Email marketing & mail shots Archives - Page 3 of 30

A selfish request from a stranger

By Jim Connolly - Updated December 28, 2021

I receive important marketing emails every day. I know you do, too. Of course, none of these marketing messages are important to us.

They are not even of interest to us.

The vast majority are not even relevant to us.

They are only important to the people sending them.

I’m referring to the special offers that aren’t even remotely special. The poorly targeted offers, which are totally irrelevant to you and your needs. And the outright spam from strangers.

Whilst sending unwanted information via email requires a very small publishing investment, the cost to the sender’s reputation is far higher.

An unsustainable, short-sighted approach

There’s a limit to the number of times a business can pester their prospective customers, before it hurts the business commercially.

For example, if enough of their marketplace consider them pests, their reputation will take a damaging hit. That’s really bad for business. If enough people block their email addresses or report the emails as spam, the sender will find their emails start getting stuck in junk email filters, including legitimately important emails.

An effective and proven way forward

We know from the ongoing, outstanding results enjoyed by successful businesses, that there is a far better alternative.

It’s simply this: We should wait until we have something to say, which is worth listening to. Then share it with people who have given us permission to contact them. People who are interested. People who will have a potential requirement. The kind of people we had in mind, when we decided to offer the product or service in the first place.

Pestering people with unwanted email is cheap (in every sense of the word), easy and only takes a matter of minutes. However, an interesting message, sent to people who want to hear from us, is vastly more effective than a selfish request from a stranger.

11 Email marketing mistakes that destroy your open rates

By Jim Connolly - Updated December 28, 2021

Image: Onlineprinters.

One area of marketing I often get asked about, is how to improve email marketing / newsletter open rates. So, I thought I’d share eleven of the most common reasons why emails remain unopened.

In no particular order:

The recipient of your email uses Gmail. Why? Because Gmail dumps valid emails into the recipient’s promotions folder. This means they get no notification when your emails arrive. As such, open rates plummet. I know from personal experience that my Gmail subscribers miss over 90% of my emails, unless they’ve added my blog to their Gmail contacts list. This happens, even though they used gmail to double opt-in to receive my stuff.
The email subject line didn’t motivate the recipient to open it. Getting this right is trickier than it sounds. That’s because many of the words used to inspire people to open an email, are also triggers for spam filters.
You sent the email at the wrong time of day or on the wrong day. This can have a huge impact. Despite what some people say, there’s no universally ideal day or perfect time to optimize email open rates. For example, different timing is required for when you target consumers, compared to when you target businesses. Different times also work better for different industries. For example, hotels work completely different hours than accountants. They also have totally different peak times, when they’re unavailable to check email and are least likely to see your message. One time doesn’t work for all. Test and measure until you find your email open rate sweet-spot.
The recipient’s email address is on a list you bought, so they have no idea who you are. And the people on these ‘sold lists’ get bombarded with tons of marketing emails, from all the others who bought their email address. This means they’re far more likely to have very, very aggressive email filters.
Your list is out of date, with lots of addresses that no longer exist or are no longer monitored. Non existent email addresses will register as ‘bounces’, and are easily cleaned with email marketing software. Unmonitored addresses (for example when someone’s left a company) will still be able to receive emails, so they don’t bounce. Depending on the software you use, you can either set things up so addresses are deleted after ‘X’ number go unopened (as I do), or remove unresponsive addresses.
The content of a previous email didn’t engage the reader, so they were less inclined to open subsequent emails. Remember: You never have ‘a list’. You need to earn and re-earn their permission. So stay useful.
You send marketing emails direct from your desktop software, rather than use a trusted email marketing provider (mailchimp, aweber, constant contact, etc). If you send large numbers of the same email from your own IP address, you can become blacklisted. When that happens, your emails won’t even reach the recipient’s spam folder.
Tip: You can check if your IP address is blocked, using Spamhaus. Simply paste the URL you email from into the box. For example, for my newsletter I pasted https://jimsmarketingblog.com. Spamhause is free to use and extremely reliable.
The email content (or body) contained certain words, which trigger email filters, so the email is wrongly identified as spam or junk. These range from swear words to words and phrases often used by spammers. Go easy on pushy calls-to-action.
The email contained too many links or images. These are also common spam filter triggers.
You included an email attachment. Attachments are major sources of malware, so are often blocked.
You built your list by offering a freebie in return for their email address. People seldom use their primary email addresses for give-aways.

Email is a spectacularly powerful marketing tool. And sometimes just a few improvements can lead to dramatically better results.

Why I don’t use Linkedin, Facebook, Youtube or podcasts etc

By Jim Connolly - Updated December 28, 2021

Marketing tip, blogging social marketing

Image: Dima Davi

If you find it hard, time-consuming or confusing, to be present on lots of different social media platforms, relax.

You don’t need to! In this post I’ll explain why and give you a very personal example.

This blog is now in its 14th year! When I mentioned this recently in my newsletter, a number of people wanted to know how I’ve managed to very regularly update a blog and newsletter for so long. More importantly, my answer will shine a light on how you can do something similar. If you want to.

I really don’t do much

Sadly, I don’t have some kind of productivity super power. No. It’s a lot less impressive than that.

You see, my ‘secret’ is all about how LITTLE I do.

I don’t have a Youtube channel.
I don’t have a podcast.
I don’t have a Facebook Page.
I don’t have a Facebook group, either.
I don’t have a Linkedin account.
I don’t have a TikTok account.
I don’t write books.
I don’t give many interviews.
I don’t have a business account on Instagram, Snapchat or Clubhouse either.

Lots of business owners do most of the things on that list. And I bet they produce at least as much information across those platforms as I produce for my blog / newsletter.

They go wide. I go narrow

Let me flesh that out a little.

Having been involved in social media marketing since its inception, I’ve seen (again and again) how easy it is to lose your account, and audience, on any platform you don’t own.

And if a platform ceases to be popular, you can also lose your audience, or most of it, when they move to the next new, shiny thing.

Plus, it’s extremely hard to create a significant marketing impact, or foster deep engagement across multiple platforms.

That’s why I choose to go narrow.

I own my blog.
I choose where it’s hosted.
And I can use any commercial email provider to mail my subscribers.

The benefits of building your own platform are many and varied.

The best-known benefit

Maybe the best-known benefit is that you’re building a publishing business, which grows in value literally every day.

For example. Jim’s Marketing Blog has thousands of pages of marketing and business development information and a 14 year pedigree.

I could form partnerships with online training providers… promoting their courses here, for a commission on each place sold.
I could create a dedicated store here, providing products that appeal to my reader demographic.
I could cash-in. The last offer I received for this site wasn’t enough to make me think seriously. But it was huge.
There are multiple revenue generating opportunities, because I built everything here. Combined, they would easily create a significant enough income to become a stand-alone business.

Imagine if I’d spread my ideas and work across Facebook and Linkedin. None of those opportunities would be possible.

The least-known benefit

I think perhaps the most overlooked benefit, is the incredible focus, clarity and freedom it gives you.

With the multi platform approach, different types of ‘content’ work better on one platform and less well on another.

All of a sudden, you need to add lots of tasks to your daily workload. You’re no longer ‘just’ running your business. You need to find time to be a photographer, broadcaster, video producer, audio creator, short-form writer and networker.

You also need to be very careful how often you publish. Most platforms will make your content less visible to your audience, if you publish what they deem to be too often. Facebook and Instagram are notorious for this.

With your own platform, you publish when you have something useful or interesting to share.
That’s it.
It’s extremely liberating.

In short, I probably don’t produce content more often than you or anyone else involved in marketing.

I just put it in the same place and let it build steadily over time. Eventually, all those little molehills become a mountain (or at least a bloody big hill).

5 Tips to help you build a HUGELY valuable newsletter list

By Jim Connolly - Updated December 28, 2021

Here are 5 tips, to help you build a big and valuable newsletter readership or list.

Let’s go.

1. Go easy on the pitches

Make sure it’s a newsletter and not a badly disguised advertisement. Here’s the thing: People avoid advertising. We skip the commercials on TV. We pay developers to remove the ads from the free version of their apps. We see advertisements as unwelcome interruptions.

If your newsletter reads a little too much like a sales pitch, it will be largely ignored. This leads nicely into the next point.

2. Be useful

The more useful your newsletter is, the more your readers will value it and share it. Your ultimate goal is to build a large, targeted reader community, who become either clients, customers or advocates. None of that can be achieved with predictable, pedestrian content.

Useful content is what gives your newsletter legs. It’s what inspires people to subscribe, stay subscribed, share and make purchasing decisions. So, before you hit send on a newsletter, make sure it contains valuable, useful information. Provide answers to your reader’s problems. Share useful tips. Point your readers to helpful resources. You get the idea.

The more value you pack into each newsletter, the more your readers will value it… and the more they will value you. Think about that for a moment.

3. Get the design right

Even if your content is wonderful, people won’t take it seriously if the design looks poor. The first bite is with the eye.

If your newsletter provides valuable information, but the design looks amateurish or outdated, it’s like serving a delicious meal on a dirty plate.

So invest in the best design or newsletter template you can. Because whether your newsletter looks cheap or is presented professionally, it all reflects back on you.

4. Ask readers to share

Even if readers think your newsletter is great, it may not occur to them to share it. People are busy. Really busy. By reminding them, you plant the idea of sharing the newsletter in their mind. Moreover, you do this at the exact point, where they have just read it and enjoyed it. I used to have a section at the bottom of my newsletter, which said:

“If you have found this newsletter interesting, please share it with your friends”.

When I added that short message to my newsletter, the results were immediate and measurable. It’s amazing what a simple reminder can do.

5. Help it spread

Convert people who had your newsletter forwarded to them, into subscribers.

Imagine your friend had just forwarded a great newsletter to you. You’d want to get a regular copy, right? You don’t want to have to rely on your friend, remembering to forward each edition to you. So, I added the following sentence to the above message:

“If you have had this newsletter forwarded to you and would like a regular copy, click here.”

Never underestimate the power of a subtle, non-pushy reminder.

Make no mistake, newsletters can be an extremely powerful marketing asset. It’s why I make my best blog posts available in newsletter format. And it’s why I ask you to take your newsletter seriously and invest in it accordingly. Give it the time and effort it needs. Because the rewards for getting it right are huge. Really, really huge.

The BIG marketing problem that no one talks about

By Jim Connolly - Updated December 28, 2021

Image: Nick Fewings

You’ve probably heard the old phrase; “Silence is golden“?

Well, that’s not the case when it comes to the marketing of your business. In today’s post, I’ll show you how silence can have a devastating effect on your results, plus how to avoid it from happening to you.

I was in a coffee shop once, when a guy with a very obvious hairpiece came in. He had natural, thick brown hair around his ears, with a jet black hairpiece on top. Of course, no one mentioned it to him. People just smirked when he wasn’t looking. Whether this guy needed the hairpiece for vanity or medical reasons, it’s entirely possible he has no idea that it’s so poorly matched to his natural hair.

A very similar kind of silence happens regularly in business. And when it does, it costs you a fortune.

Allow me to expand on that.

We check out the social media accounts of a potential vendor. We notice their updates are mostly just a series of sales pitches or automated quotes from famous people. We don’t tell them their social media activity is so dull that we leave in seconds. We silently move on.
We go to a website to check out a potential service provider. We then see that their site looks amateurish and decide not to consider them. We don’t email them to let them know their site created such a bad impression. We silently move on.
We start reading a poorly-written piece of marketing and quickly discard it. We don’t call the company and tell them their content is losing them business. We silently move on.

Faced with all this silence, how do you figure out if what you’re doing is working for you?

You ‘listen’ to what your results are saying. That’s where the most accurate signal is.

Don’t wait for someone to tell you your marketing sucks. Because they won’t. Your friends don’t want to upset you. Your competitors don’t want you to become a threat. And strangers don’t give a rat’s ass.

In short, the silence of your marketplace is easy to miss. If things are too quiet, for too long, take action.

The HER strategy. Something to get excited about!

By Jim Connolly - Updated September 13, 2021

You’re going to love this.

I tend not to write about the specific work I do with my clients, or how effective / exciting some of the strategies I use are. Today, I’m going to show you behind the scenes. You’re going to discover an amazingly powerful marketing process that I use daily, but haven’t written about in over a decade!

I call it the Highest Ethical Return (HER) strategy. If you followed my work back in the 1990’s, you’ll remember this as a foundational part of my marketing ethos. It’s also how I earned an international reputation for results, despite being one of the youngest, independent marketing professionals out there.

Here’s a very quick look at how the Highest Ethical Return strategy works. You’ll also get an idea of how I, as a Marketing Mentor, work with my clients.

The Highest Ethical Return strategy

I use this term to describe a strategy where you ethically achieve the highest possible return from every element of your sales and marketing activities. To achieve the Highest Ethical Return, you optimize multiple different marketing activities, so they compound on one another.

You start, by taking one marketing element and optimizing various, high return aspects of it. I’m going to use the example of email marketing because it’s so widely used.

You choose to optimize the subject line of the email and manage to increase open rates by 20%. (I’ve achieved increases of hundreds of percent)
You choose to optimise the timing of your distribution, so it arrives at the optimal time on the optimal day of the week. You increase open rates by another 5%.

At this point, you’ve increased the number of prospective clients or customers who will see your marketing by 25% and it hasn’t cost you a penny.

It hasn’t increased your risk. It hasn’t taken much effort. And you’ll benefit from these improvements again and again and again!

Naturally, you don’t stop there

You choose to optimize the content of your email and your CTA (call to action) so that it’s more compelling, and increase your sales rates by 15%. (Again, this increase can be 10x or 100x higher – depending on your baseline).
You choose to optimize your marketing proposition (offer) by pumping more value into it, and your 15% increased sales rate grows to 25%.

At this point, you’ve increased open rates by 25% AND you’ve also increased your sales conversion rates by 25%. This means you’re reaching 25% more people with a prospective need for your services AND 25% more of that bigger number are hiring you or buying from you.

Depending on the size of your marketing list and the lifetime value of your clients, you may have just increased your income or revenues my thousands… On just one mailing.

Continue improving it, and thousands can become tens of thousands, then hundreds of thousands, maybe millions.

Did you notice something?

All that additional revenue and profit came from using your same old list, but using it to achieve the highest possible return.

No additional money was required, there was no additional risk and very little additional time required. Extremely high return. Extremely low exposure. Exciting eh?

This is a tiny example – a quick glance of a few optimizations, of just one marketing activity. There are tons more things you can deploy, to further increase your email results. (For instance, think how you could ramp up your sales numbers by getting the Highest Ethical Return on your email follow-up process. That one additional step compounds on the others to radically increase your results).

Remember: You’re still only getting started. Even after you’ve fully optimized email marketing, there are numerous, additional (and more profitable) marketing activities to apply the Highest Ethical Return strategy to.

The strategy is only fully utilized, when you’ve applied it to every element of your sales and marketing. Consider how this could improve your revenues and profits, if you choose to use it correctly.

I mean that. Ponder on the idea.