Email Marketing Tips

admin — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 18:46:43 +0000

Know Your Target Audience
Tailor your message according to your audience and your objective. Know what motivates your recipients and use it to determine how, and in what order, to describe the benefits of your offer.

Be Clear and Concise
Stick to simple words, short phrases and paragraphs consisting of 1-3 short sentences. Your recipients should not have to think too much, parse long sentences or read big sections of text. Check for words that can be eliminated. You will be surprised at how many you find and how much cleaner your writing is when you are finished.

Get to the Point
The first two sentences of your email should answer important questions for the recipient like, “Who are you? What do you want me to do? And what’s in it for me?” So state your offer up front, include benefits and make it easy for your audience to take the next step.

Include “Call to Action” Links
Know what action you want your recipients to take. Do you want them to read an article? Learn more about a product or service? Buy something? Then, place a link in the beginning, middle and end of the email, making it easy for the recipient to click whenever they are ready. People read, react, make decisions and take action differently. By sprinkling links throughout your email, you can be ready whenever they are.

Create a Sense of Urgency
Limit the offer to a specific time period or, for example, the first 50 customers. People don’t like to be at a disadvantage or left out. Try throwing in a bonus, for example, “Act now and also receive?” to sweeten the deal.

Proofread
Read your email copy aloud. If you stumble over words or phrases, rewriting is a very good idea. Check your spelling and grammar thoroughly. Errors not only make your email harder to read, they can make your company look unprofessional. Ask others who are not involved with your business to read your email. They will be able to tell you if it makes sense.

Punctuate Judiciously
Save exclamation points for when you really need them, use ALL CAPS carefully for emphasis and steer clear of emoticons . The benefits of the offer itself will motivate the recipient more effectively without reasonless clutter.

Improve your subject lines.
To put it most simply, a good subject line will get an email opened. Lead with a benefit that lets the receiver know what’s in it for him or her. Make it interesting, and try to pique the reader’s curiosity. You want the reader to feel compelled to find out more.

Check your “from” name.
Most emails that are quickly ignored or deleted are those with an unrecognizable “from” name or address. Is your “from” name easily recognizable? Do your list members know who they are receiving an email from? Put a name that your receivers are most familiar with in your “from” line.

Evaluate how often (and what) you send.
Sometimes the reason why people don’t open emails is because they simply get too many of them. Or, on the flip side, maybe you’re not sending often enough and recipients are losing interest in between the times when they do hear from you.

Beyond these general guidelines, it is experience that will help you improve your response. Define your objective, your audience and your offer, and then be creative!

These tips brought to you by our partners at Constant Contact

Writing good website copy

admin — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 19:27:59 +0000

Writing web copy can be tricky. It is very different than any other form of business writing or marketing. On the web people have less tolerance for a lot of text, they generally skim through it. Yet, at the same time studies show the majority of people online are researching and looking for information, so your web copy needs to have some substance to it- to meet this need.

Then there is the added complication of search engine optimization. Your text is one of your primary tools to improve your search engine rankings, but how do you write text that’s full of searchable keywords but still interesting and enticing to your web visitors? After all why drive people to your website if you cannot impress them once they get there?

Its all about balance.

Below are a few basic tips to guide you in your quest for excellent web copy. Watch this space for more tips in the coming months.

Watch your length,

The trick with website content is to create enough content to make your site look full, provide information your web visitors will be looking for and create enough relevant content to be searchable. At the same time you must not create reams of text. A long page full of text is very off-putting, so be careful not to waffle and try to strike a balance between meaty and punchy.
Keep it clear

Readers don’t read online material in the same way they do printed material. They scan. Studies show that online readers read about 20- 28% of text on a webpage. One idea per paragraph works well. Bullet points and short paragraphs are also effective.
Treat every page as a landing page

People can arrive at your website on any page, not just the home page, so every page needs to have engaging content.
Keep your tone light and vivid

Droning, boring text will drive people away from your website very quickly.
Keep everything customer-centric.

Continually ask yourself: would visitors to my site be interested in this?
Don’t exaggerate

It’s is very important to come across as a trustworthy site/business.
Use your copy as a marketing tool

Keep in mind that your website copy is one of the key elements for search engines to find your site. So the more relevant copy the better, and make sure you are using keywords that are optimized for search engines to find you. A word of caution – never keyword stuff your text. You will drive away human visitors, but you will also drive away the search engines. Search engines have sophisticated tools that spot this sort of thing. Your site can be banned if you try any underhanded methods to improve your rankings.

So start with a plan, lay it all out and then have fun with it. Keep in mind that a website is never “done”. You should always be tweaking, updating and testing what works and what doesn’t.

Happy writing!

Yellow Jersey Web Design » Web Copy Tips

Email Marketing Tips

Writing good website copy

Watch your length,

Keep it clear

Treat every page as a landing page

Keep your tone light and vivid

Keep everything customer-centric.

Don’t exaggerate

Use your copy as a marketing tool