When To Resend An Email To Boost Your Open Rates

Email marketing works best when you are in tune with your subscriber list to the extent that you are providing the sort of content they want to receive.

This results in higher open and click-through rates and maximizes the chances of getting your subscribers to go on and take the action you want them to take, such as buying goods or services from you.

But sometimes an email may arrive at a really inconvenient time when your subscribers have so many other pressing things going on that your email gets overlooked.

This is why we introduced RocketResponder Resend which will automatically send the same email again to those subscribers on your list who did not open it first time round.

When To Resend An Email

If you are in the habit of sending an email to your subscriber list every day then it is probably not a great idea to automatically resend them all a couple of days later.

In fact if that is how you email then you might want to make very sparing use of this feature. Think of it as like using a highlighter pen.

If you highlight a couple of the most important phrase of concepts on a page of text, it will really make them stand out.

If you highlight nearly every word then you are left with a confusing mess which defeats the whole point of the exercise in the first place.

So if you are a regular email sender then only use this feature to highlight those emails which are so important that you don’t want your subscribers to miss your message…and leave it at that.

In resending an email you are targeting those people who either did not see your email first time round or were not motivated enough to open it when it first arrived.

Sometimes a second ‘nudge’ is all it takes to get the email opened. And again, if you use this feature sparingly, your subscribers may well think that if you have gone to the trouble to send the email again, then your message must be important.

Of course some of your subscribers may just think you made a mistake and hit the ‘send’ button again by mistake. This is not a problem because they may go on to open it anyway now that their curiosity has been piqued.

Time Intervals

You can experiment with this to see what works best for you.

If you are emailing your list on a weekly basis, or thereabouts, then you certainly might benefit from sending your most important emails out after two or three days.

If you send a monthly newsletter or something similar then you might want to leave a longer interval, five or six days for example.

Email marketing agency Alchemy Worx tried the resend technique for their own subscriber list on an email campaign to get signups for a subject line prediction tool.

On the initial send they got an open rate of 23.6% and a click through rate of 4.3%.

When they resent the same email five days later they got an open rate of 11% and a click through rate of 3.5% – lower than the original email but these are all opens and click throughs which would have otherwise not have happened.

But something else happened which really took them by surprise…the number of sign ups generated from the resent email almost doubled as the graph below shows.

Resending key emails can be a very powerful tool indeed. Give RocketResponder Resend a try for yourself and see how it works for you.

 

When To Resend An Email To Boost Your Open Rates

Why "W" Is Your Best Friend

Marketing email writing tips: Sometimes when you have written an email for your RocketResponder subscribers, you may have a nagging feeling that you have left something out.

I know I have done this and I know many other people who have done the same.

It can happen when really important information gets left off such as the links you want your subscribers to click or the date or time that a particular event is taking place.

In these situations having some sort of template or guide can prove very useful and answering the five “W” questions may be a good place to start.

The questions are:

• Who? – Who will benefit from this email? Who are you looking to target?


• What? – What are the main points you want to get across? Make sure you cover tham all. What action would you like your subscribers to take after they have read your email.


• Where? – Where is the action taking place? Is there a physical venue you need to mention or a specific URL you want to direct people to?


• When? – Is the material time sensitive or is there a deadline or a specific date you must mention in the email?


• Why? – Why are you writing this now? Why is your offer so good right now or why should your subscriber take the action you want them to take?

Obviously you don’t have to stick to this formula or always cover all the points mentioned but remembering the five “W” questions can act as a good starting point to ensure that the main points get covered each and every time.

Why "W" Is Your Best Friend

Making Those 15 Seconds Count

I have previously estimated that when faced with a lot of emails to read, I would spend no more than ten seconds on each one. Making those 15 seconds count can be the difference between your business failing or succeeding.

It would seem that I am a little less patient than the average email reader as it would appear that around 15 seconds is the average time people will spend reading a marketing email.

Given that an average person will read at around 200 words per minute this means that you might have around 50 words to impress them.

From more than 30 years spent reading written letters, faxes and emails in busy newsrooms this really seems to ring true with me.

So the bottom line is this – each time you send out an email you have to impress your audience really early on.

Don’t spent five or six sentences building up to the main event or the reader will never even make it past all the fluff and filler you so needlessly added.

• Grab the reader’s attention with the headline


• Keep them captivated with the introduction


• Retain their attention with a well-written, clear and focused email which is targeted to their needs and


• tell them what action you expect them to take next.

Finally if you send out email newsletters you should fare a little better…it seems that people are generally prepared to spend an average of 51 seconds reading newsletters.

 

 

Making Those 15 Seconds Count

Leave Subscribers Alone When They Unsubscribe

From time to time the question arises which goes something like:

“What should I do about people who unsubscribe from my list?”.

So let me throw the question back at you…what should you do when people unsubscribe from your list?

Here are some possible things you could do:

• thank them for being on your list and say goodbye


• thank them for being on your list and ask them if they are really sure they want to leave


• point out that they have just unsubscribed and hint that they really must have made some terrible mistake and should come back right now


• bribe them to come back with some free gift or other


• plead with them to come back because, well just because


• ignore them, they have left already.

Personally I would do the last one and that is the recommended response of the entire Rocket Responder team.

Put it like this. They dumped you. Let them go and move on.

 

Leave Subscribers Alone When They Unsubscribe

Five Reasons Your Emails Are Not Working

If you are not getting the results from your emails that you think you deserve then, in all likelihood, you are probably doing something wrong. When your emails are not working there is usually something that you can do to put things right.

Remember that your subscribers signed up to your list to receive emails from you…they never promised that they would read them or even open them.

Getting over those two hurdles is your job so do it as best as you can.

Here are five reasons you might not be getting open rates as good as you could:

1. Your Subject Lines Are Boring – Get this wrong and people won’t open your email. You must capture people’s attention with the subject line and give them an immediate reason to open your email.


2. Your Content Is Boring – If you are doing ok with subject lines then make sure your content is up to par too.


3. Your Content is Not Relevant – You can send out the most interesting and useful content in the world but if it is not relevant to your audience then they will never act on it. Always target your emails to the needs of your audience.


4. Your Call To Action is Missing or Unclear – If you want someone to do something, such as click on a link, then make this obvious; really, really obvious. Preferably just give your recipients one thing to do so they don’t get confused by a whole range or possible options.


5. You send far too many emails – Let’s just say you get everything right with your emails. They have fantastic subject lines, interesting and relevant content and contain a clear call to action…but still your open rates are declining. It could be because you are sending too many emails. People can get too much of a good thing and that includes your emails. How many is just right will vary from niche to niche and from individual to individual. However if you think you are sending too many emails then cut down things a bit and see what happens.

 

Five Reasons Your Emails Are Not Working

Don"t Be Afraid To Warn People When Things Go Wrong

Some people think that using a service like Rocket Responder is only there for sending out marketing messages or other promotional offers but it can be great at many other times too, such as when things go wrong.

As we have already seen an autoresponder is much more useful than that – you can actually send out messages where you for example:

• give advice


• offer tips and tricks


• tell stories about your life (yes you really shoud do this) and


• solicit feedback

But you can also use emails to break bad news and manage expectations.

Say if you know that you have to take your website offline for a few hours or more (maybe you are having a major server upgrade or some such other major event).

Or maybe the launch that you were planning has been delayed for a month…or you have run out of stock…or the affiliate product you are promoting has run into problems or any one of 101 other things.

Then inform your subscribers about the bad news and while many may be upset, many will welcome you being upfront and honest with them…and in any event they will be less upset than if you had not told them in the first place.

Here are some points you might want to cover in a “bad news” email:

• Explain exactly what is happening (eg our current servers cannot cope with demand and we are moving so a super new system)


• Explain what the effects will be on the customer (as a result we expect our site to be offline for anything up to 24 hours from this time)


• Suggest what your subscribers should do. (so don’t panic if you can’t access the site during this time as we we should be back up and running by Monday)


• Apologize for any problems the issue may cause. (We are really sorry that you won’t be able to access the site during this time but this is to ensure that you continue to get a great customer service from us.)

You don’t have to write it exactly like that but if you are stuck to know what to write then those points should form a solid platform for your email.

Also don’t forget that when the problem is solved then send another email saying that everything is good again – this might also be a good time to offer some sort of offer or promotion as a mark of your goodwill.

 

Don"t Be Afraid To Warn People When Things Go Wrong

Adding A Picture To Your Emails

Adding A Picture To Your Emails

I get a little annoyed when I hear people talking about their list as merely a marketing resource.

Yes your RocketResponder list can be a very valuable marketing resource…but it is much more than that.

Your list, first and foremost, is a collection of individual people, human beings with their own distinct personalities, likes and dislikes.

So when you communicate with them then you must always remember that you are talking to a group of individual humans and not just your marketing list.

An easy way of showing that you value the personal touch is by showing your subscribers that you are human too.

One way we do that at TimTech is by including our photographs on emails when we contact our subscribers.

Here are a couple of recent examples to show you what I mean:

Why not try the same thing for yourself.

Be yourself. Be personal. Show your subscribers that you care. Adding a picture to your emails is one way of doing just that.

Adding A Picture To Your Emails

Three Top Tips For An Autoresponder Email Series

There are times when it is difficult to know just what to write about for your autoresponder email series.

You are using RocketResponder to build up a nice list of subscribers but just what are you going to tell them?

Fear not because here are three quick top tips to get you thinking along the right lines:

1. Make the difficult simple – You had to learn the stuff you know about right? Well, so will the people who are new to the niche you are expert in. Make an email series, or a series of email series, explaining some of the key products you sell or some of the key concepts relevant to your niche.


2. Share your secrets – Be open and upfront with your tricks of the trade. I am not suggesting you give away all your most sensitive trade secrets but use your experience to give others a step up the ladder.


3. Build up interest at key times – Do you have a big launch coming up or is there a big event happening in your niche. Don’t wait until the day to tell people about this but build up hype and interest in the weeks leading up to it. Then when the big day actually comes you know that your list will be as responsive as it possibly can be. Just don’t over do it though or you run the risk of making your list sick and tired of the event by the time it comes round.

There are three quick ideas and I am sure that once you start thinking about communicating with your subscribers, that you will find many more ideas of your own.

Now all you have to do is get writing.

Three Top Tips For An Autoresponder Email Series

Just A Reminder About Why You Are Here

Everybody you send an email to has got something in common…each of your email subscribers has given you permission to contact them.

But, being human, sometimes we forget that we have signed up to any given list in the first place.

So you could do your email subscribers a favor by reminding them of how they got to be on your list in the first place.

A cool way to do this is to include a little blurb in the footer of every email you send out.

It could say something like this:

“You are receiving this email because you signed up to my blog/filled out an online form on my website etc. to receive emails from me.

“I work hard to ensure I send out relevant emails to my subscribers but understand that needs and circumstances change.

“Therefore if this information is no longer relevant from you and you don’t want to hear from me then please use the “unsubscribe” link right here.”

Including something like this is good because it shows that:

• you care about your email subscribers’ needs


• you fully appreciate that you need their permission to contact them


• you genuinely want to give them relevant information


• you don’t want to waste their time if they no longer want to hear from you


• you are totally upfront and honest about how to subscribe from your list.

 

Just A Reminder About Why You Are Here

Three Quick Email Tips Your Customers Will Love

We know that getting your emails opened is half the battle because just because someone has agreed to receive emails from you is no guarantee they will look at them. Here are some quick email tips your customers will love.

Once you get them opened you need to get them read and that means by providing content that your recipients will find interesting and useful.

By doing this you will find that people actually look forward to your emails and this, in turn, should mean that, over time, it gets easier to get regular customers to open your emails.

Here are three quick content tips which your customers will thank you for:

• ask for help – most people love to be helpful and will happily do so if asked. Email is a great way of doing this and building up a two way flow of communication with your list. Examples might be you want to update your website, newsletter, blog, product line etc, so you want to know what your most valuable customers would like to see before you make any changes.


• early bird offers – one of the huge benefits of email is that they are fast so you could encourage your customers to open your emails by making email-only offers available to them. So if you are having a new promotion launching on  your website you could give your a list a headstart by informing them about in advance of the general release.

• bullet points – the traditional bullet point list looks exactly like this one – written as a vertical list. However as people increasingly read business emails on smartphones, where space is at a premium, one trick is to make your list of bullet points horizontal instead of vertical, so that it looks like this:

Main benefits of x: * super fast, * cost effective,  *looks fantastic

Do you have any email tips which work well for you? If so then feel free to leave your comments below.

 

 

 

 

Three Quick Email Tips Your Customers Will Love

A Quick Example Of A Reconfirm Email

We have already seen why it might be a good idea to give your RocketResponder list an opportunity to unsubscribe from your list from time to time. Let us now take a look at an example of a reconfirm email.

Examples of where this may be useful include:

• if you change the way you want to communicate with your list – eg from mainly blog updates to marketing-type emails


• if you have just imported a list from elsewhere


• if your list is very old


• if you have not really communicated with your list for a long period of time

Just turning up in their inbox in these circumstances could lead to a lot of unsubscribes and, even worse, spam complaints.

The unsubscribes are more or a less a given, they will happen, so by sending out an email giving your subscribers an option of what action to take means you can manage the unsubscribes better and hopefully totally avoid the spam complaints.

So this is what you might say. I will use the example where I have not communicated with the list for a long time and where I want to send different types of email than before:

Hi [firstname],

It is [name] here from [company or website] and I will totally understand if you have totally forgotten who I am.

However you did sign up to receive emails from me and I am going to start sending them at long last.

I used to just email you when I updated my blog, something I have badly neglected in recent months, but now I want to include sending some marketing tips and suggestions I think you would find really useful.

However I can understand that you might not want any more emails at all so if you click the big “unsubscribe” link below then you will be immediately removed from this list.

If you want to stay then I look forward to us getting to know each other better in the weeks and months ahead.”

You can see that it is short and to the point.

If you do decide to do this then keep your email short also but use your own wording so that it is personal and reflects your writing style and personality.

A Quick Example Of A Reconfirm Email

You Must Know What Your Audience Wants

I used to work on a busy newsdesk at a national newspaper and it is no exaggeration to say that many hundreds, of not thousands of emails would come in every day. You must know what your audience wants or you won’t get them to take the correct action.

It was a full time job in itself just reading through all the information which came through the newsroom each day to find ones we would want to follow up for publication.

The fact is that only a tiny percentage of the information which poured into the newsroom ever got to come out of the other side as an article in the next day’s publication – the rest was just deleted.

But at least everything got read before it got deleted right? Wrong.

There were not enough hours in the day to read everything so this is what would typically happen:

• not a look in – some people or organizations who had gained a reputation of sending absolute rubbish would have their emails immediately deleted – unread.


• you’ve got to be joking – some emails were just too long and boring to read and as a result, they did not get read at all. If the email went on for six or seven pages and looked boring then it would not even get read. Yes we may have missed some good stories by ignoring this source of content but that is what happened.


• you have ten seconds starting from now – If I didn’t know who an email was from then I would look at it…for all of about ten seconds (or less) Basically if the first paragraph didn’t grab my attention then I stopped reading and moved on to the next one.


• I know you and I like you – Some people sent in emails that were timely, relevant, interesting and right up our street. These were always given the most attention as they were most likely to contain material we could use as content for the next day’s paper.


• Please stop annoying me – At the opposite end of the spectrum were emails from PR companies which were nothing short of marketing drivel. You could judge the levels of desperation by the amount of times they would send the same email and follow them up with maddening phone calls.

You don’t have to work for a newspaper to learn lessons from these examples because they can apply to anyone who sends an email to anyone ever.

Basically know what your audience wants and send emails that will actually want to read. You won’t get it right all the time but if around eight out of ten of your emails are on target then you should be doing very well indeed.

You Must Know What Your Audience Wants

If A Message Is Worth Sending, It"s Worth Sending Again

Email marketing tips and tricks: There are times when it is helpful not to be timid in your email marketing.

Let’s say you have an important announcement to get across to your subscribers.

It is something you know they would be interested in, or at least you hope that they would be interested in it.

This might be a brand new launch, a cool new product or a special promotion that you want everyone to be aware of.

So naturally you send an email to your RocketResponder list telling them about the cool new thing you know they will love.

The problem is that people being people, not everyone will actually read your email.

And this will include some of the people who might be really interested in the contents of your email.

Now it has been shown that if you send an email multiple times to people the following could happen:

• you will annoy your subscribers and turn them into unsubscribers (very bad)


• they will still not read your email (bad)


• they will become interested enough to find out why you are sending so many emails that they will open one and (hopefully) take action.

OK so there is a more subtle way to minimize the chances of the first two events happening.

If you have a very important message to get across then devise an email series just for this one topic.

So if you want to send three, five or seven emails to promote the launch, event or new product then send three, five or seven related emails on the subject. You could, for example, talk about the new product or promotion, explain some of its main points in the email series or give a series of hints or tutorials if appropriate.

Obviously you don’t want to hammer home the message every time you send an email but there will be times when you really want to ensure that your message gets read and understood by the maximum number of people.

 

If A Message Is Worth Sending, It"s Worth Sending Again

A Great Example Of Communicating With Your Subscribers

Communicating With Your Subscribers: It is great to see an email where someone has got it so totally right that you drop everything to open it up.

This happened to me the other day and it really is a joy to see.

It was actually a rare example of an autoresponder email where you really do think the email was sent to you, and you alone.

If you can achieve anything close to this with your RocketResponder email series then you are well on your way to success.

Anatomy of a great email.

The email I am talking about had the following subject line.

Hey I need your help!

Thoughts on this:

Few of us could resist the urge to find out what the person needs help with, especially if it is someone you have built up a relationship with already.

If you are thinking of using this or a variation of this then make sure that you really do need help with something or other.

If it is just a ploy to get someone to open yet another marketing offer then expect a lot of people to hit “unsubscribe”

The email went on to say…

I’m not kidding, I actually NEED your help this time.

…it is pretty hard to know what to send you because you all may be on different stages, which leads to the following question:

Q. What do you expect to receive from me?”

Then the email went on to remind readers:

• where they subscribed to the list in the first place


• possible reasons for remaining subscribed


• how to unsubscribe

It ended with a call to action which said:

I’d love if you could take a minute to reply to this email and let me know what’s the deal so I can give you more of what you want!…Thanks a lot and I look forward to your answers!”

Personally I don’t think you can get much better than that when it comes to connecting with subscribers and showing them that you care.

A Great Example Of Communicating With Your Subscribers

Don"t Be Afraid To Say I Love You

Value your customers: It is Valentine’s Day and love is in the air.

But while your thoughts will naturally turn to loved ones at this time of year…don’t forget that your customers also need to feel loved.

They also want to feel valued, respected and appreciated.

In particular they will love to feel that you treat them as individuals…and how you use email can help you with all of the above.

So if someone has bought something from you then tell them that you love them…ok well maybe don’t go that far but send out an email to say how much you appreciate their custom.

An autoresponder like RocketResponder lets you do just that.

So now that you have got a customer why not use an email (or series of emails) to:

• thank them for their purchase and explain how they can contact you


• tell them how much you appreciate their custom (that’s the ‘I Love You’ bit by the way)


• invite them to give you feedback on your goods or services


• tell them something about you or your business to make the relationship between you more personal


• inform them of any special offers you may have

You can set an autoresponder series to do that any time of the year, whether it is Valentine’s Day or not.

But, thinking about it, given that it is Valentine’s Day why don’t you sent out a special one-off email telling your customers that you really do love them?

If you include a special Valentine’s Day offer in that email too then both you and your customers could benefit from this special day.

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone.

 

 

Don"t Be Afraid To Say I Love You

Scrapple is just as bad as Spam!

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

Scrapple is just as bad as Spam!