2. Cliff Tillery– Digital Marketing Consultant

3.  Blab a bit about email marketing ◦ Some basic ideas, tips and tricks  Look at Mailchimp and Constant Contact and how to use it  Do some networking

4.  A lot of business owners collect email addresses all the while thinking, “I’ll get around to doing something with those someday”  Here’s why that’s a mistake (Like we all didn’t already know why…)  It’s easier to sell to people that already know you (and quite possibly still like you) than it is to sell to strangers.

5.  Who doesn’t have an email account- almost 3 billion in the US alone- major traffic  It’s a very personal medium  It gets minutes of attention (which on the internet is like dog years)  Your target market expects to get offers this way  It’s a direct conversation with your buyers

7.  Some “experts” say a 1-5% conversion rate is good  It depends on the industry and what you’re trying to accomplish  Measure the conversion rate by the price per sale to get actual ROI (a 2.5% conversion rate of $50/per sale isn’t as good as a 1% conversion rate for a $300/per sale.)

8.  DON’T SPAM  Many business owners think it’s ok to grab email addresses and just spam, spam, spam  Do you really want your business reputation to be connected with spam?  Email marketing is all about: ◦ Top of mind awareness ◦ Staying in touch with your target market ◦ Letting them know what’s going on in the industry and with you

9.  Write your emails to one person rather than as if you’re talking to a stadium. People like the personal touch  Don’t waste my time. Don’t just email because you should. Email because you have something important to say.  Give me something- give me a tip, a resource or inspiration. Oh, and how about a discount or freebie?  Make me a part of the secret club or inner circle.

10.  Use a real name in the “from” section.  Feel their pain- identify the pain points of your target market and be the solution in what you email them.  It’s ok to use their name, but don’t be creepy. Using my name too much makes me feel icky  Be trustworthy. That should just go without saying  Every email is another shot at proving your value

11.  We’re all busy. Wading through our email isn’t the bright spot of our day, but we are looking for nuggets  Gmail tabs make it harder to get noticed. They’re sorting the mail for you which works against you (First the spam filter now this!)  A lot of your emails will go ignored. Many will get no clicks. Don’t take it personally.

12.  Mailchimp- my favorite (and not just because it has a monkey. Who doesn’t like a monkey, though, right?)  Constant Contact- just as good, but sadly, no monkey involvement.  Both give you great analytics  Both give you flexibility to develop templates and experiment (and you definitely should!)

13.  Open rate: the number or percentage of people that open your email (helps you measure the attention that email got)  What’s a good open rate? As close to 100% as possible. People keep telling me 14% is good  Click through rate: the number or percentage of people that opened your email and clicked on the link. The higher the better. 5% is great.  Where should you send them when they click? Ah, glad you asked!

14.  In all your marketing, have a call to action.  Seriously, ALL your marketing.  Emails are no different. What do you want the reader to do?  Ideas: ◦ Go to your website (increase traffic, sign up, buy stuff) ◦ Call you (and pay you lots of money to do what you do) ◦ Go to your social media sites (like you, follow you, etc.) ◦ Attend stuff (Hmm, that’s a good one!)

15.  The need to be attention grabbing but relevant. Short descriptive beats cheesy lures  Succinct is always better with notification emails  Promise something good, solve a problem, ease some pain, etc.  Humor- it’s a mixed bag. We’re big fans (or…try to be!). Know your audience first  Controversial subject lines- again, tricky territory. “Your sales skills suck” got trashed.

16.  One word subject lines can come off as spammy “Panic”, “Followers”, “Renewal”  Numbers & Lists- Blog post titles can make good subject lines such as “Top 3 Mistakes Email Marketers Make”, “47 Reasons Your Digital Marketing Needs Help”  Punctuation or unicodes- small figures that help lead eyeballs through the clutter. Exclamation points have been so used that they get ignored.

17.  Need to be under 50 characters  Alliteration is good- “Email Marketing Makes You Money!”  All caps= NOT GOOD! (No one wants to be yelled at!)  Use you/your to help personalize  Do A/B testing as much as possible.  Urgency can work- “Two Days To Decide”  Localization Can help as well- “Award Winning Marketing Firm In Gwinnett”

18.  Looked at more than 260 million delivered emails and 540 campaigns. (Yeesh!)  Subject lines with 6-10 words performed best  Roughly 35% of emails are opened on phones  Using the recipient’s first name bumped open rates by 2.6%  Movie titles or song lyrics in the subject line were opened 26% of the time

19.  Your test results are in :(  Sorry about your job  Most of the car is fine  DID YOU MEAN TO ‘REPLY ALL’???  Your Son, and His Future at Our University  B4 u open, promise not to get mad  Your IRS Tax Lien  Your Match.com profile has been suspended due to low interest  RE: The car and the dog. The car is fine.  Re: paternity test results

20.  Think of emails you open & read vs the ones you don’t  Brevity is good  Bullet points are good  Avoid long text  Maintain consistency in your branding- use your logo/colors/usual voice  Include a link for the reader to click to (send them somewhere)  Include your social media icons

21.  Beware the email clutter- too many choices send the reader into analysis paralysis  Make sure it looks good on all devices  Use relevant images. Pictures have higher engagement rates, tell your story and support your text

22.  Naturally, if your email looks awful  If your subject line is boring  When was your email sent? Test this-are mornings or afternoons best for your business?  Is your list valid? Lists you buy can often be a risk for less active emails

23. We’ve developed a free tool that you can use to help you measure the effectiveness of your digital marketing. Go to: digital.makeitloud.net Take the free assessment. We’re beta testing this, so help us work out the kinks!

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