Ways to Improve Your Email Marketing in 2017

We all know email marketing is a powerful channel to engage your audience with content and to nurture your leads. This blogpost will give you strategies you should start implementing to keep yourself ahead in 2017 and in the years to come.

Email Marketing 

• Email those who want to hear from you

If you have email lists with little engagement activity, please stop sending emails to them. Whenever you send to a list with low engagement rate, it hampers your domain reputation and your chances of connecting with potential customers.

When you receive bulk of emails from brands you don't like to engage with is most likely tiresome. You must empathize with your subscribers and send them what they are likely to read and respond to.

• Set goal for each email before you send

If you don't set a goal before sending out an email, the recipient too won't know what the goal is. Defining a goal for your email can define your success. Goals for your emails could include filling out a contact form for a gated content offer to provide your team with relevant information about their organization, giving them promo-code for making a purchase on your website. Try giving your recipients messages, such as calls-to-action and links in text, so they have multiple ways to achieve your goal. Try experimenting with your email content as everyone's behaviour is different.

• Personalization and testing your emails

Email personalization can work wonders. For instance, the emails with the recipients' first names in the subject lines had higher Click Through Rates (CTR) than emails that didn't. Stick to basics when personalizing your emails. Personalize according to recipient names and company names. Start with a "Dear Customer" or "Dear First Name" email and always test every email to make sure you're sending to the right people.

• Send emails from personalized account

Refrain from sending emails from a "noreply" email account. On your end too personalization works. Boost your engagement levels by personalizing the "from" email address to drive more replies from subscribers to a real person instead of "noreply@XXXcompany.com."

• Try sending emails on different days of the week

Try not to send emails on Tuesdays. This is because Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays are the most popular days to send email. As a result, the inbox is oversaturated with messages that might be overwhelming your subscribers. Mondays and Fridays are the best days to send emails. Those emails that have calls-to-action perform well on Saturdays. Hence sending an email on a Saturday is not at all a bad idea.

• Engage with contacts that've submitted forms and shown interest

People who are showing their interest by filling out the form page and providing their email address, their engagement rates are higher than cold contacts you've extracted from a list. It is clear they want to hear from you and chose to engage with you.

• Get to the problem

If people are unsubscribing you, try to identify the potential cause. Send fewer emails to subscribers who aren't engaging as much. If people are not opening your emails, figure out what's going wrong. It clearly shows you're missing the expectations of your recipients and that you should prepare for the worse to come. If people mark you as spam, that moment itself stop sending email and identify the source of the complaints.

Take advantage of the ease and effectiveness of email marketing with targeted email lists from PioneerMarketers. Being a trusted email provider, we assure to give you high yielding result. Purchase our mailing lists for targeted marketing and specialty lists.

Tips to keep readers glued to your content

Let me first ask you this! So far how many blogs or articles you think you've read on topics such as creating better headlines, writing a catchy piece, opening paragraph and much more?

I am sure a ton of them! Smart marketers after all know those are all valuable lessons. But please don't assume that copywriting techniques can only improve your content. Content can go beyond crafting headlines and subheads.

Copywriting 

We will talk about some lesser-known copywriting tactics designed to not only grab your audience's attention, but help them understand and incorporate every single word.

Qualify your readers 

I am so sure you would have heard this a million times "If you're marketing to everyone, you're marketing to none." A lot of bloggers particularly those writing for multiple personas, often get misled when qualifying their readers for specific types of content. This implies they are not able to identify who the content is for.

Why's it important to do this?

There are two reasons:

By clearly identifying the audience and content, you'll create a stronger bond with your target audience. They are more likely to keep themselves glued to reading if they feel confident that what you are saying will meet their needs. If the content is relevant, the audience will be more inclined to consume it. It's not that difficult to quality your audience, you see!

Understand your reader's pain 

As copywriting legend Dan Kennedy put it, "… people are more likely to act to avoid pain than to get gain."

Hence try to identify the reader's problem and stir up all the painful emotions connected with the problem and give them a solution. It will give you a way to craft targeted, emotional copies pulling in the right target audience.

Today, a lot of content marketers are great at bringing up the real problem and delivering the solution. What is often overlooked is the agitation part.

How do you "agitate?"

It's simple! Instead of jumping right into the solution, try painting a picture that shows the full consequences of your reader's problem. Explain why they should read the content and how will it benefit them in the long run.

Keep them engaged 

For every writer there comes a time when he/ she is bound to have a few slow spots in their content and when the reader's attention might wane a bit. This is because the moment that your pace "lets up" in your writing, there's a chance that your reader will get distracted and abandon your blog post. And may be forever! Don't worry there are ways to fix this.

Always keep the "seeds of curiosity," and give your readers an incentive to keep reading.

One effective way is to add a short line at the end of a paragraph that entices the reader to continue on to the next para. Use phrases such as, let me explain, stay with me, read more to find, and so on.

Or you can take a subtle approach such as ending with a question. This encourages folks to keep reading because when we come across a question, we naturally want to know the answer.

At PioneerMarketers, we exactly know who our audience is and hence we customize all our email lists to live up to the expectation of our clients.

How to make blogging regularly easy

I recently made a new goal to write more, at least writing one blog post a once in week. More and more brands are now trying to catch on to how important blogging is. I thought I'd share some of the hurdles my clients and I sometimes face when it comes to blogging on a regular basis, as well as tips and tools to make it easier. If you are running short of ideas, make use of the tools that will highlight here and your post will seem to flow. The title, the headers, and everything else will just come out easily. I am listing some of the most useful tools to use for brainstorming:

Quora
Answer The Public
My Google Analytics data
My Google Webmaster Tools
Portent Idea Generator
UberSuggest
Hubspot Blog Topic Generator
BuzzSumo
MuckRack

Blogging

Sometimes by simply just recapping industry news, sharing infographics, or doing roundups of industry blogs or books can help you get amazing ideas.

Grasp of grammar

There are some good tools such as Microsoft Word or autocorrect in Skype and Chrome that make it super easy to minimize spelling mistakes or grammar errors. However, just because someone has these tools available, it doesn't mean that they are necessarily good in writing. Not everyone is a blessed skilled writer, and to be able to write for several different industries, business verticals or in-depth for specific sectors is something that takes a lot of time to pick up.

Whether you are hiring out or assigning blog post creation to someone in your team, it is mandatory to know the basic rules of grammar and spelling. Riddling your content with typos or malformed sentences regularly is a direct reflection of your company and your brand, no matter who is writing it. It usually takes time to write coherent, mostly error-free content.

A writer can try running their content through three places:

HemingwayApp: A free tool, this is a brutal app and can rip you apart. But it does point out things you might not have noticed, for instance, passive sentences.

Grammarly: Free chrome that corrects grammar in emails and other text fields (such as WordPress text editor and so on). One can buy the membership to check your content in-browser, like Hemingway.

CopyScape: I run my employees' content and other content writer's work) through CopyScape to check for plagiarism and it is a paid tool.

Knowledge of best Web practices
Sometimes many good companies don't think about one important skill when shaping their strategy for writing blog posts is cross-training in aspects of the written word unique to the internet. Basic knowledge of HTML can help writers learn things like how to write while aligning images, writing effective alt text, and making sure there aren't unnecessary tags.

One must attribute proper image sourcing because the absence of proper attribution, websites that post content (no matter who has written) with badly sourced images can get you fined thousands of dollars. You can avoid by using some of these free image sources (or a stock photo membership):
Pixabay
Canva
Unsplash
Photopin (ensure use the code they give for proper attribution)

If all else seems to be failing, I sometimes also insert tweets, Facebook posts, in lieu of additional images for posts. As a result, my post gets more interactive and engaging.

Learn more about my content strategy plan and completely transform your business. PioneerMarketers is a global service provider of top selling B2C and B2B email lists fulfilling all your data needs.

Quick Tips to Attract New Subscribers

Before your subscribers ever get an email from your company/brand, they have to opt into your list. And the challenge is, how do you convince them to take that initial step?

Similar to building and establishing any new relationship, you first have to start a conversation - and that begins on your website. So we are today sharing the key insights on how to kick start building a new relationship with your client setting the right tone.

Find the right form style 

We have recently concluded a research that shows the most effective display forms to learn which performs better. Let's look at each of the display type:

Newsletter Subscription 

• Pop-up: Sometimes referred to as a lightbox, this display type often appears at the centre of a website or shows up as 'flies out' in the corner.
• Bar: Perhaps the most common is bar display type. It is a full-width bar that typically comes either at the top or bottom of your website.
• Banner: This mostly appears at the top or bottom of a site and is a more subtle reaction. It starts in a 'hidden' state unless triggered and then rolls into sight. 

Based on search behaviour and user interaction, the banner outperforms both the pop-up and email bar. It is probable that due to so many pop ups, visitors may feel bombarded or overlook an email bar. However, the banner display seems to strike a happy medium between the two.

Striking a strategic placement

Strategic positioning of the display type is not just important but absolutely necessary. The sign up showcases the banner style, and they can up the game even more by strategically positioning it on website.

Announcing or introducing something new through display ads can yield great results. Many people may sign up for the first time, click through an ad, and land on the new page. Here form page and sign up (Call To Action) can play a big role. The concerned team will immediately identify the person by sending data and content after signing up.

Use a compelling lead magnet

At times the subscribers ask for a lot of information right out the gate. One can incentivize by providing that information by promising lots of great goodies and giving membership into an exclusive club.

Additionally, by making a lot of the form fields optional, one can allow people to only provide the information they are comfortable sharing.

To encourage sign ups, using a lead magnet, such as a discount or exclusive content that can attract many more subscribers. New subscribers are more likely to give you the information you want such as their name and email address, and other things that will help you learn more about them.

PioneerMarketers has been helping businesses of all sizes reach out to their customer base and prospects by utilizing digital marketing and quality sales leads. We have been able to develop a state-of-the-art email lists that offers unlimited access to the world's largest online database of business and consumer contacts at an unbeatable price.

Why Building an Email Database is so Important

In the current times, the competition among businesses is rising. The need of the hour is to put in place strategies to always be ahead of the competition. And to achieve this, perhaps one of the most effective ways is to deploy the email database service. Returns of email database marketing are many.

Email Database Marketing 

Let's look into some of them:

Improved ROI

Whether you are building your own database or acquiring it on rent, rolling out marketing activities with email database list will help you maximize return on investment. Today there is no other form of marketing channel that can deliver better response rates.

Boost Revenues from Sales

Unlike other forms of popular marketing that follow hit and miss techniques, email marketing database provides full and direct access to existing and potential customers. A well-segmented and properly organized email database is definitely a better way for boosting sales without risking budget as it appeals to consumers who have already chosen to receive marketing information (collaterals) from you.

It is easy to identify their demographics and preferences, and customize your messages accordingly and target specific consumers who are receptive to them.

The Lifetime of Consumers' Increase 

The value of email database is tremendous. It stimulates brand loyalty as the email marketing allows you to build a one-to-one relationship with your consumers. With this, you are better prepared for keeping them hooked on your messages. The more they will spend time on gathering information on your products and services, the longer they are exposed to your website.

Brand Awareness

A robust email marketing list helps you to connect with your customers and stimulate brand recognition, which in turn results in the generation of brand awareness. Since email can be highly personalized, the process of brand awareness can be achieved far more efficiently in terms of cost and time. By utilizing the data appending services you can also append the missing information in your contact list.

Customer Reach

An email can become viral as it can be easily passed from one person to another in a matter of seconds. And as such your email database is not a static entity. The nature of email is dynamic and has the potential to expand with time. When you are channelizing your marketing efforts in an appropriate manner, your sales will be reflecting on the growing database. The email database in actuality does not only act as an asset, but it also acts as an investment for your business.

Gain Competitive Edge

Once you have built a positive relationship with your clients, you establish the trust factor with them. You can now enjoy their loyalty developed towards your brand and they have no reason to look anywhere else. It's obvious they will be more inclined to refer your services to their colleagues and friends. This way your sales can increase, and you can easily stay ahead of the competition. The best part of using email database service is, it can be well segmented based on your needs with geography and demography classification.

Customer Satisfaction

Exceeding customers' goals and expectations is something that every marketer desires to. The success of any business is dependent on its capability of meeting their clients' needs. Email acts as a two-way communication channel helping customers in providing important feedback that may enable you in continually improving your service or product.

The Email Database Marketing Services that PioneerMarketers provides is an effective way to communicate with customers and prospects. Globally renowned companies have understood the importance of email database marketing as it helps in attracting new customers while retaining the existing ones. If you are committed to boost your sales and marketing drive, the email database services from PioneerMarketers is your one stop solution.

Content Marketing Trends in the year 2017

As we all know, content marketing is crucially important in many niches and for many business models. Most of the writers know what kind of content they need. In this post we offer an overview of what to expect for 2017 and beyond. Let’s look at the top trends in content marketing to watch out for. The trends we discuss are for both B2C and B2B marketing:

Content marketing 

1) Live streaming will gain popularity: Recorded video will continue gain momentum. Facebook Live, SnapChat and YouTube Live will offer easy-to-use platforms for hosting live product briefings, tutorials, tours, product launch events, and more content.

2) Surge of more email newsletters: Most B2B marketers make use of email newsletters to connect and engage with prospects and share information with clients. 2017 is expected to see more of it. This is because email open rates are going up in certain cases

3) Storytelling, a key part of content marketing: A good story teller can always be good marketer. Audience are now tired of heavy content just for the sake of content. Just blogging or being active on social media will not help. The idea is to effectively engage with your customers and tell them a story.

4) Push advertising will definitely fade away: Push advertising will soon give way to native advertising. Ad blockers and general distaste for unnecessary pop-ups will continue to increase. Customers are finally taking matters into their own hands. On the other hand, advertising and ads aren’t going away, they’ll just evolve with time.

5) Mobile content: This is very vey important aspect to grow your business and drive sales. Make your blog and website easy to read on all mobile platforms. This is because more and more consumers are consuming content on tablets and mobile devices. Everything must be mobile first – design and create content for mobile consumption.

6) The social bug: Organic reach is becoming more and more difficult to achieve. Social channels typically Facebook, has changed its rules, making it difficult to get your content seen naturally. Of you want high visibility, reaching a large section on social media is going to take more advertising budget, or better online marketing.

7) More and more demand for interactive content: White papers and case studies will continue to be ‘hot stuff’ in many markets globally, but most content marketers must come up with ways to create interactive quizzes or presentations that grab their web visitor’s attention.

Ways to market your content effectively

As we all know, inbound marketing addresses content creation, but one should not create content without figuring out who you’re marketing (target audience) to and how you will market to them effectively. If you overlook these initial steps to ensure your content reaches the right set of audience, your content will not be successful. So if your content is placed on your website and not getting too many downloads or leads, there is certainly some problem with you promotion strategies. That being said, we are sharing useful ways to market your content, be it ebook, PPT, whitepaper, guide and so on:

1) To advertise your content offer, create a PPC campaign

Not only PPC is a great way to promote your company and its line of business, you can also set up a campaign to promote your content offer. It will boost visibility and downloads while providing vital information to searchers.

For instance, if I search for home remodeling, and I get to see a list of local companies trying to promote themselves. But if I have never heard of these companies, I will not be able to take a decision as to which home remodeling company is right for me?

Here’s when a content offer based PPC ad can play a significant role. If you’re advertising an ebook with a title named “How to Get the Best Home Remodeling Organization that suits your Timeline and Budget”. This will certainly stand out against the other ads and search results as it directly helps solve my problem. PPC ad will probably get the click and boost conversion.

Another great way to get your content offer on relevant websites is display ads. With display ads, you can choose the websites that you want your ad to pop up. This way, visitors who are browsing a popular website that you chose, can find your related content offer.

2) Guest blogging on popular websites

Some of the popular websites try to provide solutions to predominant problems that their readership is experiencing for a while. It is important to understand your buyer’s persona and the source from where do they get information. Once you get a clear picture of the websites your buyer persona is reading, see if these websites provide the platform for industry leaders to guest blog.

After getting the approval for guest blogging, you can write your articles, keeping them educational and without self-promoting. Always keep this in mind, you’re trying to help the reader solve a problem with your expertise and industry knowledge. Later, you can use your ebook as a next step call to action when the reader has finished the article and wants more information, your content offer is ready!

3) Email marketing is a great way to promote the ebook

If you have a set of clients or prospects who have already expressed interest in similar content offers, or those who have identified certain problems and they need some concrete resolution, let them know about your new content offer!

Come up with actions on your contact form such as,

Generate more leads

Rank higher on Google

Grow our web presence

Once you know a visitor is looking out for ways to rank higher on Google, you can create an e-book around the topic they are looking for. You must be consistent in blogging that brings visitors back to your website. You can also email your blog to the section of people you’re targeting.

When sending emails, try to keep it educational and try to help a segmented list of your contacts as your engagement level will be higher and your success will not be diminished.

4) Connect with niche audience on social media

Keep an eye on Twitter and LinkedIn for users that have been sharing similar content to what you have created. You can see who is getting the biggest reach in terms of likes and retweets by searching similar terms.

5) Reach out to industry influencers for getting their leadership approach

Industry influencers have two main business goals. First, to find relevant articles and share it with their fan base and to increase their reach. Hence, you can give them great content to share with their following and by increasing their reach just through a link or a quote in your content offer.

It works better if you give them an incentive to share your content offer. For instance, ask them for a quote that you can incorporate into your content (offer) or link it to another article they have previously written.

6) Look for other linking opportunities

Using tools such as AHREFs, you can actually get to see other websites who have linked to content like yours. You can reach out to them with your content offer link and see if they are willing to include a link to your resource. This is most helpful when you come across a broken link that your new link can replace.

7) Repurpose your content in different ways

By having multiple formats of your content, you have better chances of reaching a greater audience. Content can come in different ways such as a blog, an article, an infographic, snippets, videos, PPTs and much more. Infographic for instance, is great to share on social platforms, particularly Pinterest, because of its visual appeal.

Make use of these brilliant marketing tips and put in some extra effort to take a content offer from zero to hero.

About the author:

Marilyn Lyons is a veteran search, content and social marketer, and blogger at PioneerMarketers. Over the past one decade, Marilyn has successfully developed and implemented online marketing tactics and has worked with some of the world’s biggest brands. Her focus is to drive traffic and implement strategies for conversion campaigns for more than 100+ plus business of all sizes. In this blog, she is sharing some useful insights on how to market your content effectively to continually improve and maintain the quality of B2B email contact database. Over the years, she has been adding a number of B2C data cards to help you reach your niche target audience, the latest one being the Animal Food Manufacturers Email List. She enjoys working with a variety of entrepreneurs and small businesses in the USA and UK region.