for you and then create a winning strategy to drive visitors. Keep measuring the results and optimize your landing page accordingly. 

To sum it up, here is a tip: Take professional help and use the right tools to create visually attractive landing pages. If you are unsure about how to do it, get in touch with the experts at Email Uplers and we would love to assist you.

The post 8 Tips to Generate Maximum Traffic for Your Landing Page appeared first on Email Uplers.

In today’s highly digitized world, customers expect you to be attentive to their needs 24×7. If you aren’t, they won’t hesitate to move on to a competitor that does!

This is exactly why a solid customer relationship management (CRM) strategy is critical to business operations today.

To that end, you may be researching the perfect CRM platform and exploring ways to deploy it in the most optimized manner. But have you thought about what a successful CRM team should look like? Surprisingly, this is the one aspect that a lot of businesses overlook when putting together a CRM strategy.

Successful CRM entails a lot more than just picking out the best software. If you plan to be around for years to come, the end-goal should be to build lasting and strong relationships with your customer base. 

But to pull this off with panache, you first need the right human resources!

8 Roles that Make a Rockstar CRM Team

The secret to CRM success lies in striking the right mix of technology, processes, and people. Sure, you need to invest in customer-centric business processes and the technology to support these processes. But most of all, you need people who can enhance the effectiveness of such processes, including email template development, email automation, campaign management and so on.

Here are the 8 roles that are critical to building and sustaining robust CRM systems that work efficiently for every department in your organization:

The Project Leader

This is the person who will get behind the driver’s wheel and steer your project in its intended direction, making them arguably the most vital cog of your CRM team structure. The project leader will be responsible for all the deliverables of your CRM initiative and delegating all concerned CRM roles and responsibilities, so it is vital to choose wisely.

Needless to say, this has to be a person in a senior position within the organization or someone with expertise in handling CRM projects. Yes, you can select the leader internally or find an external consultant for this role. However, this choice must be based on evaluating your requirements in the immediate and distant future vis-à-vis the budget.

At the same time, it’s important to give the project leader a say in drafting the vision of your CRM initiatives and finalizing the deliverables. Equally important is to give them the liberty to allocate CRM roles and responsibilities as they deem fit.

After all, this person is going to be the captain of your ship!

The Trendsetter

Research suggests that the failure of corporate management to embrace CRM in their day-to-day operations is one of the key reasons behind the failure of these initiatives. Without a nudge from leadership, your CRM initiatives cannot scale to their true potential.

So, pick someone from the top brass – a CEO, COO, managing director, board member – to be the trendsetter. This person would be responsible for ‘leading by example’ by using your new CRM system to communicate with employees. They’ll also be responsible for coming up with many of your most successful CRM strategies.

And do so with zeal!

The Experts

Software application and a set of tech tools to facilitate seamless operations are centric to any CRM initiative. You, obviously, need to have the right technical experts on your team- like the email developers. These technical experts will not only prove to be a great asset in eliminating the frustration around initial hiccups in the implementation of the CRM software but also offer support in data protection, bug removal, and other tech issues later on. In a way, they shoulder the most pivotal CRM responsibilities within the team.

To choose the right talent, you need to first have clear specifications on what your CRM initiative will entail and the kind of technical expertise required to pull it off.

The Bees

CRM implementation can be an arduous task. One that requires a considerable amount of manual effort in checking systems, uploading files, and so on. You need to have a pool of hard-working employees who can pick up the slack and bring stability to your CRM operations, and ultimately breathe life into your successful CRM strategies. Maintaining a dedicated team to take care of these less fancy aspects of CRM operations ensures that the entire system works like a well-oiled machine without causing a significant dent in your budget.

The Champion

The process of CRM system implementation can be a long-drawn-out, thankless job. There will always be some glitches and unhappy end-users. And there will be a team of professionals working tirelessly to iron out these crinkles.

Having a senior member of your organization rooting for these team players can be a huge asset for their morale and motivation. If you want to make successful CRM campaigns a habit, such an individual must be present in your team. This appointed champion can also play a key role in getting other stakeholders invested in your CRM initiative.

The Sounding Board

When a group of professionals is working closely together on a project, they’re likely to get too invested in it to view the outcomes dispassionately. That’s where your sounding board comes in. This is the person who is result-oriented and can see the big picture.

This team member is of paramount importance in making your CRM initiatives a success, as they question decisions, review CRM responsibilities, critically examine outcomes, and offer vital inputs for improvement. In short, this one team member will drive the rest to push the envelope and ensure successful CRM campaigns. They may not be appreciated by others on your CRM team for obvious reasons, but their role in optimizing your CRM initiatives is near indispensable.

The Innovator

This team member has to be an early adopter of the technology you’re working with. They can play a key role in weeding out antiquated practices and replacing them with a more futuristic approach. This makes them a crucial player of your CRM team. The innovator may also help you find new, hitherto unexplored, ways to tackle the myriad roadblocks in your CRM initiative. They are the key to developing a robust, well-rounded system that can stand the test of time.

The Tester

There is only one way to know whether your CRM system is working optimally – by testing settings, fields, categories, workflows regularly. That’s where the tester comes in. It’s fair to say that your CRM team structure won’t ever be complete without them. They will test different functionalities of your system from time to time, ask the right questions, and offer the right tips to slow glitches.

They will perform this task on a loop until your CRM system is ready to work seamlessly. And then, top it up with more tests along the way to make sure that it stays that way. A person with technical know-how as well as a firm grip on your target user base is ideal for this role.

Finding the Right Resources through Outsourcing

You’re probably wondering: ‘Where am I going to find all these team members?’ ‘By how much will that shoot up by CRM budget?’ Putting together a well-rounded and successful CRM team doesn’t necessarily have to be expensive. A handful of these resources can be pulled from within your organization. The trendsetter, the sounding board, the champion, for instance.

Depending on the nature of your operations, you may also find a few more skills in-house. For the rest, you can consider collaborating with a third-party service provider. It is ideal to outsource tasks or roles that are not a part of your core operations but essential for successful CRM development and implementation.

Some of the key benefits of the outsourcing approach include:

• It proves to be a time- and cost-effective alternative. In most of these contractual arrangements, you typically pay for the work done. This means saving up on salaries of idle resources as well as the cost of employee training. Besides, trained professionals who offer their services remotely prove much cheaper than hiring full-time experts for the same job.
• Since the professionals offering third-party services work primarily with CRM systems, they are more skilled and experienced. These people have handled scores of similar projects in the past, and can thus, optimize your CRM initiative more efficiently and quickly.
• It allows you to pick and choose resources as per your requirements, which may not be the case if you’re working with in-house employees.
• You don’t have to worry about keeping backups ready in case a team member takes a leave of absence.
• There is greater room for scalability. There is no need to hire or fire employees if you decide to expand or curtail business operations.

Wrapping It Up

Your CRM initiative is as good as the people behind it. Once you’ve found your rockstar team, make sure each member understands the objectives clearly. Institutionalize a rock-solid system for project management, and interact with them regularly to understand the challenges, progress, and expected outcomes.

For hands-on assistance with outsourcing CRM roles, simply contact us at Uplers to get the ball rolling!

The post 8 Roles that are Essential for a Rockstar CRM Team appeared first on Email Uplers.

If there is one metric that can single-handedly dictate the success of an email marketing campaign, it is conversions. And nothing impacts conversions more than CTAs. Whether you believe it or not, colors play an indispensable role in the email body. And when it comes to CTAs, colors can highly influence the number of clicks an email gathers.

The click-through rate of emails is inversely proportional to the average time it takes for a visitor to understand and take action. It means that the more confused they get, the lesser your click-through rates will be. That is why you need to ensure that your email’s CTA buttons are adequately accessible so that you can cater to the maximum possible traffic.

Here’s a look at 7 essential color elements you need to look into when designing your CTA button:

1. Lightness and Saturation

A lighter color is usually less effective than a darker one, but it’s not the only thing that counts. When you go too much on the lighter side, there’s a chance that prospects will have a hard time spotting your buttons. Too much saturation will likely make your CTA blend with the rest of the template, potentially decreasing its visibility.

In general, it’s a safe bet to take the saturation down a notch or two from what you might think is “best” for this button color.

2. Contrast

The Go-to Theory: You want to have your CTAs stand out against the rest of your email body. It usually translates to opting for a darker CTA on a lighter background, or vice versa.

The Reality: It’s not quite as simple as that. While you’ll often have no problem picking contrasting colors that are attention-grabbing, they can sometimes come off as abrasive and annoying – not inviting at all.

What you should do instead: A/B test out your email CTAs against its surroundings, but avoid making them too jarring. What’s more effective is picking colors in the same color scheme as your template – just with different brightness and saturation levels.

3. Intrinsic Coolness or Warmth

Cool colors are generally associated with depth, while warm ones are linked to energy. This means that cool colors will bring a sense of calmness and tranquillity, while warmer ones tend to be more invigorating. Your choice should depend on your:

• product or service
• email marketing message
• the goal of the CTA (or campaign)

For example, you might want to go with the warm ones if your product or service is aimed at businessmen with lots of energy. But if you cater primarily to women, you’ll likely want to go for the calming colors.

4. Natural vs. Unnatural

Color theory is a science, but some aspects of it can’t be fully explained by science yet.

One known aspect is the “most natural” choice for specific colors or situations – what people tend to go with when they have no other basis for their decision-making process. All you can do is go by instinct here, and that’s probably the best advice we can give you.

There are also times when certain colors or situations will make people feel like they’re in a dreamlike state, or even have them recall their childhood memories. If you wish to create an emotional connection with your email prospects, this is something you’ll want to consider.

5. Cultural Associations

In most cultures, warm colors are more noticeable and tend to pop out against a white backdrop – which is the case for most websites. However, some cultures value different color schemes. For instance, in China, warm/red colors tend to be prominent and used to draw attention. If your email CTA is global, ensure that you understand how varying cultures perceive colors differently.

6. Personal Preferences

Some people are drawn to colors commonly associated with their personalities – for instance, someone who’s lively is also more likely to hop on the bandwagon of warmer colors. You can run several tests to know which color is best suited for your CTA button. Don’t be surprised if it changes constantly depending on your email campaign.

7. First- and Second-Level Contrast

You also want to make sure that your primary CTA stands out from other CTAs in the email body. In other words, it needs to have a different color from the other calls to action in order not to be confused with them. Otherwise, this can decrease conversions.

Many times, the only way to ensure unique CTAs will be to use complete contrast – which can become annoying and distracting.

If your email has multiple CTAs, try and keep them in the same color scheme and give each one a distinguishing element (such as text). For example, if most buttons are blue, make your CTA red with something like “Free Shipping” in white text.

Impact of Individual Colors In CTAs

Many colors can be used with a call-to-action, but not all individual colors have the same impact.

Your choice of color for your CTA button will have an impact on conversions because of three main factors:

• How it matches with other design elements
• How your target audience perceives it
• How it differentiates itself from other buttons on the email template

Let’s look at the different colors that you can use and what they psychologically represent:

1. Blue

Blue is associated with stability, trustworthiness, confidence, intelligence, faithfulness, and coldness.

Blue can help convey a sense of professionalism or luxury in marketing since it is strongly associated with the corporate market. It’s also used for financial services because it represents wealth. In the same way, it can be used for eCommerce emails or any other service that people perceive as ‘high-class’.

Image Source

Republic showcases an excellent example of how to deploy blue CTAs. They use a single blue CTA in the email body in a way that does not feel intrusive, blends well with the email template, but still stands apart.

2. Green

Green is associated with growth, nature, fertility, freshness, luck, springtime, and environmental awareness and responsibility.

It is very popular in eCommerce because it’s associated with money. It can also be used to represent health and wellness, so green is often seen for food or dieting products.

For example, Product Disrupt uses green CTAs to impart trust and cut through a relatively loud design template. As you can see, the Green CTAs stand out, enticing users towards more clicks.

3. Orange

Orange is associated with energy, happiness, cheerfulness, sunshine, autumn, creativity, and determination.

This color works well for call-to-action buttons because of its association with warmth. It is also used for marketing services because it has a young, fresh feel to it.

The best example here is that of Hestan, who uses orange CTAs extensively in his emails. Notice how the orange color blends naturally with the backdrop while also imparting a vibrant, premium aura.

4. Pink

Pink is associated with love, romance, joyfulness, and the feminine side. For this reason, it is often used to convey a sense of sweetness and feminine strength.

It’s suitable for call-to-action buttons because it also has a gentle association with being approachable. If you’re targeting female shoppers for an eCommerce shop, pink can be great to use as your CTA button color because it will be seen as more inviting to women.

HUM Nutrition prefers using a pink CTA in almost all their emails. It is their brand color, and it also brings a sense of joy and sweetness, pushing the subscriber to take action.

5. Purple

Purple is generally associated with luxury, royalty, wisdom, and the supernatural. This color works well in eCommerce emails because of its association with quality goods and sophistication – it’s a pricey color in clothing stores. In the same way, purple can be used if you’re offering a product or service that your customers want to feel exclusive about.

For example, Headspace uses purple CTAs in its email quite well. They stand out from the other elements on the page, and the overall color philosophy leverages purple to reinforce that it is a high-value tool.

6. Black

Black is associated with power, elegance, and formality – making it a good choice for your CTA if you’re targeting professionals or in a B2B scenario. It’s also the color of luxury goods because black makes things appear more valuable.

Flodesk does this well in their email with a secondary Black CTA at the end that provides a perfect contrast to the background. It also compliments the power statement that missing out on the offer can be detrimental to marketing revenues.

Conclusion

Now that you know the different colors that can be used with a call-to-action, it’s important to consider which will impact your target audience the most. First, keep in mind how each color is associated with different emotions and feelings, then use this information to create a CTA button that stands out in your email and encourages conversions.

The post The Go-to CTA Color Guide That You Always Wanted appeared first on Email Uplers.

Many new marketing channels have emerged in recent times. However, email remains one of the most powerful means of connecting with audiences and building brand awareness. Email generates a staggering ROI of 4,200% and can drive major revenues for businesses with very few resources. No wonder 64% of small businesses love email marketing, and that the global email marketing market is projected to increase to $17.9 billion by 2027.

So, if you plan to either adopt or continue to use email marketing with Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC) – you’re making the right choice. To help you get the most out of your brand’s SFMC email marketing program in 2022, we have put together a list of email marketing trends. These trends will play a key role in driving results and help you power your SFMC email marketing campaigns in 2022 and beyond.

1. Email Designs Will Become Minimalist

Your brand is already fighting the battle for the inbox. An average person receives 100+ emails a day. To stand out from the crowd, you may find it tempting to make your emails as “loud” as possible – with fancy fonts, lots of text, a crowded layout, and too many design elements.

But this approach will not work in 2022.

For email marketing in 2022, less will be more. Email recipients will demand minimalist emails, easy-to-read text, and a clear message. You can meet this demand by:

• Using a generous amount of white space
• Selecting SFMC templates with a clean look-and-feel
• Avoiding complex layouts, jazzy designs, and too many graphical elements
• Using colors wisely and sparingly
• Including clear CTAs
• Balancing text with imagery

This simple referral email from Casper ticks all the minimalist boxes with ease:

Try to convey your message in the least amount of text possible. Avoid sales-y text, and use a combination of text and graphics to tell your brand’s story with each email. Use animations and illustrations to support your message. Wherever possible, use animations to create a sense of curiosity or urgency and encourage the reader to take immediate action.

In addition to minimalism, 2022 will also be the year for dark mode-compatible emails. These emails make content more legible, which is why about 82% of people already use dark mode to read email on their devices.

This dark mode email from Brightwave looks classy and elegant – and is easier on the eye.

2. Subscribers will Expect Hyper-personalized Emails 

In 2022, subscribers will demand personalized emails that meet their unique needs and address their specific pain points. So, they will open and click on emails that:

• Address them by name
• Are tailored for their specific demographic (age range, gender, location, etc.)
• Consider their purchase or interaction history to provide recommendations or offers
• “Talk” to them in a warm, friendly, and engaging manner

Neutral, run-of-the-mill mass emails will just not work, so 2022 is a great year to change your personalization strategy.

Fortunately, SFMC provides a bunch of features to help you personalize your email campaigns and make your readers feel valued and privileged. One such feature is the availability of dozens of customizable templates that you can either send as is or update as per your brand’s requirements:

• Text templates
• HTML templates
• Custom HTML templates
• Visualforce templates

In all four types of templates, you can include text, merge fields, attachments, dynamic content, and personalization strings. Use SFMC Email Studio to build personalized emails, from basic campaigns to sophisticated 1-to-1 messages. Leverage its intuitive features and a drag-and-drop interface to create tailored, real-time content for any kind of campaign, including:

• Welcome and onboarding
• Event invites
• Newsletters
• Engagement and re-engagement
• Drip campaigns
• Surveys
• Promotions
• Special occasion emails
• Informational emails
• Trigger-based emails

In all these emails, you can insert specific subscriber details like their name, location, company name, address, etc., to the subject line, pre-header, or body. To further boost your personalization goals, you can:

• Choose SFMC templates based on the kind of conversation you want to have with each subscriber
• Include clear CTA text that encourages action
• Offer specific discounts or offers based on the reader’s profile or prior purchase history
• Send newsletters with valuable, personalized content
• Establish a connection with readers from the first line

In addition, SFMC offers AI-powered personalization so you can personalize many crucial elements of your email, such as:

• Subject line
• Greeting
• Offers
• Content
• Signature

You can even personalize send times using SFMC’s Einstein Send Time Optimization (STO) feature. More and more marketers will take advantage of these capabilities of SFMC in 2022, so make sure you do as well.

Grammarly usually does a great job sending personalized “update” emails to subscribers. The below email does not include the subscriber’s name. However, they know at a glance that the content is 100% tailored to their Grammarly activities.

3. Interactive Experiences Will Become Popular

More email marketers will appreciate the power of interactive content in 2022. This is because interactive content can increase email open rates by 73%. By adding a video to your email campaigns, you can increase click-through rates by as much as 300%.  Moreover, interactive content also generates 2X (70%) more conversions than passive content (36%). Customers, too, will demand more interactive experiences in the coming year.

Interactive emails are a great way to delight subscribers with unique brand experiences. By adding a video, gif images, quiz, product carousel, etc., you can impress existing customers and convert potential leads into customers. You can also include live shopping, menu bar, carousel sliders, discount coupons, quick checkouts, and other interactive features to simplify in-email navigation and encourage customers to shop more.

SFMC supports many interactive elements you can leverage for your email campaigns, such as:

• Videos
• Product carousels
• Survey or feedback forms
• Quizzes
• Image/button rollovers
• Countdown timers
• Live polls
• Live local weather
• Store locators
• Interactive maps

Here’s a cool interactive email the BBC designed using SFMC. Subscribers can tap on the “+” icon under each animal to reveal more information about five animal families. The email is a great way to garner curiosity about BBC’s program “Dynasties”.

Leverage SFMC’s Journey Builder, Content Builder, and pre-built templates to set up interactive and personalized emails and engage with specific target audiences. With gamified elements and interactive emails from SFMC:

• Subscribers can participate more fully in your brand’s email marketing experience
• Take advantage of interactive lead forms to capture or update lead information
• Design relationship and loyalty email marketing campaigns to enhance brand recall and loyalty
• Collect user information to improve your personalization strategy, audience engagement, and brand connection

These emails will also help you promote specific products, improve accessibility, and share useful information in a user-friendly format – all of which can ultimately enhance user experiences and create more loyal subscribers.

4. Focus on Data Privacy Laws Will Increase

New rules and regulations are already changing how companies can collect and use user data in their marketing programs. Technological developments are also playing a part in increasing the importance of data privacy. For example, in late 2021, Apple rolled out new privacy features, such as:

• Mail Privacy Protection
• Hide My Email
• Hide my IP address

Email marketers will have to work within the purview of such features and regulations as they design and implement new campaigns in 2022. All teams will have to deal with challenges related to the data they can use for audience targeting. Simply put, not all subscribers will be willing to share their data with you, say, about preferences or needs, so you should be prepared for some pushback. This may affect the way you create audience segments and design your personalization strategies.

In 2022 and beyond, make sure you respect users’ private information. Implement double opt-in in SFMC to ensure that you only email those subscribers who actually want to hear from you. In addition, to retain subscribers and prevent spam complaints:

• Enforce SPF and DMARC protocols to establish safe email connections
• Remove all spammy words from email content using Content Detective
• Use SFMC Einstein tools and profile data to create compelling subject lines, identify highly engaged subscribers, and recommend valuable, personalized content that resonates with the audience
• Review audience preferences to connect with audiences at a time and frequency of their choosing
• Create mobile-friendly emails using Email Studio’s responsive email templates and Content Builder

You should also make it easy for subscribers to leave if they want to by including a visible unsubscribe link with every email. Also include a link to the user’s account and a link to manage their preferences, as well as contact details for the support team. Ultimately, in 2022, you will need to work harder to convince your subscribers that you value them as individuals and that you respect their privacy. 

Wrap Up

2022 will be another exciting year for email marketing. Give your email program a much-needed boost with SFMC and Email Uplers. To know more about our work with the world’s best brands, click here.

The post Four SFMC Email Marketing Trends to Look Out for in 2022 appeared first on Email Uplers.

Update: This post was originally published on 4th Oct 2018. It has been updated on 12th Jan 2022.

82% of marketers consider email as the most effective channel to market content and improve lead nurturing and conversion rates.

Therefore, if you are a marketer willing to increase your brand awareness, leveraging email marketing is the key. It wouldn’t only help you stand out amidst competition and retain existing customers but, also help you engage new customers and boost your ROI.

However, to attain the desired result of increasing brand awareness through emails, you must craft a brand awareness strategy (or a slew of them) that makes your email marketing campaign top-notch.

Here are 7 sure-fire brand awareness campaign tips to help you perfectly leverage email marketing for enhancing your brand’s visibility.

1.   Consent is the key

Email marketing is all about targeting the right audience. And for this, you need to build a subscriber list that genuinely wants to engage with your brand and receive your emails. Thus, at the forefront of every sound brand awareness campaign lies consent. Remember, sending emails to people who haven’t opted to receive your emails is only going to damage your brand reputation.

In fact, your email might even get marked as spam. So, always asking for permission and giving your potential subscribers the option to opt-in should be an essential part of your brand awareness strategy. This way, you will not only save your time and efforts but also be able to strike a chord with your customers and increase your brand awareness.

While conducting campaign management for our clients, we make sure that a consent email is the first email sent when anyone subscribes. To understand how we conduct campaign management, contact us.

2.   Welcome emails always work

You must have heard how the first impression is the last impression. The same is the case with email marketing. So, if you want to increase your brand visibility and present your brand in the best possible way, make welcome emails a core component of your brand awareness strategy. 

A welcome email is a great way of informing your customers about your products and services while greeting them with a warm and personal touch just the way Casper does.

In fact, 47% of marketers are already sending multi-step welcome emails to allure new subscribers. Make sure you and your brand awareness campaign feature in that demographic too.

3.   Provide value

Providing value with your email content should be another key aspect of your brand awareness strategy. Hence, you should deliver relevant and valuable content to your subscribers and not merely send emails pitching sales. You must know who your target audience is and what are their interests and preferences. This would even help you improve your interaction with customers.

In addition, you can leverage email marketing by sending insightful content related to industry knowledge, completed projects, etc. And if that’s not enough, you can take your brand awareness campaign a level up by organizing informational webinars, events and sending the invites for the same. It would make them value your brand on a personal level while increasing subscriber engagement.

4.   Make way for personalization and segmentation

The number of emails sent and received per day has touched a whopping 319.6 billion in 2021. So, making your email campaigns stand out amidst such staggering figures is quite a task. This is where personalization and segmentation can bolster your brand awareness email marketing campaigns.

Segmentation, by dividing subscribers on criteria like age, gender, purchase history, buying behavior, demography, sales funnel position makes way for targeting customers with a personalized approach.

From personalizing the subject line to sending behavioral trigger emails, you can adopt a plethora of strategies to make your email campaign attention-grabbing. Therefore, if you wish to enhance your brand awareness, make segmentation and personalization your email campaign’s priority. In fact, 77% of marketers are already leveraging personalization to get an edge over competitors.

5.   Incorporate strong and effective CTA

Sure, your email content is relevant, segmented, and personalized and has even increased your open and click-through rates. But, what do you want to do next? Increase brand awareness by prompting the customer to take further action. And this is the reason it is important to have a strong and effective CTA for further enhancing the customer experience while improving your brand awareness.

However, make sure to use a single CTA in your email while making it clear that what they need to do and what will they get as a result. This will keep the subscriber’s attention intact and encourage them to drive through the next level of a buyer’s journey. See how effectively Hipmunk places a strong CTA in its email campaign.

6.   Align your email and landing page

It is important to align your email and landing page to give your customers a consistent brand experience. Therefore, make it a point to match your email campaign and landing page. Start by customizing your landing page by repeating the offer mentioned in the email campaign.

In addition, it is important to keep the aesthetic style the same to make the whole process of going from the email to the landing page natural for the customer. From the front and the brand logo to the layout and color, everything should have the consistent essence of your brand to enhance its awareness among the prospective buyers.

7.   Consistency matters

If you wish to give your customers valuable content experience and increase your brand awareness, then being consistent with your email strategy is the best way out. Remember, if you can garner the trust of your subscribers, it can help you have a long-lasting relationship with them. This, in turn, wouldn’t only take your brand awareness a level up but, also make way for escalating your sales and boosting your revenues.

From the frequency of your email and its delivery schedule to its formatting and visual look, everything should be consistent. It will work wonders towards giving your customers a unique brand experience and enhance their chances of transforming into your loyal customers from prospects.

Wrapping It Up

The competition in the world of digital marketing is immense. But, you can sail through any competition if you have the powerful tool of email marketing with you. All you need to do is incorporate the above-mentioned tips within your email marketing campaign and see how these strategies help you build your brand awareness and make you emerge as a winner in the long run of business.

The post 7 Sure-fire Tips to Increase Brand Awareness with Emails appeared first on Email Uplers.

Update: This post was originally published on Oct 2, 2018. It has been updated on 12th Jan 2022.

Digital marketing has become an essential part of every higher education institution’s marketing strategy. And apart from well-designed websites, email marketing for educational institutions is emerging as one of the most effective ways of promotion for institutions/ universities..

With such great numbers to start with, as an email marketer, it is vital for you to craft great email templates that serve the purpose as well as encourage subscribers to enroll for a course.

Email Uplers has collated some awesome higher educational email campaign ideas to help you boost the admission counts.

#1 Arizona State University

Creativity will always help you stand out from the crowd. Look closely at this email by ASU to get an idea of how they have crafted a creative email with the latest email marketing tactics.

What makes this example rank among the best educational emails out there is the GIF at the top. Occupying the hero section of the email, it instantly grabs your attention as soon as you open the email. On the other hand, the illustration is cherry on the cake. The social sharing link and the unsubscribe button gets this email a thumbs up!

What could’ve been better:

They could have provided the information in the footer in a better way. Educational emails, in particular, stand to lose a lot if they’re unable to uphold their credibility via their footers. Additionally, they could have upped the visual factor by adding a Cinemagraph. Check out our blog on how you can create an attractive Cinemagraph in emails.

#2 Udacity

Educational emails need to be logical, informative, and absolutely to the point, just like this example from Udacity over here. Minimalism coupled with the use of bold typography elevates the visual appeal of this email while the succinct copy effectively draws the reader’s attention towards Udacity’s brand new podcast series. Further, to pique the curiosity of the subscriber, they’ve added a brief descriptive preview of the first episode too.

What could’ve been better:

At first sight, the template appears to be text-intensive and the lack of visual elements can keep the reader from interacting with the email.

What could’ve been better:
They could have included a “View Online” link in the email.

#3 Udemy

While looking for higher educational mails, we stumbled upon this example from Udemy. If you are looking for some holiday inspirational emails, then this one is the best example.

During holidays, you can promote an exciting limited-time offer and create urgency by adding a countdown timer in your email so that customers get compelled to take immediate action.

Wishing to add a countdown timer to your holiday emails but still in doubt? Check out this fun interactive email element.

The good thing about this email is that they have used a single clear CTA. They have shared the popular courses to prompt the user to take action.

What could’ve been better:
The email looks very cluttered as it has no white space. Also, they have missed out on social media sharing links and an unsubscribe button.

#4 Deakin University

Education email marketing can be tricky, but Deakin University has aced it over here. Often educational emails end up becoming a little monotonous since they pack a lot of information but that’s not the case here at all.  The single column layout over here is both vibrant and easy to navigate courtesy of the small rectangles in which the different sections of content are placed. 

What could’ve been better:

Though the email follows most of the best practices, it could have further heightened its rank among educational emails by doing a better job with the View Online link, unsubscribe button, and the placement of its social media handles.

#5 Masterclass

This email by MasterClass is a perfect example of minimalistic email with the same CTA placed in both the folds of the email. The header image with the play button is sure to catch the subscriber’s attention.

What could’ve been better:
They could’ve added interactivity to make the email look attractive.

#6 Skillshare

Let experts audit your email marketing campaign and help you optimize it.

Wrapping Up:

We hope these educational email examples will help you design your educational email templates as good as these or even better. Be clear about the audience you are targeting and provide information the subscriber is expecting. You can get free education email templates from many platforms but if you want to create a stunning email template for your organization for free, have a design ready, Email Uplers can code your first email template at ZERO cost.

The post Educational Email Examples- To Help you Pass with Flying Colors appeared first on Email Uplers.

Outlook (Desktop Client) can be compared to that reserved kinda person who always stays aloof and never joins the amiable group of other email clients. However, it is interesting to know that despite this, it still enjoys 8% of email client share in the market (Litmus Email Analytics – December 2019). Hence, overlooking its rendering issues is definitely not an option.

Looking for emails compatible with all email clients including Outlook? Order now>> 

Let’s discuss one of the major problems of Outlook that bothers several email developers out there.

The Problem of Unordered Lists in Outlook

A queer rendering challenge that Outlook puts forth is that of unordered lists. While all the other email clients work great when it comes to lists, Outlook doesn’t show bullets with <ul> and <li> tags.

Check out the screenshot below:

Outlook 2003 didn’t present this problem, but more recent versions of Outlook desktop clients like Outlook 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016 invariably create an issue when it comes to including basic HTML bullet points to unordered lists.

The Workaround

To include HTML bullet points in Outlook in a hassle-free manner, Campaign Monitor published a workaround which is quite successful but a bit too long.
We bring to you a simple workaround to beat this challenge.

Just insert the below-mentioned code to resolve the issue.

/*This is for Outlook 2007-10-13-16*/
<!– [if gte mso 9]>
<style>
li {text-align:-webkit-match-parent; display:list-item;text-indent: -1em;}
</style>
<![endif]–>
/*End for Outlook 2007-10-13-16*/

/*This is for Other all email clients*/
li {text-align:-webkit-match-parent; display:list-item;}
/*End for Other all email clients*/

Once you add this code, Outlook will display bullet points in your list… and that’s the end of your struggle. [We hope]

Here’s how it will look after the workaround:

Wrapping Up

Have you been forced to contend with any other challenges while working with Outlook?

Just get in touch with us and let’s talk about it.

The post How to Make Bulleted Lists Work in Outlook (2007-10-13-16) appeared first on Email Uplers.

As email marketers, one of your top priorities is, of course, ensuring that your campaigns reach as many people as possible. However, even with stellar deliverability, your emails will fail to rake up the attention they deserve if they are not accessible in the first place. At present, more than 1 billion people are estimated to have some sort of disability. Nearly 2.2 billion lead their lives with some level of vision impairment. In the United States alone, approximately 1 in 4 adults live with a disability. 

In a world where we’re striving to bridge inequalities of every kind with every passing day, failing to design emails that are inclusive can cause your business to lose favor with your customers. Practicing email design accessibility is not just about amping up the engagement metrics of your email campaign but also fostering a convenient online environment for users with various disabilities. Want to take the first step towards making your emails accessible? Start by optimizing your emails for screen readers. Used predominantly by people suffering from cognitive disabilities and visual impairments, screen readers are tools that convert the text, structure, images, and other elements of an email into speech or braille, thereby enabling them to consume its content. 

Getting Accessibility Right- Disabilities/Impairments You Need To Accommodate

Before we dive deep into the importance of making your emails screen reader friendly, let us first understand the various conditions we need to factor in to ensure our emails are completely accessible. 

• Auditory- To make your emails cater to people who are deaf or hard of hearing, or those suffering from other related disabilities such as experiencing trouble with the frequency of sound, the volume of sound, and phantom noises, consider adding video captions or transcripts. 
• Visual- Ensure the color contrast in your emails is compatible with screen readers and the font size is large enough to foster greater readability. Additionally, avoid conveying specific messages in your emails using color as a medium.
• Cognitive- Those suffering from cognitive disabilities experience trouble with comprehension, problem-solving, and holding attention. To enhance their email experience, present your content in a simple manner, avoid using jargon and unnecessarily complicated language and keep the use of animation to a minimum.
• Neurological- People afflicted with neurological disabilities have compromised central and peripheral nervous systems, which causes them to suffer from conditions such as epilepsy, strokes, dementia, brain tumors, and the like. Attempt to break the content in your emails into smaller sections to make it easy to consume. Further, consider incorporating visual hierarchy into your email design to ease navigation. 
• Physical- Make sure your emails can be navigated easily using screen readers and keyboards so that people with physical disabilities (such as missing limbs, motor control problems, and joint disorders) can interact with your emails with ease.
• Speech- Besides providing your phone number in your emails, include other means such as a chatbox or a contact form so that people suffering from speech impairments can reach out to you and provide feedback in a hassle-free manner.

For an in-depth understanding of how to make your emails accessible to a T, you can check out this detailed email accessibility guide. 

Why Should You Optimize Your Emails For Screen Readers?

Email optimization is an intrinsic part of any campaign. Failing to optimize your emails for screen readers will keep them from coaxing the desired response out of a sizeable portion of your target audience. Besides, such emails can greatly hamper customer relationships, landing your brand in your audience’s bad books. 

Listed below are a few more reasons that highlight the importance of making your emails screen reader friendly.

Make Your Content Easier To Consume

When you design your email campaign abiding by email accessibility best practices, you’re not just catering to audiences who have some form of disability or impairment, but you’re actually enhancing the overall quality of your email. The main objective of email accessibility is to make your email content easier to interact with for everyone on your contact list. Subsequently, this paves the path for improved customer relationships and brand recognition. 

Steer Clear of Legal Issues

There are specific laws in place that require businesses to make their emails accessible for people suffering from visual, auditory, cognitive, and other disabilities. Failing to comply with these regulations can earn them unpleasant lawsuits and an unpalatable reputation in the process. Hence, don’t think of accessibility as a compliance issue. Instead, treat it as an opportunity to enrichen the experience and expand the reach of your email marketing campaign. 

Tower Above Your Competitors

Even though email accessibility is second to none, you’d be surprised to discover the sheer number of companies that blatantly overlook accessibility guidelines. Therefore, crafting accessible emails can assuredly place you heads and shoulders above your competitors. Besides, nothing screams “I care about you” more loudly to your subscribers than email marketing campaigns and programs that have been tailor-made according to their needs. And the more your customers feel valued, the greater will be your engagement and conversions.

How Can You Optimize Your Emails For Screen Readers?

In order to create emails that are accessible and optimized for HTML screen readers, you need to abide by a bunch of guidelines and best practices. How you code your email can go a long way towards determining their compatibility with screen readers. Let’s take a look at a few email marketing optimization techniques that can improve the accessibility of your emails.

Employ Semantic Markup

With the help of semantic HTML markup in email, you can define the meaning of every element that is present in your email. As a result, it becomes convenient for screen readers and browsers to interpret them clearly. Semantic elements provide more context to the screen reader, thereby facilitating smoother email navigation and interaction. If you’re looking for a starting point, consider structure- that is to say, start by defining header ] and paragraphs tags. In their absence, the screen reader will assume all the content to have the same hierarchy and read through your email without making any distinction between title and body. It goes without saying, this can get incredibly confusing for your readers. Other handy semantic tags that you can consider adding to your code are:

• <button>: This tag tells screen readers that a text segment is a clickable button
• <form>: This tag indicates the presence of a form that the readers can fill out
• <article>: This tag alerts the screen reader to the presence of a block of self-contained content; such a block is meant to be interpreted on its own without any additional context.

Use the “lang” Attribute

The “lang” attribute needs to be added to your emails to ensure a smooth transcription of the message it contains. In its absence, the screen reader will assume that the email has been composed in the default language that the subscriber set while installing their HTML screen reader. So, if your email happens to be in a default language, there’s a good chance that the message you’re trying to convey might get across accurately to your readers.

Make Your Alt Texts Descriptive

Screen readers rely on alt texts to describe images to their users. Hence, ensure that you write descriptive alt texts so that the information contained in the image is clearly transmitted to the subscriber. A neatly written alt text will help your readers envision your email’s visual content to the fullest and subsequently encourage them to take action. When we say descriptive, we absolutely mean it. For instance, if you have an image of a book placed on a coffee table, your alt text should read “A hardbound book on a wooden coffee table” rather than reading just “book.”

Include A Skip Navigation Link

Screen readers don’t parse through emails as we do. We can skip through portions to get to that part in the email that interests us the most; they can’t. Thus, it is essential to include skip navigation links in your email code. This will give screen reader users the choice to navigate directly to your email content’s main part. 

Improve User Experience With ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) Attributes

ARIA attributes are used to add context to certain HTML elements, which ultimately enriches the user experience. They help you set button and presentation roles- while the former informs the screen reader about the function of a particular button, the latter enables it to interpret tables in a way that makes sense to the readers, rather than vocalizing it as just data.

Here’s an email accessibility checklist you can keep handy while designing your emails in the future:

Wrapping It Up

Focusing on making your emails accessible is as vital as prioritizing the design and copy of your campaigns. It determines the reach of your marketing efforts and, ultimately, the conversions and revenue you register. So, what are you waiting for? Make use of the email accessibility guidelines shared above and pore over some relevant screen reader friendly email campaign examples to gain a competitive edge over your competitors!

The post Optimizing Your Emails For Screen Readers- Why it is Crucial and How To Go About it appeared first on Email Uplers.

Valentine’s Day is celebrated in style and it continues to be a craze around the world. Whether it is shopping for chocolates or stylish rings to propose their loved one or flower bouquets, customers love splurging over this Holiday. You can cash in on this opportunity with Valentine email marketing campaigns. Based on a report, Valentine’s Day spending is expected to be $21.8 billion in 2022. So, you cannot miss this chance of driving conversions, more so because people continue to shop online given the pandemic situation.

It is almost time that you plan your marketing with pre, during, and post Valentine’s Day email campaigns. This will allow you to target different types of subscribers – the early shoppers, the just-in-time buyers, and the latecomers. 

To make things easy for you, we are here with the best Valentine’s emails and tips that will help you take full advantage of this Holiday. 

Tips to Create Winning Valentine’s Day Email Templates

1. Follow the design trends

Have you sifted through the email design trends 2022 suggested by the geeks at Email Uplers? If yes, you must be aware of the popularity of illustrations in emails. Harry’s has designed a nice Valentine’s Day email with an animated illustration and a compelling copy. It is short, sweet, and actionable for the readers.

Along with the email design, your Valentine’s Day subject lines are equally important. The subject line Body Wash + your tub = 4ever will surely compel the users to open the email. 

Use emojis, personalization, and experiment with innovative ideas to make your Valentine’s subject lines click-worthy.

2. Launch your offer well in advance

Your subscribers are busy people, sometimes forgetful too. Remind them about the upcoming Holiday of love well in advance. This will not only help them set their alarms but also contribute to your sales. 

Here’s how Slumberkins has sent a series of emails to launch their Valentine’s Day collection almost a month before the D-day. While the first email just talks about their Valentine’s Day release, the second email showcases their products with relevant copy to encourage people to make the purchase. It will also work as a Valentine’s Day marketing guide to help the subscribers buy the right gifts. 

Sending a series of Valentine Day emails works wonders to maximize conversions on this important gift-giving occasion.

3. Get visual

Your subscribers are more likely to make the purchase if they like what they see. Use the right visuals to take your email marketing game to the next level. Holidays can get pretty competitive and if you do not flaunt off your products, you will be left behind. 

Sugarfina has done a great job with their Valentine’s Day email by including tempting images of their sweets. Also, they have promoted their rewards system to boost their Valentine’s Day business. 

4. Let your customers personalize their gifts

Your customers love personalized presents. So, how about letting them know that they can customize their V-Day gifts? Halcyon Days has perfectly imbibed this strategy in their marketing email for Cupid’s Day. They have added pretty images and suitable copy based on the products displayed. The CTAs are cleverly placed in each section so that the users do not need to search through the entire website. 

Image Source

5. Send industry-related newsletters for the Holiday

If you are into content marketing, you can send news and trends related to Valentine’s Day to enhance your readership. 

For example: Fire Mountain Gems has sent out an interesting newsletter for jewelry-makers. It throws light on convertible jewelry that can make Valentine’s Day even more exciting for the users. In the email, they have shared informative content pieces with the users. They have also allowed the readers to read the answers by expert professionals in the industry. Such lesser-known facts are sure to grab the attention of your readers and make them look forward to more. 

6. Tap on the inquisitive instinct of the subscribers

How to increase subscriber engagement for your 14th February emails amidst all the digital noise? The answer is: Pique on their curiosity to get opens and click-throughs. Kasamba has sent an interesting email with the headline: “Find out if your soulmate is coming” followed by three different cupid images. 
It will create a sense of curiosity and get the subscribers to click-through the email. It will in turn boost your engagement rate, thereby improving your deliverability too. 

On clicking one of the cupids, the user will be redirected to the respective landing page. If you want to get innovative, you can use the hover effect and reveal the offer in the email itself. 

Need help with creating such technologically advanced email templates? 

Get in touch with the experts at Email Uplers. 

7. Drive instant sales with a countdown timer

Businesses have built huge and successful empires by tapping on Fear of Missing Out. Limited edition products, offer ending soon, and items running out of stock can give a considerable boost to your sales. Macy’s has sent out a Valentine’s Day email to promote extra 20% off along with a coupon code. The countdown timer in the first fold will create urgency and bring in instant sales. 

8. Think beyond lovers

Valentine’s Day is not just about romance between lovers. It is also about making your kids, grandparents, and furry friends feel special. Build-A-Bear has done exactly the same through their email. In addition, they have also let the subscribers know that they can build their own bear online, personalize gifts with sound, and shop for affordable gifts under $25. 

Alternatively, you can also do something for the singles out there like Boombod has done. This Valentine’s Day email template will certainly bring a smile on the face of singles out there and make their day special. 

9. Give a chance to the late shoppers

Often, it so happens that instead of “I love you”, your subscribers have to impress their loved one with an apology. For all those forgetful customers, you can send an extended sale offer or I am sorry gifts.

Here’s how The Only Roses has given a ray of hope to people who forgot about 14th February.

On the other hand, Laura Geller has tried to win over their customers with a last chance to avail the discount offer. The countdown timer does the trick to generate conversions.

10. Think out of the box

Like I said at the outset, you must follow the current email design trends while designing your Valentine’s Day email templates. However, creativity is also important. Serve something new to your subscribers in their inbox. 

OD International Inc has tried to bring freshness in their email by animating the testimonial section and footer icons. 

You can get your creative juices flowing and think of something similar for your Cupid’s Day emails. 

Cupid’s Day Email Inspirations Roundup

Let me sum up the post with eight takeaways for Valentines emails. 

1. Your Valentine’s Day email subject lines and headlines must steal the show.
2. Create emails that are in line with the trends, while also being innovative. 
3. Valentine’s Day email campaigns are incomplete without images that match the vibe. 
4. Get instant conversions with countdown timers and phrases that create urgency. 
5. Give equal chance to all the shoppers, irrespective of the time they choose to make the purchase. 
6. Not everyone out there has a lover. Offer something to the singles too. 
7. Personalized gifts are a rage among your users. 
8. Last but not the least, start thinking about your Valentine’s Day email soon after you come back from the Winter Break. 

The post 10 Savvy Tips to Create Beautiful Valentine’s Day Email Templates appeared first on Email Uplers.

Index

• Introduction
• What is B2B email marketing
• Difference between B2B and B2C email marketing
• How to begin with B2B email marketing
  • Tools required
  • Developing a plan 
  • B2B lead generation strategies
  • Define the customer journey & Segmentation tactics 
    
  • Automation workflows

• 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

 Simply put, 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. Thus, when you’re crafting a B2B email marketing strategy, you need to rely more on logic and reasoning than what you would while contending with a B2C campaign. 

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 solution-centric than emotion-centric. 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. In B2B email marketing, the focus is concentrated more on educating your prospects and nudging them along the sales funnel. 

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 seven 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.

6. The duration of decision-making

Unlike their B2C counterparts, decision-making in the case of B2B customers doesn’t necessarily rest at the discretion of a single individual. The process is much more prolonged because it requires multiple departments of the organization to be on the same page.

7. The visual framework

A major point of difference between B2B and B2C email campaigns is their visual grammar. While brands operating in the B2C space prefer greeting their subscribers with visually-rich emails, those in the B2B spectrum rely more on copy-heavy emails that have a minimal and neat layout.

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

One thing you’ll find in common across the best B2B email marketing examples out there is the usage of an extremely professional, logical, and informative tone. This is in sharp contrast to B2C emails where the tone is a lot more casual and peppered with action verbs and sensory words to push the readers to take action.
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. As it is, B2B emails and newsletters are known for the unique engagement patterns they invite. B2B email activity (i.e. weekly click volume and open rates) reaches its peak at the beginning of the week (specifically on Mondays and Tuesdays) and plummets post that. Speaking of the time of the day, most B2B emails reach customer inboxes either as early as 8AM in the morning or around 12 in the afternoon (typically around that lunch break corridor).

The graphs below illustrates the same:

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 your customers, B2B email marketing 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 pit social media against emails, in reality they are marketing channels that have a synergetic relationship. 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 B2B email marketing strategy 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 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, infuse new life into your B2B email marketing campaigns by creating 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

At the outset, clearly state the KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) with which you wish to measure the success of your B2B email marketing campaigns. In fact, align your KPIs with your objectives. For instance, if your goal is to enhance your brand awareness, you should measure your campaign on the volume of website traffic your emails are generating. If the goal is to improve user engagement, opens and click-throughs need to be prioritized. You get the drift. 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:

• Have a specific end result – ‘Improve the open rates by 5%’
• Have 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 email lead generation strategies are:

1. Offering lead magnets (Case studies, Whitepapers, Research Reports, Comprehensive “How-to” Guides) or gated content
2. Option to subscribe under popular content
3. Exit-intent Pop-up forms
4. Retargeting ads
5. Webinar registrations
6. 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

Even though B2B email templates are more copy- centric, you shouldn’t discount the usage of images altogether. 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:

1. What are you offering?
2. How will it help the reader?
3. 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 craft B2B email templates that will skyrocket your opens, click-throughs, and ultimately, your conversions!

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

When you sit down to create an email campaign, which aspects demand your attention the most? Subject line? Email copy? Color combination? Images? Or is it the CTA (call-to-action) button? In the course of fine-tuning all these elements, most email marketers overlook another aspect that is as intrinsic to an email as the ones mentioned above- the email footer.

As is indicative of its name, the email footer rests at the bottom of an email template and is its last content block. It holds critical information such as the brand’s contact information, website link, unsubscribe button, postal address, and the company logo. Footers are essential because, when done right, they infuse a degree of sophistication and professionalism into your emails. Remember, nothing escapes your readers’ eyes- a shabbily done email footer will spoil their overall experience even when your email content and design are meticulously curated.

It’s high time you gave your email footers the attention they deserve. In today’s article, we discuss a host of best practices to make your footers impactful and eye-catching. Curious already? Read on to find out!

Update Preferences or Unsubscribe Link

Of course, the last thing you’d want is for your customers to unsubscribe from your communications. But you can’t hold them against your will as well. As difficult as it might seem, you must provide your recipients with the option of unsubscribing from your emails. Failure to do so will earn you either a bevy of disengaged customers or, worse, a ton of spam reports, both of which will spell doom for your email sender reputation in the long run. 

Besides, unsubscribes may not be the worst thing to happen to your business. Creating and maintaining an email list involves a lot of hard yards. Why would you want to send your well-crafted campaigns to subscribers who couldn’t care any lesser about them? That said, don’t take unsubscribes for granted as well; always try to get to the root of the matter. Investigate all possible reasons that could make your customers opt-out of your communications and address them at the earliest. Once you’re sure you’ve covered all bases, take a step back and relax. Sometimes, the people who unsubscribe were not really meant to be in your contact list in the first place.

Other than allowing your readers to unsubscribe, you need to give them the option of updating their preferences as well. There’s a good chance that not all of your subscribers prefer receiving their emails at the same frequency. Or it might also be the case that some of them want to be moved to a different email list than what they’re subscribed to currently. Including an “update preferences” link is important because it saves you a lot of unsubscribes. We’re sure that on any given day, you’d take a customer choosing to receive one email from you in two weeks rather than them opting out of your list altogether. 

Here’s an example from Yeti that illustrates how you can go about placing both of these options in your email footer.

Legal Information

To ensure that your email reaches your audience, it first needs to comply with all the various anti-spam laws (USA’s CAN-SPAM Act, EU’s GDPR or General Data Protection Regulation, and Canada’s Canadian Anti-spam Law) out there. Most of these regulations require you to list out your legal information in the email footer, such as your privacy policy, company’s registered office address, terms and conditions, contact number, and contact information (both telephone number and mailing address). Besides sealing your compliance, the presence of legal information in your footer greatly enhances the credibility of your business in the eyes of your subscribers.

Take a look at this email from Klarna to get a better idea.

Social Media Links

At present, there are more than 4.5 billion social media users in the world. It doesn’t matter what kind of measuring equipment you’re using, that is a big number by any standard! In 2021 (and in the future), consolidating your social media presence plays a big role in determining your business’s success. And what’s a better way of promoting your social media presence than by adding their links in your go-to marketing channel- email! 

So, how do brands go about it? The most common (and advisable route) is to include the icons of the social media platforms in your email footer. Make sure that the design of the icons is in line with your email design, and you’ve listed only those platforms on which you’re active. To stir greater enthusiasm among your readers, you can also add a message or a branded hashtag.

For instance, take a look at this email from Lush.

Additional Links

Why stop at adding social media buttons to your email footer? Utilize the space to include other important links, too, like website, blog, press coverage, and the like. This will give your readers the opportunity to find out more about your brand and, subsequently, remain more engaged with you. 

Here’s how Wonder Valley goes about it.

Links to Download Your Apps

The majority of people out there prefer using apps when it comes to shopping or making any kind of transaction in general. Hence, your emails must contain download links for your mobile applications. This significantly increases the likelihood of people accessing your app. If your app is available on both Google Play Store as well as the App Store, ensure that you provide links for both. 

Take a look at this example from Yelp.

Brand Message

Use your email footers to remind your subscribers why they chose you in the first place. Communicate your brand’s values and mission statement in your footer and make it an engaging space for your readers. This can also make your emails feel more intimate to your subscribers and thus invite greater interaction in the process. 

Here’s a delightful example by Last Crumb.

Something For The Reader

Now, email footers typically have a reputation for being rather monotonous. Contact information, postal address, terms and conditions, privacy policy. Sure, additional links can get them a little curious about you, and a brand message can hold their attention, but is there scope for doing more? Always. Try to include something in the footer for your reader- it could be a witty one-liner, a simple animation, or just about anything that would endear them to the footer. 

Running short of inspiration? These examples ought to help you then.

This email footer from Creative Boom is definitely a notch above the rest. The use of animation makes this footer extremely eye-catching and ensures that readers actually take stock of the information or links that are placed in this section.

Wrapping It Up

Email footers are a vital component of your emails; an impressive email footer doesn’t just establish your credibility but also tells your subscribers how detail-oriented you are. Sure, it might be the last thing that readers might notice about your email, and lasting last impressions go a long way in our opinion (no offense intended to first impressions, we love them equally). So, which of these best practices will you be adopting for your email footer? Do let us know! We look forward to hearing from you, as always. 

The post Step Up Your Email Footer Game With These Best Practices appeared first on Email Uplers.

Smart customer-focused brands know that email marketing is one the most effective ways to connect with consumers, and build greater brand awareness, demand, and value – especially with a feature-rich Email Service Provider (ESP) like Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC).

SFMC offers dozens of features and tools to create many different kinds of responsive, personalized email marketing campaigns. One such feature is customizable templates in SFMC Email Studio and Content Builder. With readymade templates, any brand can quickly create personalized email campaigns that promote meaningful engagements and customer relationships. No wonder 15% of digital marketing agencies recommend email marketing to their clients over any other digital channel, according to recent research by Uplers.

And yet – agencies themselves hardly use email marketing to pursue their own growth goals!

According to the above survey, in the post-COVID world, 66% of agencies have experienced a decrease in overall revenue, and 47% have seen a decrease in marketing leads. Email marketing, email templates, and Salesforce Marketing Cloud can help to address these problems.

So if you are a digital marketing agency, here are 5 ways to grow your business with SFMC email templates.

#1. Make a Great First Impression with Welcome and Onboarding Templates

First impressions matter in both B2C and B2B settings. Your clients need to make a strong first impression on their end customers in order to:

• Increase email open and click-through rates
• Effectively promote their new products, events, and newsletters
• Boost conversions, sales, and repeat sales
• Build long-term relationships
• Increase customer lifetime value (LTV)

As an agency, you also have similar goals. And for this, you must start strong. Otherwise, you will be on the back foot from the get-go, and will therefore struggle to build relationships, earn customers’ trust, and build a reputation for reliability.

Start every new relationship with welcome and onboarding emails. Leverage these templates to establish an early connection, and boost your agency’s recall value. Then you can continue to engage with clients to further strengthen the connection by sending:

• Event invites

Salesforce is not just a SaaS company. It also does a great job of staying in touch with its B2B customer base with regular online events like this one.

• Newsletters
• Promotions
• Surveys
• Informative emails

Like this email from Salesforce, you can also use readymade SFMC templates to add unique content about your agency and its people and projects to impress clients.

#2. Make Customers Feel Valued and Special with Personalized Templates

One of the most powerful capabilities of SFMC is that you can pick from dozens of templates, and completely make them your own.

SFMC provides 4 types of email templates:

• Text templates: These templates contain only text, and any user can update them
• HTML templates: Your administrator can do all formatting using the in-built formatting controls, even without prior knowledge of HTML/CSS
• Custom HTML templates: Easily re-use these templates when manually sending emails
• Visualforce templates: Admins or developers with knowledge of HTML, CSS and Apex can use these templates to create unique emails

You can include text and merge fields to personalize all 4 types of templates. You can also include attachments. Add personalization to templates with dynamic content or personalization strings. To create dynamic content, you simply have to create a dynamic rule in SFMC Content Builder, and then drag-and-drop attributes to match the rule. If you prefer to use personalization strings, you can insert specific subscriber details like their name, location, company name, address, etc. to the email’s subject line, pre-header, or body.

Then, to boost your prospecting, lead generation, and customer relationships with personalized SFMC templates, you can:

• Choose or update any template based on who your clients are and what kind of conversation you want to have with them
• Create sales emails with short, easy-to-consume messages
• Include clear CTA text that encourages the reader to contact your agency for more info
• Include a compelling subject line to catch a client’s or lead’s attention
• Establish a connection with readers from the first line

#3. Let Your Brand Do the Talking with Fully Customizable, “On-brand” Templates

In SFMC, templates with letterheads can help you showcase your agency’s brand in unique and memorable ways (although you can create HTML templates without letterheads as well). SFMC provides many such templates that you can easily customize with your agency’s logo, content, CTA, and social media links.

Any user with permission to edit HTML templates can create such templates based on a letterhead in order to:

• Enforce your brand across all outbound emails
• Use letterheads as the foundation for all your HTML email templates
• Create more letterheads if your agency’s logo is available in different languages
• Define the header and footer of all HTML emails

In addition, you can use SFMC’s drag-and-drop template designer to optimize your email marketing program. Customize templates with content blocks, custom fonts, and your colors, logos, font, and other branding elements. Once you create these content blocks, they will remain available as a reusable content type whenever you need to edit a template.

You can also add interactive content to campaigns to create highly engaging inbox experiences for any client or new lead. With interactive emails, you can:

• Increase user engagement
• Boost click-through rates
• Capture more data about subscribers, and use this data to create more personalized campaigns
• Trigger specific events based on specific user actions or behaviors to keep them engaged for longer

SFMC also includes a powerful A/B testing feature, so you can pre-test every email before sending it out to hot leads, prospective clients, or existing clients.

#4. Make Mobile Experiences Work in your Favor with Mobile-ready Templates

Today, there are almost 2.6 billion email users. Of these, more than 61.9% of emails are opened on mobile devices. And this is unsurprising, considering that there are about 1.7 billion smartphone users. Mobile is a powerful medium for both B2C and B2B email marketing.

That’s why you should create mobile-friendly emails by customizing your SFMC templates with a responsive email design. Simply navigate to SFMC Content Builder and the Template menu to create new templates or modify existing templates. Then use the drag-and-drop interface to optimize them for mobile. Further, any layout block you choose will automatically adjust to every device, including smartphones, tablets and handhelds. 

As you optimize your agency’s email for mobile, pay extra attention to formatting, particularly these elements:

• Indents
• Lists
• Hyperlinks
• CTA buttons and text
• Text spacing
• Font types, sizes and colors
• Background colors
• Banner sizes
• Spacing between text and graphical elements

#5. Include a Wide Range of Templates to Attract New Accounts and Grow Existing Accounts

Earlier we suggested that you should make a good first impression with welcome and onboarding emails. Maintain this impression and keep building your relationships with other kinds of emails. For this, make use of SFMC templates to create:

• Engagement emails
• Re-engagement emails
• Holiday or special occasion emails
• Smart promotional emails
• Lead nurturing and account development newsletters
• Feedback emails

B2C firms leverage all these email templates to connect with customers and boost sales. You can do the same. Equally important, you can show clients how versatile SFMC is by:

• Inviting leads and customers to engage further with specific CTAs and links
• Sharing updates and new content such as awards announcements, client case studies and even updates to boost lead nurturing and develop accounts
• Sharing limited-time promos (e.g. “1 month unlimited brand design for free) to grow the number and size of business accounts
• Ask clients for honest opinions about your agency’s work, and how you can help them with email marketing

This email from BrightWave invites users to join a discussion about the latest trends in email marketing in a post-COVID world. The email is not salesy, but an effort from the agency to share useful content with companies interested in email marketing for their brands.

Conclusion

If you recommend email as a smart marketing strategy to your clients, why not take a leaf out of your own book?! Email is an effective, customizable and affordable way to attract new business for your agency and build long-term relationships with B2B customers. With an ESP like Salesforce Marketing Cloud, you can take advantage of the best email marketing templates to design captivating emails that translate into tangible business outcomes.

To know more about our email marketing work with some of the best brands and agencies in the world, click here.

The post 5 Ways Marketing Agencies Can Grow with Customizable SFMC Templates appeared first on Email Uplers.

The email marketing landscape witnesses millions and millions of emails being exchanged on a daily basis. But, not all of them achieve what they were set out to in the first place. Only the ones with meticulously curated content and pixel-perfect designs and codes manage to cut through the noise and garner the audience’s attention. Want your campaigns to be a part of this exclusive league? Then, you’re at just the right place! Today, we’ll walk you through 22 of the most spectacular business email examples out there that are sure to leave you chock-full of ideas for your future campaigns. Keep a pen and paper handy; there’s plenty to make a note of!

1. Airbnb

Subject line: Discover your new favorite singer, on Airbnb

There’s a lot to admire in this newsletter from Airbnb- informative content, appealing pictures, and a highly effective photo grid layout. And the icing on the cake? The fact that it is perfectly consistent with Airbnb’s branding. What particularly caught our attention in this email is its header image. The sight of a pianist sitting under spotlights and surrounded by smoke is something you’d have a tough time peeling your eyes away from, no?

2. Niice

Subject line: Get more visibility over your team’s creative.

Welcome emails are really important. They’re your subscribers’ first point of contact with you and go a long way towards strengthening your relationships with them. To that extent, it is safe to say that an impactful welcome email is more or less responsible for fetching you higher conversions. 

So, what’s a surefire way of making them engaging? Well, we ask you to take a leaf from Niice’s book (email, in this case)- a video message! Not only do video messages feel more personal, but they are also easier to consume than text or still images, thereby enhancing the appeal of your email. Another thing we like about this welcome email is its value proposition- it doesn’t just greet the customer; it also shares a few tips using which they can make the most out of the platform.

3. CoEdition

Subject line: Winter Wedding Attire

If you’re wondering how to make your products the hero of your email, look no further for inspiration than this amazing email from CoEdition. 

Ample use of whitespace coupled with the tactful application of drop shadows makes this email an absolute visual delight. We’re also quite fond of the display font that’s been used over here; it renders a casual vibe to the message. Additionally, using blue, which is classified as a cold color to announce a winter collection, is no less of a masterstroke. Full marks for subliminal messaging.

4. Calvin Klein

Subject line: Something You Love is Almost Gone

Crafting browse abandonment emails are tricky; they need to be simultaneously crisp and compelling enough to push the customer into taking action. This email from Calvin Klein ticks all the right boxes- a short and impactful copy, followed by the image of the product that was abandoned and capped off by a sweet cross-selling section. Because the design is minimal, it allows the messaging to come across with full force.

5. Barnes & Noble

Subject line: Happy Thanksgiving From Your Family at Barnes & Noble

Email marketers face stiff competition pretty much all throughout the year, but things get particularly uphill during the holiday season. With everyone hustling to register themselves on their customers’ radars, coming up with “that” perfect email can be quite a task. Well, not for the folk at Barnes & Noble. 

They seal the deal with a warm message and an adorable 2D animation that shows a car cruising through the streets loaded with all the Thanksgiving essentials- turkey, pumpkin, and of course, books!

6. Care/of

Subject line: It’s our birthday!

Completing a successful year in the marketplace is a special feeling for every brand out there. So, when you’re crafting your anniversary emails, ensure that the gratitude you’re experiencing reflects generously across your emails too. This will instantly endear them to your customers. 

Share your achievements with them and make them feel as if they’re a part of your family, just as Care/of has done over here. Comprising bold typography and some very well-composed copy, Care/of’s anniversary email is easily among the best out there. The layout is impressive, and the presence of soft backgrounds further accentuates the visual appeal of the email.

7. thredUP

Subject line: The Sex & the City reboots costume designers are dressing YOU!

Want to liven up your emails? Use 2D illustrations! Don’t take our word; just take one look at this utterly chic and neat email from thredUP. Besides the delightful illustration, we’re also quite fond of the manner in which they’ve gone about their product previews. Is it just us, or do those circles actually look very badge-worthy?

8. Gravity Blankets

Subject line: Don’t forget about Y O U

This single-column layout email from Gravity Blankets is as easy on the eye as it gets. This email is an excellent example of how your email’s “hero element” need not necessarily be an image always. If you’re in command of your typography, then a copy will be just as effective. Even though there are no dividers in this columnar layout, there’s no chaos either. 

The placement of the product images and the CTA buttons creates a pleasant harmony while scrolling down. The animated snowflakes are an excellent touch too.

9. Foxtrot

Subject line: Give $10, get $10

Sure, you’d have come across many referral emails in your inbox, but few would be as stylish as this one here from Foxtrot. The color combination is spectacular, the display font downright captivating, the stock image perfectly on-brand, and the copy, oh so crisp and impactful. If this email won’t fetch referrals, what will?

10. Duolingo

Subject line: We miss you!

Composing an effective retention email can pose a headache to even the best out there. Thinking of the right tone to reach out to people who used to interact quite actively with you but have gone dormant of late can be extremely challenging. Some choose humor, some decide to lure them back with irresistible offers, and some, like Duolingo here, decide to be absolutely honest about missing their beloved users. Honesty, indeed, is the best policy!

11. Betabrand

Subject line: New Erin Top Drop + Special Offer Today Only!

You want to send an email to call your customers’ attention to one of your best-selling products. How do you go about it? You create a sense of emergency in your subject line- of course, but what’s next? You have piqued their curiosity; now it’s time to grab their attention. 

And what’s a better way of doing that than by greeting them with a GIF of your offerings, much like Betabrand here? The above the fold section has been expertly curated over here- product announcement using bold typography, a to-the-point copy that provides context, a discount code, and of course, the CTA (call-to-action) button. One look at the email, and you instantly understand what it’s trying to tell you.

12. The Honest Company

Subject line: unwrap an Honest gift card

Choosing a present for a loved one is a tough job, and getting it right is even tougher. And this has what made the concept of gift cards immensely popular. Brands know this, and hence many of them announce e-gift cards during the holiday season. 

But, how do you promote them in your emails? Minimalism is the way if you ask us. Case in point- this email from The Honest Company. The copy is unfussy, and so is the design, but the message is conveyed loud and clear to the reader. 

13. Highsnobiety

Subject line: Finally, a Tabi we can afford

Using high-quality images of your products in your emails is absolutely non-negotiable, but you can’t rely solely on them to grab your subscribers’ eyeballs. If you really want your readers to pay attention to your products, then you need to dial up your product description game. Product descriptions don’t just tell the audience about the product’s features and benefits; if done right, they can establish a personal connect with them and ultimately influence them to make a purchase. 

This email from Highsnobiety is an accurate example of the kind of power that witty and quirky product descriptions hold over customers. Don’t know about you, but by the time we were done reading this email, we certainly wanted to add every single item to our wishlist (and a few to our carts too!) Additionally, the use of soft colors in the background has allowed the products to contrast sharply and become absolutely prominent. 

14. Nasty Gal

Subject line: One Word: Sale

Sales are fun- more for the audience than the brand, but still, fun. While the audience’s major concern is to get their hands on as many “steal deals” as possible, brands are primarily concerned with ensuring maximum footfall and traffic. So, how should they go about promoting it in their emails? Our advice- keep it simple, just as Nast Gal has. 

The first frame of the GIF in the hero section of this email gives readers all the necessary details about the sale before the frame goes on to be populated by sticky notes, all emblazoned with that one word- sale. Even if you look at this email in a hurry, you’d still understand that it’s talking about a sale.

15. Flodesk

Subject line: Your subject line cheatsheet is here

SaaS email marketing is in a league of its own, making designing SaaS emails much more demanding than the average email. Flodesk’s email here is the perfect primer on how you should go about one- establish the objective of the email, keep it informative, and keep the design uncluttered and unfussy; you want your content to be as easy-to-consume as possible.

16. Mint

Subject line: Happy Birthday from Mint

Birthday emails, if done right, can significantly strengthen your customer relationships. Now, most brands prefer sending their customers a personalized coupon code or an attractive offer to mark their special day. And while that’s a pretty effective strategy, we are quite fond of what Mint has done over here. 

In this warm birthday message, Mint has not only wished the customer but also smartly conveyed the value that Mint adds to their life. Moreover, the use of 2D illustrations and consistent typography makes the design of this email really appealing too.

17. Drunk Elephant Skincare

Subject line: That was a clothes call!

Using bright colors is an excellent way of making your emails visually captivating, but if you happen to go overboard with them, things can become exceedingly awry. However, if you’re in absolute command of your craft, just like the folks at Drunk Elephant Skincare in this email, you’re sure to wow your subscribers. 

An absolute treat for the eyes, this is exactly the kind of emails you’d expect experts to talk about at email design roundtables. Factor in the witty copy (peppered with subtle wordplay), and it’s no wonder why this email is one of our favorite business email examples.

18. Blk & Bold

Subject line: Put your coffee + tea orders on autopilot

Want to get through to your customers? Bring humor into play; it never fails. And when the humor is borne out of a pop-culture reference like in this email from Blk & Bold, your message becomes that much more relatable and engaging for the readers. Blk & Bold’s email might look relatively simple compared to some of the other entries in this list, but it is just as high on impact as the rest. Two neat content sections follow the hilarious GIF- one giving a tutorial about the platform and an incredibly helpful FAQ section.

19. Blu Dot

Subject line: Wait up. Your order is not complete.

No email marketer wants to face the music of abandoned carts, but that’s something that is pretty much out of their control. However, what’s in their hands is coming up with top-notch abandoned cart emails that can transform abandonments into conversions—wondering how you should go about it? 

Take inspiration from this email by Blu Dot. What we particularly like about this abandoned cart email is the “Why Blu Dot” section. This is a fresh break from most abandoned cart emails out there, wherein this space is typically used for cross-selling purposes

20. Calm

Subject line: Train your mind with LeBron James

Teaming up with celebrities is a great way of getting people to engage with your brand. And if you have curated courses with them, such as Calm, you need to spot on with their email marketing as well. Calm hasn’t put a foot wrong here with their recommendation email. The content is succinct and tells readers everything they need to know about. The hero section contains a picture of LeBron James, the program curator, placed against a gorgeous gradient, making it extremely easy on the eye. What makes this design further striking is the smart punctuation of white spaces.

21. Netflix

Subject line: Coming Friday, March 17th… Marvel’s Iron Fist

Have you tried cinemagraphs yet? Existing as a blend of still images and animation or motion effects, cinemagraphs render a truly surreal vibe to your emails, making them extremely engaging in the process. Just look at this email from Netflix; it’s quite a sight to behold isn’t it?

22. Tom Raffield

Subject line: Can you guess where we’re going?

One way of making your emails stand out among the crowd is by creating them using interactive design elements. Something as simple as a hover effect when executed to perfection, like this email here from Tom Raffield, can significantly help you in securing the attention of your readers and fetching greater traffic, and ultimately, conversions.

Wrapping It Up

So, which among these professional email examples were your favorites? Irrespective of which ones caught your attention the most, we’re sure all of them provided you with plenty of insight and ideas for your future campaigns. Now all that is to be done is to put these learnings into action. For all we know, the next time we sit down to compile such a list, we could be listing out your business email as an example!

The post 22 Business Email Examples That Will Make Your Eyes Pop! appeared first on Email Uplers.

Every single email marketer out there is well aware of the stiff competition that they have to contend with on a daily basis. As more and more brands continue to hop on the bandwagon of email marketing thanks to its stellar ROI and massive impact, the volume of emails that are now sent on a daily basis is downright mind-boggling. So, how do you cut through the noise then? By ensuring that your email copy is absolutely on point.

Good content and copy are well worth their weight in gold and play a pivotal role in enhancing the communication of your marketing campaigns. After all, when people are receiving hundreds and thousands of emails on a daily basis, why should they bother opening yours if it’s worded just as generically as the rest? Grabbing people’s attention is no small feat, and doing so requires you to compose your emails as persuasively as possible. Wondering how you should go about it? Well, that’s exactly what we’ve covered in this article today. Dive in to find out!

Make Your Subject Lines Stand Out

You know how a good trailer encourages you to watch the movie? Well, that’s precisely what a subject line does for an email. It is the very first thing that recipients see about your email. Should it not be impactful enough, you might as well kiss the chances of your emails getting opened goodbye. Crafting creative and compelling subject lines is the first step of creating a persuasive marketing email. 

Next time, when you sit down to write a subject line, consider taking the following things into account:

• Try to use sensory words in your subject lines. As is indicative from their name, sensory words work towards evoking the five human senses. A subject line punctuated with sensory words creates a flurry of mental images in your readers’ minds, thereby leaving a lasting and strong impression on them. Why should one read words when they can experience them?
• Make sure your subject line has action words. Since subject lines are a reader’s first point of contact with an email, it is important that their phrasing drives the reader to engage or interact with the email. Remember, action words and verbs are not for commanding your subscribers; they’re simply for nudging them towards the path you want them to take.
• Create a sense of urgency. It might be the oldest trick in the book, but it works just as effectively as the rest. Every time there’s a subject line that announces a ticking clock, it invariably registers more engagement than the rest.
• Personalize your subject lines. Personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened than their non-personalized counterparts. It’s 2021- batch and blast just don’t work on customers anymore. Segment your lists, personalize your communication at scale, and deliver an excellent customer experience.

Here are a few subject lines to fill you with inspiration:

Gooey Snacks: Craving some chocolate? (Source: https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/craving-some-chocolate)

Typeform: Camera shy? We’ve got the cure (Source: https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/camera-shy-weve-got-the-cure)

Bonobos: Don’t Wait, 30% Off Is Already Here (Source: https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/dont-wait-30-off-is-already-here(

Hally: 10% off code expires today! (Source: https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/10-off-code-expires-today)

Tell a Story

If there’s anything in this world that unites us despite our millions and millions of differences, it’s a good story. Narratives have shaped the course of human lives since time immemorial, and nobody knows that better than marketers. Therefore, a surefire way of creating a persuasive email is to embed an absorbing narrative at its heart. Irrespective of where the world finds itself in a few years from now, a good story will never fail to find its audience. 

Take a look at these persuasive email examples that have absolutely nailed their narratives.

Highlight Benefits, Not Features

Nobody likes someone who toots their own horns. Many marketing emails find their way into spam folders simply because they ramble on endlessly about their products and services and themselves. We get it; you want to communicate the value of your offerings to your subscribers. But talking about your features isn’t the way to go about it. If you don’t want your recipients to tune out of your email, you must speak about what benefits your products and services can add to their lives. In simple words, make the email about them, not you. 

Suppose you’re an automobile brand and you’ve launched a new scooter. Now, instead of writing about how its fuel efficiency and durability are a notch above the rest, tell your readers how these same features can help them save more and enhance their overall driving experience. That’s why it’s considered a good practice to write promotional emails in the second person so that the focus remains on the recipient. “You” over “We” and “I”, any day.

Here are a few persuasive email examples that highlight the same.

Keep It Short and Simple

As of 2021, the average person’s attention span stands at a meager 8 seconds. So if you’re not cutting to the chase with your email copies, it is safe to assume that your subscribers will overlook your content. Yes, good storytelling is an intrinsic part of email marketing, but it also merits a special occasion- holidays, product launches, anniversaries, and the like. You can’t expect your readers to have an appetite for stories frequently. Besides, short copies also give you the scope of formulating sound bites that are catchy and which instantly etch themselves onto the readers’ memories. Thus, what you need to practice regularly is to keep your email copies crisp and relevant. At the end of the day, your goal is to make your customers click on your CTA (call-to-action) button. And your email copy is what guides them towards that.

Take a look at these examples.

Step Up Your CTA

How could we possibly wrap a blog on creating persuasive email templates without including a section on arguably the most crucial part of an email- the CTA? You could have the choicest copy and the most striking design in your emails, and it would still fail to fetch you conversions if your CTAs are not upto the mark. 

To get your CTA game on point, you need to be mindful of the following:

• Its placement: Normally, many brands prefer placing their CTA button above the fold. That way, it catches the subscribers’ attention the minute they open the email. However, many brands deem it risky to include just one CTA in their emails. Hence, along with a primary CTA, they prefer adding a few secondary CTAs below the fold as well. 
• How it looks: The size, shape, and color of your CTA button all play an essential role in determining its visibility. The sizing of your button depends on the dimensions of the other elements in your email and must be in accordance with the visual hierarchy you have created over there. There are mainly two routes that brands take when it comes to shape- rectangular buttons and rounded-at-the-edges buttons. Both look equally neat, so it ultimately boils down to which shape complements your other design elements more. As far as the color of your button is considered, it’s best that you stick to the existing color scheme of your brand. If you don’t have anything defined as such, then use a color that contrasts sharply against the background to promote greater visibility.
• The CTA phrase: There’s perhaps nothing more off-putting than CTAs having the generic phrases of “Click Now,” “Buy Now,” “Try a Demo,” and the like. If you really want to drive action, then you need to get creative with your CTAs. Make your CTAs quirky, clever, and action-oriented.

Here are a few examples to get your juices flowing.

Wrapping It Up

We’ve bared the anatomy of a persuasive marketing email for you, and we’re sure that you now know what to do to make your campaigns the cynosure of all eyes. Remember, it’s alright if you don’t get it right on the first try. The important thing is to get your basics right. The perfect execution is just round the corner.

The post The Anatomy of a Perfectly Persuasive Marketing Email appeared first on Email Uplers.

Want to grow your email list to 1K, 5K, 10K and beyond? You’re going to need a really good lead magnet. Mary Fernandez, founder of Persuasion Nation, lists out 17 proven lead magnet ideas to grow your email list (with examples).

Before we dive into the lead magnet ideas, let’s talk strategy. It’s important to understand why you are creating a lead magnet in the first place, and what makes some lead magnets convert 1,000% better than others.

First of all, what is a lead magnet, anyway? Why are lead magnets so important for growing your email list?

What is a Lead Magnet?

A lead magnet (a.k.a. “opt in bribe”) is a valuable resource that a website gives away for free in exchange for the website visitor’s email address.

In other words, as opposed to asking visitors to “subscribe to our email list!” (which isn’t very appealing), a lead magnet says, “here is an awesome free thing– opt in to get it!”.

Aside from growing your email list at an exponentially higher rate, lead magnets have another huge benefit. The right lead magnet will attract very specific people who would be ideal customers and entice them to become leads. This maximizes your email marketing efforts by ensuring that each and every lead is a high-quality prospect for your business.

So, what makes for the most effective lead magnet? Here are some criteria to keep in mind…

7 Things Every Lead Magnet Must Have for Maximum Opt-ins and Sales

1. It must attract your ideal customer – if your lead magnet solves a specific problem that your ideal customer has, you’ll be sure to attract the right people.
2. It must NOT attract anyone else – conversely, you don’t want to attract the wrong people, so avoid generic lead magnets that attract anyone and everyone (e.g. “Enter your email for our iPad giveaway!”).
3. It must be valuable – offering something of little perceived value such as a “newsletter” isn’t going to cut it here. Make sure your lead magnet has significant value!
4. It must be immediately consumable – people want instant gratification, so you need to make sure that your lead magnet can be downloaded or accessed immediately.
5. It must NOT require much effort to consume – if your lead magnet sounds like something that will take a long time to digest, such as an eBook, people won’t want to opt in for it.
6. It must promise quick results – even though you’re offering it for free, you still have to “sell” your lead magnet. Why should someone download it? What result will it produce for the consumer, and how quickly will they be able to achieve that result?
7. It must produce quick results – although this point does not affect your opt in rates per se, it can have a profound effect on eventual sales. Getting people to subscribe to your email list is only the first step; now you have to convince your subscribers that you have the solution they are looking for.

OK, now that you understand the power of lead magnets and what makes a good one, let’s dive into the lead magnet examples for you to take inspiration from. The possibilities are virtually limitless, but we have narrowed it down to the 17 best types of lead magnets that are proven to convert…

1. Cheat Sheet or Checklist

Arguably the most effective lead magnet of all is the PDF cheat sheet or checklist. Professional marketers in every niche rely on this simple yet powerful lead magnet to grow their email lists into the tens of thousands and beyond.

Why does the cheat sheet or checklist convert so well?

Going back to the criteria listed above, the cheat sheet or checklist hits on every single point. It’s specific, it’s downloadable, it’s easy to consume, and it’s ridiculously easy to follow and get results. All one has to do is check of the items on the list!

This Pinterest SEO checklist is one of the best lead magnet examples out there. It outlines simple steps to follow in order to increase your Pinterest views:

2. Webinar

There are effective lead magnet templates and then there’s webinar. What makes the webinar lead magnet so effective is the fact that it has a very high perceived value. This is a live event, and therefore you are offering so much more than a simple download… you are offering an experience. 

Sleeknote offers webinars on a regular basis, so they smartly give visitors the opportunity to subscribe to be the first to know about upcoming webinars.

3. Mini eBook

Although eBooks aren’t always effective lead magnets because they are lengthy to consume, a mini eBook can work really well. Instead of calling it an “eBook”, however, you may want to call it something more enticing such as a “guide” or a “tutorial”.

Here’s an example of a mini eBook from Persuasion Nation which outlines 6 Jedi Mind Tricks for the Online Course Creator:

4. Audio Book

Audio books are great because they can be consumed on a commute, at the gym, or virtually anywhere! This makes it super convenient for your subscribers to learn from you.

Plus, they get to hear a human voice, which really helps with the “know, like and trust” factor that every marketer seeks to achieve.

5. Report

Free reports have been around for a long time, and are counted among the most effective lead magnet templates. By providing industry research and data, along with your interpretation of that data, you are offering something extremely valuable and actionable.

Here’s an example of a free Real Estate Conversion Benchmark Report that you can download from Unbouce (they also have similar reports in various different industries):

6. Mini Course

Mini courses are awesome because they not only educate your subscribers, but they do so in an episodic way, piece by piece. In other words, the entire lead magnet does not need to be consumed in one day– instead, it can be delivered in a series of lessons over a period of time.

Spreading the consumption of your lead magnet over a series of days gives you much more time to develop a relationship with your new subscriber, in the hopes of turning them into a paying customer.

At Living Well Spending Less, you can enroll in a free mini course which includes videos lessons and a companion workbook that gets sent to your email:

7. Challenge

Challenges are fun, and highly effective marketing lead magnets. A challenge is where you offer to help someone to achieve a very specific goal over a very specific period of time.

Similar to the mini course, you may choose to deliver a series of lessons over a series of days or weeks. But in a challenge, the focus is all on taking action. So you are clearly laying out the action steps that someone needs to take in order to achieve their goal, drastically increasing the likelihood that they will get a quick win from your lead magnet (and become a raving fan and customer).

Here’s an example from Sleeknote of a free challenge to Run a 10K in 30 Days. Aside from the 30-day training program, it also includes weekly tips sent to your email that help you stay motivated:

8. Coupon

If you have an online shop, coupons can be really great lead magnets for you. The reason this works is because your visitors have already expressed an interest in your products– they wouldn’t have landed on your website if they weren’t seeking what you have to offer. So, offering a coupon is often just the incentive they need to give you their email address (and make a purchase shortly thereafter).

Society6 offers 30% off your first order when you enter your email address, with a timed page takeover that triggers almost immediately after landing on their website:

9. Quiz

Personality quizzes and the like are all the rage… and they don’t appear to be going away anytime soon!

The reason they work so well is that quizzes play right in to the human ego– we all want to know more about ourselves.

Quizzes can go far beyond “what type of _____ are you” however. For example, this quiz asks a series of questions to show you where you should go on your next vacation:

10. Video

Videos are phenomenal lead magnets because they have a high perceived value, and they create a much deeper connection between your brand and your potential customers.

Think about YouTube stars, for instance. How did they get to become celebrities and household names? It wasn’t because they landed a spot on primetime television, or a big role in a feature film… they grew their audiences solely through their own videos.

11. Template

A template is an ingenious lead magnet, and so simple to create. All you have to do is provide the framework for someone to fill in the blanks with their own work. And it is incredibly valuable! Everyone wants to shortcut the process, and templates are the perfect way to do that.

Go Live offers a free fill-in-the-blank template to craft your “Brand Bio” in the form of a 6-page PDF:

12. Swipe File

You know why Pinterest has become so successful as a social media platform? It’s because it allows people to curate stuff for their audience.

A swipe file does the same thing: it gives your audience access to list of things that you have curated that are inspiring or useful.

Digital Marketer, for example, offers a social media swipe file with 72 “copy and paste” headline formulas:

13. Worksheet

Printable worksheets are of great value to many because people love to hold something in their hands. Plus, it’s useful and results-oriented because you actually write on it.

For example, Entrepreneur Magazine has worksheets that help you calculate the start-up costs for your business, craft your mission statement, balance your books, and more.

14. Giveaway

Giveaways are highly effective lead magnets because they have huge potential to go viral on social media.

Be very careful, however, that the prize you are giving away is only attractive to your ideal customers! Otherwise, you’ll run the risk of attracting the wrong people. So, give this some good thought before you decide.

Here’s a great example from Steven Mayall. His offering of a free ConvertKit plan is perfectly tailored to his audience of bloggers and digital entrepreneurs:

15. Free Trial

If your product is some sort of software, offering a free trial is an excellent choice of lead magnet.

Make sure, however, that you are only asking for the absolute minimum information needed in order to set up their free account. If you can get away with email and their first name, do it! This will get you way more opt ins than if you asked for name, phone number, address, password, etc.

Kajabi offers a free 14-day trial of their online marketing platform, and their exit-intent popup helps make sure you don’t leave without signing up:

16. Calendar or Planner

Calendars or planners can seriously help your prospects to become more productive, and that’s a sure “quick win” for them.

Plus, these types of downloadable materials can be branded to match your website– helping to keep your brand fresh on their minds.

CoSchedule offers free Editorial Calendar Templates complete with annual calendars, monthly calendars, and an ideas worksheet:

17. Free Coaching Call

Although this is a more expensive lead magnet to create than some, due to its time-intensive nature, free coaching calls have the potential to produce huge ROI. Particularly if you sell a high-ticket item, getting leads on the phone may prove to be instrumental in converting people from visitor, to lead, to customer.

That’s it! We just gave you 17 powerful lead magnet templates and ideas to grow your email list.

As you can see from these lead magnet examples, the key to growing your email list into the tens of thousands of subscribers is to give away something incredibly valuable, actionable, and to-the-point for free.

Now it’s your turn. Go ahead and pick one of the lead magnet examples above, create it, and offer it on your website with an opt in capture form.

Remember: your lead magnet does NOT have to be complicated or time-consuming to create. In fact, the most effective lead magnets are often the simplest ones.

The post 17 Lead Magnet Ideas and Examples to Grow Your Email List appeared first on Email Uplers.