Warm Up Your Email Account To Enhance Sender Reputation

Before you start thinking seriously about launching a large-scale email marketing campaign, you’ll need to work on your sender reputation. Email warmup can help you build that reputation. One of the simplest ways to do this is by steadily increasing the amount of emails you’re sending. To avoid being blocked by providers, avoid the urge to fire off huge volumes of emails right off the bat. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways you can avoid being flagged as a spammer and start strengthening your sender reputation.

Easy Ways to Warm Up Your Account

Your domain reputation is the first thing to focus on. At best, a new domain is considered neutral by hosts. At worst, it’s looked upon as suspicious. You’ll want to avoid sending too many emails immediately and rule out using automated tools. It can take several months for a domain reputation to build, so you’ll need to be patient.

Another key step in the warmup process is configuring your email account. To ensure your account appears authentic, use actual data rather than fictitious personas. Thinking about adding HTML signatures to your emails? There’s no room for error here. If you’re not comfortable with HTML, stick to a basic text signature instead.

While you’re not ready to unleash a full email campaign just yet, you can begin by warming it up by sending out a handful of emails daily. Avoid automation here, and ensure you’re not sending any marketing messages. By sending out casual messages to personal contacts and taking the time to reply to responses, your sender reputation will benefit.

Why Quality Content Matters

Quality matters when sending emails. If you’re stuffing emails with irrelevant content that recipients have no interest in, you increase your odds of being relegated to spam folders. When this happens enough, your sender reputation suffers. By taking the time to create compelling content that engages your audience, you’re less likely to be sidelined as spam.

What’s more, make sure your content is optimized for all device types. Around 1.7 billion people use mobile phones to access their emails. If your content doesn’t display correctly on smartphone screens, you’re putting your campaign at a distinct disadvantage.

Use Analytics To Improve Engagement

Improving email deliverability should be an ongoing process. The good news is that it doesn’t take much effort to continuously enhance engagement and improve the success rate of email campaigns. Something as simple as sifting out inactive email addresses from your contact list can help improve your sender reputation.

You can also turn to basic email metrics to gauge the success of a campaign. Start with positive engagement metrics first. How many email opens are you getting? What about your click rate? If you’re scoring well on both counts, take this as a clear sign that you’re on the right track. However, you’ll also need to know how to analyze negative metrics. A high bounce rate can really hurt your reputation. Additionally, you’ll want to keep an eye on things like unsubscribes and how many spam complaints have been made against your account.

Unless you’ve been very lucky, you’re not going to be looking at a glowing slate of positive engagement metrics immediately. If results are more balanced and you’re not sure what’s resonating with readers, A/B testing can be a useful next step.

Patience Pays Off

Waiting around for the domain and sender’s reputation to improve can be frustrating. However, by being proactive and working on those deliverability metrics from the off, you’ll quickly start to see positive results. By holding fire on automation, creating compelling content, and regularly reviewing engagement metrics, there’s no reason why email deliverability issues should hinder your campaign.

The post How To Easily Increase Your Email Deliverability Rate appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

80% of shoppers are more likely to buy from a company that offers personalized experiences and marketers see an average 20% increase in sales when they deliver more personalized experiences. 

This means your business could make more money and provide a better customer experience by simply altering their strategy marginally.

Unfortunately, most companies are not taking advantage of the crazy amount of data that is now accessible to them.

When creating a personalized experience for your customers, email marketing is a good place to start. It is affordable, easy, and effective.

There is no benefit in spending time and energy creating an email list if you do not create relationships with your subscribers. 

Personalizing emails can help increase open rates and conversions, but this goes far beyond simply adding their first name to the body of the email.

So, what else can you do?

#1 Time Triggers

If you use an email marketing software like ConvertKit, you could set your emails to be delivered at a particular time, which means you could start your email with a simple ‘Good Morning’ or ‘Good Evening’ depending on when it is being sent out. This is a really simple way to add a personal touch to your email and let your subscribers know this is not a piece of text you have simply copy-pasted and sent out.

#2 Automated Behavioral Trigger Emails

Triggered emails are when a customer takes a certain action that prompts an email response. For example, Amazon uses it when you look for a particular product on their online store. 

Sooner than you can second guess the money leaving your bank account, Amazon sends you a list of options they think might interest you. 

This is a great way to capture a potential sale before they change their mind. 

It is not just Amazon that uses behaviorally triggered emails though. You can trigger emails when a subscriber unsubscribes from your email list or if someone is looking for an item that is out of stock. The possibilities are endless.

#3 Event-triggered Emails

This is a trick that works particularly well for clothing companies because there is not a single holiday or season out there that does not have a particular type of clothing to go with it. If Easter, Christmas, the Super Bowl, football season, or Thanksgiving is coming up- recognize that within your email.

This is bound to get more interest than a generic email that is not event focused. 

#4 Ask for the Right Data From the Get-Go

Names are an overused way of personalizing your emails. Frankly, most customers would not care if you addressed them by their first name within the email or not. 

So, instead of simply collecting your customer’s name through your opt-in form, try collecting even more important data.

This could be their birthday (remember what I said about event-triggered emails?), the country they are located in, or even their city if you are a more localized business.

Down the line, you could use this information to send them more personalized emails that they will engage with.

#5 Personalized Landing Pages

There is no point in creating an awesome personalized email if the landing page you are sending your customers to is generic.

The landing page above pulled information from the customer’s email preferences to auto-fill the form and even mention her name in the headline. This impresses customers and makes the buying process easier as well.

#6 Social Media Action Triggers

If someone has followed the company Facebook page or Twitter account, it would be a good idea to send them a follow-up email like this one:

Hey John,

Our team here at company name noticed that you took the time to like our Facebook page. That is awesome and we are so happy you are enjoying our company’s product/services.

You know what? Just to say thanks, here is a 10% discount on your next purchase.

Thanks again!

Simple as that! The customer is going to be more likely to engage with your company again in the future, and you have a potential sale coming your way.

#7 Mention Their Plan and How Many Days They Have Left

If your company provides a digital service, you could send your customers a follow-up email alerting them of your premium package with a potentially discounted rate (for a limited period of time).

This works really well for online learning platforms that provide limited period trials. So, for example, if you are a language learning service like Duolingo or Preply, you could offer a 10-day trial of your services and email your customers when they are nearing the end of the trial.

The above examples prove that personalization gets customers interested and is worth the investment.

With personalized emails delivering 6x higher transaction rates, investing in a better email marketing strategy could do your business more good than some of the more expensive marketing options out there.

The post 7 Email Personalization Techniques That Work Better Than Changing a Name appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

But, there’s such a thing as over-segmentation. Too much segmentation can actually hurt your marketing efforts instead of boosting it.

But, how much segmentation is too much?

 Fortunately, you don’t have to make a wild guess if you’re doing too much. There are signs that show that you’re over-segmenting. Here are the markers that your segmentation is off-key and tips on how to resolve these over-segmentation problems.

1. You have more than 7 personas. 

The rule on how many personas you should have is not set on rock but more than 7 is a bit too much for most companies. If you’re just a start-up, start with one persona and escalate from there.

The number of your buyer personas depends on how diverse your products are. Buyer personas should be between one to five, with three as the most ideal. This number allows you to adequately serve the personal preferences of each group. 

2. Some of those personas are overlapping.

This problem coincides with problem number one. Having more than 7 personas suggest that some of your personas have overlapping characteristics. Not only does this divert you from focusing on better campaigns, it wastes your time and effort too.

Check your personas and merge the groups that have overlapping characteristics. You don’t have to microsegment every data you have about your potential clients. You just need to find a common ground and build your segment from there. Each segment should significantly differ from each other.

3. You’re relying too much on software. 

Even if AI is replacing most of the marketing tasks, there is no substitute for human intuition. At the other side of your marketing ploys are human beings, not machines. So you shouldn’t allow all of technology to dictate how you segment. A software can only give answers, but they don’t know how to ask questions.

Each segment you have is a group of people with similar characteristics, not just some unit with collective data. Instead of gathering everything you can by using software, ask about how you can better serve your segments with the current data you already have. Combine email marketing automation software with your insight to have meaningful and effective segments. 

4. You’re ending up with false leads. 

The best indicator that you have the right quantity and quality of segments is the growth of conversions. If you keep ending up with false leads, one reason might be over-segmentation.

The quality of your segments is more important than its quantity. Even if you only have three segments, if it leads to high-quality leads, then you’re doing a great job. The purpose of segmentation is to increase your conversions in the least possible amount of time, money, and effort.

Some of your segments may not be doing their job. Run tests and analyze which segments are flunking. Then, be ruthless in removing these segments. 

5. You are spending more hours on segmentation than in campaigns. 

Segmentation shouldn’t eat up much of your marketing hours. If you do, well, there’s a high chance that you’re overcomplicating segmentation. Instead of aiming for the perfect segments, focus on creating useful content.

If you have three segments to work with, go ahead and shoot your marketing efforts. Then, you can tweak your segments based on the results. Focusing too much on segmentation will only slow down your progress.

6. You continuously add segments to your list. 

You may be tempted to add more segments as your list grows. But passively adding up segments is not a smart marketing move. It will only add up to your tasks without producing positive results.

Instead, revisit your old segments and assess them. Are the variables still relevant? Can you merge some of the segments? Manage your list based on the results of your campaigns. Let your segments evolve to stay relevant, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to increase its number. 

Bottom Line:

Marketers need to be careful about over-segmentation. As the adage goes, too much of everything is a bad thing. Yes, even the good stuff. Find the ideal number of segments and build from there. If you already have too much, then it’s time to cut off futile segments.

Take note though, that hyper-personalization is different from over-segmentation. Hyper-personalization can lift your marketing efforts, while over-segmentation does the opposite.

Author Bio:

Kimberly Maceda is a Content Writer for ActiveTrail. She writes for some top online marketing sites and blogging advice on email marketing and marketing automation. Activetrail is a leading provider of professional-grade email marketing and automation software for growing businesses.

This article is published in partnership with Activetrail.

The post 6 Signs You’re Over-Segmenting Your Marketing Automation Campaigns appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

1. I interviewed a large number of experts. Most large summits are about three weeks long. This allows you to interview a large number of people, which obviously increases the reach of the overall audience. I ended up with 17 interviews and released a different interview each day from June 1-17.
2. I shared the summit everywhere, every day. I blasted social media for three weeks before the summit and the entire month in which I ran the summit. The result? Other people started sharing it, too, and there was big buzz around it.
3. I made my current list opt-in. My goal was to grow my subscriber base but I also wanted to let my current subscribers in on the goodness, without annoying those who may not want a daily email for 17 days straight. I sent a simple announcement to my current list with an easy one-click opt-in. I continued this for three weeks leading up to the summit.
4. I provided templates to all the interviewees. Every expert I interviewed had one job- show up to my interview prepared and share their knowledge. I did everything else for them. I sent them templates to email their own list, as well as graphics and suggested posts for various social media.
5. I provided a direct link to schedule the interview with me. This was really key for efficiency and my own sanity! I set up times for interviews each week in Time Trade and included the link to schedule with my invitation. Only two of the 17 people emailed me wanting more info before scheduling.
6. I kept my emails succinct. This was a hard one because there was so much I wanted to share, but I made each email to the experts as short as possible and gave very clear instructions or requests.
7. I had something to sell after the summit was over. After providing a ton of great content and interacting with you regularly, people are ready to buy. And since I didn’t provide anything related to my specific expertise during the summit, I offered an online workshop the following month.

1. I didn’t ask (or care) about the size of anyone’s list. This goes against everything anyone will tell you about using summits as a success strategy. Most business coaches will tell you not to waste time with anyone who has list of less than x (typically 5,000). However, I knew some experts who would provide killer value but they had just started up their list building. I decided to focus on providing value and variety, rather than going after list size. The result was that I received multiple compliments on the content and excitement leading into the summit about the various topics.
2. I didn’t sell the summit videos. This was more a personal choice but selling the videos would have created more legal hassle and I decided for my first round, everything would be free.
3. I didn’t remove access to the videos within 48-72 hours. People need urgency to act. This is definitely true, but people are also busy. I hate when I miss something simply because I’ve had two busy days so I decided to leave all videos up for an entire month. And it absolutely increased the total views.
4. I didn’t require my experts to do any promotion if they didn’t want to. This is another big no-no, but I realized that people hate the “send a minimum of five notices to your email list” type requirement and it makes them say NO. However, they are happy to share when it’s something of value and they see themselves as part of something bigger.
5. I provided all the experts with a summary at the end. After the end of the month, I put together an email with all the stats on views, website visits, attendees subscribed, testimonials, etc. I received multiple replies thanking me for the information and this increased follow up later on with some of the experts.

The post Grow Your Email List. How A Psychologist Did It In One Month. appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

GoDaddy recently announced the availability of enhanced security for its email integration with Microsoft Office 365 through a partnership with Proofpoint.

While your email is often secure when it’s on the server of your email provider, it’s often not secure when in transit and sent “in the clear”.

Encrypting your email such as with a solution that GoDaddy’s introducing means your email is secure end to end.

There are many encryption methods, including Marc Cuban’s Cyber Dust app.

While this level of email security might not be for every business, it’s something you should at least consider.

The post Email Encryption: Is It Time To Upgrade Your Communication? New GoDaddy Offering appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Increasingly I find myself clicking “unsubscribe” to email newsletters. I don’t want to unsubscribe from them – but so few have an option to “update my preferences”. Constant Contact, Infusionsoft, Mail Chimp all have options to “update preferences”. However, there are some providers, such as Vertical Response, that only have one option for the read “un-subscribe”.

Often times people want to update their email address, but if you only give the option to “unsubscribe” you’re not just annoying them – you’re hurting yourself. Most people will just unsubscribe.

Of course having only one option, “unsubscribe” is not just the only problem, here are a few more things you can do to make your email newsletter a winning success:

1. Have a great subject line
2. Tell a story and have great content
3. Have a simple, but good design
4. Ensure it’s easily readable on smart phones

Now go fix that “unsubscribe” problem.

The post The One Problem Your Email Newsletter Has and How To Solve It. appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

As a small business owner you can use EMAIL in a powerful way to engage and bring a deep personalized connection to your customers and potential customers.

While you can do many of this on your own, you can also hire someone to help you do it.

Email is not dead – it’s a powerful way to connect and reach someone right in their email box.

The post Email Personalization Works: Hilton Garden Inn “Welcomes Ramon” via Email appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Even, Facebook, the leader in “social communication” agrees that email, for business to business communication is still so important.

Facebook recently signed up to use Microsoft Office 365 for its corporate communications as reported by the WSJ.

Of course Facebook’s own internal social workspace service, Facebook at Work competes with tools such as Slack, Skype and other more collaborative tools and services.

If you have people telling you that you can DITCH email and that you don’t need it anymore, in favor of some online post it board they’re wrong. Being able to directly email someone a message – not in a shared message board – is still an important way to community.

Collaborative tools like Jive, Slack and others are great for group collaboration, tracking projects and discussing projects. But when you need to email your boss, or email an attachment to a client – email is best.

The post Collaboration Tools are Important But Email Is Still Essential: Faceboook Agrees appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Small Business Week Events

Small Business Week is an initiative of the SBA so they are running a special series of Small Business Week events which includes live events (with live streaming online) and webinars to educate small business owners. However, many other companies are joining in on the fun with their own events, including contests, promotions, training, and dedicated content. This article covers all the main events so you can participate.

Click to read Small Business Week 2016 Events.

The Importance of Follow-Up

In this interview with SCOTTeVEST founder Scott Jordan, he tells us about what he says is the “one reason for my success” – following up on every opportunity that comes his way. He explains how follow-up is important in nearly every aspect of your business, whether it is customer and advertising inquiries or daily business operations. The informative audio interview is bolstered with a list of Scott’s top 6 tips for successful follow-up.

Click to read Follow-Up: The Most Powerful Tool for Your Small Business Success.

New Tool to Generate PR Buzz

As it stands right now, the PR process is pretty messy. Businesses want media coverage, but reporters often feel ‘spammed’ by PR teams who fill up their inboxes with pitches. At SXSW 2016, Ramon learned about a new tool called Babbler that is aimed at improving the process. Babbler works like a social media site and helps to connect business marketers with right reporters who are looking to cover stories on that topic. The result – reporters get content they need to make great stories, and businesses get the media coverage they are looking for.

Click to read How Babbler Can Help You Generate Buzz about Your Business.

It’s Time to Grow Your Business

In this video interview, Ramon gets the opportunity to chat with Amanda Holmes, CEO of the business growth company Chet Holmes International. The video full of tips on how to take your business to the next level. In the article, we’ve also pulled out some of Amanda’s tips as the must-follow rules for business growth. This article is sure to put you on the path to success.

Click to read 5 Rules of Business Growth from CEO of Chet Holmes International.

What Small Business Week events will you be participating in? Which interview are you going to check out first?  Let us know in the comments and check out SmartHustle.com for help on your other small business questions.

The post Smart Hustle Recap: Small Business Week Events + 3 Amazing Interviews appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

While I’m happy that Slack has raised more money and indeed Slack is a great tool, you still have to check “something” – that something being your Slack threads.

My beef is NOT with Slack or any of the other great communication tools on the market.

My beef is that people think they can REDUCE their communication clutter by shifting to a new tool.

That’s not the case.

Here’s what I’ve found is the best way to reduce information overload and have a SANE inbox.

• Rob Hatch of Owner Magazine shared in a talk at Social Media Tulsa that he a) gets rid of social notifications so he’s not distracted b) plans his day and c) as thoughts come into his head he writes them down so we won’t forget.
• Asana is my tool of choice for organizing teams around projects and tasks. Using it enables you to not forget what needs to be done and ensure you know who is doing it. It’s also a great tool to keep track of the conversations around projects – like Slack does.
• My inbox is carefully managed. Like Seth Godin, I have  zero email policy. Meaning before I go to bed at night, there’s no emails (or at least not more than 10 or so) in my inbox. I saw someone’s inbox yesterday and they have THOUSANDS of emails. Ouch. I also use filters. My email newsletters automatically go to one folder, for example.
• Last, I have a little yellow sticky note I use to keep track of a few key points that might come to my mind or that I need to remember from a phone call.

How do you organize your day?

The post You Don’t Need Slack To Be Productive. You Need Discipline. appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.