How to Increase Your Email Open Rate

First of all, response rate is a better indicator of performance than open rate. Response rate is a very important metrics when it comes to measuring the effectiveness of email marketing. To improve email marketing, increasing the response rate is essential. Here are a few tips to improve sales email response rates:

1) Prioritize thoughtfulness over tools: Sales teams today are lucky to have so many options when it comes to sales tools to help with things like outreach, target research, and funnel analytics. But no set of tools is a replacement for necessary customer research. Plenty of startups that use these tools, however, still suffer from sub-5% response rates because they fail to speak to their audience in terms that engage and interest them.

2) Parse all available data sources to understand your target: Social media is an underrated source of information when it comes to building buyer personas and Ideal Customer Profiles. Begin with (at the bare minimum) a dozen “ideal” customer contacts for this specific campaign. ICPs can vary at bit for each campaign. For example, some may target the user bottoms-up while others may target the budget-holder top-down. Parse each of these contacts’ social profiles. Start with LinkedIn, which everyone should have: look not only at their current and past roles, but also their certifications, publications if any, professional groups, and endorsements.

3) Watch response rates over open rates: Open rates can be misleading. For example an email with an exceedingly weird subject line can catch one’s eye, but if nothing resonates within the email recipient, your response rates may be just as bad as before. Especially in B2B sales messaging, the best metric to measure the effectiveness of an email sequence is the resulting response rate; remember, the goal here is a conversation. In particular, the number of appointments set up and resulting qualified opportunities are your guiding measures of success. Prioritizing response rates means prioritizing thoughtful emails, which will naturally yield more sales.

4) Make the prospect the hero: Even if you have one core ICP, various different personalities exist within that audience, and your sales email copy needs to correlate to the right set. For instance, a CFO may be more receptive to cost reduction value props, while a developer might be more attuned technical benefits, even though both are stakeholders in vendor selection. Make the prospect see the potential to be her company’s saving grace with the help of your product. Outlining pain points the company faces is not enough; show prospects how they (personally) can solve them today.

5) Think about what’s already in their inboxes: Overly “salesy” or impersonal content isn’t just heading straight to archive or spam; it reflects poorly on your business in a world where everyone receives too much email. Keep in mind the volume and style of sales mail you receive in your own inbox. What do you hate? What’s the last cold sales email you opened? Envision what your contact’s inbox might look like given their company and position. Use that mental image to differentiate your messaging. Avoid ubiquitous jargon or mentioning your own company’s name off the bat. Other smaller elements common to sales emails may also set off alarms that will land your email in the trash: over-formality, fancy signatures, and long blocks of product-description text are a few possible examples.

3 WordPress blog Lessons You Can Benefit From Today by Maurice Lennon

Recently I was reached out to by one of our readers for advice about starting a running a successful website? Tragically, there is no simple shortcut or answer. To begin with, simply working hard is a great place to start. In this article, we’ll take a look at where that hard work should be aimed towards with 3 top tips for starting a successful website based on WordPress. If you’re reading this, it’s likely that you have already picked your niche and have decided why you need to make a WordPress site. So what’s next?

Purchasing

With regards to choosing your domain, I advise you to go with a standard www.__________.com instead of using the default assigned “yourbrand.wordpress.com.” Try to purchase a domain. Many of the domain registrar providers nowadays are reliable. However, on a more personal note, I would love to suggest “NameCheap” due to the fact that you get whois guard that is absolutely free. If you want to go a step further though or are finding it hard to find a domain that is suitable for you, you need not worry. Here are 5 more of our favorite domain providers.

1. Lean Domain Search

2. Domainr

3. Panabee

4. Name Mesh

5. DomainsBot

Creating Engaging Content

As we continue to say over and over, content is a very vital ingredient in creating any WordPress Blog. Simply pumping out article after article won’t always be enough though and you’ll have in work from a different angle or approach. Include some videos, web applications as well as infographics. Always keep your readers, who are the lifeblood of your WordPress Blogs, aware that you are there to serve and help them. In the event that you are not yet an expert on a specific topic, you might need to think about citing several experts. Crediting people this way is a good way to build relationships and eventually have others crediting you and linking traffic to your site, which leads us to our 3rd tip.

Reach Out and Listen

Everything is two-way when it comes to blogging — – you share engaging content, and the readers give their insights about yours. So make it to a point that you give them blogs you would want to read. In the same manner, listen to their suggestions as well as to their article recommendations. At the end of the day, it’s your audience who brings positive traffic to your blog.

10 Helpful Tips for Effective Blog Marketing pt. 2 by Maurice Lennon

As was promised in the previous article that you read, we are giving you few more tips for effective blog marketing, which will definitely attract potential readers.

Tip 6. Some Good Photography Skills Are A Great Plus

Content can always be enhanced with good photography skills. Readers will share your blog if they like it. With good imagery and photography, the probability of someone sharing blogs that you’ve written will go up. Plain and simple, people like to look at things and love validation in their tastes so be sure to plan out your photos to get the shot that will drive traffic. A great example for a post that potentially has great photos would be writing a blog about a certain dessert recipe and including photos not only of the step-by-step process, but of course the finished product as well.

Tip 7. Formatting

Word and image formatting are also important in blog writing. Align texts on the left side of the blog and images at the center for a more professional and friendly-looking blog. There are variations of alignment that you can play around with but sticking to the classic method never hurt anyone and is the preferred method for a reason. Lastly, make sure that the title is in bold and has bigger font.

Tip 4. Write As If You Are Just Talking To Your Friends

Readers love reading blogs wherein the author’s personality shines right through their written words. It generates a sense of familiarity that makes people comfortable. Readers will feel like they are right in front of you, partaking  in your thought process and ideas. The posts are more engaging and easier to read. Let your reader build connection with you with the help of your blog posts.

Tip 8. You Have To Fake It Until You Make It

Be overly confident while putting your best foot forward. It can actually get you further than you expect. Your blog might be pea-sized, however, you have make to it look as large as it can. Money can be an issue, but in any case, simply do what you can to have a decent format and an alluring header.

Top 10. Socialize and Make Friends

You have to socialize with your readers to continue to grow your audience. If you have enough time, interact with your audience by responding to comments and answering their questions. By doing such, your readers will feel they are significant and are recognized as well.

Above are just 10 of the countless tips to effectively market your blog, and if you do have one in mind that I did miss listing down, be sure to include and consider that prior to creating your very first blog entry.

Have a nice day!

10 Helpful Tips for Effective Blog Marketing pt. 1 by Maurice Lennon

In this day in age, people are can become quickly overwhelmed with the advancement of technology. Technology, which has helped, is helping, and will continue to help us has already eaten away at the minds of people, especially children. It is a bit scary to know that some schools nowadays require their student to bring laptops, IPads and tablets for their school activities. What’s more terrifying is that most of the time, they do bring such technology for games, instead of learning. This, in turn can cause the development of aggressive behavior in some children and will give them nothing but negative benefits.

But, it should be noted that technology, though sometimes bad, benefits us in some more ways than it hurts us. One of the things that technology can help you do is to make blogs that will greatly benefit online readers. This article will going to give you 10 helpful tips for effective blog marketing. So, sit back, relax and enjoy these helpful tips!

Tip 1. Research

Successful blog marketing asks that the content being advertised is factually sound. It’s true that a blog usually relates the personal experience of the writer and corresponds to whatever topic it is that they’re writing about. However, when writing a blog post it’s important that subjective views not take precedence over objective facts. That’s why is is important that blogs and the opinions voiced in them should be supported with factual information in order for it to become more reliable. You don’t want your readers to lose trust in you, do you?

Tip 2. One Powerful Key Is To Write Nice Content

Good blog marketing requires that you have something that others will want to read. When writing your content, put yourself in the shoes of your reader. What are some things and styles that you would want to read over and over? Is that opinion extendable to others? If so go with it.

Tip 3. Write What You Adore And Adore What You Write

Is your blog about parenting, cooking, government, crafting, or gardening? Whatever it is that you write, you have to make sure it is “you.” Keeping up with managing and marketing a nice blog is a lot of work; if you do not have passion for the topic that you are writing about it will surely be a disaster for somebody to read. You have to think about where your burning passion lies, and start blogging about it.

Tip 4. Write Helpful Blogs

You do not want to be an internet villain, do you? The easiest way to pull yourself away from that image is to create blogs that help people, instead of writing negative reviews about whatever it is that will enable them join your bitter blog bandwagon.

Tip 5. Try To Be Unique When Writing Blog Entries

The truth is, whatever the topic is that you choose to write about, there are going to be hundreds if not thousands of other blogs about the same thing. Therefore, it’s important to allocate time to think about the techniques and subtleties that will make your blog stand out among the rest.

To learn more tips, check out for the next article.

LinkedIn Blogging: 5 Easy Steps for Successful Personal Branding

Blogging is often overlooked as a means to marketing and business success, but under closer evaluation it’s turned out in recent years that blogging is a star on the rise. Just like any other platform of promotion, whether for business or personal, blogging has been one of the vital tools in popularizing businesses or the blogger personally by creating a relatable human presence behind brands. Blogging for personal promotion especially, which is also known as personal branding, is the practice of people marketing themselves and their careers as brands. This concept suggests that self-packaging is the new mode of highlighting oneself as a standout candidate whether it be for consideration for a job or simply as a business entity worthy of new clients.

However, as much as we want to promote ourselves as much as possible online, there are limitations to what we can accomplish on sites like LinkedIn. Until recently the only people who were able to post their blog content on the professional social site were people that were deemed “influencers.” Over time we have seen those restrictions peeled back to the point where anyone, even a novice college student trying to wedge their way into the job market, can post their own blog content, and so we’ve seen LinkedIn evolve to the point where people are now able to:

  •  Increase visibility
  •  Expand his network
  •  Demonstrate Leadership

And since we are now able to leverage LinkedIn as a personal branding tool it’s time to take advantage of it. It’s time to learn the 5 Steps for maximizing the LinkedIn blogging feature for personal branding according Forbes.

Step 1. Have your strategy be developed

Any successful plan is born from and carefully executed according to strategic planning. Consider, the following:

1.Topic: Know what you want to talk about and maintain your focus on that. You don’t have to be good at just anything; you have to be good at something specific. Remember that the whole is the sum of its parts so be sure that all the parts are relevant.

2. Format: Select from images, text and videos according to your discernment.

3. Frequency: It doesn’t matter if you don’t post content every day, as long as you are still visible to your target audience’s eyes. What is more important is the consistency of your content.

4. Style: Is your content formal or friendly? Be consistent in your tone because people usually anticipate a certain style as they become familiar with the content you’ve been posting.

5. Limit: LinkedIn suggests content that consists of around three paragraphs.

Step 2. Create compelling content

Creating quality content means more than just having killer filler material. You just have to generate striking titles that will catch the attention of the readers. Also, including interesting photos adds glitz, as does the inclusion of source material from other bloggers and authors.

Step 3. Make it Visible

By scheduling yours posts on specific dates, you get to assure that your content becomes visible to your target audience.

Step 4. Have it Promoted

Disseminate your content not just on LinkedIn, but also on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms that you might think will increase your visibility.

Step 5. Measure It

As per Forbes’ advice, study and write about topics that get the highest amounts of likes, tweets and shares. From there you can refine your strategy and create the most brand value with the least effort.

Essential Tips for Creating Effective Facebook Ads

Facebook ads have gradually become a mainstay in the way that digital marketers and advertisers reach their target audiences with social media being the channel above all others that consumers flock to on a daily basis. Make no mistake about it, despite the advent and exponential growth and valuation of Snapchat, when it comes to ad revenue Facebook is still king with other a billion daily users. That being the case it makes sense for anyone who has a business, small or otherwise, to take advantage of the possibilities that come with creating Facebook ads. And after making the decision to pay Facebook to push your ads through its targeting algorithms the question becomes about what goes into an effective Facebook ad. I’d be lying if I said there was a definitive guide, but there are a few components that you can tweak to catalyze the success of your Facebook ad conversion.

Visuals

Visual content garners the attention easily and quickly as it’s obviously the first thing people will see when looking at your Facebook ad. If your ad image is attractive, your ad is bound to create an engagement. By attractive, I don’t mean any bold image will work. Rather, it should be an image that conveys your business strongly along with being eye-catching. Whatever content you use, your image is the first thing your target lead will lay eyes on.

Target Oriented

You cannot create an ad that will not connect with your target audience. If your target leads do not find your ad relevant, your time and effort is wasted and you will most likely have to restart from square one.  You can use Relevance Score feature for Facebook ads to keep a check on your ad status.

Be Convincing 

If you say you have the best services, your target audience may just skip your ad. Everyone calls themselves the best nowadays, often without the data to back up their claims. Be able to define your unique value proposition convincingly. If you say more than 1M people love you or you offer a discount of 25%, your ad have higher chances of getting clicked than by simply saying you’re the best. It doesn’t end here though.

Call to Action

Your ad may have a great image, solid content and is targeted to the right audience, but if there is not a call-to-action it becomes a dull ad. CTA doesn’t mean a bright colored button asking users to subscribe or maybe signup only. It completes your whole process of convincing your leads. So, try phrases like “Get 25% off on XYZ“.

These are the four basic tenants of creating a successful Facebook ad, but each one is able to be expanded upon further. Utilize the extra tips that follow to aide in creating your own effective Facebook ads

  • Your ad requires leads to take actions immediately. Hence you will need to provide more context. You don’t need to surprise them. It is necessary you tell them what they are signing up for. For example, “Click here to signup for free“.
  • Coupons and incentives are more proven methods to convince your lead to share their information
  • Your value proposition should be reflected. Users must know that by sharing their information they won’t get stumped later. There is no separate landing page here. So treat your ad like one. Tell them explicitly why they should share their details with you
  • Take caution with CTR, i.e. Click-through rates. Many-a-times, best converting post-click lead ads fail due to low click-through rates. If your ad is too much “form-like” and your CTR drops below 1%, it is only a matter of time that delivery will drop. So, it is necessary to optimize and try out new creatives on a regular basis to keep the CTR high
  • Convincing your leads is not just restricted to an engaging image or context or content. Users have become smart and they are always looking at what benefits they will get immediately after signing up. If you have compelling offers or rewards that add value, it will speed up for lead capturing process. For example, you can give free PDFs, coupons, etc.