Email is a great customer relationship tool that helps build trust, but at the end of the day successful email campaigns get results.

Results are what successful businesses are born and built on.

Your email could have the most convincing copy, amazing design, and perfect layout. If it doesn’t get people to take the desired action then all that creative work was a waste.

But there is a proven formula for creating email campaigns that will always get results.

Right Message + Right Person + Right Time = Successful Email

I know the first thing that came to your mind after reading that, “How do I know what the right message, person, or time is?”

While that’s a very good question, I’m here to tell you that the answer is really not as difficult as you think. You don’t have to be a great copywriting to create successful email campaigns, you have to know how the ingredients of a great email.

Right Message = Relevance

The only type of email you should ever be sending are relevant ones. Relevance leads to response, which in turn leads to results.

Send people email that they actually care about; something that revolves around their interests and caters to their needs, not mindless babble about your company.

Transactional Email is one of the more relevant kinds of emails you could possibly send. A transactional email is a email that you send based off an action that was taken by a prospect or customer.

Amazon sends great transactional email. Here’s an email that I got from them some time ago:

Why is this email great? How is it relevant?

It’s focus on me. (the customer)

I recently added Always Be Testing: The Complete Guide to Google Website Optimizer to my shopping cart but I never followed through with the checkout process. Amazon, recognizing an opportunity to salvage the transaction, sent me an email reminding me that I have this book waiting in my shopping cart.

Not only are the letting me know that they are paying attention to me and understand that my life is busy (which I appreciate), but they are also making it easy for me to finish the purchase (which I also appreciate). This will lead to recovering what could have very easily been a lost sale.

How can you do this?

Next time you send an email to your list, watch to see who clicks through on links and who doesn’t.

From there you have an opportunity to send an email to both the group of people who didn’t click, maybe to remind them that they are missing out like Amazon did with me, or email those who took action and thank them.

Remember, Relevance leads to response.

Right Person = Segmentation

I’d bet good money that at least a good 89% of you reading this don’t segment your list before blasting out emails.

Segmentation is one of the most overlooked aspects of email marketing, but one of the most important.

Email campaigns that are targeted on specific segments usually perform best because they’re more focused on each market. Customers in New York don’t care about a new store opening in San Francisco.

The concept is a simple one. Your target audience consists of a number of different personas, or different types of individuals. All of these people have different wants, needs, and behavioral patterns. Not only that, but they may live is totally different parts of the world.

So from what I just pointed out you could segment based off personal interest, behavior, and location. Now tell me, how many of you actually take all these things into consideration before you press send?

In order for you to get optimal results, you need to make sure you’re sending your email to the right customers.

Segmentation leads to more relevant campaigns.

Next time you’re going to send out a newsletter or some other announcement, make sure you segment your list accordingly. Most email service providers make it really easy to do so don’t sweat it.

If you’re looking for a quality service provider, give Aweber (affiliate link) a try.

Right Time = Timely/Frequency

Sending at the right time is pretty self explanatory, but I want to touch on a few things.

Sending timely email is very important, especially if you are in the media and news industry where everything is time sensitive. The more timely your email, the better the results.

Frequency is also an important part of the right time equation. Email is great for building a relationship with your subscribers, but there’s a thin line between regular emails and being downright spammy.

Check your analytics to see how emails are performing overtime on certain days. Wednesday is said to be the best day to send email, but every list is different.

 What About You?

Are you sending the right message, to the right person, at the right time? Are you sending relevant email?

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Email is a necessity for every business, and this doesn’t look like it’ll be changing any time soon. But using video email just makes your marketing much more effective.

Research shows that 67 percent of business executives said email was the most effective marketing channel for building customer loyalty and retention. Of that same group, 44 percent said that email was also the most effective way to drive sales.

Email is just great, but what happens when you add one of the most popular forms of content to an already powerful marketing channel?

Successful marketing happens.

What Makes Video So Great?

We’ve all heard the content is king adage by now, but if we had to get more specific I think it’d be something like, “Video Content is King”.

In 2012, online video is projected to be viewed by a total of 163 million US citizens or 53 percent of US citizens, which represents 70 percent of all internet users in the United States.

In a survey that polled small business marketers, over 50 percent of respondents claimed that video email increased click-through rates and traffic to landing pages.

Yes, video is very real and relevant.

AND….

Just in case you’ve been living under a rock that last couple of years, YouTube is the #2 search engine on the web.

Do I have really have to tell you that you should be using video email?

I know some of you need the push here it goes…… YOU NEED TO BE USING VIDEO EMAIL!!!

Services like GetResponse and iWowWe make using video email super easy. If you’re looking into using video I recommend you check them out.

How to Use Video Email

After talking all this video email smack, I thought I’d give you a few things you could do today to benefit from video email campaigns.

1) Training Courses/ Tutorials

There are some things that are just better off being left for video. If I was to teach you how to set up autoresponders with Aweber (affiliate link) would it be much easier to understand if I made a video opposed to simply writing a blog post about it?

Video training courses are a great way to share you expertise with your online following. You could have a video series sent out to all your new subscribers, or do a tutorial to show your customers how to navigate your new website design.

2) Product Demos

Giving prospects a free demonstration of how your product works is a great way to boost sales. Product demos are a great way to eliminate or minimize risk. Video email makes it really easy to get your demos to your customers. A real person showing them exactly what type of experience they can expect puts people at ease and one step closer to purchasing.

Scribe SEO (affiliate link) has a great video demo that shows prospects the functionality of their product and how it will benefit customers and get them results. Wouldn’t that help you make buying decisions?

3) Product Promotions

Video is a great medium for promoting products and services, and pretty much anything else you could think of. Although it isn’t always utilized, video is great for spreading the word about your offering.

People gets to see another human inform (and hopeful entertain them if appropriate) about a product or service that will add value to their lives. The bottom line is that people relate to other people, but what makes video so powerful is not only are they hearing a another person but they are getting a visual as well.

People have a tendency to trust the actions and opinions of other people just like them. Video subconsciously uses social proof to persuade and influence viewers.

4) Customer Testimonials

A testimonial is a form of referral, which is the most powerful and ideal type of endorsement a business could ever wish to have. People do business with people they know, like, and trust. How likely is it that someone would buy based off some feedback they got from a friend? Very

People are more likely to believe the endorsement of a friend or average joe than that of a celebrity. Why? People trust regular people like them, plus it’s no secret that celebrities get endorsement deals. That communications a less-than-honest endorsement.

Providing a short 3 minute video clip of customers raving about how great your product or service is with definitely boost sales. Trust me on this :-)

5) Special Announcements

Sometimes you just want to talk to your customers and bring attention to certain things. Sometimes you want to get some feedback, or announce a breakthrough or power move. Whatever the situation, video is fitting. Like email, video is great for building a personal connection while getting the overall message across effectively.

Announce a contest, a new logo or web design. You could even announce a new and improved product offering. What I’m getting at is video email is always good for the job.

What About You?

Are you using video in your email marketing campaigns? What are some of the ways you’ve been successful with video email? If you haven’t used video, why so?

Leave your comments below and be sure to share this with a friend! :-)

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One of the reasons email is such a powerful marketing tool is that it is completely measurable and data driven.

This means that you’ll be able to see exactly what is working and what’s not. As my buddy Scott Hardigee says, “Email is honest.”

I couldn’t agree more.

The 6 most important email measurements of your email campaigns performance are…

Emails Delivered

This one is pretty straight forward. This is the number of people who received your email.

This number is usually a benchmark for figuring out other measurements like opens and clickthroughs.

Bounces

A bounce simply means that your email was rejected by the recipients ISP for one of a number of different reasons. It’s important to note that there are two different types of bounces, hard bounce and soft bounce.

A soft bounce means your email failed to be delivered to a reason like a server failure or a full inbox

A hard bounce occurs when your email fails to be delivered due to something like an invalid email address or spam block

Bounce rates are important to note because hard bounces tells you that the reason for non delivery is due to a permanent condition, while soft bounces indicates a more temporary condition.

Open Rates

This is a measurement of the number of email opened by the recipient, usually expressed as a percentage.

Open rates are important to monitor because an email can be delivered but not opened. Low open rates might be an indicator that you arent using effective subject lines, or that your email might not be relevant to your subscribers.

Unsubscribes

High unsubscribe rates usually mean you’re doing one or more things terribly wrong. In such a case, you need to become extremely focused on the execution of your email.

Unsubscribes are a result of neglecting to test email consistently.

Pass On Rate

This a metric that shows how many subscribers are forwarding your email to other people. This is a good measuring stick for how much people enjoy your email.

The higher the pass on rate the more viral your email becomes.  Adding a “forward to friend” link in every email will encourage this number to increase.

Click-through Rates

This is a measurement of the effectiveness of the email in regards to the placement of links in the content.

The goal of your email is ultimately to get people to take action. You use an effective call to action so you can entice subscribers to convert or click through on your links.

High click through rates are a byproduct of well constructed email, that usually lead to increase customer loyalty and higher revenue.

What About You?

Are you measuring you’re email? What are you measuring?

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The most common form of email testing is the A/B split test. Yet research shows that only 32% of companies test regularly and 13% don’t test at all. This means that if you commit to testing every email that you’d have a huge advantage over your competition.

This split test would involve you sending one version to a specific segment on your audience, then sending a modified or test version to the rest of your subscribers. By monitoring the results of each you can determine which version had better results.

Testing and monitoring are essential and they go hand in hand. It’s extremely important to analyze your results to make sure you are implementing the most effective strategies in your email campaigns.

There are a number of variables you could test, but there are 7 main ones that every smart email marketer tests. They go as follows:

Subject Lines

The subject line is arguably the single most important part of an email and because of that it’s the most popular element of email to test. Subject lines are responsible for compelling the recipients to open the email.

There is an art to creating subject lines that inspire action, and a good email marketer knows an email’s Achilles heel is a killer headline.

It’s imperative that you test to see which subject lines work and which ones don’t on a regular basis. This kind of analysis will help improve the success of future campaigns.

While subject lines are important, they aren’t the end all be all when it comes to testing. So don’t think you can test your subject line and leave it at that.

Send Times

Our subscribers are real people with real lives; all with different schedules and behavioral patterns. This is mind, testing to find out the best time to send email is crucial to maintaining a high level of response.

Everybody has different times when they read their email; some wait til they get to work and others read whenever they get a moment of downtime.

The VERY first thing I do in the morning is check my email (yes, I have a problem), and I continue to check them constantly throughout the day (don’t judge me, haha)

But my point is that if you know when your readers are more likely to read their email then its in your best interest to be in their inbox at that time.

Depending on how diverse your email list is geographically, you might even send out your blasts to each region at different times if it makes sense. Whatever the situation, make sure you test and figure out a time that works in your favor.

Best Day to Send

Just like there are certain times when people are most likely to read email, there are also certain days when people are most likely to do so as well. Not every checks their email everyday. Even if they do, the volume may prevent them from getting through them all in one shot.

Make sure you monitor what days you get the most open. The weekend is obviously a “no send zone” because people are generally in chill mode and don’t care to deal with anything that isn’t in the “leisure” category.

Aim for Tuesday through Thursday, with Wednesday being the most ideal day. Of course this doesn’t apply to time sensitive messages, but you catch my drift.

Layout

Good design is very important to how readers digest your content and message. Testing different layouts can show you what sections people are paying to and could even help emphasize certain information.

While I like to use text only email (mainly because there are no issue with rendering images), I really appreciate an email with a beautiful layout and design.

Don’t think layout and design are important?

Good design and layout is like the beat on a song. The beat sets the tone, it speaks to your soul and dictates the rhythm for the lyrical to fall into place. Ask yourself if you’d listen to an album full of lyrics acapella? I think not. Know why? You won’t feel the music.

Good design speaks to people’s emotions and subconscious. People might forget what you said to them but they’ll never forget how you mad them feel.

Text vs. Button Links

Every email has some type of hyperlink (or at least I would hope yours do). Whether you are directing readers to more content or you’re sending them to a checkout page, you need to tell them to do so in a clear and direct way.

When you use a CTA, you may use anchor text or you might use one of those “Buy Now” or “Add To Cart” buttons you see on sales pages. Both can be very effective if used correctly and under the right circumstances

How do you think you’re going to find out which is more effective?

Yup, Testing

I really don’t like absolutes but you really won’t ever be successful long term is you don’t test. Act accordingly

Database Segmentation

Segmentation is the most overlooked aspect of email marketing; ironically it’s one of the most vital at the same time. As I explained earlier, your subscribers have different behavioral patterns, demographics, and subscribe for many reasons. Marketers need to be aware of this and craft there messages accordingly.

For example, if Nike was having a meet and greet event in Los Angeles to celebrate the release of a new Kobe Bryant sneaker they would definitely be wise to send this out to people in California. Sending this email to people in New York would almost guarantee that you get your email deleted.

Why?

A meet and greet in LA isn’t relevant to people in New York because they can’t go.

Relevance leads to response. Segmentation allows you target a specific population in your database.

Here I used location as an example, but you could segment your list according to most recent purchase, time spent in your database and lots of others ways. The more data you have the more you can segment your list

Call to Action

Testing a CTA is very helpful is finding out what kind of instructions or directive people respond to more. A call to action is the Mariano Rivera of email, meaning it’s the closer, the finisher, it seals the deal.

If you don’t have a call to action then your recipients won’t take action because they don’t know what you want them to do next. The purpose of any marketing effort is to get people to buy something or take some other desired action, and email is certainly no different.

You might want to test several different CTAs over a period of time to see what works best. If you have a free report you want to give away, you might test “Download your free report now” against “Get access to this free report today” to see what works best. Whatever converts better should be taken into consideration for future use

What About You?

Are you testing your email? What things are you testing? How are you applying them to future campaigns? If you’ve been testing for a while now, what kind of results have you been getting?

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There are many bloggers and businesses out there who are struggling to get conversions. Not just in the sense of building an email list, but also get more fans on social networks or just more customers in general. The reason they struggle is because they don’t get to the root of why people actually convert in the first place.

Ok, I’ll cut to the chance and explain this as simple as possible. Conversations start the conversion process. Yes, that’s it. How? Because conversation helps build trust and rapport with others. Here’s the formula incase you need to see it a different way.

Conversations + Content = Conversions

When I say conversations, I don’t just mean go around talking to people about random stuff. I mean engaging in meaningful dialogue, the type that brings about change. Let me go a step further and explain my logic.

Conversations

We converse every day with a bunch of people daily about a number of different things. In this context though, I don’t want you to look at a conversation for face value. When I speak of conversations, I’m speaking about doing research.

Although it may not seems like it, it really is a very subtle way of surveying and conducting research. Most people when engaged, will hint at some type of issue or problem their experiencing.

Some will ask a question directly, while others will elude to things indirectly. It’s our job to be actively listening and probing (in a non-intrusive manner), because there lies a big opportunity.

Don’t just talk at people, and don’t focus the conversation on yourself. Join active conversations, speak with others, and share your knowledge whenever you can. Make sure to ask questions, the right questions.

The ultimate goal here is to build trust and rapport, as well as be able to identify what specific problems people are having.

Content

There are various forms of content; text, audio, video are the three main forms we come in contact with daily on the internet. While the conversation is the research part of the equation, the content is your opportunity to provide a solution.

The difference between “the crowd” and the standouts in any field is usually their ability to address a need or solve a problem. This is the same approach that needs to be taking when you approach creating your own content.

This is also how you create what’s called cornerstone content, the stuff that gets RT’d and linked to like crazy on the web.

If case you missed it, you need to create content that solves a specific problem. While it’s difficult to create this type of stuff every time out, it’s definitely not out of the question. There are a few ways to create cornerstone content, here are a few ideas:

-       Interview high profile figures in your niche/industry

-       Explain a very complex topic in a simple manner

-       Put out detailed reports or surveys

Be sure to take the information you’ve gathered in your conversations and create the most amazing, jaw-dropping, compelling, informative content you possibly can. I can guarantee you that you will see a significant improvement in traffic, engagement, and subscribers across your marketing channels.

How Does All This Apply To Conversions?

Conversions come down to your ability to close sales or transactions. There is a direct correlation between your conversion rate and the amount of trust you’ve gained.

People need a compelling reason to buy into you and your offering. The market is extremely over saturated and mediocrity is at an all time high. Taking the time to listen and solve people’s problems will make you standout from all the noise. You have to give people a reason to convert, you have to reach out to them.

If you remember nothing else in this post you should remember this, People don’t care about what you know until they know you care about them and their problems.

What About You?

Are you having two-way dialogue with your audience or are you dominating the conversations? Are you actively listening, engaging, and reacting to current/potential customer needs? How are you building trust and rapport?

If you found this article useful, please share it with your friends because that’s how ideas spread!!!

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