Email Marketing and the Book Marketer

So, you've got a book done and you now need to get your book marketing going. Congratulations.

But, now it's time to get involved in a number of marketing strategies, one of which is email marketing.

Simply put, email marketing is a permission-based means of obtaining email addresses from potential customers.

You get a person's permission to be put on your mailing list by offering a 'freebie' (ethical bride or lead magnet) in exchange for the email address.

Once these email addresses are acquired, you send information your subscribers need or want – information you initially told them you’d provide. This information is usually done through a newsletter or basic email on a scheduled basis.

The idea is to develop a relationship with your subscribers. Along with sending needed information, you can also send promotions for your books, other products, or services. This is the real purpose of email marketing.

But, do you need an email marketing service to obtain subscriber emails, organize them into useful data, and send out emails?

Yes, you do.

Email marketing is big business. It’s considered one of the top marketing tools. And, there are rules and regulations.

So, if you’re just starting out on your book marketing journey, and your budget is limited, you should consider joining one of the free emails marketing services, like MailChimp.

These free services offer great features, such as:

- An opt-in box code to input on your website.
- The organization of your subscriber list.
- The ability to create multiple campaigns. This means you can create different groups of subscribers and send them specific emails targeting different niches. It’s a great tool.
- Email automation.
- Email address credibility.
- Professional newsletter templates.
- The ability to preschedule emails.
- Easy use.
- Compliance with national and international rules for sending commercial emails.
- Analytics

Just be aware that once you reach a certain number of emails sent per month or subscribers, the service will require you to pay a monthly fee. But, if your list is growing, you won’t mind the expense. It’s a worthwhile investment in your business.

If you’re on the fence about the need for an email marketing service, here are two questions to ask yourself:

1.    Will this outside service increase my business?

The answer here is, most likely YES.

The email list is considered ‘golden’ because of the potential for sales. People buy from those they trust – the relationship you create with your subscribers leads to trust.

But, while the service will help by providing opt-in box code, automatic mailings, autoresponders, analytics, and other goodies, your business will only increase if you actually work at it.

You need to provide something your reader needs. It's the book marketing strategies you use and the value you provide that will entice your reader to click on that subscribe button and open your emails..

2.    Can I start out doing my own email campaigns?

The answer is, it’s not advisable. While you can create a spreadsheet and keep track of a few email addresses, the rest can be problematic.

Keep in mind there are rules to using someone’s email address for marketing. The FTC, in their CAN-SPAM Act, established rules and requirements for commercial email. If you’re in violation their guidelines, there could be tough penalties.

Since you can take advantage of free email marketing services, there’s no reason not to start your business out on the right foot.

Reference:
https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business

Karen Cioffi is an award-winning author, ghostwriter, and author/writer online platform instructor. Get must-know writing and marketing tips at http://thewritingworld.com.

And, check out Karen’s e-classes through WOW! Women on Writing:
http://www.articlewritingdoctor.com/content-marketing-tools/

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Email Marketing - 10 Top Reasons to BE Doin' It

By Karen Cioffi

While marketing strategies can come and go, there are still those that are top contenders and email marketing is one of them. And, it's an important strategy in book marketing.

So, what makes email marketing so important - why exactly should you be doin' it?

Here is a list of 10 top reasons:

1. Email lists are personal and build relationships. They help you develop a relationship with your subscribers. No other marketing strategy offers this ‘personal touch’ element.

2. Emails drive targeted traffic to your website. This means the people clicking on your email links (CTAs) are already interested in what you offer.

3. It’s one of the most cost-effective strategies there is (in other words, it’s cheap and has a great ROI).

4. It’s is easy and quick. Services, like GetResponse make it super-easy to create lists (campaigns), create the coded optins, and allows you to send out emails immediately.

5. It allows for automation. This means you can schedule emails to go out at specific days and times and segment (divide) your list.

6. It’s versatile and customizable. You can create a variety of campaigns, segway into other campaigns, use for weekly workshops, and so much more.

7. It generates results. Email marketing is one of the only strategies that encourages subscribers to become customers or to take other actions.

8. Allows you to measure results. Email marketing services have analytical tools in place that give you much need information, such as how many subscribers open your emails and how many click on the links in your emails.

9. Beats social media’s conversion rates. Conversion is the process of a person taking a desired action, such as clicking on your link or optin.

In a study by McKinsey and Company, it shows that email exceeds social media’s conversion rate by 40X. (1)

Forty times. That’s huge!

10. According to Convince and Convert.com, “People who buy products through email spend 138% more than people who don’t receive email offers.” Along with this, “44% of email recipients made at least one purchase last year based on a promotional email.” (2)

You may feel it’s all just too much. You already blog as part of your marketing strategy, isn’t that enough? Well, it’s really not.

Keep in mind that if you use social media to share your posts, you’re only reaching a minute percentage of your followers. And, less than 1% of your website visitors will buy from a random blog post they clicked onto.

As number 7 above says, email marketing produces results. And, your efforts can be as simple as linking to your most recent blog post from within your newsletter or email. Be sure to use it as part of your book marketing strategy.

To get started with Email Marketing, you need an opt-in box. I use Get Response and like it so much, I'm an affiliate for them. If you need to get your email marketing going, start with Get Response.

For an in-depth look at email marketing check out my 45+ page ebook (no fluff), Email Marketing Right V2. It tells you exactly what you need to do to effectively build your subscriber list, and it's only $3.97! 

About the Author:

Karen Cioffi is an award-winning children's author, ghostwriter, and author/writer online platform instructor. Subscribe to the RSS to get must-know writing and marketing tips! 

And, check out Karen’s e-classes through WOW! Women on Writing:
http://www.articlewritingdoctor.com/content-marketing-tools/

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Your Email Welcome Message - 4 Hot Tips

 

By Karen Cioffi

You know, many don't realize that email marketing is a huge part of book marketing.  And, publishers are realizing this also.

It's the subscribers to your email list who are a ready made audience.

And, the very first email that you will send to your new subscriber is the Welcome Message.

A while ago, I listened to a number of five minute podcasts from marketing experts. This setup was an ‘ethical bribe’ to sign up to the campaign of the day. But, that’s another story. 

One of the podcasts discussed the effective use of your Welcome or Thank You message when someone opts onto your mailing list.

I’ve written on this topic before, on how to optimize your welcome message. But, this podcast reminded me of a couple of strategies that are well worth passing along.

Information that should be included in your Thank You message:

A Reminder

The first bit of information, aside from thanking the person for signing up, should be a reminder about what they signed up for. You’d think this wouldn’t be necessary, but people are overwhelmed with all the information they get in their inbox that it’s easy for them to forget why they opted-in in the first place. So, give them a reminder.

I start my Welcome/Thank You message with:

Welcome to The Writing World and thanks so much for subscribing.

Here’s the gift promised. I hope you find it helpful:
Title of Gift
URL to download

This is also the place to let the subscriber know what to do. Does she need to click on a confirmation link to join? You might add: “There’s one more step. Please confirm.” Also, you might explain how to download the gift: “To get your gift, simply click on the URL and download The Title to your computer.

Make everything easy.

Let the Subscriber Know What She’ll Be Getting

You will also want to let the subscriber know that along with receiving the gift (ethical bribe), he’ll also be getting daily, weekly, monthly, or other scheduled emails with lots of helpful information. Here you’ll want to give a brief description of what he can look forward to. Maybe you’ll be providing writing tips, health tips, fitness tips, information on your books, great offers, or other information. Let him know exactly what to expect.

Unsubscribe Ability

Another important bit of information to include is to let the subscriber know he can easily unsubscribe to the emails. Email services, such as GetResponse, AWeber, and iContact, provide this content. You can tweak it if you like or leave their wording. This takes the pressure off the subscriber, knowing he can easily unsubscribe reduces anxiety.

Security

One more strategy to reduce anxiety is to let the subscriber know that his email address is safe and secure. Email services provide this content also.

Your Welcome message is a key email marketing element and should be part of your book marketing strategy. It affords lots of opportunity to build relationships with your readers and subscribers and to make ‘one time only’ offers. Take advantage of all you can do with the opportunities, but remember, the main goal of the Welcome/Thank You message is to do just that - genuinely thank the subscriber for giving you his valuable email address and being a part of your online world.

If you need to get your email marketing going, the first think you need is an opt-in box. I use Get Response. The have the best opt-ins and you can design them to meet your needs. I'm love them so much, I'm an affiliate for them. So, if you need to get your LIST started, get on board with GET RESPONSE!

 

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Get Those Emails Opened – 4 Powerful Email Marketing Tips

By Karen Cioffi

Whether you’re an author, freelance writer, or other, email marketing should be an essential part of your marketing plan. Part of the elements of sending emails is to know your open and click rates.

In marketing research conducted by MailChimp, the average email opens were under 20 percent. Knowing this information is important, so you can determine whether you’re:

a. Below average
b. Average
c. above average
d. a super email marketer

Well, let me backtrack just a moment. After you have an email list going and you’re sending out regular emails to your subscribers, you need to keep tabs on the number of Opens and Clicks. You can find this information through your email service provider; the service should provide reports.

Why is keeping track of your Opens and Clicks so important?

The answer: Email marketing takes time and effort . . . you don’t want to waste either.

In the simplest terms, the Open and Click rates are the only way to know if your email marketing efforts are paying off. If you have 500, 1000, 10,000 or more subscribers and only 10 percent of your emails are being opened, you’re losing a lot of your mailing list’s potential. The same holds true of your click rate.

If your subscribers aren’t opening your emails and aren’t clicking on your links, you won’t be selling much.

So, it’s easy to see that tracking those numbers is important, but since the Open rate is more important than the Click rate (if they don’t open your emails, they certainly won’t be clicking on anything), let’s go over how you can improve your Open rates.

4 Must-use Tips to Get Higher Open Rates

1. The title.

This is probably the number one Open determinant. If the title (subject line) of your email is engaging, offers to provide something your list needs, or has some other motivating factor, your Open rate will increase.

Effective titles include:

•    Secrets to success (Secret Steps to Building a Successful Information Product Line)
•    Tips (5 Critical Tips to Building an Information Product Line)
•    How to (How to Build Your Own Information Product Line)
•    Questions (Do You Want to Build Your Own Information Product Line?)

Effective titles should also be keyword effective. Using Adwords.google.com, I found that the keyword “information product” has 165,000 global searches and 60,500 local searches. This is valuable information. I know this is a keyword people are searching for.

2. Avoid ‘spammy keywords in the title.
While you do want to use effective keywords in your title you don’t want to use:

•    ‘Spammy’ keywords (#1, Free, Amazing, Earn, Guaranteed, Congratulations)
•    All CAPS
•    Excessive punctuation.

Remember keep it honest, simple, and to the point.

3. Skip the uninformative titles.

It seems there are more of these types of email subject lines lately, but they’re really not effective. These are titles that might say:

•    You must open now
•    Important – Read this now
•    Do you think this works?
•    You won’t want to miss this

People are too busy and have too much in their inboxes to play a guessing game of what the actual content will be about.

I quickly delete these types of titles.

4. The content of your email (or the link) must be relevant to the title.

As with everything in marketing, you need to be focused. Your title must be a foreshadowing of what the content will provide - it must be relevant to the information in your email.

There you have it – four tips to increasing your email Open rate.

After you develop a relationship with your subscribers through regular and helpful emails that follow the four tips above, your subscribers will trust that you are offering helpful information and be more inclined to ‘Open’ the email.

Try these tips today.



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What is Your Email’s Lifespan and What's the Best Day to Send

Email marketing is a must. It’s the only way to develop a relationship with your audience. It’s like visiting each one of your subscribers daily, once a week, or monthly. You visit however many times you and your subscribers feel is right.

This marketing strategy builds trust.

Now, although you may be sending your emails faithfully, are they being opened?

If not, that relationship becomes that of an acquaintance. You don’t really have the opportunity to build that trust. There’s no personal connection, all because you’re not getting to visit.

The importance of getting your email opened within 24 hours is critical.

According to a study by GetResponse.com (1):

23.8% of emails are opened within the first hour of delivery
After 24 hours, the chance of an email being opened is less than 1%

So, your email’s lifespan is short – it’s fleeting - barely one day.

Knowing this, it’s essential to know the best days and times to send your emails so they have the best chance of seeing the light of day. This should be the focus of your email marketing strategy.

What Hours Work Best

According to Campaign Monitor (2), 53% of emails were opened during work hours, 9AM to 5PM. The peak hours seem to be 9AM to 4PM, with a drop around 1PM (lunchtime).

Thinking about it, I can see that most employees would open their emails during work hours. Most people have too much to do after work to stop and get online after working all day.

Side note: some businesses are creating open floor plans for employees to discourage internet browsing and emailing during work hours.

One important and interesting note: Mobile devices seem to have the opposite relationship. Emails on the iPhone, Android, and other mobile devices are opened on off-work time – going to and from work, lunch hours, breaks, and so on.

Going back to the GetResponse analysis, 4-5PM saw the most email renderings. What I could gather is ‘renderings’ means ‘seen,’ whether glanced at or fully opened.

What Days Work Best

According to most statistics, as of last year, most emails were sent on Wednesday. Saturday saw the least emails sent.

However, in October 2014, GetResponse analyzed over 300 million customers’ emails and found “Tuesday won for best open rates, while Fridays got the highest click-through rate.”

The theory for Friday getting the highest CTR is possibly Friday emails also get read over the weekend.

Is your head spinning yet?

Test the Waters

Okay, it’s easy to see that email marketing needs to be tested. Aside from the fact that these statistics are from last year, every subscriber list is different. This means you need to find the days and times that work best for you.

Maybe you’re marketing to stay-at-home moms. The workday results won’t cut it with this audience. Or, maybe your list is retirees. Or, maybe, maybe, maybe.

As with everything else is marketing, strategies and what works is always changing and always need to be tested for your particular audience.

I’ve changed my email sends to Tuesday. Wednesdays were okay, but I want to see if changing the day will make a difference. After Tuesday, I’ll check out Saturday or Sunday.

Another note: From just about all the analysis going on, Mondays don’t work well because it’s the beginning of the work week and on Fridays people are thinking about the weekend.

Oh, well. That’s why testing is the only way to go.

References:

(1) http://blog.getresponse.com/whats-best-time-day-send-email.html
(2) https://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/post/4207/best-time-to-send-email-campaigns-by-device

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