Email Marketing Tips and Stats

Email Marketing Tips and Stats 

1. On average, subscribers receive 416 commercial messages a month. (Return Path)
2. There are more than 3.2 billion email accounts.
3. Email ad revenue reached $156 million in 2012. (Interactive Advertising Bureau viaSalesforce.com)
4. 95% of online consumers use email.
5. 91% of consumers reported checking their email at least once a day. (ExactTarget)
6. US internet users will average 3.1 email addresses this year, according to a July 2013 survey conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of MyLife. 
7. According to eMarketer there will be around 236.8 million US email users by 2017.
8. Worldwide, market research firm The Radicati Group forecasts the email audience will grow from 2.42 billion this year to 2.76 billion by 2017.
9. Purpose of email marketing programs according to UK brand marketers? 78% said retention.
10. 64% of decision-makers read their email via mobile devices. (TopRankBlog)
11. 89% percent of UK brand marketers polled by the UK’s Direct Marketing Association (DMA) in December 2012 said email was important to their business strategies. 
12. For every $1 spent, $44.25 is the average return on email marketing investment.
13. 56% of businesses say they plan to increase their use of email marketing in 2013.
14. In Q4 2012, more than nine out of 10 UK internet users sent or received email at least once a week, according to data from Deloitte.
15. 70% say they always open emails from their favorite companies. Conversely, only 18% say they never open commercial emails.
16. 55.2% of global users use the desktop to open email (Harland Clarke)
17. eMarketer estimates the US adult email audience will reach 188.3 million in 2013 and will continue to climb to 203.8 million by 2017. 
18. 93% of consumers also get at least one permission-based email daily.

Mobile Design

1. A whopping 66% of Gmail opens occur on mobile devices, with only 19% opened in a web browser (Litmus)
2. When planning content for a multi-device experience, your most important content should come first. Think back to the top-down hierarchy taught in basic journalism—what do you most want your readers to see?
3. We recommend using text of at least 13px for body copy. In order to avoid having to zoom in, try starting at 15-16px (depending on the actual font) and preview it on your mobile device.
4. The mobile experience is highly interactive and every email is viewed in stages. Plan for each stage, using both the design and content strategically. (Designing for the Mobile Inbox) 
5. According to Bridget Dolan, vice president of interactive for cosmetics retailer Sephora, the percentage of email messages opened on mobile devices is already in the 50% range.
6. 43% of all emails are now being opend via a mobile device. (Return Path)
7. Know your audience—it’s the most basic of all marketing principles. If your brand’s mobile audience is at or above 10%, it’s time to start optimizing for mobile.
8. The #1 email client for Gmail users is the iPhone’s built-in mail program, with 34% of all Gmail opens. (Litmus)
9. In a world where smartphone penetration in the US has reached 55%, marketers can no longer afford to think of email messages in terms of “mobile” and “non-mobile.” The reality is that subscribers will likely view your messages on a wide variety of devices—including desktops, laptops, smart phones, and tablet computers.
10. Don’t focus solely on click-based interaction—instead, try to think in terms of swipes and taps. As with any good design, grid-based layouts ensure content is easy to read and digest.
11. Rather than asking for name, address, company, and so on, keep it simple. Try limiting your form to one field: the email address. (Salesforce.com)
12. A one-column layout works best in both aware and responsive design. If you have a  multi-column layout, carefully plan how elements shift or stack, using a grid to ensure the technical aspect is possible.

Mastering the Inbox

1. Do you want to help your bounce rate? Locate the emails that generated the high number of bouncebacks and investigate the source of the list. 
2. Comply with the guidelines in the federal CAN-SPAM legislation. Most importantly, make sure that all requests for removal from your mailing lists are honored. 
3. 33% of email recipients open email based on subject line alone. (Convince & Convert viaSalesforce.com)
4. More people read emails that deal with their finances and travel than any other category. (Return Path)
5. Desktop and smartphone email opens happened most often between 10am and 4pm—during the typical workday. (Harland Clarke)
6. Recipients often only read the subject line or the first few lines of an email. Include your CTA early on in your email. 
7. Subject lines fewer than 10 characters long had an open rate of 58%. (Adestra July 2012 Report)
8. According to Google, there were over 425 million active Gmail users as of June 2012. According to email testing and tracking service Litmus, approximately four percent of all email opens can be attributed to Gmail webmail users, as of June 2013.

B2B Email Marketing

1. 61% of B2B marketing professionals worldwide said CTR was the most useful metric for analyzing email campaign performance, compared with 48% of business-to-consumer (B2C) marketers. (Ascend2)
2. Use autoresponders to automate simple, recurring emails. Since welcome and thank-you emails will be sent over and over again as you gain new subscribers and followers, they are perfect for testing the marketing automation waters. (Mastering the Art of Marketing Automation) 
3. Bold, beautiful imagery is slowly taking over our inboxes, as we take cues from Pinterest and social hubs like Facebook and Twitter. Images help tell your brand’s story, so consider taking the time to choose artful shots that complement your message. For B2B emails, think outside the 
   realm of traditional stock photography to make your messages are unique. 
4. The smart B2B marketers are personalizing their communication based on a prospect’s interests—using behavioral data and a whole new generation of online personalization technology.
5. Start building your landing pages, forms, and email templates using industryaccepted best practices. Many automation providers offer implementation services that will walk you through creating these assets, from template design to the content included in each. 

Data. Data. Data. 

1. Get accurate and detailed data from people who want to hear from you, then automate the numerous steps involved in sending them relevant messages. (eMarketer)
2. One of the top benefits of e-mail marketing is that it yields reams of data about who a company’s best customers are. Marketers can target those people in the social realm and offer incentives or discounts to encourage them to share with their friends and advocate on behalf of the brand. (eMarketer)
3. There’s a Big Data disconnect. In a recent study from Econsultancy, 77% of marketers said purchase history had a very high impact on return on investment (ROI), meaning they are leveraging that data for lead nurture and to aid the buyer’s decision-making process. (Joel Book)
4. 7 in 10 people say they made use of a coupon or discount from a marketing email in the prior week. (2012 Blue Kangaroo Study)
5. If the addresses were acquired organically via form submissions, consider using a Confirmed Opt-In process. With Confirmed Opt-In, an individual is required to enter an email address to access your site or content. Upon registering their email address, a verification email will be sent to the address provided. This way, new subscribers can only submit valid, active email addresses. 

Social Media and Email

1. Email sharing is extremely important to any digital marketing campaign. It is important to include social sharing buttons at the top of your email. When the recipient clicks the share button, have the social post populated with interesting copy and a shortened link.
2. A May 2013 survey of US internet users, conducted by ad agency The Buntin Group and survey research firm Survey Sampling International (SSI) on behalf of disposable tableware company Chinet, showed respondents spent more time per week with email than any other digital activity—an hour more than popular digital diversions such as Facebook and texting.

By: Unknown On 7:45 PM

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How To Make Your Email Marketing More Mobile-Friendly ?

Unless you've been burying your head in the sand the past few years, you may have missed the news about mobile. The "mobile first" revolution has arrived. And it's here to stay.

To boot, some 145 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones  (a 60.8 percent mobile market penetration) during the three months ending in August, up 3 percent since May, according to the August 2013 comScore report. Translation: Nearly two out of every three Americans own asmartphone.

Now consider that email is the top activity on smartphones  -- ahead of browsing and even Facebook -- and you have a huge opportunity to reach people with your email marketingmessages via the devices they are using most often.

However, email marketing hasn't totally caught up with the mobile revolution. The majority of emails are still not optimized for mobile viewing and interaction. Buttons are small. Subscribers are forced to enlarge the screen and move things around to see the email. It's just clunky.

But there is hope. The future is now for mobile-friendly email marketing. Here are seven tips to ensure your next email campaign is optimized for a mobile device.

1. Earn subscribers' trust. 
When it comes to mobile, who the email is from becomes that much more important. What's the first thing you see when scanning your inbox? Yup. The "From Name." If subscribers don't recognize who the email is from or don't trust the sender, they are less likely to open the message.

If they don't open your email, the rest of these tips don't even matter. Earning that trust starts well before the first email. It also is not limited to email. Trust can be earned or lost on social media, offline and through other more traditional channels.

2. Really think about the subject line.

Along with the From Name, the subject line is critical. While your audience may not know who you are, a compelling and creative -- or a direct and descriptive -- subject line can be the difference between an open and a delete or ignore.

3. Don't forget about the preheader. 
Sometimes called the snippet text, the preheader is the text that's above the header image. On smartphones especially, it's the first bit of text that's viewable.

Instead of something boring like, "To view this email in you browser …" try putting some unique text there. Test clickable calls to action. Maybe even try using some humor.

4. Ensure your call to action is big and obvious. 
This is an important step, and not just for mobile-optimized emails. Make sure your call to action is big, bold and obvious.

When it comes to smartphones, real estate is at a premium. Subscribers will not search for your call to action. And sometimes smaller links are more difficult to click on, especially depending on the size of a person's fingers.

Your call to action has to be in their faces. Make it clear, big and simple to click.

5. Consider responsive email design (RED). 
Ensuring the user experience is optimized regardless of platform and device is not a new concept on the web. But creating responsive-designed emails is something that is just starting to pick up steam.

This is becoming more important as more people own smartphones and use email as their main "app." Creating a responsive-designed email template is not technically easy to do, but it's something your email service provider or marketing automation vendor should be able to assist you with.

6. Include images. 
The majority of email clients on a smart phone -- including the iPhone's native Mail app -- have images enabled by default. Sure, a person can go into the settings and turn them off, but most people don't take this extra step.

So with images on by default, it's important that you think about what imagery you're using in your email marketing messages. Whether your audience is B2B or B2C is irrelevant. Images matter.

So instead of just dropping a random image into your email, consider using something that's linked to the content. Put in a fun image, a different image and an eye-catching image.

7. Be aware of unsubscribe placement. 
I believe strongly marketers should learn the love the unsubscribe button. But with mobile devices, it's important to consider where your unsubscribe link is in relation to other links in your email. Too often I've seen the unsubscribe link placed dangerously close to the main call to action. One wrong move and a loyal subscriber has opted out.

Above all, the best advice when it comes to ensuring your emails get opened on a smartphone is to test -- test all of the tips mentioned above. After all, your audience is not my audience. Best practices are those that are best for your subscribers.

By: Unknown On 7:30 PM

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Email Marketing Tips Tactics

With these 25 email tips, you can improve the quality and consistency of your emails for your subscribers.  To make it easy to read, I’ve broken it up into five different sections.

If you have a tip you’d like to add, post it in the comments at the bottom.

• Always get permission – Without having permission (meaning every subscriber asked for you to email them), spam complaints will increase and people will ignore your emails — even worse, they may opt out altogether. Aside from upsetting your “newfound” subscribers, you will probably also get the boot from your email service provider for violating their policies.
• Set expectations at the opt-in – Tell your potential subscribers what you will send them and how often. It shouldn’t be a shock that nobody wants an inbox full of email from you.
• Confirm with double opt-ins – While it’s a slight barrier to get your emails, double-opt-in protects you and your email provider from incurring spam complaints. Also, it’s smart since you will be confirming that someone actually wants your emails and is willing to click a link to do it.
• Utilize email marketing campaigns instead of ‘newsletters’ – Newsletters are so 2001. With an email campaign, you can attract specific prospects and send them emails related to a particular topic.
• Make the offer at the right time – Nothing annoys email subscribers more than getting an offer at the wrong time in their inbox. Strategically and calmly earn the opportunity to make a sale by providing the helpful and relevant content that they originally signed up for.

• Match your email to your brand – Include your company logo and colors on all your emails for consistency. Doing this will make your emails familiar and expected.
• Look professional with a consistent color scheme – Colors are a major component of your brand. If you need help finding a good color scheme, check out kuler orCOLOURlovers for inspiration.
• Design the email and landing pages so it’s easy for mobile users – Realize that the popular iPhone has a viewable space of 320 x 356 pixels. That’s not much compared to the real estate of your computer (probably above 1024 x 768). This means you should condense the width so they can read the email without resizing the message.
• Make your email readable without images enabled – For privacy reasons, most email clients disable images unless the user allows it. Because of this, any images you include in the email should have descriptive text set for the Alternative attribute.
• Use fonts that reflect the style and tone of the email message – Choosing the right font size and family is a big deal. You wouldn’t take a business proposal seriously if they emailed you with Comic Sans. Choose a font that everyone has instead of one that looks good on your computer (e.g., Arial, Verdana, Times New Roman or Tahoma)

• Reinforce expectations of the email campaign – This doesn’t mean using the original IP address and convincing people your email isn’t spam. Rather, tactfully explain the basis of your email message and inform them if there are future emails they can expect from you.
• Personalize the emails and include more than their name – Make your emails personal and include more than their name. You’ll hopefully know why they signed up to your list and you can presume that in your copy by making it relevant.
• Economize your message to maintain focus – People are pressed for time. They don’t want to read more than a few paragraphs to decipher what you’re trying to say. Write what you need in the most efficient way possible. A tip I learned from an esteemed copyeditor is to write what you want, then cut the length by half. It’s remarkably helpful.
• Write for people, not robots – If you use “F.R.E.E.” in your email and it’s not an acronym for “Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment,” you’re doing it wrong. Just write for people and the spam filters will let it slide.
• Make your emails engaging and solicit feedback – As a reader, I like it when the sender asks a provoking question and solicits a response on their Facebook or simply via reply. This is good not only for the social interaction, but it will also educate you on what people think about your emails.

• Test your email messages on different email clients – Once you have the perfect-looking email, test how it looks on many different email readers. There are a few affordable services available that let you preview how it looks or you can simply try it yourself by setting up free email accounts on AOL, Yahoo, Gmail and Hotmail and downloading a copy of Mozilla Thunderbird.
• Make it easy to unsubscribe – When users don’t want to receive your emails, don’t bury the unsubscribe link. Make it visible because receiving an unsubscribe is much better than a spam complaint.
• Send emails in multipart for maximum readability – Combine the best of plain-text and HTML email by sending in Multipart. For devices that don’t support HTML, they will show the message in plain-text. Conversely, if a device supports HTML, they will show it in HTML.
• Use a pre-header to take advantage of email previews – Pre-headers are simply the first line of text in an email located at the top. Email services like Gmail display the pre-header directly after the subject line, and it’s a good idea to summarize the email right there.
• Try a plain-text format if you use HTML – Mix up your email routine once in a while and use a plain-text email if you typically send in HTML. People frequently perceive plain-text emails are more intimate and personal from the sender, so use it sparingly.

• Respect your subscribers’ time and interests – Don’t hammer their inbox with useless emails. Plan out your emails and respect subscribers’ interests so they don’t receive more than a couple messages per month.
• Let people re-confirm their interest after nine months – Getting permission is half the battle; retaining it is the other half. Permission typically expires after nine months, so it’s a good idea to ask people to confirm their interest in receiving your emails and offers. The best part is, you will discover the most loyal subscribers.
• Send emails to smaller, more targeted groups in your list – With advanced email marketing, you are able to track which links and emails intrigue your audience. Leverage this data to identify different sub-groups to send tailored messages. You will be surprised at the increase in response rates when you do this.
• Use more than email to stay in touch – Email is the holy grail of marketing for small businesses, but it doesn’t end there. As the relationship with email matures, get more information on your contacts by asking for their address and even mobile number. Consider these additional means to stay in touch with your audience.
• Ask for and use subscribers’ feedback – There are two types of feedback: passive and active. Passive feedback is looking at which links people click on, which is an indicator of the aggregate interest in your email messages. Active feedback is when people ask you a question, suggest an idea or make a comment. Leverage this feedback to improve your email campaigns.

By: Unknown On 7:28 PM

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Email Marketing Tips For Businesses

Email-Marketing-Tips

Make it easy to subscribe. Post a signup form on your homepage, blog, Facebook page, and wherever else your customers and fans are already active. You might want to collect names and birthdays (for a special offer or gift) or invite readers to join groups, but don’t go crazy with the required fields. A too-long subscribe form might scare people off.

Tell subscribers what to expect. Whether you plan to send company updates, letters from the president, e-commerce sales, daily deals, or weekly tips, it’s important to tell your readers what to expect and how often to expect it. Give them as much information as possible on your signup form, so they can decide whether they want to be on the list or not.

Send a welcome email. It’s always smart to remind people why they’re on your list and reassure them that good things are in store. You might even send new subscribers a special offer or exclusive content, as your way of thanking them for their loyalty.

Design your newsletter to fit your brand. Your email campaigns should match your brand’s look and feel. If you’re using a template, you might want to customize it to include your company’s colors and logo in the header. If your emails are consistent with the rest of your company’s content, then readers will feel more familiar from the start.

Make it scannable. Your subscribers are busy people who get a lot of email, so it’s safe to assume you don’t have their undivided attention. Instead of one long block, break up your content into short paragraphs. Include subheadings and images to guide readers through your email and make it easier to scan, and add a teaser to the top of your newsletter to tell subscribers what’s in store. If you’re sending a long article, consider inserting a “read more” link so people can get to the rest when it’s convenient for them. Your subject line should be to-the-point and easy to digest, too. You might even want to a/b test subject lines to see which ones perform best.

Send people content they want. Email newsletter services offer features like groups and segmentation to help you make your content relevant to the people reading it. If you’re sending different emails for different groups (for example, a nonprofit might send separate emails to volunteers, donors, and the board of directors), then you can ask people to check a box to join a particular group on your signup form. Segmentation allows you to target certain subscribers on your list without assigning them to group. If your store is having a sale, then you could send a campaign only to people near a particular zip code, because subscribers who live in other parts of the world don’t need to know about it. You can also segment by activity, email clients, e-commerce data, and more. Sending relevant content will keep your readers engaged, and engaged readers look forward to your newsletter and share it with friends.

Keep a publishing calendar. A regular newsletter is a commitment. If you go several months without sending anything, then your subscribers will forget about you, and they’ll be more likely to delete the next email, or worse, mark it as spam. Make time to plan, write, design, and send your newsletters regularly.

Edit. Even editors need editors. When you’re working on your publishing calendar, leave plenty of time for the editing and revision process. Once you send a campaign, it goes straight to the inbox, and you can’t go back and update it. Newsletters contain meaningful content, and sloppy ones reflect poorly on the companies who send them. Grammar and style are just as important for email as they are for websites and blogs.

Test. Different email clients and mobile devices display emails differently. Send test emails to colleagues, or use a testing program to make sure your emails are going to look good on screens big and small. Testing reveals design mistakes before it’s too late, and testing programs can predict whether or not a campaign will get caught in a spam filter. You could even set up accounts with a few different email services for easy testing. Avoid sending one big image as a campaign, and cover your bases with a plain-text option for every email.

Think about mobile. If a campaign doesn’t show up on mobile devices, it’s not going to perform very well. Everything you send should be mobile-friendly. Check out ReturnPath’s “Email in Motion” infographic for some data that might affect the way you design your emails. One of the highlights: According to the study, 63 percent of Americans and 41 percent of Europeans would either close or delete an email that’s not optimized for mobile. Might be time to start using a responsive template.

Know your spam rules. A lot of innocent people send spam because they didn’t know any better. Read up on the CAN-SPAM act to avoid any trouble. Put simply, you’re allowed to send bulk email only to people who specifically asked to be on your mailing list. If you collected email addresses for a lunch giveaway or an event invitation, then you don’t have permission to send marketing emails unless you made that clear at signup. Include an obvious unsubscribe link in every email, and don’t forget to remind subscribers how they got on your list in the first place.

Make it shareable. Send content that people want to share, and make it easy for them to do it. Sure, subscribers can forward your campaign to friends, but that’s a lot to ask. Include a public link to the web version of your campaign so people can read it outside of their email programs, and consider adding Twitter and Facebook links to your newsletter, so readers can share your content where they’re already active. When their friends start sharing and subscribing, you’ll know it’s working.

Keep an eye on your stats. Most email newsletter services offer free reports that contain helpful information. Learn how to read and understand your reports, so you can use the stats to improve your campaigns going forward. Pay attention to your open and click rates, and identify any patterns that make those numbers go up or down. If a campaign receives a high number of unsubscribes, then try something different the next time.

Be friendly. Feel free to use a casual tone in your email newsletters. Since most emails come directly from one person, people expect human voices in their inboxes. There’s a good chance your subscribers are already in a informal frame of mind when they’re checking their email, so an overly formal or stodgy voice might seem out of place. Plus, they’ve given you their email address, so you’re already on a first-name basis. If you collect first names on your signup form, you can dynamically include them in your email greetings.

Only send email if you have something to say. This one seems obvious, but too many companies start email newsletters with no plan and nothing to say. Email is simply a way to publish content—the content itself has to come first. Before starting a newsletter, make sure it’s a sustainable commitment that will help you achieve your business goals. Otherwise, you’ll be wasting your subscribers’ time and your own time. Ask yourself: What’s the goal for this kind of communication? What do we have to say? How will we measure success? Send thoughtful newsletters, and keep the focus on your company’s message.

By: Unknown On 7:24 PM

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How i Trace Email Address ?

Learn How to Trace an E-Mail Address

Trace an email address in the most popular programs like Microsoft Outlook, Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail, AOL, by finding the header.

What Is an E-Mail Header

Each email you receive comes with headers. The headers contain information about the routing of the message and the originating Internet Protocol address of the message. Not all electronic messeges you receive will allow you to track them back to the originating point and depending on how you send messages determines whether or not they can trace an email address back to you. The headers don’t contain any personal information. At most, the results of the trace with show you the origination IP and the computer name that sent the email. After viewing the trace information, the initiating IP can be looked up to determine from where the message was sent. IP address location information DOES NOT contain your street name, house number, or phone number. The trace will most likely determine the city and the ISP the sender used.

How Do I Get The Header to Start the E-Mail Trace Process?

Each electronic messaging program will vary as to how you get to the message options. I’ll cover the basics to start the trace…the rest is up to you. Outlook – Right click the message while it’s in the inbox and choose Message Options. A window will open with the headers in the bottom of the window. Windows Live – Right click the correspondence while it’s in the inbox, choose Properties, then click the Details tab. GMail – Open the correspondence. In the upper right corner of the email you’ll see the word Reply with a little down arrow to the right. Click the down arrow and choose Show Original. Hotmail – Right click the memo and choose View Message Source. Yahoo! – Right click the note and choose View Full Headers. AOL – Click Action and then View Message Source. You can see that no matter the program, the headers are usually just a right click away.

I’ve Got the Header, Now How Do I Start The Trace?

The next step to trace an email address is to find the first IP listed in the header. This is most likely the IP initiating point. However, there are exceptions to this. You’ll have to look at the information logically to deduce the originating IP.

Can You Trace any E-Mail Address?

Yes and No. For example, someone who sends a message to your hotmail account shows in the X-Originating IP section of the headers. However, someone who sends you a message from GMail will ONLY trace back to Google IP addresses. We’ve got more information in our Trace An Email forum.

By: Unknown On 7:18 PM

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How To Make Email Address Database ?

People think that if you put up a box in the upper right hand corner of your blog that says, “Sign up for my newsletter” or other default language, that they’ll pick off 1 out of every 2 visitors and their money-making list will swell to gigantic proportions overnight!

In truth it’s a bit harder than that.

Why don’t people just seek out your opt-in box?

Because people are sick of any extraneous email. They want it gone from their inboxes NOW. They’re thinking, “If you want me to sign up for any of your crap, it better be good crap!”

I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s cover several reasons why your list will not grow unless you make some changes.

6 Reasons people are not signing up for you email list

 1) You’re not getting enough traffic

At the end of the day, list-building is not a one-on-one battle. You can build a list slowly by referring people you meet at networking events, but it will be very, very slow going. Traffic generation tactics like content marketing , webinars, SEO and guest blogging  are great ways to get more (qualified) visitors to your site quickly.

Realize that list-building is a numbers game. In addition to the points you’ll learn about below, you need to have some traffic flow in order to build your list. And by the way, one big event, guest blog post, webinar or public speaking opportunity can lead to hundreds of new subscribers if done correctly.

2) You’re not giving away anything of value

“Subscribe for updates” or “Sign up for my newsletter” won’t cut it unless you’re Beyonce (who has over 3.4 million Twitter followers without ever having tweeted). If you’re Beyonce, people want your updates (Twitter, email or other). If you’re you, they probably don’t.

So figure out what your customers really want. What do they need to know? What things can you teach them? How can you help them take a first step towards fixing their business, solving their dating problems or losing 50 pounds? You don’t have to give away the whole farm but give away something of value in the form of an ebook, webinar, email course or other valuable giveaway.

Put yourself in their shoes. If you (as them) don’t think your giveaway rocks, it’s probably not that attractive. Keep trying.

3) Your language is limp

“The Sales Techniques eReport” is limp. “12 Sales Techniques of Millionaire Salespeople” or “12 Negotiation Techniques To Triple Your Sales” are more exciting (and I’m sure you can come up with even more exciting titles – just make sure they’re true!).

Compel them to get your book or attend your webinar even though they know they’ll start getting more email from you!

4) Your opt-in box is unattractive or boring

The standard, off-the-shelf opt-in boxes rarely get noticed. Unless they have something unique, custom or eye-catching they blend into the scenery of your blog.

It doesn’t have to be obnoxious, bright and flashing, but an attractive box, a picture, clear “call to action” and a unique look will help it to get noticed.

5) Your opt-in box is tucked away in your sidebar

You can call them lazy or forgetful, but if your readers have to scroll back up and find your opt-in box after they read your post, they’re not likely to sign up.

You have to hit them over the head with your opt-in box to get them to sign up! Your opt-in box needs to be right in front of them, at the right time enticing them to register to access your killer content.

6) Your opt-in box is not on all of your posts

Embedding your opt-in box in each post or page it takes time (if you’re putting it on the page versus in the sidebar). But your opt-in box needs to show up on every post, including your older blog posts.

When you update your offer, it needs to apply to your previous posts because people still visit them via search or by using your navigation.

3 Ways (and Tools) To Improve Your Opt-in Rates

Option 1: Pop-up Boxes (effective but annoying):

Using Pop-up Domination

One solution that a lot of people use is to have a pop-up box jump up before the reader accesses the blog content. A popular tool for doing this is Pop-up domination. This technique has been shown to increase sign-up rates by various marketers, but I personally find pop-ups annoying. I also rarely share popped-up pages on social media. So what might you lose with this strategy? If you have a big name and tons of traffic it probably pays off and your gains will likely outweigh your losses. If you’re smaller and trying to grow your readership, it may impede your growth.

Using Aweber or Mail Chimp’s Pop-up Mode

Aweber (a popular email list software) has a setting for pop-ups that you can enable when you set up a new form for an email list. Mailchimp  has this as well and calls it “Evil Pop-up”. These options are less advanced than Pop-up Domination but serve the purpose if you want to use pop-ups or pop-overs. Experiment with how each of these work on your site and your email provider may have similar pop-up or pop-over modes available.

Option 2: Sign-up Box Built into your Theme (e.g. just below the header):

Using StudioPress Theme Generate

Another solution being used by some marketers, bloggers and businesses is to include a prominent sign-up box prior to the blog content on the home page. Studiopress has released a theme specifically to enable this technique (called “Generate” as in “generate a list”). It’s definitely less annoying than a pop-up, but it requires a site redesign or theme change to implement. For people who are in a position to update their themes, this is a good solution (and I’m a huge fan of Studiopress – my theme runs on their Genesis framework).

Option 3: Opt-in Box in the same spot on all of your posts

Using Optin Skin

Optin Skin is a new and very elegant solution that solves a lot of these problems and some ones you may not have thought of. Let’s say you decide that you want your opt-in either before or after each blog post (right in the line of sight)? The solution I’ve been using is to create a custom opt-in box with a picture, some compelling language, and a form at the bottom of a post. I would then copy that code and paste it into the same spot on the other posts, including my older posts (replacing other, older calls to action). What a hassle to create this and then have to edit multiple posts!

Optin Skin’s Elegant Solution

Optin Skin is exactly what I and my clients have been looking for. Based on my testing, it’s easy to implement attractive opt-in boxes that can be added to all of your posts in the same spot (above posts, under posts, below the first paragraph or floated right of the second paragraph) or on specific posts or pages (using short code). The beauty of this solution is that when you update an offer, it can change for all of the posts at the same time (new and old). They look pretty nice and you see my example below this post (I created the book cover using another great tool – Box Shot King).

Here are the basics on using Optin Skin

1) Buy and install the Optin Skin plugin

2) Select from 19 different templates

3) Change the colors and the language.

4) Add a picture of your ebook, report or video (I used Powerpoint and a great tool called Box Shot King to make this example that you see in the form at the bottom).

5) Connect it to your email list provider and name.

6) Save it and select the location for the opt-in box.

7) You’re done and there is is at the bottom of this post (in this case I used the short code to put it on this post)!

By: Unknown On 7:13 PM

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How to Grow My Email Address Database ?

How to Grow Your Email Address Database ?

1) Create remarkable email content. Your content needs to be amazing if you want people to stay subscribed -- and if you want them to forward it to their friends, family, and colleagues that aren't already on your email list.

2) Create a new lead-gen offer -- like a free ebook or whitepaper -- and require visitors to provide their email address in order to download it. If you're having trouble coming up with new offers, this blog post provides suggestions for ways to simply and quickly create lead-gen content.

3) Host an online webinar and collect email addresses at registration.

4) Create a free, online tool or resource and have users sign up with their email address. For example, HubSpot has created plenty of free tools to use for prospect and lead generation -- most recently Marketing Grader.

5) Add a QR code to your print marketing collateral that people can scan to opt in to your email database.

6) Promote an online contest like a free giveaway, and have entrants sign up or submit with their email address. 

7) Add an email signup call-to-action as a custom tab on your Facebook page. If you're not sure how, we've written a blog post on the subject! Then feature that tab in the Views and Apps section of your new Facebook page design.

8) Run a promotion on a partner or affiliate website to collect email addresses from a fresh source. 

9) Collect email addresses at offline events like trade shows, and import them into your database. Be sure to send these contacts a welcome email that confirms their opt-in to your list.

10) Encourage your current email subscribers to share and forward your emails by including social sharing buttons and an "Email to a Friend" button so their networks, friends, and colleagues can sign up for your list. Include a "Subscribe" link at the bottom of your emails so those receiving the forwarded emails can easily opt-in, too.

11) Create a Google AdWords email capture ad (Note: This feature is still an AdWords experiment but is being implemented by a handful of companies), or simply leverage paid search ads to link to a landing page with and email sign-up.

12) Create multiple email subscriptions types that you use to send more targeted content to specific segments of your marketing personas. Your audience may not want to be in one, general campaign, but they prefer to be in a campaign that's targeted to their specific interests. If you create multiple, targeted subscription types, you'll increase the likelihood of visitors subscribing to one of them.

13) When creating content for guest blogging opportunities, include a call-to-action and link for readers to subscribe to your site's blog or email database in your author byline.

14) Promote one of your lead-gen offers on Twitter. Create a Twitter campaign to promote an offer like an ebook or a free resource to your followers that requires an email address to redeem. 

15) Use your Facebook business page to promote an offer that requires an email address submission. In addition to creating a tab dedicated to email sign up, promote offers in your timeline and encourage your leads to share and like your offers on Facebook by adding a social sharing button on your landing pages and thank-you pages.

16) Target offers redeemable using an email address on your LinkedIn Company Page or in appropriate and relevant LinkedIn groups, or recommend an offer as the answer to someone's question in LinkedIn Answers.

17) Promote offers and email signup through your Google+ business page by making use of your Google+ updates and your Google+ about section.

18) Use Pinterest to promote offers that require email signup. HubSpot, for example, created a HubSpot Pinterest page, and by pinning the covers of our useful, information-rich, marketing ebooks, we've been able to generate new leads and grow our email list.

19) Leverage your company's YouTube channel. Add calls-to-action and URLs at the end of the videos you upload to encourage people to subscribe to your list, and include links to relevant landing pages in your videos' text descriptions.

20) Promote an ebook or relevant offer through an affiliate or partner email newsletter that targets a new but appropriate audience. This will give you access to a fresh subscriber base.

21) Encourage prospects in a traditional marketing campaign, like direct mail, to opt in to receive email communications instead. Include a URL to an online signup, and allow readers to opt out of direct mail. You'll even save some trees in the process!

22) Host your own offline, in-person events like meetups, conferences, hackathons, educational panels, etc., and collect registrations online using email addresses.

23) Link to offers that capture email signups throughout your website. Don't make people dig around your site to stumble across subscription options. Keep your offers up front, and include calls-to-action on just about every page of your website. Key places to consider are your website's homepage, the main page of your blog, your 'About Us' page, and your 'Contact Us' page. 

24) Reinvigorate a stale email list with an opt-in campaign. Do you have an older list that you think is mostly decayed? Create an engaging opt-in message and send it to your old list encouraging contacts who wish to re-opt-in and promising to remove all contacts who don't respond.

25) Host a co-marketing webinar with a partner, and ask them to promote the registration to their audience.

By: Unknown On 7:07 PM

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