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Improve Email Marketing

4 Ways to Improve Your Email Marketing Strategy

Improving your email marketing strategy is not that difficult if you follow these 4 simple steps.

If you’ve taken the time to build an email list, then you already know how critical this asset is to your business.

So we want to ensure we are getting our messages through to our audiences, right?

Here are a few tips to improve your email marketing strategy.

1. Use double opt-in.

The #1 argument I get about this is that requiring people to double opt-in reduces the list sign-ups. While that may be true, a smaller, more engaged list is much more valuable than a big, huge list that never opens your emails in the first place.

Now.

To be fully transparent here, I still let people on my list without forcing a double-opt-in as part of my email marketing strategy.

However, 85% of my list HAS confirmed their email address.

Think about that.

The way I do this, is through a legacy Infusionsoft action that clearly asks them the verify their email when they click to download whatever lead magnet they opted in for.

If they don’t click through, they are not confirmed — but still added to my list.

But like I said, 85% of click the link and confirm automatically.

2. Stay away from the corporate merge/personalization.

People aren’t dumb.

They realize there is a [merge] field in the email and is replaced by [yournamehere].

I'm not saying STOP personalizing emails, just be cool about it.

Most of the time, it’s best just to get to the point. People already know their name.

Think about it this way.

If you sent an email to a friend, would you say “Hi Joey…”?

Perhaps…

But in most cases, it would be more along the lines of “dude…check this out” – so stick to how you would talk to your friends.

Of course, there are specific times you want to use the person's name – like in the subject line, because we all recognize our own name and will stop scrolling for a second…and hopefully open the email.

One of the best ways to get your emails opened is to learn how to write sales copy.

3. CLEAN your list regularly.

This tip should be #1 really. Because it’s SO important. Especially these days.

Again, it’s another tip that clients and students debate me on.

They don’t want to delete emails.

But if you have dead weight on your list, your ego of having that huge number staring at you when you open your email CRM is killing your email marketing if they aren’t opening and engaging.

Worse, if you have emails that are bouncing and you ignore them – by constantly blasting your list or something…you’re going to get flagged by the googles and ISP dudes.

You don’t want that.

Whichever email platform you are using, make sure you are taking every measure to proactively monitor opt-outs, and bounces.

Take this a step further and monitor engagement.

I do this every month now.

I have campaigns that run in the background that tag people accordingly.

If emails bounce, I have notices on my dashboard so I can see right away what’s happening. I’ll delete those emails because they’re dead anyway.

For the people that are unengaged or opt-out, I export those to another email service provider as a holder…and then delete them off my main Infusionsoft account.

This ONE thing keeps my list VERY clean and Infusionsoft happy.

Which makes my email marketing strategy work better because emails are delivered like they should be.

4. Segment your lists

These days, you really have to take some time to segment your list into groups of interest and behaviors.

Gone are the days of full-list blasts.

There are times for a full blast, but it’s slowly dying.

Only email marketers who have no intention of building strong recurring relationships are ignoring the segmentation and behavioral marketing strategies.

To give you an example…let’s use a typical webinar scenario.

I’ll have people tagged in these multiple ways:

Invited to register
Registered
Didn’t register
Attended
Didn’t attend
Left early
Saw offer
Didn’t see offer
Bought offer
Didn’t buy offer
Sent follow-up

and so on.

As you can imagine, I can combine multiple tags and get a VERY specific segment of my audience for a new email marketing strategy.

So there you have it…a few tips on how to improve your email marketing.

You may also be interested in this post where I talk about a Failed Email Marketing Plan You Want to Avoid

Lemme know what you think below

Market Your Product

The Must-Have Digital Marketing and Analytics

When it comes to Digital Marketing and Analytics, you really need to keep a close eye.

So I figured I'd give you this short and easy list of the metrics you need to measure.

Even though I’m not a data analysis freak, there are a few key metrics I want to keep track of for my digital marketing and analysis.

Here they are:

CTR – Click Through Rate
CPC – Cost per Click
CPR – Cost per Result (sometimes referred to as CPA – Cost per Acquisition)

Let’s take a closer look at these Digital Marketing and Analytics numbers

CTR – Click Through Rate

– this is an obvious one. But not all CTRs are the same.

In Facebook, you have a couple options.

There is CTR(ALL) or CTR(Link Click-Through Rate).

To measure if your ads are working, you’ll want to focus on the CTR(Link Click-Through Rate).

Next, we track the CPC – Cost Per Click.

This is just as important. But again, you have CPC(ALL) and CPC(Cost per Link Click).

The latter is the one you want.

If you use CPC(ALL), it’s measuring ANY engagement such as “likes”, comments and shares and of course clicks on the links that bring them to your landing page.

If you WANT to track all that engagement, then it’s a cool metric to have for your digital marketing and analytics tracking.

However, most marketers care only about the CPC(Cost per Link Click) which tracks the actual link clicks to your landing page.

Me thinks that what's most important too 🙂

Lastly, you’ll want to track the Cost per Result.

Without knowing how much your actual results are costing you, you won’t know how much you can spend in advertising.

When I’m working with clients on this stuff, the first thing I ask is “how much does it cost you to get a lead?”

If they’re tracking the CPR (cost per result) properly, they’ll know.

Because the second thing I’ll ask is “how much are you willing to BUY a customer for?”

This is critical to monitor for your digital marketing and analytics.

Let’s say you have a CPR of $5.00 and you’re selling a product for $20.00.

Would you spend $5 to get a lead? Would you spend $10?

Because remember, he who can spend more for a customer wins.

That’s the beauty of knowing your digital marketing and analytics because the average ‘Joe Marketer’ has no clue.

So you can swoop in an ‘buy’ their customers out from under them.

Cool? Lemme know what you think below in the comments.

BTW, here's another post you'll find interesting: What I Learned from the Digital Marketing Industry

Market Your Product

Rethink Your Scarcity Marketing

Scarcity Marketing is all about INTEGRITY.

Do you have it in your business?

Or are you just chasing money and using tactics like false scarcity?

Here's why I ask.

I ran a 5-day promotion. That's a long time.

During the promotion, I didn't send out the usual 2 emails a day, and then 4 on the last day warning about the expiring deadline…

But the emails did their job.

People opened. They clicked. They bought.

That's how it's supposed to work.

Because I was using scarcity marketing:

“this offer ends midnight on Tuesday”

You've seen it before – no biggie, right?

A couple days after the promotion ended, I got a couple emails that basically said “I missed the deal, can I still get it?”

At first, I thought about granting the offer. I could make a few extra bucks, and besides, who would know?

And that's what's wrong with most scarcity marketing in this space today.

Because the almighty “extra dollars” tug at us.

But then I thought – “that's NOT the way I'm running my business. I preach never to use false scarcity tactics. When something is over, it's over”

So even though I could have made a couple more sales, I sent them to the new sales page with the higher price I warned about in the emails.

I don't know how that's gonna roll, but I can sleep better at night knowing that everything I said in my emails about a “deadline” and all that stuff was true.

Even the part about “I always reward action takers and early adopters with ONE-TIME prices like this…”

My scarcity marketing is actually true.

I thought I would put this out there because if you run your business with full integrity, not only will you have better customers, who WILL buy when you give offers because they know you're not full of shit…

But you'll also position yourself out of the “typical internet marketer” space and keep that level of trust that's so hard to come by these days.

Lemme know your thoughts below…

Spark Entrepreneurship

Accelerate your Productivity

So many of us look for tips and tools to increase productivity in our day.

Here are a few tips I’ve learned over the past few years:

1. Have MORE than your “why”. So many people tell me their ‘why’ but still remain to stagnate in a job they hate or don’t do what they say they want to do, or bail when the first sign of adversity hits.

Even if they have that ‘why’.

Here’s why.

The ‘why’ needs MULTIPLE inspiration points.

See, the difference between being MOTIVATED to do something, and being INSPIRED to do it are completely different.

Motivation is when you’re pushed.

Which is why going to a Tony Robbins event or something like that totally gets you pumped up and feel like nothing can stop you.

Tony’s pushing you. The people around you push and encourage you. The whole environment pushes you.

Heck, even when I do my little 8 person mastermind, people are pumped. (Not that I’m anything like Tony)

But then most of us lose the motivation when we’re thrown back into the ‘real’ world.

I’ve experienced it many times myself.

Attending multiple big AND small events I’ve just sat around for years with the ‘knowledge’ but not the action.

It’s the reason I invest in myself each month with coaches who just call me out and support what I’m doing.

But we need our own inspiration points and triggers if we want to increase productivity

Personally, I have inspiration triggers posted on my wall right in front of me, over my computer monitors so I see them every day.

They remind me of my ‘why’ – what it’s all for.

I even have little ‘reminders’ like “stop buying shit” which is really saying “you already HAVE enough knowledge/programs/etc to get where you want to go – JUST DO IT.”

Other ‘reminder inspiration triggers’ on my wall are questions such as “what are you willing to trade your life for?”

Which relates back to my ‘why’.

Can you see how these EXTRA inspiration triggers help with ‘productivity?’

The NEXT biggest ‘secret’ I can share about productivity is this…

HABITS and SCHEDULES.

I won’t get into a whole explanation about this because you probably know what I’m saying.

EVERY successful entrepreneur, who is productive, have success rituals and habits they do daily.

They also schedule their day around their FLOW zones.

Screw the 5 am club if you’re not a 5 am’er…

Just because you see someone else doing something, and it doesn’t resonate with you…adjust that success habit to fit YOUR flow zone.

That’s a big one.

Let’s take the “5 am” club

I’ve seen many people “swear” to do this every new ‘change’ point in the year…only to fall off again.

Why?

Because they’re FORCING their body to do something that is totally unnatural for their biological clock.

Sure, you CAN force yourself to get up at 5am…but if you’re just sitting around doing nothing because you’re bio-clock doesn’t kick in until 10 am – who gives a shit? Just because you say “I did it…I got UP at 5 am?”

I’m just giving you an example here.

That's the reason so many people give up with their ‘productivity’.

Because they really force themselves to do things that do NOT flow with their natural bio-state.

Listen, I’m NOT saying make things EASY.

That’s the wrong approach as well. We DO have to challenge ourselves – move out of our comfort zone…we both GET that…

However, I AM saying that when you understand WHEN you rock and when you DON’T, you fit those surges of productivity INTO those slots.

Get it?

This is why doing a bit of inner reflection will help you.

It not only allows you to let go of the stigma you might “think” you need to be productive…

And gives you back the decisive power of WHEN you’re going to be productive.

Just because your seminar dude said you need to be at the office at 9 am and do 500 cold calls a day doesn’t mean you need to if you sound like you just woke up, are in a pissy mood, or have no inspiration to do what you need to do.

It’s JUST a waste of time.

I even talk about how much of our lives we can sacrifice if we're not careful in this post

Which brings me to the last point on productivity

Colleagues and coaches.

If you don’t have people in your life that totally support you, CHANGE the people in your life.

If you don’t have people in your life that you are PAYING to tell you shit you need to hear, GO FIND THEM.

Ask any successful person if they have coaches in their life. I don’t care if it’s football or farming. All of those peeps have someone they’re paying to tell ‘em what they need to do.

Because we lose sight ALL the time – just because we’re too far in the forest to see the trees most of the time.

Improve Email Marketing

Breakthrough Thinking for Your Email Marketing

WARNING: Before you read this post on email marketing, just know there's heavy language throughout.

You’re not liked.

Someone out there can’t stand you.

How does that feel?

Not cool – right?

Here’s the deal.

If you want to make any sort of impact in this world…

If you want to really help other people with the gifts you have…

You’re going to piss off a few people.

I’ve known this one for a long time.

In fact, when I was DJ-ing, I pissed off a lot of people.

I didn’t care.

And I don’t care today either.

But there’s a difference from then to now.

For me, back then I had ‘something to prove’. In other words, I had a chip on my shoulder.

And even though I was good at what I did…I made enemies.

Like I said, I didn’t care.

But there’s a difference between not caring what people think because you put them in the “they're assholes anyway category”…

And not caring what people think because you have a pure message to share with the world, knowing full well that in order to get to the right people, you have to repel the noisemakers.

Knowing that’s how the world works.

And THAT’S what you’re all about.

So am I.

The reason I’m telling you this is because, for whatever reason, I went into checking my unsubscribe report for the past year.

I don’t get that many.

And I get VERY few who actually go to the trouble of giving the extra feedback.

But curiosity got me. I read the 6 “feedback” thingys I got over the past year.

From “this is the worst spam I ever got” to “Your fucking annoying emails are brutal”.

But the best one…

Was this:

Notice the feedback. “You send too much shit”

Notice the date.

Now, here we are…not even a year later:

That’s the same dude’s account today – after opting out, and back in to buy my product.

I didn’t CHANGE anything in the way I do email marketing.

No.

That’s a lie. I actually TURNED UP my “shit”.

I have never done email marketing as “aggressively” as I have this past year.

Now.

This is for anyone listening.

We have to get over ourselves.

We aren’t going to please everyone.

I think 6 REAL complaints over a year is pretty dang good.

AND, ONE of ‘em actually came back to BUY from me.

If you’re offering REALLY good stuff to the market, be prepared that you can’t please everyone no matter how hard you try.

EVERYONE will have a perception of you.

Just keep going and look for those 20% gems that are out there –

By the way, here's another cool post about email marketing: https://strategicbusinessacademy.com/is-your-email-campaign-marketing-scaring-people-away/

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