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Compete With Big Boxes Through Inboxes – 3 Tips

Do you use email to market your store and products? I hope you are! Email conversion rates are three times higher than social media*, three times! This is a channel retailers cannot ignore, but just sending a newsletter isn’t enough to compete and grow your business.
In this episode of Crystal Media TV you’ll learn three tips to help increase your email marketing efforts. There’s a lot to learn when it comes to successfully using email to market your business, so be sure to click the link below the video to check out the “Inbox to In-Store: Driving Traffic Through Email” training course.

Looking to learn more about email marketing? Look no further. Click here to see the “Inbox to In-Store: Driving Traffic Through Email” training course outline, which is inside of Social Edge.

If you’d like more information about Social Edge, click here. You can gain access to all courses today, for as little as $97/month.

Let us know if you have any email marketing success stories in a comment below, we’d love to hear them!

To the future,

Crystal Vilkaitis

* – Source: McKinsey & Company

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Use Social Media to Build Your Email List

In honor of National Email Week, which is the second week of June, today’s focus is using social media to grow your email list.

They say, “the money is in the list,” and outside of building your online presence, strengthening relationships and generating web and foot traffic, one of the best ways to use social media is to build your email list.

Because we’re already online, it’s easy to opt-in and typically we’re doing so to receive something special like a discount, free shipping or free product.

Just having an opt-in form on your website isn’t enough (but make sure you do have one!). You must have a form on your Facebook page through a free application that most email service providers offer like SnapRetail, MailChimp and Constant Contact. Then, you need to talk about, promote and link to the application to get your fans to subscribe.

One of the most effective ways of using social media to build your email list is by running a contest or giveaway. Simply tell fans on Facebook or Pinterest that to enter to win {prize}, they must follow you and give their email address.

Use a 3rd party application to collect the email address directly on Facebook, through a Pinterest contest or on your website or blog like WooBox.com, ShortStack.com or Rafflecopter.

Example of using WooBox to run a contest on your Facebook page

running a contest on facebook

These applications cost money, so if you’re looking for a free alternative post the contest on your social media outlets, but link to your website or blog where people can opt-in/enter to win through a contact form.

For ultimate success, promote the contest on all your online outlets and in store. And consider using Facebook Ads to promote the contest to your current likes (which are your warm leads), and new people who live in your area and fit your perfect customer demographics.

Remember, when using Facebook Ads the more targeted the ad is, the less you’ll spend and the better your ad will perform. For additional ads training consider joining Social Edge.

Here’s a mini checklist to go through this week to use social media to grow your list:

  • Do you have an opt-in form on your website?
  • Is the opt-in form above the fold? Meaning, the website visitor doesn’t have to scroll down to see the form.
  • Does your form have text that states what the person gets for opting in, like a discount, free product or free shipping?
  • Does your Facebook page have an opt-in form?
  • Do you use graphics that ask your online audience to join your email list?
  • Can you run a contest to increase your email list? If yes which platform will you use/what will you giveaway/how long will you run it for/etc. Social Edge members log in to access a Facebook Contest Worksheet.
  • Is there another business you could partner with and run a contest together, or have them share your email opt-in to their audience and you’ll do the same?
  • Should you run a Facebook ad promoting your contest and/or email list?
  • Does your blog posts include links to join your email list?

Take this week to check your online presence to ensure you’re making it easy for your online audience to opt-in. Then, consider running a contest or giveaway and using Facebook Ads separately, or to support the contest.

If you have any questions please leave them in a comment below.

If you found this tip helpful, please forward it to a retailer friend and I’m wishing you a great National Email Week!

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5 Holiday Email Marketing Tips

The holidays are just around the corner, and I hope you’ll be using email marketing to get those shoppers into your store buying gifts for their loved ones. Let’s dive into this week’s post to give you some ideas on how to be more effective this season with your email marketing program.
5 Holiday Email Marketing Tips

1. Get people to open. Using email to market your store is one of the best ways to get the sale, but if customers aren’t opening the email, they’ll never see your new items/event info/special offers/etc. Get people to open by having a catchy and effective subject line. To help you find and brainstorm some strong holiday subject lines, check out this article by Vertical Response titled, “20 Holiday Subject Lines That Light Up the Inbox“

2. Make it exclusive. When people join email lists, they’re usually doing so to get special offers. However, some businesses send out a special offer via email that they also put on Facebook, Twitter, promote in-store, etc.  By doing this, you weaken the value of being a subscriber to your email list. This holiday season be sure to send out something exclusive to your subscribers that they can’t find anywhere else. And, let them know it’s exclusive, they’ll feel special 🙂

3. Focus your call to action. People are busy, especially during this time of year. Don’t add more work to their lives by sending long email newsletters that feature lots a different calls to action (CTAs) like: buy, come in, call us, come to this event, read this recipe, go to our Facebook page, participate in our Pinterest contest. I’m not kidding, I received an email from an independent retailer that had 6 different CTAs and as a consumer, I have no idea what was most important; I thought, “what do they really want me to do?” As a shopper, I get overwhelmed and I’m busy, so to make my life easier I delete the email.

Now I want to be clear, if you have an email newsletter that works for you, don’t stop sending it. My tip here is to focus on one CTA that is simple to understand, obvious what you want the shopper to do and is above the fold (so they don’t need to scroll to see the CTA).

4. Don’t rely on images. Depending on your customer’s email settings, they might disable images from appearing. If this is the case, and your email is an entire graphic, or has words on a graphic, the reader will not see any part of the email and it will look like a blank, boring send. Be sure to include text in your emails in addition to images so your message is effectively being communicated (and getting seen!)

5. Check it twice. If you’re using an email service provider like Mail Chimp or SnapRetail, be sure to always send yourself a test email to make sure everything looks good and all the links work. Take it a step further by checking the email on mobile devices like a smartphone and/or tablet. With 47% of email being opened on a mobile device, according to Litmus, Aug 2013; it’s crucial to test email sends on these devices before sending to the masses. You don’t want to miss an opportunity to sell!

I’m wishing everyone a very successful holiday season, and email is one way to make it that way!

Please share this email with any retailer friends you have and have a wonderful rest of the week!

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Tip of the Week: Ask for Likes

Want more likes on Facebook? More Followers on Pinterest and/or Twitter? Send a dedicated email to your database with one call to action – to Like You (or to Follow You). Add in a giveaway component where anyone who Likes your page between now and end of the month has the chance of winning $100 to shop in your store. You’ll see a higher percentage of conversions by coupling your email with a giveaway or contest.