No Email Marketing Strategy is Complete Without These Two Tactics

Here’s why segmented emails and landing pages are conversion soul mates. Image by Kelly Keeton via Flickr.

Conversion rate optimizers make landing pages. Email marketers send 
emails. The problem, however, is that the two departments aren’t always in sync. And if your marketing strategy isn’t unified across all channels, 
chances are you’re leaving conversions on the table.

Email marketers must work hand-in-hand with conversion rate optimizers to create dedicated landing pages for specific email marketing campaigns. So what
are the elements of a successful, unified email marketing strategy?

1. Each email marketing campaign should have a corresponding and
   dedicated landing page.
2. To serve this targeted approach, marketers should segment their
   email lists to drive the right customers to the right landing pages
   at the right time.

Sound simple enough? Let me explain each point in detail.

Create specific landing pages for specific email marketing campaigns

The internet is full of articles about how you should send your ads to a 
dedicated landing page – and while not everyone is following this advice, 
it’s still widely accepted as a best practice.

So far, so good. That’s nothing new.

Let’s contrast this with email marketing. Here’s an example that I
randomly snatched from my email inbox. The email is a typical
once-every-week-or-so promotion from an ecommerce retailer:

This page is nothing special. And it’s not targeted.

The email is essentially a template for their website. If I click on the
“men” panel, I get a page that shows me a bunch of pants.

Where is the focus? (There isn’t one.) Where is the specificity? (There’s
none.) Where is the goal? (Lacking.) In other words, this is the
mud-on-the-wall strategy of marketing. Throw an email to a few
thousand customers, get a few click-throughs and hopefully score a
few conversions.

Let’s take a look at a better example:

This email is targeted, specific and focused. Its goal? To get
click-throughs for their promotion. And this is where the click-through
takes me:

I can’t help my conversion rate optimizing self from quibbling just a
tad at thelack of visual continuity and absence of a single coherent
offer.

Nonetheless, the example still suffices. This type of email marketing
experience will drive far more conversions than the “Ooh, let’s send an
email!” approach to email marketing.

Why?

Humans respond positively to clarity. If you address the right people at
the right time, and send them to targeted pages with one clear and
continuous goal, you create delightful marketing experiences that
people will naturally want to follow.
To improve the efficiency of your email marketing, you should:

• Create a single goal for each and every campaign email. (Focus!)
• Develop a landing page for the email that continues the
  conversation about the same, singular goal.
• Drive customers to the dedicated landing page and then optimize
  the heck out of it.

That’s the first part of combining email marketing with landing page 
optimization. But there’s more…

Develop segmented email lists and send focused emails

This strategy — create dedicated landing pages for emails — is just
the beginning. There’s much more you can do to refine your approach.

In order for your marketing efforts to be laser-focused and successful,
you should also create segmented email lists.

Your email list is made up of contacts who are at varied stages of
interaction with your business. And at each stage of the buyer’s journey,
your prospects will respond to different types of content and language.

Email segmentation has a proven track record of value and profitability.
An eMarketer study cited by Hubspot showed that “39% of marketers
who segmented their email lists experienced higher open rates, 28% 
experienced lower unsubscribe rates and 24% experienced greater
revenue.”

When you create a segmented email list, you are able to:

• Develop highly relevant and specific offers.
• Optimize the landing pages from the email marketing efforts to
  exactly match the motivations of the segmentation group.
• Align your marketing strategy with each contact’s needs, thereby
  creating awesome experiences and increasing conversions!

We’re applying one layer of strategy (email segmentation) upon
another layer of strategy (a dedicated landing page for every
campaign).

Now, how do all these pieces fit together? Let’s walk through the
process of segmenting our emails and targeting customers.

An example of the process, beginning to end

From this list, let’s take just one segment: repeat customers. These
people have had multiple touch points with your business and are
educated about your solution. You already know that these people are
likely to buy. Now, you simply need to create a targeted email and landing 
page that will increase that likelihood and get them purchasing.
Based on this data and the selected segment, here’s what you’d do:

1. Create a targeted email that speaks to your prospect’s emotions

Since you already know that you’re sending this email to repeat
customers, you want to praise them for their loyalty and wise decision 
making. Basically, you want to flatter them. You can say something like,
“You know how to buy great products” Or, “You do a great job choosing 
products.”

When you make statements like this, the customer is likely to undergo
an experience of “self-verification.” When a customer hears themselves
described in a positive manner, they begin to believe this about
themselves and then become more likely to act on that belief.

If you were addressing new customers, then you may want to approach
it differently. You may want to use a technique that advances the
psychology of curiosity, rather than self-verification.

The point here is that you’re trying to elicit feeling and emotion, not
just  a raw display of stuff for the customer to buy.

Let me show you an example of this.

The marketing email above is inviting women to attend a conference.
The message reminds prospects that they are loved and creates a warm
and inviting atmosphere. The call to action resonates with this emotion
and is focused and clear.

2. Create a focused call to action

Next, you’ll bring the email to a powerful conclusion. In other words,
you want to focus persuasive power, data, argumentation, or any other 
elements of the email to a final call to action.

To bring the email to a climax, create a final paragraph that sums up
the email and inspires the user with a sense of urgency and emotional 
interest. Don’t lose your readers in this paragraph. It’s the most critical 
paragraph for them to stay engaged.

After this paragraph, insert your CTA button. It’s important to create a 
compelling and inspiring button text that continues the conversation
from the final paragraph and explains what the prospect will get after 
the click.

As a good example of this, check out the marketing email below.

Notice how the email builds up, bullet-by-bullet to focus on that one
central CTA: “GET CASH.” There is a direct connection in the reader’s
mind between what she reads (build your business, make it work, etc.)
and what the outcomeof clicking (“Get cash!”). Since the target audience 
consists of small business owners, this is a highly-focused and effective
email.

3. Develop a landing page that corresponds to the email

If you want to avoid cognitive dissonance (the ultimate conversion
killer), the “one goal” from your email marketing should extend to your
landing page.

Beyond that, the aesthetic of your email should carry across to your
landing page.

Additionally, you need to ensure message match from one channel to
the next. This is all about creating a unified experience that will indicate
to prospects that they’re in the right place after the click.

Let’s look at a couple examples.

The first one comes from Airbnb. Even though their marketing email is
simple, it is effective. Here’s why. The intriguing and wanderlust-
provoking question is all that they need to inspire their target audience —
inveterate globetrotters — to click, click, click:

And here’s the corresponding landing page for the first CTA:

I love the way that the CTA is tied to the landing page. Not only is it 
targeted, but it even answers a question. “Where is this? It’s on the
Canary Islands.”

Plus, the landing page makes it easy for the visitor to book his request.
All it takes is a three-form entry and a big pink button. Airbnb wins.
Connecting the dots

When you separate email marketing from landing pages, you lose out
on precious conversion potential. A disconnected marketing approach
produces fractured results.

Next time you set out to improve your email marketing campaigns,
look beyond personalizing your greeting or subject lines.

Ask yourself what kind of experience you’re creating both before and
after the click.

Connect the dots. Create focused and segmented emails. Tie those
targeted emails to a specific landing page.

I think you’ll find that a unified email marketing strategy leads to 
long-lasting relationships – between departments and with your 
prospects.

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4 Revolutionary Behavioral Email Marketing Ideas

Email marketing is a crapshoot.

You send mass emails hoping that some small percentage of people will open, click and convert. The bigger your list, the less you know and the more you're forced to guess about what to say and when to send.

But what if you flipped the paradigm by sending email as a result of behavior? Instead of begging uninterested users to take action, you're moving already-interested people through a buying cycle.

Promotional email isn't dead, but data-driven behavioral email is proving to be more effective. In this new world of email marketing, personalization, dynamic segmentation and data reign supreme.

That future is here, it's just not evenly distributed. And that is a huge opportunity for you. Here are five ways any business can take advantage of behavioral email.

Related: This Is the Biggest Email Provider You've Never Heard Of

1. Send the best welcome email in town

In the time it takes to create and send one promotional email, you could craft the perfect welcome email. Welcome emails are an essential part of the onboarding process for every business. A great welcome email will impact on your activation rate, helping you turn subscribers into avid readers, free trial users into raving fans and new customers into lifelong partners.

The goal of a welcome email is to guide users to the next step. Ask yourself, "How can I show the value of my product/service/information as quickly as possible?"

If you're Twitter, that means encouraging users to complete their profile. If you're Amazon, it means driving new customers to your most profitable products. And if you're Basecamp, it means getting people logged in so the product can sell itself.

Figure out which action gets people hooked, and build your welcome email around it.

2. Don't let anyone leave without asking, 'Why?'

Imagine someone walks into a store, picks up an item off the shelf to check it out but leaves without buying anything. A good salesperson would never let this opportunity slip away without at least asking a few questions.

Whether you have an e-commerce store, a SaaS product or a mobile app, people are kicking the tires all the time without converting. Don't let them leave without 1) incentivizing them and 2) asking for feedback. Here are a few ideas:

• Send abandoned shopping cart emails. According to Baymard, 68.07 percent of all carts are abandoned. Collect email addresses early in the checkout process so you can ping people who abandon
• Send "Are you still interested?" emails. Airbnb is great at this. When you a view a listing but don't book, you get an email the next day asking if you're still interested
• Send inactivity emails. If someone has signed up for your product or service, most of the really hard work is done. If a user is inactive, send them a little reminder. RunKeeper and Mint.com have this down pat
• Ask for feedback when people are really done. This information will be incredibly valuable for your business development

Related: 4 Examples of Bad Email Manners

3. Renew, renew, renew

Email is the perfect way to turn expected problems into simple solutions.

For example, if you sell dog food, trigger an email reminding customers to replenish their supply at a regular interval. Try to time the arrival of the email with the customer's realization that it's time to buy more dog food. It's a problem you can easily solve over and over again.

If you have a subscription-based product, renewal emails are the lifeblood of your residual sales. Remind users how much of a pain it will be to switch to another product and provide an easy path to renewal.

Timeliness will drive more revenue than a catchy subject line or a beautifully designed email. Be there when you're needed.

4. Kill it with email receipts

Transactional emails are opened at up to eight times the rate of promotional email according to Experian. Considering that most transactional emails lack any marketing value, this is a massive opportunity.

Receipts are a great place to start. If you're sending someone a receipt, it means the customer has already made a purchase. You've overcome a number of challenges to complete a sale. The receipt is an opportunity to strengthen your relationship with the customer.

You can't sell directly in a receipt, but here are few ways to make them more valuable:

• Include a referral code
• Offer a discount on the next purchase
• Ask customers to follow you on Twitter, Facebook or your blog

Email marketing can drive real revenue for your business, but you've got to think bigger than blasts. Behavioral email is key to unlocking the hidden value in your customers and users.

To view the original article Click Here

4 Areas Of Email Marketing Improvement

Both email marketing and marketing automation software should ultimately save time and enhance revenues — and taking a myopic view of these technologies’ applications in a client company is a major oversight. 

When marketers are able to look at how these technologies are functioning through a customer lifecycle, they can identify bottlenecks, opportunities, and relationships between the two that open up massive potential to boost the bottom line — and that’s the business we’re in.

As email marketers, we’re not merely in the strategic advisory business, or the software integration business, or the copywriting / optimization business — though we’re involved in all those components and more. The work of a real email marketer (the work I’m involved in every day) is the business of driving results that you can see on the bottom line.

The unique process that we use with our client companies goes through four distinct phases: Collecting, Connecting, Converting, and Circulating. Though I’ve covered some of the best practices of these email marketing phases on Duct Tape Marketing blog, today I’ll dive into more depth to explore how we might improve each phase.

By testing and analyzing the entire email and automation process, we’re able to find the small opportunities that create big yields, and identify which projects should be the client’s highest priority.

Below, we’ll cover each phase distinctly, and look into how opportunities can be mined (and problems solved) in each of the four distinct quadrants.

Email Marketing Phase 1: Collecting

In analyzing this phase, we look at all the ways in which a company is presently acquiring leads, contacts, and sometimes front-end sales. 

The aim here is to acquire as many of the right leads as possible, and begin immediate communication with them in the right method and at the right pace. Optimizing this quadrant means improving lead flow from our given sources.

Companies also commonly aim to drive more leads into their various web or new prospect funnels, and this phase commonly involves the implementation of new PR, SEO, or outbound contact strategies to find consistent traffic sources.

Improve Metric Movers:

• New, profitable leads sources to tap consistently (implementing new traffic-driving regimens)
• Higher conversion on contact forms / information collection forms / white papers / webinars / etc.
• More leads in the customer’s pipeline 

Tools and Strategies:

• Landing page optimization / split-testing
• Opt-in form variations and drop-down segmentation
• Outbound lead generation campaign design

Common Errors:

• Neglecting to test major landing pages and contact pages to optimize submissions
• Neglecting to create thank-you pages with specific calls to action (i.e.: web forms that answer a submission with “Thank you for submitting”)
• Unsegmented front-end contact forms that communicate identically to leads and prospects of all types.

Email Marketing Phase 2: Connecting

In this phase of the optimization process, we aim to build the best initial relationship with the prospect as possible — through automated follow-up sequences and communications calibrated by their prospect type and their behavior.

Before converting a prospect to a customer or moving an initial buyer to an up-sell or retention strategy, we must understand and appeal to their motives. In this phase, we identify these unique characteristics so the next contact can employ the appropriate mailing sequences and calibrations they’ve pre-determined for that type of customer.

Improve Metric Movers:

• Email open rates from prospects / new customers
• Response rates to offers, appointments, or other calls-to-action within a company’s email sequences
• Decreased “SPAM” complaints

Tools & Strategies:

• Customer avatars and customer profiles (purchase motives, etc…)
• Analytics for email open and click-through rates
• Split-testing of email sequences and subject lines

Common Errors:

• Bland, generic follow-up sequences that aren’t calibrated by the business’s demands or by the behavior of the client
• Neglecting to setting up designated follow-up sequences for new buyers, or for win-back of past customers
• Short, untested email sequences that are set once and never tested to improve their efficacy in delivering meaningful results like sales, appointments, or any kind of engagement

Email Marketing Phase 3: Converting

In the converting phase, we leverage email and automation strategies to bring customers to make their first significant step forward with the client business. For an e-commerce business, this might involve a first purchase or an up-sell purchase. For a service business, this might involve a qualified sales appointment. For an app company, this might involve passing a critical “stickiness” threshold, or a new referral.

Here our relevant messaging and understanding of customer motives are fully employed in driving revenues. Proper testing of the links, sequences, and pages directly leading to a sale is often one of the fastest way to extract more revenue from an existing marketing funnel.

Improve Metric Movers:

• Appointment form split-testing
• Landing or sales page split-testing
• Profit-per-prospect generated through major lead channels

Tools & Strategies:

• Appointment form split-testing
• Landing or sales page split-testing
• Offer and campaign construction

Common Errors:

• Untested sales pages or appointment forms that stagnate with low response rates but still go unnoticed
• Lack of follow-up offers or “second swing” attempts of sales and appointments on qualified leads
• Short, ineffective campaigns which only convert a minor portion of the total qualified prospects in a given channel

Email Marketing Phase 4: Circulating

This phase is towards the end of the customer lifecycle but should be viewed as a continued portion of the customer or prospect relationship with the company.

It’s safe to say that this is where 90% of businesses “drop the ball” in terms of maintaining relationships with valuable prospect and customer groups. Optimizing this phase means the construction of a profit-rich database that a company can draw upon again and again for sales and referrals.

Generating ideas for this phase of your email marketing strategy can often be aided by analyzing the strategies of large companies who use newsletters well. Recently, we conducted a breakdown of some of the email newsletter strategies of HubSpot, Wayfair, Boston Consulting Group and other top companies, which I hope you find useful.

Improve Metric Movers:

• Customer lifetime values
• Long-term open rates and engagement
• “Found” revenues via specific offers to particular list segments

Tools & Strategies:

• Determination of broadcast regimens
• Long-term customer lifetime value mapping and optimization (“deep” campaigns as an alternative to neglecting past prospects and customers)
• “Newsletter” segmentation and testing methods engineered to refine communication for long-term engagement

Common Errors:

• A disorganized and inconsistent regimen for reaching out to existing customers, maintaining engagement, retention, and future purchases
• “Blast” emails that blanket an entire prospect or customer list and degrade long-term relationships and customer lifetime value
• Neglecting to calibrate more or different communication to particularly active and valuable list segments who are eager to invest more with the company

Viewing email marketing as simple phase (e.g., the newsletter or the autoresponder) will limit email from reaching the broad scope it can potentially influence as a marketing medium.

I hope that seeing email through these phases will help you understand all of the “improvement points” along the customer’s buying journey and allow you to make meaningful and systematic improvements in your business.

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