Email marketing is a highly effective marketing tool, but to be successful, you need to have subscribers. Active subscribers, to be precise. Unfortunately, it’s a constant struggle to keep subscribers engaged and to prevent them from unsubscribing from your list, never to come back.

How can you keep your email unsubscribe rate as low as possible? Here are some tips to help you out.

Understanding the reasons people unsubscribe

First things first, before you can begin decreasing your unsubscribe rate, you need to understand why people are unsubscribing. According to this study by Epsilon, the common reasons people unsubscribe include:

• Irrelevancy of emails
• High frequency rates
• Fears of email addresses being sold or shared
• No recollection of signing up for emails

You could also try to survey people as they unsubscribe from your list, asking them to please take a moment to let you know their reason for unsubscribing. Of course, the survey would have to be done on a volunteer basis, but you’d likely get at least a few responses from it. You may even want to offer something in exchange for completing the brief survey.

Things you can do to reduce your unsubscribe rate

Now that you understand some of the reasons people unsubscribe from email lists, let’s discuss how you can mitigate this problem.

• Learn your subscribers’ preferences—Because irrelevancy and high frequency rates are the two top reasons for unsubscribing, you need to make an effort to learn the preferences of your subscribers. Encourage your subscribers to update the preferences of their profile, so you can learn what type of content they wish to receive and how often they want to receive it.
• Segment your list—Not everyone on your list is the same. You need to divide your list up based on subscriber preferences and other characteristics (e.g. products purchased, location, etc.). This will allow you to target your subscribers with higher accuracy, and it will help prevent irrelevant mailings.
• Let people know what to expect up front—In your pitch to get people to sign up for your email list, let them know exactly what they’ll be receiving from the start. If your emails are mostly for special offers, make sure that’s clear so someone doesn’t sign up expecting to receive something different.
• Assure subscribers that you protect their privacy—On your signup forms, reassure new subscribers that you will in fact protect their privacy and never sell or share their information with anyone else. This can increase subscribe rates and reduce fear with your current subscribers.
• Send a welcome message to new subscribers—Many people unsubscribe from lists because they say they don’t remember signing up for them in the first place. That’s why you need to send a welcome message to new subscribers immediately. Start building that relationship and familiarity, and make sure they actually did intend to sign up for your list.

What are some of your best tips for reducing email unsubscribe rates? Share them by leaving a comment below.

Most companies think they can slap a signup form on their website and start building their list without much effort. While your signup forms might generate some activity, it probably won’t be enough to generate the amount of signups you’re hoping for. Just because it’s free and fairly simple to sign up, doesn’t mean people will take the action you want them to.

Remember, you are asking them to take an action. You’re selling them something, even if it’s free. Naturally, you need to sell people on the idea of signing up for your email list. It’s the same concept as selling your product. You have to view it that way.

Simply put, you have to answer the question “Why should someone sign up for my emails?”

Are you going to be sending them exclusive deals they can’t get anywhere else? Will you be offering a freebie (e.g. whitepaper, free trial, ebook, demo of your product, etc.) in exchange for signing up? Are you going to be sharing helpful information in your emails?

Before you start asking for signups, you need to have the answers to those questions. You need to make a list of the benefits people will receive by being on your email list. Once you’ve come up with a list of these benefits (e.g. exclusive sales, advanced notice about important events and product releases, helpful information, etc.), you need to promote them in your signup space. Let people know exactly what they stand to gain by taking the simple action of signing up for your free email list.

Of course, it’s always a good idea to test different offers to see which one gets the best response from your target audience. Just remember, having a basic signup form with no offer or no call to action isn’t the way to grow an email list.

Autoresponders can be a highly effective marketing tool for virtually any type of business. An autoresponder puts your email marketing on autopilot. Whenever someone signs up for your list, downloads one of your free reports, or takes some other action that lands them on your email list, a series of messages is sent out to them. This eliminates follow-up mistakes, and when fine-tuned correctly, it can drive sales to new heights.

Here are 5 simple tips for creating a great email autoresponder series.

1. Let subscribers know what to expect—At the beginning of the autoresponder series, you need to welcome the new subscriber and give them an idea of what to expect from you in the coming weeks. If you just start randomly bombarding them with emails, you’ll probably tick off a lot of people. But if you build their excitement for what’s to come, that’s when you’ll see results.
2. Keep it fresh—If you’re sending a long series of messages, you need to mix things up to keep your readers interested. Play around with the style, length, tone, and format of your messages. One email might be 1,000 words long, another could be just 200 words. Mix it up to keep things as fresh and interesting as possible.
3. Focus on one topic per email—Each message in your autoresponder series should be focused on one tactic or tip. You don’t want to overwhelm subscribers by cramming too much information into a single message.
4. Highlight your expertise—If you’re sending out an autoresponder series on a topic, you’re presumably an expert on that subject. Rather than just providing general information the subscriber can find anywhere, really try to focus on your personal experiences and your true expertise.
5. Make your sales pitch stronger with each new message—As each new message continues to provide the subscriber with more useful information and more details about the benefits of your product or service, the sales pitch should get stronger and stronger. You may want to include special offers throughout the series to motivate subscribers to take action.

Do you use autoresponders to promote your business? Share your experiences by leaving a comment below.

Email marketing success boils down to effectively testing all the different elements of your campaign. By testing different tweaks and variations, you can clearly see what changes improve performance and which ones cause a decline.

But what exactly should you be testing out different versions of in your emails? Here are 6 things to get you started.

1. Subject lines—The subject line is often cited as the most important part of the email. It’s what recipients first see, and it plays a big role in determining whether or not they’ll actually open the email. Test out different subject line variations to find a formula that gets you the highest open rates.
2. Number of links—A lot of studies have been done to see what the ideal number of links is to place inside an email. More seems to be better, but what is too much? You need to test different numbers of links in your emails to see what drives the most traffic and the highest quality of traffic.
3. Link placement—Staying on the subject of links, studies have shown that link placement also affects click-through rates. That means you need to test placing your links in different spots in your message to identify the sweet spots that get the highest number of clicks.
4. Calls to action—The call to action is always important in getting clicks and making sales. Not only do you need to test different offers, but you also need to try changing the wording and location of your calls to action.
5. Personalization—The studies on personalization in emails are so contrary to one another that it’s impossible to know what to believe. That’s why the best thing to do is to test it for yourself. Try personalizing some of your emails to see if it influences performance at all.
6. Overall layout—I think too many marketers tend to overlook the actual design of their emails. Email design is very important and plays a huge role in the effectiveness of your campaign. How the information is presented is just as important as the information itself. So, try different layouts to see what works best for you.

What are some other things you test in your emails? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

The holidays are here, and one of the best ways to drive sales is with email marketing. But your efforts have to be sharp and focused to get the results you desire. That’s why I’m sharing these 5 quick and easy tips for effective holiday email marketing.

1. Increase your mailing frequency—It’s a good idea to increase the frequency of your emails during the holiday season. Your competitors will be working harder than ever to get those sales, and if you’re not around, you’re risking missing out. If you’re only sending a monthly newsletter right now, still send that, but you should also send promotional emails on a more frequent basis during the holiday season.
2. Be very specific in your subject lines—Your subscribers are getting a lot of marketing emails this time of year. My inbox is flooded, and the vast majority of those marketing emails get deleted without me ever opening them. That’s why your subject line is so important. It needs to be powerful and as specific as possible. Don’t use generic subject lines like “This week’s holiday deals.” Be more specific with subject lines like “5 great gift ideas for dad” or “24-hour sale on gifts for mom.”
3. Focus on limited-time offers—During the holiday season, it’s even more important to get customers to buy now before they exhaust their budgets. Your offers need to be stronger than ever before, and they have to make customers snap out of their procrastinating ways and place an order right this minute. Putting a time limit on your offers is one of the best ways to get customers to act fast.
4. Don’t just focus on Christmas—This is the holiday season. There’s Christmas, New Years, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa. So, don’t just focus your messages on Christmas. Using the term “holidays” serves as a good catch-all.
5. Remind last-minute shoppers about shipping dates—Some shoppers will wait until the very last possible moment to place their orders, ensuring they arrive just in time for Christmas. Make sure you remind customers about the deadlines for placing orders to ensure they’re shipped on time.

What’s your best holiday email marketing tip? Share it by leaving a comment below.

Working on countless email campaigns over the years, I’ve learned a thing or two about email marketing. I’m still learning, in fact. But here are 5 truths about email marketing that I’ve discovered to date.

1. ROI is the only metric that really matters—There are all sorts of different things you can track with your email marketing campaign, but if it doesn’t give you insight into the ROI of your campaign, it’s probably not all that important.
2. Design is important—I’m a copywriter, so I’m always focused on the message, but I also know that how the message is presented to the subscriber is just as important as what the message actually says. Too many companies overlook email design. They stick to generic templates that are dull and ineffective.
3. Email marketing isn’t easy—No matter how much you know about email marketing, the sad truth is that it’s not easy. Nothing worth having is. You have to constantly put in the work to figure out what works for your campaign. And once you figure it out, who’s to say that won’t change down the line? It’s a constant learning process, but if you stick with it and learn from your mistakes, you’ll be successful.
4. The money is in the list—You need to devote as many resources as you can into growing a quality list. Yes, it’s important to spend time writing strong messages, but if the right people aren’t receiving them, it’s all for nothing. You should constantly be working to grow your list without sacrificing quality. The larger your list (if it’s of good quality), the more money you stand to make. It’s simple mathematics.
5. There is always room for improvement—No matter how great your campaign is performing, there’s always something you could be doing better. You could be writing better subject lines to get higher open rates. You could be doing a better job of building your list. Your calls to action could be stronger. Your links could be getting more clicks. Don’t ever allow yourself to get comfortable. Keep testing and keep pushing your campaign to perform even better.

What are some other email marketing truths? Share yours by leaving a comment below!

For email marketing to be effective, your messages have to actually reach your subscribers’ inboxes. Duh, right? Unfortunately, email deliverability is a constant struggle for a lot of companies, as many struggle to keep their emails out of the SPAM folder.

The good news is there are some things you can do to increase your email deliverability rate, and they’re actually fairly simple changes.

Here are 5 easy tips for keeping your emails out of the SPAM folder.

1. Build your own list—Buying a list is an easy way to harm your reputation as a sender. These lists tend to be full of dead emails and people who will report you for sending them unsolicited emails. Building your own email list not only protects you against SPAM complaints, but it also helps to increase your open rates and conversion rates because the subscribers are truly interested in your content.
2. Scrutinize your content—Make sure you avoid spammy words in your emails, and if you link out to any websites, ensure they are quality pages that are trusted. Also, host your images on credible sources only.
3. Ask subscribers for whitelist treatment—The only surefire way to avoid the SPAM folder is to ask new subscribers to add your email address to their address book. This guarantees that they’ll receive your messages in their inbox.
4. Create a positive reputation for your From address—Have a dedicated email address for your email marketing campaign (e.g. newsletter@yourwebsite.com), and only send high quality, relevant content from that address. This will help build credibility for that From address, so you don’t earn a reputation as a spammer.
5. Track deliverability—Always monitor every aspect of your email marketing campaign, including deliverability rates. If your messages are getting through, figure out what’s causing them to get blocked.

What are some of your best tips for improving email deliverability? Share them by leaving a comment.

I’ve been long singing the praises of email marketing. When done properly, email marketing can be very effective at driving sales and improving customer retention. However, the success of your email marketing campaign relies heavily on the content contained in your emails. If the content doesn’t suck readers in, they’re going to stop opening your emails and eventually unsubscribe from your list.

That’s why it’s so important to make sure your eNewsletters contain a good balance of content. I’ve found that it’s usually not enough to send one sales pitch after another to email subscribers. You have to balance out your marketing messages with content that rewards readers.

What type of content is that?

Anything that’s useful or helpful. For example, let’s say you own a home improvement store. While you certainly want to keep customers updated on any sales you might be having, you don’t want every message you send to them to be a sales pitch. They’ll tune out.

You’d need to balance out those sales pitches with useful content. In this case, it could be an article with tips for building a deck on your home, a guide to home improvement projects that add the most value to your investment, or even a funny picture or video loosely related to home improvement.

Content like this keeps readers engaged. It gets them to open and read your emails, and it makes them more receptive to your sales offers.

Take a look at your newsletters and email marketing content. Does it have a healthy balance?

Every week, I get several email leads through my website. After managing these email leads for the past few years, I’ve learned a thing or two about the best ways to turn email leads into sales.

Here are 5 simple lessons that will benefit you greatly.

1. Respond as quickly as possible—Timing is everything. We live in a day and age where customers expect you to be there for them 24/7. If you’re not able to respond to their inquiries within a few short hours (faster during regular business hours), they’ll go to one of your competitors—every single time. So, instead of telling yourself you’ll get to that email later, respond to it now.
2. Address all points in their email—Make sure you truly answer their email inquiries, rather than just sending back a generic “thanks for contacting us” email. Before you hit send, look back at the original email and verify that you’ve answered all of their questions. This demonstrates that you’re actually listening to the customer and that you care about their needs.
3. Take the bullet points approach—Your responses should be tight, focused, and on point. That’s why I take the bullet points approach to my email responses. I provide short, to-the-point responses to all points in the original email, ensuring my response is well-organized and easy to scan.
4. If you don’t hear back, follow up—Don’t just assume that because you don’t get a response from your email that the customer is no longer interested in doing business with you. Give them a day or 2 to respond, and if you don’t hear back from them, send a brief follow-up email to keep that lead from cooling off.
5. If you still don’t hear back, follow up again—A week or so has gone by and you still haven’t heard back from them? Follow up with them again. And keep following up on a weekly basis for the next month. You’d be surprised at how many sales I’ve closed by following up on leads that many others would have let go cold.

What are your tips for responding to email leads?

If you’ve followed this blog for any decent period of time, you know that I’m an ardent supporter of email marketing. I believe a well-done email marketing campaign can generate an unmatchable ROI. The problem is that most email marketing campaigns aren’t well done. They take time to refine. They require constant upkeep to get them performing the way you desire.

That’s why I’ve come up with 5 simple maintenance tasks you can perform to continuously improve your email marketing campaign.

1. Customize your email template—Avoid using a generic template for your emails, because they look, well, generic. Email marketing plays an important role in branding, so doesn’t it make sense to create a custom template that incorporates your brand’s unique look? It’s the little details like this that make a big difference in branding.
2. Study your data—You should always be tracking everything related to your email marketing campaign—delivery rates, open rates, clickthroughs, etc. Pay close attention to this data, and more importantly, use this information to tweak your email campaign for improved performance.
3. Test everything—The best way to figure out what works and what doesn’t work is to test everything. Test out different subject lines, different link placements, and other variants to your emails. Then, you can clearly see which tweaks improve your results.
4. Ask for feedback from subscribers–Nobody is more qualified to tell you what they’d like to see in your emails than your actual email subscribers. Encourage them to provide feedback so you can deliver the types of messages they prefer.
5. Pay attention to other email marketing campaigns—I receive emails from probably a dozen different companies. It’s not because I particularly care what these companies are offering. I just want to study their campaigns and see what I can learn from them. I recommend you do the same.

What are some of your tips for improving an email marketing campaign? Share them by leaving a comment below.