Tag Archives: email marketing

Success with email marketing: 10 Tips

May 20, 2015 Kay Svela

Ding-dong the old school email marketing techniques are dead. Why? Because we didn’t account for the fact we were selling to smart humans. But content is king and when you pair it with a killer email funnel that follows basic human psychology you will come out ahead.

Read these key techniques, take them to heart, and we guarantee you will win hearts and minds.

Success with email marketing: 10 Tips

1. The email “blast” is dead. Using this technique to push content out about your brand is a sure fire way to have people view your email list as spammy and get off it fast.

2. The “newsletter” is not only dead, it paints your brand as out of touch. Send personalized tips and tricks and content from a real person and develop a relationship with your audience. Not a weekly “bulletin”.

3. Segment your email list. Send your best stuff to a “premium” list. Put people who engage with your email content or buy from you on that list. Make sure they know they are special and have been promoted.

4. Don’t sell to your list. Send high value content and assets to your list so people develop the habit of opening your emails. Industry average open rates are 7% to 10% so if you can get 20% to 30% open rates you have content in your emails that people want. Work towards that. Some of the top sellers in the industry give away massively valuable materials and develop amazing loyalty from their subscribers.

5. Qualify everyone joining your email list. Test them to see if they engage with your content. Upsell the engagers and fish the non-engagers ‘til they do.

6. Use a smart CRM and marketing automation system such as Infusionsoft.com so that you can track behavior of people on your email list.

7. Be sure to observe anti-spam legislation in your country. Get to know CAN-SPAM in the U.S. and CASL in Canada. Ignore these at your peril. You could find yourself facing a big fine for a misstep.

8. Use scarcity. People love a deal and hate to miss one. If you offer something of massive value, even if it is for free, ask for action and use a tight deadline. The threat of loss or missing out will drive people to act fast if they think they will miss out. Not everyone will, but more people will act than if you don’t squeeze them on time.

9. Be personable. Don’t sign your emails “Best, The XYZ Company Team”, sign it from you or a personality in your company. Develop a voice. Connect on a human level and appeal to emotions and needs through human to human connections. Tell them stories they can relate to and ask them to act because you care about them.

10. ULTIMATE TIP: Give away your best stuff. People will be blown away by what they get from you and will assume your expertise is much deeper than what they got for free. Plus, some people are lazy. They want something done for them even if you tell them how, but they will appreciate being given insider information, even if they don’t use it. This will qualify you as someone to buy from. Trust is the magic that must be present before someone buys. Earn it. This works for any industry.

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Email marketing for cosmetic surgeons

January 13, 2015 Kay Svela

Email marketing is one of the most effective digital marketing tools that cosmetic surgeons can use to grow their business. According to professionals at a top Ithaca Video Production studio they are also seeing a rise in people wanting videos to include in their emails.

Here’s why: In the world of digital marketing, email can be a highly effective tool to build trust. Patients who are looking for a cosmetic surgeon will seek one they can trust. They are putting their looks and well being in the hands of a stranger. So trust is a prerequisite to close a sale. Today this trust relationship starts on the web, because many purchase decisions start with a web search.

Email marketing for cosmetic surgeons – How it works:

Think of it like this: Julia is browsing for a local cosmetic surgeon. She’s been fed up with her A-cup breast size for years and is considering breast augmentation surgery. She’s thought about it for a long time but she is uncertain about how it’s done, who to get to do it, what type of implants to get, and her financing options. She’s also a bit embarrassed about the whole process, which is why she’s just beginning her search on the web. It’s initially anonymous.

Julie’s Google search “Cosmetic surgeons in Tampa” turns up 134,000 results. Your site happens to appear in the top four. Since you’re clever, your site differentiates itself because it’s loaded with great information about the procedure she wants.

While she’s browsing a page trying to decide if silicone or saline is right for her she sees a capture box with a message that says: “Considering breast augmentation? We’ll send you a FREE breast augmentation guide with everything you need to know”. She fills in her email, clicks submit and gets a free guide with everything she needs to know.

You’re now on her short list and you have an opportunity to build a trusting relationship with her. You’ve begun to demonstrate your expertise in your field. You also have her contact information. It’s the start of a beautiful business relationship.

How cosmetic surgeons can use email marketing to build trust

Here are five key steps you can use to implement an effective email marketing system in your cosmetic surgery practice.

Step 1: Build informative and helpful content that can be placed on your web site. A content centric web site will attract visitors to your web site via search engines. It’s important the you post new content regularly. Google rewards sites that refresh their content often.

Step 2: Optimize for search engines. This process is known as search engine optimization (SEO). All the content you generate for your web site should be optimized for search engines. This involves using keyword phrases that are picked up by search engines.

SEO is crucial. It’s important that your ideal customers can find you on the web. If you spend money on a web site but don’t invest in SEO you could be wasting your money. It’s important to have a strategically designed web site, but if no one can find it, this won’t help you attract new business.

Step 3: Implement lead capture forms. A lead capture form is a web widget that allows you to obtain the contact information of people who visit your web site. There are two components of an effective capture form:

a) A call to action – A request that entices site visitors to sign up for your mailing list.

b) Contact information fields – These are spaces where the site visitor will enter their contact information. It allows you to record it into your system.

When a site visitor signs up, what you’ll immediately know about this person is:

They’ve been to your site
They are interested in your business.
They are so interested in your business they signed up for your mailing list
They are now a potential lead that could turn into business

This information is GOLD.

Step 4: Purchase an email marketing CRM system. When a contact signs up via a web capture form their contact information needs to get recorded. This is how you learn who is interested in your business. To gather this information your capture form needs to connect to an email marketing system.

There are basic email marketing platforms available. Popular ones are MailChimp, Omnisend or Constant Contact. However, if you are serious about using email to grow your business you’ll want to buy a smart CRM such as Infusionsoft or Ontraport.

You can do much more with Infusionsoft than all the other simpler delivery platforms. You can use it to build large networks of automated email funnels. Track hot leads. Find out when a lead is ready to buy. You can also build web forms and landing pages. (If you want a free walk through to understand how it compares and how it works, click here.)

Step 5: Build an email funnel for new captured leads. When a potential lead visits your site, signs up on a capture form and goes into your email system, it’s important they receive mail from you immediately.

The whole point of email marketing is to engage with that potential lead on a regular basis. You’ll be using email to build awareness, affinity and trust with your brand.

It’s also important to remember that if they just signed up on your mailing list they are interested in you. And interest dies fast so you need to keep the conversation going in a manner which is enticing, helpful and intriguing.

As a cosmetic surgeon, you could send content such as the following:

Informative articles about specific types of surgical procedures
Articles on payment options
Videos with tutorial about procedures
Client testimonials (this could be in a written or video format. If written include pictures)
Free informational events
Offers for a free consultation

The other thing you need to know, is that it’s important you don’t just send them mail for the sake of sending it, but it should have purpose. So, you need to plan out a strategy ahead of time.

Here is how a cosmetic surgeon could use email marketing effectively:

1. When a potential lead is browsing a page on your site about breast implants they click a “Click here to find out about the different types of implants” and that puts them on an breast augmentation specific mailing list.

2. Now that you know they want to know about breast implants, you use email to share your expertise with them. Teach them which implants are the best, then send them some videos with before and after testimonials. Keep sending them great stuff every week. This moves the conversation along.

3. Watch your open rates. If the contact is opening your mail and clicking links they are interested in you. So, keep sending them great stuff. You could send them information about payment plans, offers for free consultations etc.

So, why aren’t all cosmetic surgeons using email marketing?

Email marketing is a relatively new field and the original rules have recently changed. There are only a handful of email experts that know how to use email effectively to grow businesses. So, not many people have caught on to how to use this incredible digital tool.

At CWD, we’ve used email before to help businesses in the health and wellness industry increase their annual revenue. (Visit our case studies page to read how we helped Julie Daniluk and Big Brain Productions)

To get a free site audit or to book a virtual or in-person meeting with Kay Svela, so you can learn how CWD can help you generate more leads for your business, CLICK HERE.

3 Email Marketing Pitfalls

September 29, 2014 Kay Svela

As the former email marketing lead for CWD, it’s has been my job to write great emails for companies. This makes it really easy for me to spot ineffective emails that business owners send out on a regular business. And there are a lot of them. It doesn’t take long to learn effective email marketing skills. However most business owners have no idea that they are damaging their brand with the emails they send.

Here are 3 Email Marketing Pitfalls to avoid:

1) Not addressing your contact personally: Most email marketing software systems use merge fields or merge tags. You can use merge fields to pull a contact’s information out of your database and use it to personalize the email you are sending. Instead of addressing your contact with “Hey Friend,”, which is highly impersonal, use a merge field to insert their name. In your email it will look like “Hey MERGE FIELD,” and when the email comes to them it will have their name in it: “Hey Bob,”. Addressing them with “Hey Friend” is a sure fire way to get them to stop reading your email.

Don’t have their first name? Address them by title. Or, by the group your are speaking to. ie. “Hey Entrepreneurs” , “Hey Singles”, “Hey Foodies”.

2) Talking to much about YOU: Sorry to say it, your contact doesn’t care about you. They care about themselves. They want to know what they are getting from you. How will your product or service help them? How are they going to benefit? The best sales people get into their customer’s world. Find out what they want first. Then sell it to them.

What’s a great way to find out what your audience wants if you aren’t sure? Survey them.

3) Selling too soon: If your contact has never purchased from you asking them to buy right away will be jarring to their system. It may even push them away. You have to build a relationship with them before they feel comfortable buying from you. This takes time. Be patient. Email marketing is foreplay. It’s the appetizer before the main course. If it’s not good, you’ll turn people off. If it’s good you will build a list of faithful followers that will be beneficial to the success of your business. If they love you enough they will share your business with other people.

Want to be an email marketing expert? Learn everything you need to know here: Email Marketing Quick Start

How to use email marketing to grow sales

September 16, 2014 Kay Svela

Effective email marketers use email as the medium to: 1) Generate new leads and turn potential buyers into buyers, and to 2) Keep existing buyers engaged so they are more likely to buy in future.

If you are having trouble doing either of these things you could be using tactics to market your products or services using email that are ineffective and in some cases damaging to your brand.

To find out if what you are doing is an effective use of email marketing to grow sales, it’s important to decipher if you fall into one of two categories. Are you an email blaster? Or an email marketer? Another thing to consider is, how good is your payment method? If its not good then customers do not buy, you can also use Advanced Alternative Payment Models aswell.

It’s crucial you know the difference. Bottom line is: Email marketers use email to develop connections and brand affinity and email blasters turn people off in the hopes of landing a few sales. They use brute force to blast their message. Read these definitions to identify where you stand:

Definition of an email blaster: An email blaster uses email to try to get people to buy their stuff. They don’t consider that there are different groups of people with different needs on their list of contacts. The goal of an email blaster is to sell their stuff to whoever will buy it. They send emails with no strategy and no direction. Their email content is all about them. And they send email to anyone that they have an address for.

Definition of an email marketer: An email marketer creates a long-term sales strategy that has a specific end goal. They send emails to various groups of people. The emails deliver valuable content that speaks to what the people want. They build desire, trust, and loyalty. They ask people to buy when appropriate. Their email content is all about their people and shares expertise that is of interest to them.

If you find yourself in the email blaster camp, don’t feel bad, that is where most people find themselves. Why? Email marketing is still a relatively new form of marketing. At least it is evolving. There are only a handful of highly effective email marketers. But the club is growing, thankfully. Here are five things they do to use email marketing to increase sales.

How to use email marketing to grow sales

1: Segment your list of contacts. Categorize your contacts based on what you want to send them. You want to think about speaking to the group versus sending them stuff they don’t care about. Then need to create different email funnels for each group because the content you are sending them will (and should) be different.

2: Establish a long-term email marketing strategy. To do this you need to decide what the the end goal, is. This is the action you are driving your contacts towards. It could be different for each email funnel you create. However, usually the end goal is to have the contact make a purchase. Or take a specific action that forwards your business.

3: Develop various email funnels and map them out. Once you decide what the end goal for each funnel is you can work backwards to design a system that drives people to that end goal. For example, if the end goal is getting a potential buyer to buy, your entire email strategy should be focused on sending them emails that primes them for that action. You want to build trust and delivery value during this process.

4: Create valuable emails. Emails should be used to deliver valuable content to your contacts on a regular basis. Get them used to receiving emails from you. Make the emails good so they want to open them. A good way to do this is to give stuff away.

5: Track your performance. Effective email marketers are constantly tracking their open rates and the actions of their subscribers and tweaking their strategy. If emails aren’t getting opened you need to make changes.

How to write email subject lines that are irresistible

September 15, 2014 Kay Svela

Did you know that the subject line is the most important part of your email? It’s more important than the body text, more important than what you are giving away, more important than what you are trying to sell.

Why? If your headline isn’t great, your emails won’t get opened.

Here are five expert email marketing strategies on how to write email subject lines that are irresistible…

Email marketing strategies for great subject lines:

1) Blend in to the inbox: When your email looks like all the other emails in a person’s inbox the recipient will see it as an email they need to open. They may even open it accidentally, but that’s okay, you got their attention. Examples:

“Quick question”
“Thanks for your help”
“Thought you’d like this.”

2) Make your email sound important: When your email is important it gets opened. There are certain things that make an email important. If it comes from the president of a company, it’s important. If it’s about crucial businesses matters, like safety or legal requirements for businesses, it’s important. If it’s an exclusive offer for a select group, it’s important. Examples:

“A Message from __________________ (President’s name)”
“Gift from ____________________ (President’s name)”
Safety regulations for Warehouse Managers
Exclusive industry insider offer

3) Play on human curiosity: Did you know that the National Enquirer is the fifth most read publication in the world? People buy the National Enquirer because the headlines are crazy and they sound close enough to reality to be true. People like weird. They feel compelled to open things that they are curious about. Or, things they can’t believe till they see them. NOTE: If you go weird, the content of your email needs to be the truth. Example:

“Adopt Pinky, the cat that uses the toilet”
“The health secret I learned from a Balinese Medicine Man”
“Drink beer. Lose weight.”
“The Mad Hatter reminds me of you”

4) State the value of the email’s content: If you are giving away tangible advice in your email. Or a giving away an attachment that is very valuable, you can simply say what it is. Example:

5 Email marketing secrets the experts use
3 Super weight lose foods
10 Fitness mistakes you might be making

Use these four email marketing strategies to create effective subject lines and track your open rates to see if they increase.

5) Be familiar: If I send you an email and we know each other, chances are you will open the email because you know me. Write headlines that assume you are connected. In the right circumstances these can be highly effective.

Tips because you are amazing
I wanted you to see this
Do you have a few minutes?
You will love this info

Email marketing strategies: 7 tactics you should know

September 10, 2014 Kay Svela

Effective email marketing strategies can be hard to execute. And being a great email marketer – that is, someone who writes emails that actually get opened and read – requires a precise combination of skills.

To be effective as an email marketing strategist, you need to be a big picture thinker. You need to be able to develop a long-term strategy with an end goal in mind. To create this strategy, and have people do what you want them to do (click where you want them to click), you have to know some human psychology basics. You also need to be an expert in the techniques of master salesmanship. This requires knowing what your audience wants. You also need to know how to deliver your sales message clearly and effectively.

When all these skills come together, your emails will get opened. That equates to money for your business.

Here are 7 fundamental email marketing strategies that the email marketing gurus use:

1) Segment your list of contacts. Categorize your subscribers based on the information you’ll be sending them.It should speak to what the group wants or cares about.

Let’s say you sell pet products for small and large dogs, offering giant dog bones to the owner of Fluffy the teacup poodle is a waste of time. Fluffy’s owner is never going to buy a large dog bone (unless they have a second bigger dog).

You also want to segment the people who have purchased from you from the people who haven’t. You should be sending them different messages. If someone buys from you, they are much more likely to buy again, so you can be a little more aggressive, but not at the expense of offering valuable content. The underlying message for existing customers is “keep buying” and for potential buyers it’s “trust me”. That has to be done subtly and as a subtext in all your emails.

2) Build a quality list, not a quantity list. You want people to want to be on your list. Think of it this way: If you are on Facebook and have 400 friends, how many of them do you actually consider close enough to invite to your wedding? Probably only a few dozen and really only a handful really matter to you and have a vested interested in you. When it comes to email marketing you want the “wedding guest” type of contact. The reliable people who care about you or your brand. Who cares if you have 50, 000 contacts if only 50 will actually buy from you. It’s not worth your time sending to the rest of them. They won’t be engaged by your content. They may not even open your emails and then your emails may get labelled as spam (which you don’t want, of course).

3) Find out what your subscribers want. Use surveys and feedback forms to engage with your audience periodically and find out what they want. Use the information you get to respond directly to their issues or to send them information and offers that fall in line with what they want. The more you know, the less you have to guess.

Back to the dog product analogy, if you know that Fluffy’s owner has an obsession dressing Fluffy up in cute dog sweaters, you can send her dog sweater dressing tips and over time promos for a dog wardrobe.

4) Be a source of valuable information. Give away great stuff often. Do it for free. Teach people what they want to learn. Share secrets. This makes you a valuable resource and one that can be trusted. People start to see your emails as must open emails.

Ever wonder why people love Oprah? She’s a source of valuable content that helps her fans live better lives. People want to be on her email list. Aspire to become the Oprah of the email world.

5) Don’t hard sell. People don’t like being sold to unless they think it’s their idea to buy. Don’t be pushy. Get them to arrive at the choice to buy on their own. Build trust by following Tactic #4 on this list. When people trust you, like you and like the stuff you give them they find you valuable and they will want to buy what you offer.

And, this doesn’t mean you never ask them to buy. Go ahead, ask them. Create the opportunity. But make sure they trust you first and they find value in what you give them.

6)Be strategic with your headlines.The subject line is the first thing that gets read in and email. Write a good headline for it. It has people open your email and read it. Here are some headline strategies:

Be weird – People are curious and can’t help themselves to find out what the heck you are talking about “Can you believe a one-legged dancer taught me this?”
Blend in – Make your emails seem like run of the mill emails so they get opened. You message shouldn’t appear like a marketing email: Use subject lines like: “Quick question”, “Need your help”, etc.
Challenge them – Make them thing and trigger their curiosity. “5 Fitness serious mistakes you are probably making”; “5 little know dog training secrets”.

7) Use a smart CRM. Smart CRM systems, like Infusionsoft, allow you to track the actions of your contacts so you know what they are doing at all times. That information is GOLD! It costs a bit of money but it’s worth it. Don’t cheap out with low cost tools.

Kay Svela is a digital strategist and email marketing expert at Cyberwalker Digital. Contact her at kay@cyberwalkerdigital.com.

Expert Infusionsoft Consultant in Niagara REGION

September 8, 2014 Andy Walker

Here are 11 reasons why you should call Cyberwalker Media’s expert consultants to help you deploy your Keap / InfusionSoft campaigns and earn great revenue in the process!

1) We can make Keap and InfusionSoft do back flips

2) If you are in or near Niagara Falls Canada or any of the Niagara region towns or cities (we are in Grimsby), we’ll come to see you or Zoom to you during COVID-19 restrictions.

3) We not only deploy your campaign we’ll also train you or your staff on best practices

4) We understand the psychology of email marketing, not just the technical mechanics

5) We are masters at email content – our open rates run 40% to 50%

6) We’re local!

7) We partner with our clients to share the revenue. We earn when you do!

8) We know how to integrate Keap / InfusionSoft with 3rd party systems

9) We get results!

10) When we get to know you, we’ll bring you a key lime margarita pie!

11) We can count to 11!

Contact Andy at andy@cyberwalkerdigital.com

How to drive digital leads to sales teams

August 25, 2014 Andy Walker

Few corporate leaders know how to turn their company web site and mobile apps into a lead generation tool that drives digital leads to sales teams. Here’s a checklist to see if your company is doing what is needed to produce the leads that are there for the taking.That said, here is how to drive digital leads to sales teams:

1) Type in five terms that relate to your business that your potential customers might type into Google. Does your web site come up in the first 3 results? The first page? How far do you have to click into the results before you see your company name?

ACTION: Check if your competition is doing a better job. Audit for search engine optimization. Put in a plan.

2) Are you sending frequent emails to your customer list that has massive value? Send them helpful, expert info. Send them tips on how they can do their jobs better. Sell to them rarely and only offer exclusive, limited time offers that are available nowhere else.

ACTION: review and update your email marketing practices. Put in a strategy. Give them a way to interact with you back. Measure it all an capture real time actionable leads.

3) Is there an easy way for visitors to your website to interact with your company? A contact Us page is not enough. Are you engaging them with free reports, downloads and other assets.

ACTION: Develop an email capture program and build your list with great content.

4) Does you web site contain articles and blogs that contain “how to” content and helpful strategies and tips. Content that is useful not blatantly sales-motivated?

ACTION: You need a content library that will attract customer with problems that need to be solve with your company’s expertise.

5) Can you buy your products or services on-line? If you have products or accessories that can be sold through the web, you should be selling them online. Digital sales makes it easy for your customers to find what you are selling. A digital store can produce inbound traffic that can be closed by a live sales person. It can also take the load off sales people for the smaller commodities they sell. And it can be a good source of lead generation when a new customer buys a smaller item and can be upsold later to larger purchases.

ACTION: Ask your sales people if they are bogged down by small commodity sales. Develop a plan to sell online.

6) Is your company visible on social media? Do you know its Klout score? And is it over 50?ACTION: Use your online content to drive visibility on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and more. Find a young staffer that knows social media and engage them. And get strategic help as needed from the outside.

7) What does your company website look like on your tablet or smartphone. Do you know that 33+ per cent of web visits come from mobile devices today?

ACTION: Do a mobile audit and get a mobile friendly version of your web site live.

8) Get strategic help. You may not have the internal expertise to do any or all of the above items. A designed strategy lead by experts is key to success. ACTION: Find an agency that does it all and start a conversation. (Hint: contact Cyberwalker Digital)

Andy Walker is a digital marketing strategist specializing in sales lead strategies using digital assets. He is based in Toronto and Tampa. Contact him here

The 5 rules of the new email marketing

August 20, 2014 Andy Walker

Gone are the days of email blasts. If you are serious about using email marketing as a tool to develop your business and your reputation that can lead to a measurable sales lift then follows these rules.

1) Treat people on your list like gold. Send them only great material. Do not blast them with questionable offers or low value content.

2) Offer rare and exclusive content and offers. Make them feel special. Make them feel like they are part of an exclusive club. Don’t give way content on your list that is generally available.

3) Use scarcity. It’s a privilege to be on your list so create a sense of urgency for anything you offer and take it away if it is not acted on by your subscribers quickly.

4) Clean and segregate your email list. For those that are inactive and do not engage demote them to a list that you can work a little harder to generate interaction. Use a Smart CRM to do this. (Not sure what that is? Ask me). Promote to a premium list those that click, interact and engage with what you offer. Give those people your best stuff.

5) Don’t sell. Never hard sell to your list. Offer opportunities that have high value and make those offers short lived. Make offers at a ratio of 10 to 1 or better. Send 10 pieces of great content to every one sales offer.

There’s a ton of psychology in the new email marketing. make sure you learn the techniques and spin it into new and growing revenue.