You want your emails to land in the inbox, but there are SO many spammers out there — nearly 55% of all email is spam! — and the inbox providers (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc) too often throw out your “good” mail with the bad. Frustrating!

So, what can you do?

We get this question A LOT, so I wrote this article as a short-form response. I’ll skip all the technical explanations, and drive right to the point.

How do inbox providers decide what to trash and what to keep?

This is the question, right?

If you knew how they made that decision, you could make sure your email looks more like “good” mail and less like “bad” mail.

Well, fortunately, we DO know how they do it!

There are 5 things that inbox providers use to determine where an email goes. We’ll call this your reputation chain.

1. Email Content + Promoted Domains
2. Historic Engagement Metrics
3. Send-from Address
4. Return Path and Authentication
5. IP Address

These are the factors that inbox providers look at to determine whether your email should be inboxed or spamboxed.

At Ontraport we give every user, at every account level, access to professional level tools to take responsibility for and manage their ENTIRE reputation chain.

What is my email reputation chain?

As noted above, there are 5 factors that make up your personal reputation chain. Here they are described in more detail.

1. Content + Promoted Domains

These are the words and links you put in the body of your email.

It’s pretty easy for inbox providers to decide that emails talking about losing weight and making money (for example) are likely spam. That makes it hard for legitimate folks in those industries (and others) to get good delivery, but that’s just the reality. Figure out ways to talk about your subject without suspicious language in your emails… and keep that stuff on your website instead.

Notably, the URLs that are promoted (linked to) in your email carry their own reputation. That means that if you send email that includes links which have, in the past, also been found in spammy emails — even if those emails were sent by other people — the inbox providers will likely consider your email to be spammy also.

That’s why, for example, affiliate marketing can be so challenging. Let’s say you have a network of affiliate partners, each promoting your URL to their own list. It only takes ONE sender with bad mailing practices to draw the attention of inbox providers and get marked as spam — then, everyone else’s emails with that same URL will likely end up in the spam folder, too.

Tips: Check out this article to learn about how to adjust the content of your emails for better deliverability.

Also, don’t promote Ontraport domains (members-only.online, etc.) or any other shared domains (bit.ly, etc.) in your emails. Instead, use your own custom domain so all the links in your emails are to URLs that you alone control. This is an important part of owning your own reputation chain.

2. Historic Engagement Metrics

Your recipients’ histories of opening, reading and clicking your emails have a major impact on future delivery. To improve this, make sure your emails are interesting and useful — and only send them to people who want to hear from you.

Tips: Use good list management practices. That means only using permission-based lead generation (never buy, rent or borrow a list!) and only sending high-quality, interesting content to people who actually want to get it. Stop sending emails to people who never engage. There are template campaigns in the Ontraport marketplace that make it easy to stop sending to unengaged contacts automatically.

3. Send-from Address

Don’t send from a freemail email address (Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail) or from a shared domain (Ontramail). Instead, build your own good reputation by sending from a custom domain. Your deliverability won’t be influenced by other businesses who mail with Ontraport, and you’ll have total control over your reputation.

Tip: In Ontraport, you can find out how to set up your custom domain in the Support Center. To change your send-from address in the app, go to your account icon in the upper right, then click Administration, then Email and “Email From Address Setup.”

4. Return Path and Authentication

Since inbox providers can see the domain that is actually sending your email, they can judge you based on that domain’s reputation. Most email service providers use a shared domain for sending all clients’ email, meaning your delivery reputation is mixed up with everyone else’s. Ontraport gives every client the ability to set up a custom Return Path, something normally only available to enterprise-level senders. It takes a little bit of setup with your domain registrar to get it right, but it’s worth it, and we have step-by-step instructions on the Support Center. If you’re an Ontraport user, you can reach out to Support to get this set up for your business.

Tip: Set up a custom domain and get at least SPF and DKIM set up. DMARC is also an increasingly good idea, but you can take care of that later as it’s more technically complex.

5. IP Address

An Internet Protocol (IP) address is a number assigned to each device connected to the internet, like laptops, phones and servers. Email providers typically look at the sender reputation of each IP address to help distinguish between good mail and bad mail — so if you share an IP address with senders who have bad mailing practices, it could damage your own deliverability. You can use our shared IP addresses, which we monitor carefully, but getting your own IP address and building your own reputation is a great idea if you send on a regular, consistent basis and send at least 100k emails per year.

Tip: Remember to warm your reputation if you send significant volume. Note that if you don’t send a significant volume of mail, don’t worry about this. Shared IP addresses are fine for most people, and are really one of the less important aspects of your personal reputation chain. Take this on only after you’ve done all the above and haven’t seen results you like.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are my emails going to spam?

We have clients very worried about their deliverability after they get a complaint from one of their contacts who says they couldn’t find an email, or they found it in their spam folder.

It’s worth confirming if there is a larger problem because it’s extremely common for your emails to be delivered to the inbox for MOST recipients but spamboxed for a few. This can happen through no fault of your own, including the possibilities that your recipient has unusual spam filters in place, has marked your email as spam in the past, has never read an email from you, has trashed or marked similar emails as spam, and so on.

In order to find out if you have a widespread problem, you need to run a seed test. This is where we mail one of your emails to hundreds of test addresses at various providers and then check where the email landed in each account.

You can learn more about how seed testing works here.

But even my transactional emails are going to spam!

Inbox providers can’t tell the difference between a transactional email and all the rest, so they look at your entire reputation chain, which includes ALL the email you send as a company, to determine what to do with each email.

This means that if you send a lot of email to folks who don’t want it, don’t read it, and don’t click it, you’re building a poor email reputation for your company, and that will impact your transactional emails too.

What if none of this works?

It will! It’s that simple!

If you’re still getting poor delivery results after taking care of all of the above, the unfortunate reality is that you are mistaken and still haven’t quite nailed down the above recommendations.

How do we know this? We know because there is NOTHING ELSE that an inbox provider can look at when deciding what to do with an email. If you have taken responsibility for each of those items, by owning and managing your own reputation chain, there is only one possibility: One of those items is not being well managed.

Historic engagement metrics are most commonly the problem.

Many business owners continue to believe that they can just fire off a ton of emails to whoever they want and that the more they mail, the better… because some percent of recipients have got to respond!

Unfortunately, that’s not how it works any more. Inbox providers have figured out that strategy and have put in safeguards to ensure that most or all emails sent by companies deploying that strategy will end up in the spam folder.

In 2021 and beyond, the strategy is to only send high-quality emails to people who actually want to receive them.

Really, it’s Hotmail/MSN/live.com addresses that are the problem.

We hear that.

Microsoft, and a few other providers like Cox, Comcast, etc., are way behind in email delivery technology, and they throw a LOT of good email into the bad pile.

This is an industry-wide problem that can be really hard to deal with.

Here are a few tips:

• Use a conditional landing page redirect or conditional blocks on your landing page to warn recipients with Microsoft email addresses about the problem, and tell them to look in their spam folders. (They probably already know, since this happens all the time to them, but it’s still worth doing.)
• Consider running a re-engagement campaign ONLY to Microsoft addresses, and strictly limit the engagement window to 90 days, never emailing someone with no activity for longer than that. This will ensure you never hit a spam trap, which is a classic (and dumb) Microsoft technique for labeling spam.
• Once you’ve got your own reputation chain set up, sign up for Outlook’s Smart Network Data Services (SNDS) and monitor your results there. This will only work if you get your own IP address, but we monitor this for you if you’re using our shared IP address pool.

If you’re an Ontraport user and you have any other questions, no problem — we have an experienced team of Postmasters standing by to help. You can find out how to reach them in the Support Center.

The post 5 Ways to Improve Your Email Deliverability appeared first on The Ontraport Blog.

InVision App has me wrapped around its finger. It knows its audience and their interests. This recent obsession with a company’s weekly newsletter shows that it’s possible to fully capture the attention of your reader via email, and the key isn’t just good design or great inbox placement — though those two things definitely do help.

To this day, despite the endless “email is dead” claims, email still remains one of the best channels for consistently reaching customers. While some may say that social media is the better way to go, the numbers say otherwise: According to Optimonster, 60% of consumers prefer email over social media for personal and permission-based promotional messages. Additionally, 60% of customers stated that they have made a purchase as a result of a marketing message they received by email.

So, email is pretty important. It’s more effective than social media, and it provides a greater chance of gaining a sale.

The big question isn’t “Why email?” It’s “How do I get my email read?” By the end of 2019, the number of emails sent daily averaged 246 billion. With so many emails flooding inboxes, it’s reasonable to wonder if our emails are as effective as they can be and if they are even read at all.

What’s the key to hooking your reader’s attention? The key is language. According to expert copywriter Liston Witherill, “Copy can boost your sales by almost 20 times on the same offer.”

In this article, we explore the basic principles of powerful copywriting, including how to write from your customers’ perspective, build trust, and craft a strong call to action. Here are our top five do’s and don’ts of email copywriting strategies to make sure your emails get opened and clicked on:

Do: Make it about them

Writing great copy really isn’t about talking about yourself, your product or your business. Copywriting is about figuring out what matters to your customers and bridging the gap between their frustrations or interests and the solution/benefit your product provides.

In the case of InVision App, they know their audience is techy and design-orientated, so they build trust by providing helpful tips in those departments and then follow through with demonstrating their product. You can do this too, and the steps are pretty simple.

Put Yourself in Your Customers’ Shoes

First, identify your customers’ potential pain points or problems, and try to look at the world from their perspective. What might they be struggling with? What solutions could your business offer to alleviate some of the burdens they might face? What could they improve on? What is keeping them up at night?

Give Them the Perfect Solution

Once you have a sense of your customers’ problems, concerns and interests, bridge the gap. Connect your product or service to them as the solution they’ve been looking for. Be specific and personalize your solutions to each customer’s unique problem. Show them exactly how you can help. Don’t, however, just rattle off a long list of your features and expect them to understand.

Don’t: Brag

Have you ever been in an extremely one-sided conversation? Where it almost feels like a monologue, and you can barely get at word in? These conversations are awkward and boring, and the same applies to email content.

Remember, connecting with your customers on an emotional level is much more effective in achieving customer loyalty. Instead of just listing off your features, tell them about the benefits your product or service provides and how those benefits will positively impact them day-to-day.

Here are some of the values of emotionally connected customers:

1. They spend more: Companies that provide an emotional connection with customers outperform the sales growth of their competitors by 85%.
2. They have trust in their favorite brand (you!): Research shows that 76% of customers say they have stayed with a brand for four years or more because of the trust they have in it, and 83% voted trustworthiness as the most important factor in brand favorability.
3. They will promote their favorite brand: 94% of customers said they would highly recommend a brand they were emotionally engaged with.

How can your product or service benefit your customer? Why would your customer want to use your product specifically? Keep it a two-way conversation.

Do: Attract and keep their attention (also, be concise)

You’ve got all this amazing copy. You’ve written out your product benefits to a tee. Vague? Never. You’re as transparent as possible. There’s no way anyone could ever doubt your value to them.

What happens? Your customers take one look at the mountain of text and leave you in the dust. Or worse, they glance at your super descriptive and long subject line and don’t even bother opening it.

Keep Your Message Brief

It’s been proven that a typical reader only scans the first and last three words of a message — in other words, everything in between is pretty much white noise. This is huge. Don’t expect to hold onto your readers’ attention for very long. Be as concise as possible, and don’t make your email longer than it needs to be.

Punch Up Your Subject Line (and Preheader)

David Ogilvy, the “Father of Advertising,” was a legend for good reason. According to Ogilvy, “On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent 80 cents out of your dollar.”

While copywriting practices might have changed since his time, the importance of a good headline has not. So, how do you catch your customer’s eye?

Be helpful: Show the readers how they will benefit from reading your email.

1. A Gift for Dad, a Bonus for You – Birchbox
2. Three Simple Steps to Striking Design – Canva

Utilize FOMO: Encourage action! Create a sense of urgency around your message.

1. Stay Current! Tap into 2018’s First Visual Trend – Adobe Stock
2. Eeeek — something you like is almost sold out!  – ModCloth

Use your personal voice: Be intriguing, not boring.

1. For hustlers only – AppSumo
2. Proofread like a Boss – Grammarly

Other tips:

Use numbers. Think about Buzzfeed. How many “15 Adorable Puppies for Your Monday” articles have you scrolled through? There’s a reason these articles are catchy. Even better, try it with odd numbers to spark your subscribers’ interest.

Use merge fields. Who doesn’t like seeing their own name in a subject line, or even better, the name of their pet? My two huskies are more than just my dogs; they’re my children. You can bet I’ll always click on something if I see their names.

Use trigger words. These words are based on psychological principles that target the natural emotions and tendencies of humans. Here are some examples: 

• Fear of missing out: “Uh-oh, your prescription is expiring”
• Curiosity: “Don’t open this email”
• Pain points: “Get more kitchen space with these easy fixes”
• Retargeting: “Hey, forgot something? Here’s 20% off” 

When crafting your subject line, also be cautious of which trigger words you use. If they aren’t used in the right context, they might get flagged as spam and your email may not make it to the inbox. Here’s a list of spam trigger words to avoid.

Don’t: Be generic and salesy

Just because one big marketer had successful open rates with “EARN BIG $$ WHILE YOU SLEEP!” as their subject line doesn’t mean you should copy and paste that as your own.

While it’s easy to focus on clickbait headlines, the long-term quality of leads you gain from those clicks will not be great. Keep in mind, a lot of email marketing tips and tricks weren’t written for entrepreneurs and small business owners. You don’t want to come off as spammy and cheap. Your clients will lose trust and, just like any relationship, trust once lost is hard to get back.

Some tips for staying out of the spam folder:

1. Avoid words like Sale, Warning, Free, $$$, Advertisement.
2. All caps is a no-go.
3. Cut out excessive punctuation.
4. Emojis are cute, but don’t overuse them.

Your clients want to hear your voice, not a generic headline and message. Don’t be afraid to let your personality show through.

Do: Close with intent

What is the purpose of your email? Remember the reason you’re writing email copy is to get your readers to take action. Are you trying to earn a purchase? Do you want to capture lead information? Are you trying to get people to attend a webinar or get more sign-ups for your education course?

Whatever the purpose of your email is, it’s important to have a single, clear call to action (CTA) and repeat it throughout your email. Spell it out in black and white, and tell them exactly what will happen once they take the action.

Here are some great examples:

Email is the third most influential source of information for B2B audiences, behind only colleague recommendations and industry-specific thought leaders. Additionally, email marketing systems are achieving $44 in ROI for every $1 spent. Yeah, you read that right — that’s 4,400%!

Don’t lose your customers because you can’t hook their attention. By focusing on your audience, keeping it concise, maintaining your voice and giving your readers actionable solutions, you’ll be able to write email messages that capture your readers’ attention every time.

The post 5 Do’s and Don’ts of Copywriting for Email Marketing appeared first on The Ontraport Blog.

That lack of engagement with your emails not only hurts your open and click-through rates, but it also impacts your ability to get your emails to your contacts’ inboxes in general. The less engagement your emails receive over time, the lower the priority mailbox providers will give to emails sent from your address.

The solution is to keep a “clean” email list, meaning pruning inactive contacts — even if it means a smaller list size. One of the most effective ways to clean your list is with a re-engagement email campaign. Re-engagement email campaigns first attempt to bring back cold contacts, reminding them of why they fell in love with your brand and, if unsuccessful, they remove them from your list.

Determining If Re-engagement Is Needed

If you’re monitoring your email open and click rates and notice a decline, it’s likely a good time for a re-engagement email campaign. In Ontraport, you can view your rates via Performance Mode within a specific campaign or in your Contacts collection.

Additionally, a high number of bounces or unsubscribes are signs it’s time to clean up your list.

Ontraport tracks contacts’ activity, such as when contacts open emails or click to visit a landing page. You can set up so that when the system detects that a contact has been inactive for 90 days, Ontraport will automatically add those contacts to your automated re-engagement campaign, firing an email to re-engage your clients.

Creating the Perfect Re-engagement Email Series

A re-engagement email campaign typically involves sending inactive contacts a series of three emails encouraging them to regain interest in your products and services.

Your first email invites them to visit your website and claim a special offer, followed two days later by an email reminding them you value their time and only want to send emails they’re interested in. After another two days, your final email will make one last attempt to engage your contact before you remove them from your list.

Here’s a breakdown and examples of each re-engagement email:

Use a special offer as an incentive to return

First Re-engagement Email: Invite them to visit your website and offer a discount on a product.  67% of consumers say getting personalized discounts based on their shopping history is important, and 77% of consumers say discounts influence who they buy from. Giving inactive customers a great offer on a product makes them feel valued and, at the very least, will encourage them to revisit your website and browse your products.

Jack Wills is a British heritage-inspired, high-quality clothing company for sophisticated young adults. With this email, the company is reaching out with an enticing offer of £10 off when spending £30 with a coupon code. This not only gives their subscribers a great deal, it also shows Jack Wills who’s engaged, clicking and ready to buy.

Make it easy for customers to stay engaged

Second Re-engagement Email: Let your contacts know you value their time. Invite them to renew their activity by clicking a link in the email, logging in to your membership site, or taking any other action you prefer. Use words like “we miss you” in your subject line. This phrasing not only has a read rate of 13%, it also shows customers that they matter to you. You could also remind your subscriber of your business’s purpose and provide them with a quick way to stay engaged. Rather than overwhelming customers with information, sending a straightforward email gives them an easy way to take action and shows you who is still interested. 

Duolingo is a language-learning app that allows people to learn just about any language they want. In their email, the company states that they haven’t seen you in a while and want to know if you are still interested in learning a language.

Another example of re-engagement outreach is from Typeform, an innovative and interactive form creator (which by the way, can be integrated with Ontraport using Zapier). Typeform reminds customers of their subscription and urges them to revisit the amazing things their product can do using their template gallery.

Give subscribers one final push

Third Re-engagement Email: This is the “sorry to see you go” email, where you thank them for their past activity and let them know you won’t be contacting them again … unless they indicate that they want you to by clicking a link or visiting a landing page, etc. Thanking your customer for their previous activity reminds them again of their value to your company, and telling your customer you won’t be contacting them again if they don’t click a link, etc. creates a sense of urgency to act. By giving your subscriber one last chance to engage before you remove them from your list, you can catch the attention of readers who have ignored previous emails.

Though this might not seem like something you’d like to do, it allows you to market and tailor your content to contacts who actually want to hear from you. It shows them that you value their time and only want to send them emails when they actually want them. Having a large list of unengaged users is not the goal.

Another good example of this tactic is from GoPro. They are reminding their subscribers that there are still great deals on their products, and they are pruning their list for more engaged customers. In a case like this, users can be removed from their list if they decide not to open this email or if they select to opt out from receiving these emails in the future.

They use clever wording and imagery to entice their adventure-seeking audiences to stay active on their list.

Re-confirming permission regularly is a great way to get a solid “yes” or “no” response from your current subscribers as well as a smart way to help keep your email list clean.

Peace of Mind With a Clean List

Based on your subscribers’ actions with your email campaign, they will either be automatically removed from your list or will remain on it. With the campaign running continually in the background, this all happens without any work on your part — leaving you with a clean list of active contacts to keep you on the path to high delivery rates.

As an Ontraport user, you can import a pre-built re-engagement email campaign into your account through the Campaign Marketplace and get started right away.

The post Creating the Perfect Re-engagement Email Campaign appeared first on The Ontraport Blog.

To clear things up and find sage advice, we asked a group of Ontraport Certified Consultants, who work with entrepreneurs and small business owners daily to implement marketing strategies, to give us their best email marketing tips for Ontraport users.

Check out their responses, apply them to your business, and let us know how it goes in the comments.

Meet the Experts

Maria Lloyd

Management 24

@chadroot

Chad Root

Spearhead Sales and Marketing

@the_nak

Neil Kristianson

Email Splat

Ali Alqhtani

Automate with Me

@MusselwhiteMktg

Charles Musselwhite

Musselwhite Marketing

For Best Results, Make Your Important Emails Actionable

When you’re busy and scrolling through your inbox, you’re likely not looking for emails to leisure-read — more often than not, you only have time to engage with messages that seem important, urgent, or have a purpose behind them. If you really want your emails read, Chad Root recommends that you “keep them directly connected to a contact’s ACTIONS. CTA follow-ups outperform general blog notices and newsletters by three times the engagement.”

To encourage engagement, “Always add a verb in the subject heading to get your subscribers in the mindset of taking ACTION. Also, don’t forget to add the P.S. for skimmers.” — Maria Lloyd

Maintain a One-to-One Ratio: One Intent for Every Email

Too many CTAs in one email can quickly become overwhelming for the reader. Neil Kristianson says a good rule of thumb to follow is “One email — one action. You can’t ask someone to do 10 things in an email and expect them to do any of them.”

Having one focus per email can also make each message feel more personal to your list. Consultant Ali A. Alqhtani says, “I always tell clients to keep it real. Keep it simple. And really just talk to your list with intent, and make it conversational.”

Make the Email Engaging and Readable

Have you ever saved a message in your inbox for later because it seemed like too much effort on-the-go? These are the kinds of messages Charles Musselwhite advises against sending in your marketing emails. He says, “Long copy emails usually don’t get read all the way. Most folks will read the first paragraph, the first sentence of the next paragraph, then scan and bounce if they didn’t spot anything interesting. Use numbers and bullet points to break up long copy. It draws in the eye and keeps readers engaged. It is also super important to write with a lot of ‘YOU’ because someone once told me that ‘YOU’ is one of the most persuasive words in the English language.”

The average office worker receives 121 emails per day. It’s impossible for readers to keep up with every single one, so impersonal emails are the first to be disregarded. A viable approach to email marketing is relating to your audience on a personal level.  

Charles Musselwhite recommends that you, “Start by pretending you are writing to a good friend, not a list or a business, but a living breathing person that enjoys your company. In other words, don’t just email when you need something or want to make a sale. Be helpful. Be generous. Be friendly. Be like a real friend.”

Make Sure Your Email Fits the Relationship

For every email you send, it’s important to write specifically to your intended audience. 

Charles Musselwhite says, “Marketing is like dating. And just like dating, you shouldn’t ask someone to marry you on a first date. That’s just weird! Therefore you shouldn’t ask your customers to buy your main product the first time they become aware of you, your business and your products and services. It’s important to nurture prospect and customer relationships with your customers according to where you are in the customer lifecycle.”

The post Expert Email Marketing Tips for Your Business appeared first on The Ontraport Blog.

However, Sandberg was talking about email in terms of personal conversations between friends and family, not marketing emails between businesses and customers or leads.

Email as a mode of marketing and customer communications continues to thrive as an essential channel for reaching people throughout the customer lifecycle; 95% of marketers agree that it retains a very important place within marketing.

Sandberg’s statement is not the only thing that has been taken out of context and misperceived when it comes to email marketing. As new marketing channels have risen in popularity and strategies around email marketing have evolved, there are several misconceptions floating around about its importance and effectiveness. We’ll break down each of the common objections to explain why email marketing is a must for any small business.

Objection:
Email Is Archaic and Not as Effective as Other Channels

Response:
Email Marketing Has a Higher ROI Than Any Other Marketing Channel

Even though email has been around for decades, the way it’s used has evolved, and the best marketers are those who have adapted their strategies to better meet today’s standards.

As Chris Woodard, VP of Growth at TenFold, wrote in a recent Quora post, “From what I’ve witnessed, the ones who zealously proclaim the death of email marketing often do so not because of hard evidence or proof, but because they failed to keep up with the evolution of email marketing and committed mistakes that made their campaigns less effective than they should have been. The traditional ‘batch and blast’ approach to email marketing just doesn’t cut it anymore.”  

Those who experience poor email open and click rates are likely not following today’s best practices for email copywriting and design. Or they’re not following guidelines to ensure email bypasses spam filters and the Gmail Promotions tab to land in their recipients’ inboxes. Or they’re sending mass email blasts instead of segmenting and personalizing their messages. It’s also possible they’re not re-sending emails appropriately to get the most out of important messages.

When email marketing is executed correctly, it can have a higher ROI than other direct marketing channels; in a recent DMA study, it was recorded that for every $1 spent on email marketing, you can estimate around $42 in return — which is actually 19% higher than in 2016. Not only does email marketing have a profitable ROI, it is also one of the cheapest marketing routes you can take, making it one of the most cost effective marketing methods

“When it comes down to it, consumers still derive tangible benefits from email, and marketers still get a real payback,” wrote Aaron Agius in Entrepreneur. “Not all email marketing is dead — only email considered ‘noise on the line,’ boring email, and spam. What is alive and well is smart email marketing.”

Objection:
Social Media and Other Tactics Bring in More Leads Than Email

Response:
Email Brings Sales and Creates Long-term Buying Relationships

While Facebook ads, Google ads, SEO practices, live webinars and other tactics can be effective at bringing in new leads to your business, that’s where their usefulness ends.

Ads cannot be used to nurture those leads into customers, follow up with those customers to ensure their satisfaction and offer an upsell, or ask those customers to refer their friends. Without that kind of follow-up throughout the customer lifecycle, you’ve merely got a long list of leads, not a true marketing function that nurtures sales and creates long-lasting customer relationships that drive new business.

Email is the only channel that offers that kind of longevity and adaptability throughout the entire customer lifecycle. In fact, that’s one of email’s primary functions. As Digital Marketer wrote in its Guide to Digital Marketing, “The goal of email is to assist and expedite a customer’s movement from one stage of the value journey to the next.”

Email is what brings your leads to your sales page where you make the sale. It’s where you send confirmations of the sale and receipts. It’s where you offer and sell your products or send birthday or holiday promotions. It’s where you share your latest content updates or news. It’s where you ask your customers for feedback. It’s where you encourage customers to return to their online shopping cart after they’ve abandoned it. It’s where you re-engage them after they haven’t visited your website in months.

The list could go on. (Actually, here are 13 types of emails you can send, and that’s just the beginning.)

Email is central to your customer relationships. While other channels may be great for attracting leads, email’s value extends much further than the acquisition stage: 59% of marketers say email is best for retention, and 52% say it’s ideal for conversion over other stages in the life cycle, according to a 2018 DMA study.

Objection:
Marketing Gurus Are Succeeding With Newer Channels

Response:
Trendy Channels Are Just Add-ons; Email Is a Steady Foundation

It’s not uncommon for an entrepreneur or well-known marketer to tout some extreme level of success with a newer marketing channel, like Twitter ads or messenger bots, or even some unique twist on a common strategy that made all the difference for their business.

While these success stories are valid and often insightful, that doesn’t mean the same results will apply to every business type or every industry.

More importantly, just because those marketers are promoting that shiny new tool or tactic doesn’t mean they’re not also succeeding with email marketing. Most marketers, including those who are always chasing the trends, typically maintain their email funnels as the tried-and-true, reliable backbone of their strategy — they just might not talk about it because it’s not quite so fancy.

As with anything, there is not one silver bullet marketing channel; it’s about using a mix of a variety of channels. “Email works well but, like every other marketing channel, it works better in combination,” according to DMA’s study.

Despite new trends that have come and gone, email has remained an anchoring necessity for running a functional business, rather than merely an add-on “test” tactic.

Objection:
People Are Inundated With Email and Don’t Want to Receive It

Response:
Email Is the Preferred Communication Method for Most Consumers

It’s true, people receive a lot of email — but that doesn’t mean those emails are unwanted. When was the last time you saw a spam message in your inbox? Email filters have become so intelligent that it’s highly likely that the emails in your inbox are emails you at some point subscribed to.

When someone subscribes to receive your emails, they’re giving you permission to their inbox; they’re signaling that they’re interested in your company and open to hearing from you. The idea that your contacts don’t want you to email them is completely invalid — if they didn’t want your emails, they wouldn’t have opted in to your list.

In fact, many of consumers prefer to be contacted by brands through emails.

Email is also far less intrusive than many other forms of marketing. People choose to check their email on their own schedule, and they can choose whether or not to open the email — as opposed to things like digital pop-up ads that disrupt a person’s online experience and even social media ads that intrude on their personal feeds. They can also choose to unsubscribe at any time (that is, if you’re following email delivery standards, which require that you offer an easy unsubscribe option).

Email is only unwelcome if you’re abusing your privileges by spamming your list. When contacts give you their email address, they expect that you’ll respect their time and their inbox space. A good rule of thumb to follow: Only email if you’re adding value and have a clear purpose — and make sure you’re writing emails so compelling that people can’t wait to open them.

As Nathan Hangen wrote on Neil Patel’s blog, “Getting into someone’s inbox is like being invited to their home for dinner. If they ask you to take your shoes off, you respectfully do so. It’s the same with email marketing … Be on your best behavior at all times and remember … you’re in their house.”

When you respect your list, they’ll respect you back. Fortunately, the majority of marketers agree: “78% of marketers believe there should be a contact rule to not over-communicate with subscribers,” wrote Jenna Tiffany, member of the DMA email council’s research hub. “This highlights more than ever that email marketers are beginning to think more about the subscriber and starting to be conscious of not over emailing.”

Objection:
Businesses Have No Control Over Email; Spam Rules Are Always Changing

Response:
Businesses Have More Control Over Email Than Any Other Channel

While there are important anti-spam regulations to follow to ensure your emails are delivered, those rules have not drastically changed in many years, and they’re fairly straightforward. Once you’ve got your email system in place, you will likely not need to revisit your processes, especially if you use a reputable Email Service Provider that ensures high standards are met on your behalf on an ongoing basis.

On the other hand, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have changed their algorithms, which determine how often and to which people your ads are shown, numerous times — and they don’t seem to be stopping. You could come up with an entire ad strategy for these channels and then immediately need to change it to meet the criteria of a new algorithm. And there’s no one looking out on your behalf — it’s up to you to stay on top of the ever-changing rules and to ensure you’re following them for every single ad you run.

As Hans van Gent, founder of Inbound Rocket, wrote on Quora, “Twitter, Facebook, all of these social networks out there want to limit the possibility of people leaving their nice walled garden, their ecosystem. Because if people leave, they are losing money. Social networks want you to pay to play on their network with their rules. To make it worse, they are changing these rules on a regular basis. Try growing your business like that! … if you’ve got something to say to your people who are interested, email is the way to go.”

Similarly, you own your email list; it’s yours. You can control when emails are sent — down to the exact day and time — and designate specifically which people certain emails will go to. You can even seed test to make sure your emails make it to the inbox.

With social media, however, your ads are generally uninvited and uncontrolled. When you run ads on those channels, you’re simply selecting people based on their so-called interests — taking a wild guess as to which interests best match up with your product line — and hoping they’ll even see your ad let alone respond positively to it. You typically have no prior permission-based relationship with people on social media, and you have no control over the timing of the ad.

In fact, 90% of emails reach the consumer’s inbox, but only 2% of Facebook followers see a business’s posts in their news feeds.

“A free service like Facebook can decide to decrease the reach you had with your fans to encourage businesses to pay for ads, but you don’t have these types of restrictions when someone has given you permission to send them useful emails,” wrote Phil Spilsbury, co-founder of TCF Software, on Quora.

Emails last longer, too, Spilsbury added: “You’re not just a status update that’s there and gone; you’re right in someone’s inbox where they receive other important communication from their work, family, and friends.”

Objection:
Email Marketing Is Expensive

Response:
Email Is One of the Least Expensive — If Not the Least Expensive — Marketing Channel, Especially With an All-in-one System

If you’re using separate, single-point solutions to manage your email marketing, the costs do add up. You’re paying for an email service provider, a marketing automation tool, a tracking service, and possibly add-on fees as your contact list grows or as the number of emails you send increases. Not only do the costs add up, but so do the headaches of managing all these different systems and getting them to work together cohesively.

The solution to those challenges, and the much more cost-effective option, is to use an all-in-one platform that serves as your email service provider, marketing automation system and tracking service for one monthly fee, typically in the range of a few hundred dollars.  

Compare that to the costs of running a Facebook ad campaign, a print ad or even a direct mail campaign. To be effective on Facebook, you need to spend thousands every month. To run a print ad, it’ll typically cost you upwards of $1,000 — and much higher if you’re looking at mainstream outlets. And direct mail comes with the high costs of printing and postage.

As Aaron Agius wrote in Entrepreneur, “Ultimately, email marketing is affordable, which means that, even if a campaign bombs, the marketer isn’t in trouble. In comparison, given their high spend, failed advertising campaigns using direct mail, print advertising, radio and TV can be disastrous.”

All of these things are “one and done,” whereas email is a flexible channel you can use throughout the customer lifecycle repeatedly for the one monthly cost of the marketing automation platform. When you account for the ROI that comes from email marketing, there’s no question the relatively low-cost investment of an email service provider is worth it.

Objection:
I Know a Lot More About Customers From Their Social Media Profiles

Response:
Actually, Email Provides You More Insight on People Than Other Channels

When you sign up for Facebook, or any social media channel, or even any app or website, you typically use your email address to create the account. That means all the data those channels have about you is tied back to your email address.

“Cross-functional marketing revolves around email,” marketing gurus Neil Patel and Ritika Puri wrote in Definitive Guide to Marketing Automation. “Your customers’ and prospects’ identities follow them all over the web. Email is the heart of this targeting journey.”

In other words, those Facebook Custom Audiences you create to ensure you’re showing Facebook ads to people in your target market are only made possible because Facebook tracks users’ web browsing history and ties that data to individual people based on their email address.

“Email addresses are the core unit of analysis for identifying customers,” wrote Patel and Puri. “All other consumer data points can be attributed to this fundamental targeting component.”

Email addresses are also more reliable than other forms of identification, such as using browser cookie data to track visitors; cookies can be cleared and blocked, and you can’t track across different devices such as personal computers, tablets and smartphones. Email addresses, on the other hand, consolidate traffic across all devices.

“Marketing automation treats email as the basic unit of analysis, no matter what platform you’re using to target your audience,” Patel and Puri wrote. “Email will always matter.”

Plus, people keep their email addresses for years, meaning your email database will have a long, reliable shelf life no matter what channels you use for marketing.

Objection:
Email Is Not as Targeted as Other Channels

Response:
Email Can Be Hyper-segmented and Personalized With the Right Marketing Automation and CRM Platform

One form of email marketing is dead, and it’s the old “batch and blast” mass emailing approach. Today, that’s called spamming, and it’s been replaced with some extremely sophisticated opportunities for personalizing emails to each individual on your list.

With email, you can get far more targeted and personal than with other channels. If your email automation platform is integrated with your CRM, you have a trove of data about all your contacts — which of your products and services they’re interested in or have purchased, which of your landing pages they’ve visited, ads they’ve clicked on, as well as their demographic information. All of that information can be used to ensure you’re sending the right email message to the right person at the right time.

Some larger ecommerce businesses, such as flash-sale site Gilt Groupe, send thousands of variations of their emails based on past user clicks and browsing and purchase history.

Consumers respond positively to such personalized emails. In fact, segmented email campaigns simply are more effective and are considered more trustworthy by 77% of consumers.

Emails with personalized messages have an average click-through rate 12% higher than the average click-through rates for non-segmented emails. The level of personalization you can achieve with email is simply not possible in any other marketing venue.

Why Email Marketing Is Essential for Business Growth

There’s no question email is not only a foundational necessity in marketing and in business, but it’s also a driver of results far beyond the capabilities of any other channel.

As Digital Marketer wrote, “Regardless of the rumors, email is nowhere near ‘dead’ — and if you know how to use it, it will help you exponentially grow your business.”

To recap, here are the extensive benefits of email marketing that make it an unquestionable must-have for any small business:

• The ROI for email marketing is roughly twice the ROI of other digital channels and heavily outweighs the returns seen on other traditional media channels. Email brings sales and creates long-term buying relationships: It is the only channel that is used throughout the customer lifecycle to encourage sales.

• Trendy channels are just add-ons; email is a steady foundation: Regardless of new tactics that come along, 95% of marketers believe email has a very important role in marketing today.
• Email is the preferred communication method for most consumers.
• Businesses have more control over email than any other channel: Your email list is yours, and email rules change much less frequently than social media algorithms.
• Email is one of the least expensive marketing channels: The costs of email pale in comparison to other outlets, especially if using an all-in-one marketing automation platform. Plus, its ROI makes up for any cost.
• Email provides you more insight on people than other channels: Email addresses are a central data point that enable extensive targeting.
• Email can be hyper-segmented and personalized: With a marketing automation and CRM platform, you can provide trigger-based emails that reach the right people with the right message at the right time.

The post Why Email Is the Only Must-have Marketing Channel appeared first on The Ontraport Blog.

The design of your email templates may not be the highest priority on your list — you’re juggling a million pieces in your business — but email is one of the most effective ways to reach your leads and customers; it’s an opportunity to make a personal connection and put forward the best representation of your brand.

Does the design really matter? Yes, yes it does. How often have you received an email that was just plain ugly or boring? What did you do with that email? Read it? Trash it? More often than not, you’d delete it immediately without giving it a second thought.

Most people prefer to read an email that is well-designed because it sparks interest and gives the sense that your business cares about what it’s putting out there. The way your email appears visually plays a critical role in whether or not your audience will scroll, click, engage, or delete. Attention spans are short, and you only have a few seconds to impact someone — you might as well make it count. Here’s how to get started.

Email design best practice #1: Layout

Generally the shorter your email is, the higher the likelihood it will succeed. The way your email is laid out should make it immediately clear which content is important.  

Here are some layout factors to keep in mind:

1. Company logo: Put this up top so readers recognize who the email is from.
2. Header text: This is often at the top and in a bigger font size than the rest of the email, in the hopes of grabbing attention immediately and enticing the reader to continue scrolling.
3. Imagery: Use an eye-catching photo or illustration related to the copy to intrigue the reader. Emails that are lackluster and text-heavy don’t usually get the job done.
4. Call to action: This is typically displayed with buttons or links with phrases such as, “Read More,” “Watch Now,” or “Learn More.” Make sure this stands out, as this is the goal of your email.
5. Social sharing buttons: If you include buttons to your Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other social media pages, be sure to keep them at the bottom of your email so they don’t detract from your main call to action.

Remember, readers are most likely on-the-go, skimming the email for relevant points to see if anything peaks their interest. Make sure your layout stops them in their tracks.

Email design best practice #2: Consistency

Consistency is key. Sending out emails that are all over the place design-wise won’t help you establish a recognizable brand style. Use your logo as the basis for your design concept and go from there. If you already have an established website for your business, create a template that matches to keep with brand consistency. This will further exemplify professionalism, leading to trust and a comfort level established between you and your audience.

Don’t be afraid to test different designs to figure out which one best suits your clients. Once you’ve found something that works, you can use the same template again and again, or tweak it slightly when necessary.

Email design best practice #3: Design

When it comes to email design, it’s important to keep in mind that people are attracted to things that feel real and not forced so, whenever possible, show off your brand’s personality and culture through the design of your emails. Your readers will respond positively to an email that has charisma, as opposed to an email that feels robotic and cold.

You may be thinking, “But I’m not a designer. How do I know what looks good?” When in doubt, choose simplicity.

• Stick with two colors that flow with your brand nicely, even if that’s just black and white.
• White space is always your friend; remember that less can be more.
• Don’t feel the need to fill space with unnecessary text. Your message should be clear and concise.
• For those of you ready to step outside the box for your business, consider adding a pop of color to your call to action or any area of your message that you want to stand out.
• Create contrast to make an impact.

You want your subscribers to get excited to open your emails to see what’s in store.

Email Design in Action: The Top 5 Email Templates in Ontraport

Ontraport’s designers have created a large library of email templates that set you on the right path for following the layout, consistency and design points mentioned above. You can customize the templates to fit your brand’s colors, fonts and other distinguishing factors.

Here are the five most popular Ontraport Email templates along with some guidance on the type of business or strategy for which each is ideal:

1. Framed

If your business thrives on showing visuals or uses high-quality product shots, choose Framed. It provides a four-box image design to successfully display your product images. With your logo placed on the top left, followed by a large image block, you can capture your readers’ attention immediately. This template has proved most popular.

2. Piano

If your business has a simple, organic voice, choose Piano. This streamlined black and white template can be versatile for any business. It’s a good example of simplicity and the two-color rule. It also provides three alternating content and text blocks, making for a more interesting layout.

3. Automatic

If your brand thrives on color, Automatic can help you launch your new service. Use our whimsical illustrations provided or let them inspire you to create your own. The template is broken up into alternating color blocks for contrast and provides a membership option which could lead to quick opt-ins for your company.

4. Plane

If you’re looking to send out a quick promo for your company, Plane is perfect. It captures your attention at the top with the logo, image and color block all in one. Notice how the color scheme flows together and sticks with the brand style. When you open this email, you know exactly who it’s from.

5. International

If you’re looking for a clean template that embraces white space, International will be your breath of fresh air. You can use this template to focus your readers on a webinar and provide them the ability to RSVP immediately.

Email marketing is a primary form of communication when reaching new leads and securing customers, and email templates are a major asset to achieving that goal. With these email templates, you will save time, establish your brand style, and catch the attention of your audience.

The post 5 Email Designs That Work appeared first on The Ontraport Blog.

We get it: You just want to be able to get your deliverability data quickly and easily and have it tell you exactly what you are doing right and wrong. Who really wants to have to deep-dive the nitty gritty of email deliverability statistics? Shouldn’t you just be able to glance at the numbers and get a snapshot of whether or not your email marketing efforts are paying off? The answer is yes, but  to make well-informed decisions swiftly and simply, you need to understand how these numbers really work.

That’s where we come in. We’ll help debunk and demystify some of the common misunderstandings about email stats so that you can be equipped with the knowledge to accurately interpret your data from here on out.  We’ll touch on delivery stats, third party blacklists, clicks vs. opens, and why engagement stats have their own grading scale.

“Delivered” Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Means

Many email service providers (ESPs) tout impressive stats as they market themselves as reliable services for getting emails delivered to recipients successfully. However, many of these email delivery stats are misleading. It’s common for ESPs to mark emails as “delivered” when, in fact, there’s no way an ESP could actually know that for sure.

What they do know is whether or not inbox providers “accepted” your message. The difference? “Accepted” simply means that the message didn’t hard bounce; it doesn’t take into account if the inbox provider filtered that message into the inbox, spam, or if it was discarded altogether. This is why Ontraport labels messages to each recipient as “Sent” or “Bounced” — not “Delivered.”

If you want to know what percentage of your messages are getting delivered to each inbox provider, running seed tests is the way to go. A seed test involves sending a tracked email to monitored email addresses to gauge deliverability.

Blacklists Are Not All Created Equal

If your email stats suddenly tank or your seed test delivery results come back shockingly low, it’s reasonable to wonder if you’ve been blacklisted by one or multiple inbox providers. As you begin to see if your domain or IP are on any blacklists, keep in mind that some blacklists have developed reputations for having more accurate data than others, and none of them are used globally by all email providers — meaning one listing with even the biggest blacklist (Spamhaus) won’t cripple your mailflow.

Most inbox providers are moving away from caring about third-party blacklists and handling their spam filtering on their own, so checking blacklists isn’t a comprehensive way to troubleshoot delivery issues. If you’re using a well-established ESP, such as Ontraport, you won’t have to worry about this anyway. They closely monitor blacklistings and promptly deal with them.

This means that your primary focus as a sender is to keep your domain reputation squeaky clean. For more information on how to do this, follow  these tips.

Link Clicks Are More Accurate Than Opens

There are lots of complicated factors that play into the inaccuracy of email open stats. For starters, it’s industry standard to track email open rates with a 1 x 1 pixel — a tiny image embedded in your messages that records an open when loaded by an email recipient.

But there are many problems with this method that lead to completely inaccurate results. First, in order for the image to be loaded, the person receiving emails has to have images turned on. Many inbox providers block images by default, either across the board for all incoming mail or for non-whitelisted addresses. Also, many people read email on their phone and some email reader apps block images in mobile view. Lastly, some users block all HTML in their received emails and instead only receive a “plain text email” that doesn’t show images.

This means that some people could be opening your email, but it won’t count as an open because the image didn’t load. This turns your email marketing into a game of chance, depending on who has images blocked or not, and you could be favoring a certain email that’s actually underperforming.

Misleading Inconsistencies Across ESPs

At Ontraport, we get a lot of questions from clients who switched over from other platforms about why their open rates appear lower through Ontraport. The answer is many other inbox providers infer an open when in fact there is none. We don’t do this because we want to provide you with the most accurate data possible.

Because many email recipients don’t show images, you can estimate that your open rate is much higher than the number we can actually track. The bottom line is that opens are not reliable as a measure of email success. Focus instead on link clicks, which depict how often the links inside your emails are clicked and can be tracked reliably by everyone. Looking at link clicks also gives you a true understanding of whether your email actually resonated enough to prompt readers to follow through with your call to action.

Engagement Stats Are on Their Own Grading Scale

When it comes to email engagement stats, it’s most important to understand that everyone’s benchmark for success is going to be different. Becoming familiar with your own numbers and using patterns to monitor your results will ultimately give you the most insight.

With that said, you still shouldn’t look at engagement stats on an A-F grading scale, where anything below 60% is failing. In email marketing, engagement stats — such as opens and clicks — are on their own scale. For example a 30% open rate isn’t a fail; it’s actually very impressive.

Here’s a breakdown of the five top email stats, what they mean, and how to interpret your results.

Opens

While email opens aren’t the most reliable stat, they’re still a solid way to monitor the health of your results over time. Notice a sudden spike or dip in opens? It’s time to dig further into your stats to find out why. For example, if you’re used to having a 25% open rate and it suddenly drops below 15%, it’s a pretty good indicator that you need to take action.

Generally speaking when it comes to open rates, if your percentage is in the mid-to-high twenties or above, you’re doing well. What’s most important is to focus on your results relative to your own previous results; open rates vary industry by industry, business by business.

Link Clicks

Email link clicks are the more reliable alternative to monitoring opens. Because they don’t rely on images as opens do, clicks are accurately tracked no matter what device an email recipient is using.

It’s normal to be concerned about your click-through rate (CTR), but remember that the numbers are bound to be lower than your open stats — and don’t be surprised if they’re under 10%. Of the people who open your messages, not all are going to click into your links. This is where having strong, relevant, and personalized content can improve your results.

Bounces

Your bounce rate shows you what percentage of emails were bounced back because of full mailboxes or wrong email addresses. In any given week, if your bounce rate is above 7%, it’s time to take action.

Complaints

A complaint is registered any time a recipient clicks the “this is spam” button in their email. If your complaint rate is higher than 0.1% in any given week, consider switching up your email marketing tactics.

Unsubscribes

While it’s a bummer to lose contacts from your list, unsubscribes are a far better alternative to complaints. Your unsubscribe rate tells you what percentage of recipients requested not to receive emails from you in the future.

Don’t be alarmed if your stats are lower than you would have liked or expected. The breakdown is that email marketing is all trial and error — if one approach isn’t working, change it. The numbers behind your email stats will let you know what approach works best.

The post The Truth Behind Your Email Stats appeared first on The Ontraport Blog.

In a study by the Reuters Institute, researchers found that 73% of their sample were signed up for interest-based email lists, indicating that customers are still widely receptive to recurring email content strategies. Newsletters are a great way for businesses to stay top-of-mind with clients who have shown interest in their product — and you can implement one in your business too.

Why invest in newsletter campaigns?

Marketing through newsletters is a strategic way to increase touch points and build relationships with your contacts. Online correspondence is a powerful tool and, according to Twilio’s Consumer Engagement study, 83% of consumers prefer email as the primary channel to receive messages from businesses. Unlike social media posts that disappear over time, newsletters sit in your contacts’ inboxes waiting to be opened.

Content marketing newsletters are a win-win. You get clicks, views and overall boosted performance, and your contacts get relevant and helpful information delivered right to their inboxes.

Putting together a successful newsletter campaign, however, isn’t as easy as throwing together some content and pressing send. You’ve also got the responsibility of making sure each message is strategic and provides sufficient value. Every message should go through an iterative testing process and be sent out to subscribers with impeccable timing. Here are the steps to creating an effective newsletter campaign:

Plan send frequency around your content

When determining the frequency of your newsletter, consider how much content your brand produces and news it has to share. With multiple releases per week, it’s worth your time to use a weekly newsletter to get eyes on it. Otherwise, a monthly newsletter might be a better fit.

To take advantage of the lead nurturing benefits of newsletters, you can work both a weekly and monthly newsletter into your strategy, if you have the resources to do so. For example, let’s say you’re a lifestyle coach and you create two new videos and articles per week. You could send your newest content in a newsletter every Monday and, at the beginning of each month, send an email with only your top-performing pieces of content from the previous month.

Word to the wise: Keep promotional content in your newsletters to a minimum. The more you stick to valuable content for subscribers, the more likely they are to open your emails.

Build your newsletter subscriber list

Email marketing yields a high ROI — every dollar you spend has the potential to bring you a $44 return. Your newsletter campaign’s success is scalable, so constantly growing your subscriber list is a great way to bring in more sales over time. There are many effective ways to do this, including:

• Adding Opt-in forms to your site’s pages
• Setting up Pop-ups to display on exit intent or after spending a certain amount of time on a page
• Writing social media posts that promote subscribing to your newsletter

Welcome and thank new subscribers

As subscribers opt in for your newsletter, let them know their sign-up was successful with a welcome email that thanks them for subscribing and introduces them to your brand.

This email is a one-time message with short copy that builds trust and shows your subscribers that they’ve been added to your campaign, and you’re glad they’ve joined your community.

Pick a consistent date and time

To create a sense of consistency for both you and your list, it’s important to find a specific day of the week and time of day when your newsletter arrives in your subscribers’ inboxes. Because the best send time can differ depending on your audience, industry and type of content, try split testing until you find a winning combination. Split testing is a process where you pit two versions of your newsletter against one another to see which performs better. For example, you can send your newsletter at different times — Monday at 12 P.M. and Wednesday at 1 P.M. — to various portions of your audience, and use your results to determine an optimal sending schedule.

To keep the time consistent across your list, use your email service provider system to set a send time specific to the contacts’ time zones so that a message scheduled at 11 A.M. PT, for example, doesn’t deliver at 1 P.M. ET to your New York subscribers.

Once you find a date and time combination that works, you can use it as a control for future copy and design split testing. To have an accurate measure of how well your email copy and design are doing, you should be able to rule out date and time as a factor.

Set tracking goals that encourage success

Your newsletter campaign is not complete without a way to measure success. Set SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timely) goals that align with your overall business goals. If you keep these in mind when looking at your data, you’ll better understand the effectiveness of your newsletter campaign.

To make sure you’re creating SMART goals, ask yourself:

1. Why am I sending out these newsletter emails in the first place?
2. What do I hope to gain from them?
3. If I don’t achieve that goal with these emails, are they still a success?

Here are a few metrics you may want to use:

Chances are, your ultimate goal is to generate sales and revenue with your newsletter campaign. If that’s the case, you’ll want to focus on conversions rather than email opens or clicks.

With your email tracking tool, you can check your campaign numbers. As you learn which types of copy and design perform best, you can optimize future messages.

Maintain your newsletter campaigns over time

To avoid your newsletter getting sidelined to the spam box and losing subscribers, do regular maintenance on your campaign. In addition to testing and optimizing your emails, ensure they’re getting into active inboxes. Over time, your subscribers may shut down or abandon their email addresses, making your messages undeliverable. If you have too many undeliverable emails, ISPs will start treating you as if you’re a spammer, and your newsletter will be diverted. This creates a self-perpetuating cycle of falling open and deliverability rates that trigger spam filters. It may be helpful to use an email verification service which can tell you whether your subscribers’ email addresses are accurate and valid. Maintaining the hygiene of your subscriber list in this way is known as cleaning.

Another way to maintain your newsletter list is by trimming contacts who haven’t recently engaged with your messages. By scheduling a list cleaning once or twice a year, your emails will be sent to a curated list of interested contacts who are more likely to have active addresses.

Launch an effective newsletter campaign by following these steps:

• Specify the frequency of your newsletter delivery.
• Plan the ways contacts can be added to your list.
• Send a one-time confirmation email to new subscribers.
• Set a consistent send time that is sensitive to the contacts’ time zones.
• Split test each message to optimize your campaign over time.
• Set SMART goals that result in success.
• Clean your subscriber list to ensure your newsletter lands in your subscribers’ inboxes.

Once you add these seven best practices to your newsletter strategy, you’ll be able to plan and map your weekly or monthly newsletter campaign and get started. Here’s an idea of what your completed campaign map will look like:

If you have an Ontraport account, you can find a templated version of this campaign called “Newsletter signup, confirmation and delivery” and fill in each step. It’s that simple, and we’re always here if you need help with your email newsletter campaign!

The post How to Get Started With an Email Newsletter for Your Business appeared first on The Ontraport Blog.

Gmail Tabs: Just How Bad Is the Promotions Tab?

It has been years since Google first announced its tabbed inbox solution, and we’re still receiving plenty of questions about how to get emails out of the Promotions tab and into the Primary tab in Gmail.

Google’s ever-changing algorithms have become quite good at putting mail in the tab to which it belongs. Though there are a few ways to increase the odds of landing in the Primary tab, there is no proven method, and eventually the methods that work get sniffed out by Google’s filters.

In this article, you’ll learn a few ways to increase your odds of avoiding the Promotions tab but, more importantly, you’ll learn how these tabs are more beneficial than you may think.

Benefits of Gmail Tabs

Before you can understand how to land your emails in the Primary tab, it’s important to fully understand Google’s tabbed inbox and its potential benefits. Return Path’s findings on Gmail tabs, through a study of 1,628 Gmail users along with 6 billion messages sent to these users, showed that:

1. Only 33% of users are still using a tabbed inbox.
2. Close to half of those using the tabbed inbox check their Promotions tab at least once a day.
3. Only one in 10 users believed Gmail misclassified their messages.
4. Of all email sent to Gmail users, only 2.41% of mail landed in the Primary tab while over 90% was classified as either promotions or updates (transactional mail).
5. Many Gmail users like having their messages categorized, as it speeds up digestion via sorting messages by type.

This makes you wonder, is landing in the Primary tab the goal? After taking this data into consideration, it’s clear the Promotions tab is less of a problem than one might have originally thought. On average, Promotional placement would only lower your open rates by about one half a percentage point. They also have fewer complaints and so are less likely to be marked as spam. That’s because this tab gives the user the opportunity to look through marketing emails when they’re ready to shop.

Another reason landing in the Promotions tab might be better than the Primary tab is because promotional mail is more likely to be marked as “spam” when it is found in the Primary tab. When your emails are regularly marked as spam, your delivery rates plunge.

How to Land in the Primary Tab

It’s important to note that Google’s tabbing system is 100% algorithmic. One day your email could land in Primary, while another day that very same email might land in the Promotions tab.

The first and most effective way of avoiding Promotions is engagement. Gmail (and most ISPs these days) ranks email based on the engagement level of your audience. If your list is regularly opening your emails, Gmail is going to assume that your subscribers are going to open your next email and place it in Primary.

The second way to avoid the feared Promotions tab is within the content of your email. Here are some content recommendations that will help keep your emails from looking like promotions:

1. Ditch the fancy template. Wait…what?! You heard right, ditch it. Think about the last email you personally sent to a family member or friend. Chances are highly likely that it was a simple text email. This is the way you have to think if you want to make it into the Primary tab because these are the types of messages that Google puts there. In fact, Ontraport users with the highest average open rates follow this rule.
2. Include your actual name and a reachable email in the “Send From” details. If you’re sending from Business Name at noreply@mybusiness.com then you can expect to be landing in the Promotions tab. This comes off as impersonal and doesn’t encourage engagement. Instead, personalize your “Send From” details by using the name of a person from your company, if possible. For example, an email from Joe Smith at joesmith@mybusiness.com feels personal and is more likely to land in the Primary tab.
3. Images are not your friend. If it is clear who you are, there is no need to include a branded logo and header image at the top of all your emails. The types of emails that usually have this? Promotional emails. Keep your image count low (only one if possible) and, whatever you do, do not link the image to an external page — that means don’t include social media icons.   
4. Use two links maximum. If you can manage one link, that’s even better. The point of an email is to get the user to visit your page, buy your product, read your blog, etc., so make sure all the links in the email lead to that (this will help your click-through rates as well). This means that social media links, links to your site’s home page, terms and conditions, and privacy policy at the bottom of each email must go. Only link to these when it is relevant to the content of your email.

It’s important to note that these methods are not proven to work on their own, and we do not encourage gaming the system. If your list is not highly engaged, you could end up getting flagged for spam by sneaking marketing emails into the Primary tab. It’s possible that it’s a combination of your content and the level of engagement on your list that will decide how and where your messages are getting delivered.

“[Marketing] messages may be better off outside the Primary tab,” reports Return Path. “Their read rates [are] roughly the same as they were before tabs [and] they’re far more likely to be delivered.” Their data also shows that people who use the Promotions tab in their gmail accounts regularly check it. Seeing marketing emails in the Primary tab is off-putting, but they’re expected in the Promotions tab. Marketing emails found in the Primary tab are more likely to be tagged as spam, which spells d-o-o-m for your email marketing campaign. If you send your readers personalized emails with relevant content that resonates with them, they’ll be sure to open your mail, even if it’s in the Promotion tab.

The post Gmail Tabs: Just How Bad Is the Promotions Tab? appeared first on The Ontraport Blog.

It’s important to include a variety of emails in your marketing funnels that keep your customers constantly engaged. While the specific types of emails you send will depend on how you market and interact with your list, here’s a helpful model to consider:

Whether you already have a system in place that automates your email marketing or are just starting out, here are 13 emails to add to your marketing funnels that will help engage and nurture all of your leads.

Emails to Send After Initial Opt-in

Getting a subscriber to opt in to your list is no easy task. With nearly two billion sites on the web, leads have a lot of options and the number is only growing.

So, when people find your site, spend enough time on it to stumble onto an opt-in opportunity, and are interested enough to give their email address, you should take the time to follow up with them. Here are a few ideas:

Email #1: The Customers’ Challenges and Wants

The more you understand your leads’ and customers’ needs, the better your business will be able to cater to them. Immediately after opt-in, send an email asking readers what their biggest challenges and wants are related to your business.

Want to get straight to the point? You can segment your contacts by directly asking which of your products or services they’re most interested in receiving.

Email #2: Introduce Your Company

Is there something special about your business that makes it a better choice than your competitors? If a portion of your profits go towards a charity, your products are responsibly sourced, or you personally hand-make each item, this is the place to say it.

Email #3: Content Follow-up

You spend hours on your content, and people who download it have a specific reason for doing so. If you receive email addresses through a content download, ask them what they thought about it. This not only keeps your brand top-of-mind with subscribers, but prompts them to engage with your brand and start a conversation.

Email #4: Overcome Objections With an Educational Drip Campaign

Your prospects have a surprisingly small number of predictable sales objections. Here’s a pro tip: Collect common objections and come up with a response for each. Translate those objections and responses into educational emails. These emails anticipate your prospects’ thought process and deliver information to them.

Here are a few common objections that might apply to your business:

• Price: Why is your price so high/low?
• Credibility: Why should a prospect choose your company?
• Fit: Is your solution right for the prospect?
• Timing: Should the prospect wait a while before purchasing?
• Authority: Do others need to be involved in the decision?

Emails to Send After Purchase

An ideal outcome for your business is gaining repeat customers and referrals.  A great way to do this is by creating experiences that wow every customer.

Email #5: Thank You/Delivery Email

Immediately after customers purchase from you, send an email thanking them for their business, but don’t stop there. Let them know what will happen next and what their purchase means to you.

Walk them through your fulfillment process so they know exactly what to expect. Tell them how to contact you if they have a problem. If you do a great job in this step, they’re unlikely to require any support.

If you have a digital product or service, this would also act as your product delivery email. For example, if you’re a digital personal trainer and a customer just purchased one of your video courses, this email will contain the download link or login to their new course.

Email #6: Receipt Email

The receipt email should be separate from the thank you email and easily searchable. That means you should add the word “receipt” to the subject line of the email to make it easier to retrieve later. You can also upsell, cross-sell or tell customers more about your company right on the receipt.

Email #7: Satisfaction Survey

There’s no better way to improve your customer service and marketing than asking your customers about their experience with you. A few days after purchase, send an email asking for feedback through a survey.

This will do two things: show that you’re serious about customer service and allow you to collect valuable feedback about your fulfillment process. If you’d like to take it a step further, ask for a referral from people who rate you highly, and contact the people who had a negative experience to find out how you can improve.

Email #8: Referral Request

You should always ask for referrals. Focus on the people who had a good experience with you.

When requesting referrals from your existing customers, consider including the following persuasive elements:

• Remind customers of the positive experience(s) they have had with your brand.
• Add an incentive for successful referrals, such as a cash prize or a discount on future purchases.
• Emphasize the benefits of your products and services.

Emails to Increase Customer Lifetime Value

Your job isn’t complete once a customer has purchased from you. In fact, your relationship with them is only beginning. Here’s how you can use upsell, cross-sell and discount emails to continue nurturing your customers over time:

Email #9: Upsell Email

An upsell is selling a higher-level version of the same product, a package containing the product and related items, or another related product that’s more of an investment. If you have a good-better-best product line (a basic product without all of the features and a version or two with more or better features), the upsell email is a natural fit for your business.

To showcase your product tiers, consider sending an upsell email enticing your customer to buy the enhanced, upgraded version of what they’ve already bought.

Email #10: Cross-sell Email

A cross-sell is suggesting products related to a purchase. For example, if you buy a camera you might need a memory card. If you buy a new television, you might need a warranty.

If you have an ecommerce business, this is an absolute no-brainer. Whatever you’re selling, identify related products, and be sure to tell your customers about them.

Email #11: Discount Emails

According to Forbes, “It can cost five times more to attract a new customer than it does to retain an existing one.” So, once you have a customer, giving discounts to incentivize another purchase is worth the investment.

A few discount ideas include:

• Bulk discount (i.e., buy one get one)
• Free shipping
• Limited-time sale

Email #12: Seasonal and Date-Specific Emails

Seasonal and date-specific offers are a great way to use the calendar to increase customer value. There are four main ways you can use seasonal offers.

• Your product or service is seasonal, such as letters from Santa Claus or board shorts.
• You give seasonal discounts for national or shopping holidays such as President’s Day or Black Friday.
• You recognize your customers’ life events such as birthdays or anniversaries.
• You recognize your own milestones such as time in business or the number of followers you have on social media.

The important point is that seasonal and date-specific offers are predictable and repeatable.

Deliver Ongoing Value

Regardless of where people are in the customer lifecycle — a prospect, a new buyer, a loyal customer or a cold lead — they can benefit from some piece of content you create.

When you create a good piece of content, it drives value for people all across your funnel.

Email #13: New Content Notification

When you have new content, share it. If you have segments who receive different pieces of content, email them what makes the most sense for their interests. Here are a few examples of content you can share:

• Blog post
• Guest post
• Curated content (i.e., best articles read during the week)
• Upcoming webinar
• Videos
• Courses

These emails are typically considered “broadcast” emails because they have such broad appeal. As a best practice, send at least one broadcast email every month.

The post 13 Valuable Emails to Add to Your Marketing Funnels appeared first on The Ontraport Blog.