Using Emotion in Marketing Communications

Great marketing seeks to tug at the emotional strings of the audience. Because if you can get them to think about things that trigger emotions - like happiness, longing, their sense of loss and more, you can also trigger them to answer your call to action. In fact, if you do it right, you can elicit those emotions in an audience just by them seeing your brand.

* Titles – Use emotional trigger words in your titles to get your audience’s attention. Appeal to their sense of curiosity or loss. Words like “last chance” or “limited time offer” can and will go far in helping you get more click-throughs and responses, too.

* Headlines – Whether it’s an email marketing message or a blog post, it's important to develop creative headlines that don’t confuse the reader but instead pique their attention. Use headlines such as “8 Ways to Ride a Bike” or “101 Ways to Avoid a Dating Disaster” to get their attention and make them want to read the article, eBook or content.

* Subheaders – Sometimes a subheader can help explain what’s going to be inside so that you entice your audience to read the content, listen to the podcast, or watch the video. You can think of them as taglines too. Just a few words to push your audience over the edge to consume the content will go far.

* Power Words and Phrases – Create a swipe file of power words and phrases that you can use when you want to trigger emotion in your audience. Words and phrases like “act now”, “bonus”, or “breakthrough” will work to get your audience into the mood you want them in to receive your messages.

* Transitions – Don’t underestimate how important transition words are in text and speech. You can put your audience in exactly the mood you want them in with the right transition words. Words and phrases like “Listen…” or “Never again” or “Still not convinced” will go far in helping you explain a concept even more deeply.

* Calls to Action – Never, under any circumstances, forget to add in a call to action or two. Your CTA is important because without it your audience is unlikely to do what you want them to do based on the information you’ve provided. You have to tell them what to do. “Buy now”, “Reserve your space”, “Click here now to start your free trial”, are all good CTAs, but you need to be as specific as possible.

* Closing Phrases – Another opportunity to tug at your audience’s emotions is with closing phrases. You can use phrases like, “It’s in your hands”, “This is the final day that…” or “You’re moments away from changing your life by …” and so forth. See how these words trigger certain emotions?

* Postscripts – Never forget the power of a P.S. when you’re writing a letter, a sales page, or email. After you’re done, just in case the audience is still reading instead of acting, include the P.S. and say something like, “P.S. Your satisfaction is always guaranteed” or “P.S. Act by Friday and you’ll also get the free report” and so forth.

When you incorporate these trigger words and phrases into your marketing communications, you’ll see an immediate return on investment. The power you have when it comes to using emotion in marketing is astronomical. 

Building Customer Relationships That Last

One of the ways a business builds its brand is to tug at the emotions of their audience. The way a customer and client work together and communicate can build long-lasting, meaningful relationships that turn clients into fans, and fans into clients. You can actually set out to build these relationships by using emotional marketing techniques.

1. Show Them That You Know Them

The more research you do into the needs and desires of your target audience, the more your audience will be able to tell that you’re interested in them. When you show interest in them, it will make them interested in your business and you. When you discover something about your audience, let them know through your content and your actions.

2. Treat Them Right

So many times business owners have sales and special events to get new clients. What about the clients you already have? Keeping them is far more important than getting a new client, and less costly too. Do something special for your existing client base or fan base that shows them that you care about them. Give them a discount, or a special freebie, or something else that attaches them to you in a special way.

3. Be Transparent and Honest

One way to endear yourself to your audience is to always be transparent and honest. If you make a mistake, own up to it. If you change your views on something, it’s okay to admit it. Doing so will endear you to your audience and make you appear so much more trustworthy to them.

4. Put People before Numbers

While you do things to help promote your business, it’s important to keep your morals and remember that people are more important than numbers. If you put people first in your business, including yourself, you’ll find that you naturally improve your bottom line. The more people trust you, the more they’ll buy from you.

5. Be Fun When Appropriate

No one wants to feel as if they’re communicating with a robot or someone who is not real. Be funny when it’s appropriate so that you can show your humanity. Your humanness will shine through when you add some humor and fun to posts, emails, and even sales pages.

6. Be Responsive

Your customers expect to get an answer when they have a problem, and they expect it to be quickly. Provide many different ways for your audience to contact you. Explain to your audience at each method how long they can expect to wait for a response. Then follow up and do what you said you’d do.

7. Engage with Your Audience

Find ways to engage with your audience. Ask for their advice or ideas when it comes to a new product or service you’re going to launch. They can help name it, help define what should be in it, and even how much you should charge for it. Your audience can also be your best source of word-of-mouth marketing.

8. Consider the Communication Format

Also, it’s important to try to get an understanding of how people communicate within their environment. Communication online in chat, instant message, Twitter, or a blog, is far different from communicating on the telephone or in person. Even email is different from other methods of communication. It’s imperative that you determine what is different and then make up for that with the type of communication they’re using.

Building customer relationships that last is part of the goal of emotional marketing. When you’ve formed an attachment with the consumer, they will stick with you for years - through price increases, trials and tribulations, and more. You can’t go wrong with building relationships.

What Types of Free Gifts Can You Offer to Subscribers

The freebie is a popular way to entice a new subscriber to offer up their information so that you can put them on your email list. It’s still a great way to get someone to sign up. The important thing about a freebie is that it should be useful, valuable and of the same quality as the things you sell to your audience.

If it’s a lesser value, they may not realize it and they will think this is an example of the type of work that you do and not buy your products or services. If you are serious about getting more clients, your freebie needs to be the example of what your audience expects. However, never make your free gift something that you have to produce separately for each person; that would be too difficult and take too long. You want it to ideally only cost you something to produce one time.

EBooks – This is a great gift to give away, especially if you use one you normally sell so that it has a perceived value to the visitor. If it’s something you normally sell on your website or elsewhere, then the visitor feels a lot of incentive to get the free item.

Software – If you create any type of downloadable tools, software, plugins, or apps or have permission through private label rights to use them as freebie giveaways and it’s something very useful for your audience, this is another really great free gift to give your subscribers. This works best if the freebie is something your audience can use in conjunction with your products or services.

Reports – A report is just a short eBook that is more focused on solving one problem, instead of an overall "how to" like a book would be. If you had a website about vegetarianism, you could for instance offer a free pantry check sheet, conversion or substitution chart for your readers to use.

Coupons – People do like getting discount coupons, so if you can offer your visitors a coupon code for signing up for your email list that is a great freebie to offer. Don’t discount your work too much, though, because that devalues what you do.

Videos – Offering a video lesson or videos of a live event as a freebie is a great way to repurpose videos that you’ve made. Just load them up to deliver to the people who sign up for your list.

Checklists – An awesome freebie to give your audience are checklists to use that you’ve tried and put together especially for them.

Charts – There are all sorts of charts you can provide your audience depending on your niche.

Bundles – You can put together a compilation of all of the above if you want to offer a really outstanding freebie to your list subscribers. This is a great way to give them an overall sampling of what you do well.

Getting people to opt in and subscribe to your list is an important part of making your online business or the online marketing of your offline business successful. The money is still in the email list, no matter what other channels exist for marketing your business. Get your audience on your list and you can give yourself a raise whenever you want to.

What to Include in Your Email Newsletter

Knowing what to put in your email newsletter is as important as creating one. They say that the money is in your list, but if you don’t send out regular messages you’ll miss out on the additional income that an email newsletter can generate. It’s important not to over think each newsletter that you send out. Keep them simple, not too long, and always point the reader to something else such as something to buy, share or do.

1. Tips and Tricks – It’s great to include a list of tips and tricks for your readers in your email newsletter. If you send out a daily newsletter, you could make once a week a list of ten tips or tricks to use that involves putting your services or products to their best use.

2. Special Offers – You don’t have to send out a special offer every newsletter but if once a month or so you offer your newsletter subscribers an offer that no one else is getting just for being a subscriber, you’ll make them feel special. People love the feeling of membership and exclusivity.

3. Engagement Opportunities – Give your newsletter subscribers an inside way to meet up with you, either through live meet-ups or online webinars. Having one webinar a quarter or more often is a great way to engage your newsletter subscribers. Google Hangouts is a great way to accomplish this. You can even offer Q&A’s.

4. Early Bird Notices – Tell your list subscribers about new products before you announce them to the world. Giving them a few days to purchase at a discounted “early bird” rate is a great thing to include in your email newsletters.

5. Feedback Questions – Using your email newsletter as a way to get feedback on potential new products or services is a great way to encourage engagement. You can do it via questionnaire or poll.

6. Testimonials – Including a section for customer testimonials is a great way to recognize your clients as well as to provide social proof to newsletter subscribers who have not purchased from you yet.

7. Share Buttons – Inviting your newsletter subscribers to share certain newsletters that don’t have exclusive material is a great way to improve your subscription rate, and will also make your current members feel included in your community.

8. Legal Notifications – Every newsletter needs to include all legal notifications relevant to anti-spam laws. If you go with the most stringent laws, you’ll be sure to cover all your bases.

9. Opt-Out Information – While this could be covered under legal notifications, it’s important that you include opt-out information that is easy to find in every single newsletter that you send out. Don’t be worried about subscribers unsubbing. It’s better to have a clean list of people who want to be there than a list full of people who resent getting your information.

Ensure that you include a variety of different things in your email newsletter that are designed to get a response and you won’t be disappointed in the results. In addition to the nine items above, never forget to include a call to action (CTA) in each newsletter that you send out. Without a CTA there is no point to the newsletter. So, be clear about that before you start.

Subject Lines that Encourage Opening of Emails

You’ve finally got some subscribers to your email list, and now you want to start getting some interaction from your subscribers. You want them to read the information and answer your calls to action. But first, you have to get them to open the emails. All that starts with crafting subject lines that encourage opening of your email messages.

1. Pique Their Interest – Don’t give everything away in the subject line. Instead use the space to make them want to open the email and know more. Think about what they see when they get the email in their inbox and put the words in the right order to pique interest.

2. Tease Them – Email subject lines are a good way to bring humor and a fun personality to your email messages. Keeping your audience in mind, make your email subject lines evoke the emotions that your audience needs to open them.

3. Make Them Curious – The email subject line should make the reader curious enough to open it. If you know the audience you’re sending emails to well, and you should, it should not be difficult to craft curiosity-seeking email subject lines for them.

4. Don’t Be Too Clever – You don’t want to mislead your audience, so be careful about trying to be too clever with your email message subject lines. If they feel duped when they open the email, no matter how good your offer is, they’ll be unhappy.

5. Put Keywords First – Some people search their emails using various keywords; make it easy for them by including those keywords within the first three words of the email subject line. Plus, when the email comes in, the keyword will be immediately visible to them.

6. Personalize It – People respond very well to personalization in email messages, and that includes subject lines. If you can call out their name, or name their title, they’re going to be more likely to open the email message.

7. Avoid Filler Words – You have very little space in the email subject line. How long your subject line is will depend greatly on your audience. Test different lengths of subject lines to find out what works well with your audience, but the rule of thumb is 1 to 7 words or less than 130 characters.

8. Name Drop – A great place to name drop is in the subject line of an email. If you use a famous person’s name, or a person who your audience values, then all the better. You have to be careful doing this because you don’t want the person’s name you drop to be angry, so ensure that it’s all positive. It needs to be a win-win situation.

9. Focus on a Deadline – A time limit mentioned in the subject line will also entice your audience to open it. If you offer a special that expires in three days, say so in the subject line so that they know that they need to open now and not wait until later. Note: Make the deadline real to be most effective.

Creating subject lines that encourage opening of emails is something that you need to consider carefully based on your topic, your audience and the results you’re hoping to achieve through your email marketing messages.

Planning Your Email Marketing

Your best chance of success with email marketing is to create a plan based on the products that you want to promote. It all starts with your product funnel, which leads to your content marketing plan, which leads to your email marketing calendar. All email marketing should be focused toward promoting your products and/or services and that requires planning. The following steps will help you increase the results of your email marketing.

Craft a Working Product Funnel – You probably already have various products and services, but you may not have designed a product funnel yet that helps you understand how everything is interconnected and works together. Understanding this can help you keep your different lists and promotions in order.

Design Sales Pages for Each Product – Each page should tell your audience the benefits of purchasing the product. Remember a sales pages focus is on the audience, not on you. Benefits over features, always – pretend you are the client and answer all the questions and concerns they might have right on the sales page.

Start Appropriate Email Lists for Each Product– Using your autoresponder, create the lists for each product or service that you will promote. At the minimum you will want a general email list for people who visit the front page of your blog and then two lists for each product you sell. Create one list for people who purchased the product and one list for people who just want more info about the particular product. Name them appropriately so that you know where to put the messages based from where the audience joins your list.

Develop a New Product Launch Calendar – Knowing when each product is being launched for new upcoming products and or services will help you identify which lists you can include the announcements and information on. Plus, it will remind you to create new sales pages, lists, blog posts and email marketing messages for each new product.

Create a Blog Post Publication Calendar - Based on the product launch calendar, write blog posts and set deadlines for them to be scheduled. Ensure that some blog posts promote the various sales pages, and other blog posts are designed for those who purchased already. For each message, consider who will see it and where they come from.

Create a Social Media Content Publication Calendar – Develop social media messages in a series based on your blog posts that will attract your readers to click through to your sales pages and purchase or sign up for your email lists.

Create an Email Publication Calendar - Based on how everything works together above, create a series of emails that you can edit appropriately for each separate list that you may want to promote the new product to. Load them into the right auto responders, ensuring they link to the right sales pages depending on the audience they are sent out to.

Craft Follow-Up Messages – Don’t forget to craft all your follow-up messages too for each product that you sell. Once sold, you will want to keep in contact with the customer who bought it so that you can market future products and services to them.

By creating a plan of action to follow, you can make sure every single time you launch a new product that you can cross-promote other products and services without bombarding your list too much with messages they don’t need, thus increasing your conversion rates exponentially. If all the content you create goes together like a puzzle to promote all of your products and services in a seamless way, it’ll be that much easier each time to set up for each new product.

Making the Most of Your ECourse

Creating an eCourse is a great way to get subscribers to your list. An eCourse is also a great way to give information to your subscribers that they need, as well as a way to market other information to them. It’s important to build trust with your subscribers and you can do that with a well written and planned out eCourse.

But, there are some best practices for your eCourse that you should be aware of when using an eCourse as subscription bait, either free or paid.

1. Craft Well Written Opt-In Messages – Tell your subscribers what to expect in the opt-in information. That way they will know that they’re going to get more than just the eCourse. Letting them know this will do two things. One, it will prepare your subscriber to get more than just the course; and two, it will give them the opportunity to say no or yes. The best subscribers know what they’re getting into when they opt in.

2. Make the Most of Your Thank You Message – Once they opt in, send them a thank you message. This is a great place to include extra information about what they’re going to receive, again, and other opportunities that you have for them. If every single message you send out is packed with information, you’ll be more likely to get a positive response.

3. Craft Your Course Series Carefully – If you’ve promised your subscribers a ten-day email course, each day of the course should be very well defined and stand on its own but also make them excited for the next course delivery. Remember a ten-day course doesn’t have to be delivered one each day; it can be one each week with other information in between.

4. Create Offers within Course Messages – Each course message is a great time to include offers to the subscribers for other products and services or information that you promote. You can send them to affiliate products and services that coincide with what you’re teaching them in the course.

5. Add Extras within the Course Series – A ten-day eCourse can turn into a month of emails with extra days and courses. You can even ask for homework from your course subscribers, sending them to a private Facebook group or forum where they can turn in their assignments to give them extra -all within the same “10 day” course.

6. Give Bonus Course Information – If you want to, you can offer your subscribers the opportunity to sign up for another eCourse series within the current course that you’re providing. Many people are happy to find out about more advanced information about a particular subtopic within the original eCourse.

7. Offer Opportunities to Join Other Lists – If you have more than one email list that might be of interest, the eCourse is an excellent way to let your subscribers know about them. Keeping your subscribers moving through your product funnel by making new offers is a great way to make the most of your eCourse.

8. Periodically Update the Course Information - Even when the course is over, if updates happen, or changes in technology occur, it’s a good time to contact your course members to give them the scoop on the update.

Making the most of an eCourse is essential to making the course worth your time and effort. Thankfully most, if not all, of the email course can be automated using your autoresponder service - whether it’s a free eCourse or a paid course.

Increase Conversion by Keeping Emails Simple

Email marketing is an effective way to market your products, services and information to your audience. But, it can be easy to confuse your readers to the point that they do not take action. If you want to improve conversions, consider the following.

Know Your Audience – The best thing you can do for your business is to understand your audience backwards and forwards. The more you know who you’re crafting emails for, the better you can word everything to get the response you want.

Craft Subject Lines That Create Curiosity – Your first line of defense is the subject line of your email. If your subject line doesn’t make the reader curious enough to open the email to read the rest, nothing else matters.

Create Attention-Grabbing Headlines - When someone opens an email, the headline is the first thing they will see after the subject line that enticed them to open the email in the first place. If this doesn’t grab their attention, they probably won’t continue reading.

Use Bulleted Information – Inside the email message, be sure to make the information easy to absorb. One way to do this is to use bulleted information and lists. People read online differently than they read a book. They read vertically instead of horizontally; therefore, make the information match where the eye goes.

Have One Focus per Email – Instead of giving too much information and many options for purchasing something, make your email focused on one item and one offer. You can always upsell and cross-sell at the point of checkout but for the purposes of the email, make the focus on one thing only.

Provide One Link per Email – Don’t overwhelm your audience with ten links to different items in your emails. Instead, provide one link for the focused information that you want to get across to your audience. One link gives them one thing to do.

Know Your Specific Call to Action – If you can identify the one thing you want your audience to do after reading your email then it will be easier for you to design the subject line, headline and email to match.

Keep It Short and Simple - Super long emails don’t translate well because most people just want to know what the point is and move on from the email. Take out extraneous words and get to the point in your emails for faster action.

Understanding that you can increase conversions by being more focused in each email that you send doesn’t mean you can’t promote more than one item in your email messages. However, focusing each message on one promotion will get you further than too many promotions in one email. The reason is that you avoid confusion and increase conversions by telling your audience about one offer at a time.

How to Turn an Unsubscribe Back into a Subscribe

Once in a while you’ll have someone unsubscribe from your email list. In reality, you want to get some unsubscribes because that means your list is super focused and it might not be right for that particular person. However, the unsubscribe process is also another opportunity to refocus that person and better target your audience.

Follow the Law – By law you must offer an easy to use unsubscribe button. Don’t force them to re-enter their email addresses to unsubscribe. Just give them the button, and let them go without doing so grudgingly. However, you can remind them of why they joined your list at the same time by sending them to a special offer sales page when they click unsubscribe.

Keep It Simple – Don’t make it tricky to unsubscribe. Prepopulate the unsubscribe buttons but also offer the alternatives to the reader to choose different lists or information they may want that might be more accurate for them.

Ask Them Why They’re Leaving – Using the unsubscribe page as a way to find out why they want to unsubscribe can help you better focus your email messages and opt-in offers in the future. Plus, it can give the person unsubbing new insight into what you offer your lists and they may change their mind.

Offer Alternatives - On the unsubscribe page, don’t make them jump through hoops but do offer them some options such as lower frequency of email (such as a monthly option) and/or different newsletters they can sign up for, or other offers that you have that they may not know about.

Take It in Your Stride – It’s really not personal. If you can take the unsubscribe for what it is, a simple request not to get more email from the list they’ve subscribed to and not a personal attack on you, then you’ll be able to handle the unsubs better. Honestly, a clean list is better than a list full of inactive users, so some people are doing you a favor by unsubscribing.

Send High Quality Information – Stop unsubscribes before they start by providing high quality information that is very targeted toward your audience from the start. When someone subscribes to your list, let them know what to expect up front, then be sure to deliver what you promised.

Send a Free Parting Gift – When someone unsubs from your list, your autoresponder email will send them an unsubscribe confirmation email which is your chance to say goodbye. Within that you can offer them a parting gift which will then put them on a different list that might be more appropriate for them.

Ask Them to Reconsider – On the unsubscribe page you can also simply ask them straight out to reconsider unsubscribing. Offer them a gift if they stick around a little longer such as one more week or a month. Some people are only unsubscribing because they forgot why they signed up for your list. This is a chance to remind them.

You have to tread lightly when it comes to unsubscribing because you don’t want to make it really difficult and make them jump through hoops to finally get off your list. But, you do want to ensure that you remind your audience why they signed up for your list. Make it clear that you’re sorry they’re leaving, and finally ask them for another chance at pleasing them.

Getting More Information from Your Subscribers AFTER They Opt In

The best email subscription forms ask for very little information to start. But, the more personalized the emails you send your subscribers, the more response you’ll get. Therefore, you need to come up with ways to get more information from your subscribers after they’ve already opted in so that you can ensure that you are sending them the right information.

Welcome Message – Right off the bat, when you send your new subscriber a welcome message to your list, it is a great opportunity to seek more information from them using a web form. Depending on which email marketing program you use will determine which features it has to collect more information.

Thank You Page – Another great place to get more information from your subscribers. This can be true of an opt-in thank you page, and a product purchase thank you page. Create a form for the page where your subscriber or buyer can click to provide more information about them to help you serve them better.

Polls and Quizzes – Periodically, it is helpful to send your list subscribers interactive information such as polls and quizzes. This will help engage your list subscribers in a new way and open them up to providing more information about themselves so that you can personalize your interactions with them even more.

Coupons and Codes – Any time a subscriber takes advantage of a coupon code is a good time to collect more information about them so that you can personalize the information you send them. You may have only collected an email and name when they first opted in but when they redeem the code, ask for just a bit more info.

Request for Response – Sending out an email to your subscribers requesting a response such as a comment on your blog, or for them to fill out a form, or to ask you a question that you’ll answer on your blog, is a good way to get more information about each subscriber that can be used to create more personalized messages.

Surprise Gifts – You probably gave your subscriber a freebie when they signed up for your list. You can use the same tactic in your subscriptions to get more information from your subscribers. Offer them a new free gift for some sort of action taken.

Subscriber Preferences – This is a good way to get more information is to offer your subscribers various preferences they can choose for the type of information they want. If you have more than one type of list, why not give them a chance to get on other lists that you have at this point?

Behavioral – Moving your subscribers from list to list due to the behavior that they demonstrate is a great way to personalize the information that your subscribers receive. For instance, if they click through to buy something, they should be moved to a new list.

Don’t just try one time to get more information from your subscribers. Take time to build the trust between you and your subscribers and as time goes on, ask more questions and seek more feedback from them so that you can make the information you send them more personal than ever before. The more personal your messaging is to them, the more response you’re likely to get.

Nine Creative Ways to Personalize Emails

Nine Creative Ways to Personalize Emails

Depending on the email marketing software you use, it’s important to learn all the features that it has so that you can use it to its fullest potential. You might not even be aware of all the things your email marketing software is capable of doing. If you aren’t sure, consider seeking out someone who is an expert with your particular software choice so that everything can be set up to be the most effective and the most personal in nature.

1. Craft Interest-Targeted Email Messages – Use the software to capture the information needed to personalize and craft email messages toward what your subscriber wants to know about. This is an important way to move your subscribers enough to purchase from you. Capturing the right information will enable you to point your subscribers to products and services that they want.

2. Create Geocentric Messages – It is likely that your email software allows you to capture location-based information from subscribers. This location-based information can be used for a variety of purposes, from marketing events in their area, to encouraging them to visit your location if you have a local bricks-and-mortar business.


3. Let Them Define What Information They Want – Sending a poll or checklist to subscribers that lets them define what information they want to get is a good way to find out exactly what your subscribers need and want to hear from you.

4. Acknowledge Purchases Made – Each time a purchase is made it’s important to acknowledge it with a thank you, but to also move them off a list that keeps promoting that item. If they feel like you’re harassing them to buy something they already have, they won’t respond to well when you market something new to them.

5. Encourage Social Sharing – Put social share buttons on appropriate email messages so that your subscribers can help you get more people to sign up for your email marketing lists. This is a type of personalization that encourages them to share with their friends, but also encourages them to friend, like and follow you on other social channels.

6. Insert Predefined Fields – Most email programs allow you to insert different predefined fields. For example, if you have a website that is devoted to selling art, you could send a questionnaire to your audience asking them what their favorite style is. Then the software will not only trigger the right emails to go out based on that style, but it will also mention the style within the email message. If they don’t fill it out, it will insert some other value that you choose into that predefined field.

7. Use Date Insert Fields – It’s important for many of your emails to be pre-crafted, but you can make the email message look as if it was just created by using the date insert field. Then the email message looks timelier. With that function, in conjunction with special sales pages that also show the current date, you can personalize by keeping everything looking current.

8. Use Retargeting Technology – When someone visits your website, or buys something, it’s important to use the technology available to you to retarget them for buying something more. When your user receives your email and opens it, a software program can be used to install a cookie that will then allow specialized ads to be delivered to the user when they visit various webpages.


9. Ask for Reviews for Products Purchased – Whenever a customer buys a product, send them a thank you message and then a series of follow-up messages. One of these can be a request for a product review, after giving them enough time to try and use your product or service. The form they fill out for the review will also ask for more information about them that you can use for further targeted marketing.

Even though most consumers are savvy enough to realize that a lot of email marketing is automated today, they still respond better to more personalization than less. Therefore, if you want to compete with others it’s imperative that you use your software to its fullest potential by using as much personalization as it’s capable of.

10 Tips for Marketing Your Business with Facebook Pages

10 Tips for Marketing Your Business with Facebook Pages

In the process of looking for ways to increase sales, you have probably realized the root question in any marketing campaign is “How do I get information about my business in front of people?”  Before you even decide on the content of your marketing message, you have to know that people will see it. That means knowing where people will be.

Facebook is where people are, with over 1.3 billion active users. And on any given day, 48% of them log on. You can target your desired demographic in that enormous audience by creating a Facebook Page, so let’s look at some ways to use a Facebook Page to market your business.

1. Create a page. That is your starting point, so don’t put it off. It is quick, easy and free. You can have a Facebook page for your business up and running in less than an hour, and you can refine it as frequently as you wish.

2. Add a cover and a profile picture. Some graphic representation of your business (a photo or your logo, for instance) will create brand awareness for that image. People that have visited your Facebook Page will have a connection with all of the information they have received there whenever they see that it.

3. Add a “Call to Action.”  On the Cover area of your page, set up a call to action. Use it. Also use Call to Action buttons or links in your posts and in ads you create. Responses to a Call to Action build your fan base and create alternative ways to market to those fans.

4. Add a description of your business. This is the first place visitors will see information about the nature of your business. You have two places for descriptions – a short one (155 characters) and a long one. Use both.

5. Add contact information to encourage prospects to find you. Add your address, telephone number and website URL to your page. Some businesses will use a Facebook Page in lieu of a website. If you have a website, though, a leading function of the Facebook Page will be to drive traffic to it.

6. Post on your personal Facebook Profile to acquaint your friends with your Facebook Page. Ask them to Like your Facebook Page. (Another Call to Action!)

7. Through your Page, connect with Facebook Groups that have the interests that you expect your customers will have. There is no better way to increase your business’ exposure quickly.

8. Start posting and do it often. You increase the chances of any given Facebook fan seeing your post when you post at least two or three times per day.

9. Do not post only ads on your page. Your main reason for creating the page is to increase your business, but an advantage of Facebook over most marketing tools is the ability to build a relationship with prospects. Give them reasons to like you. Give them entertaining and informative posts, as well as ads.

10. Allow others to post to your Page. This provides an opportunity for two-way communication with prospects – another step in building a relationship rather than merely dispensing ads. There are options available to provide monitoring so you can protect your page from inappropriate language, for example.

Start with your Facebook Page to grow brand awareness and respect from visitors to your Page. This one tool can start an exponential growth spurt.

10 Tips for Marketing Your Business with Facebook Group

10 Tips for Marketing Your Business with Facebook Groups

The key to marketing success is getting an effective promotional message about your company in front of large numbers of potential customers. Facebook Groups is an excellent tool for making large numbers of people aware of your business, your products or services, and your message. For dramatic increases in the visibility of your company, you might:

1.   Search Groups for interests that you would expect your customers to have. For example, if you sell camping gear, search for groups using keywords like camping, hunting, or outdoors. You will find many groups that are relevant to your business. Don’t hesitate to join them all.

2.   Post to those groups, and do it often. Posting more than once a day is helpful. More posts increase the likelihood that any individual member of the group will see your post. Since you may be joining dozens of groups, unique posts for each group would be impractical. Create posts that can be used across the whole range of groups you have joined.

3.   Use images in your posts. Images get far more interest and response than simple text posts.

4.   Include links to your website or a call to action (“Click for more information” for example) with images. Your first goal is to build exposure, and a large fan base is evidence of that growing exposure. You want the group’s members to go to your Facebook page, where they will find more information about you, your company and your products.

5.   Create some item that can be emailed at regular intervals. Whether in posts to the group or on your Facebook page, you should have a call to action – Sign Up For My Newsletter, for example. When visitors sign up for that newsletter you grow your email list, which can become an entirely separate marketing tool.

6.   Do not post only ads to the groups. Also create posts that actually provide value, whether entertainment or information, to the reader. You want to build a relationship with the reader that makes them more inclined to trust your business.

7.   Whether posting ads or informative or entertaining posts, address problems that your product or service will solve for them. It doesn’t have to be a blatant cry for their business. Just making people think about the problem and creating an awareness that you can help contributes to the relationship.

8.   Use giveaways to encourage visits to your Facebook page. Giveaways don’t have to be costly. An informative report that addresses visitors’ interests or can cost you nothing to put together and increase your Facebook fan’s interest in your business.

9.   In all of your efforts, keep in mind that your success is dependent upon building a relationship with the individuals in the group and with the visitors to your Facebook page. Whether they are a few dozen or a few thousand, gear your campaigns to individuals, not groups.

10. Be Honest. Sure, that’s your intention, but don’t let promotional puffery slip over into false statements. Assume that the reader will at some point become aware that a claim or a promise was false. When they reach that awareness, all of your effort toward building a relationship is at risk. It is much better to promise less and deliver on every promise.

For an explosive growth in your Facebook Page’s fan base, and a corresponding growth in sales, there is no more effective single tool than Facebook Groups. Make them a consistent element of your marketing plan.