Archive for the ‘Marketing’ Category

Have you ever wondered how often you should be sending out your email campaigns to customers? have you heard the rumors of that Wednesday was the best day to send, and after 1pm? Oh, No! Someone else tells you it’s Thursday, in the morning. Does it really matter?

Today Dan Zarrella of Hubspot dispelled many of the myths around email marketing. Based on over 1 BILLION emails sent by MailChimp, and on surveys and focus groups, Dan revealed scientific data that tells us what’s really effective with email (and what’s NOT).

The greatest email open rates

For years I’ve heard rumors that Tues, or Wednesday or Thursday were the best times to send email. But, today Dan revealed that the greatest number of open rates actually happens on Saturday and Sunday. Tuesday has the greatest unsubscribe rate and Thursday has the lowest. Most email is actually read in the morning. So 6-7 AM EST is the best time to send with the greatest click through rates. Unsubscribe rates are lowest in the afternoon. So the best time to send is very early in the morning and go ahead and send away on the weekends.

And oh, by the way, it doesn’t matter if you are marketing to a consumer or a business as most people use the same account for both.

Smart phones have changed email as 80% read their email on mobile devices. So optimize you email for ease of reading on mobile phones.

How many links can you put in an email without driving your reader to unsubscribe? Well, it turns out that the more links you have, the better. The highest unsubscribe rates happen when you only put one link in the email. The unsubscribe rate drops as you increase the number of links.

Email Reader Behavior and Open Rates

It turns out that people now use their email as an archive. They tend to save things that they consider to be reference information. So when your email contains content such as “how to” articles, data, statistics, cheat sheets, etc. they will be more likely to open and keep it.

Email readers use the subject lines and the senders name to filter their email. Who is sending the email impacts the open rate. So send your email from a name your audience will recognize and it will build trust. Or, send from a “celebrity”, someone well-known, liked and trusted by your audience.

The Most Clicked Email Subject Lines

Emails with these words in the subject lines have the highest open rates: survey, weekly, e-newsleter, series, posts, job. These are emails that are perceived to be part of a series. So serialized and label your emails whenever it makes sense.

The subject lines that are most reported as spam or abuse include words like: confirm, features, upgrade, magic, rewards, Christ, follow up, 10%, coupon, 15%, discount, savings, and offer.

Your readers are concerned about “What’s in it for me?” Give them exclusivity and make them feel special.

Email Frequency

How often should you send email? Is too often going to drive them away? You will be thrilled and relieved to know that it makes NO DIFFERENCE how often you send email! While once a month has the highest click through rate, anything over that it makes no difference on how frequently you send, the same percentage will open it. the frequency rate outweighs the significance of the open rate so SEND, SEND AWAY!

The unsubscribe rates is highest when you only send once or twice a month and goes down the more you send. Unsubscribes rates are highest in the first couple of days after subscribing. These new customers also click more than the older ones. So send your new subscribers the most email and email them frequently.

Do you fear that no one is reading? The data shows that 70% of people read most of their email. While they may not be responding, most are reading. You are leaving an impression with them.

Beware the Junk Email Box

People want real email from a real person. If they fear that there is a risk of getting junk from you, they will use their junk email box. 58% of people have a “junk” email box that they use to subscribe to lists. 42% send to their regular address. So to get them to give you their regular address help them to believe they will receive something valuable, something that makes them feel special, something they won’t want to miss.

28% of people don’t believe the unsubscribe links in the emails work, but these tend to be techies and marketers (like me). So if you are marketing to them, you will particularly need to overcome these fears and build trust.

And finally, on a social media note, most people will not forward or tweet your emails. You are far better off asking people to follow you or friend you than you are to ask them to share your emails.

If you’d like to watch the whole webinar you can do so here: http://www.hubspot.com/the-science-of-email-marketing/

Turn Your Business into a Bullet Train

Your marketing engine Attracts Your Ideal Customer so you get more leads and build your list, FAST. It automates tasks so you get leverage and speed to grow.

Your business success starts with your marketing engine. Just like an engine powers your car, your marketing engine powers your business. You need to get your word out to attract your customer. That’s pretty obvious. What most people don’t know is that you then need to provide value to them so that they raise their hand and shout “ME, ME, ME! I want what you have!” And at that moment, you capture their name and contact information.

Why do you need to capture their name and put them on your mailing list? Having their contact information in your mailing list enables you to build a relationship with them. And, as long as you are providing value to them, they will continue in the relationship.

How do you create this marketing engine that attracts just the right customer AND inspires them to raise their hand and shout out “PICK ME!”?

Let’s start with the components of that marketing engine.

At the core of your marketing “engine” is your website and blog with a form for your customer to sign up for something free, like a free report or newsletter/ezine. This is a critical piece. It is the foundation for capturing your customer’s contact information and continuing to build the relationship with them. So you need a website or blog to send your leads to and then on it you need a web form that collects their name and email address. That web form is the place your customer raises their hand and says “I want more”.

When your prospect gives you their name and email, you then add them to your mailing list so you can continue to build a relationship with them. A newsletter or ezine is the primary vehicle that builds and nurtures the ongoing relationship with your customer and keeps you in the front of their mind so that when they are ready to buy, they think of you.

Now on top of that core motor of the web page with web form and newsletter, you have layers of marketing tactics which feed that motor and make it turn. These are the tactics that attract your ideal customers to your engine and fill your mailing list. These tactics are like the gears that turn the motor of your business.

These are some of the things you learn in my “Be Found Bootcamp” which you can learn more about by listening to this free call “The 5 Keys to Attracting Your Ideal Customer” (note, here’s YOUR chance to raise your hand). On this free call I teach you how to add in gears (or marketing tactics), one at a time, and to get the gears to start turning to make your marketing engine more powerful.

Now, if you remember anything about gears, the more gears that work together, the less effort it takes to make them turn and accomplish your task. Remember that? You need to know how to add gears to your engine and get them all working together in unison so you get leverage.

You want those gears to start spinning by themselves so you can walk away and they keep working for you. They keep drawing new customers to you even though you’ve moved on to something else. You want to be able automate or even delegate those repetitive tasks.

To get leverage in your business and to free up your time to focus on your gift, your product or service, you need to think of your business like a bullet train (efficient, automated and fast) and your marketing as the engine that powers that train. That engine contains your core lead collection system and then you add marketing tactics and gears to attract your ideal customer and fuel the train. The more gears you add, and the more efficient they work, the faster your train zooms off to fulfill your dreams.

Are your online store sales lacking?

Did you start your own ecommerce business only to find there were no customers, no web-site traffic and no sales? You worked hard and put in long hours to set it up then you had to find products to sell and set up an account with their suppliers. You opened the doors to your online store but nobody came and there were no sales.

What are you to do?

You aren’t alone.

Every year thousands of people start an online store in hopes of replacing their existing income and earning passive residual income. They hope that an online store will generate enough income to let them work from home, have flexible hours and set their own schedule. They dream of getting orders while lying on the beach, skiing down the mountain or just staying home with their kids.

But what they find is that they work longer hours than if they had a corporate job and the lack of sales keeps them awake at night. And no matter what they do or how hard they work, the situation doesn’t seem to improve. They still have no sales from their online store.

In order to improve their situation and get sales from your ecommerce business, you need to understand some fundamental internet strategies.

Online Store sales are dependent on 6 key marketing principles. You see, unless you understand these principles, your efforts to increase your internet sales will be futile.

To begin with you need to know who your online store customer is and what is causing them to seek a your product or service.  You see, they aren’t just shopping for the fun of it or browsing for their enjoyment (well, not most of the time). They are usually looking to solve a problem or eliminate a pain they are having. What you need to do with your ecommerce site is to address that pain and provide them with a solution.

Unless you can identify the pain by relating to your customer, you will not be able to increase your internet sales. This is the most important thing you can do. Empathize with their pain and provide a solution or answer to the problem.

It really is that simple to increase your online store sales.

You need to learn to think like your customer.

Focus on what your customer wants, needs or desires, then be relatable and empathetic, and be of service to your customer.

Be as specific as possible. You may have to define a niche within your area of expertise. Or maybe even several niches. Think of just one of your customers. What specific problem or pain can you fix? Another way to look at this is to think of just one product or service you have. Why did your customer buy that product or service from you? What did they hope it would do for them?

Once you identify what the pain is, you need to write down phrases (also known as keywords) that describe what your customer was seeking. What are the words, phrases or keywords that they would type into a search engine to find the solution to their problem? Write those down.

That’s how you narrow down the keywords you use to drive customers to your online store. You need to learn to think like your customer. You need to think, if you were your customer “what would take my pain away?” That is how you communicate and build a relationship with the people who will eventually buy from you.

If you don’t have customers now, ask friends and family or people who should be your clients how they go about looking for the solutions that you offer. Your best method for getting more sales with your ecommerce site is always going to be based on what your customer needs. So you need to get clear on who your customer is and what they desire that would attract them to your online store. Remember; be specific in talking to their pain. The best technique is to think about one specific person rather than a group. You need to be able to connect with their pain. You can do that better when thinking about one person than you can when you think about a whole group.

So do your research and apply your learning to your communications with your customer and you will see that your online store sales will improve.

To learn more about how to jump-start your online store sales, join us for my FREE Teleclass “5 Simple Strategies to a 6-Figure Online Store: Get FAST RECURRING INCOME so you can live the life YOU Want.“

http://www.6FigureOnlineStore.com

With my lemonade stand marketing series we have already talked about the business basics, marketing and life lessons. Today we are going to talk about how to take your lemonade stand from a single shot event, to a multi-million dollar corporation. Yes, it can be done and has been done.

My kids put up a lemonade stand outside our house during the busiest weekend of the summer and made a healthy profit. One of the lessons they learned was the importance of having large amounts of traffic to get strong sales. If they wanted to repeat their success they would need to put up a lemonade stand again during a busy park event.

Or, they could start investing in a booth at the summer festival. There they would need to put up more capital as there will be an entry fee and they would need to have substantially more equipment and supplies, but the profit would be equally higher from an event that draws a crowd. They will also increase their risks, because you never know if it will rain and then the crowd will not be as excited about a lemonade stand. They would need to calculate how many lemonades they would have to sell in order to cover their expenses. Only then can they determine if it is a worthwhile risk. They have the experience of their first lemonade stand to get a worst case scenario of how many lemonades they can sell (because the first booth wasn’t actually in the park and was a 10 minute walk from the festival).

So let’s say they decide to go the festival route, get a loan from mom & dad, and then operate their first lemonade stand at a festival. With their profits they invest in a second festival. And so it goes for the entire outdoor festival season. By winter they can pay mom & dad back (or sooner).

But now what? With this business strategy they only make money when they go to an event. They could hire someone to staff the event for them, but they still only make money when there is a festival. What will provide them an income in the winter?

Let’s look at the options for the next path they could take to expand sales. They could continue in the service business and convert to a year round operation or they could go the product route and start wholesaling their product.

What does it look like if they take the service route? Well, they would need to find a retail location that has a high volume of hot and thirsty drinkers. Because lemonade alone is not usually a good draw of business, they would need to diversify their service offering with complementary products. To grow from here, they would need to find similar locations to put up new retail outlets.

This method doesn’t seem very appealing because lemonade is not a strong enough year round draw to keep the retail location in business. It would need to have a broader service offering, which doesn’t play to the strength of the lemonade stand girls.

The other choice would be to stay focused on making the best lemonade products available and extend your distribution of those products. They can be the local provider of lemonade to caterers, hotels, restaurants and even package it for retail at supermarkets. After establishing themselves fully as the best provider of lemonade in their area, the can branch out geographically and grow their share of the market nationally, and then internationally.

While this is happening, it is likely they would take some of their profits and invest in product development and come out with more product line extensions. Perhaps they could make lemonade ice pops, and Italian ice. Lemonade fruit bars or snack cakes.

Initially, they should stick with products that share the same distribution channels that they have already established. So if it is beverage distributors that are selling their lemonade, their first products should be different flavors of lemonade, then other beverage related products like mixers for alcohol. From there they can expand into new distribution channels for the same products. For example, instead of fountain drink resellers, they can sell through grocery distributors.

Eventually, they need to make a major investment in establishing new distribution channels. This is possible but not as simple as just adding more products to the same distribution channel. This is one of the areas that most people make the biggest mistake. They don’t realize that their new products aren’t consumed by the same customer as their original product and that it needs a totally new outlet to reach its perfect customer.

So that’s it. That’s how you take a simple lemonade stand and grow in into a multi-national, multi-million dollar business.