Month: July 2015

34 Things to Make Your Next E-Mail a Success

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Are you doing everything you need to do to make your next e-mail campaign a success? Are your e-mails being opened, read, and responded to? I developed a highly effective checklist of 34 tips that generate leads, build your pipeline, increase quality web traffic, and accelerate deal flow. I’ve grouped the 34 tips into 3 segments to help you focus your efforts. You’ll find all of this in my informational booklet 34 Strategies To Make Your Next E-mail Campaign A Success . To request your free copy, click here.

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Learn All About 10 of the Top Digital Marketing Best Practices

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LearningtheBasics_banner How would you like to gain access to the top 10 techniques used by leading brands to drive quality web traffic, increase website conversion, and fill your pipeline with quality prospects? I thought you would. That’s why I put together an e-book that highlights what’s new in marketing and gives tips you can put to work now to start seeing results right away. This e-book is a beneficial, quick overview that will assist you in your efforts to master the new world of marketing and deliver results. Click here to request your free copy of 10 DIGITAL MARKETING BEST PRACTICES.

What are you doing that’s effectively driving web traffic and creating quality leads? Share your tips with us!

Is There a Difference Between Content Marketing and Content Strategy?

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You bet. And, it’s an important distinction. This question reminds me of the old: Which came first, the chicken or the egg? While the two are interconnected, they do have distinct, important, and different roles, and they build off of each other in very beneficial ways. I liken content marketing to the delivery vehicle of the content strategy.

With content marketing we are creating content geared to our targeted prospects, thereby making it a marketing strategy of sorts on its own. However, content strategy is where we really dig deep to develop the framework of what the content marketing needs to be, aligning the message to specific goals.

Content marketing is charged with delivering the message in the most effective way, creating the copy and design and choosing the communication mediums while content strategy is responsible for ensuring the work the content marketers are doing is in line with the overall business goals and objectives.

Recognizing the distinction between these two, new business categories is paramount to ensuring both get the attention they deserve to produce the desired results. Both require very different skill sets to work in harmony. Make sure your marketing plan includes the necessary and appropriate resources to develop an effective and cooperative partnership between content marketing and strategy.

How do you address the different but interconnected roles of content marketing and content strategy? Share with us.

7 Ways to Create E-Mails That Get Read

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E-mail is one of the most powerful marketing mediums we have at our disposal, so getting it right is important. That means creating e-mails that actually get read. There are a few tricks that can help.

  1. Grab attention with your subject line. Your e-mail is either won or lost depending on the strength of your subject line. Make sure it’s short and interesting enough to entice readers to click to open. And, according to our research, if you can work numbers into your headline or subhead, they break up the visual field and increase the chances of capturing attention.
  2. Test different subject lines. The simplest way to do this is to conduct a split-test where you send e-mails with different subject lines to a small sub-section of your list. See which one gets the most opens. That’s your winning subject line you should send to your entire list.
  3. Create valuable content. Give those who click through to your e-mail message something worthwhile to them…insider information, special deals, industry insight, etc. And, make it personal. Use terms like “you” and “I” and try to make a personal connection with your prospects.
  4. Keep it brief. Unless you have something really important and interesting to say that takes a lot of words, the rule of thumb here is to keep it short. Since a lot of e-mails are viewed on smart phones, it makes this tip especially important.
  5. Function beats form every time. While it may be tempting to add in a lot of pretty graphics, you do so to your peril. They take too long to load, causing would-be readers to bail on your e-mail. Make sure you’re designing your e-mails to work on all electronic devices, especially smart phones and that any links you include are easily seen and easy to click.
  6. Build off of each e-mail. There’s just no beating a good cliffhanger. Consider ending your e-mails with a teaser of what’s to come with the next e-mail.
  7. Be in it for the long haul. Any business relationship takes time to build. Court your prospects with a carefully constructed e-mail campaign that recognizes and addresses that there is a process to building trust that leads to the sale. Sending e-mails consistently works best.

Following these seven tips, you should be on your way to successfully enticing your prospects to read your e-mails and thereby increasing your sales.

What are you doing that works to get your prospects to read your e-mails? Share your ideas with us.