You’re working hard. Bloody hard.
You get your website just the way you want it. You learn how to market. You start drawing a crowd of people you can help to your website.
But that’s not all.
You start friending people on Facebook. You build an email list. You ‘stalk' prospective customers.
But somehow you get the inkling your efforts aren’t paying off 🙁
You want more customers, more sales, more income!
But you’re just not getting the waterfall of sales cascading into your bank account you dreamed of.
It’s soooo frustrating.
Because you can’t work any harder.
There MUST be a smarter way? A way to truly engage your current prospective customers instead of constantly fighting to attract new leads? A way to entice them to engage more? And tease them into hauling out their credit cards to buy from you?
Yup, there is a way. And it all boils down to this:
Prospective customers need you to first prove you're the one they want to do business with; they want to be reassured.
That’s right. You need to reassure the people on your list with each email, each subject line, each postscript.
You need to make your emails so openable and so irresistible that the people on your list learn to trust you.
How? It’s easier than you might think.
When you use the following 21 tips to master the science of email marketing, you'll have the people on your hard-won list, eating out of your hands.
Like taking candy from a baby!
Because studies prove email marketing provides businesses with a real return on investment of over 4,000%.
Ready?
21 Email Marketing Tips From The Laptop Lifestyle Experts That'll Knock The Socks Off Your Business:
1. EMAIL REGULARLY
As soon as you start building a list of subscribers or potential customers, you need to stay in touch with them on a regular basis.
Because if you don't, someone else in your niche will!
And you don't want to spoil and ruin all your marketing efforts by falling at this first hurdle do you?
So, decide how often you're going to email people, and STICK to that schedule.
We recommend you send an email to people most days: send them information in your area of expertise, a few days in a row, followed up by an offer of some sort.
At the very least, send emails on four days a week, which is what our schedule is (only becuase we're too lazy to do it daily – we've got a life to live and so do you)
(By the way, 98% of all emails sent are of a commercial nature, and only 2% of emails are conversational).
Yes some people will complain you're sending too many emails (some people complain about everything!) – but at least you give them the option to pick and chose the ones they want to read.
2. LEVERAGE YOUR COMPETITORS
Subscribe to at least 10-12 newsletters/updates from people in your niche or market.
That's how we learned more about email marketing – plus loads of practice!
Simply search Google for the top blogs and top authors in your niche, and sign up to receive their emails on their websites.
Don't sign up with your main email address though – create a new gmail account specifically for this purpose.
That way, you won't be bombarded with their emails – and you can ‘duck into' that email account for inspiration only when it's time to decide what to write about.
Seeing what your competitors email provides you with ideas on what to promote and what to talk about too.
Why re-invent the wheel, right?
That said though, we're not suggesting you copy someone else's email outright.
For one thing, they might not use the same language as you so it won't be authentic, and for another, it's just not the right thing to do.
3. GIVE VALUE
The absolute basis of marketing is: People buy from people they KNOW, LIKE, and TRUST.
(that'd be why spamming doesn't work!)
Demonstrate CREDIBILITY, EXPERTISE, AND VALUE to the people on your list by sending them interesting and valuable content (free reports, videos, interviews with experts, webinars, articles)
It can be stuff you've created, or other people's content you love yourself which you want to share because of the value in it.
Provide exceptional value 🙂
4. BE AUTHENTIC
The biggest sin in marketing is to be Boring!
Write your emails as if you're talking to a friend; give glimpses into your personal life too, just like friends would.
Inject your personality into your marketing.
There’s only 1 of you (unless you're a couple like us lol) so that’s an instant USP (Unique Selling Point).
Make emails entertaining and educational, inspirational.
Teach people about your market while making them familiar with your products and how you can help them.
5. USE VIDEO
Online video is a very powerful means of connecting emotionally with the people on your list.
It allows you to ‘get in their minds' so they can hear your voice and see you're real.
Some people don't realise you can't include video in an email though. So what you have to do, is take a screen shot of the video when it's paused, and include that image in your email, with a link through to the actual video on Youtube or on another website.
When you Click Here To Receive Our Emails, you'll see how our pictures and videos are usually of us out an about, or on holiday somewhere?
There are two messages we're always putting out:
– we're the Laptop Lifestyle Experts, and
– when you follow our advice, your life will change – you'll become financially self-reliant and have more FREEDOM than you ever dreamed was possible!
What message do you want your emails to communicate? What are you up to in the world?
6. USE POWER-WORDS
Use power words in your emails broadcasts.
Words like “free”, “guaranteed”, “secret”, “reveal” and “save”.
Words that grab your reader's attention and make your message compelling.
Here's a list of The Top 50 Power Words That Sell – but note the caveat at the end of the list!
1. Absolutely
2. Accomplish
3. Achieve
4. Benefit
5. Best
6. Clear-cut
7. Compelling
8. Convenient
9. Critical
10. Dependable
11. Easy/Easily
12. Ensure
13. Exciting
14. Free
15. Fun
16. Guarantee/Guaranteed
17. Health/Healthy
18. How-To
19. Improve/Improved
20. Instant/Instantly
21. Love
22. Money
23. More
24. New
25. Now
26. Personalized
27. Power/Powerful
28. Private
29. Proven
30. Quality
31. Quick/Quickly
32. Results
33. Safe/Safely
34. Save
35. Secrets
36. Secure
37. Shocked/Shocking
38. Simple
39. Solution
40. Step-by-Step
41. Strong
42. Top
43. Uncover
44. Unique
45. Unleashed
46. Unlimited
47. Unlock
48. Winning
49. Yes
50. You/Your
The thing is – we don't use all these words all the time, as some of them simply aren't words we use ourselves in everyday language – so it's tricky to remember to use them in emails, right?
Using these words takes practice 🙂
7. HYPERLINK NEAR THE TOP
Include a blue clickable link (HYPERLINK) early on in your email so it's ‘above the fold'.
‘Above the fold' means your email reader doesn't have to scroll down to get to the link.
This will triple your number of clicks.
93% of people never scroll down an email!
(people are often quite lazy really!)
8. BE MOBILE FRIENDLY
More email is read on mobile devices that on desktop email clients like ‘Outlook' or via webmail.
So it pays to send mobile friendly emails.
Keep the design simple.
Focus on making an immediate impact with your content and conversation, and don't worry about the overall design layout.
9. THREE LINKS
To get more clicks per email you send, include the same clickable link in your email THREE TIMES.
-
-
- Once in the introduction (above the fold, remember?)
- Once in the body of your email, and
- Once in the close or postscript of your email
-
Having 3 links will double your response compared to having just one link (this means twice as many clicks for the effort of writing just one email!)
Make sure the three links are all the same – that is, they all click through to the same place.
It confuses people if you have links to different places from one email – and when people are confused, they do nothing!
10. INTERESTING CONTENT SOURCES
Make a list of interesting websites and blogs in your niche or market, and start collecting articles and topics you find interesting and which you'd like to write about or you think people on your list will be interested in.
The more interesting your content, the longer people will stay subscribed to receive your emails.
Some sites we like are:
http://gregandfionascott.com (of course!)
http://www.digitalmarketer.com/blog
http://www.quicksprout.com/blog/
http://nativeadvertising.com
http://www.entrepreneur.com/
http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com
http://lifehacker.com
http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog
http://www.reddit.com
http://mashable.com
http://www.wired.com/
http://popurls.com
http://www.viralnova.com/
It's totally fine to leverage other people's content and ideas by referring people on your list to their websites – as long as you believe your readers will receive value from it.
11. SHORT AND SIMPLE
Shorter emails result in higher click-through-rates because the reader has little option of what else to do (so make sure you make it worthwhile them clicking!) That's not to say all your emails should be short and sweet as that would be boring!
12. TIMING IS KEY
There are best times and days to send out emails.
Think about it, you need to hit emails in-boxes after the weekend purge and the first thing in the morning purge.
What we mean is – when people get to work they have a big clear out of their inbox, so that's not a good time to send, as your email could get deleted in that morning purge.
But when the majority of people are having a ‘natural break' mid morning and mid afternoon, then that's a good time to send out emails as people are more likely to have time to read them. These rules aren't really hard and fast rules, they're just guidelines based on a high level generalisation of what most people are doing at work during the day.
13. EMAIL MORE
To make more money, send out more emails! Simples!
Email your list every single day . . . as long as you provide people with value and interest.
We paid to attend an Email Marketing Webinar held by Digital Marketer Ryan Deiss back in August 2013. In that webinar, Ryan shared a story about asking the attendees at his $25,000-a-year Mastermind how often they emailed their lists.
The attendees were ALL making over $1,000,000 a year.
And every single multi-million-dollar marketer in attendance said their income went up SIGNIFICANTLY when they started mailing people on their list EVERY DAY.
So contact your prospective customers repeatedly and regularly.
81% of sales come after 5 or more contacts.
But 85% of the time, business owners or sales people stop after 1 or 2 contacts.
You must nurture your prospective customers over the long run, by giving them great content.
14. GET ON FACEBOOK
When you engage with people on your list on social media your EMAIL engagement will increase by up to 500%!
Guilty! We're not so good at this as we sometimes forget to put the social sharing buttons at the foot of our emails – here's where to find us on Facebook ==> https://www.facebook.com/GregAndFionaScott to receive even more online business tips and tactics, balanced with an ounce of funny stuff, piccies of dogs, and some positive thinking stuff 🙂
15. MAKE OFFERS
US marketer Matt Bacak says:
“When you email people on your list (who know you already) with an affiliate offer (so your email contains blue clickable links to an affiliate offer) you can expect to make $0.70 per click, on average.”
(This is his average, over 10 years of sending emails to his list and generating millions of dollars in the process!) That said, we only ever offer stuff we've used ourselves, and that we LOVE using ourselves.
16. LOW COST
Promote low cost offers to get people on your list to BUY from you.
We've bought quite a few low cost books from Perry Belcher, a famous marketer. Perry once said:
“People still want to BUY, but they buy a lot of little things. For example, they buy $7 reports two or three times a week.
People love to buy.
The feeling they get when they buy is very important.
The same endorphins are released during sex while you're buying stuff.
We live in a ‘consumeristic' society.”
17. USE PERSONAL PRONOUNS
Personal pronouns (You, Your, etc…) help create the sense you’re speaking directly to your reader.
It’s a way of being conversational, specific, and engaging.
Example: Here's why YOU need to master email marketing . . .
Remember, there's only ever one person reading your email, so talk to him/her directly and specifically.
18. OFFER UPSELLS
McDonalds do it. GoDaddy does it. Restaurants serving wine do it all the time.
When they have your captive attention and know you're going to spend money with them anyway, they then ask you something like:
“What else you want to go with what you're already buying?”
It's called an upsell.
And it's important to offer your customers upsells.
If 1,000 customers spend $10 with you, 200 of them will spend $30, 40 of them will spend $100, and 8 of them will spend $1,000.
Very important: The more UPSELLS you offer (and the higher the value of that offer), the higher your LIFETIME CUSTOMER VALUE will be and the MORE you'll be able to spend on attracting more prospective customers to send emails to.
Another famous marketer, Dan Kennedy, once said:
“Help your customers SOLVE THEIR PROBLEM by offering them your information in a variety of modalities of learning.
Different people learn in different ways.
Some like to read. Some like to watch video. Some like to listen. Some like a combo of these media.
In your MARKETING FUNNEL offer Books, CDs, manuals, DVDs, seminars, webinars, monthly subscriptions, coaching, consulting, etc.
Nobody can learn everything in just 90 minutes.
Give them the resources to assist them.”
19. COMPELLING SUBJECT LINES
Write ‘sexy’ subject lines, to increase your email open rates.
Because the purpose of the email subject line is just to get the recipient to open your email in the first place.
Things like gossip, pictures, shocking news, and ‘getting free stuff' have a lot of appeal, as can be expected!
Here are some of Ryan Deiss’ email subject line tips taken from that webinar we attended in August 2013. 20. USE IMAGES
Try to include an image in your emails.
Why?
-
-
- Because it adds interest for your reader – gives them something visual to add to the feel of the email.
- Because it breaks up the text.
- Because friends send pictures to each other and you’re treating people on your list as friends.
-
And because you can add a hyperlink to an image – so it sneakily increases your click-through-rate to the link you want your reader to click on – typically by 120%!
AND – having an image in the email doesn’t impact deliverability of the email (unless the email is just one super-big image).
BUT . . . sadly, not every email recipient allows images to be auto-loaded on their email platform – so we have a subtle way of getting round that one.
Include a command in the alt text field for the image.
Remember the tip about the screen shot of the video too that’s linked through to an actual video on a web page somewhere?
21. HAVE A SIGNATURE
Always get your face in front of people – so they remember you – and to remind them you’re there to help.
So a signature file is a perfect solution to auto-combining a happy picture of you, links to where people can get in touch with you, and a soft call to action of where they can find out more about you and how you can help them.
Because, every email counts, right?
THE END!
Phew!
That is a lot to remember isn’t it?
Even we’re not super polished at all these techniques!
But, we suggest you bookmark this post and come back and read it once a day for a week – just to get familiar with all the tips.
THEN practice, practice, practice 🙂
It’s one of those skills, like learning to swim, or learning to ride a bike – practice makes perfect.
After all – we’re all still learning all the time.
So if you’re feeling that connecting with your prospective customers is a bit of a weak spot right now, just grit your teeth, start implementing these tips a few at a time (don’t over think them either – that’s another thing we’ve been guilty of doing) and pretty soon you’ll start noticing the difference of your diligence.
Also check out these posts: How To Increase Engagement With Your Email List and The Hollywood Secret To Seducing Your Email Reader
Email marketing is a science.
A cocktail of facts and opinions.
A blend of preparation and practice.
It’s essential to knocking the socks off your business and living your laptop lifestyle.
For more marketing tips, training and techniques, we credit Six Figure Mentors as the Captains of the Digital Marketing Industry. They changed so many people’s lives by teaching them how to market online that it’s not funny.
We’re two of those people.
So come and learn from the best.
Take a test drive today.
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Thankyou guys much appreciate the guidance…..Cheers
This was a great article filed with useful information. Now it’s time to implement and remain consistent…
Thanks Len – yup – consistency is key!