We’ve compared SMS text messaging and email marketing before, with advice on the best situations to use each.

But mobile marketing involves more than just SMS. Thanks to smartphones, your mobile marketing can have a wider reach in a number of mobile channels across apps, location-based services, email, mobile search and more.

Let’s take a look at other ways you can market your business mobile-ly.

Mobile Email

Thanks to mail apps on smartphones, email accessed on mobile devices has seen up to 53% higher click through rates than email accessed on a desktop computer. With email more accessible than ever, it’s important to make sure your messages are readable on a smaller screen.

An email that’s not optimized for mobile. Text is too small to read and links are too tiny to “click” with a finger.

An email that is optimized for mobile. Text is easier to read, and more whitespace makes links easier to tap on.

The rise in mobile email also means your messages can be more timely than ever. When your local customers receive your weekly coupon in their inboxes, there’s now a higher chance that they may be just down the street from your storefront when they see your email on their phone.

Take advantage of mobile email with these tips from our blog:
Optimizing Email for Mobile Devices
Mobile Email Design Tips

Mobile Sites And Apps

Mobile sites tie in with mobile-friendly emails. If you’re establishing a mobile presence, make sure it’s easy for visitors to access and read on smaller screens.

If your website is hosted on WordPress, you already have a mobile version that automatically displays when a visitor views your site on their mobile phone. WordPress also offers additional plugins to further customize the look of your mobile-friendly site.

Apps can be a handy alternative to a mobile site. But don’t just create an app for the sake of having an app. Your app should offer some kind of value to your customer, giving them a good reason to want to download it.

However, you can include your establishment’s contact information, an email signup form, a mobile version of your website and even some helpful videos to make your app useful to your customers.

Resources for creating your own app or mobile site:
8 Tools for Easily Creating a Mobile Version of Your Website
10 Great Tools to Create a Mobile Version of Your Site
14 DIY Mobile App Development Resources for Small Businesses
How to Build a Mobile App for Your Small Business

Location-Based Check-ins

Apps like Foursquare allow mobile users to check into their favorite venues and rack up points. Foursquare is great for exposure across your customers’ social networks, but you also have the opportunity to reward them for their loyalty.

Foursquare for Business lets business owners offer specials when a visitor checks into your venue – like $10 off a purchase on your 5th check-in or a free round of drinks when you check in with 5 friends.

You can tie your check-in deals to your email campaign. Update your deals once a month (or more, if you prefer) and email your subscribers with the new coupon info. You can even offer your email subscribers a deeper discount: “Show us this email when you check in for an extra 5% off your purchase.” What a great way to reward your loyal customers and your email subscribers!

And you don’t need a physical storefront to market your brand to mobile users on Foursquare. Take a look at what Time Out New York, an entertainment publication, did with their account. Build a list of important places that represent your brand and encourage followers to check in there to unlock special badges from your business to continue promoting your brand name.

Geo-Targeted Ads

Geo-targeted ads are powerful marketing tools on mobile devices. Someone using their phone to search for local services will find you more easily when your ad is displayed as a sponsored search result at the top of their browser.

The next time an out-of-town visitor searches for restaurants in your city, or the best place to get a haircut, or emergency pet care, or whatever keywords are associated with your business, your targeted ad will display in their search results. And you’ll be a short walk or drive away from fulfilling their needs.

Get started with geo-targeting:
How to Geo-target with Google AdWords
A Guide to More Mobile Ad Networks

Real-Life Examples Of Mobile-Friendly Brands

Mobile-friendly email trends include companies embracing minimal text with bigger buttons and images – easier for a finger to “click”.

Here are three brands with super user-friendly mobile emails:

Live Better America uses a thin template with image blocks that are easier to tap than text links.

Fab uses more text, but it’s big and easy to read.

Lowe’s has simple top navigation, big text and big buttons that’s perfect for interacting with on a small cell phone screen.

What’s Your Mobile Strategy?

Mobile marketing is about being immediately relevant. Making yourself visible locally in these channels will help people find your business more easily the next time they’re looking for what you have to offer.

How do you use email and mobile marketing together? Have any of these techniques worked for you? Will you rely on SMS marketing, or try some newer mobile technology? Do you use our Call Loop integration to tie your mobile campaign to your email campaign?

This post was written by Mikita Mikado, the COO and Co-Founder of Quote Roller.

As the result of one email, we have acquired 30% more paid users and increased our monthly revenue by 25%. How, you ask?

Let’s Start With A Little Background…

At the end of the last year, Quote Roller decided to switching from its freemium-based business model to a trial-based subscription. The reason was simple – we didn’t have enough cash flow to grow and to deliver superb experience to our users.

As a company, we try to be as open as possible with our clients. When we decided to announce that we were moving from a free to a paid subscription service, we started a thread on our blog. As a result of this announcement, we had 200 emails and blog comments in a matter of weeks.

We really appreciated that so many of our clients took the time to send us emails with their ideas, concerns and expectations because, after that feedback, it became clear that the suggested pricing model just wouldn’t work.
Once we reworked the numbers, we posted another blog post, but this time also emailed out a newsletter, ensuring the engagement of even more users, who’d probably missed the first announcement. The new numbers suited our customers’ expectations much more.

But those were just the customers we’d heard from. We still had a huge user base of free users who hadn’t responded to either of our campaigns.

So We Ran A Test

What if we said the free plan was to be discontinued? How many people would really bother to convert to paid users? We were not killing the free plan entirely, since the old users were to be grandfathered into it.

So for our test, we sent out very short email, which appeared to be sent to each customer personally:

Dear Andrew,
Here is Mikita from www.quoteroller.com you’ve signed up for. In case you forgot what it is Quote Roller helps to create sales proposals online.
We plan to discontinue the free plan. I wonder if you’re still interested to use the application.
A lot of things have changed in the app. I’d really appreciate if you can give it another look.
I’d love to provide you with 50% discount in case you decide to continue using the app.
Please let me know if you’d like to keep the account.

The open rate was three times higher than our other newsletters. We sent about 10,000 emails to test this approach and got more 1,000 replies – a rate of more than 10%!

The Results

We chose to use customer feedback to adjust our business model, and that choice:

1. Helped to sell over 300 paid subscriptions.
2. Helped us get honest feedback from customers on what they needed from our product in order to justify the price.
3. Brought in lots of feedback on why they were on the free plan and hadn’t upgraded before.
4. Taught us so much more about our customers!

We kept everyone who asked for it on the free plan. We also got three clients to blog about Quote Roller in exchange for a year of free paid subscription. Pretty darn good results from just one email!

Since then, we’ve been using email as the primary tool to let our customers prioritize our pipeline. As it happens with most startups, we’re used to arguing in-house about what features to build now and what to postpone. After our experiments last year, now we rely more on client feedback by creating quick surveys, asking clients to pick three out of the 12 items they feel are most important.

We are blown away by the responses and suggestions our clients have contributed. The most important features were actually easier to build than the complicated ideas we’d first scheduled on our own.

We’ve learned that email continues to be best way to reach customers when done right. It’s so easy and cost-effective to implement email marketing, and the results can be tremendous. And we’ve learned that asking your customers is a great way to move forward, and doing it via email can achieve better results quicker.

Mikita Mikado is a technology entrepreneur and surfer, whose mantra is quite simple – “Getting Shit Done.” Mikita is an innovator and old-school paperwork hater. Now, he has set his sights on disrupting the proposal industry with innovative paperless solution called Quote Roller.

Email marketing and social media together are powerful tools for building a following for your business. But how can they help you as a local small business owner?

Welcome to the tribe mentality. Your tribe is a fiercely loyal following of customers who are excited about your business.

Using the connecting power of social media and the communication power of email, you can effectively build your following where it matters most – right in your own community.

Start Offline

Building a “tribe” means building relationships with your customers. Email campaigns and social networks extend your reach to locals who might not have noticed your business before. But that doesn’t mean you can give up building relationships in person.

Get involved in community events. Growing a local business is about getting to know the people who support you. Set up a table at the annual street fair. Arrange events with other shop owners on your block. The more relationships you can build in your community, the more buzz your business will get.

Get Social

Social networks have the power of connecting people to each other – and if some of those people happen to be talking about your business, that helps create a bigger fan base for you.

Building a tribe means connecting people who are most passionate about your business with each other. As Seth Godin mentions, “It gives them a story to tell and something to talk about.” And social media talk = free buzz for your business.

What stories will you give people to tell? Here are a few ideas bound to get people fired up and wanting to support you:

Share Your Successes

Whether it’s winning a local competition or breaking an awesome sales goal, share it on your social networks so your customers can see what they’ve helped you achieve (and spread the buzz themselves!)

Lucky’s Last Chance, the People’s Choice Award winning burger joint in Manayunk, Philadelphia, PA

Share Insider Secrets

Nothing gets a fan base fired up more than a sneak peek at insider info. Beauty subscription service Birchbox knows this, and knows how to build up buzz with anticipation:

Share Your Customers’ Stories

Did a customer send you some positive feedback? Quote it on your social networks. Has your establishment done something to make a customer’s day better? Brag a little bit. This shows your human side and builds your cred when others see how much you value your customers. Who wouldn’t want to support a business like that?

Wexford Jewelers congratulates a new couple who got engaged with one of their rings.

Tie It Together With Email

Social media connects your customers to each other around your brand. Email connects you directly to your customers.

Email encourages loyalty from your customers. Someone who found you on a social network or stumbled across your storefront on a Saturday afternoon might not feel inclined to buy from you. But when you’re in their inbox regularly, customers who might otherwise have been one-time visitors will remember you first the next time they’re ready to buy something.

Your email campaign can also tell your business’s story to further connect with new customers. Write a welcome email that personally introduces you or your staff. Talk about how you got here and why. Let them in on a personal level.

Telling your story can even be as simple as using inviting language. DailyCandy is great at this, gushing about things they love and want to share with you, too.

Sharing your story can even be as simple as injecting a little personality into your emails. Shanalogic always includes a small anecdote from the owner:

Your Brand Is Your Community

Making your brand a community unites your customers. Who doesn’t want to be a part of something? And ideally, they’ll invite more people to join them.

What are some ways you’ve built a community around your own business? How has it worked for you?

It’s easy to find tips on how to improve your marketing, but it’s not as easy to find tips that you can easily apply today. Of course you want to do whatever it takes to see better results with your email marketing campaign, but you only have so many hours to work on it.

Today, we’re guiding you through 10 ways you can improve your account NOW. In fact, most of you will be able to have this done by lunch.

1. Make Sure Your Sign Up Form Mentions Your Email List

Do you offer a free guide or other material to visitors who fill out your form? If so, make sure you highlight that it’s a bonus – the emails are the real reason they should be signing up.

Why do this: If people aren’t 100% sure what will happen when they give you their information, that puts you at risk for spam complaints or people who simply aren’t going to read your emails, both of which can cause problems with getting your emails delivered.

How to do it in AWeber: All you need to do is make the change on the Web Forms page in your account. It will automatically update if you use the Javascript snippet on your site. If you used the raw HTML, you should change the form in your account, but you’ll need to repaste the code in your website. Before you do, make sure you take care of #2 and #3 on this list, as they also require changes in this section.

2. Change That “Submit” button

Most sign up forms have a button that says “Submit” for when visitors are finished entering their information. Nothing wrong with it. It gets the job done. But it could be something else, too.

Why change it: Small changes, especially with the words you use in your call to action, can make a big difference. For example:

Visual Website Optimizer published this test by Veeam. “Request pricing” brought in a 161.6% increase in clicks. Veeam surveyed their audience and found that most people wanted an easier way to find pricing on the site. This test confirmed by changing “quote” to “pricing” that people were looking for that word.

How to do it in AWeber: Make the changes in the Web Forms page in your account. It will automatically update if you use the Javascript snippet on your site. If you used the raw HTML, you should change the form in your account, but you’ll need to repaste the code in your website.

3. Let Visitors Know The Form Submission Was Successful

After someone submits their information in your form, something has to happen. If the page simply reloads, that can be confusing. Did the form work? Make sure it’s clear to new subscribers they have successfully submitted their information.

Why this is important: You want to keep people interacting with your website, but not at the expense of having them try to submit their information multiple times. You can create a special page just for new submissions. It doesn’t need a lot of copy; just enough to explain what happened.

How to do it in AWeber: You can enter the URL of a custom thank-you or landing page in Step 2 of the Web Forms page. If you can’t quickly create your own page, use one of ours. Full instructions available here.

4. Send Subscribers To A Custom Confirmation Success page

People just added to your list will get a confirmation message. They are required to click a link to confirm they want to receive your emails and that link has to do something.

Why a custom page: They just confirmed, so they’re obviously interested. Take advantage of that! Tim Carter did… and got profits climbed over $11,000 in 16 months.

How to do it in AWeber: First, create a page just for this and then enter the URL of that page in the List Settings of your account.

5. Include Social Sharing Buttons In Your Emails

Social media has made it so referrals are no longer done on a one-to-one basis, but a one-to-hundreds basis or even more. You should make it easy for them to accomplish this.

Why social sharing buttons: With just a click, people can share your emails on the social media platform of their choice. It’s free advertising for you!

How to do it in AWeber: In the drag-and-drop message editor, just drop in the “Sharing” icon, pick which networks you want to include and indicate what you’d like to have shared (the email or a custom link). Read step-by-step instructions here.

6. Include A Link To A Web Version For All Emails

You’ve probably noticed at the top of some of the emails your receive a link that says something like “View in browser.” That link allows you to view the email as a web page.

Why it’s good to have: Some people prefer to click on that rather than turn on images in their email. If it’s important they see all the content you have presented, it’s good to offer this option.

How to do it in AWeber: Use the Personalization button in the drag-and-drop editor and select “Archived Web Version” or insert {!archive_url} as the link for the “View online here” text.

7. Link Your Blog To Your Email List

Instead of taking the time to create both a blog post and an email from scratch, you can set it up so your blog posts get turned into emails automatically. You can then set it up so the emails are sent automatically or you can go in and add some things before sending.

Why this is great: Doing this will ensure content will be sent to your subscribers regardless of how busy your life is. It’s incredibly easy to set up and people that use this feature report it brings more traffic to their website.

How to do it in AWeber: This feature is called the “Blog Broadcast” and it can be found under the Messages tab. Full instructions are detailed here.

8. Include A Sign Up Form In Your Archive

An archive lets you store as many emails as you want in one place and visitors can click to see your emails as web pages. You can include a sign up form on your archive page so visitors can also sign up to receive your emails.

Here’s what it looks like:

Why this is a must: If people are visiting your archive, they must be interested in your content. If they like what they see, they’ll want to sign up. Instead of directing them to click on a bunch of links before getting to a sign up form, reduce the barriers by letting them do it right there.

How to do it in AWeber: In the List Settings of your account, there’s a checkbox to include a form in your archive. You can find more details about setting up the archive here.

9. Send An Email To People Not Opening

Not everyone will open your emails, but it doesn’t mean they aren’t interested. Fortunately, you can send a reminder email to people who haven’t opened as a way to get them caught up.

Why you should do this: It’s pretty much guaranteed to boost your results. Different time zones, schedules and other factors may cause someone not to open your email the first time, but sending another one on a different day and time could do the trick. You’re bound to catch some of the ones you missed the first time.

How to do it in AWeber: When you open a sent broadcast, you have the option to look at unopens. From here, you can click to send an email to these subscribers, and this will take you to the message editor. This new email will be pre-set to send to unopens only. Full instructions here.

10. Put Your Brand On Everything

Every page and every email you control gives you the opportunity to put your logo up for people to see. Make sure you do it!

Why this is important: You want people to be able to easily recognize your business instantly. People like familiarity; if your brand becomes familiar, they’re more likely to be loyal.

How to do this in AWeber: For your archive and unsubscribe pages, you can set this up in the List Settings page. For emails, use the drag-and-drop editor to drop in your logo and it will also be saved in your gallery.

Now Go Do It!

It’s great that you’re reading what you should be doing, but the actual results come from doing the work. You know what you need to do – so do it!

My own first foray into email was producing newsletters for The Industry Standard back in ’99 — the year after AWeber launched. And when you’ve been around that long (email, not me), there just aren’t a whole lot of newsy, flashy angles.

But you know what’s more important than splashy headlines? Bottom lines.

Email + Social = Biggest Impact

Business results are why we keep talking about, and using, email. These days, email is way more powerful when it’s properly integrated with social media, not seen as an afterthought or a channel to be managed separately.

If you’re into things like growing your audience, cultivating stronger relationships with customers, and increasing sales and ROI, then you’re going to love this.

We’ve teamed up with digital marketing maestro and author Jason Falls for a brand new special report on the subject.

Email & Social: The Powerful Pair digs into three key integration points, with real cases and examples to help you make your email and social media work together better. And it’s 100% free. Not even a registration form, just download it and put it to work!

Download the guide

Bonus: Live Hangout with Jason Falls

In keeping with the social theme, Jason will be joining us for a live Google Hangout on Thursday, May 16 from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. EDT.

We’ll talk about integrating email and social media, explore the latest ideas and trends, and get your thoughts on what is and isn’t working for you. All you need to bring is your questions, webcam and Google+ account.

For a Hangout reminder, add AWeber to your Google+ circles and say hi. And while you’re there, post your feedback about the new special report!

“To lightbox or not to lightbox, that is the question.”
- Shakespeare’s most over-adapted (because it’s perfect) quote

You’re browsing a site and suddenly, a form pops up in your face, blocking the page with an offer you didn’t ask for.

Obnoxious, right? But plenty of sites use lightboxes to request email subscriptions. The common explanation: “They’re annoying, but they work.”

But how is this possible? We’ve got proof from a customer who tested them for herself.

We Were Amazed When We Saw Her Results

Nikki McGonigal is a full-time crafter and blogger with an Etsy shop full of handmade accessories and a site called Nikki, In Stitches.

She sends emails notifying subscribers of fun ideas, new product announcements and the occasional freebie. We were talking with her about her emails when she mentioned her lightbox subscriptions.

She uses both a lightbox and a static sidebar form. The lightbox pops up once every 60 days per site visitor, at a delay of 2 seconds. The inline form is always visible.

Nikki’s Sidebar Form

Nikki’s Lightbox

Both forms went up on the site in late August of 2012. Eight months later, these are her results:

The lightbox drove an enormous 1,375% more sign ups than the sidebar form. (Did you see that? 1,375% more!)

Goes to show that getting results doesn’t always mean being polite. If you don’t have a lightbox on your site yet, you may want to reconsider.

It’s important to consider that the forms, though nearly identical, are not quite. The logo visible near the sidebar form is placed directly on the lightbox and the intro text is slightly tweaked.

However, these differences are so negligible that the forms’ placement is by far the most significant difference, and therefore the one responsible for the bulk, if not all, of the difference in sign-up rates.

Getting A Lightbox On Your Site

Just so you know, lightboxes like Nikki’s are super easy to put on your site in AWeber: just selecting an option in the web form generator.

In fact, you can have an entire form built and on your site in 8 clicks and a copy-and-paste. Take a look at the process.

If You’re Not Emailing Yet…

If you haven’t started a newsletter yet because you’re not sure how to drum up an audience, we say take Nikki’s lead and get a lightbox on your site.

Our CS team will walk you through it (let them know you’d like help here), though it’s so easy you probably won’t need them to. Register here to get started.

Mmm… spam. Gmail’s got some tasty recipes to make with the email spam you receive.

And it all started 35 years ago today. Today’s the 35th anniversary of the first spam email that ever got sent – to a list of about 300 people.

Spam is still an email plague today. But consumers tend to think of spam a little differently than marketers do. To marketers, spam is simply unsolicited email. If you send a marketing message to someone who didn’t opt into your list, that’s spam.

To consumers, spam is any email they don’t want – whether they opted in or not.

You don’t want to be considered a spammer – especially if you’re not really spamming. So for the 35th anniversary of the spam email, we’ve got a comic illustrating the 5 reasons people might mark your email as spam – and how you can fix it.

#1: They Forgot That They Ever Signed Up

Your Reader:
Signed up to your list, then didn’t hear anything from you for a while. A long while. So long that they actually forgot they signed up (which, in the Internet world, doesn’t really take that long).

By the time an email from you finally hits their inbox, they don’t even remember who you are or that they requested your emails.

You:
Should whip up a welcome email to send as soon as readers confirm to your list. And maybe set up a quick follow up series too, with 3 or 4 messages spaced a week apart.

If you’re sending a monthly newsletter, make sure to mention your frequency everywhere – on your sign up form, on your thank you page, in your welcome email, at the end of your welcome series. The more readers are exposed to your schedule, the more they’ll remember it – and you – when their first monthly email arrives.

#2: They Don’t Recognize The Sender Name

Your Reader:
Signed up for emails from XYZ Company. So who is this Mr. A and Mrs. B who keep emailing them, and how did they get their address in the first place?

You:
Should keep your From name recognizable and consistent. The best solution? Use your company or blog name. Readers are sure to recognize that every time they see it.

If you need to change your From name for some reason, use this advice to give your customers a heads up first.

#3: Too Many Emails!

Your Reader:
Has inbox overload, and the 75th email from your business this week was the final straw!

You:
Shouldn’t be so over-eager. Consumers receive about 5 marketing emails per day, in addition to emails from friends, family and colleagues. The last thing they want is three emails a day from you, too.

If you’re having trouble finding the right frequency, do you and your readers a favor and let them choose their own email schedule.

#4: Your Emails Are Different From What You Promised

Your Reader:
Signed up for your Bacon Recipe Of The Week email list, because he’s drooling for some sweet bacon recipes. So what’s up with all the asparagus recipes he’s getting with his bacon recipes?

You:
Should stick to sending what you promised. If you promised bacon recipes, send bacon recipes. If you promised store coupons, send store coupons.

You might get tempted to add your subscribers to a different list – like sending them your blog emails after they’ve signed up for weekly coupon deals to your Etsy shop. Don’t do that. You’ll get marked as spam every time.

If you want to advertise a separate list, dedicate a small section at the end of your email or in a side bar to let people know you have more content to share. But don’t send them something they’re not expecting – and didn’t sign up for.

#5: Where’s The Unsubscribe Link?

Your Reader:
…just wants off your list. But your email is really long and the unsubscribe link is all the way at the bottom in a tiny font. This spam button here at the top is really big and easy to click and does the trick right away.

You:
Should move your unsubscribe link to the top. Above your header. No, seriously. It works, your readers appreciate the easy out and you don’t get slammed with false spam accusations.

Share This Comic!

Anniversaries are for gifting, right? Share this comic with your friends and save them from spam complaints too!

Share on:

Do you have other ways of making sure your readers don’t accidentally report you as spam? Share them in the comments!

Imagine this: It’s your birthday. You check your email and see a message from your bank. “Happy Birthday from Capital One 360!” says the subject line.

Lots of businesses send out birthday greeting to their customers, often with coupons or free offers. Hey, maybe the bank is giving my savings account some extra interest!

Of course, that’s not what banks do for birthdays. And while I appreciated the thought from Capital One, their birthday email got a couple of things wrong. If you’re thinking of launching a birthday campaign, learn from this big brand’s mistakes.

First, One Thing They Got Right

Here’s the whole email:

The one thing I like about it and have to give them props for? Their cheerful tone. It’s cute and light without deviating from their brand. And it’s appropriate for a birthday wish.

Now, onto the not-so-good things.

Fail #1 – The Video

I’m a marketing nerd (you kind of have to be to blog about email marketing as your full-time job!). So I got kind of excited to see Capital One integrating video with their birthday wish. I was curious to see what they’d do.

I clicked the link and pressed “play.” I hadn’t read the YouTube description yet. And an inspirational message about the importance of happiness unfurled across the screen, stop-motion style.
Okay, this is kind of cool. When do we get to the birthday part? Wait, we don’t? Then I read the description:

“This short video stems from our list of Savers Resolutions, where the number one resolution is: We will spend more time with the people in our lives who matter most – and spend less money on things that really don’t matter at all.”

It wasn’t a birthday video at all! It’s just something they recycled from a previous campaign.

Now, I’m all for repurposing content. But this is the wrong way to do it. At least edit the YouTube description with a “Happy Birthday” wish. Or upload a new version of the same video with “We wish you happiness on your birthday,” tacked on as the last frame. Give it something to make it relevant to my day!

Fail #2 – So Impersonal

The second fail is probably worse than the first – the sign-off. “Enjoy many more, Saver.”

“Saver?” Really? May I direct your attention to my first name in the opening? Clearly they know who I am.

This email would have been much better off with a personalized closing. “Enjoy your day, Rebekah.” There. Was that so hard?

You’re wishing me a happy birthday and my name isn’t “Saver.”

What’s The Lesson?

Personal communication goes a long way in making your customers feel valued, especially in a birthday greeting.

There was nothing personal about this email, aside from the fact that my date of birth is in their system. It’s not always just the thought that counts. A little personalization – and a quick and simple tweak to their video – would have saved this email.

What about you? Have you received a half-hearted birthday greeting from a company? Are you guilty of maybe sending something like this yourself? What did you learn from the experience?

We’ve talked about a lot of marketing trends this spring, from whitespace to long scrolling ads to other trends that are catching on.

Maybe you’re ready for a complete overhaul of your emails by now. But don’t jump in full-force just yet. It’s polite to give your readers a heads-up first that things are going to change so they don’t feel disoriented.

Here are two quick tips to keep in mind before freshening up your look.

Sprucing Up Your Content?

When concert venue Union Transfer revamped their concert updates, they let subscribers in on their plan that includes a fresh layout and more engaging content.

This email is great for a few reasons:

First, asking for feedback makes readers feel more in control. If they don’t like the design or find it harder to read, they have a better option that simply unsubscribing from emails they liked.

Second, it gets people excited! Who doesn’t look forward to cool, new features and surprises in their inboxes?

Third, it engages people on multiple channels. Union Transfer gets to learn about their readers as they invite feedback on Facebook.

In your own campaign…
Be aware that your readers might be startled by a drastic visual change. Make it something they’ll look forward to, and get them involved with feedback.

Adjusting Your Frequency?

ModCloth announced their Weekly Wow with a special header detailing their new frequency so subscribers know what to expect.

Frequency changes are tricky – it gets into what you promised your readers from the beginning and what they’re expecting from you now. That doesn’t mean you can’t make a change, though.

ModCloth handled their update perfectly by giving their readers a heads up and telling them how they can change their email preferences if they want.

Not all email services offer the “preference center” ModCloth mentions. If yours doesn’t, you can still give your readers frequency options, following steps outlined in this post.

In Your Own Campaign…
Let your readers choose, especially if you’re making a change that breaks their original expectations. When you give people options, they’ll feel better about the change you’re making.

Freshening Your Look?

Have you freshened up your campaign? How did you alert your subscribers? Share your stories below!

Corey Koehler didn’t plan on making music his career. He was the guy that picked up the guitar by the campfire for fun, but his friends saw talent and encouraged him to record. He now has a full schedule of shows and music sales on his website. Smart email marketing helped get him where he is today.

Why Email Marketing?

“Somewhere along the line, I heard the phrase ‘the money is in the list.’ Once I had a deeper understanding of what it meant both monetarily and for relationship building, it was a no-brainer,” says Corey.

Overall, Corey wanted to use email to help better establish his audience. Musicians especially rely on a loyal audience to thrive and email is perfect for cultivating that audience. Corey explained, “I want to be as authentic and as open as possible while keeping an eye on sound marketing practices.”

Corey knew he had to both attract subscribers and keep those subscribers interacting with his site and music. There are three important things he did to reach these goals: set up a pop up form, make the welcome message more clear and send emails to people who were not opening.

The Tried-and-True Pop-Up

If you’ve been reading marketing blogs and case studies for awhile, you’ve probably come across a pop-up form success story. For those of you who haven’t heard of them, pop-up forms appear above the web page and visitors can either close out the box or fill it out. Why do these forms do so well? Most likely because:

• They focus visitors’ attention on the form. Some types, like the one Corey uses, will even gray out the rest of the page.
• Visitors are forced to take some sort of action when the form appears.
• Unlike pop-up ads, which might not be relevant to the website, these forms offer more information on something the visitor appears to be interested in.

Since Corey put the form up, there has been an 80% increase in subscribers.

This graph shows the growth on Corey’s list for the past year and at what point the results were affected by the pop-up.

Another factor for growth rate is whether or not subscribers stay on the list; if you have a high turnover rate you won’t see as much growth. The next two things help Corey keep subscribers on his list.

A Welcome Message Remodel

The welcome email can do great things, and when Corey asked me to look at his, I was eager to share my thoughts.

The welcome email is the first email a subscriber will get. A good welcome email should:
1. Deliver on any promises you made at sign up (like free downloads).
2. Reiterate what subscribers will get out of your emails.
3. Set expectations for future emails and how often you plan to send.

Corey’s email did the first item, but left out the rest. His email was also all text, making it harder to skim. Here’s what I recommended:

• Use a template to make the email more visually appealing and keep the width contained to less than 600 pixels. Anything over will most likely get cut off on subscribers’ screens.
• Add images to break up the text monotony and make the email less intimidating to look at.
• Add the welcoming text I described earlier.
• Make the links stand out so people know what to click on.
• Include a photo in the signature to make the email from a real person.
• Add social media buttons to get people to spread the word.

Here’s what the updated email looks like:

This email has brought in almost 20% more clickthroughs than the previous version.

Success With Sending To Specific Groups

Corey often sends emails to subscribers who haven’t opened a particular email. “For larger campaigns, I send an email broadcast on a Monday morning, then send the “unopens” the same email on a Wednesday evening and then the remaining “unopens” on a Saturday or Sunday morning when they may have some extra time to sit down and read the email with a cup of coffee,” says Corey.

Corey set up like this because he believes that what time you receive an email will affect what you do with it. He’s not alone. Laura Vanderkam talked on Money Watch about how her emails get open more on Sunday afternoons.

The Marketing Experiments blog also talks about timing and how it all depends on your industry. Copyblogger takes a similar approach, calling across-the-board rules on timing “B.S.”

Based on all these sources, it’s really about finding what works best for you.

Corey reports this tactic has nearly doubled his open and click rates compared to past campaigns. Here’s a look at how one of these Monday-Wednesday-weekend sends turned out:

Notice that the second send brings in the most new opens. If you’re looking to boost response rates, consider sending to unopens at least once.

The Benefits of Email Marketing

“The biggest thing for me has been the relationship building,” Corey said. “As a musician, it’s very powerful for me to be able to be accessible and have an ongoing, open dialogue with people who can relate to my music.”

“For example, I recently had a women reply to an email to tell me that my music was helping her get through chemotherapy. Sure, this sort of thing happens without an email marketing mechanism in place, but it is a hell of a lot easier for someone wanting to reach out to hit ‘reply’ and send a message than it is to hunt down contact information.”

“In addition to that, it has helped me gauge the success of my marketing efforts and create a recurring stream of revenue – which, for musicians, is not the easiest thing to do these days.”

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