Do you feel your email list isn’t engaging with your content?

Do you feel that you can’t do anything about it without a copywriter?

The good news is that there are four strategies to help you get better engagement from your emails.

The even better news is that you don’t need a copywriter to do it.

[bctt tweet=”Only those who are suffering poor email performance are saying that email is dead.”]

If you implement the right strategies, then you will have an email marketing campaign that will be alive and well.

If you’re experiencing low engagement levels from your emails, then it could be because you aren’t sending the appropriate emails at the right time to the right people.

A lot of businesses tend to send the same email to all of their contacts on the same day and same time each week.

While consistency is important, it is even more important that you are sending the right messages to the right people at the right time.

Here are four strategies that you can do to engage your email list without having to hire a copywriter:

1. Knowing What To Ask

One of the best ways in which you can get your email list to engage is to ask them questions but not just any questions, they need to be the right questions.

Let’s look at these two example scenarios:

• Scenario 1 – An e-commerce business selling plus size clothing for women sends an email to their contacts asking what size they are.
• Scenario 2 – Another e-commerce business also selling plus size clothing for women sends an email to their contacts asking what their favorite dinner is.

Which scenario do you think would get the most engagement?

Scenario 1 is the one that would get the most engagement because their question is relevant to their niche.

You can also your email list their preferences however still make sure that the question is relevant to your niche.

Another thing to note is that you don’t ask too many questions on your email as this can put people off wanting to answer them.

If you want to find the average clothing size of your audience for example, then keep it focused around that.

2. Segmentation Is Key

Image Source: ttmc.com

One of the most important rules for email marketing is segmentation.

Segmenting your email list will help you to make sure your emails are being sent to the right people.

The only problem is that segmenting your email list can seem pretty daunting if you’ve not done it before.

It probably only seems daunting though because you’ve read about all the advanced ways to segment.

[bctt tweet=”If you’ve never segmented your email list before then, just start small with the basics.”]

Once you have mastered that then only should you do more advanced segmentation.

You can start segmenting your email list by:

• Those who haven’t bought
• Those who have bought

Segmenting your email list by who has and hasn’t bought means you can send the right emails to those who haven’t bought to nurture them to buy and send the right emails to those who have bought to gather reviews.

3. Pay Attention To Those Who Don’t Respond

There are so many businesses and marketers who spend the majority of their time reviewing why their contacts engage however it is equally important to spend time reviewing why contacts don’t engage.

If you notice that there are contacts on your email list that haven’t opened an email in six months but haven’t opted out, then they may be trying to send you a message that your emails could be better.

These contacts are likely still interested in your brand, products or information but just aren’t interested in your emails.

This is a clear sign that you need to work on sending the right messaging to your contacts.

In an effort to get these contacts to engage again, you can create a segmented list of contacts that haven’t opened an email in over 6 months.

[bctt tweet=”It is important to create a segmented list as people need to be nurtured differently.”]

4. Avoid Buying Email Lists

Image Source: DowSocial

If there is ever a reason your email isn’t engaging, it is because they have no idea who you are or how you got their contact details.

Even if the contacts are interested in your product, if they don’t know who you are or how you got their contacts details, they will feel you have invaded their privacy.

This will not only lead to you getting low engagement levels, but it could also mean that your email domain could be blacklisted.

[bctt tweet=”If you want to make email work, then it is important to build your email list no matter what anyone says.”]

It may seem like buying a list is a quick win, but that is far from the truth.

There is no better way to do email marketing than to build your email list.

Your contacts will then know exactly who you are and why you’re contacting them which will lead to much better engagement levels.

Some Other Ideas

They are 4 strategies that you can start to work on in a fight against low engagement levels from your emails.

Once you have these four strategies in place and are comfortable with them, you can do other things to increase further engagement.

[bctt tweet=”There are no excuses for not having an engaged email list.”]

You don’t need a copywriter or even a designer to improve the engagement on your emails.

All you need are the 4 strategies above and some other ideas to create interest and encourage recipients to open, click and buy.

After you have increased your engagement and are starting to get good return on your emails, can you then look to invest in hiring growth hackers to take your strategy even further.

For the time being, though, there are so many things you can do to start seeing growth and return from your email list.

Here are some other ideas you can use to engage your email list:

Make The Most Of Your Welcome Email

Your first email is probably the most important as it sets the tone. If your first email is standard and boring, then recipients might be more likely to ignore future emails.

If your first email is excitable and piques their interest, then they will be more likely to open future emails.

Nearly all businesses and marketers who do email marketing will send a welcome email to new contacts that have opted-in.

The only problem is that the majority of these welcome emails only confirm that they have opted-in to their email list.

Businesses that do this are missing out on a great opportunity.

The new contact is going to be expecting an email from you which is why this is a great opportunity to really wow them rather than just confirm they have subscribed.

You can do this by offering a surprise discount code, what they can expect to receive in the next coming weeks or asking them why them why they have signed up.

Giveaways

If there is ever a way to get your contact to engage, it is to offer them something for free.

If you want an instant boost in an engagement that will give your email marketing a kick-start, then do a giveaway.

You can kill two birds with one stone with a giveaway as you can kick-start engagement as well as gather insights from your email list.

You can do this by sending an email with a quick and relevant survey and ask contacts to complete the survey for a chance to win something for free.

For this to work, it is important to make sure that the questions on the survey are relevant as I mentioned earlier and that the giveaway you are offering is also relevant.

Autoresponders

I mentioned at the start of this blog post that in order to get your email list engaged you would need to send emails at the right time.

Obviously you can’t sit there all day and send emails out whenever someone opts-in or when someone buys a product.

This doesn’t mean they you can’t though as you can use autoresponders.

Autoresponders are a list of pre-set emails that you have created that will be sent to your contacts from when they first opt-in. Doing this means that you will never forget about contacts so they don’t forget about you and that you’re sending emails at precisely the right times.

Conclusion

Remember; you don’t need to hire a copywriter to do any of the strategies mentioned in this blog post, so there is no excuse for you not to have an engaged email list.

All you need to remember to have an engaged email list is to send the right email to the right people at the right time.

Do you know of any strategies that have worked for you that I haven’t mentioned?

If so, leave them in the comments below and share with everyone else.

Thanks for reading 4 Tips to Engage Your Email List Without A Copywriter which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

Every day, roughly 250 billion emails are sent worldwide.

Yes, that’s billion with a “b.”

Can you imagine for a moment all those millions and millions of words floating around out there: personal messages, requests to schedule meetings, reminders, and countless calls-to-action?

In the age of information, it’s almost enough to feel like we’re drowning in messages.

As a matter of fact, of the 4.3 billion email users across the globe, each office worker gets 121 emails per day.

Think about that: how are you supposed to make your autoresponder stand out from 120 other emails someone gets during their typical day?

It’s almost too much!

We can even see it now… another person is ignoring another boring email for the hundredth time today.

When will it ever end?

Yet, there’s so much more to creating autoresponders for your business.

While there are an almost limitless amount of industries in the world, there are also some tried-and-true rules for creating messages your subscribers actually want to read.

Imagine that!

With that in mind, we’re going to look at these methods step-by-step.

From getting started and gaining perspective to signing off and understanding those open rates, you’ll be a pro at sending your subscribers your autoresponders.

And your open rates and click-throughs will show it.

But the part you’ll love most is that you’ll be generating brand loyalty, getting more responses, and using autoresponders to build your business one message at a time.

Let’s get started!

Where Should You Start?

Even if you’re pretty experienced with autoresponders and email marketing, you may have noticed that things have changed drastically in recent years.

For example, increasingly, users are checking and responding to emails via growing mobile options (seriously, check out the numbers; from 8% to 48% in less than 5 years).

But it goes far beyond simply understanding how email habits are changing.

The way you can incorporate email into your marketing plan is also becoming more complex, more subtle, and better in tune with users’ needs.

Take, for instance, the amazing ability to use email content to push your audience to a Youtube tutorial about your product or service and through that video, push them toward your blog and once they’re on your site again, back into an upsell.

These sorts of complex experiences (and it can be even more refined depending on your business and level of expertise) can really increase loyalty to your brand.

But whether you’re a seasoned pro, or you’re totally new to autoresponders (and you’ve come to the right guide either way), starting is pretty simple.

If you haven’t yet chosen a service for sending your emails, check out this list of popular email marketing to get a sense of what might work for you.

Every business, small and large, has its own needs and goals. So take the time to research as many of these services as you like to decide which will be best for you.

Grab an account and then we’re ready to dive into creating your content!

Protip: While some services offer free content creation for your autoresponders, we recommend designing (or hiring someone to design) your campaign. This way, it will better represent your brand in a unique way.

Segmenting Your Leads

First, let’s tackle a vital part of your autoresponder campaign: segmenting your leads.

When it comes to your potential customers, they’re not all the same, right? Why would you want to serve up the same message to every single one of them?

And in actuality, research presented by Bigcommerce.com and Forrester have concluded that dividing up your leads into segments can overcome the fact that 42% of email users skip ever even opening an email. So how do you segment your leads?

Every business is going to be a little different, but let’s take a simple example: a small educational business that markets to both parents and teachers.

You can immediately see that the messages targeted at teachers might be very different than the messages for parents.

Though there is overlap between these two audiences, they might keep different schedules or purchase during different parts of the year.

In reality, they’re two different audiences with diverging concerns, needs, and sales potential.

But you don’t have to stop there.

While you don’t want to overcomplicate your database, consider other factors that your sub-audiences use to define themselves such as age, gender, purchasing habits, a region of the country, or even how long they’ve been customers.

You don’t have to create a new experience for every single group (and there will be overlap, of course), but making a list of these factors helps you see which audiences might need their own journey to your product or service.

Protip: Segmenting is a very powerful tool, but it can also be tempting to neglect a customer database once it’s been divided up. For several reasons (see here and here), you might want to consider having a dedicated team member or content professional keep an eye on yours throughout a campaign.

Mapping Their Journey

Probably the best metaphor to use when thinking about autoresponders is the metaphor of traveling.

Not all of your customers are headed to the same place at the same time.

But in the end, you’d like to keep them coming back in your direction.

Creating a visual content map of where you’d like to take them as they experience your brand is absolutely key to a successful autoresponder campaign.

You can grab anything from a piece of paper and a pencil to a more sophisticated piece of mapping software.

However, the point remains the same: creating a content plan.

You’ll want to create a map of what you’d like to present to them, but also what action you’d like them to take.

Let’s go back to our hypothetical educational business.

A simple map for our teachers might look something like this:

Thank you for a purchase → Reminder that you’re happy to answer questions → Sharing an interesting tip for the profession → Asking how their year is going → Highlighting a relevant testimonial with an included promotion → Asking for opinions (and comments) on a new blog article aimed at their demographic

Each of these steps serves its own purpose, but you’ll notice that this sequence is not set up like this:

Call-to-action → Call-to-action → Call-to-action → Call-to-action → Call-to-action.

By creating a more nuanced content map, you’re seeking to enhance your customer’s’ relationship with your brand.

Every step of that journey is filled with actions that grow that relationships in a different meaningful way, while keeping the conversation focused on what you can provide your customers.

This way, your audience looks forward to that next email from you because it connects with their lives.

Protip: Don’t be afraid to think outside the box. Every autoresponder campaign can have completely different steps based on where you want to take that segment of your database.

Writing the Content & Understanding Open Rates

Let’s talk about open rates. It seems that there isn’t any more misunderstood topic in the industry of marketing.

You’ll find content services that promise incredibly high open rates, or we’ve even seen promises of up to 50% response rates.

But when it comes to data, it’s best to get the facts.

Because there is a contrast for open rates between industries, we recommend taking a look at MailChimp’s benchmark list to get a better perspective on what might be standard in your industry.

But, once you’ve segmented your list and mapped out your audience’s journey, there’re a few more tricks of the trade to getting your subscribers to look forward to opening your emails.

Let’s look at subject lines and sender information first. According to Impact Branding, 33% of email users open a message based solely on the subject line.

At the same time, it’s also rather obvious that many email recipients also check to see whether they know the sender or not.

For these reasons, we recommend taking the extra time to craft an email title that is compelling and generates a response.

This is, admittedly, a little more art than science, but like with other email factors, common sense goes a long way.

For example, we’ve seen higher open rates for titles that contain the word “you” in them and more responses to emails that are composed by a singular person as opposed to a team.

It’s best to ask yourself what would compel you to open an email if you were in your customer’s shoes.

But really, in today’s marketplace, most businesses and industries will benefit from writing autoresponder content that engages their customers.

Through your content, you have a chance to build a sense of trust between you and your audience.

Then when they see your name pop up in their email, they’re far more likely to open that email from the get-go.

Focus on writing content that is compelling, that serves a purpose and adds value to their experience of your product or service.

You’ll notice more and more brands are going this route today, skipping over calls-to-action that screams “buy here now!”

Instead, brands are engaging with their customers in the same way a person would connect with another person.

By doing this, and by using our guide here, you’ll be on your way to creating an autoresponder campaign that your customers love to open and enjoy reading.

And in turn, you’ll be creating a real audience for your brand.

Protip: One of the best ways to get ideas for your autoresponders is to take a look at your own inbox. You can even sign up for your competitor’s emails to understand what messages they’re sending!

But we love to hear about your experiences: which emails have you gotten that really “wowed” you and what was it about them that caught your eye?

Thanks for reading Creating an Autoresponder That Subscribers Look Forward To Opening which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

Is your email open rates low?

Are you looking for ways to improve your email open rates?

There are some easy things you can do to boost your email open rates without sounding spammy.

The open rate is the most important metric when it comes to email marketing.

It determines whether your emails are useful or whether contacts stop opening them after receiving so many or even one.

If your open rate is low, then it is a clear indication that you need to change something to improve it.

Getting your contacts actually to open your emails can be a very frustrating mission, but once you have done it, you will be more than happy that you persevered.

To make it a bit easier for you, though, I have added 8 ways in which you can improve your email open rates.

Improve The Deliverability

I’m sure you will agree that if your contacts aren’t receiving your emails, then they’re not going to be able to open them. This is a very common cause of low open rates that many businesses overlook.

I recommend that improving your deliverability should be the first thing you should do to boost our email open rates.

Here are a few ways in which you can improve the overall deliverability of your emails:

1. Check Your Spam Score

Image Source: MOZ

The first thing you need to check is your email spam score.

There are some tools online you can use to check whether your emails are considered as spam such as Active Campaign.

You want to aim for your spam score to be 0 out of 8. If it is above 0, then you need to work on your email messaging to reduce the spam score.

2. Ask Contacts To Add You To Their Address Books

If there is one way to make sure your emails are getting delivered, it is to ask your contacts to add your email address to their address book.

To do this, you must make sure that all your emails are being sent from the same email address which is best practice anyway.

All you need to do it add a line of text at the top of your emails asking contacts to add you to their address book.

3. Make Sure Your Emails Are Of Quality

Image Source: Hubspot

You may be surprised at this, but an indication of a non-spammy email is one that contains a good ratio of text and images.

Sending emails that are made up of just one big image can be an indication of spam.

Most times, emails won’t automatically show images and recipients have to click to display the images in the email.

If your emails are made up of up one big image, then it can appear that you’re sending blank emails.

Your contacts will be unlikely to open another email that you send after this.

As well as using both text and images in your emails, be sure that the text in the email isn’t just filler text but is content that offers value.

Only Send Emails To Those Who Will Want To See Them

After you have worked on making changes to improve the deliverability of your emails, you can then start working on who you’re sending your emails to.

Those who are not interested in what you have to say or the offers that you are giving them will simply not open your emails.

There has to come to a point where you need to stop sending emails to those who don’t want to receive them.

If you continue to do this, you will only generate spam signals.

Sending emails to those who want to see them will boost your email open rates massively.

Here are a few ways in which you can determine who does and doesn’t wish to receive your emails:

4. Segment Your Contacts

Image Source: Exact Target

One of the most important factors in email marketing is to segment your email list so that you aren’t sending the same message to all contacts.

Not all of your contacts will be at the same stage of the sales funnel, have the same pain points, have the same goals or have the same interests.

For this reason, it is important that you send different messages to different groups of contacts.

One of the greatest mistakes marketers and businesses make is to send an email to as many contacts in their list as possible because they believe this will lead to higher response rates.

This is not true.

Sending the right emails to the right people at the right time means that contacts will be a lot more engaged than if you were to send it to the majority.

Segmenting your email list will mean that you aren’t irritating your contact by sending them irrelevant emails because as soon as you send one irrelevant email, they may never open any more of your emails and may unsubscribe.

5. Implement A Double Opt-In Strategy

Image Source: BounceCreative

Nothing good will ever come from tricking people into submitting their email address because as soon as you send them an email, they will either flag as junk, unsubscribe or do both.

To avoid this from happening, make sure contacts know that they are opting in to receive emails from you by adding an opt-in check on your contact forms.

You can also go one step further and send an email to newly subscribed contacts asking them to confirm their subscription via a clickable button.

This gives you reassurance that contacts want to receive your emails and will be highly likely to open and engage with them.

6. Let Your Contacts Decide How Often They Want To Receive Emails

Image Source: InboundMartech

Image Source: BestHosting

If there is one way to please contacts, it is to let them have control over how often they receive emails from you and what they want to see in those emails.

This is a strategy that smart marketers use and swear by.

Letting contact have this level control will certainly boost open rates.

Letting contacts have this level of control means they will never view your emails as spam or irrelevant.

You can add two fields to your subscription forms that ask how often they would like to receive emails and what information they would like to receive.

You can use these responses to segment your contacts as mentioned above.

Optimize Your Subject Lines

After you have improved your deliverability and have worked on who you’re sending your emails to, you can work on the subject lines of your emails.

The subject line is the most important content of your email.

If it isn’t enticing enough, contacts won’t open the email to see even the rest of the content you have put together.

The aim is to create enticing subject lines that will pique their interest.

Avoid using any spammy overly promotional words in your subject lines though as is this could do the opposite.

Here are a couple of things you can do to improve your subject lines:

7. Create A Sense Of Urgency

Image Source: ConversionXL

A great way to get contacts to open your emails is to make them feel like they will miss out on something if they don’t open it.

I wouldn’t use this with every email though as it will cancel out the sense of urgency.

An example of an urgent subject line could something along the lines of “webinar registration ends soon” or “last day to sign up for our 21-day free trial”.

8. Split Test Your Subject Lines

Image Source: MailChimp

The only way you will be able to determine which subject lines actually work, is to split test them.

You can do this by splitting a segmented group of contacts in two and sending them the same email, at the same time with the only difference being that the subject lines.

You can then determine which subject line results in the higher open rate so you can implement it into all future emails.

You can continue to split test your email subject lines to find which words and tactics are most effective.

Conclusion

These are just 8 ways to boost your email open rates.

There are more things you can do to improve your open rates however the factors in this blog post tend to get the best results.

Other factors you can try are:

• Ask contacts who have unsubscribed why they have unsubscribed so you can work on correcting issues to reduce the amount of unsubscribes and increase open rates moving forward.
• Use correct spelling and grammar in subject lines as poor spelling and grammar will not give the best first impression, could come across as spam and will deter contacts from opening your emails.
• Personalize your email subject lines so they include the contacts name, location, past purchases, Contacts are more likely to open and respond to emails that are tailored to them.

How many of these factors have you tried and tested to improve your email open rates?

Let me know by leaving your comments below.

Thanks for reading 8 Email Marketing Tips to Increase Open Rates which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

Many of us crowd around the television during the Olympics, in awe as we think “Man, I wish I could be that good at, well, just about anything!”

Why not take the motivation and drive of elite athletes and apply that passion to your marketing strategy?

With enough focus and intensity, you can make your next sales funnel worthy of a gold medal.

The Olympics represent the pinnacle of spectacle and athletic performance, with millions around the world tuning in to see the best of the best compete for the glory and the gold.

The blood, sweat, and tears that go into the training regimen of the most Olympic athletes is difficult for the average person to wrap their head around.

From training for six hours a day, six days a week year-round to insanely strict diets that we could never stomach ourselves, the dedication and intensity of those competing in the Olympics are absolutely staggering.

Okay, so what the heck does this have to do with building a sales funnel?

More than you might think.

While comparing your sales funnel to pole-vaulting or the 200-meter dash may seem like apples and oranges, consider the struggles that marketers face:

• Some days it just feels like we’re going nowhere, essentially spinning our wheels trying to support an underperforming sales funnel.
• Throwing in the towel can be incredibly tempting when we’re not seeing an ROI for our hard work and research.
• Overcoming that final financial hurdle into profitability can be like staring up at a giant, seemingly impossible to overcome.

Likewise, athletes face similar challenges in the midst physical and mental roadblocks as they spend four years preparing for events that could last mere seconds.

But do they give up?

No.

And neither should you.

It’s time to take your funnel out of the kiddie pool and get on Michael Phelps’ level.

How?

Practice Makes Perfect

Olympic athletes aren’t simply born: they’re made as a result of their years of fierce training and focus.

Likewise, killer sales funnels don’t fall from the sky: they’re created as a result of intense research and a fool-proof sales strategy.

If your first funnel falls flat, does that mean you should give up altogether?

Of course not. Instead, learn from the mistakes of your first funnel and understand what not to do the next time around.

Some common pitfalls that even seasoned funnel-builders make include:

• Ignoring the elements of conversion focused design, ultimately resulting in a funnel that fails to convert.
• Relying on a cheap or inexperienced team as a means of cutting corners which therefore cuts sales.
• Focusing too much on the front-end instead of implementing a back-end that grows the profit.

Think of fine-tuning your funnel as simply part of the process, much like athletes have to train for hours on end to recreate their best performances.

The more time you spend building and launching new funnels, the more opportunities you have to grow as a successful funnel-hacker.

Split Test Strategies

Dozens of world records have already been broken at the Rio Olympics.

In fact, it seems like records are constantly being broken the Olympics, year after year.

Why?

Athletes evolve. As researchers and trainers uncover new ways to train, athletes adapt accordingly to raise their own standards to match their competition.

On a similar note, you should constantly work to evolve your marketing and funnel-building to meet the expectations and best practices of your niche.

Funnel-builders should always be split testing to optimize the potential of their marketing strategy.

From the color scheme to copywriting, there are always tweaks that can be made to make your funnel smarter and stronger.

Sure, you can let your funnel sit in autopilot mode; however, that’s no way to grow your network for future funnels and stand toe-to-toe with your competition.

If you hope for your funnel to stay competitive, you can’t afford to test.

Play the Long-Game

It can take some athletes years of rigorous training before they make it to the Olympics: earning a medal requires extreme patience and perseverance.

You can’t always expect your funnels to kill it from the word “go.”

Remember: funnel-hacking represents a marathon and not a sprint.

Think about how long-distance runners kick it into high gear at the end of the race: they fact that were ever “behind” becomes irrelevant as long as they cross the finish line first.

For example, it’s okay to sacrifice some conversions on the front-end to create life-long customers on the back-end.

Many funnel-hackers get laser-focused on their launches that they ignore essential elements of their back-end such as retargeting and segmenting their lists.

In reality, ensuring that you build a base of customers and employ a strategy to turn them into life-long advocates of your business represents the difference between a killer and average funnel.

By focusing on the back-end of your funnel, you play the long-game to ensure more revenue for your business with less legwork.

There are No Shortcuts

Building.

Writing.

Testing.

Funnels represent a lot of hard work, and there are no shortcuts.

Similarly, Olympians train their entire lives to relish a few moments of glory; however, such glory can easily be stripped away from those caught cheating or attempting to undermine the integrity of the games.

On a similar note, funnel-builders attempting to rely on black-hat techniques can lose their funnels and organic search presence at little more than a moment’s notice.

Google is more than happy to punish any business looking to game their system, whether through duplicate content or black-hat link building.

Sure, it may take a while to get caught; however, punishment is usually always swift, sudden and severe.

When it comes to funnel-building, you’re on a relatively even playing field. In other words, there’s no need to “cheat.”

Therefore, use the best tools in your toolbox to outdo your competition rather than looking for the easy way out.

The risk simply isn’t worth it: plus, the energy spent digging for a shortcut could be spent optimizing your next funnel.

Knowing the in’s and out’s of your competition can take you much further than trying to undermine them.

Remain Consistent

Many Olympians live by the mantra of “never give up.”

You should treat your funnels the same way.

If you’re persistent, your funnel has nowhere to go but “up” over time.

Perhaps the biggest mistake a funnel-builder could make is dropping what they’re doing and simply giving up when the going gets tough.

Yes, it can be frustrating to see our traffic drop.

Yes, it sucks when we don’t see the conversion we want.

But that doesn’t mean you should let your funnel fail out of frustration.

Don’t expect your sales funnel to start turning a profit overnight.

Sure, we’re always hoping to become the next big success story; however, realistic expectations will keep you grounded and focused.

Keep going and keep testing. If something’s broken, figure out why and do what you can to fix it.

There’s No Single “Key” to Success

From optimal training and immaculate diet, there are many variables to an Olympian’s success one the day of an event.

There are so many pieces to what makes a successful sales funnel. For starters, let’s think about:

1. The design of your sales funnels, professional in appearance and pleasing to the eye.
2. The copywriting and marketing message of your funnel, designed to encourage visitors to click through rather than bounce.
3. The management of your various traffic streams, from paid ads to organic search and beyond, and how you continue to bring new visitors into your funnel.
4. The performance of your affiliates and referrals optimized to help you build new leads.
5. The strength of your back-end, including your email autoresponders that will help bring back any users who may have fallen out of your funnel.

Here’s a not-so-secret secret:

The success of your funnel doesn’t lie within one single element.

It’s the elements combined that determine the potential of your funnel.

Unfortunately, one weakness can hinder your funnel’s potential.

Similarly, many Olympic athletes train their entire lives for an event just to slip in a split-second of weakness and essentially lose their shot at glory.

Fortunately, you always have the opportunity to bounce back.

Stay organized. Stay diligent. Stay hungry.

Your efforts will pay off.

What Separates a Golden Funnel from the Rest of the Pack?

While funnel-hacking isn’t exactly an Olympic sport (yet), there are some parallels between the struggles of star athletes and the challenges faced by modern marketers.

The marketing world moves fast and is difficult to maneuver in the wake of evolving technologies, new faces and the promise of “the next big thing.”

Much like Olympians, funnel-builders should consider patience, focus and consistency as key virtues to help ensure their success.

So, what do you think separates a star funnel from the rest of the pack?

Thanks for reading Launching A High Converting Sales Funnel Out Of The Box which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

Email opt-ins represent some of the most powerful traffic you could hope to send through your sales funnel, granted you understand how to engage your readers.

Whether you’re struggling with opt-ins or are simply looking to boost your conversions, consider these four foolproof emails as a solid starting point.

 If you had an “absolutely essential, no-nonsense marketing” to-do list in front of you, building your base of email opt-ins is something you should have done yesterday.

Failing to build your email list is perhaps one of the biggest mistakes that funnel-builders make.

While focusing the bulk of your efforts on-site may seem like the best course of action, the need to warm leads off-site through avenues such as email marketing simply cannot be ignored.

Besides, the benefits of building an opt-in list can’t be overstated. For starters:

• Opt-ins represent naturally warm leads: if a user opts-in to your list, they want to hear from you (and more than likely buy from you)
• Warm leads will always convert better than cold users who haven’t heard from you (as noted in a 2014 study, in which an email blast to cold readers produced an abysmal 1.7% response rate)
• Emails are relatively inexpensive to send, with a low-cost per-message versus other paid avenues of marketing (plus there are resources such as MailChimp which allow you to get your feet wet with email marketing for free)

Okay, but does email traffic really convert? Or is it all smoke and mirrors?

Listen: the numbers don’t lie.

• Businesses actively warming leads via email results in 50% more sales-ready leads at 33% lower cost
• Leads nurtured via opt-in emails are acquired at 33% lower cost versus other leads
• Email converts approximately three times more than social media channels: Additionally, leads acquired through email have 17% higher value in the conversion

Funnel-hackers need an email list.

Effective selling is about much, much more than just slapping a sales funnel on a web page: having opt-ins means that you have access to customers at any given time, whether they’re on-site or not.

But perhaps even more important than having opt-ins, however, is having a set of marketing messages on deck to seal the deal.

Despite popular belief, not all messages need to revolve after selling explicitly.

After all, sending a slew of “BUY NOW” emails will likely set off the spam alarm in the minds of your audience.

Instead, you need a series of killer emails, carefully crafted to nurture your leads, encouraging responses and clicks that will transform your opt-ins into lifelong customers.

Although the possibilities are seemingly endless regarding the types of sales emails you can craft, we’re going to focus on four messages specifically targeted as opt-ins.

Each message has its respective time and place depending on the status of your list; likewise, they can be used as part of an autoresponder series or sent as a one-time blast.

Regardless, the following messages should be kept on deck for any funnel-hacker and can easily be repurposed for future affiliates and offers.

The Welcome

Believe it or not, there’s a lot of unspoken power in a simple “hello.”

Many marketers tend to overlook welcome emails because they’re in a rush to start selling; however, your warm leads won’t stay warm for long if you push them too hard.

The benefits of a welcome email are two-fold to warming leads, both of which are somewhat subconscious:

• Your brand seems more like a helpful resource versus a salesperson
• You have the opportunity to give your marketing efforts a personal touch and actually establish a connection with your readers

Considering that personalized messages resonate with email readers, resulting in a notable six times increase in transaction rates, you can’t afford to personalize your messages.

Welcome messages aren’t rocket science and should achieve the following as succinctly as possible:

• Introduce yourself or your brand (use “I” if possible)
• Briefly, outline or discuss what users should expect from your future emails
• Mention the benefits of your brand, whether it’s helping readers grow their businesses, achieve their goals or simply increase their base of knowledge

Your welcome should be short, sweet and to the point; however, it doesn’t have to be all fluff.

While you shouldn’t necessarily start pushing deals to your opt-ins right off the bat, you can use your welcome email to present value to your users.

For example, you could encourage readers to follow you on Facebook to stay connected to valuable tips, or direct them to your blog to keep up with up-to-date content.

The Freebie

Although some marketers are naturally hesitant when it comes to giving out anything at no cost, sending a freebie email can be a massive trust-builder and turning point for any reader skeptical of buying from you.

Think about it.

Beyond the psychology of “free,” consider what giving away a potentially valuable product or information at no cost achieves, including:

• Building a sense of confidence for your brand (after all, you can afford to give something away for nothing)
• Showing that you’re willing to help your readership by any means necessary (even if that means a potential “loss” for yourself
• Chipping away at the trust barrier for your readership: instead of pushing them to buy, you’re the one eating the cost

Freebies can be especially powerful for those shipping a physical product, which requires marketers to build the most trust versus digital products.

Your freebie is entirely up to you, but informational products such as e-books and webinars are probably your best bet.

If you’re afraid of losing monetary value at the cost of marketing power, consider digging from the vault of past paid webinars that are perhaps no longer selling but are still relevant to your readers.

You may also consider a free-shipping offer or slash a subscription cost for your readers, depending on whether or not such a deal would be cost-effective.

Again, don’t be too pushy with your freebie. Present it at something exclusive to subscribers to provide your “gift” with a sort of feel-good feeling.

Free stuff has worked wonders in the past (think: the infamous Gary Halbert letters with one-dollar bills attached) and can quickly turn skeptics into customers.

The Guru

Similar to the freebie email, you should also send out educational messages that signal your authority within your space, display your knowledge and set yourself apart from the competition.

Such emails are relatively simple to craft if you’ve already got killer content on deck, such as an in-depth industry review or case study.

Through your educational emails, exclusivity should be the name of the game.

That is, whatever you send out is something that your competition can’t provide or hasn’t unlocked.

Present your education as a sort of secret or “insider scoop” that can’t be found anywhere else.

As opposed to the two emails above, educational emails can naturally include a sales-themed call-to-action.

For example, a business selling SEO software could provide an eye-opening case study conducting using their platform, and urge readers to find out more (which leads them into your funnel).

Although you don’t always need to lead users directly to a sales page, all well-crafted emails should include actionable items for users (think: follow on Facebook, claim their free prize, learn more about your service).

The Olive Branch 

Sometimes not all goes according to plan when it comes to email marketing.

Users drop off, don’t respond or seem to disappear out of the blue.

It happens; however, that doesn’t mean that you should give up on such users.

Granted that you’ve segmented your email list, you should do what you can to encourage engagement from past opt-ins, buyers, and subscribers who’ve seemingly gone ghost on you.

Start with a personalized subject line that grabs the readers’ attention and helps remind them that they’ve interacted with you in the past (“Bob, we’ve missed you”).

To help incentivize a sense of interaction, consider a sort of “check-in” message or ask for some form of feedback on your product or service.

Sometimes a steep discount or deal can represent the make or break moment for such users, perhaps giving them the last push they need to get back into your funnel.

Keep in mind that a re-engagement series can easily be automated, making such emails seem like much less of a headache.

Also keep in mind that re-engagement campaigns represent a great opportunity to test new deals and CTA’s given that such users may otherwise drop out of your funnel altogether.

If you’re a little iffy about your writing skills or you find shortlisting and interviewing copywriters for the job a chore, don’t fret. Funnel Scripts lets you generate killer email subject lines and content with ease. Paired with Actionetics for your email automation, it’s a marketer’s dream!

What Emails Work Best For You?

The amount of personalization and customization afforded by email marketing is staggering: in short, you can craft an autoresponder series that achieves just about anything given you have the time and a bit of creativity.

While crafting such emails initially may seem like a lot of legwork, consider how these messages can be automated time and time again, essentially allowing you to run your email marketing on autopilot while you get down to business.

So, what email messages have you found work best with your opt-ins?

Any small tweaks to your email campaigns that resulted in big returns?

ClickFunnels Action Steps

How to Create Content with Funnel Scripts

Step 1: Log in to your FunnelScripts account. Pick up a copy here if you’re not using it yet.

Step 2: Head to the dashboard

Step 3: Click any of the scripts in the menu depending on the content you need.

Step 4: Fill in the information needed in the generator.

Step 5: Click “Save” or “Submit”

After clicking “Save”, a text file will be downloaded immediately.

After Clicking “Submit”, you will be given several ad copy samples based on the information you entered. Check out some of the samples below!

Step 6: Select from the choices, then copy and paste your content.

How to Create Emails with Actionetics Email Builder

Step 1: Log in to your ClickFunnels account

Step 2: Click Actionetics.

Step 3: Go to Email Broadcasts and click on the “+ New Email Broadcast” button.

Step 4: Design your email! You can choose from several templates.

Step 5: Add the information needed

1. The subject of your email
2. Add the email lists. In this case, those who signed up for your webinar
3. Your SMTP Configuration which will be used to send emails.

Step 6: Open Email Editor

Step 7: Add and remove elements to your email according to your preference

Step 8: Click Save

Step 9: You can opt to send your emails upon creation or schedule them to be sent at a future time. Simply click “Send Later” and set the time and date.

Thanks for reading 4 Follow Up Emails To Boost Opt-In Funnel Engagement which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

Every year, the marketing sphere is changing.

It’s growing, evolving, and expanding.

Along with that near constant transformation, the industry also serves us up new tools and novel strategies for marketing our brands.

Snapchat, Instagram, geotagging, advanced SEO.

There seems to be an unending stock of ever better advances.

In all the excitement, have we forgotten about some of the tried-and-true marketing methods that have served us well in the past?

Are we even making the most of some of these methods?

Take direct mailing, for example.

In recent years, there’s been a huge drawdown in this marketing avenue, with reductions counted in the billions.

It’s not hard to guess that this shift is due to the revolutionary power of the Internet.

Well, once upon a time, mailboxes were brimming with direct mail.

Now, not so much.

But wait a second… isn’t this article about how to avoid some of the most dreaded direct mail mistakes?

If less and fewer people are using it… why would we want to use it?

That’s exactly why you want to use it!

Think about it for a second.

When you use this guide to skip the mistakes most marketers make with their direct mail campaign, your mailpiece won’t be one of a hundred in the box that day.

Instead, in many cases, it will be one of a kind!

While it might not seem obvious at first, this trend away from direct mail means that every piece that is sent has a bigger chance to make an impact.

Plus, direct mail has become savvier with the changing times and still returns solid results.

And in reality, customers are still responding to direct mail.

So, even if you had previously discounted this method, let’s dust it off, and learn how to magnify its effect to the full extent.

Ineffectively Highlighting Features or Benefits

You’ve probably heard it a million times: give your potential customers or clients benefits instead of features.

Well, today, we’re going to shake that rule up a little bit and take a look at how it’s not always right.

It’s completely true that benefits are often easier to tell a story with.

And that many demographics also respond well to them.

However, a common issue with direct mail pieces is that they often focus on features when they should be illustrating benefits or benefits when they should be demonstrating features.

So how do you know which to use in your mailpieces?

Because every market and niche is going to be a little different, you have to consider your specific demographic here.

Are you sending mailpieces to a group of ultra-intellectual analysts?

It might be a good idea to lean toward features over benefits.

This is a group that’s looking for hard numbers and straightforward features.

What about if you’re mailing teenagers about a hip new product?

Benefits might very well be the way to go.

This crowd is often more interested in how a product or service can be a godsend for them.

To aid you in this process, check out how to use basic demographic segmentation to narrow in on your chosen audience.

Protip: If you’re struggling to decide whether to focus more on features or benefits, keep in mind that you don’t have to be all in on only one. You can always have an equal share of both until you get a better lock on how your demographic responds to your marketing.

Leaving Out an Actual Offer

Along the lines of using benefits or features in your mail copy, you’ll also want to include an offer.

Too often you may have seen mailpieces that simply present you with a product or service, but don’t offer anything additional.

Whether you choose to go with a product demo, a coupon, a sample, an exclusive podcast, or a free webinar, you’ll want to include a well-chosen offer to your lead.

The point is to grab your audience’s attention by giving them something related to the product, but not necessarily the whole experience.

This whets their appetite and draws them to your brand.

Few people can turn down a free offer, and it equally solidifies your brand with them.

The goal is also to have your audience do something to get the offer.

If they have to send in to get a booklet or register to download an ebook, they’ve made a vital connection with your brand.

Protip: Look for chances to jazz up the names of your offers. Instead of simply calling it a free webinar for your service, name it something like “free strategy planning session with a pro.” Then you can also set aside time during the webinar to answer live audience questions that pertain to their needs.

Neglecting Your Follow-up

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again and again: follow-up, follow-up, follow-up.

You might think that lead will still be qualified and ready to buy weeks or even months from now, but the reality is something completely different.

First, research has proven that about half of sales go to the first company that responds.

(You might even be shocked to learn that leads that are responded to within a single hour get 7 times the conversion rate).

We can carry this thinking over to how your mailers’ inquiry process and surmise that the longer the wait, the less qualified the lead is.

With everything going on in someone’s life, can we expect customers to get a follow-up months after a mailer and still respond the same way they would if that follow-up came much earlier?

It’s equally true that how your follow-up process works is just as important as how quickly it’s put into action.

Are you sending out repeat mailers or calling prospects who failed to respond to your direct mailing?

Will you use a telemarketing service for your follow-ups or do you prefer to make each call yourself so that you can connect with your leads on a personal level?

These are important questions to consider when building your follow-up process.

Remember to think of this process as guiding your potential customer to exactly where they need to go: your brand.

Protip: Follow-up and lead nurturing go hand-in-hand. Viewing your follow-up process in this way means your brand will enjoy stronger relationships and increased conversion rates. Make sure to utilize all the tools we’ve reviewed together for building those relationships.

Streamline your automating process using Actionetics. Not only can you schedule emails, but you’ll also have the advantage of creating high-quality emails with its Email Builder.

Jamming In as Many Adjectives and Exclamation Points as Possible

It can sometimes seem like certain industries are fraught with this issue.

You’ve probably seen your fair share of mailers with this mistake.

They’re full of multiple, giant exclamation points and generic words like “massive” or “insane.”

One of the first things you’ll learn when you bring on a professional copywriter is that many of them strongly recommend leaving these off of your copy.

It’s not that adjectives are bad or even that a well-placed exclamation point should always be avoided.

But in an era where a majority of content is being left unread, you’ll want to skip tacky and generic.

These tactics are uncreative and lazy, but they’re also easy to discount because of their lack of substance. And really, do they even convey anything?

Instead, get inspired and stand out by making your copy the best it can be.

Catchphrases can be clever, and selling points can address your customers’ real needs.

Protip: If you’re new to the world of copy and not feeling it yet, you can often pick up an expert writer at the click of a button. Check out our article on exactly how to do it.

You don’t have to worry about cheesy lines and copywriting tasks if you have an awesome copy generating tool like that of Funnel Scripts. If you haven’t signed up for a copy yet, then click here.

Forgetting to Personalize Your Mailing

When we started out today, you learned that even though direct mail has taken a hit in recent years, it remains a way to get noticed, maybe even more so.

And companies continue to use it to great effect.

To take your mailpiece to the next level, personalize it for greater impact.

In an age where our lives are being saturated by digital communications, a personalized mailer delivered right to your door is indeed a rare occurrence.

What if that communication uses your name several times?

What if it was sent at a relevant time to an event in your life?

What if your prospect received a handwritten letter from you addressing part of their unique situation?

While that last one might involve quite a bit of work, for certain niches with higher-ticket funnels, it might make absolute sense.

And if recent research is any indication, that lead will feel a direct connection with this personalized content.

Look for those opportunities to add a bit of personalization wherever you can.

Take advantage of your email automation tools email merge features to automatically add in your subscriber’s name or any other relevant detail. Actionetics has made it convenient by letting you add email merge tags to your email subject or body. Learn more about email merge tags here.

Protip: Across the Internet, you’ll find formulas for personalizing content.

But just like your relationships aren’t necessarily built on a blueprint, creating relationships with your leads through personalization should be similar.

Think of it as a natural process not constrained by rules.

What direct mailing strategies have caught your eye in the past and kept you from tossing another mailer?

ClickFunnels Action Steps

How to Create Emails with Email Builder

Step 1: Log in to your ClickFunnels account

Step 2: Click Actionetics

Step 3: Go to Email Broadcasts and click on the New Email Broadcast button.

Step 4: Design your email! You can choose from several templates.

Step 5: Add the information needed

1. The subject of your email
2. Add the email lists. In this case, those who signed up for your webinar
3. Your SMTP Configuration which will be used to send emails.

Step 6: Open Email Editor

Step 7: Add and remove elements to your email according to your preference

Step 8: Click Save

Step 9: You can opt to send your emails upon creation or schedule them to be sent at a future time. Simply click “Send Later” and set the time and date.

Thanks for reading 5 Direct Mail Mistakes 90% Of Marketers Make which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

If there’s one marketing factor that’s become dominant in the age of the Internet, it could quite possibly be social proof.

And almost everywhere you turn, you’re being exposed to it through the efforts of many different companies.

In fact, customers the world over now expect to see some level of social proof for your brand.

Now, you might be asking what social proof really is.

And that’s a very good question with a pretty straightforward answer.

Social proof is the way your audience discovers your brand’s trustability.

In essence, it’s the clues that customers use to assess just how socially connected your company is to other people like them (and trust me, they are assessing your brand!).

Today, this marketing strategy can take the form of share buttons, follower counters, and a whole host of other methods.

Every time you click that Facebook Share Button… that’s social proof.

Or when you write an online review about a product… that’s social proof too.

And the numbers truly show how powerful this avenue of your marketing is.

88% of all consumers report that they trust online reviews as much as family and friends.

Also, more than 1 million websites have added some level of Facebook integration directly to their site.

See what we’re talking about here?

Proving your brand’s social worth isn’t just another chore; it’s a major component of your marketing strategy.

At the same time, we want to go beyond a simple share button or two.

In fact, we want to own this marketing strategy, creating a magnetic experience for our audience.

Just like with any of your other marketing tools, there’s fair, good, and even better.

And we want the best for our brands.

With these more sophisticated tactics, you’ll have exactly that level of influence.

Stick with Using Positive Social Proof

Have you ever noticed that positive people tend to attract other people to them?

For content creation, social proof sort of works under the same theory.

The way you frame your marketing matters, significantly.

To see negative social proof in action, look no further than the donation marketing for nonprofit, and Internet superstar Wikipedia.

Here is just part of the content for that campaign:

Dear readers,

We’ll get right to it: This week we ask you to help Wikipedia. To protect our independence, we’ll never run ads. We’re sustained by donations averaging about £10. Only a tiny portion of our readers give.

Notice anything troubling?

By adding the line about only a small number of people giving, the brand is inadvertently broadcasting negative social proof.

It might seem odd to think about, but the most popular encyclopedia in the world is basically saying no one is interested in sustaining their brand.

Seeing that fact, who would want to donate now?

Instead, with positive proof comes the desire for more people to participate and join in.

Showing that your brand is socially desired has a compounding effect, much like a snowball rolling down a hill.

And when people feel positively connected to other people, they’re more likely to stick around.

With this in mind, stay positive and highlight the ways your audience is becoming part of a community or lifestyle by opting for your brand.

Also, position your marketing to show off the positive experience involved for them.

Protip: Even juggernauts like Facebook have used the theory behind positive social proof to create sticky experiences and huge communities. For maximum effect, keep in mind the psychological factors that bind together your targeted audience.

Add Pictures to All Your Content

Whether it’s a Facebook Message, a post to our ClickFunnels Group, or your own status update, including images is a must.

Browsing the statistics shows that if you aren’t including them at least some of the time, you’re missing out on vital engagement.

Recent research has shown that images can boost engagement by 94%.

Clearly, taking the time to find an image for your posts can be a complete game changer.

If you’ve thought about adding images, but struggle to find new ones to include, here’s some awesome ideas to get you rolling:

Infographics – well-made graphics that easily explain data, processes, or other information.

These are very popular across the Internet.

If you’re feeling ambitious, you can also create your own or virtually hire someone to make one.

• Memes – This category probably doesn’t need much explanation, but it’s an often overlooked one for quick, easy
• Stock Photos – While stock photos aren’t the very best choice when it comes to boosting your social proof, it can at least add something interesting.
• Presentation Slides – A slide that pertains to your niche can be a great way to highlight your authority (and therefore, your social proof) to your audience.
• Screenshots – You can even include screenshots of your content! Doing so might help clarify something or demonstrate an idea.
• Photos You’ve Taken – This is probably one of the best forms of social proof. Branded photos that are you take are unique and that you own are an excellent form of visual social proof.

Protip: Make sure that your image is also relevant to your content. Otherwise, you may be confusing your audience.

Use Familiar Faces for a Serious Boost

Okay, this one is the real deal when it comes to seeing higher conversions.

Because social proof relies on our own innate psychology, it also means that personality is important.

There’s research that shows that customer action is reduced by nearly a quarter when an image doesn’t include a face.

And big brands are starting to take note of this fact and use it on a regular basis.

So when you’re looking to prompt an action, especially if it’s related to moving a customer to the next phase of your sales funnel, consider how this step might fit.

But don’t just post a face once and call it a day.

Continue using that face throughout your efforts and make it a familiar face to your audience.

This is a little-known trick in the marketing world that has yet to catch on, but there’re a few reasons it works so well when it comes to social proof.

• You’re Creating a Personality – when you continue to see someone over the course of time, you assume that personal has an individual personality. This implies that they have values, goals, and beliefs. And in a way, you’re then associating those with your brand.
• There’s an Ongoing Relationship – It’s equally true that through that personality, you’re showing a person that your audience can have a relationship with. This continues to build trust and rapport, even if they never talk to that particular person.
• Humans are Hardwired to Recognize Familiar People – It’s totally incredible how much we simply love familiar people. We’re so predisposed to it that within mere hours of birth, we’re making it a hallmark of our lives.

Protip: Consider how the familiar faces you post are expressing themselves to best convey the emotions and ideas you’re going for.

Tell a Really Good Story

Almost everybody loves a good story, and after all, isn’t there a great story behind almost every brand?

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why brands have relied on characters throughout the ages to tell their story.

On that note, stories are engaging, interesting, and most importantly, we truly enjoy applying them to our lives.

And you know what else?

Authentic people tell stories.

For brands, we can commandeer this fact to our social proof benefit.

Whenever we use our brand to tell a story, we’re highlighting that our company isn’t just a company.

In a way, we’re saying that our brand is a real living, breathing person with something to say.

Here’re a few tips to get you off the ground:

• Borrow from Other Storytellers – Our first stop is to look to other amazing storytellers. They can be your favorite novelist, vlogger, or even a family friend. Look for the thread that unites their stories to make the tale more intriguing. And see how you can apply them to your own storytelling.
• Think About How Your Story Evolves – Storytelling isn’t about static marketing. In reality, it’s about taking your audience on a journey from point A to point B. Use that trip to evoke a range of emotions that solidify the relationship to your brand.
• Consider Brand Characters – We saw how brand characters have played an important part in marketing history. But they aren’t played out yet. Even insurance companies are still using them successfully.

Protip: for some master storytelling insider tips, check out our Secrets to “Story Selling” podcast episode.

Retargeting with Video Testimonials

Fact: testimonials from other customers have the highest rating for effectiveness in all of the content marketing.

What if we combined them with two other award-winning strategies that we have?

Let’s say that, since we saw above how much people trust testimonials, we add in the influence that retargeting has with the engagement of testimonials.

Then we’ll have created an unquestionably strong conversion strategy that can truly make waves.

Social proof is about relating to people like ourselves. And testimonials present exactly that.

Between more companies using them, however, and some recent scandals associated with online reviews, basic written testimonials might not be enough anymore.

That’s why turning to video is a perfect idea.

This way, we’ll be able to show real-life customers with a real love for our brand.

Now that will put us a step ahead of our competitor for sure!

And through retargeting, we can guarantee that we’ve already established a friendly connection with our audience.

Win-win-win.

Protip: We’ve all seen those infomercials where people seem to have been paid to perform in them. To produce a better video, simply ask your best customers if they’d like to help. You’ll find that many of them are happy to get their 15 minutes of fame.

Why do you think social proof has become such an effective form of marketing in recent years?

Thanks for reading Marketer’s Guide to Including Social Proof in Sales Funnel which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

Email is a great way to engage your audience. You can use it to learn more about your customers and find out what they expect from you. You can also utilize it to get more clicks and sales. Whatever your purpose, you have to do emails right.

Email marketing is more than just getting your audience to open your email.That is a huge part of it though. First having signups (using a great funnel) and then getting 10k inboxed and clicked on are both huge accomplishments. The focus on this article is to get the customer to click.

It’s about getting them to click your content and take advantage of your offers. How do you make sure that you’re getting engagement and conversions from your emails? Learn these five ways to make sure your email campaigns are on the money.

Build a Solid Email Marketing Strategy

To start, you need to decide on the purpose of your email. Each email should fall under one of these five stages:

• indoctrinate, where you tell them about you

• engage, where you convince them to buy

• ascend, where you get them to buy more

• segment, where you find out what they will buy next
• reengage, where you make them come back.

These stages are co-dependent. When your email is done right, you can be sure that your customers will move from one stage to the next. You have to make each stage’s purpose apparent in every email.

At stage 1, show them what makes you stand out and what they can expect from you. Show them what to do next.

At stage 2, make an offer. Give them something valuable.

At stage 3, entice them with more offers that they won’t be able to resist. Help them make the decision to buy…

At stage 4, show them what they missed from the previous two stages. Get them to buy if they haven’t.

Finally, at stage 5, bring them back to the engagement stage. Make a time-limited offer they will be tempted to take advantage of.

Using these five types of emails in your campaign will give you a leverage over your competitors. Building a solid strategy that prioritizes each of these stages will not only give you conversions. They will also turn your audience into returning customers.

Write Emails That Lead to Conversions

After understanding the five stages of email campaigns, you have to craft messages that are in line with the purpose of each stage. Emails have three main elements: the subject line, the body copy, and the landing page. Each of them has a unique role in getting traffic and conversions for your business. Check out this awesome guide on email etiquette for some useful tips!

The subject line is what will encourage your customers to open your email to begin with. You can either use a blind subject line to pique their interest, or use a direct subject line to show them what’s in store. You can personalize these subject lines to address each customer in your database by their first name. This will allow your email to stand out and lead to a higher open rate.

The body copy is what you will use to get your consumers to click on your offers or products. To do this, you can also choose between blind or direct copy. Typically, since this is the email itself, both are used. Throw in the links that you want them to open based on your purpose.

Your reasons for writing the copy throughout the email will change, depending on what you want your customers to click. It’s good to mix these up when writing so that you’ll see which works and which earns the highest click-through rates.

Lastly, the landing page is what you will use to get your customers to sell your opt-in or your product. Technically, the landing page is no longer part of the email. It has a unique job of its own. This is where conversion happens, so the copy should flow harmoniously from your subject line and body copy to your landing page copy.

You should maintain the message that your subject line and body copy carry. If you applied a direct, benefit-driven subject line and body copy, your landing page should do the same. If you choose to use curiosity-driven content, carry it over to your landing page as well.

Employ Triggers to Persuade Customers

You need to make sure your emails get the clicks. How do you do that? You get your customers to respond by using psychological triggers. These will influence them subconsciously and will help them do what you want them to do, which is to click on your links.

You can persuade your customers by pressing their gain buttons. To use this, you have to show your customer what kind of benefit they will attain when they click on your link. You can also encourage them by using logic. Present practical information, facts, statistics, and opinions that will help them justify their purchase or subscription.

Another way to persuade your customers is to create urgency by using scarcity as a trigger. Increase your click-through rates by giving them the sense that your offer is time-limited and that they must take advantage of it as soon as possible. Fear is another trigger that you can use, but you have to be careful about crafting a good message. With the right motivations and promises, you can get clicks through this mechanism.

Make It Mobile-Optimized

Did you know that 70% of emails are opened on smartphones? You have to make sure your emails are responsive on mobile. Otherwise, you run the risk of losing customers and profit. Email marketing platforms will allow you to see how your campaigns will look like on mobile, so take advantage of it.

Consider the length of your email. Long text will definitely not translate well on mobile. You have to keep your body copy clear and concise. Focus on the benefits you offer and craft your message around it. Keeping your emails brief can be challenging, but it will keep your customers’ attention for a longer period. You can also get higher open rates in future emails.

Make sure that your links can be easily seen and clicked as well. Some emails can have very small text that readers have a hard time clicking on the call-to-action button. Allow your customers to follow through and give you higher click-through rates by making links visible and accessible.

Lastly, ensure that your images are sorted out. This can be the easiest way for your campaign to go awry. Check that your images are uploaded in the right dimensions. Make sure they load properly. Format them accordingly so that the text won’t get jumbled up or scattered around it.

Split Test Your Campaigns

There’s no better way to find out what works for your customers than split testing. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s about time to start. Split testing is when you segment your audience and send them different versions of your email campaign. This is how you find out which is the best performing email for your audience.

To do this, you should only change one element at a time. This will become the variable that will determine the cause of your campaign’s high or low performance. Choose any variable, depending on what you want to troubleshoot. Test subject lines, headlines, and even offers. Use these insights to craft the best emails for your campaigns.

Thanks for reading How to Create Successful Email Marketing Campaigns which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

We already know that Actionetics is a fantastic marketing automation platform when working in tandem with your sales funnel. Be that as it may, if you’re not making the most of Actionetics, then you’re missing out on a lot. If you are completely new to this, here is a comprehensive post about Getting Started with Actionetics.

To help you understand just how powerful an automation platform Actionetics is, you need to discover all the interesting features it offers and not just the obvious ones. While Actionetics is a powerful tool, in and of its own,  it wouldn’t hurt to know and leverage some of the most useful (but rarely used) features of Actionetics.

Here are 4 Actionetics features you probably don’t bother to discover or even use.

1. ACTION SCORE

If you’re already using Actionetics, then you must have already seen the Action Score displayed on every contact profile. A contact’s Action Score for recency, frequency, monetary value, and social scores. To be able to view each element of a contact’s Action Score, all you need to do is to hover your cursor on the display and move it around the rings of the Action Score display.

Some may think that this is negligible, but what makes this feature so important is that enables marketers to determine a contact’s lifetime value and, of course, a contact’s current value to your business. With this feature, you will be given insights on how your contacts behave, where you engage them the most and how to market to them better.

2. CUSTOM GROUPS

Most users new to Actionetics may tend to find custom groups in Action Funnels, a bit tricky. This is especially so when figuring out what custom group to use if you want a particular action, whether it’s external or internal, to trigger your action funnel. Custom group has seven rule groups.

1. SOCIAL

This lets you filter an action funnel step according to the number of social media followers or fans of any social network.

The social networks covered under this category are:

• Picasa
• Pinterest
• Placast
• SlideShare
• SoundCloud
• Tumblr
• Tungle Me
• Twitter
• Vimeo
• WordPress
• yahoo
• YouTube
• About.me
• Angellist
• Blogger
• Delicious
• Digg
• Facebook
• Flickr
• Foursquare
• Friendfeed
• Github
• Google Plus
• Gravatar
• Instagram
• Klout
• LinkedIn
• Myspace

2. CONTACT

This lets you trigger your action funnel step according to contact information

3. FUNNEL

This lets you trigger your action funnel step according to page visited or not visited by your contact.

4. PRODUCT

This trigger is quite similar to Funnel except that it lets you trigger your action funnel step according to whether a particular product is bought or not by a contact.

5. BROADCASTS

This lets you trigger your action funnel step according to particular actions on your email broadcasts (i.e. opened broadcast, never opened broadcast, clicked broadcast, did not click broadcast)

6. LISTS

This lets you trigger your action funnel step according to a particular email list.

7. EMAIL STEP

This lets you trigger your action funnel step according to email step action. (i.e. opened email step, never opened email step, clicked email step, never clicked email step)

Now, I’m pretty sure most of you have tried out Action Funnels, but what some do not realise is that you are not limited to just one custom group or that you’re not utilising the other categories! You can set multiple custom group to fully customise each step in your Action Funnels. Try it out and create and send targeted marketing messages!

3. TAGS

Tags are a quite new to Actionetics, which may explain why you haven’t utilised them yet if you haven’t. While email lists are used to segment your contacts (making it easier for you to send various different marketing messages), tags let you further segment these contacts according to specified actions in each step of your funnel.

You can use tags to segment your contacts, use them as triggers for particular steps in your Action Funnel, and they also let you analyse each contact according to tags added to their profiles. If you want to enable tags to be added to your contacts, all you have to do is to go to your page editor >  go to Settings > Integrations> Select Actionetics as an Integration > Add Tag and add the your tag.

TIP: You can also opt to add “Remove Tag” as an option in your email integration settings.

4. CONTACT PROFILE

It’s not exactly a secret, but I’m pretty sure you haven’t taken the time to see each individual contact in your list’s profile. You’d be surprised to discover a treasure trove of valuable data you can use in planning your next marketing campaign.

Among the information you discover is, of course, your contact’s Action score which has already been discussed earlier. Aside from that, you’ll be able to see their purchase history, their recent activities, memberships you offered that they have subscribed to, etc. If you want to learn more about the Actionetics Contact Profile Dashboard, be sure to check out this post I wrote previously.

What’s next with Actionetics Features?

While you may have read (or heard) of most of the features mentioned above, chances are you haven’t used these features and leveraged them to improve your marketing. You’ll notice that the common denominator about these features is their ability to let you in on valuable data about your contacts.

What’s so important about them, you ask? These data lets you in on your contacts behaviour and how they engage with your marketing. Insights from these data allows you to create personalised and targeted marketing messages to your contacts which is a better approach than some cookie-cutter marketing communications strategy. Always remember that the customers engage better when they relate to your marketing messages. You’ll find that they are more compelled to convert.

If you haven’t tried out Actionetics, then these not-so-obvious features might convince you into subscribing. But if you’re already using Actionetics, but haven’t tried out all these awesome features, then you’re missing out. It’s high time you take your marketing communications to the next level by leveraging these features.

Try them out today. If you enjoyed this post, I am sure you would love these 5 Automation Tricks for Actionetics!

How do you make the most of Actionetics?

Share with us by commenting below!

Thanks for reading 4 Hidden Actionetics Features You Didn’t Know About which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

ClickFunnel’s hosts a powerful suite of tools that can kickstart your online marketing efforts.

Let’s talk about Actionetics.

Actionetics is ClickFunnel’s automation platform that does not only cater to emails alone, but also to SMS with the Twilio integration. What makes this platform possible is that it takes automation into a new level with its roster of features that help you know more about your market, communicate with your market, automate your communication with your market, etc.

If you’re already using Actionetics, then you know how fantastic this tool is. If you haven’t, then allow me to say that you’re missing out on a lot. You can do away with the clutter of using different tools to communicate with your market with Actionetics.

Importing Your Contacts with Actionetics

With Actionetics, adding your existing contacts to the platform is made easy. All you need to do is to go to Actionetics > Contact Profiles > click Import Contacts > upload your file > map out your columns > review your entries > click Upload.

This features makes adding your contacts from your old email marketing application easier as compared to other platforms where procedures are either complicated or there is a tendency for data to be missing.

Creating New Tags

ClickFunnels recently introduced tags into their powerful automation arsenal. What makes tags perfectly awesome is that they let marketers hyper-segment their email list even further beyond email list segmentation.

What are tags, you ask? Tags let you classify your contacts further according to their actions in your funnel. By adding tags to your customer’s profile, you get to store critical information about your customers interests, purchases, or actions which you can use in the future to send them targeted marketing messages.

To get the tag feature rolling into your funnels, you need to set it into specific steps in your action funnels where you want a respective tag to be added into your contact. To do this, in your page editor, go to Settings > Integrations> Select Actionetics as an Integration > Add Tag and add the your tag.

From here, you can use tags as triggers in your Action Funnels. All you have to do is go to Action Funnels > Select which Action Funnel you want to edit > Select the Step you want to add tags as criteria > Select Contacts > Choose Has Tag.

This feature is particularly useful if you want a particular action or behaviour based on the tags you set in your funnel steps to trigger an action funnel step.

Setting Up Your First Action Funnel

If you’re already familiar with Actionetics, then you know how powerful action funnels can be. Action funnels allows you to dig deeper and be as technical as you’d like to be with your email list. Through Action Funnels, you can create custom groups and set them as triggers in order for an action to be done.

What Are Custom Groups?

Custom groups act as triggers to begin a certain action funnel (internal or external actions) when the criteria has been met by a contact. As of now, there are 7 custom group categories:

1. Social. This lets you filter and set your custom group according to a specific number of following or followers of any social network.

2. Contact. This custom group lets you filter your action steps according to country, zip code or state.

3. Funnel. This custom group lets you filter your step according to page visited or not visited.

4. Product. This custom group lets you filter triggers for action steps according to those who bought or did not buy a product to inform them of new offers.

5. Broadcasts. This custom group lets you filter triggers for your action steps according to your email list who opened, did not open, click or never clicked a broadcast.

6. Lists. This custom group filters a particular step in your action funnel according to whether the contact belongs or does not belong to a list.

7. Email Step. This custom group lets you trigger a step on any action funnel according to whether an email step on an action funnel was opened, not opened, clicked or not clicked.

Note: The number of custom groups you can for any step of your action funnel is not limited to just you. You can choose to set multiple triggers.

Click here to read 7 Powerful Action Funnels You Didn’t Know About Using Actionetics to know more about each category.

To create a new action funnel, all you have to do is to Login to your ClickFunnels account > Go to Actionetics > Action Funnels > Create a New Funnel > Add action funnel name > Click Create New Action Funnel > Add New Step OR populate the existing email template > Clickc Add Rule Group to set the trigger of a particular action funnel step.

Building Your First Autoresponder

Autoresponders are a great way for marketers to automatically connect and send messages to their customers as soon as they perform an action that triggers sending the autoresponse. It can be anything as simple as an order confirmation or a signup confirmation, to a more complex series of emails when a visitor signs up to a particular email list.

Setting up your email lists is the first step to get your autoresponders going. The next is to craft your emails to go as autoresponders.

To do this, all you have to do is to Go to Actionetics > Broadcasts > New Email Broadcast.

Enter the information needed.

Choose from the available templates and edit accordingly. Click “Save and Send Test” afterwards to see what your autoresponder looks like when it’s sent as an email.

What’s Next?

As soon as you’ve gotten the hang of these Actionetics features, you’ll find how it adds value to your marketing communications. These features are particularly useful for targeted messages, letting you send out personalized messages to any segment of your market.

Of course, a good marketing or sales copy is also essential to your marketing communications. If you’re already used to creating marketing copy, then good! You’re well on your way to mastering Actionetics. But if you feel that you’re not up to copywriting, there are always various ways to go about it.

Funnel Scripts is ClickFunnel’s copywriting application that lets you create well-written and personalised marketing and sales copies! If you haven’t got a copy of Funnel Scripts yet, then click here to register.

Have you tried out these Action Funnel features yet?

Try them out and tell us your experience by commenting below!

Thanks for reading Getting Started with Actionetics Step By Step which appeared first on ClickFunnels.

Email is not dead.

Sure, there are many new ways to market to your customers. Marketers are always on the lookout for fresh ideas to connect to their market. But there is something about emails that charms consumers into converting. Email marketing may be one of the oldest strategies known to digital marketing, but it is certainly not dead!

This is not to say that email is a fool-proof way of connecting to your market and getting them to convert. Email, like any other marketing strategy, requires planning and mapping out ideas and creating it into a whole campaign in and of its own.

Now, if you have already prepared your email campaigns, it’s best to review everything first before you hit Launch. You wouldn’t want to commit a faux pas. It’s also good to preempt any hurdle that may come in the way. One of which is to actually get your receivers to open the email.

To help you kick-start your way into launching a successful email campaign, we listed down 5 tried-and-tested email marketing tips you can try out!

Let’s jump right in.

Why Is The Email Open Rate Important?

The answer to this is pretty straightforward. The email open rate is a metric that defines how much of your emails from your campaigns are clicked and opened by your email lists.

It’s important to know that the open rate depends on your relationship with your email list. A good email open rate varies from industry to industry. Industries like discount sites which send out discount notifications or coupons everyday may have low open rates which is logical since they do it several times everyday and not everyone will find their daily deals interesting.

It would also make sense to have a good open rate, if say, you only send out an email or 2 a week with valuable content which is targeted to a specific mailing list.

Use A Strong Subject Line

This tip should be obvious. A weak subject line will only deter the reader into clicking the email open.

We receive a heap of emails daily and most of them remain unread maybe because you don’t find it interesting from the subject line alone or it may look spammy because of the subject line. Now, I’m not saying that you have to have awesome skills as a writer to create click-worthy email subject lines. While some are natural writers, most acquire this skill through study and practice until it becomes second nature.

Funnel Scripts is a great way to solve your subject line creation dilemma. You can create different samples of email subject line scripts with this awesome tool!

The good thing about this is that Funnel Scripts is incredibly easy to use. Simply enter the information asked in the fields, submit and you’ve got yourself a number of subject line scripts to choose from.

Another tip to create a powerful email subject line is to personalise it by adding your customer’s name with the use of mail merge tags!

Determine The Best Schedule To Send Out Emails

Another factor that determines an email’s open rate is the time it is sent. But here’s the thing. There is no clear-cut one-size-fits-all schedule for sending emails.

Not every organisation has the same exact mailing list, the same exact content, the same exact target demographics even if they are of the same industry. Depending on your email sending frequency per week, you’ll have to strategically plan when to send out your emails.

According to CoSchedule, based on the data they collected from various studies, the best days of the week to send emails are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday with Tuesday being the top choice. And the best times to send out your emails.

The best times to send out your email in a day are:

• 10am: This is one of the most popular late-morning email sending times when we’re taking a short break from work.
• 8pm-midnight: We also check our email before going to bed.
• 2pm: This is another popular time to send emails when most people are taking their mid-afternoon break.
• 6am: The reason to this is because the first thing we usually do when we wake up is check our emails.

You can take advantage of these popular times by automating your email campaigns and schedule them to be sent at these times. Actionetics is a great tool to automate your email sending. All you have to do is to Login your ClickFunnels account > Go to Actionetics > Broadcasts > Create your email > Schedule when it’s going to be sent > Save your progress. Easy!

Audit, Clean Up and Segment Your Email List

This one should be done regularly. Cleaning out your email list will make sure that only your loyal contacts are in your list. Here are some of contacts you should delete from your list:

• Those who do not open your emails
• Contacts where your emails bounce frequently
• Contacts who do not engage with you

The reason why you should do this is to ensure that only your most loyal or those who are interested receive your emails. They are the most likely to open and engage with your email content. Sure, doing this will decrease your contacts, but take note that doing so will leave you with high-value contacts. Remember quality > quantity.

Another thing you can do to your contacts is to segment them into email lists. This way, you can send targeted emails personalised to a particular email list or group.

Creating email list is simple and easy with Actionetics. Simply Login to your ClickFunnels account > Go to Actionetics > Broadcasts > Email List > Add New List > Name your email list > Add Group Tag > Click Create New List > Add contacts and you’re set!

Take it a notch higher and make use of tags to segment your contacts even further! Actionetics made tags available just recently and what it means for marketers is that they can now hyper-target their messages according to customer tags for more personalised marketing.

To be able to add tags to your contacts, you have to first set it up in your funnel or certain pages in your funnel. Go to your funnel > Choose the page > go to Settings > Integrations> Select Actionetics as an Integration > Add Tag and add the your tag.

Once a tag has been added to a contact, you can use these tags to trigger an Action Funnel or a step in your Action Funnel.

Send Reminder or Follow-Up Emails To Those Who Did Not Open Your Emails

Sending reminders or follow-ups to people in the email lists lets you know who among them are still interested to receive your content. It’s also a great way to reconnect with them and build a good relationship with these type. If you’re looking to clean up your email list, this is a good step to do to make sure which of those who do not open your emails should remain on your email list. Make sure that the email subject line in this type of email clear states your intent to let them know what it’s for.

Actionetics lets you easily connect to people in your email list who do not open your emails from your Action Steps. If you’ve been using Action Funnels to create your campaigns, then it’s easy to reach out to them. You can use Action Funnels as well to reach out to them.

All you need to do is to Login to your ClickFunnels account > Go to Actionetics > Action Funnels > Create A New Action Funnel or Choose an existing Action Funnel > Create Custom Group > Choose Email Step > Choose “Never Opened Email Step” > Choose the email step you want as trigger. Easy right?

You can make multiple rules to trigger your action steps. Once you’re satisfied, you can go ahead and save the rule group changes and you’re all set!

Make It Work

Now that we’ve share to you some of the top email marketing tips to boost your open rates and how you can implement them with the use of ClickFunnels, go ahead and give them a try. See how effective these tips are and how much improvement they give to your email open rates.

But that’s not all there is to it. It does not stop at implementing and sending out those emails.

The key to making these optimisation strategies to work is to always test them and see if they fit into your marketing needs. Optimisation and testing should be a continuous process to ensure that you are at the top of your game.

What email open rate strategies do you apply to your email campaigns?

Comment below and share with us!

Thanks for reading 4 Ways To Boost Open Rates In Your Email Sequences which appeared first on ClickFunnels.