Labor Day Email Means Back to Business

September 3, 2012 by jennifer mcgahan Leave a Comment

After Labor Day, most business schedules start to even out.

Clients who were in and out for weeks over the summer start to keep regular hours. Autogenerated “Out of the office” reply emails are less frequent. People seem more serious about digging in and getting back to business.

In addition, many small business owners with children frequently work out of their home offices during the summer months. This week they are now experiencing the calm that comes with the start of school. With a deep breath, they are ready to tackle new projects.

The Back to School season signals a new year for many businesses. Labor Day is the official “stroke of midnight.” Click to Tweet.

As a result, during this first week of September your emails — especially B2B emails — may get more attention than they have all summer! The week after Labor Day is a great time to reach out to clients and contacts who have drifted away over the past few months.

Reconnection Emails: Some people find house cleaning is in order when the air starts feeling a wee bit crisper. Clean out your office and your email list at the same time. See if there are contacts who should be contacted again now. You might send an email to re-engage this segment. Depending on your relationships, offer to call or visit again at a near date. Follow up in a way that works best for your business.

Back to Business Emails: maybe you’re the one who’s hung out the “gone fishing” sign more than your clients last summer. Now is the time to let them know you are back and ready to commit at a higher level. What do you want your customers to know about your business now? Tell what’s new in your industry or within your specific organization.

Goodbye Emails: You may find it’s time to prune your list of dead email addresses (ones that haven’t been opened within the last 6 – 12 months). The subject line of this email must employ some words to resurrect your customer’s interest, if indeed they have any intention of acting. “Last Chance to Act” or “This Is Your Last Email From [Your Business]” may inspire your reader to open and read. Then you can offer these folks new susbscription options: receiving email only about certain subects, less frequent emails, or the chance to opt out.

However you choose to reach out, the Post Labor Day week is a prime time for higher email open rates among small businesses. Click to Tweet.

Make sure you take advantage of this “back to business” vibe and deliver renewed value to your customers.

How To Make Mobile Email Instantly Irrelevant

April 15, 2012 by jennifer mcgahan Leave a Comment

What does your mobile email customer get when they get your email on a smart phone? Have you ever checked? I hope so! Because people are reading email on mobile devices more than any other activity these days. And that stat is trending up!

If they get nothing but little blank boxes that say “click to see images”…or if they have to move across several screens to read it; what a pain! They’re not going to do it. Personally I don’t like to scroll back and forth to read a sentence. (OK, I might tolerate it for one really good sentence.) More likely I’d save a mis-sized mobile email or website for when I can see it on my desktop – and that may never happen.

Unless there’s urgency, or something very interesting to me, I figure the sender will probably contact me again. The moment’s gone.

Most people will just scroll on past. They were looking for something interesting or entertaining or they’re just checking to make sure no one important had emailed them (the boss, the sister, the school). If you’re not on that list you’ve lost your chance.

So I’m giving you the three biggest secrets for succeeding in mobile email marketing future. Focus on these first because everything else is a detail…

1. Make sure people know you’ve got something really good in there when you send an email. Something that interests them, something of value. Consistently good content can’t be faked.

2. Use an eye-popping subject line. If your newsletters are so interesting and relevant that you can simply say “Newsletter, volume 64” and you get a 60% open rate? Then bless your heart; you’ve nailed #1.

3. Send email that’s no more than 600 pixels wide and keep pictures and graphics simple.

If you’re already doing these three, congratulations…now you can optimize your website for fast loading on a smart phone, create a website optimized specifically for mobile, or even create an app for your business.

The future is wide open and people are MOVING in it. Figure out how to be in front of all these moving people and your online business will soar. You mobile emails will be consumed.

If you need help with mobile email headlines that get clicked on, or how to integrate your mobile messages and email with all your other moving marketing parts, MyteamConnects will help you get it all sorted out. Start by first reading the report on Connections so you can get started with a strong connection…sign up on this page; up top.

Subject Line Secret Formula For Awesome Open Rates

February 22, 2012 by jennifer mcgahan Leave a Comment

Why is it that some companies send email every day and it’s a welcome sight in the customer’s inbox, while other companies who send daily email are accused of Spam?

The key is sender recognition and an awesome subject line.

Perception is reality. The sad truth is if a customer views your email as a nuisance, then yes, you are a “Spammer.”

But if you are giving your customer what she wants to receive, then you are probably a “friend.”

When you check your email do you open each and every email in the order you received it? Probably not. If you’re like most people, you scroll through your list of unopened mail, scanning first the address of the sender and then the subject lines.

The emails you open usually hinge on familiarity, urgency, and a need to know.

By the way, subject lines and sender addresses are actually the second line of defense of your mailbox. The first is your email client itself, which is increasingly adept at filtering out ‘junk” from the good stuff.

Companies that have a history of spam complaints against them won’t even pass through this first barrier. Nor will many senders whose email addresses are unknown, meaning you have neither sent nor received email from that address before. (Think of the times a new acquaintance sends you something and you find it in your junk folder. You can thank the smart mailbox for that.)

However once you are safely past the spam filter, how do you increase your chances of passing your reader’s personal spam filter?

The subjective criteria you must meet to “get opened” really depends on the relationship you have established in advance. Your reader makes a decision based on what she’s received in the past and its value to her. I call it “sender address intuition.” And it’s pretty powerful.

The second part of the choice “To Open or Not To Open” is something you have much more control over: The Subject Line.

Refer to these pulling points — Familiarity, Urgency, and Need-to-know — and write as if you are writing to a friend. Which one do you think would get a better open rate in each of these cases?

Familiarity:

RE: your attendance at last week’s meeting
I hope you took notes
What’s it going to take?
I’m walking on clouds today

Urgency:

You’ll be locked out in the cold tonight.
When will I ever learn?
Last chance to save today.
Stop what you’re doing and open this.

Need to know:

You might be interested in this
Why don’t they teach this in school?
If you do nothing else today…
Ten things I wish you knew about ___

A few of these wouldn’t even slow down your delete swipe, but some are irresistible.

As they quickly scan their email inbox, readers filter messages for three criteria: I know this person; I want to know what’s in this message; or I should open this now.

If you remember to write as if you are writing to a friend AND you try to be irresistible in your email subject lines, you are sure to get your reader’s attention.

Which subject line is the most compelling and which is the least effective? Let’s take a vote… Stop by my Facebook page and tell me which one makes you yawn and which one makes you curious to take just a peek.