Email Marketing Advice from LuckyRedPixel
]]>The number one question I hear from Mailchimp customers?
“How do I get more email subscribers?”
My number one recommendation for list growth?
“Capitalize on your existing inbound traffic.”
I’m biased. I run a SEO company. But think about it. Your website has people visiting every day. They are most likely reading your content and then leaving.
That’s a missed opportunity.
So how do you convert some of that inbound traffic into email subscribers?
Here are five tips on how to get more email subscribers through your organic search traffic.
Pop-up signup forms are annoying, but they work better than any tactic I’ve seen.
The purpose of a pop-up signup form is to connect your email list with the people who visit your site. Mailchimp offers users the ability to design a pop-up form and display it on popular CMS platforms like WordPress, Shopify, and more.
The cool thing about pop-up forms is that you can customize the call-to action depending on the page of your website.
For example, taking a look at our Google Analytics shows that our Banned Instagram Hashtag blog post generates about 100 visitors per day:
Since we are a few months out from 2020, now would be a perfect time to design a pop-up incentivizing people to sign up for our “Banned Instagram Hashtag 2020” guide. Then when people read the 2019 guide, they can make the decision to get an email when we release the new guide (and, other social content afterwards).
By analyzing Google Analytics and customizing pop-up forms, you will be able to grow your email list in a highly segmented and sustainable way.
Action Item: Design and publish a pop-up form. Mailchimp will automatically push the form code to your connected site, or provide the code you need to embed it on your site if it’s not connected.
Most blogs – especially WordPress blogs – have a customizable sidebar.
This is prime real estate to insert a sign up form with a call to action. (ie – “Get Advice!”)
Mailchimp does have a few ways for you to add a sign up form to the sidebar. The most reliable way is to copy and paste the Mailchimp code into a HTML widget. However, check out the link and follow the instructions Mailchimp provides.
By installing a sidebar sign up form, you’ll be casting a wide net out to every visitor who reads a blog post.
Text links are another great way to capitalize on organic search traffic to grow your list.
What’s a text link? It is the visible, clickable form of text in a hyperlink like this.
If a reader is really into an article, these text link calls to action are a less intrustive way of converting website visitors into subscribers.
To take action, grab your sign up form URL from Mailchimp:
Then, include the URL in your text links – preferably on your most popular blog posts.
These text links can be included at the top, bottom, and within a blog post. The result are readers clicking on the link, going to your sign up form, and subscribing to receive more content.
Giving something away for free in exchange for an email address is something people have become accustomed to on the internet.
But, if there is real value on the other side of the offer, users have shown they are more than willing to input their email address.
For company, that free valuable item is an SEO audit.
When a user inputs their url, keyword, and email, they provide us with their information for possible future communication.
Admittedly, we do not add these audit takers to our email list. From time to time we will reach out to them individually. But for the most part, we respect the inbox and error on the side of safety.
Regardless, free giveaways can be a nice way to increase the quantity (although sometimes not “quality”) of an email list.
Last but not least, the real estate in your website footer is a nice place for a sign up form.
People have reached the end of your content on a given page. They’re met with the question, “What now?” A sign up form gives them light at the end of the tunnel.
Again, you can utilize Mailchimp’s Signup Form code to accomplish this with your website CMS system.
Here’s a recap of how to get more email subscribers through organic search traffic:
Take these actions, and your email subscribers will grow in a very sustainable, predictable way (if you have inbound organic search traffic).
About the Author
Brett Farmiloe is the Founder & CEO of a digital marketing company named a Best Place To Work 3 years in a row. He has been listed as a Mailchimp Expert since 2015, and has completed 100+ Mailchimp projects for customers in 8 countries and 4 continents. But, he no longer offers email marketing services and refers all email marketing work over to Lucky Red Pixel. For email questions, ask the experts.
Email Marketing Advice from LuckyRedPixel
]]>Email Marketing Advice from LuckyRedPixel
]]>We take it personally when, really, something might have just happened in the background that we aren’t aware of. In this email critique, we’re spilling the beans Chipotle’s refund email after we experienced a customer service mishap.
The happy story: We were STARVING, as Chipotle’s website knows what’s on our minds.
We ordered a burrito bowl online for pickup to save time because not only are we starving, but we’re also busy. So, we wanted to skip the line and make this a quick trip.
We never received an automated confirmation email, but we didn’t sweat it. We arrived within 15 minutes, on the dot for our pickup time. And…that’s where the happy story ends.
With seven people in line ahead of us and a worried cashier, we discovered all pickup orders were delayed thanks to a catering order.
So, we drove around, ran an errand, and then returned to the restaurant in 30 minutes. Our name was called a minute after we walked in the store. We walked out, drove back, and…we ate our food. Cold. YIKES!
Not only is this frustrating as a customer, but this is a huge customer service nightmare.
Well, we wrote to Chipotle, asked for a refund, and…we waited. 3 hours later, a Chipotle customer service rep offered to physically mail us coupons for a free meal. It was a nice offer, but it didn’t make us feel any better about the late, cold food order.
So, we asked for a refund again. We didn’t hear from Chipotle until we followed up day later.
We’re sure you can see the customer service cracks. But hey, everyone has their off days, right? Keep the conversation going with customers in your email, phone, and in-person communications when you can.
Unfortunately, we never received a follow-up email directly from a customer service rep after that. An email from a person would have been a nice, personal touch. But we did receive an automated refund notification the next day.
We recommend including a more approachable reply option for customers to email a dedicated customer service address, or even a dedicated ticketing system such as Zendesk or Freshdesk.
Overall, the Chipotle refund email is great for branding and just OK for customer service.
Does Chipotle’s refund email remind you of your own customer follow-up email? Drop us a line and we’ll give you a hand.
Email Marketing Advice from LuckyRedPixel
]]>Email Marketing Advice from LuckyRedPixel
]]>Merge tags you should get used to using are:
*|FNAME|* This shows your recipient’s first name.
*|ARCHIVE|* This creates a view online link for your email.
*|DATE: F j, Y|* This automatically displays the date the email was sent, so you don’t have to update it every time you send a new email. You can change how the date displays with these PHP commands.
What happens if we don’t know our recipient’s first name? Conditional merge tags provide a fallback to help us out in case the list information isn’t readily available.
Hello*|IF:FNAME|* *|FNAME|*,*|ELSE:|* Friend,*|END:IF|*
This code for example, will display “Hello Joe” if you have Joe’s first name, if not, then it’ll display “Hello Friend” and you can change the generic greeting to whatever you like.
Another cool feature with Mailchimp merge tags is adding information related to list location or language. You can instruct Mailchimp to display content in specific languages according to the reader’s language settings, making it a seamless translation.
You can even display customized email content per region. Regional content allows you to cater to customers in different timezones, sending sales and coupons according to location. Customizing content according to region also makes for a great monetization opportunity, so you can work with advertisers and sell ad space per region.
Copy and paste Mailchimp merge tags right from their knowledge base. They’ve got plenty of merge tags to choose from. Here’s a quick link to access the list.
Alternatively, you can add a merge tag by selecting the tag from the toolbar dropdown where it reads “Merge Tags.”
Before sending your email campaign, keep in mind that merge tags won’t appear in the Template Editor. You’ll need to either send yourself a test campaign, or view the template in Preview mode, and then select “Enable live merge tag info” to view the merge tag.
Always, always, always test your email template, including the merge tags, before sending the live campaign to your list.
Mailchimp merge tags make email personalization easy. The tags are a quick and effective way to make your company stand out while connecting with your customers.
Still wondering about Mailchimp merge tags? Drop us a line, and we’ll walk you through it.
Email Marketing Advice from LuckyRedPixel
]]>Email Marketing Advice from LuckyRedPixel
]]>In your Mailchimp dashboard, navigate to “Reports”. The next screen will show you an overview of email campaign reports: a summary of your email campaign, email opens, clicks, and unsubscribes.
Note: Choose your company’s industry in your Mailchimp account to view the industry average open and click rates. Use this as a guide to compare your own list average to the industry average.
Open and click rates are usually the first way to measure campaign success. The higher the open and click rates, the more interested customers are to engage with your product or your brand. BUT if you really want to dig deeper, our favorite hidden feature is Mailchimp’s Click Map.
Here, you can visually see which articles and links are most popular, whether people prefer to click images, text links, or buttons, and see what content is being engaged with the most.
For example, if a button at the top of your email gets more clicks, then move important message buttons higher in the email to increase click rates. Use the Click Map as a guideline for possible email template updates.
On the Overview page, scroll down to see the top links clicked, and the subscribers with most opens. You may use these reports to target specific customers or audiences. Viewing the subscribers with the most opens report really helps target those email addresses, to reach out with sales and revenue opportunities.
Under the Activity dropdown at the top of the Reports Overview page, Unopened reports may help you target an audience that hasn’t yet seen your product or used your services.
Check the Unopened list at least one week after sending the first email campaign. Export the list, and then re-deploy your email campaign for second-chance engagement.
Tweak the subject line – add “REMINDER” or another line to let subscribers know it’s a second email in case they missed your first email.
When Mailchimp can’t deliver emails, these email addresses land in the bounced reports category. There are two types of bounced emails: soft bounce and hard bounce.
A soft bounce means there’s a temporary delivery failure. Your customers’ mailboxes might be full, or email servers might be busy. If email servers receive too many email requests at one time from a single sending address, slowing down your sending queue. Mailchimp will continue attempting to deliver the emails.
If you notice a large amount of soft bounced emails in one campaign, consider redeploying to those email addresses, and throttling future email campaigns. Export the list of users and send a separate campaign.
The next time you send an email to the full email list (if it isn’t particularly time sensitive), throttle the emails to send at a slower rate. Instead of Mailchimp trying to send 100,000 emails all at once, Mailchimp will slow down to a rate such as 1,000 emails per hour.
A hard bounce indicates a permanent delivery failure. That email address doesn’t exist; it might be a typo or an old deleted email address, but the email servers will block if and let Mailchimp know. These usually pop up when someone tries to upload a list of old contacts, or a purchased/scraped list (big no-no, Mailchimp can generally tell when you’re doing this and may flag or ban your account).
If there are only a handful hard bounces that’s usually nothing to worry about, Mailchimp will automatically remove them from your list and won’t send any more emails to those users.
Aim for a deliverability in the high 90 percent range. Your 24-hour reporting performance chart will provide an overview of your email open rate so you can determine the times when people are most engaged with your emails. Consider adjusting your campaign send times based on these reports.
Authenticating your custom domain may also increase email deliverability, making it more likely for emails to land in the inbox instead of the spam folder.
Keep an eye on your abuse report numbers, most email inboxes include a “report as spam” option to report unwanted emails. If too many users flag your emails as spam (this means very likely you’re sending low quality emails, too many emails, or sending to folks who haven’t opted in) Mailchimp may blacklist you if they receive too many abuse reports from your emails sent from their email servers.
Only send to folks who have opted in, and tailor your content to your audience, and always let your list know how they signed up to avoid being flagged.
There’s a lot more to Mailchimp’s reports, if you’d like to dig deeper, we’re here to help. Drop us a line, and we can chat.
Email Marketing Advice from LuckyRedPixel
]]>Email Marketing Advice from LuckyRedPixel
]]>We’ve reviewed one of Credit Karma’s latest holiday email designs. Let’s jump right in to see what they did right and what we recommend tweaking.
Overall, Credit Karma does a good job in getting their point across and keeping the customer involved. The personalization in the subject line and the first line of the email really goes a long way. Be sure to engage your audience for better email deliverability (link once DKIM and SPF post is published) and greater customer satisfaction.
Do you want us to overhaul your email designs? Drop us a line, and let’s chat.
Email Marketing Advice from LuckyRedPixel
]]>Email Marketing Advice from LuckyRedPixel
]]>One of the first things we need to consider is what we want the “From Email Address” to read in our emails. Where are our emails coming from, what do we want our audience to see? If we’re working in Mailchimp, we’ll need to verify our email domain to let Mailchimp know we own the domain, and we’re allowed to send emails on behalf of our domain.
Now we need to verify our DKIM and SPF records with our domain registrar. What might sound complex requires us to adjust a few settings with our domain registrar, confirming that hey, it’s OK for customers to receive emails from this legitimate email address.
DKIM, or DomainKeys Identified Mail, allows you to “sign”your emails with your domain name. As a business owner, your email address would most likely be susie@yourcompany.com, not susie79@gmail.com .Your company email address looks more professional, and your customers are more likely to trust an email from your company domain versus an email from your free Gmail account.
Verify your email address to avoid the spam bin, and to increase deliverability. An unverified email address is more likely to get caught in spam filters since it might be flagged as a phishing attack.
You can tell when a company is sending from an unverified email address by clicking the dropdown to the right of their email address in the “from” field. Check out this email in Gmail.
We see the intended sender address is webkeeper@sandiegozoo.org. However, we see the DKIM was not verified based on the “via mta-bbcspool.convio.net” text.
We want to see “signed-by: yourcompany.com” or “mailed-by: yourcompany.com.”
What’s SPF? Sender Policy Framework. While DKIM allows you to sign your emails from your company email address, SPF allows you to send emails on behalf of your domain, yourcompany.com.
SPF protection makes it easier to land in your audience’s inbox, and less likely to get blacklisted by email spam filters. If your email address does become blacklisted for some reason, most email servers provide a form so you may request your sending IP address to be whitelisted. This verifies that you’re a real person sending emails, not a bot or a phisher.
Reach out to us when you’re ready to update the DKIM and SPF records. We’ll help add these records with your domain registrar (GoDaddy, Bluehost, HostGator).
Mailchimp provides simple documentation to copy and paste into your domain records for DKIM and SPF verification. It may take up to 48 hours for the DKIM and SPF records to update, so be patient! You’ll be sending verified emails for greater email deliverability in no time.
Still scratching your head about DKIM and SPF verification? Drop us a line with your questions. We’re here to help.
Email Marketing Advice from LuckyRedPixel
]]>Email Marketing Advice from LuckyRedPixel
]]>When you log in to your Mailchimp dashboard, you’ll see a few tabs at the top: Campaigns, Templates, Lists (or Audience), Reports, and File Manager.
We’ll focus on the Campaigns tab, but first – if you click on the Templates page, stop right there.
We recommend navigating to the Templates tab only if you want to download a backup copy of your template, just in case (select Templates, click the
Click Campaigns > Create Campaign > Email > Regular (we recommend starting with regular emails at first, then experimenting with A/B testing & automations when you’re more comfortable in Mailchimp) > Enter the Campaign Name. The Campaign Name will be for your team’s internal reference. Your subscriber list will never see this, but make the name descriptive to quickly find it later.
On the next screen, you’ll see a list of items to setup your email campaign. Start from the top: Click “Add Recipients” to the right of the first section, “To.”
Select the list you’re going to send the emails to. Mailchimp prefers you have your audience all on one list (with optional groups and tags for segmentation if you like) this prevents duplicate email addresses and having to make multiple campaigns to send an email to your whole audience.
Next, if you collect First Name data for your list we recommend selecting the “Personalize the “To” field” with the *|FNAME|* Merge Tag.
Instead of sending an email to evan@luckyredpixel.com, Mailchimp will customize this field to pull “Evan” if the first name is included in the list, which looks a lot better from the customer’s standpoint.
Your From Name and Email Address may automatically be filled in automatically, you can update these defaults in your list settings or you can easily change this by clicking “Edit From” and adjusting each field.
We recommend sending from a business name, such as “LuckyRedPixel,” or a person, such as “Evan at LuckyRedPixel.” You can test your From Name with A/B Testing to see which performs better with customer open rates.
Since your From Name and Address will be coming from a business or a person, your reply address should also reflect that, it doesn’t have to be your personal email address, but do make the Reply Name and Address something friendly, such as hello@yourcompany.com or name@yourcompany.com.
Don’t use a noreply@yourcompany.com email address (unless your legal team is particularly insistent on it, financial services for instance) a real, monitored email address is much more welcoming. Customers need an inbox to send their questions to, so make it easy for them to respond to the email.
Since the majority of your subscribers won’t be opening any given email, the largest lever you can pull to engage them is the subject line. The rule of thumb we recommend is: if it takes you 2-3 hours to put together the content of your email, spend at least that much time thinking about a subject line. Most people will just write whatever comes to their mind first, don’t do that!
Write down at least 10, or even up to 20 subject line ideas. Test them out internally, which ones make people smile, generate curiosity, or otherwise stand out? Consider this: if you received this email, would you open this? Think about your audience, who will see this email in their inbox, and what they’re looking for.
Something that is criminally underused are the emojis. Yes, there are the standard goofy faces if you’re into that, but there are also animals, business icons, abstract icons and more. Check out the emojis to select one or a few that best suit your business. For example, if you want to celebrate a new season of sales, use the leaf emoji with a dollar emoji. “Fall into savings with these deals.”
This is another opportunity to use A/B Testing to determine which subject lines perform best in terms of using emojis, the subject length, and description.
If your subject line is the Headline of your email, think of the preview text as the subheading. Many email clients will automatically display the first sentence or so of the body content, before your email is even opened.
Don’t let subscribers see a message such as “View in Browser,” “Images not showing up?” or even the “Unsubscribe” before they even open the email. Enter preview text to further entice subscribers to open the email.
Select Design Email > Saved Templates > Double-click the template you want to use. Mailchimp will open the Campaign Builder in the next screen.
Send yourself a test email to check out the email layout and links. Once everything looks good to go, return to the Campaign Builder page and select Save & Close in the bottom right corner of the page.
Finally, click “Schedule” in the top right corner of the next page. Select a date and time to send the email campaign.
Don’t send the email right away. Schedule the email to deploy first thing in the morning, between 5 and 6 a.m., or right before lunch around 11 a.m. for greater email engagement.
Congrats! You’ve successfully scheduled your email campaign.
Next: Working with your template & Designing a great email!
Email Marketing Advice from LuckyRedPixel
]]>Email Marketing Advice from LuckyRedPixel
]]>ULTA’s email marketing campaigns are pretty consistent – bright, bold, some with animations, and A LOT of customization.
Email branding from top to bottom is key. ULTA takes advantage of dynamic content here, pulling first name and customer reward points at the very top of the email. We’re already excited to keep reading the email because, after all, it was specifically sent to us, right?
Notice the subtle logo animation fading in and out in orange and pink?That’s another nice visual to draw us in right off the bat.
At a quick glance, we can see the entire email is visually-appealing with the pop of color, large text, and other interactive images.
But once we move past the logo, we have a lot of work ahead of us.
Going back to the beginning of the email, customers are diverse in their interests. They may or may not love every product we offer. In this case, ULTA notified us, “They’re in! Haircare picks for you + 20% off!”
However, when we scrolled through the email, there weren’t any haircare picks we were interested in. We’d never purchased hair products from these brands, and we weren’t interested in changing our already-solid haircare routine. At least they didn’t do what Sears did (may they rest in peace) and segment us obnoxiously narrowly.
We recommend for ULTA to keep the subject line broad enough to apply to anyone who opens the email. Something like, “They’re in! Best haircare picks this season + 20% off!” might be better to reach a broader audience.
Otherwise, ULTA could segment their emails based on previous purchases. That might be a lot more work than necessary for a subject line, but the body of the email would be more relevant.
Here’s the other kicker: the majority of ULTA’s emails are image-based. YIKES! An email loaded with images will surely slow down loading time. Get ready to open and wait…
Steer clear of including too many images in an email template. About half of all email service providers block images by default, so customers won’t see anything in an image-heavy email unless they enable the images first.
The other item to note is the coupon code was clickable in the first email, so we could easily copy and paste the code at checkout.
But in this second email, we’re going to jump through a few hoops to get that $3.50 off our purchase. What will it be…memorize it or write down the code on paper? Type it in our browser bar? If we click on it, it takes us to a printable coupon, still not what we want.
Make it easy for customers. They might lose interest if there are too many steps to follow, leading to a deleted email, or worse – an unsubscribe.
Including more text in an email allows customers to search for that same email later. They might not immediately need a discount off their purchase right now, but they’ll search for it later when they’re online filling up their shopping cart, or in the store filling up their shopping bag.
In this case, you unfortunately won’t be able to find that promo code or that Neutrogena face mask when you search for it in your inbox.
Kudos for ULTA including a clickable promo code in this second email. The more text you include in an email, the better the searchability.
Back to the positives – ULTA keeps its branding consistent beginning with the header, right down to the footer. ULTA sprinkles in some more customization further down in the email with a “your nearest store” section, giving us an easy way to find and call our local ULTA store (though it’s showing the wrong store, an easy way to update preferences here would be nice).
When it comes to the email footer, most brands include legal language and that’s pretty much it, essentially abandoning this email real estate.
ULTA goes the extra mile with its playful text, “So, here’s the pretty fine print:”, adding an image of smeared and crushed makeup below the text to remind us, even at the very end, “Hey, this is ULTA.”
We’ll remain subscribed to ULTA’s emails, even if we have a few suggestions. :)
THE GOOD
THE BAD
We’ll remain subscribed to ULTA’s emails, even if we have a few suggestions. :)
Does ULTA’s email remind you of your own? Drop us a line and we’ll give you a hand.
Email Marketing Advice from LuckyRedPixel
]]>Email Marketing Advice from LuckyRedPixel
]]>You’ll build that relationship, invest time in it, and learn more about that person. That’s exactly what a great welcome email does for your company.
A welcome email can make or break your relationship with customers. It’s their first impression of your company. They’ll decide “This is great!” or “I don’t think this will work” based on the very first email you send.
Many companies entice customers to sign up by presenting them with something they’ll value. Make sure you send that discount or freebie in their welcome email.
Not sure what to offer? Here are a few ideas:
If you ask customers for their first name, use it for a custom greeting! If you ask for other details (ie: men’s clothing, closest retail store location, etc.), include that information in the email.
This lifts engagement rates; personalizing email subject lines can increase open rates by 50% and lead to 58% higher click-to-open rates (MarketingDive.com).
We see this all too often – companies who ask for information BUT THEY DON’T USE IT. Don’t be that company. Welcome your new customer by his or her name. “Hi, Mary” is a warmer opening than a generic “Hi, new customer.”
That gift you promised? Deliver it to your customers immediately. Customers crave instant gratification. If you wait too long to send an offer, then your customers will be frustrated and move on to the next place, especially if they’re waiting on it before they buy something.
Set up an email automation to send the welcome email immediately after a customer signs up for your email list.
Introduce your product, your business services, or the best of your blog. Whatever it is you’re showcasing, place it in the welcome email header, the body, and the footer.
Customers visit your site searching for something: a service, a connection, something you can help them with. Your welcome email – your hi, nice to meet you – should explain that.
Present the information clearly. Customers need to understand your message quickly, otherwise they might lose interest and wonder why they’re receiving your email in the first place.
You sent the freebie. Now what? Guide them in their next step.
Direct customers to your website to read your expert blog. Link to your social media accounts or contact information so customers can hire you for a service.
If you have frequently asked questions or a more complicated product, you can even set up a series of welcome emails to educate and encourage your customers over a few days or even a few weeks.
An email series also reminds customers why they signed up so they can get a good idea of who you are and what you can do to help them.
Let the welcome email automation take care of the heavy lifting so you can focus more on what you do best: building your business and interacting with customers.
Want help setting up your welcome email? Let us know. We’re here to help.
Email Marketing Advice from LuckyRedPixel
]]>Email Marketing Advice from LuckyRedPixel
]]>We took time to put the same care into his emails that Simon puts into his talks. Let’s dive right in!
Would you like us to overhaul your email designs? Drop us a line, and let’s chat.
Email Marketing Advice from LuckyRedPixel
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