RocketResponder "Save as Draft" Makes Writing Your Emails More Flexible

At RocketResponder we have always given people the option of sending emails immediately or at some date in the future.

This is important because there are some messages that you will want to get out right away and others that you want to write now but send out at a specific time and date.

Having the flexibility to write and queue up emails in advance is one of the huge benefits of using an automated email service such as RocketResponder.

However there are also times when you start writing an email and realize that you can’t finish it right now.

This might happen, for example, if you:

• run out of time


• get called away to do something else urgently


• realize you don’t have all the information that you need to finish the email


• find that the inspiration to write is not with you right now.

So with that in mind we have made it easier for you to save your email so that you can return to it at some point in the future with RocketResponder Save as Draft.

If you have not finished your email then just press the “Save as Draft” button at the bottom of the screen and then come back as soon as you are ready to continue.

We have also made a slight change to the way you queue up emails to be sent in the future.

The default option is to send immediately so if you want your email to go out right away then press the “Send Immediately” button when you are ready.

(However you might want still want to send yourself a test message first. See the post “Why It Is Important To Always Preview Business Emails Before Sending” for more information about why this is a good idea.)

If you want to send at some time in the future then just click the “Edit” hyperlink to the right of “Send Time” and you will be able to enter the date and time you want your email to go out.

When you have selected the date and time you want your emails to be sent then just hit “ok” and, don’t forget that you can now choose to resend emails to those who did not open them first time round. To use this function then check the resend box and enter the resend delay you want (between two and 10 days.)

RocketResponder "Save as Draft" Makes Writing Your Emails More Flexible

Why It Is Important To Always Preview Business Emails Before Sending

Automated email marketing systems like RocketResponder are designed to save you a lot of time and effort.

It is so easy to fire off an email, hit send and have your words of wisdom hit the inboxes of everybody on your list while you are free to concentrate on other things.

However it is worth just slowing down a little bit and doing one last step before hitting the ‘send’ button.

No matter how many times you have checked through your email on your screen there will be times when you only spot a mistake after it has been sent.

It is even worse when one of your subscribers replies with a message such as “Hey I am really interested in that offer you just made me…but is there a link I am supposed to click?”

Yes, forgetting the link in emails is something that happens to us all. Sending people to a completely wrong URL or having a link that does no go anywhere at all is another common error.

This is why we have a ‘preview’ feature which allows you to send your email to just yourself before making it live.

That way you can make a last minute check for errors, check that your links work and that you are saying what you really want to say.

This worked really well for me just a few hours ago.

I had written an email, was happy with the way it looked and used the preview function as a final check before sending…and I was horrified at how it looked.

It should have looked like this…

But the three tiny social media icons you see in the top right hand corner had been blown up about ten times their normal size on the version I received. Not the biggest problem in the world but it did look ugly.

As it happened it was a glitch on our end, but one I would not have noticed had I not previewed the email.

Once it was pointed out, it was something we were able to fix in a couple of minutes. When you preview business emails, it gives you a chance for one final check that everything really is good to go.

Get into the habit of doing this because spending just a little extra time on your emails could save you a lot of time and effort in the long run.

Why It Is Important To Always Preview Business Emails Before Sending

6 Crucial Sales Metrics for Small Businesses

For small business owners, sales metrics are vital for tracking performance, projecting revenue and measuring overall progress. The number of available metrics can be dizzying, gauging everything from sales rep performance — calls, repeat calls, conversions, closed deals and more — to the overall financial health of a business.

With so many possibilities, which crucial sales metrics are a must for small businesses to track?

Sales revenue

As Forbes points out, everyone is happy when sales revenue is up. But understanding trends and deeper meanings of the data is critical to continued success. Sales revenue is made up of income from goods and services less some costs — like merchandise that is returned or that cannot be delivered.

Knowing whether sales are up or down is indeed important. But understanding the correlations to numerous other factors — like the costs of ad campaigns, seasonal variations, actions by competitors and others — provides you with the best chance for keeping sales high in the future.

Sales to returning versus new customers

Healthy businesses have loyal customers returning time and again for repeat purchases, as Entrepreneur magazine notes. But they also have a constant stream of new customers. Measuring sales from both groups provides knowledge about which of your sales tactics — such as sending out automated emails — is providing you with the best return.

Retention and loyalty of customers

Forbes advises that to understand how loyal your customers are to your small business, you’ll need to measure using three primary tools: feedback at the point of purchase, customer surveys and purchase analysis.

Attracting the correct target customer for your business and getting them to buy from you — rather than from competitors — are just the first two steps in building customer loyalty. You’ll also need to persuade these customers to buy from you often and in higher quantities and to refer other customers to you.

Cost to acquire customers

It’s important to understand the total cost of gaining a new customer — including the various components of your marketing and sales programs. To calculate this number, divide your total acquisition expenses by the number of new customers within a specific time period. This number should decrease with time as your brand recognition and the size of your business increase.

Revenue per sale

One way to increase your revenue is by attracting more customers. Another — and, sometimes, much easier — way is to increase the amount of each sale. Entrepreneur notes that McDonald’s doubled profits when staff began asking if customers wanted fries with their orders. The lesson applies to most types of businesses: Tap loyal customers for additional sales.

Sales by product category

Knowing what sells and what doesn’t in your business is critical. With this valuable information, you can place more emphasis on moving your popular items or services and expend fewer resources on those that don’t sell as well. Over time, you can use this information to glean when it might be time to roll out new versions of specific products. You also can use the data to assist in forecasting demand and keeping inventory at the right levels.

For small business success, track the right metrics

Most entrepreneurs understand very well how to create a compelling product and how to build an initial customer base. Maintaining success over time and taking a business to the next level can present multiple challenges, however. By identifying, consistently tracking and analyzing these six sales metrics, you gain valuable knowledge that will keep your business on the road to long-term success.

6 Crucial Sales Metrics for Small Businesses

How to Incorporate Email Automation into Your Business

The name of the game is “engagement”, and email automation has become an industry cornerstone for modern marketing mechanics. Building your audience can be difficult, let alone locating prospective consumers. Email automation nurtures relationships, and it increases platform revenue. Its best quality rests in its free-flowing approach to consumer outreach, keeping your resources free for bright horizons, new projects and great opportunities.

Generating a great email automation platform is easy, and the following aspects—when created with care—will create long-lasting email marketing solutions in little time.

Cornerstone One: Contact Base

Once you’ve obtained potent email automation software and have defined your company’s goals, it’s time to begin. Above all, every business is defined by its consumer base. Your contacts, here, will reflect your future consumers. Focus on placing each contact into a single platform.

Mobility isn’t possible without unified action, so importing all contacts is vital. Scour your other services, files, phonebooks and preexisting contacts. If your provider provides contact management tools, learn them first. Harnessing contact management tools will fortify your resource base. As with most projects, working top-down will supply mobility. Generate a healthy contact supply before anything else.

Cornerstone Two: Your Consumer Relations Management

B2B and B2C email marketing campaigns have changed. Where simple, bulk-content emails defined earlier email generations, modern approaches require intensive consumer relations management (CRM) solutions to remain effective. Combine your trigger-based, drip and bulk emails to coordinate with one another, and target key processes, like generating online forms and lead scoring.

Automated platforms thrive upon consumer outreach, and your solutions are only as potent as your ability to contact the right consumer at the right time. Channel your social, tracking and landing page resources to identify the most effective CRM solutions.

Cornerstone Three: Segmentation

Segmenting your consumer base from acquired data will aid most processes. When developing your email automation platform, consider acquired contact data. Additionally, take a look at previous campaign interactions, site activities, social data and other contact information data. Like CRM solutions, segmentation is only as effective as its fuel sources.

Effective segmentation can be used to send targeted campaigns, explore new contacts and effect automotive processes. Additionally, it can be used to create custom forms. These forms can target website dynamics and emergent consumer bases, empowering your campaign outside the email realm.

Cornerstone Four: Dynamic Content

Automated campaigns need to be reactive. Quick, accurate responses are generated from intensive behavioral and contact data. Once you’ve obtained a healthy supply, it’s time to trigger emails based upon contact interests, actions, behaviors and economic influences.

To do this, you’ll need to conduct split testing. Split testing engages different contact groups based upon clicks, opens and ROI. Studying your consumer base will lead to a larger consumer base, and dynamic content based upon RSS-based data, conditional atmospheres and even eCommerce platform health can create living, breathing email campaigns.

Cornerstone Five: Real-Time Insights

Similar, yet separate, from dynamic content is real-time consumer insight. As the world changes, the Internet reflects consumer interests, attitudes and market segment residence. Governing an effective email automation campaign requires flexible reactions, interactions and trend contact. Once you’ve fortified your email campaigns home base, you’ll need to take things to the field. You’ll need to access a variety of reporting options.

Stay informed. Examine ongoing trends, specific campaigns, shifting news resources and real-time activity streams. Sometimes, an automated email platform can’t do it all. In some cases, your ability to identify new directions from behavioral, interactive and contact-based data will determine your brand’s newest impact. In any realm, effective marketing relies upon consistent, yet particular data. Your campaign, when empowered with reliable insights, won’t only be effective. It’ll be unrivaled.

How to Incorporate Email Automation into Your Business

Five Tips For Selling to Knowledgeable Shoppers

Product knowledge needn’t limit marketing efforts. For many consumer knowledge enriches product and service involvement—heightening relationship scope while enabling new selling opportunities. Understandably, knowledge is an invaluable asset to retailers, online businesses and wide-reaching companies.

It’s difficult to sell to unknowledgeable consumers, but it’s also hard to gage an informed consumer’s wants, needs and limiting factors. To effectively sell to knowledgeable consumer spheres, consider the following tips:

Tip One: Answer Knowledge with Knowledge

Of course, the consumer’s knowledge dictates product sales, service information and capacity for new deals. While your consumer may know you, you might not know them. Understanding from both sides complements effective transactions, and a fully understood consumer is healthy for prolonged business relationships.

Sure, they might know your brand inside and out, but do you understand their motives, their purchasing patterns and even geo-specific behaviors? Knowledge increases options, and knowing your target consumer’s culture, community, lifestyle and related purchases is necessary to enhance feedback and connectivity.

Tip Two: Read the Competition

Informed consumers have felt out alternatives. When a buyer’s opportunity cost sense kicks in, they might opt for marginal cost decreases, slightly better benefits or even attractive packaging. The informed consumer isn’t necessarily nitpicking every product and service—but they’ve definitely scoped out related brands.

Know your competition, and understand why consumers might opt for greener pastures. Your marketing goals should be based upon product outreach, consumer groups and market slices, but your competitors are on the lookout. Consider your brand’s shining aspects, and capitalize its finer edges. Often, product marketing is a game of comparisons, and your target market makes numerous comparisons when informed of each product’s benefits.

Tip Three: Identify Your Niche

Related to industry information and defining competing benefits is defining your own niche. If you’re not marketing specialty or luxury products and services, defining—or creating—a niche will win over nervous buyers. Assuming your average consumer is well-endowed with product knowledge, industry foresight and market tactics, having incomparable benefits is a winning tactic.

If your brand’s benefits can’t be purchased elsewhere, the informed consumer will know. Flex your brand’s creative power, and specify its special qualities. Sure, every company has limitations, but niche benefits exist in many forms.

Tip Four: Avoid Sensationalism

Sensationalism is marked by global trends. Clothing styles, home décor options and even cultural amenities constantly change—and many companies unwittingly subscribe to “the next big thing”. Unfortunately, companies failing to be first are often last when new trends hit. It’s better to lead a pack than to follow.

Weigh your options, and develop a keen eye for global trends. If you want to shift your products to developing trends, do so carefully. Make careful adjustments, and consider losses associated with the trend’s disappearance. While some trends become solidified market needs, others are, simply, popular movements.

Tip Five: Develop After-Sales Services

The modern marketing world is defined by one-on-one, consumer-to-company relations. While social media and mobile technology increase, mass marketing has become relatively specific to singular relationships. Without customers, you’ll lose business. Consumer follow-up is important, and the informed consumer can become a powerful ally when invited to a prolonged relationship.

Customer retention yields best-possible profit scales in many industries, and answering queries, complaints and questions can solidify an otherwise doubtful consumer relationship. Remember: Your consumer is knowledgeable. Answering the questions they do have will increase your brand’s worth. It’ll increase its utility.

As your business grows, be adaptive. Consumer knowledge has increased greatly due to mass communications and Internet research possibilities. Don’t fear, however, as the consumer does want to be pleased. Maintaining your brand’s quality, integrity and positive industry impact can create a healthy, long-lasting purchasing environment.

Five Tips For Selling to Knowledgeable Shoppers

RocketResponder Resend Feature Will Boost Your Email Open Rates

When you send an email to your list of subscribers then one of two possible things will happen…it will either be opened or it won’t be.

Some of your list will decide to open and read your email and others won’t open it.

However it is not as cut and dried as that. Let’s take the group of people who did not open your email.

Here are some possible reasons for them not opening it:

– they looked at your subject line and decided it was not for them

– they looked at the subject line and thought it might interest them but they were too busy to open it

– they decided that they would open it when they had more time but it slipped their mind to do so

– they had so many emails that day that your email just got buried and was not seen

– they didn’t have time to check their emails at all when you sent it and it was not seen

These are just a few examples of things which can affect email open rates and you can probably think of more.

The interesting point is that all of the above groups of people (except those who made a conscious effort not to open the email) are potentially still interested in your message.

This means that if you send it again there is a good chance that at least some new people will open it second time round.

For example a response from your list could be: “Ah that’s the email I meant to look at but never got round to opening. I will take a look at it now before I forget again.”

These are the people who will most likely open it second time round and they are worth targeting.

With this in mind RocketResponder now allows you to give people a second bite at the cherry when it comes to opening your emails.

RocketResponder Resend allows your email to be sent a second time to those subscribers who failed to open it first time round.

When you compose your email simply check the resend email box, set how many days later you would like it sent again and RocketResponder will do the rest.

Once your chosen time interval is reached, then the original email is sent again to those of your subscribers who didn’t open it first time around.

We were getting an increase of around 30% in open rates when we tested the feature on our own lists. I have seen other reports about resending emails where anything from 20% to 50% and higher boosts to open rates were reported.

The bottom line is that it works and many of your subscribers will be thankful for the second chance to take a look at something they missed first time round.

 

RocketResponder Resend Feature Will Boost Your Email Open Rates

3 Ways to Use Remarketing to Make Your Online Sales Explode

Businesses both large and small have increased access to analytics and can gain more perspective on consumer behavior than ever before. The findings from this data helps organizations craft ads specifically targeted to prospects and converts.

Just a few years ago, only larger, data-centric organizations were able to invest in data mining, but small businesses across all industries now have access to the tracking tools necessary to take advantage of digital remarketing, according to Raj Beri, vice president of WanderWe. Jeni Garret, founder and CEO of The Woodhouse Day Spas states, “According to Google, 96 percent of consumers visit a website without completing the [buy] action, and remarketing helps to encourage those lost conversions to come back. It is great for small business owners because it has a lower cost per acquisition, so with the impression conversion rates, you are able to move people through your sales cycle faster and for a much lower cost.” The conversation does not need to end when prospects leave the site. Keep it going with some helpful tips.

1. Go Multi-channel.

The campaign should run across multiple channels. People online can jump from FaceBook to YouTube and more in less than a second. It is important to grab them where they are and this means incorporating a multichannel approach to target your audience. Most are on mobile devices and this is an important element to factor in when creating your strategy. The Millennial generation divides their attention across multiple channels and are have the largest purchasing power since the Baby boomers. Tarc Business Review reveals that 71% of Millennials use social media networks daily and spend over 5 hours daily on social media platforms. They are not spending all of that time on a single channel. Ads need to be where they are.

2. Segment Lists.

Tailor your remarketing efforts with segmentation. A segmented list allows business to respond to the drives of leads at different stages of the conversion process. While some need further information, others may have simply abandoned the cart. This person was just about ready to purchase and then left the site. Reengage them with a different ad that speaks to where they were.

3. Test and Adapt.

Run tests periodically. Even though there are expected standards that should be followed, there remains some guesswork involved in how it all applies to your audience. Phrasing, calls to action and a specific motivation within a subset of a target audience can alter the outcome of a campaign. Learn what works and appeals to different types of leads. Remarketing advertising can bring in more leads to your website but the website needs full functionality to keep their interest.

Regularly audit your website. Landing pages need to perform well with calls to action that have high conversion rates. If you notice a high bounce rate in an area, it’s time for some copywriting magic. The best ads in the world cannot help a website that is poorly constructed, lacks responsive design or has reduced functionality. Viewers don’t want to wait for pages to load or find out that internal links don’t work. They had better be able to view everything necessary on any gadget that allows for such. This oversight is a sign of being unresponsive to their needs and no wonder they leave for the competition. Analytics and A/B testing of ads and pages allow businesses to understand what messages call to their audience and develop ways to engage them along the different stages of the conversion process.

Go broad with the exposure of remarketing ads but go deep with your message and testing to hit a home run with your online sales.

3 Ways to Use Remarketing to Make Your Online Sales Explode