Seven Ways to Dramatically Increase Your Email Marketing Profitability
March 4, 2010
1. The Power of Seven
When choosing a price point for your product, studies have shown that prices ending with a number 7 (specifically in the dollar amount) sell more. In other words, set your price at $27.95, $47.95, $87.95 etc. Want evidence? Just look at any major marketing site online and see how they price. The number 7 has been proven to be the most appealing number.
2. Leave Them Wanting More
When constructing your sales letter, try to make it carry over to multiple pages. Create the impression of added value by ending each page with a question or a phrase that makes the visitor have to go to your next page. Something as simple as, “To see the 7 exciting bonuses that come with every package…” You get the idea. Each page adds to the perceived value of the product. Leave them wanting more at the end of every page.
3. A Great Traffic Generator
Place a free news ticker on your web site. Having fresh content makes your site much more important in the eyes of Search Engines. You can choose a topic relevant to your web site. Check out http://www.7am.com/ticker/ and get a free news ticker today.
Can You Win The Battle By Using A Toothpick?
February 17, 2010
Every business needs a low cost way to reach targeted customers.
Email marketing is by far one of the most effective and inexpensive methods of advertising available to you.
The benefits:
1. Direct communication with prospects and existing customers
2. Plenty of room for your message. Your space isn’t limited when you can send to your own list
3. Facilitates testing and tracking. You can experiment with new approaches to boosting conversion rates on a pre-targeted group.
Not only is email marketing very low cost (it’s virtually free once your sales meet your overhead expenses), it is also a super fast way to rake in profits and test new products.
Imagine having your own database of prospects. The results of your marketing efforts are doubled when you’ve captured these prospects. The bulk of long-term business profits come from repeat sales and repeat customers. The only way to acquire a repeat customer is to stay in contact with him.
Constant communication is your ticket to building trust and credibility. A new customer always feels hesitation when engaging in a relationship with an unknown business. Yet, if you communicate with that customer on a consistent basis, you soon overcome their reservations about doing business with you. You come to know each other and build a bond of familiarity.
Email Scam Warnings
February 3, 2010
Most people online are very familiar with the Nigerian Email Letter Scams. They’ve victimized thousands over the years and continue to do so. I am certain you’ve received many in your inbox over the course of your online experience. They are easy to recognize to the experienced. But if you are new online check out the following signs. These words are usually included (IN BOLD CAPITAL LETTERS) in the subject line.
DEAR SIR/MADAM
YOUR SOLICITATION
YOUR HELP IS NEEDED
IMPORTANT
PLEASE SIR/MADAM
I BEG YOUR ASSISTANCE
YOUR ASSISTANCE
URGENT
FROM MR…..
FROM MRS…..
A REQUEST FROM MR (FILL IN THE BLANK)
Did you know, according to online resources, these emails also originate in Ghana, Togo, Benin.
Even more surprising, according to online resources, is that many of these swindlers are not even staying in the country the solicitations originate from. Their home base might be in Europe, Canada, even the United States!
What can the average online business person do to avoid these scammers?
Plenty!
Read On!
How The Scam Works!
Yes, Please Do Come In, But Better Watch Your Step!
January 18, 2010
This little parody, and the comments that follow, were written nearly six years ago. In my opinion, they’re even more appropriate now than they were then. Let me know what you think.
Email Autoreponder ? How to Put your Business on Autopilot
January 4, 2010
Answering emails can take up a significant portion of the time you have to do business. Many times the same set of questions are being asked over and over again. Haven’t you ever wished that you could have a simple and easy way to respond to your customers automatically? Email autoresponders are the answer!
If you study the name ‘autoresponder’ you can guess that we are talking about something that can respond automatically. At its most basic level, an email autoresponder is a script that is programmed to respond automatically to an email message with a pre-arranged email message.
There are all kinds of ways to use this. You could setup a free report that you send to someone when they send you a blank email at the address of your autoresponder. As soon as they send an email to the autoresponder, the script sends them a response automatically, without you having to lift a finger. You write the email once, it can get sent out hundreds or even thousands of times. You now have more time for other tasks. That’s the beauty of autoresponders.
Not all autoresponders are created equal
6 Simple Ways to Manage Your Emails Better
December 22, 2009
E-mail, a wonderful communication tool is also the greatest challenge to manage. Hundreds of mails pouring in from friends, forums, business associates, customers and subscribed newsletters and spam mail with enticing subject headers.
Just imagine reading even 50 mails a day. It would take two and half hours even if you just spend 3 minutes on an average per mail. Replying to five to six important mails a day would take another hour at 10 minutes a mail.
Spending up to 4 hours a day on mails may leave you with little time to do more important work. So how do you manage the clutter of mails?
Creating mail folders
The first thing on setting up a new mail account is to create folders for storing important mails. You can create folders such as personal mails, business mails, priority response, newsletters etc. This will help you sort the important, urgent and casual mails and prioritize your email activities.
Spam and bulk mails
Who Is Your Real Competition?
December 7, 2009
If you design kitchens, is another kitchen designer your competition? Most likely not. And the sooner you can position and modify your marketing strategy against your real competition, the sooner you will start to see more business come through the door. So Who Really Is Your Competition? The answer to that is always–Never the most obvious. So let’s take the example of the kitchen designer. Having decided that another kitchen designer isn’t his competition, he now has to decide who is his real competition.
His Real Competition Could Be A Car Salesman
Is this for real? How can a car salesman be a kitchen designer’s competition? Let’s analyse this more carefully. A kitchen and a car are both fighting for the same thing– The householder’s limited budget.
If the kitchen designer, were able to convince a couple that a kitchen is more important than a new car (which he could easily do if there was a foodie around), he now has a better chance of them dropping the car in favour of the kitchen.
The Advantage Of This Method Of Positioning
The most obvious advantage is that you’re not losing any current customers. All your past advertising is bringing in the customers that are looking for kitchens anyway.
DoubleClicks Q3 2004 Report Shows Bulk Email Marketing Eficiency Increase
November 23, 2009
Wednesday, December 15 2004 at 16:00 EET
Internet marketing company DoubleClick published its final report over the bulk email marketing evolution this year. The figures show year-over-year increase in delivery rates (cleaner emailing lists), and a decrease in open rates and click-through rates. The variations are light, proving a steady and maturing environment.
DoubleClick’s metrics
The data analyzed were based on more than 2 billion messages sent by hundreds DARTmail customers, measuring bouncebacks, open rates, click-throughs and conversions (open to sales, or click to sales ratio). The results were reported for 2004 and compared to 2003.
DoubleClick used unweighted averages for all analyzed categories. This helps eliminating the influence that large email marketers could have over category averages, as the report states.
The email marketing categories considered in the study were:
- Business Products & Services
- Consumer Products
- Consumer Services
- Financial Services
- Travel
- Retail&Catalog
- Publisher - Business
- Publisher - Consumer
Email marketing performances
The bounce rates show a slight decline overall, and a more consistent decline in the Travel category, down 54.5% from 14.3% to 6.5%.
Email Hosting ? Learn How To Use eMail To Grow Your Business
November 7, 2009
Email is a wonderful thing. It costs next to nothing and can be sent almost anywhere in the world in a few minutes. When email is used properly, it can help move your business forward. When it is not used properly, it can hurt your business.
Here are a couple of ways that email can hurt your business
The first way that email can hurt your business is by sending unsolicited emails to every email address you can find. This is now commonly referred to as spam and it is an epidemic of major proportions. In fact, there has been talk that spam has made email almost useless as a form of communication. The average person gets so much junk email in their boxes every day that many people simply select all and delete without bothering to go through each message.
There is a second way that an email may be hurting you online. If you are conducting business online and your principal email account is from a free email service like hotmail.com or yahoo.com, you are practically shouting to people that you don’t take your business seriously. Asking someone to fork over money on the internet is already difficult without giving off signals that people shouldn’t trust you or your business. Getting an email account with your own domain at the end of it does not have to be expensive.
Just Because You Can…
October 25, 2009
Just because you can communicate with hundreds of people virtually via email, doesn’t mean you should. The phone still exists because it’s a valuable tool — especially for small business owners.
Over and over again in the places I frequent on the Internet, I hear calls for help from small business owners for different services. One needs promotional items, another needs an accountant, yet another needs some other type of service — you’ve probably heard it too.
And time and again I see people responding to those calls for help with a casual attitude via email. They’re trying their best to make that connection using a method that has no emotion and plenty of personal detachment.
Don’t make the same mistake. Email is fine as a medium for communication but lacks a lot in helping you acquire a new client. There’s just something about connecting with a real live person that can take you a long way to success.
Make that phone call!!!
Denise O’Berry is a small business expert who helps small business owners take action to grow their business. Learn more about how to be a successful small business owner at http://www.smallbiz-bootcamp.com
