Let me just get this out there as quickly as I can. I don’t like change very much. Never have and probably never will. This may come as a shock since my background includes working for 15 years in the information technology industry and change on a weekly or monthly basis was a given.
Being a virtual assistant, change is common because there are always new programs to learn and upgrades to be done. But I suffer from upgradeaphoebia and seriously, it’s a wonder I ever upgrade anything. Sometimes I have to upgrade in order to accommodate something I need or want and in these cases I don’t really mind. But other times, when I am forced to upgrade for the sake of it or because it’s pushed upon me (Windows Vista anyone?), then the horns start growing, the vein pops out, and my teeth start gnashing. Ok, I guess I am not that bad, but pretty close.
How did I get this bad? I used to be a superstar during my first job as a word processor back in the late 80’s. Using a 286 with MS-DOS, I used to create custom menus in my autoexec.bat file, I learned all the cool tips for ‘Q&A’ and ‘WordPerfect’, and I was the only word processor who downloaded soft fonts to my printer so that my letters beamed with the professionalism of Times Roman while others still used Courier fonts. I was so high speed!
Years later and working as an IT specialist, I couldn’t begin to count the number of upgrades, rollouts, repairs, or patches I’ve done. Technology is exponential; everything from hardware, software, and tech gadgets has a short life because not only do we want the latest and greatest, but one has to keep up or else you are left with an obsolete [insert name here].
This is especially tough for those of us who work online because we are our own IT department. We have to learn it, use it, support it, and troubleshoot it. Just when I would feel comfortable with a particular piece of hardware or software, I would get the upgrade notice. Argh!
I have learned over the years that it doesn’t have to be painful. Follow these tips to make sure your next upgrade is as pain-free as possible:
Do some research. Do not wait until you’ve already upgraded your operating system to find out it is not compatible with your favorite web editing program. Go the manufacturer’s website to check the compatibility list. If there is none listed, contact the manufacturer directly to see if compatible drivers will be available. This also goes for switching web hosts; if you use Frontpage extensions, make sure the new web host supports it as many nowadays do not.
Backup. Do not, and I repeat, do not upgrade without first copying anything of value to another storage device. In theory, upgrading software or operating systems are supposed to leave data alone and just upgrade the system files that run the software. But I have witnessed many times where something went wrong and a complete reformat was necessary. There goes all your family vacation pictures! Don’t let this happen to you.
Document. Before and after you have upgraded, write down all serial numbers, PIN codes, passwords, license numbers, anything associated with a particular piece of software or hardware, and keep them in a place other than your computer. You may need this information when talking to a customer service rep. It doesn’t do any good to save everything in an Access database or Outlook when you’re on the phone with customer service and you can’t open your files. Well, unless you have nothing else to do and can chat with a tech support rep for a few hours while your account gets straightened out. I speak from experience.
Now that I’m older and wiser, I am trying to overcome my upgradeaphobia. I know that I am improving because now when I upgrade, I find it hard to go back to the old versions. I liken it to continuing to use a word that has gone out of style. And when I do commit that faux pas, my kids laugh and call me a “newb.” You don’t want to be known as the “newb” in your family do you?
Maybe the word “upgrade” isn’t such a bad word after all!
Do you have any upgrade horror stories? Leave a comment and tell me about them!
Copyright 2009, Lisa Wells.
Want to publish this article on your site? You may, but please include the following resource information: Lisa Wells is a Certified eMarketing Associate who partners with successful coaches, consultants, and online marketers, managing their online marketing needs. Move your business to the next level and up your e-marketing game - sign up for her FREE e-course at http://www.eMarketingToolboxEssentials.com.
Eddie graduated June 12, 2009. He hates it when I talk about him so I’ll try to be brief. Eddie was diagnosed with ADHD when he was 6. I used to think he was just “spirited” … Over the years we had good teachers and not so good teachers. We changed his meds I cannot tell you how many times. In 9th grade he flunked two classes and was just an emotional mess - we had to send him to Utah to a boy’s camp for 6 months. Those were some hard times…
When he came back from Utah we saw a definite improvement and he had caught up with school. Then in December 2007 he was diagnosed with lymphoma. He underwent surgery and chemotherapy - you can read my other CaringBridge blog for that story. He spent half his junior year in the hospital and wanted to be taken off his ADHD meds. More hard times…
This past year was challenging. He had to catch up on school work, regain strength, and worry about life after high school. Oh and my husband was in Afghanistan for 7 months, having left right after Eddie went into remission in April ‘08.
So you may be wondering what the big deal is about my son graduating - it’s a very big deal! We don’t call him Special Ed for nothing
I recently read an article on Aweber’s blog, the post topic being thank you pages, and the author commented on how shocked he was that a “frightening number” of people don’t take advantage of customized thank you pages and just use the default placeholder page provided by Aweber.
I was a little surprised to read why… It was not that people didn’t know about the thank you page or how to create one - No. The main reason people were not putting any effort into their thank you pages was because they didn’t want to take the time to create one.
Just to clarify, and it may be a little confusing because the “thank you” page may mean different things to different people depending on which autoresponder service you use, but the thank you page I am referring to is the page that a subscriber is taken to right after pressing the “Submit” button. For example, if you were to sign up for my free forms on virtualassistantforms.com, once you clicked on the submit button, you’d be taken to this thank you page.
When signing up for free reports, tip sheets, or teleseminars that use an autoresponder, you will most likely be taken to a page that says something like “thanks for subscribing, check your inbox.” Other times you may be redirected back to the home page. Or you may even be treated to Aweber’s ho-hum default page (I kid because I love :). You may be wondering what is the big deal? Good grief, it’s only a page. But it’s a very important page and I’ll tell you why.
Whatever you are selling or giving away, the goal of the traffic flow – the process taken by the subscriber during sign-up and confirmation - is to be an impressive, effortless, and dynamic experience - not a boring, confusing, or worse, ineffective one!
The thank you page plays a big role because the primary purpose of this page is to instruct the subscriber what to do next. If the person doesn’t know what to do immediately after signing up, he or she may lose interest, and you may be losing out on a sale or a client. Think about it, if the person does not confirm their email, the e-mail address will never be added to your list. And in the case of Aweber’s program, the address will ultimately drop off the list after a number of days.
You don’t have to spend a lot of time and money putting together an effective page. As you saw from my example above, it’s a basic page that I can re-use for most other lists but with a couple of changes: I remind the person what they signed up for (forms) and what they need to do next (confirm the e-mail by clicking on the link).
Feel like getting creative? Here are just a few ideas of what you can do to jazz up your thank you page:
Incorporate screen shots that depict exactly what the incoming email will look like or what the person needs to click on
Building a thank you page and the confirmation page (the page redirected to after confirming the email - a whole new topic!) may take a little time but it’s worth it!
Copyright 2009, Lisa Wells.
Want to publish this article on your site? You may, but please include the following resource information: Lisa Wells is a Certified eMarketing Associate who partners with coaches, consultants, entrepreneurs, and small business owners, managing their many online marketing needs. Move your business to the next level and up your e-marketing game - sign up for her FREE e-course at http://www.eMarketingToolboxEssentials.com.
Teleseminars, webinars, and online training have made their way into the standard toolbox for coaches, virtual assistants, and online marketers. They are not only a great marketing tool, but there are so many uses - everything from teaching “how to’s” to online coaching! The technology certainly has come a long way, but it doesn’t end there.
Whether it is your first time or 50th time giving a teleseminar or webinar, there are countless details to think of when putting on just one hour-long class - use FreeConferenceCall or InstantTeleseminar? How to get people to attend the class? Does the software support webcast and phone? Are the handouts up-to-date?
A few weeks ago, I completed my first week of teaching an online autoresponder training class and found out just how stressful and overwhelming it can be! Of course I made my fair share of mistakes so learn from me and read these pointers of what not to do when giving an online class.
1. Don’t double check the details. Don’t rely on your copywriter or virtual assistant for the attention to details. Make sure the detailed information, such as the date, time, phone number, passcode, and links are correct. I have seen (and sent) my fair share of “Oops, here’s the corrected link” emails and though many of them can be corrected quickly enough, having 100 people dial into the wrong phone number at the time of the call can be disastrous. Also make sure that the handouts, session notes, and follow-up URLs are all correct and updated. At the last minute, I thought it would be great to send a worksheet to the attendees. But I forgot to check it first and what they received was the 3-page rough draft instead of the completed 15-page worksheet - it had the same name of the file, just a different folder. Double check!
2. Don’t test the technology. Make sure you test, re-test, and test again the delivery method and format for your class, especially if it is the first time using the program. If you are giving a webinar and want to use an online meeting software, make sure it’s reliable and test it by going through an entire mock meeting. I decided to use a free webinar conferencing software which allowed me to webcast, record, and browse the internet with up to 20 participants. Sounds great doesn’t it? It was great until it froze up halfway during the class. I had only tested for five minutes at a time when my class was a 90-minute class. I firmly believe in “you get what you pay for” so I switched over to a paid service (GoToMeeting) and it worked much better for the rest of the sessions. Test!
3. Don’t prepare. The weekend before the class was to begin, I made a checklist and listed everything from remembering to unplug the phone during the meeting (to eliminate background noise) to posting a “do not ring the doorbell” sign on the front door. I know myself - I need to write things down or else I will forget. I had to attend a ceremony the morning of the class and when I rushed home to get ready, I was so flustered that I couldn’t find the checklist. I thought that I could wing it without my checklist and I was wrong. And of course my phone rang - loudly - and interrupted the meeting. Another note is that when giving a teleseminar via the phone, remember to turn off call waiting because I also discovered that people can hear all those clicks and the voice will cut out. Prepare!
4. Don’t have a Plan B. After the fiasco of my first session, by the second session I had familiarized myself with the new webinar software, I had a spare headset and microphone, I created my new checklist, I had printed out my outline, and I thought I was prepared. But what I didn’t plan on was my computer freezing up. Had I printed out the bridge line phone number, at least I could have dialed in to the bridge line and talked to the participants while I wrestled with my internet connection. It was the longest 15 minutes of my life! I had a backup laptop sitting right next to me but without the needed information, it did little good. I showed up late to my own training class. Argh!
Even though my training was aimed at a test group, I see this mistake a lot:
5. Don’t advertise or promote. Don’t take the “if I hold it they will come” approach. Promoting to your standard mailing or newsletter list probably won’t get you the results you are looking for. Even if you are holding a free teleseminar, you will want to promote to teleseminar sites such as PlanetTeleclass.com and Conference Call University (cculearning.com), post announcements on listservs, advertise in other ezines - and if you have affiliates, write up some promotional copy so they can get the word out to their lists.
You would think that I would totally be turned off to teleseminars with all the technical problems, sending the wrong information, being late to my own class - but it was actually an exciting couple of weeks! It can sometimes be uncomfortable to grow, learn, and challenge yourself… it is so much easier to just continue doing what you are doing. But then you’ll never reach your long-term goals.
Don’t let the fear of failure keep you from trying out new things. What it comes down to is that no one will remember what happened a month from now. I am still here, the world did not end, my business did not cease to exist, and I did not get discouraged. And a shout out to my Aweber test group - thank you!
Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
Copyright 2009, Lisa Wells.
Want to publish this article on your site? You may, but please include the following resource information: Lisa Wells is a Certified eMarketing Associate who partners with coaches, consultants, entrepreneurs, and small business owners, managing their many online marketing needs. Move your business to the next level and up your e-marketing game - sign up for her FREE e-course at http://www.eMarketingToolboxEssentials.com.
Want to know an easy, inexpensive, and surefire way to get prospects to your site, make your website rank higher, and at the same time be seen as an expert in your industry? You can probably guess what I’m going to say: article marketing!
I am a huge fan of article marketing. Writing an article and submitting to article directories not only brings incoming links to your website and/or blog which, in theory, should increase your search engine ranking, but authoring articles also increases your credibility. Don’t you want to be seen as the “go to” expert in your industry? Oh and did I mention that you can do all of this for free?
Writing an article doesn’t have to be painful. There are many resources out there to help you get started. Check out Jeff “The Article Marketing Guy” Herring’s site, Christopher Knight’s Ezine Articles blog, and Yaro Starak’s blog. These guys are real-life online marketers and I love reading their sites as I always find helpful tips, templates, and advice.
Create a Killer Resource Box
Before submitting your article, there is one very important element that needs to be completed first, the author resource box. The resource box is the brief paragraph that follows your article and is shorter than a biography but longer than your signature. This resource box SHOULD contain your name, website address, and your call to action. This resource box should NOT contain your phone number, email address (or you’ll get spammed to death), your full resume containing every award you’ve ever received, or a bunch of URLs to your other websites.
The purpose of the resource box is to make the reader want to continue learning more about you and what you have to offer, so take some time to craft an inviting and effective resource box.
Simplify the Process
I also recommend using a worksheet, especially if you are submitting your articles manually or having your virtual assistant submit articles on your behalf. You would be surprised how much time is wasted trying to navigate the different sites - each with their own categories, terms and guidelines, field character limits, rules about number of links – and filling out the worksheet beforehand will speed up the process.
Another time sucker is if your virtual assistant either has to ‘wing it’ and guess at what you want to include for each article, or worse, going back and forth via email to clarify your annotation, keywords, category selection, and so on.
Lastly, although there are many free article directory sites where you can submit your articles, I recommend submitting to only a handful of the most popular and high-traffic sites such as Ezine Articles, Self Growth, Idea Marketers, and Article Dashboard. I have found that targeting a few quality directories net better results than submitting to dozens of mediocre sites, not to mention leveraging time and money.
Quick Start Assignment: Go to http://www.virtualassistantforms.com/ and sign up to receive two free forms - an article submission worksheet and tracking log, create an effective resource box (read Christopher Knight’s blog for tips on how to do this), and submit one article to Ezine Articles. Also, use Ezine Articles’ Author Tools to track your stats
Get writing and share your article tips below!
Copyright 2009 Lisa Wells, Coast2CoastBusiness.com
Want to publish this article on your site? You may, but please include the following resource information: Lisa Wells is a Certified eMarketing Associate who partners with coaches, consultants, entrepreneurs, and small business owners, managing their many online marketing needs. Move your business to the next level and up your e-marketing game - sign up for her FREE e-course at http://www.eMarketingToolboxEssentials.com.
Last month I covered why content is important to your SEO rankings. This month’s article will cover what you can do behind the scenes to make sure the HTML code on each web site page is optimized for search engines. Updating HTML code can be done using a web editor program such as FrontPage or Dreamweaver, but it can also be done by hand using Notepad.
There are literally dozens of techniques that SEO consultants employ to optimize each variable that makes up a single web page. For example, at the bare minimum, you need to pay attention to researching and creating effective page titles, researching and creating effective file names, writing effective description meta tags, properly using heading tags and alt tags for each hyperlink and image file. This goes for every link, every picture, graphic, image, and for every single web page. As you can see, it is no small task to optimize a web site – even a small one!
While each variable plays a small part in the overall optimization – think of it as a recipe with each variable being a single ingredient – and all ingredients being important to the recipe, I want to cover three items: page titles, file names, and the description meta tag. Here is a graphic showing the search results for my own “VA for coaches” page that I optimized for the search engines (actually comes up #2 in Google for the search term “virtual assistant for coaches”).
Page titles
Page titles are the hyperlinked words that show in the search engine results (item 1) and also display at the top of the browser page. They are not only vital but greatly influence page ranking in the search results, so it’s important that the page title is rich in keywords. You add the title of the page in between the “title” tags in the HTML code at or near the top of the page. Example: <title>this is the page title</title>
Make sure every page has a different title. If you feel that you cannot pin down one title for a page because it has too many sections of information, then it would be best to create more pages and categorize accordingly. For example, if you sell widgets in different colors and you put them all on one page and name the title of the page “widgets,” this isn’t going to do much to help in your page ranking because your page will be competing with thousands of others that contain the same word.
Instead, create one page just to showcase your red widgets and title the page “Red widgets.” Think about it … when someone is doing a Google search, they will most likely be as descriptive as possible so as to narrow down the search results. Another rule of thumb is to keep the title to a maximum of 60 characters.
File names
Choose file names (item 2) that correlate with your page titles. These should also be keyword-rich as they do have a positive impact on search results. When choosing file names, use all lower-case letters and do NOT use spaces. I have read that using hyphens instead of underscores is preferred and nowadays having no hyphens or underscores in the file name is acceptable as well – the search engines should treat them as the same.
One item I do want to stress is that I do not want you to run out and change all your file names because if a page is bookmarked or indexed in a directory somewhere and you change it, then it could not only hurt your rankings, but you may lose customers who can’t find your site because of a broken link. So consider changing the file name if the page is not yet indexed in the search engines or if the page has poor search results placement AFTER you’ve already changed the other items. If you are getting good search results placement, then of course do not change your file names.
Description meta tag
A good description tag will get you noticed! This is the blurb that is displayed right under the title tag in the search results page (item 3). It is what people skim over when viewing the search results. Too many times people will search on a term that has multiple meanings and the page titles may help a little, but it’s the description that will get their attention and let the person know that your is the site they are looking for! Its placement is right up there at the top of the source code, usually right under the title tag and looks like this:
<meta name=”description” content=”Virtual assistant and internet marketing services for today’s coaches: life and career coaches, self-help coaches, executive coaches, speaking coaches, and more.” >
Don’t forget to add key words and key phrases here as well. : )
Quick Start Assignment
Take just one of your web pages and optimize it for search engines. First, do some little research for keywords to use for the titles and descriptions. It’s important to use words that your target audience is actually searching, not what you THINK they are searching for. For example, if you think people are searching on the key phrase “certified life coach” - do some research because perhaps they are searching on different terms such as “midlife transition coach,” “coach to guide me through a divorce,” “adhd coach” etc.
Check the title tag, do you have the keywords near the front where they carry the most value? Is the title too long? Is it an effective title? Is this page title the same as all your other page titles? Do your page titles have your business name right in front? If so, make some edits.
Next, write an effective description for the page. Lastly, only change the file names if there are spaces in the title, if it is not yet indexed by the search engines, or if it has poor placement in the search results.
Of course there is so much more to do in order to properly optimize your pages, but start with just ONE page and do this for each new page you add for the next few weeks.
I mentioned this last month and I feel I should mention it again - I took a free SEO online course and it was excellent! There is a time investment involved; the course requires active participation, and it lasts for a few weeks, but I would still urge you to attend. I literally learned everything I know about SEO by attending these classes and by completing each of the exercises. Find out more at: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SEO_Techniques/
Copyright 2008 Lisa Wells, Coast2CoastBusiness.com
Have an SEO question? Feel free to post a comment … I’ll answer your question and feature you in my ezine!
Want to publish this article on your site? You may, but please include the following resource information: Lisa Wells is a Certified eMarketing Associate who partners with coaches, consultants, entrepreneurs, and small business owners, managing their many online marketing needs. Move your business to the next level and up your e-marketing game - sign up for her FREE e-course at http://www.eMarketingToolboxEssentials.
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the art of improving the chances of your web page showing up when someone searches for your type of business, a service, or a product. This article cannot possibly go into all the aspects of SEO in-depth, but I do want to give you a few basics to give you a better understanding of how SEO works and what you can do TODAY to improve your web pages for the search engines.
The two most important items of my SEO strategy are to 1) write relevant content and 2) properly code each page. They are both equally important and search engines take both of these into account when ranking pages. You can have loads of great content but if the page cannot be read by the search engine robot, then it is a problem. On the other hand, a page can be properly coded and pass validation, but with very little content, it will not do you any good.
Content is King
“Content” means the words, headlines, subject headers – what is seen on your web pages and viewable by the public. Content is important because search engines crawl your web page and read words and phrases. It takes this information and adds to an index, sort of like a giant catalog. Then, when someone does a search, the search engine returns the results, ranking each page by relevancy. Search engines are not mind readers; therefore, it only makes sense that you need to write the content using words that people (your target market) will most likely search on if you want your page to come up high on the results pages.
One of the first things that I tell clients as they go about setting up their web page is, “do not write website copy for the search engines, write for your audience.” A genuine message from your heart is going to go a lot further than a page that’s stuffed with keywords but not much else. You may think that you do not know what to write, but once you get started, the words will come.
Write about how you got started in the business, why are you passionate about your product or service, how you have helped people in the past… Don’t forget to include as many details as you can about the problems your service will solve, how you deliver the service, who might be the best client for this service, etc.
Try to use the exact wording that someone in your target market might use, e.g., “Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night and think, ‘How am I going to finish my newsletter article, answer all of those client emails, and still have time to actually do my coaching work? I need some help with my newsletter!’”
That way, when your prospective client types something like, “Help with newsletters” in to a search engine, this specific page is more likely to show up in the results, and higher up. This is what is called a “key phrase.” Incorporating key phrases into your content is much more useful than relying on single words, which has much more competition.
Quick Start Assignment
Choose just ONE of your web pages and look at the content. Do you give a clear explanation of what the intent of the page is? Do you give enough information about the product, service, etc.? Remember, each page is indexed individually. For example, if you are a virtual assistant offering a variety of services, of course you can list them on your “services menu” page, but also create a separate page for each service. This will go hand in hand with the back-end coding, which I’ll talk more about next month.
During my first year as a virtual assistant, when I didn’t have any clients and lots of free time, I took a free SEO online course and it was excellent! There is a time investment involved; the course requires active participation, and it lasts for a few weeks, but I would still urge you to attend. I literally learned everything I know about SEO by attending these classes and by completing each of the exercises. Find out more at: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SEO_Techniques/
Next month I will cover what you can do behind the scenes that will have a positive impact on your SEO rankings. Stay tuned!
Copyright 2008 Lisa Wells, Coast2CoastBusiness.com
Lisa Wells is a Certified eMarketing Associate who partners with coaches, consultants, entrepreneurs, and small business owners, managing their many online marketing needs. Move your business to the next level and up your e-marketing game - sign up for her FREE e-course “e-Marketing Toolbox Essentials” at http://www.emarketingtoolboxessentials.com.
When someone signs up for my e-course or newsletter, one of the web pages that comes up during the registration process asks the subscriber “What is your biggest problem?” and one of the “biggest problems” that I read most often is “how do I get more people to subscribe to my list?”
I can tell you that list-building is not something that one can do overnight and attracting subscribers is a deliberate process as well as a work in progress. You can have milestones of course, but I’ve never heard “Well, I’ve reached 500 subscribers, I’m done.”
List-building is the action of building a subscriber list for the purpose of marketing and providing information, expertise, or advice. The main reason for building your “list” is that this group of people will become your clients or customers (you hope). Capturing these email addresses will allow you to market to these people over and over again. This is important because they may not buy what you have today or want to hire you tomorrow, but they may in the future or know someone else who may be interested in what you have to offer.
So what can you do to build your list?
* Write articles
* Hold teleseminars or webinars
* Public speaking
* Interview others or be interviewed
* Post on others’ blogs or forums
* Social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn
* Live networking
* Participate in joint ventures
* Add opt-in forms throughout your website and/or blog other than just the home page
I can hear some of you saying, “Yeah right, I Twitter all day long but no one signs up for my list.” Are you asking people to sign up? One of the first things I noticed when I started “following” people in Twitter is that I received a quick response ranging from “Thanks for the follow” to full-on marketing pitches. I thought to myself that these people were really on the ball and how nice of them to personally send me an e-mail. Seriously, I thought that.
But then I attended a Twitter Basics class and learned that it was actually a cool tool called “Tweet Later” which sends automated notes to new followers. All you need to do is register for the free program, set up your automated response, and finally add a “rule” to your e-mail program which sends the automatic e-mail. Don’t be afraid - the site provides you with directions and walks you through the process.
My automated response contains a “thanks” along with an invitation to sign up to receive my free e-book. This small change increased my list by 10 subscribers that first week! I also found a way to leverage a tool that I already use.
Others may be saying “I write tons of articles but I don’t get any traffic to my website.” Well, let’s take a look at your resource box (that short paragraph that follows the article). Does the resource box make you want to click on the link to find out more about YOU or what you have to offer? Does the page that the person link to display a prominent opt-in box? Do you offer something compelling for free, such as an e-course, e-book, or audio? Or do you offer a ho-hum “free newsletter”?
Something else to try is a joint venture, which is a great way to grow your list quickly in a short time.
Whatever list-building tactic you use, make sure you have a consistent marketing strategy. For example, don’t just write a short article once in a while. Instead, write articles and feature them in your newsletter, post them to your blog, and submit them to free and/or paid article directories on a regular basis.
Start building!
Copyright 2008 Lisa Wells, Coast2CoastBusiness.com
Lisa Wells is a Certified eMarketing Associate who partners with coaches, consultants, entrepreneurs, and small business owners, managing their many online marketing needs. Move your business to the next level and up your e-marketing game - sign up for her FREE e-course “e-Marketing Toolbox Essentials” at http://www.emarketingtoolboxessentials.com.
Meet Soochow, my pug. She is 7 years old but looks pretty small so people assume she’s a puppy. I try to feed her so she’ll get a little fatter, the way pugs are supposed to look. Needless to say, it hasn’t been working.
We got Soochow from a breeder when we lived in California. I am currently looking at getting another one soon here, hopefully by the new year.
Her name is a tribute to a Marine mascot named “Soochow” from the Fourth Marines. The original Soochow was a little bulldog-terrier orphan mutt from Shanghai that befriended the Marines near the Soochow River back in the late 1930’s. Tales and anecdotes of mascot Soochow’s life are legendary and have been thoroughly documented in articles. You can read more here.
She is the best lap dog EVER! She’ll curl up anytime anywhere. Most of the day, she is either sleeping in her cute pink polka-dot bed, licking my feet under my desk, or watching TV on the couch (without me!) What a life!
In email marketing, the use of subject lines is probably one of the most important aspects of an email campaign and plays a big part in whether or not the email broadcast is a success. However, sometimes it seems that many of the emails I receive, the sender treats the subject line as more of an afterthought than a chance to engage the reader (me!).
In fact, according to a 2007 Jupiter Research report*, more than one-third of your readers will open your email based on what you write in your subject line.
Here are some more facts from the Email Stat Center regarding subject lines:
Emails with shorter subject lines significantly outperformed emails with longer subject lines. - MailerMailer (2008)
Emails that had only the subject line personalized (12.4% Open Rate & 1.7% CTR) did worse than those with no personalization at all (13.5% Open Rate & 2.7% CTR). - MailerMailer (2008)
Seven in 10 US Internet users said they judged these “from” and “subject” lines when deciding whether to report an email as spam. - E-Mail Sender and Provider Coalition and Ipsos (December 2007)
Including the company name in the subject line can increase open rates by up to 32 percent to 60 percent over a subject line without branding. - Jupiter Research (2007)
Words that were identified as innocuous words that won’t trigger a spam filter, but will negatively affect your open rates. They are: Help, Percent off, and Reminder. - MailChimp (2007)
Because the subject lines are as important as the messages contained within the email, you should give them as much, if not more, attention. Going back through emails that I received and deleted or that ended up in my junk folder, I notice the same mistakes being made over and over again.
Uninspiring Subject Lines
Which one would you rather open?
“Trusty Traveler Newsletter: September 2008″ or “The Trusty Traveler: Insider tips on Machu Picchu”
Think about how many emails you get in the course of a day or a week. If the subject of the newsletter doesn’t pique your interest, it will most likely be deleted. Also, don’t think about what would interest YOU, but what would interest your readers.
Unrecognizable ‘From’ Addresses
After being a chamber member for about six months, I called the main office to ask if I was on their mailing list because I had not been receiving any emails about upcoming events. The woman told me that indeed I was on the mailing list and to check my junk folder. I soon figured out why I had not been getting the emails: the “From” address was the office manager’s name and that the Subject line read “Tourism News.” No wonder they got deleted.
Most of the list manager programs will let you customize the “From” section so that you can add a “display name” which can include your name, the company name, or the publication name. Take a little time to make sure these are set up correctly for each of your publications.
Hypey Subject Lines
Hypey, salesy, or the emails that promise untold wealth, tons of traffic, you know the drill, have lost favor and sometimes border on spam. “Open NOW” “Must Read!”… there’s a fine line between a “hypey” email and a legitimate one when it comes to creating a sense of urgency.
Of course everyone’s subscriber list is different and people respond differently depending on many variables, but the goal should be to engage the reader, create a connection, communicate a message… and a bad subject line can result in lost subscribers and, in turn, lost profits. You should know your subscribers and what is acceptable and what isn’t. (Hint: When people start unsubscribing in droves, you should pay attention.) And if you don’t know what your readers want, you can always ask them using a survey program such as surveymonkey.com.
If you want to test your email campaigns to see how different subject lines compare, try running a split-test. Instructions on how to run a split-test can be found within your newsletter list manager ‘frequently asked questions’ section.
*35 percent of email users open messages because of what’s contained in the subject line. - Jupiter Research (2007) as referenced in the Email Stat Center.
Copyright 2008 Lisa Wells, Coast2CoastBusiness.com
Want to publish this article on your site? You may, but please include the following resource information: Lisa Wells, virtual support specialist, publishes “Marketing Mindset in Motion,” a free monthly marketing e-newsletter for coaches, consultants, and entrepreneurs. If you’re ready to move your business to the next level, sign up for her FREE e-course “e-Marketing Toolbox Essentials” at www.eMarketingToolboxEssentials.
Being a virtual assistant, change is common because there are always new programs to learn and upgrades to be done. But I suffer from upgradeaphoebia and seriously, it’s a wonder I ever upgrade anything. Sometimes I have to upgrade in order to accommodate something I need or want and in these cases I don’t really mind. But other times, when I am forced to upgrade for the sake of it or because it’s pushed upon me (Windows Vista anyone?), then the horns start growing, the vein pops out, and my teeth start gnashing. Ok, I guess I am not that bad, but pretty close.
bly one of the most important aspects of an email campaign and plays a big part in whether or not the email broadcast is a success. However, sometimes it seems that many of the emails I receive, the sender treats the subject line as more of an afterthought than a chance to engage the reader (me!).