Moms are the best. They urge us to be better, scold us when we’re wrong and scoop us up when we fall. Simply put, they are our biggest fans.
While motherly prodding is sometimes annoying, there’s no denying that ‘momisms’ guide us through lots of sticky situations and come in handy when we least expect them to.
Moms even know what they’re talking about when it comes to working on your email marketing campaign. Follow this advice for a mom-approved campaign.
Treat Others the Way You Like to be Treated
It’s the golden rule, and really quite simple to adhere to. Your email list is made up of people, and those email addresses that you covet really belong to human beings.
Don’t talk at them, but engage in conversation and invite feedback in a friendly and polite manner.
Be Yourself
Everyone is a little quirky. Use your uniqueness to your advantage and make your newsletter a reflection of your personal style. Your personality sets you apart, and it could be the edge that brings subscribers back for more each week.
Mind Your P’s and Q’s
Remember though, just because your newsletter reflects your personality does not mean it is the right stage for your personal rants and raves.
Be polite; don’t discuss topics that might offend your subscribers or you might have to wash out your mouth with soap!
You Catch More Flies with Honey Than Vinegar
Use an incentive in your web form to sweeten the deal. Outline the benefits to subscribing to your list, and always use positive language. If you constantly berate your competitors, subscribers will pick up on your negativity.
Take a hint from big box retailers. If a subscriber finds a product elsewhere for less, honor the discount if possible. If you don’t have something in stock, point your subscriber elsewhere. They will appreciate your frankness, and will remember that you were looking out for their best interest down the road, which will give you a great advantage.
What If Everyone Jumped Off a Cliff? Would You Jump Too?
Your competitor recently purchased a list, and now their readership has grown by leaps and bounds. Does that mean you should do it too?
Sometimes doing the right thing is hard. It’s not easy to build a list, but in the long run you will win when you have legitimate and engaged subscribers.
If You Make a Mess, You Clean it Up
Mistakes happen. If you send out an email without a subject line, or you send to your whole list instead of a segment, use the opportunity to apologize to your subscribers.
Don’t brush it under the rug or run and hide like when you broke your mom’s favorite vase in the 4th grade. As moms say, learn from your mistakes.
Never Be Too Proud to Ask For Help When You Need It
We’re always here to help – not just on Mother’s Day.
At the beginning of your email marketing campaign, you spent hours carefully crafting each message, tweaking every detail. You pressed the “send” button with pride, and your subscribers were impressed with your valuable ideas.
Except the ones who deleted your emails or saved them “for later”. And the ones who hadn’t signed up yet.
Now, when you mention those ideas in new emails, confusion builds for those subscribers. Link back to your original explanation, and that confusion crumbles.
Creating those links is as easy as 1, 2, 3 with AWeber’s broadcast archive.
3 Steps to Clear the Confusion
Click Syndicate
Start at the broadcast editing page. Scroll down to “Syndicate”. If you haven’t checked this box, you’ll need to now. This creates the web version of your broadcast.
Grab Link
The “My Web Archive” link displays a list of links to all your broadcasts. Copy the “Direct Link” to share the single broadcast you’re working with.
Insert Link
In the new message you’re composing, highlight a few words that best describe the concept you’re linking to. Use the “Insert/Edit Hyperlink” tool to create the link.
With these links in place, clueless or confused subscribers can simply click, and your old emails will tell them all they need to know.
How do You Keep Subscribers on the Same Page?
Are you sensitive to the gap between how much your new subscribers and your veteran subscribers know?
Have you tried linking back to previous broadcasts in you new messages or follow-ups? Does it seem to have an effect?
Do you have other ways of keeping subscribers on the same page?
No painted yellow lines exist on the road to email marketing mastery. Blogs, books, and case studies are piled into mountains, and climbing them can be daunting.
Fortunately, your fellow email marketers have left signposts along the way. Their comments, tweets and reviews signal which resources they found most useful. Their comments add their voices into the discussion, making that resource even more valuable.
One hill in those mountains of resources is the AWeber blog. Our readers’ comments and tweets show which posts they appreciate most. Those posts are assembled below to give you insight into some of the biggest issues that could crop up in your path.
A sense of urgency in your subject lines might prompt more subscribers to open your emails. Getting too dramatic, however, jeopardizes your credibility.
Find out how to strike the right balance with compelling, straightforward subject lines.
This industrial rock band has a marketing strategy as alternative as its sound. Email’s conversational, customizable nature means it’s an ideal medium for putting this strategy to use.
Read this post to discover ways you, too, can market like a rock star.
Personalizing emails with subscriber names has been reported to send opens and clicks skyrocketing. It might do the same for you – but it might also cause other problems.
Learn what they could be, and then discover some deeper, more useful ways to personalize.
Written as a response to no-spend New Year’s resolutions, this post is appropriate for any time you hit a lull in sales. Instead of pushing discounts that customers don’t want and you can’t afford, use this time to build loyalty with these entertaining ideas.
Before customers even get to your subject line, they encounter your from line. But what do they see there?
Different ISPs have different cutoff points, so your from line might be chopped in a way that leaves subscribers questioning who you are. Find out how to rewrite your from line for maximum recognition.
If You’re Lost, Ask Us For Directions!
If you find yourself confused by anything in these posts, you are welcome to contact our helpful and friendly Customer Solutions team. We’ll be happy to provide the best directions we can to guide you on your journey.
If, instead, you have a brilliant insight about any of these posts that you want to share, please feel free to leave your own comment. We look forward to reading your take on these topics!
Did you know that a key component of real estate marketing isrelationship marketing? A successful real estate professional should focus on customer trust in the same way an internet marketer does.
In both fields, trust and reputation are important. And once both are built, you should have no problem growing your marketing sphere of influence.
Let’s take a look at how you can use AWeber to your advantage in the email marketing and real estate worlds.
Why Build Relationships?
Building a good relationship with your contacts is a must in today’s marketing world. It can take you into the realms of stellar achievement both on the local and global marketplaces.
Also, a home can the biggest investment a family will ever make. It’s very important for people to have a high level of trust in you. This is the place their family is going to come home to; they’ll create many special memories there.
Once you have built this trust, your contacts will always come to you when they need something. In addition to this, your customer’s word-of-mouth business can prove invaluable.
Some Relationship Building Ideas for Realtors
Because of it’s dynamic nature, real estate marketing can lend itself to creative ideas. Building your reputation can be a unique adventure.
Here are a few that you may find helpful for your prospective referrals:
Local Email Newsletter or Blog
Instead of going for a sale every time you send out an email newsletter, why not offer your subscribers interesting information about their area, including:
As a Realtor, there are several events that you can use our email newsletter tool for:
Getting a new listing
Putting a listing under contract
Closing a deal (either on the buyer or seller side)
I highly recommend segmenting your list when sending to these different categories. You can easily notify different types of people, based on which of the above events happened.
Open Houses
AWeber can be used to broadcast open houses as well as broker’s open houses to colleagues. You can have an email list for homeowners, let’s say, and a separate list for agents and brokers in the area.
Periodic CMAs
Why not send a monthly or quarterly Comparative Market Analysis, or CMA, to the people on your list? It will spark their interest and start a dialogue in case they are interested in buying or selling property.
Offer Free and Personal Help
What better way to gain trust as well as a potential client than to offer free information based on their needs? Not only will you learn much more about who they are, but you can develop the type of quality in your relationship that is so important.
Of Realtors and SPAM
It’s very important for Realtors to know which practices are acceptable and which aren’t. There is a bit of a difference between traditional real estate marketing as opposed to what is acceptable in the email marketing world.
Realtors use a technique called farming in order to reach out to people in their area. This can be done in the form of sending unsolicited postal mail to a given area, over long periods of time.
Farming to email addresses is considered SPAM – bottom line. Because SPAM is such a problem worldwide, it is completely unacceptable to send out unsolicited email to those who have never asked you for it. This includes people in your local board of Realtors, NAR, or from any type of directory.
If you have any questions about specific marketing practices, please feel free to contact us. We would be more than happy to answer your questions.
A Realtor Apart
The merger of real estate and email marketing can be a very exciting and lucrative one. If done correctly, it can add a new level to your creative approach and set you apart from the rest.
Keeping the points above in mind, how can you use AWeber to establish and strengthen relationships? Share your ideas.
AWeber Affiliate Manager Ron Givens has been practicing real estate for over ten years, and in three different states. He has experience in both residential and commercial sales.
There’s a ripple moving through the marketing world, and it’s bringing change.
According to industry experts, customer service is “the new marketing“. When you take care of your customers, they feel good about you. When they feel good about you, they stick with you.
With email marketing, thoughtlessly pushing the same message at your entire customer base is no longer enough. It doesn’t take care of them. It doesn’t show that you recognize and respect them.
Let’s take a look at how you can apply the new marketing approach to revolutionize your email campaign.
“Old marketing would be: find buyers for my product. Hunt them down and relentlessly hit them with messages until they buy. The bigger the number of prospects, the better the yield.
“New marketing is more like: find people who make more sense. Start relationships with them before selling to them. Learn more about them. Make the offer – if it makes sense.“
Broken down step by step, this advice holds several useful suggestions for email marketing in ways that serve your customers.
“Start relationships before selling to them.”
In a video interview, AWeber customer Chris Guillebeau says about his subscribers, “I’m going to be in these relationships for years.” So he invests time courting each one.
He sends each new subscriber an individual message to thank them for joining. It’s quick and small, but an appreciated personal touch.
In his first autoresponder, he candidly expresses hope that they’ll find his emails interesting.
In the next few emails, he challenges readers to reflect on their lives and goals – no sales yet. A few messages in, he invites feedback. And then he responds to it.
“As you gradually introduce products and services,” he explains, “many of those people will end up purchasing and supporting you.”
“Learn more about them.”
The best way to learn about your customers is to ask about them. You could:
Use a from address that invites replies, instead of refusing them
Guillebeau suggests the question: “Why do you read my (emails)?” The answers he got from his own readers helped him entirely reconceptualize his content.
“Make the offer – if it makes sense.”
Make sure each product you introduce is something your audience wants. Then, make sure you get them ready for it.
Guillebeau leads up to the launch of each product or service by introducing it ahead of time.
Flint McGlaughlin of MarketingExperiments suggests thanking existing customers for their past purchases. This establishes a level of intimacy and reminds them that they trust you already.
You could also segment – split your list into new, mature and veteran subscribers. Each segment might appreciate different offers. Every few months, reset the segments.
Keep in Mind
The key to new marketing is building two-way, trusting relationships with your subscribers. You want their purchases, yes. But you also need their word-of-mouth support, their ideas and their goodwill.
“You must overcome the resistance before you can even start the sale,” says McGlaughlin. “Don’t ask me to kiss you before we’ve even gone on a date.”
You want a community of engaged readers. Your subscribers want interesting content in a layout they like. You’re both looking for love at first click.
As in any relationship, the best way for you to both get what you want from your email marketing is to set clear expectations from the very beginning.
An example of your newsletter goes a long way toward setting correct expectations. But how can you share one before the signup?
It’s easy, actually. Just combine two of the tools in your AWeber account – the broadcast archive and the web form generator. This combo lets you offer a sneak peek of your campaign to make sure it’s a good fit for each new subscriber.
Here’s how:
Link to a Past Email Newsletter at Signup
The broadcast archive stores web versions of your past broadcast messages. The web form generator lets you create custom signup forms where people can subscribe to your emails.
To show your newsletter to potential subscribers before they sign up, you would simply need to display a link on your web form to the archived version of one of your newsletters, like this:
Choose a newsletter to be your example
Scroll through your past newsletters Broadcast page. Choose the one you think best represents your emails. Remember, you’re trying to give the most accurate depiction of what you’ll be sending your subscribers.
Grab the link for it
Open the message you’ve chosen in the message editor. Scroll down to the “Syndicate” section. You’ll need to syndicate the message if you haven’t done so yet – this publishes it to the web.
The part you will use is the “Direct Link”. You can copy this link whenever you are ready to put it into your web form.
Add the link to your web form
Open the web form you’d like to use (or create a new one) in the web form generator. Decide where you’d like to put the link to your newsletter example.
Then decide what words to use and click on the Text icon to add them to the form. Remember, it’s an invitation, so be welcoming, not pushy.
Type the text you want in the editing box. Highlight it, click the link icon and paste in that link from Step 2. When you’re satisfied, save the changes.
If the text doesn’t appear where you want it to on the form, simply click and drag the field to the proper place.
Start Using Your New Web Form
Congratulations! You’ve just upgraded from asking subscribers to take a shot in the dark to letting them make an informed decision.
You are one step closer to a community of interested readers who look forward to your messages.
Your Thoughts
Do you share an example of your newsletter or product before asking people to sign up for it? Does this seem to make a difference?
Can you think of any cases when you might not want to share an example first? How can you set clear expectations about your emails in these cases?
We always enjoy the ideas you share. Let us know what you think about setting expectations with a newsletter example below.
We appreciate people we can trust. We are more likely to give them our time. We are far more likely to give them our business.
You want your subscribers to trust you (and give you their time and possibly their business), but they may not know if they can. How can you reassure them?
We’ve talked about building trust with welcome messages and privacy policies. Another key is using transparency throughout your campaign. Be up-front, be honest, be approachable. In the anonymous Internet cloud, be someone real and tangible.
There are several effective ways you can do this:
How to Be Transparent In Your Emails
First, include a valid postal address.
Yes, this is already required by CAN-SPAM, but it also conveys your authenticity. You aren’t afraid to provide your location, so you must be on the level. And if you do get snail mail from a subscriber, you’ll be able to respond.
Put your face where your mouth is. Include your picture in your emails to put your subscribers even more at ease. Bonus points if you’re wearing a friendly smile (see below).
Post a link to your privacy policy on your web form and in your emails. This reassures subscribers that you will keep their information secure.
Provide valid FAQs.
If the answers are evasive or vague, alarm bells might go off in your subscribers’ heads. Answer directly. Answer completely. Answer helpfully. Then provide a way to ask questions you may have missed.
Deliver what you promise.
If you offer a 30-minute Pilates video, there should be 30 full minutes of quality instruction and demonstration. If you link to a how-to guide, the landing page should be that actual guide, not an ad. Follow through, and you won’t break trust.
If you want to be transparent, approachable and trustworthy, do NOT list a ‘do not reply’ email address in the from line. If your subscribers can’t contact you back, you are not in a dialogue; you’re just blasting them with information. Hitting ‘reply’ is the most natural way for them to respond. Stop them from doing so, and it looks like you’ve got something to hide.
How Do You Build Credibility?
How do you show subscribers that you are trustworthy? Have you found some methods more effective than others?
Thank you for sharing!
Amanda 3103 Philmont Ave. Ste. 200 Huntingdon Valley, PA 19006, USA
Just a few months ago, New Year’s resolutions were the highlight of many email marketing conversations.
With the best intentions, businesses set out to grow their lists by the thousands and send more targeted, relevant messages. They made lists and reviewed last year’s figures, invigorated by the new year and certain that they could increase click through rates and ROI by leaps and bounds.
Perhaps you even set lofty goals for your own campaign, only to be sidetracked by more pressing issues. If you’ve temporarily put your resolutions on the back burner, refocus your efforts with these spring cleaning techniques.
Dust Off Your Messages
You should treat old emails like attic treasures. Just like you stash your belongings away, only to rediscover them in a flurry of excitement later on, take a close look at your existing messages and examine the available reports for your account.
The Verified Subscribers report shows exactly how many people have confirmed their subscription in the past 30 days. If you aren’t satisfied with your current results, re-purpose your old confirmation email to make it sparkle.
The Follow Up Totals report displays the total number of clicks and opens for each message. If necessary, change up your content to make it more conversational and engaging and fine tune your follow up messages to reflect questions that you frequently receive from subscribers. Examine your subject lines and determine if they are compelling and consistent enough to click through.
Using templates? Make sure your messages look good in all email clients – test them.
Make your forms shine without any HTML knowledge whatsoever. You can create visually appealing forms that give your website a more polished and professional look in only 5 minutes.
Because you don’t need to edit the HTML for your page each time you work on your form, you can make changes whenever you want without a hassle – you could even try seasonal templates if you’re feeling festive.
Campaign Overhaul: Renovating Emails and Forms
When you’re pouring over various reports and rewriting entire message sequences, how can you be sure that the changes you’re making are the best for your email marketing efforts? By split testing, of course.
Split testing lets you conduct a controlled experiment with your sign up forms and messages to help to see which factors make them perform better for your campaigns.
Does sending in the morning work better than sending in the afternoon?
Does using a button instead of a text link get me more clicks?
Does subject line personalization get you more, or fewer, opens?
For accurate results, split test broadcasts can only be created for lists that have at least 100 active subscribers.
Revive Your List With Some Careful Pruning
Yard work goes hand in hand with spring cleaning, and it’s common landscaping knowledge that most plants benefit from regular maintenance. Take a cue from mother nature – with careful pruning, your list can flourish.
This is not to say that you should immediately unsubscribe anyone who hasn’t opened recent emails.
Consider the number of disengaged subscribers on your list. To start, search for subscribers that haven’t opened a message in 3-6 months. Are there a lot of them?
Resist the urge to channel your inner Edward Scissorhands; don’t delete them them – try to reengage them first!
Think about what you offer in your emails. If your product is seasonal, are those subscribers really inactive? Perhaps they are simply not opening your messages because they are familiar with your brand and assume that they will still receive emails when they are ready to purchase.
What are Your Housekeeping Plans?
Are you clearing out your unsubscribes anyway, despite our advice to think it over? Rewriting messages?
Customer satisfaction is vital for a company’s success. You take care of every customer, not only because you appreciate their business, but also because you know the profound effect of word-of-mouth.
Promptly responding to feedback can make you in an otherwise break-you situation. Read on to discover one company whose lack of response cost them millions, and three others whose effort earned them rave reviews.
As Joseph Jaffe points out, “Retention is the new acquisition.” Work on your own retention with these ideas on finding out what subscribers want – and delivering it.
A Public Relations Nightmare
Canadian country singer Dave Carroll‘s guitar was broken in spring of 2008 by United Airlines’ boisterous baggage handling.
The airline ignored Carroll’s complaints for months. Fed up, he launched a YouTube video informing the public that United breaks guitars (and a follow-up about the messy aftermath.)
The video was viewed over 7.5 million times. United eventually offered Carroll a settlement, which he redirected to charity.
United’s share value fell by 10% after the video’s release. The $180 million loss would have bought Carroll over 51,000 new guitars – and saved the airline’s reputation.
Gold-Star Acts of Service
On the other hand, when companies jump to respond to customer feedback, it pays off. Not only did these three avoid the snafu that United went through, they were also publicly praised.
Cathay Pacific flight attendants circumvented protocol to get a stranded passenger halfway around the world to his home, earning a glowing recommendation.
Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas found a disgruntled Facebook post about poor customer service. They apologized within hours with a basket of wine and chocolate.
Comcast’s Frank Eliason addresses customer concerns – and improves the company’s reputation – on Twitter. No need to wait for the cable guy – he’s @ComcastCares!
You Can Do It, Too
As an email marketer, you are already a step ahead of the game. Through your email list, you are already in contact with lots of your customers. Here are some ways you can tell your readers that you want their feedback, and get it from them.
Make sure that the “reply” address and postal address listed in your emails are legitimate. If you don’t check them frequently, start doing so. Respond to every complaint and every compliment – show each customer you appreciate them.
Periodically send out customer satisfaction surveys. Design them so your readers can critique as much as possible. Cover every topic you can think of, then leave room for ones you miss. Encourage comments and stories, and again, respond wherever you can.
Include your company’s phone number in your emails with a clear invitation to call you with any questions or concerns.
Set up an autoresponder that invites feedback. For example, AWeber’s new blog subscribers get an email that shows all the ways they can contact us and asks for their feedback and preferences.
Once you have your customers’ feedback, go use it!
Apply your findings to the content of your newsletter. If your readers prefer certain topics, concentrate on them.
If you get feedback regarding a lack of interest in certain types of content, try segmenting your list. Group subscribers with similar preferences and send the content each segment most wants.
If you use a rating scale, segment the subscribers who rate an email low. Ask them what they didn’t like or what content they’d rather see. Personally address any serious problems.
Use the feedback as content in your emails. Positive comments can be included as testimonials. If you make a change based on a reader’s suggestion, write about it. You value your subscribers and your door is always open – let them know.
Promote over 50 popular, proven best-selling products in many Niche Categories. All the training and support you need to Generate a Full-Time Income.
All from one location... FIND OUT MORE
Moms are the best. They urge us to be better, scold us when we’re wrong and scoop us up when we fall. Simply put, they are our biggest fans.
Click Syndicate
Grab Link
Insert Link
Because of it’s dynamic nature, real estate marketing can lend itself to creative ideas. Building your reputation can be a unique adventure.
AWeber Affiliate Manager Ron Givens has been practicing real estate for over ten years, and in three different states. He has experience in both residential and commercial sales.
