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.

Scrapple is just as bad as Spam!

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spam email concerns

Spam email concerns: When you talk about email marketing everyone knows the difference between Ham (good) and Spam (bad). But seldom do we talk about Scrapple.

Yum. We all know what scrapple is. That really tasty awesome meat you can’t wait to have right? Not really. But it’s also not the worst thing in the world either, people eat it afterall.

In email terms, scrapple is email that’s not good email but it’s also not spam. It’s the mediocre email that gets sent out all the time. Email people subscribed to but really have no desire to even open and read because it’s that bad.

The problem with scrapple is it’s harder to detect if you’re sending it. Sure, spam we have feedback loops, spam checkers, bounce logs, everything makes it easy to block spam. But scrapple? You have no idea if your readers think your email is lame.

So when you send email your best bet is to always send email you would open and you would read, from your first email in your series all the way to the end. You want your readers to open every email and get excited when they see the next one!

Article courtesy of Tim Linden Blog

The Top Five Things To Tell Your New Subscribers

Patrick Griffin 4 Comments

new email subscribers

Dealing with new email subscribers: Imagine you invite someone into your home for the first time.

What might they think if you ushered them into your front room, invited them to sit down and then left them alone to twiddle their thumbs while you went to your office or study to work?

Well they would begin to feel:

  • uncomfortable
  • ill at ease
  • unwanted and
  • be left wondering why they ever accepted your invitation in the first place.

It is exactly the same situation if someone signs up to your RocketResponder list and you don’t immediately send them a welcome email.

They are in your front room so go ahead and talk to them to make them feel wanted, special and loved.

Your “welcome” email should be sent out immediately anyone joins your list and it should contain the following information:

  1. An introduction – say “hello” to the new subscriber by introducing yourself and briefly introducing your business. You want to give the main headlines here and not the whole company back story.
  2. Points of contact – tell your new subscriber how they can contact you. Phone, email, toll-free number, Twitter, Skype, FaceBook, support ticket are just some examples. You choose how accessible you want to be but seriously consider giving your customers multiple ways to connect with you.
  3. Set a schedule – If you are smart you will have an initial follow up email series set up so you can say something like: “Over the next few days/weeks/months you will be hearing from me every “x” days or so so look out for those emails. I have lined up some great free tips for you. You are going to love it.” Obviously you don’t have to say exactly that, just give them an idea of what is coming up.
  4. Anticipate problems – When people are new to something they get confused, make mistakes or just want some help quickly. So if you have a website with a FAQ page you could point them to that or give them your preferred method of contact to get their query answered quickly.
  5. Keep it short – Just say what you need to say and keep it at that. Remember you could have this subscriber for months or even years, so you have plenty of time to establish a dialogue with them. Don’t bombard them with information on the welcome email. Remember it is a welcome email so simply make them feel welcome and then stop writing.

 

 

Time To Become The Teacher

Patrick Griffin 2 Comments

Email marketing techniques

Email marketing techniques: Some people, far too many people, use their autoresponder as nothing more than a selling tool…but this is a huge mistake.

We all love buying stuff but we hate it when we are told over and over again: “Buy my stuff. Go on buy my stuff now. Buy it.”

Yes of course use RocketResponder to sell more items to your customers – that is a vital part of any business. Repeat custom should be one of your main goals but use your autoresponder to do much more than sell.

So what else can you do…well it is time to become the teacher and here’s how:

  • If you own your own program or programs – in theory you should know more about your own products than anybody else so why not compose a short series of, say six, emails giving some cool tips and tricks on getting the most out of your programs.
  • If you are an affiliate – make sure you know the program or programs you promote in depth and do the same email series as described above.
  • You have an offline business – an autoresponder can be a dream come true to you. You can use an email series to promote your hottest sellers or a new range you have just got in. Again don’t just go for the “buy my stuff” approach but educate, inform and excite your subscribers about the items you are describing.
  • Build up hype – whether you are online or offline you can build up hype and excitement for a new program you are launching or a hot new product that will be coming soon. Tell people how the product can transform some aspect of their lives, how it will benefit them and why they can’t miss out on getting their hands on it
  • Offer support – so you know that a certain program or product comes with a learning curve and that the same questions crop up time and time again? Answer these questions in a series of autoresponder messages for your customers and they will think you are reading their minds. Awesome.

Have fun with your autoresponder and use it to let your subscribers know that you care about them and don’t just want their money. That way everybody wins.

Oops I Think I Might Have Forgotten Something Important

Patrick Griffin 13 Comments

Marketing email mistakes

Marketing email mistakes: Recently I heard about a large internet-based company which sent out an email to its members with the subject line: “Insert Your Subject Here.”

Perhaps it was a deliberate marketing ploy – I heard, via social media sites, that this particular email received an impressive open rate.

However it is far more likely that it was one of those simple, old-fashioned mistakes that we tend to make from time to time.

It is similar to sending an email with an attachment you want people to open and then forgetting to attach the file before pressing send. (As a complete aside, to prevent this from happening I always make a point of uploading any attachments first and then writing my email.)

However it is easy to have some urgent or important news that you want to get out so quickly that you hurry to send out the email without checking it over first.

And that is when you can totally forget to add the subject line.

So take your time and get things right. Remember that with RocketResponder you have the opportunity to send any new email to yourself first before you send it to your list.

Take advantage of this feature. It is far better to have your mistake broadcast only to you rather than your entire list. Now simply edit out the mistake and send the amended email out to your subscribers.

Don’t Send Emails While Your Subscribers Are Sleeping

Patrick Griffin 10 Comments

email sending tips

Email sending tips: Sometimes you hear of people talking in their sleep…but I have yet to come across anyone who reads emails while sleeping.

So, why is it then, that so many people fall into the trap of sending out emails at times when their target audience won’t see them.

In at least one particular sector of the online advertising community it is common for program owners to send out emails at midnight.

Most people are already sleeping at that time, or at the very least winding down for the day…so they will not want to read your message and chances are it won’t be seen at all.

So the answer is…wait until they are awake and time the email for then – sounds obvious but so many people don’t do this.

The good news is that at RocketResponder you can choose exactly when your emails are sent out. So if you have a broadcast message you want to send to your list you can either send it immediately or send it at a date and time of your choosing.

Here are some good times to send an email to your subscribers:

  • immediately – when the message is time critical and you need to get it out there now
  • day time rather than night time – more people will open an email during the day than at night
  • want to catch the early openers? – then sending an email between 7 and 9am will ensure the message is near the top of their inbox when they are checking messages
  • afternoons are great for getting your email opened – studies have shown that between 2 and 5pm is a particular sweet spot for getting your emails opened.

Also, in general, weekdays tend to get more opens than weekends and you may get a better response mid-week than on other days.

Top tip: Just be aware that different times can produce different results to be prepared to experiment a bit and see what works well for you.