Well at least I hope it is, because I do quite a bit of it.

Today I’m thinking about email marketing.

Lots of changes happening. It is getting tougher for marketers to remain top of mind with each and every crowded in box.

FYI: I’m working on a project to help marketers revive email marketing. More on that later.

Here are some posts that have great ideas. Ideas alone are nice, implementation is where it makes a difference. These all offer actionable items, so I encourage you to take a look today.

3 Articles Worth Reading for Today’s Email Marketer

• How Email Marketers Can Start Preparing for Google+ Now: If you’ve been paying attention this summer, you’ve no doubt heard about Google plus. This article takes into account how email marketers can leverage the unique Google+ messaging platform for email marketing purposes. The folks at Return Path know a thing or two about email delivery. Great ideas. (You might also enjoy these Google Plus tips).
• Can “Bad News” Lift Response Rates?: This “Bad News” subject line was popularized a couple years ago when it was found to increase open rates considerably. However, as Danny Iny says there is a wrong way and a right way to do this while enhancing trust of subscribers.
• Webinar: 7 Signs Your Business Is Ready to Grow with Infusionsoft: If you have a steady revenue stream from your online business, but are concerned about things falling through the cracks, you might want to check this out. Not familiar with Infusionsoft? Here is an Infusionsoft Review and our $497 bonus.

More Moxy for Mobile, Android

For those Mobile Marketing enthusiasts among us there is an update to their popular Google Maps program for Android. It is a tip of the hat to their mobile strategy, they are committed, another reason small businesses should be too. Based on the post of Google Maps 5.8 users can:

• Easily upload photos for a Place
• Simpler way to manage “My Places” for places you’ve starred, recently viewed
• Descriptive terms for a given Place in search results
• Easily add a new Place when checking in

The highlight? The ability to see photos other users have uploaded for a Place. Useful if you aren’t sure just where you wanna go, and like to know what a place looks like. Ties in nicely for those using the Huddle feature of Google plus. What recent changes don’t tie into Google plus lately?  

Here is a screenshot of a couple panels of the photos feature:

Service to Encourage others Not Using Gmail

Here is an innovative strategy for moving users to Gmail. Gmail appears to be the key to Google combining search and social effectively. Gmail presents users with the Google bar, and notifications of Google Plus updates (which opens to the masses soon, get an invite here). Growing the Gmail user base is key.

Now there is a tool to help existing Gmail users motivate others to make the switch. See the post here. Below is the humorous video describing the service, or watch it here.

Managing an email subscriber list can be tricky. If you don’t segment your list, it’s not nearly as effective. Same thing if you don’t prune it periodically. If you landed on this post from an email from me, you’ll notice I’m cleaning things up a bit. I’ll tell you more in a moment. If you found this via Twitter, Facebook, or Google+, or doing a good old fashioned search, well hopefully you’ll get value from this, and get some ideas for your own email marketing. Now on to those reasons I was talking about.

3 Reasons You Were Unsubscribed

The photo accompanying this post is a bit more dramatic than the title, or the events surrounding this post. However, it is provocative humor, and therefore gets the nod.

Former subscribers. I consider former subscribers more like family than those coming from search or other sources (strangers). First, don’t be offended. Break-ups happen… and there’s always the possibility of a make-up (see my email, and note under #3 below). 

Non-Subscriber. This post is primarily addressing those who’ve been groomed from our subscriber list here, but there are some ideas for you too as you consider criteria for unhooking subscribers from your newsletter.

#1 – It Didn’t Meet Your Expectations

Sometimes people are just happy to be on the Internet. Clicking everything in sight, filling out forms with all kinds of personal information without a care in the world.

While we don’t ask much personal info here (name/email is about all we do), I suppose we fall “victim” to click happy opportunistic web surfers. We do try to explain up front what it means to join our site and newsletter. We (I) share personal experiences, tips, strategies, product reviews, recommendations, and thoughts on the latest and greatest stuff designed to introduce leverage into marketing online efforts.

If those weren’t the type of things you were expecting, my apologies.

#2 – You’ve Moved On and This No Longer Applies

There are many people who are passing through in their careers. They dabble in “online marketing” for a bit, but then a day job calls them, or family, or other pressing issues.

Marketing online isn’t a career path for everyone. I get it.

When things went quiet, we made several attempts via email to reach you, to see what was up, and verify that you’d like to remain a part of our free newsletter. After no response, you were “unsubscribed” from our newsletter.

#3 – Your Email Was Going to a Bad Address

Sometimes people change or abandon their email address. In that case our emails turn into bounce messages. That is a waste of resources and actually hurts our delivery rates in the eyes of email spam and security databases.

In all likelihood, if you had a bad address, you didn’t get here from our email (which bounced).  You may have landed here from a search, someone linking to us, or remembering us, which is nice.

What If You Are Into Our Newsletter and Miss it Already?

We are flattered, and would welcome you back. If our email brought you here, there are instructions in that message  for you to revive your subscription with a single click. Otherwise, you can signup following the process at www.MarketersFAQ.com.

How Do You Prune Your Email Subscribers?

First, it’s a good idea to believe it should be done. Would you rather have a large “list” or a tight list of highly responsive, active and engaged subscribers? I don’t do it manually, that would be madness, and wouldn’t scale. I actually use a special piece of marketing software. It can probably be done with services like Aweber or iContact, I’ve just not done it with them.

If you want to learn about the service I use, checkout my Review of Infusionsoft or find more info here.

Useful? Helpful? Start engaging now, by chiming in below!

Photo credit: elvissa

So we’ve passed the halfway point in the month, and hopefully you’ve got some value thus far in this online business revival series. We’ve covered reviving various aspects of your online business from quitting to blogging, traffic and more. Today I’d like to talk about one of the problems many likely have with autoresponders without knowing it. Before getting to that, let’s talk about what makes autoresponders great.

The Problem With Autoresponders (Video)

The Benefit of Autoresponder Services

Autoresponders were a game changer 10-15 years ago. They help marketers automate the communication process with anyone who opts-in to their marketing. There are even some uncanny ways to use autoresponders in your business you may not have thought of. While it has gotten more difficult to get email delivered, and for recipients to engage your emails, it still represents a significant return on investment for those in most markets.

The Problem with Autoresponder Services

Of course it isn’t a perfect world with autoresponders. It has its share of problems the big one being…

Age. The content of the follow messages get’s old.  Outdated. Perhaps even yours.

This is especially true for those offering products or services in technology. Things change quickly.

This is more of a problem with the users of autoresponder services not the technology itself.

Even in markets like quilting, or dog training, the way you describe something last year is likely different than how you’d communicate it today. You are (hopefully) growing your marketing and communication skills and can improve on what you did last year, right?

How To Fix It

Review.

If you think your skills haven’t improved, a review of email campaigns written last year might surprise you. You might the process inspires you and propels you reviewing and dialing in your copywriting.

Here’s a video that talks about this concept to make email autoresponders more effective. If you can’t see it below, it can be found on YouTube here.

Revival Through Review

Reviewing your autoresponder sequences and tuning them up a bit, and infuse revival in your business. Questions? Comments? Feedback? Chime in below. Please click the Facebook “Like” button and share if you found this valuable.

Your newsletter subscriber list can be one of the top assets of any online business. The ability to send an email to a responsive is another key to reviving your business. Newsletters used properly grows in value over time as you get more and more visitors join as subscribers. The question often is how to get more subscribers. This post will share several ideas to get more people on your newsletter, if you don’t have a newsletter, may this serve as a motivator to get one rolling soon!

Revive Your Business with More Newsletter Subscribers

Last time, we talked about getting more traffic to your website. With more traffic, comes more opportunity, this is where a newsletter comes in. I believe that marketers need to publish newsletters. It is an asset for any business because on the other end of your website are people, and people are the ones making buying decisions. Let’s talk about ways to grow the list of people subscribing to your newsletter.

1 – Bribe Visitors to Become Subscribers

You have a site, you may even have people on your newsletter list, but you are missing out if you don’t give them something to help them with issues your target market is struggling with.

Some ideas of what to offer:

• FAQ of those in the market for what it is you offer.
• Top Mistakes Most Make When ____________ (starting a blog, starting a garden, starting a business) and How to Avoid Them
• Calculator. This is very effective; people want to know how they measure up. Compare them to others, have them answer a series of questions that allow them to know how they are doing. Then invite them to the “full report” or extended information by signing up for the newsletter.

For example, when people join MarketingProfessor.com they get access to a 2-part MarketersFAQ special report that is designed to help them jumpstart or even revive their online marketing efforts.

2 – Making the Offer at the Right Time

Pop-Over’s are effective on websites. But don’t ask for it too soon. Most popup software or email providers allow you to time the appearance of the popup.

Here is a screenshot from my Aweber account, in the webforms for choosing this setting.

Another effective technique is to include an opt-in form in your blog post template, it is placed at the bottom of posts here.

3 – Referencing Your Newsletter Bribe in Blog Content

When appropriate mention something that is typically only available to subscribers. It might be a piece of subscriber only information, or subscriber feedback on a point that is addressed in your Newsletter signup gift. Careful though, do it too often, and you can sour the interest of the visitor.

If you read this knowing that these are things you need to move forward on, what’s stopping you? If in reading this, you already have these things in place, hang tight. Next up is a post dealing with one of the downfalls of having your auto responders on autopilot.

Preparing for the New Facebook Social Inbox

Earlier this week Facebook announced its intentions to rollout the new Social Inbox over the next several months.  To create a continuous conversation with friends regardless of the modality, in general terms it offers users the following:

• An @facebook.com email address
• Ability to include SMS/txt messages into the discussion stream
• Ability to include instant messages into the discussion stream
• Some support for 3rd party email and messaging systems like Gmail, Jabber, and others.

This graphic depicts the unified services as captured from the live streaming event. You can watch it here, or read how Facebook envisions the service here.

Perhaps the most important part of this announcement that impacts marketers directly is the @facebook.com email addresses users will receive.  It means that means messages will be scrutinized by spam servers, so as to preserve the enjoyable Facebook experience for users.  You might monitor your newsletter service for subscribers with @facebook.com emails, and observe delivery and responses.

Further, the idea that you can hook in other email services into your Social Inbox means that if the service get’s traction, everyone may very well consider this their single messaging system.

Get In Line for Access to this New Service

If it isn’t yet enabled on your account, you can request an invitation to the new social inbox here. Being familiar with the interface makes sense if you want to be in tune with how to reach your audience there.

The phrase “Above the fold” is a Internet term referring to the space in the top portion of a webpage or email, that a visitor sees without invoking the mouse to scroll or go below the fold.  It is the most valuable portion of digital real-estate, a place where headlines, sub-headlines, and teaser copy resides, and it is often wasted with oversized banners, fancy graphics, and lost opportunity to convey value to visitors.  Today, however, there is now a new “fold” to consider, as a result of Gmail’s new Priority Inbox.

What the Gmail Priority Inbox Means to Marketers

The Gmail Priority Inbox is an optional feature of Gmail allowing users to filter emails based on Gmail’s algorithm of engagement with the sender, as “Important and unread”, if the email was “Starred” by the recipient, and “Everything else.” Of course there is heated debate about this approach, as well as it’s legality.

What’s clear is users want relief from the overwhelm most inboxes provide, this is an opportunity for marketers to step up their game.

How it Serves Gmail Users

The benefits of the Priority Inbox is self evident.  Unlike the impact of Google Buzz with privacy concerns, Google is going the other way by helping Gmail users guard their most precious asset, their time.  For anybody with interest in the Internet Marketing industry, you’ve likely been hammered by product launches over and over.  The Gmail Priority inbox will provide relief, and has the potential to buy you back some time in the process.  Sweet.

How the Priority Inbox Serves Marketers – Staying Above the Gmail Fold

If you aren’t looking at the reporting your email service provider offers, you should.  Look at a 12 month report of open rates; you’ll likely see an interesting and disturbing trend.  Now, consider how your messages offer three things for your subscribers.

Relevance: Are your messages relevant to the market?  How do you know?  Ask, and ask often. Learn more on that here.

What are the top challenges of your subscribers and how is that causing them pain (results)? Then figure out how you can provide content that demonstrates your understanding of their challenges and the solution.

Timing: It’s important to understand when email subscribers are most responsive. Check your email stats for open times (Aweber also does a good job of this).  Hint: some markets respond higher to weekend mailings.  And now for the most important aspect of your email marketing.

Engagement: Today it’s all about conversation and feedback.  This is what the priority inbox is all about.  Done right, relevance and timing set the table for engagement. It is engagement that services like Gmail’s priority inbox is designed to filter in or filter out.

Marketers Should Strive to Stay Above the “Priority Inbox Fold”:

A Few Ideas for Engaging Your Subscribers:

• Ask them to answer an important question by replying to you via email.  Offer a personal response.  Not only does this make your communications more meaningful, but this is what Google’s Gmail Priority Inbox factors in placing emails in the “Important and unread” above the Priority Inbox fold. Hint: subscribers of MarketingProfessor.com experience this. :-)
• Hold a contest which is for subscribers only, and requires them to respond via email.
• Have your call to action be a link to a blog post.  Ask them to join the conversation on the blog.
• Ask them to Facebook “Like” your content, if appropriate, tweet it out, or share it on Linked In (if your market is reasonably technical).

It’s worth noting that the search engines favor content having comments, “Likes”, and tweets as stated by Matt Cutts.

Bottom-Line: Don’t Embrace Status Quo

It remains to be seen how quickly Gmail users will adopt the Priority Inbox.  I’m willing to bet that those who continue to use traditional mass and blast approaches to email marketing will need to make adjustments to survive in gmail inboxes.  However, it’s not just Gmail that has taken these measures, services like Hotmail, and Yahoo! Mail that have similar ranking and filtering options in their programs.  Consider the Hotmail Sweep Feature, and Yahoo’s Inbox Filter for emails from contacts or connections.

Here’s a screenshot from my Yahoo account:

More Info About the Priority Inbox:

Gmail Priority Inbox Launches: Your E-mail Will Never Be the Same
Gmail Priority Inbox Sorts Your Email For You. And It’s Fantastic.
Info on Priority Inbox Settings

Trying to be helpful, how’d we do? Consider “Liking” this post (See Facebook button at top), sharing using the social buttons below, and while you are at it, scroll a bit further an chime in with comment below. Won’t know what you’re thinking until you share it. :-)

As a panelist at a recent event I attended this year, I was asked why MarketingProfessor.com visitors are prompted for their email when visiting the site.  After inquiring further, it was evident that for this individual, asking for an email address was taboo and almost offensive.  He is not alone, many share this viewpoint, and suffer for it. In this post I’ll share a few ideas why a publishing a newsletter is essential for your online marketing efforts.

4 Reasons Marketers Need to Publish Newsletters

There can be many streams of revenue for a business, email marketing is one of those potential streams, yet is often overlooked or dismissed without proper consideration.  Here are 4 reasons to have an email newsletter.

Sets Expectations – Subtle But Important

When someone signs up for a “newsletter”, it is understood that they will be communicated with regularly until they unsubscribe.

In contrast, if someone signs up for a special report, or to get access to particular information only, they often disengage if the marketer continues hammering them after they have taken the initial bribe.  In those scenarios there is actually a reverse effect, as some subscribers will get irritated and report it as spam, negatively impacting email delivery rates for the marketer (more on email tracking here).

Relationship Building

The great thing about email is it can be personal, if you make it that way.  If you represent a large company, being “personal” might not be a fit for your newsletter, but the newsletter can have personality.  As the saying goes, “people buy from those they know, like, and trust” sharing what you know is important, and doing so in the context of a story that readers can identify with make it a more compelling relationship building tool.

Newsletters as a Traffic Driver

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media sites can be a great way to drive traffic to your site.  However, if you have a list of email subscribers, with whom you have a relationship with, driving traffic just got easier.  When posting a compelling piece of content, you now have the option to notify subscribers via email of your post and why they will benefit.

Example: I did this a while back after posting a conversation I had with Mari Smith, generating more traffic to the video on YouTube.

Newsletters as a Revenue Driver

If you can drive traffic, you can drive revenue. Recently Darren Rowse of Problogger.net responded an event presenter who thought having a newsletter wouldn’t be worth it, as readers would not click on ads at his site, and therefore did not create one.  In his post Newsletter Readers Do Click Ads, Darren shares a graphic of AdSense earnings from different Traffic sources.  Below is a screenshot:

Beyond that, engaged subscribers can aid your marketing efforts with product ideas and features, as well as future marketing plans such as product launches, there’s offers, cross-sells, affiliate partner offers among other ways to monetize a newsletter.

What we use: MarketingProfessor.com is powered by both Infusionsoft, and Aweber.  Checkout other Recommendations here.

Bottom-line on Email Newsletters

This is not a get rich quick approach, and perhaps why it is scoffed by many…it takes long-term effort and consistency for an email newsletter to pay off. As you set proper expectations, build relationships, you’ll be in a position to drive traffic and revenue.  Done correctly it will level out revenue streams that may be cyclical without it.

Your Turn: You have an email newsletter? Why or why not?
Image Credit: Chris Campbell

Auto-responders have been around for years.  These productivity wonders consist of software that gives users the ability to send pre-written messages at specific times or after a given action has or has not taken place by the recipient.  The market has quite an array of compelling follow-up services to choose from. What differentiates follow-up services is an exercise in research and testing, but how and for whom they are used can make a significant impact on any business. Read on and you’ll learn some of the uncommon ways (not a complete list), auto-responders or follow-up sequences can be used to grow your business.

5 Uncommon Ways to Use Auto-Responders to Grow Your Business

If You Resell Products Online

One of the top benefits of an auto-responder is to remain top of mind.  If you resell products online and have regular communications with the product provider as a result, consider using an auto-responder to remain top of mind with the provider.  There are many ways to do this depending on your situation.

Real-World Example

The company for a product I resell has a slew of territory account representatives.  The site I have that sells their product processes orders for customers in every territory, as a result I have an opportunity to build relationship with each rep, with each prospect and sale. This is especially useful with a company who partners well with resellers (not competing with the reseller for sales).

In my situation, I’ve added sales reps to a follow-up sequence that shares what I’m hearing from customers an finding effective in selling their product, this is part of an introduction sequence put in place when a new sales rep comes on board.  The idea here is as you build the relationship by adding value, sharing valuable information making it a win-win for both.

JV Partners and Affiliates

Similar to product provider sequences, on the flipside, if you have a product that you sell via JV partners and affiliates, you can build relationships with each new product launch.

Affiliates and JV partners managed well can act as an army of sales reps for your company.  Adding them to a follow-up sequence that shares valuable information will help to build rapport with them, and encourage them to promote.

Information shared via auto-responder with partners and affiliates might include:

• Your split testing results for converting offers
• Affiliate marketing training
• Upcoming product launches
• Contest information – standings
• What customers are saying, using data from customer feedback survey’s.
• Product discounts
• Affiliate marketing incentives
• Upcoming offline events you hope to meet them at (broadcast)

Employee Auto-Responders

Whether hiring employees in the traditional sense, or outsourcing talent for a specific role in your company, auto-responders can be a great way to train and provide regular inspiration.  Some ideas include:

• Build on and reference items from the employee manual.
• Orientation or reminders on specific HR processes.
• Mindset, culture and branding information (every employee is an extension of a company’s brand)
• Product features and customer testimonials to help them get excited about changing the world through your company.
• Internal employee profiles, quotes, stories, and social interaction.
• Communicate marketing plans, great for marketing centric organizations.

This is not to replace process and procedure documentation, rather to help orient and affirm them in their role as well as the mindset of the culture.

Those You Met at An Offline Event

If you do a fair amount of networking – attending offline events, following up with those you meet can be a powerful strategy, especially since most don’t do it.

Example: After attending an event, I go through a process of determining who to follow up with.  Individuals are added to an auto-responder sequence which sends them to an article entitled, 3 Strategies for Profitable Followup After an Event or Seminar.

In the email, they are asked  questions to see what they liked most about the event it cultivates a conversation tone, and they are invited to reply to the message. While not everyone responds, many do. This has proven to be a very effective strategy.

Can You Be Using Auto-Responders More Effectively?

How does this information apply to your situation?  I want to hear from you. Whether you resell a product, have a list of JV partners/affiliates, or even attend a lot of networking events.  How can you apply this information to your business? As you leverage auto-responders in these and other areas it will have positive impact on your business.

Learn more about the system I use with 21 Ways I Use Infusionsoft to Automate Followup.

Chime in using the comment boxes below.  Feel free to Like (Facebook), Tweet, or bookmark this post if you think it would be valuable to your peeps.
Image Credit: sarabbit

Inboxes are fatter than ever with offers, pitches, spam (of course), and yes even an occasional personal email from friends and family.  People are simply overwhelmed with email.  In fact, as depicted in the cartoon image to the left, getting and keeping readers attention is where the value is.  Online properties and services are taking notice and responding.  With social circles and engagement time of marketing emails being measured those that were once in the inbox are now arriving in spam, or not at all. Email lists that are not double- opted in are virtually of no value.  Even with double optin subscribers how does a marketer stand out from all the noise, and run profitable campaigns? One word: relevance.  The only way you can provide relevance is to ask subscribers what is relevant to them.  In this post you’ll learn questions you must ask of subscribers in order to offer relevant content, which generates response, and response, sales.

How to Use Survey’s That Increase Email Marketing ROI

Surveys can have an impact on many levels. Simply asking these questions will differentiate you from the competition.  What you do with the information will impact profits. Important tip: making the survey optional is important to the success of the survey.  That said, you certainly should bribe them into completing it. Perhaps bribe is a strong word, consider rewarding them for taking the time and sharing their feedback.

Who Is On Your List?

Here are four categories to help you determine who your audience is.

Sex: Men and women in general have unique interests and buying patterns.  This information will help you provide more relevant and targeted information.
Age: Provide ranges for subscribers to share their birth year.  This is important because as time goes on, you their birth year will not change, but their age will.
Education: Ask if they have graduated high school, or have a given college degree.
Experience Level: Understand how to talk with them, find out how long they have been in the industry or field of interest that you are serving subscribers.

What Do They Expect?

Ask what their #1 struggle is with [industry/topic of interest]:  Provide an open text box for them to put it in their own words. After you have a decent sampling (100 or so responses), you can develop themes and perhaps develop a drop down of choices to choose from instead.

6 Months Question: What will they experience over the next 6 months to know signing up as a subscriber was a smart move from them.
This information is useful as you develop email marketing campaigns to send to subscribers.  You can also follow up in a few months time to ask how you are doing, and build a bank of testimonials in the process.

When to Communicate?

This is tricky as subscribers may not know the answers, but simply asking these questions shows that you care, and will have a positive impact on your email marketing effectiveness.

Timing: Ask when the best day of week and time of day is best to receive emails.
Frequency: How often would they like to hear from you.  Daily, 2x a week? Weekly?  2x a Month? Month? Quarterly?

You might also offer a “no preference” response to each of these questions.  The point here is to let subscribers determine how your content should be unique to them.

You don’t have to implement every survey response in your marketing.  Share that you may or may not be able to honor their timing preference immediately, depending on subscriber demand and functions of your email service provider.

Some Final Words on Using Surveys to Derive Meaningful Content

Be sure to thank subscribers for their time and participation after completing the survey.  use the survey thank you page to deliver any promised bribes for their participation.

Review the feedback, and strategize how to improve your email marketing content going forward.  Share with subscribers how the feedback will be implemented to make the information shared more valuable.

As you implement changes based on survey results, not only will your subscribers appreciate you asking, but they will have a tighter connection to you, resulting in less spam complaints, more responsiveness, and more sales.

Feedback? Have your own experiences to share, or suggestions, engage using the comment boxes below.
Cartoon Image Credit: Geek and Poke