The subject line is the most important piece of your email marketing message. If it isn’t strong and interesting, your readers will never open the message. And if it contains the wrong words, it could get flagged as spam, meaning your emails won’t get delivered and you could get permanently blocked.

So, what can you do to improve your email subject lines? Here are 5 easy tips to get you started.

1. Keep it short—According to research from MailerMailer, emails with shorter subject lines significantly outperformed those with longer subject lines. There are a couple reasons for that. First, the average email carrier only displays 38 to 47 characters in the subject line. So, if your subject line is too long, some of it won’t even show up. Second, your readers are in a hurry. You need to give them as much information as possible in the fewest words as possible. Always edit your subject lines for brevity.
2. Brand it—A lot of people used to think that including the brand name in the subject line wasted too much precious real estate. Turns out they were wrong. According to a Silverpop study, subject lines with brand names in them were shared more often than those with just offers. And Marketing Sherpa’s study says that branded subject lines are among the most opened emails.
3. Make an offer—Discount offers and free product offers are 2 of the top 3 most-opened email subject lines. Subscribers love a good deal. Your offer needs to be strong enough to grab their attention and clear and concise enough to easily fit into the subject line. Like they say in The Godfather, “make him an offer he can’t refuse.” Just make sure you don’t include spammy words in your offer as this will cause your message to get blocked.
4. Don’t personalize—Another myth is that personalizing emails causes them to get opened more often. Turns out the opposite is true. Here’s another stat to consider:

• Emails that had only the subject line personalized (12.4% Open Rate & 1.7% CTR) did worse than those with no personalization at all (13.5% Open Rate & 2.7% CTR). -MailerMailer

     5.  Never stop testing—Every email marketing campaign is different. A tactic that works for one company may not work for you. The only way to find out what works best for you is to test different subject lines. Try running different formats alongside each other to see which gets better open rates and more click-throughs. Never stop testing!

Do you test different subject lines in your email marketing campaign? Has it helped you get more opens and conversions?

I’m a believer in getting as much from your old content as possible. I routinely read through old blog posts I’ve written to see if they warrant a follow up post or to find ideas in the comments for a completely new post. This helps me get more mileage from every piece of content I write.

Another way to get more from your old blog posts is to spin them into new articles for article marketing purposes. I still believe article marketing is a great way to increase your search engine presence, build more backlinks, and to position yourself as an expert in your industry. But, of course, you need content to be an effective article marketer. That’s where your old blog posts come in handy.

Here are 4 simple steps to take when spinning an old blog post into a new article.

1. Find an older post that performed well—Since your articles will be targeting the same basic audience as your blog, you should try to find older posts that were popular with your readers. Look for posts that attracted a lot of comments and got a decent amount of ReTweets. This ensures you’ll write an article that readers will be interested in.
2. Create an outline based on the post—The biggest mistake you can make when spinning an old blog post is to rewrite it a line at a time. Sure, this will help you avoid duplicate content, but it will likely turn into a second-rate version of the original post. Instead of taking this approach, I recommend making an outline based on the old post. Write down the main points of the old post, add any new points you can think of, and create an outline for a new article. Try switching up the format to make sure it’s completely different from the original (for example, turn a list post into a how to article).
3. Write according to the outline, not the old post—Once you’ve created an outline, stick to it. Just go ahead and close out the old blog post altogether so you don’t feel compelled to make your new version so similar to the old post. This way, your new article will have a life of its own, even though it’s based on an old piece of content.
4. Double check to ensure there’s no duplicate copy—If you’ve followed these steps precisely, you shouldn’t have any issues with duplicate content. However, it’s better to be safe than sorry, so feel free to double check your new content with Copyscape or another duplicate content tool.

Have you ever spun an old blog post into an article for marketing? How did you do it? Share your best tips by leaving a comment.

Trying to craft the perfect piece of linkbait to land you on the front page of Digg or ReddIt? Want your post to go viral on Twitter? No matter how great your content is, if the headline sucks, it stands little chance of getting the attention it deserves. That’s why I’ve come up with a list of 22 linkbait headline ideas almost every blogger can use.

I’m sure there are plenty of great headlines I left off, so share your own by leaving a comment.

Note: For the purpose of this post, I’m just going to use the number 10 for any list headlines. Of course, you can change the number to anything you like for your linkbait post.

1. 10 Things You Didn’t Know about _______
2. 10 Reasons to Hate _________
3. 10 Amazing Blogs about ________
4. 10 Secrets about __________
5. How Does ______ Work?
6. How to be Great at _______
7. 10 _________ Myths Exposed
8. ______ Myths vs. the Facts
9. 10 Deadly _______Mistakes You Might Be Making
10. 10 Shocking Facts about _________
11. 10 Questions to Ask about _________
12. Everything You Know about _________ is Wrong
13. 10 Amazing ________ Videos
14. The Truth about _________
15. The Science behind _________
16. 10 Inspiring Quotes on _________
17. 10 _______ Experts to Follow on Twitter
18. 10 Funny Tweets about __________
19. 10 _______ Rules You Should Follow
20. How I Increased My _________ Success by 200%
21. 10 Cool ________Tricks You Aren’t Using
22. What (insert celebrity name here) can Teach You about _______

Add your own linkbai

If you have ever tried to search Google for inspirational desktop wallpaper, you have undoubtedly turned up a large selection of dramatic photos with corny sayings. While these apparently appeal to some people, if you’re like me, you’d never want to see one of these wallpapers on a daily basis.

Fortunately, although you won’t come across them if you’re Googling for inspirational desktop wallpapers, there are inspirational wallpapers available that don’t suck. While most people reading this blog probably read his blog Gapingvoid on a regular basis as well, if you don’t know who Hugh MacLeod is, he’s a cartoonist, sells limited-edition prints, wrote a book, is the CEO of Stormhoek USA and draws private commissions.

In addition to sharing his thoughts and insights over the years, Hugh has also published a countless amount of cartoons on his blog. Best of all, he published many of his cartoons in high resolution, which makes them ideal to use as desktop wallpaper. So, enjoy this collection of twenty of Hugh’s best cartoons, and click any of them to visit and download the high resolution version for free:

If you like Hugh’s cartoons, you will also like his book and the artwork he sells.

Does your business cater to local customers? If so, it’s important that you localize your website so that customers in your area can easily find you when they’re looking for your products and services.

Thankfully, increasing your local presence is actually pretty easy. You just have to incorporate these search marketing tips and tricks, and you’ll soon be dominating the competition.

• Use location-based keywords—This is SEO 101 really, but I still see a lot of people mess it up. Let’s say you’re a roofing contractor that offers service to the Houston area. Rather than just using “roofing contractor” or “metal roofing contractor” as your keywords, you should be using keywords like “Houston roofing contractor” or “metal roofing contractor in Houston.” This increases your chances of ranking well for localized searches, and it eliminates irrelevant traffic from visitors from other cities you don’t service.
• Get listed in local directories—No matter where you’re located, you’ll find several online directories specific to your city and state. Some will be general business directories, and others will be devoted to your niche (e.g. Houston contractors directory). Getting listed in these directories improves your presence in the local market, and it helps you gain more quality backlinks to your website. If you can’t find local listings, check your competition’s backlinks. Chances are they’ll be listed in the directories you need.
• Get a Google Maps listing—Creating a Google Maps listing can help your website turn up above the fold in the search results, getting your more traffic and more conversions. Here’s a really good post you should read about ranking for your local keywords in Google Maps.
• Put your address on each page of your website—I’ve always been an advocate of putting your contact information on each page of your website because it: 1)Makes you appear more legitimate and trustworthy with your visitors and 2) Helps Google pinpoint your location for improved local search rankings.
• Guest post and comment on local blogs—Find blogs that target the local community, and become an active member on them. You can start by commenting regularly on each new blog post. Make sure your comments further the conversation, and never use comments as a means to promote your company. You can also ask to become a guest blogger on these local blogs, helping you reach out to the local community.
• Find local online networks to join—Between LinkedIn, Facebook, Yahoo, and message boards, you can find plenty of relevant local groups online to join. Posting regularly in these groups will increase your local visibility, and it’ll help you earn the trust of potential customers as you build relationships with them online.

Do you localize your search marketing efforts? Which tips would you add to this list?

If you can improve your customer service, you’ll increase client retention and create a more positive image for your brand. Simply put, excellent customer service is necessary for growing a successful business. And it’s not just enough to say “We care about our customers”…you need to actually show it.

Here are several simple things you can do to transform your customer service from average to extraordinary.

• Train your staff to be the best—Michael Jordan didn’t become the greatest basketball player of all time just by showing up for the games. He trained constantly so that he could improve his skills and be better than everyone else. The same concept applies to your customer service team. You can’t rely on them to be great just by throwing them on the phones every day. You need to spend time training them, helping them learn specific strategies they can use to better help customers and to keep clients happy.
• Reward great employees—If your employees aren’t happy with their jobs, how can you expect them to have that bright, friendly attitude they need to help keep customers happy? Your employees are your most valuable asset, so you need to make sure they’re happy. You can do this by rewarding employees who do great jobs. This shows them you appreciate their work, and it gives them an incentive to provide excellent customer service.
• Get to know your customers on a deeper level—Don’t just treat your customers like a number. You need to build relationships with your customers. Get to know who they are, what their likes and dislikes are, what their expectations are, and other important things about them. The more information you have, the more able you’ll be to satisfy them and target them in your marketing efforts.
• Show your customers how much you appreciate their business—I don’t know about you, but I’m much likelier to do business at a company that actually shows me how much they appreciate my business. From extending a simple thank you when a customer makes a purchase to offering exclusive discounts and freebies to loyal customers, there are several things you can do to show your appreciation to customers.
• Be willing to deviate from company policy—You can never forget the emotional and personal side of customer service. Don’t treat your company policy like it’s the law of the land. Sure, it’s an important guideline, but you need to be willing to bend the rules to keep customers happy. This will help you understand the customer’s pain better, and it will allow you to create a response that keeps them satisfied.

What are some other things companies can do to improve their customer service? Share your best tips by leaving a comment.

2010 is poised to be the year that email marketing and social networking become inextricably linked to each other. Savvy marketers know that leveraging social media can help spread their messages further than ever before, creating a viral effect that results in increased brand awareness and more sales.

Don’t believe that social email marketing is important or useful? Here are a few stats from Email Stat Center to consider:

• 20% of Facebook, MySpace and/or Twitter users have posted or shared something from permission email to their social account(s) via a “share” option. – Merkle , “View from the Social Inbox” (2010)
• 32% say they’d share promotional email offers with members inside a social network and open emails from others. – PMN and Pace University’s Lubin School of Business’(IDM) Lab (2009)
• 51% of respondents report having clicked “forward to a friend” links in marketing email, but 38% have never seen these links. – Epsilon (2007)

I could go on, but you get the point. So, if you’re creating a social email campaign, what do you need to do to guarantee success?

1. Make email content easy to share—Include one-click share buttons for all the major social networks right there in your email. This allows readers to quickly share your message with their entire community.  
2. Let the community know about your newsletters—Any time you send out a new email, post about it on your social networks. Include a tease about what’s in the email, and offer opt-in links so followers can sign up.
3. Know who’s on your list—Your email list is more than a bunch of random email addresses. Each address represents a person with a certain amount of influence and the potential to spread your message. Get to know your subscribers.

Is your email campaign socialized?

In addition to making your website more appealing to the eye, videos can help engage visitors on a personal level and drive traffic to your website when optimized properly.

But figuring out when and how to use video on your website can be a bit tricky. If you miss the mark, you can actually cause your website to perform worse, decreasing your conversion rate. That’s why I’ve come up with 5 times I think it’s a good idea to use video on your website.

1. Show your product in action—Don’t just tell customers about your product, show them. Why do you think infomercials are so effective? Billy Mays used to show his Zorbeez towel soaking up a spilled bottle of soda. He would show someone pulling an 18 wheeler with a chain boned with Mighty Putty. Seeing is believing. Showing your product being used can add credibility to your claims.
2. Give new life to your testimonials—In the past, I’ve talked about ways to give your testimonials more credibility. Sure, written testimonials are good, but video testimonials are even more believable. They don’t feel forged, and they give potential customers a 3^rd party endorsement from someone like them.
3. Add clarity to your message—Sometimes, it can be difficult to clearly express a message in just text. Using video in conjunction with your copy can help clarify the message and drill it into the customer’s head.
4. Highlight your expertise—Customers trust those they perceive to be experts. That’s one of the reasons blogging is such a powerful tool. Videos let you take that a step further to educate your customers and to position yourself as an expert. Just make sure you don’t talk down to the viewers as that will make you look like a jerk, not an expert.
5. Promote sales—Have a special sale coming up? Promote it with a video. Think of it like a commercial. You can even include a special coupon code in the video to entice customers to watch it.

Do you use video on your website? Has it helped you get more conversions? Share your experiences by leaving a comment.

It seems like any time we talk about Twitter, we focus on the reasons to use it. Conversations are always about the benefits, never about potential drawbacks or reasons not to use Twitter. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m definitely a firm believer that Twitter can be a powerful tool for increasing brand awareness, driving web traffic, generating leads, building trust with consumers and more, but I don’t think Twitter is right for every business.
Here are 3 reasons NOT to use Twitter for your business.

1. Your target audience doesn’t Tweet—While Twitter attracts a diverse crowd, the average user is somewhere in his early to mid 30s. Older users have been slow to adopt Twitter, instead preferring LinkedIn and even Facebook. What does this mean for you? It means there’s a chance your target audience doesn’t really use Twitter.

It’s time to dig up that business plan you stuffed away in some filing cabinet to look at the info about your target demographic. How old are they? How often do they use the internet and social networking? Are they using smart phones to stay mobile?

And if for some reason you don’t know who your target audience is (shame on you), check out this post for tips on identifying your target market.

2. You don’t have time to Tweet—You might already have quite a bit on your plate as it is. Tweeting takes time. It’s not just dropping an update here or there. Being successful with Twitter requires finding the time to interact with your followers and to respond to @replies and direct messages. Engagement is the key.

So, before you sign up on Twitter, you need to ask yourself:

• Do I really have time to Tweet?
• How much time can I realistically devote to Tweeting each day?
• Should someone else handle the company Twitter account?

On that note, check out these tips for increasing your social media productivity.

3. You don’t have a plan or goals—If you’re using Twitter for marketing purposes, you need to have a plan and clearly defined goals. This means figuring out:
• What do I want to accomplish with Twitter?
• How will I measure my results?
• How long will I give myself to reach certain benchmarks and goals?

If you don’t have any goals, then there might not be any point into creating a Twitter account for your business. You’ll just be blindly Tweeting away without a purpose.

There’s a great post on Mashable about creating a social media plan that I highly recommend checking out.

What are some other reasons businesses shouldn’t use Twitter?

You already know about the major blogging mistakes, like not posting regularly and not promoting your content. However, there are several overlooked mistakes that even good bloggers continue to make. Are you making these 5 blogging mistakes?

1. Taking too long to approve comments—While blogging isn’t quite a real-time conversation like Twitter, it still moves pretty quickly. Readers comment on a post, interact with other commenters for a little bit, and then move on to something else.

If you’re taking several days to approve comments, you kill the momentum of your post. This removes the conversational element of blogging, turning your blog into a one-way channel of communication, thus defeating the purpose of having a blog. You need to stay on top of moderating your comments. Get them approved as quickly as possible to keep readers engaged and talking.

2. Allowing low quality guest posts—Allowing guest posts on your blog offers many benefits for you and the blogger. However, you do need to remember that your blog is a brand, and a low-quality guest post can cause you to lose readers and create a poor image for your blog.

So, while I encourage allowing people to guest post on your blog, you need to make sure you review the blogger’s work before giving him (or her) the nod of approval. Check out his blog and other guest posts so you can decide if his posts are up to your standards.

3. Not starting a conversation—Like I said earlier, the conversational element is what makes blogging so popular. As a blogger, it’s your job to get the conversation started. You can’t just expect readers to start commenting in droves. You need to give them something to talk about.

One easy thing you can do is simply ask your readers to leave a comment. Think of it as a call to action. Another thing I like to do is to leave some information out of my posts so that readers have something to add to it. After all, if you’ve covered everything there is to say about a topic, your readers won’t have anything to say.

4. Rushing a post—Everybody has different opinions on how long you should spend blogging. However, I think we can all agree that being productive, no matter how much time you spend, is extremely important.

That being said, you need to be careful that in your quest to be a productive blogger, you don’t rush your posts. When you quickly crank out content, you’re much likelier to make mistakes and to write low-quality content.

5. Not having drafts saved for creative lulls—Every blogger suffers from writer’s block at one time or another. Rather than writing a sucky post or no post at all, the ideal solution is to have a backlog of drafts saved so you can publish one of those. Whenever you’re feeling creative, write some drafts and save them in WordPress. Trust me, they’ll come in handy.

What are some of the biggest blogging mistakes you’ve made? Share your experiences by leaving a comment.