Category Email marketing

Businesses today, need to do generate more from their resources. As a business, you need to connect with your prospects in a personalized way while spending less. And businesses that are successful in connecting with their target audience in a personalized way will be successful in generating more revenue and more return their investment.
Is there a better way to connect with your customers other than email marketing. No. And how do you keep your email subscribers growing? With a newsletter subscription form on your website. In this article, we will learn

What is a newsletter subscription form
Why is newsletter subscription required
Main components of an effective newsletter subscription
How to make a newsletter subscription box
Where to place the newsletter subscription box

What is a newsletter subscription form?

You have landed upon a website, and while you are perusing its content, a box suddenly pops up from some where. The box has an alluring offer that you find hard to give up.

To claim the offer,  you need to give your name and email address.
For once, you think of letting it go. I don’t need more emails in my Inbox.
The next second, you are filling up the form. “The offer sounds tempting. I can always unsubscribe if I don’t like it”.
You have just opted in to a “newsletter subscription form”.
If you have entered the correct (no spelling mistakes) email address in the newsletter subscription box, and the email address is legitimately yours, you’ll receive a mail (from the same website), asking you to click on a link. This is called double opt in. And when you click on the link, your email address is verified and your subscription to the website’s newsletter is added to the list of other email recipients like you.

Why is newsletter subscription required?

As a business, you need more clients. The more clients you have, the more business you can expect. But then you may ask who reads email today . Everybody uses social media. Isn’t advertising on social media more productive than email marketing? Well here are the facts.

Email vs Other Online Marketing Techniques

One research reports that there are 43 different ways you can do online marketing. Search Engine Optimization, Podcasts, Social Media Marketing, Video Marketing, and the list goes on.

Many new marketing technologies have sprung up in the last few years; and many have disappeared from the scene.

But only one category has consistently performed well, year after year, and that is email marketing. Email generates the highest ROI. According to one study: for every dollar spent on Email marketing, it  generates $44 in return.

Email has a much larger reach.

While Facebook boasts of having over 1 billion active users, and Twitter having 255 million, one is compelled to conclude that social media is a better option to reach the online community.

But isn’t it surprising that when you sign up for a Facebook or Twitter account you need an email address.

And how do Facebook and Twitter notify users of activity in their account? They do it through email. There are are three times more email accounts then there are are Facebook and Twitter accounts combined.

Email delivers your message

If you post a passage on Facebook how many of your contacts will have a chance of seeing it?

An official study proclaims this to be about 2%. So if you have 1,000 friends on Facebook just about 20 will see your message. Whereas if you send an email to 1,000 contact at least 950 will receive it in their inbox.

The difference is a staggering 45 times. 20 on Facebook and 950 on email.

Your email subscribers have given you their consent to receive your messages. But that is not the case for social media. Everyone just keeps posting, and a few will get to read your post.

Email gives you a higher conversion

The ultimate goal for every business is to convert its potential customers into paying customers.  Social media is more of a personal form of communication; people use it to communicate with family members and friends. 

But when people expect to receive information about new products and services, they want it through email. Email is an open platform. Email isn’t owned or controlled by buy one particular business house. The owners of Social Media brands device new algorithms to increase their own revenue while giving less importance to free posts.

Your subscribers are going to be your asset over a long period of time. Unlike social media following, building your your email list is a a stable long term investment that will pay off in the the years to come.

Main components of an effective newsletter subscription form

1. An enchanting headline: Your headline should clearly describe the benefit to the visitor. It should be noticeable and  succinct.
2. A brief description: Is your description helpful, clear and to the point? Use bullet marks so that the visitor gets the message in a glance.
3. Enticing visuals: Add an image of the incentive you are promising.  Images of smiling human beings are a great way to entice visitors. Do not make it too loud, as it usually distracts visitors.
4. 2 line form: Don’t ask for more than a first name (or name) and email address. Asking for too much information, too soon, will kill your conversions.
5. A Call-to-Action subscribe button: Don’t simply write “Subscribe now”. Use text that compels the visitor to take action  – Click immediately / Subscribe! (that’s why it’s called a call to action button). Use a contrasting color for this button, so that it gets noticed.

How to make a newsletter subscription box.

I will take the example of making a subscription form on ConvertKit. This is the easiest amongst all. You can do it yourself without hiring a developer.

Register on ConvertKit

Go to “Landing Pages & Forms”

Select Form

You will be asked to choose the type of subscription form. The images are self-explanatory.

Modal is a pop-up form which covers the whole screen. The modal disables the main window, while keeping it visible. I have chosen to go ahead with Modal.

The next screen asks you to choose a design/ template/ theme for your newsletter subscription form. You can choose any template that suits your product type. Then you can change the picture, or modify the background colour, or change the text, the font, font size. 

Once you have finalized the design, you need to add this form on your website. Click the “Embed” button.

You will be shown various options to choose from Javascript, HTML, Share, WordPress or Unbounce (a landing page builder platform). If you have chosen WordPress, it will ask you to install the ConvertKit WordPress plugin on your WordPress website and then  embed the form using the shortcode displayed.

You can download the plugin to your computer, and then install it on your WordPress website.

However, prior to that, check out the “SETTINGS” for your newsletter subscription form. You can access the settings in the same row as the “EMBED” button.

There are some very interesting settings which make your form very engaging. I used to be wonder struck  when I saw such forms performing on other websites. But never knew about these tools that make these a child’s play.

You can set up this form to pop-up (trigger) when a visitor tries to leave the page (exit-intent) or when he has spent 5 seconds on your website (you can alter this timing to your needs).

Give it a try. I am sure you too will be wonder-struck.

Where to place the newsletter subscription form

A lot of research has been done by experts in the field of online marketing, and they have identified hot spots where the visitors pay more attention and you are likely to get a higher conversion for your newsletter subscription form. These are

1. Your website’s header
2. Scattered on your Blog Posts
3. In a modal page (we examined this in the beginning of the previous section)
4. Your website’s footer
5. Your “About Us” page
6. In the side-bar

You can experiment for yourself and place the form at various places on your website. Do not limit yourself to just one place. You can have multiple forms (of different types – modal, splash, slide-in, sticky header) and place them at all the above places on your website.

 

Are you sending emails to expand your business?

Do you know that, of all the marketing tools, Email offers the best return on investment?  And, it also offers the best conversion rates?

If your emails are well written, and engaging, they can be highly effective in generating sales. In this post, we will learn:

• Why use Email marketing?
• Why is Email marketing so important?
• Examples of Email marketing
• How to start Email marketing
• Email Service Providers
• A comparison table of Email service providers

Why use Email marketing?

You have a website, and you are painstakingly driving traffic to your website by various means.

Let’s say, someone visits your website. Is there a way you can know who he was, or the reason why he  visited your website.

Maybe he wanted to buy something and came to your website to research and compare with other vendors. He came, he saw and he went away. And there is no way you can connect with him or  follow up with him.

What you need now is a system such that a visitor who comes to your website, leaves his email address or his contact number; so that you can follow up with him.

But why will he give you his email address? He does not want annoying emails or phone calls.

So, to get his email address, you have to offer him a bait, in return of which he will give you his email address. You can offer him a free eBook or a discount coupon, or an entry into some sweepstakes.

Once you have his email address you can send him information on your upcoming products, discount coupons, holiday offers, free eBooks, Infographics, cheat sheets, just to keep in touch with him.

You do all this so that he remembers your name, and should remember it all the more when he is about to order a product or service.

He may not be an immediate customer; but he could be a prospect who would buy maybe 6 months down the line. Or he may have friends who can avail of your service if he can refer you to them.

Why is Email marketing so important?

If you are selling a product or a service, and you do not have email subscribers, you are missing on a lot of opportunities.

How do you expect new customers to reach you and how do you expect your customers to come back with repeat orders?

Email lasts longer than a post on Social Media

I came across a very interesting piece of information which I would like to share with you you.

Have you ever wondered how long your post lasts on Social Media?

Let’s say you post something today, right now; and its lifespan on Twitter shall be just 18 minutes.

Can you believe that? Just 18 minutes. So, if your potential customer uses Twitter within 18 minutes of your posting new content, he will get to view it. Else, he will not.

On Facebook it’s just about 5 hours,

Instagram 21 hours,

LinkedIn  24 hours,

YouTube average is much higher than these, it is around 20 days.

And have you ever wondered how much time an email lasts?  2 years. This is the average time when a user cleans his mailbox, and deletes the unwanted emails.

Taking this discussion further, your target customer can still get to read the messages you posted on Twitter or Facebook, if he has subscribed to the notifications. And notifications are delivered  by ……Email.

So, the ultimate tool is Email.

There is no ranking system for Emails.

Next, Emails are not ranked on the basis of quality or content.  If you have sent a mail, the user is bound to receive it. We simply sort them by date, time, alphabetically or by Subject. Email marketing is direct and personal.

Eventually, if you do not have any email list of subscribers or you have an email list, but you never send out emails, you are missing out on a lot of prospects.

People check Emails several times in a day.

The Radicati Group of UK provides quantitative and qualitative research on email. In a comprehensive analysis of Emails for 2020-2024, their report says:

“Email remains the most ubiquitous form of communication. Email accounts are required for any form of online presence from signing on to social media sites, to shopping online, to gaining access to online portals, as well as access to all forms of online communication. “

Worldwide email traffic is increasing 4% annually.

Revenue for all segments of the email market is experiencing an annual growth of 16%.

Email marketing examples

1. The primary purpose of of sending emails is to bring in more customers to your website. So, plan your email campaigns in relation to some national holiday or event like the Easter or world cup.

2. Make sure that your subscribers have actually requested to receive your emails. Else, you may not realize, and all your emails will be going down their spam box.

3. Give your customers a feeling of importance with exclusive offers news or events. Personalized emails always give better results so always send targeted emails by creating lists in your email database.

4. Design your emails to suit a particular theme.  Keep your emails bright and attractive. This makes them more engaging. While designing your email make sure that it all links are are relevant and clearly visible.

5. Include your social media accounts on the header or footer of your email. These are superb for social interaction in online communities.

6. Check how your email renders on a mobile. Make your emails mobile-friendly to maximize opens.

7. Install a list manager to ensure that all your data is stored in one place, and accessible when it is required. Categorize the images in relevant folders for ease of of navigation. Check the response rating for different subject lines, sender name and delivery date / times.

8. When you bring your visitors to the website, ensure that there is a landing page to capture customer data. Focus on one particular aspect and draw your customers attention to the main story.
   

Email marketing – how to start?

Now that you know how important email marketing is to your business, let’s start off right away. You need two things to begin

1. An email list,
2. Email service provider

The email list you intend to use should be your own. I personally do not recommend buying email lists, or scraping email address off the websites. All your efforts will be lost if the email you sent goes to the Spam folder or if it is deleted the moment it is received by the user.

Take time to develop your email list. Let people opt for receiving your emails. Create such magnetic leads that subscribers immediately double opt the verification mail,  to receive the freebie you promised them. Not just this, they also consent to your terms & conditions without a second thought.

Next, you need an email service provider to send out mails in bulk. If you have ever tried sending bulk mails from your Outlook or GMail account, you will know that the web hosting server will block these emails from being sent. And, you risk your IP address being blacklisted. 

All mail servers use blacklists as their first defense against spammers, when mail arrives at a server, the sender IP address is checked against the blacklists. If you are on the list, your mail is rejected.

So, you need software specialized to send bulk emails. There are tons of such email service providers, and each one has a unique service to offer. As a beginner, you cannot weigh the options each one provides, to settle for  the service best suited for your needs. We have done the homework for you and will share our suggestions with you towards the end of this section

Email Service Providers

Here is a list of some top rated email service providers:

ConstantContact

ConstantContact defines its Email marketing service as “Grow your brand by reaching people where they go every day: their inbox.” If you subscribe to ConstantContact, you will get to use hundreds of templates, which includes industry specific templates, customizable templates and your own branded templates to design your email. 

You can send unlimited emails to a maximum of 500 subscribers for a monthly fee of $20, their starter plan. The free trial period for the service is 30 days.

SendInBlue

Sendinblue is a complete email marketing tool-set that offers SMS (text messaging) too. You can maintain unlimited subscribers, and  pay only for sending emails. But wait, before you jump to conclusions, let me tell you that they offer a FREE plan, where you can send up to 300 emails per day. So, if you need to send about 9000 emails in a month, this plan is good for you. You can continue with the free plan for ever or until your business needs to upgrade to a higher

MailChimp

MailChimp is a very popular email marketing software that has user friendly plans. Their FREE plan offers to accommodate 2000 subscribers and you can send 10,000 emails per month. You can upgrade anytime to paid plans, as your subscriber list grows.

MailChimp has a drag and drop interface to design emails and you can also choose from the huge collection of templates.

Drip

Drip is focused for eCommerce Websites and offers great automation tools for email marketing. Drip offers easy integration with Magento, Shopify, WooCommerce and many other eCommerce platforms.

They offer a 15 day trial for all their plans. The starter plan begins at $19 per month which allows you to send unlimited emails to 500 subscribers. As your subscribers grow, you will need to spend more every month.

aWeber

aWeber is the oldest Email service provider in the market and offers auto responders, segmentation along with an easy email designer.

They also offer a forever FREE plan limited only to 500 subscribers and 300 emails per day.

ConvertKit

ConvertKit is the best email service provider that is most suitable for beginners as well as pro marketers. Their starter plan is FREE and offers unlimited emailing for up to 1000 contacts. That is a huge benefit when you are in the initial stages of setting up email marketing.

ConvertKit has a good collection of Pop up forms and landing page designs. So, if you have been wondering how to make engaging pop ups that you see on professional websites, they can now be yours with just a few clicks on ConvertKit.

Email Service Providers

Feature	Constant Contact	Send in Blue	Mail Chimp	Drip	aWeber	Convert Kit
Contacts	500	Unlimited	2000	500	500	1000
Emails per day	Unlimited	300	333	Unlimited	300	Unlimited
Free trial period	30 days	Forever	Forever	14 days	Forever	Forever
Pricing (US$) / month	20	Free	Cell	Free	Free	Free