Author: Patrick Griffin

Patrick Griffin has been marketing online for 15 years. He's a serial entrepreneur and an avid email and content marketing enthusiast with a background in publishing and journalism, including a UK Press Award.

How Colors Trigger Emotions – Infographic

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 How Colors Trigger Emotions

You are online and you want to do your best to get the right message across to your visitors to your site and to your customers. Why else would you be here reading how colors trigger emotions right?

You may communicate with your subscribers via email using an autoresponder like RocketResponder.

You may also take great care over the words you use, the products or services you offer and the way your website is laid out.

But how much attention to you pay to color?

Colors are one of the first things we notice and they affect our subconscious and therefore our decision-making process way before we actively consider making a purchase.

Colors are strongly associated with moods and emotions and can make the difference between whether someone buys from you or whether they don’t.

For a fascinating insight into one way color can affect emotion and how big businesses use this to their advantage, check out this infographic below:

How Colors Trigger Emotions

Explore more visuals like this one on the web’s largest information design community – Visually.

Email subject lines – real life examples

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mastering email subject lines

Mastering email subject lines: Hopefully by now you are getting good with your RocketResponder subject lines.

Have a look at this latest selection and see whether you agree with our assessment or not:

  • No Cost Leads – [Video] – Wow, someone really pushed the boat out with this one. So if I open this email I will have to watch a sales video of some sort. The only question on my mind is how much will these “no cost leads” really cost me. Totally off putting so I won’t be opening this one.
  • Welcome to the Most Advanced Mailing System on This Planet! – I have been using traffic exchanges for long enough to know exactly what program this refers to. I would bet that this is copied and pasted from the “affiliate resource” section of the membership site in question. It is a good subject line but it is often a good idea to use something unique rather than a subject line which is shared with the entire membership. On the other hand if a subject line is good enough to get the job done then there is no harm in giving it a go. I like this subject line.
  • This Little Ebay Selling Trick Blew My Mind… – I love this, absolutely love it because if you are the least but curious you will want to know: “What trick is this, tell me more. You must tell me more now.”
    Note that this could work with a variety of different subjects because it follows this formula: “This Little [insert subject here] Trick Blew My Mind…” So you could say somerthing like “This Little RocketResponder Tip Blew My Mind…” or “This Little ListNerds Secret Strategy Blew My Mind…”
  • Patrick Joe Freyaldenhoven reveals the secret of his success – Maybe I am missing something here but who is Joe Freyaldenhoven? Also personalizing the message is confusing here unless the guy who is revealing his secrets is actually called Patrick Joe Freyaldenhoven. I would prefer something like: “I Am Ultra Successful: This Is My Secret…”
  • A Must Have Tool for ANY Affiliate! – Seven short words and every one a winner. Would I open this? Of course I would. I really want to know what this email is promoting. #Winning.
  • No Recruiting No Cost No Kidding – The repeated use of the word “No” gets a big “Yes” from me. It is catchy and has me asking what it is all about so I want to open the email and find out more. You can also use this for yourself. Just add your own subjects. No [x] No [y] No [z]

Don’t forget there will be another selection next month.

Positive Word Of Mouth Will Win You More Customers

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 positive word of mouth

We have written quite extensively about the need to use social media to promote your brand and your business. Nothing beats a positive word of mouth about your business, it’s free and it’s powerful.

Developing a following on social media sites is more important for business than ever.

You can use RocketResponder to remind people of your social links each time you send them an email and encourage your customers to follow you on social sites.

The more people that follow you then the more people that will see the messages you send out about your business.

You will almost certainly use social media to inform customers and potential customers when you have written a new blog post, uploaded a new video or have a new promotion or product coming out.

But, just like communicating by email, this need not be a one way street when it comes to getting your message across.

You should actively encourage your customers to use social media and share their experiences of you and your business with their followers.

These days social proof is vital for many and they want to know that someone else has had a good experience with the goods or services they are interested in before they make the commitment to buy.

Think about how you can encourage your customers to spread the word about you. Maybe you could encourage them to use Twitter with a particular hashtag and give a small gift each month for a random customer who has used that hashtag.

Or you could just ask your customers to post their comments on social media sites if they particularly like your products. Sometimes just asking is all that it takes to get them to do this for you.

Remember that people are nine times more likely to leave a negative comment about you than to leave a positive comment so anything you can do to help even things up a bit is fair game.

One Last Opportunity To Make Unhappy Customers Raving Fans

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Make Unhappy Customers Raving Fans

Despite all your best efforts every now and again you will have to deal with customer complaints. It takes some effort to make unhappy customers raving fans.

Even if you do an outstanding job it is just impossible to please everybody all the time.

The worst kind of unhappy customer are the ones who just stop using your goods and services because they are dissatisfied and yet they never tell you why.

They are unhappy, they may tell all their friends that they are unhappy and yet they don’t even give you the opportunity to put things right.

Last time we spoke about how it was the expectations of your customer – how they perceive in their own minds the value of your goods or services to be – which will determine whether they will go on to buy from you again or not.

Sometimes you are given a golden opportunity to convert a customer from unsatisfied to highly satisfied when they complain about their purchase.

Maybe they reply to your RocketResponder email (always check your business email account regularly for communication from customers) or reach out to you via social media.

If you are going to stand any chance of converting them into happy customers then you must do the following:

  • Deal with their complaint promptly
  • Immediately you receive the complaint contact them back to let them know the matter has your personal and urgent attention
  • If you need more information to deal with the matter then ask for it.
  • If the customer is being angry or abusive resist the temptation to respond in a like manner, remain professional at all times.
  • If you made a mistake admit it and put things right – offer a refund, replacement, compensation or whatever you think is appropriate in the circumstances.
  • Above all leave the customer in no doubt that you are taking their complaint seriously.

Do this and there is a good chance that a dissatisfied customer has been transformed into a loyal fan because their expectations have now been exceeded.

This can especially be the case if their initial reaction was abusive and/or completely over the top, which can often happen when people are angry.

Remember a service like RocketResponder is not only to provide a one way flow of traffic from you to the customer. Use it for efficient two way dialogue and you can get even better results.

Customers may respond directly to emails you send out and don’t forget that you can, and should, ask questions of your customers to find out how they perceive you and your business and to gain insight about how you could do things better.

Influencing Perceived Value Of Your Customers – Exceeding Expectation

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 Influencing Perceived Value

Last time we explained that it was important to give your customers value but that the customer’s perception of value is key to making them feel good about the purchase. Today we are discussing the influencing perceived value of your customers.

This leads to the rather paradoxical conclusion that your customers can feel really happy about an inferior product and really unhappy about a superior one.

Thankfully it is not totally hit and miss and you can really go a long way to influencing this perception of value.

The trick is to understand that your customer will have some expected value for the performance they want your products or services to live up to.

If, when they examine and use the goods they have paid for, the performance is better than their expectations then they will be satisfied and the perceived value will be high.

If, on the other hand, the product falls short of their expectations for it, then the perceived value will be low and they are unlikely to buy from you again.

This is why you will see that a lot of companies put huge emphasis on the notion of exceeding customer expectation because this is the performance standard which will almost guarantee happy, loyal and repeat custom.

Think of it like this, there are three things you can do in this regard:

  • fail to meet expectation – the customer will be unhappy, disappointed, maybe even angry with you and will not want to buy again. They may even demand a refund and fire off an angry email or letter to you.
  • meet expectation – you have delivered exactly what the customer wanted. They expected “x” and they got exactly that. You have not really triggered any deep emotions here and so you have not won any really loyal fans. Your product will be easily forgotten.
  • exceed expectations – You have gone over and above what the customer thought they would get. If they thought they were already getting something of good value, now they think they have got something of extra-ordinary value. You have won raving fans who are likely to encourage their friends and family to buy from you too.

Try and look at the goods and services you offer from the point of view of your customers. Do you think you meet, fail to meet or exceed their expectations and could you do anything differently to do even better.

One thing you could do is use your RocketResponder broadcast message function to ask your customers to tell you how you are doing…the feedback could prove invaluable.