Can You Replace Your Content Team with AI?

Content writing is a tough, but rewarding job. Each year, it seems like there's more pressure to churn out even more content. And our audiences seem to consume it just as fast as we can get it out there for them.

As the need for more content continues its upward slope, companies are looking for ways to create as much as possible, as quickly as possible. In fact, a Content Matters report showed that eight in 10 marketers plan to create more content next year than they did the previous year. While copywriters can create great content quickly, it can cause a lot of strain to keep up with the rising demand. This is the driving force behind the adoption of generative AI. Algorithms like ChatGPT, Google Bard, and Microsoft's Bing Chat are the latest technological advancements to generate content.

This has a lot of copywriters scared about losing their jobs to automation in the near future. And it’s understandable why they would be. Now you can type a prompt into an AI copywriter like Jasper, Copy.ai, or ChatGPT and receive hundreds of words of written content in a matter of seconds. 

It’s almost scary.

Generative AI is Faster

AI copywriters like ChatGPT are lightning fast. They provide hundreds of words of content in a cohesive structure almost instantaneously, no matter what the subject is about. Human copywriters, on the other hand, can take hours to create the same amount of content. and the more complex the subject, the longer it takes. Given the choice between getting a finished blog article right now vs. a blog article tomorrow, AI looks very tempting.

AI is Cheaper

Humans are expensive, needy animals. They need a paycheck. They need to eat. They need to take breaks. They need sleep. They need a healthy work/life balance. The list goes on and on. On the other hand, AI doesn't need food, sleep, or bathroom breaks. It can work 24/7, allowing businesses to produce a lot of content with very little investment.

AI Doesn't Get Writer's Block

Every copywriter has faced the terror of staring at a blank page for hours on end, with no words coming to their mind. Just thinking about getting stuck in a creative rut makes me break out in a cold sweat. Generative AI doesn't get writer's block. It doesn't have to worry about creative burnout. It just provides a steady stream of content, day or night.

But this doesn't mean we can simply lay off our content team, plug a topic into an AI copywriter, and expect it to write all the content for us. AI-generated content on its own can come out dull and lifeless at best, or repetitive and valueless at worst. Here are some of the reasons why you need human copywriters to turn AI-generated words into good marketing content.

It Lacks the Human Touch

Generative AI is fast, but it certainly isn't interesting. AI-generated content on its own has a very dry, dull, lifeless quality that can make it completely uninteresting to read. The content can be factually inaccurate, filled with cluttered sentences, and sometimes it can repeat the same phrases multiple times. It takes a human eye to sift the good content from the bad that the AI wouldn't detect due to lack of awareness.

Search Engines May Devalue AI Content

AI generates plenty of content, but it's often very surface-level. It lacks the depth and specificity needed to make a useful content piece that answers the audience's questions. Plus, it's also important to know that search engines can recognize AI writing. With Google's recent Helpful Content update, content will get dinged if it doesn't clearly demonstrate expertise. That expertise comes from a depth-of-knowledge or first-hand experience that AI just can't bring to the table.

It takes a skilled copywriter to turn AI-generated words into interesting, helpful content that fits into Google's E-E-A-T guidelines of experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.

AI-generated content can be a valuable tool for content creation. But it still needs human copywriters to ensure that it meets the needs of the target audience and aligns with the brand's overall marketing strategy. By combining the speed and efficiency of AI with the creativity and expertise of human writers, businesses can produce high-quality content that engages and inspires their audience.

When Can I Stop Doing SEO?

Maybe you've been working an SEO campaign and haven't been seeing the results you were hoping for, so you're considering packing it in and focusing your marketing efforts elsewhere. Or maybe you used SEO best practices to create a campaign that was wildly successful and you hit the top of the Search engine Results page (SERP), so you think you can sit back and rest on your laurels. Either way, you might be wondering if you can stop doing SEO.

Technically, you can stop doing SEO whenever you want.

But you really shouldn't.

If you’re not getting the results from your SEO campaign that you were hoping for, just remember that optimizing for search engines is a journey, not a destination. You’re playing the long game here. So either be patient and stick with it, set more manageable goals, or try a different strategy with your SEO.

If you’ve reached your goals and hit the top of the SERP, you may be tempted to end your SEO campaign. But if you don't keep an ongoing SEO campaign going, you won't stay on top for long. Here are four reasons why you should keep working an SEO campaign, no matter what your results have been:

• Fresh content boosts your search engine rankings.

• Search engine algorithms change.

• User search behaviors change.

• Your competition won't stop.

Fresh content boosts your search engine rankings.

When it comes to SEO, content is your bread and butter. People on the internet are consuming content at an enormous rate. If they don’t find fresh content on your website, they’ll look for it somewhere else. Content recency, which Merriam-Webster assures me is a word, is one of the factors Google and other search engines use to rank your website and determine where to place it on a SERP. Basically it means the newer, the better. So the more fresh content you put on your website, the higher your ranking will be and the higher up you'll appear on SERPs.

Search engine algorithms change.

Search engines like Google don't use people to crawl the web and rank websites. They use algorithms. It's cheaper and more feasible than hiring thousands of employees to do that job. But it doesn't take long for people to find ways to exploit those algorithms to get high rankings for useless web content. If you’ve ever fallen for clickbait, you know exactly what I mean. That’s why search engines constantly change how their algorithms crawl the web and rank websites. It’s important to keep up with the changes Google makes to its search algorithms. SEO strategies that worked well in the past won’t be as helpful today or in the future as the algorithms change. And worse, you could get penalized.

User search behaviors change.

It used to be that people would search the web using specific keywords and short phrases. But trends in user behavior change over time. With newer technology like smartphones and smart speakers, people are changing how they search for information and which keywords they use. That directly impacts how they find your website. It's important to keep a current SEO strategy to change your web content to match the changes in user search behavior. 

Your competition won't stop.

The higher you rank on a SERP, the higher your clickthrough rate and the more traffic you get to your website, so competition is fierce. Virtually every business has an online presence and they're continually pushing for those coveted search engine rankings. Just keep in mind that you may stop your SEO, but they won't. And if you do, it won't be long before your competition scoops up the top ranking spots and pushes your website further down the listing. So if you want to keep up traffic on your website and keep bringing in customers through organic search results, you need to keep doing SEO.

Want to stay on top? Never stop doing SEO.

I mentioned before that you're playing the long game with SEO. It's not something you can set and forget. Whether it's regular keyword research, adding new content to your website, or even performing a website SEO audit, you should always keep an active SEO strategy going. 

Hey Siri, What’s Voice Search and How Do I Optimize For It?

What Is Voice Search?

Voice search is any spoken question people have asked their phones or smart speakers. If you've ever asked Alexa what the weather forecast is today, or asked Siri for directions, you've made a voice search. It's changing how people find information online. And that means it's changing how we need to manage our search engine optimization.

How Can I Optimize My SEO for Voice Search?

Here are five strategies for optimizing your website’s SEO for voice search.

1. Focus on question keywords and long tail keywords

2. Optimize for local search

3. Utilize structured data

4. Add an FAQ

5. Make your website mobile-friendly

1. Focus on question keywords and long-tail keywords

People who make voice searches are often asking very specific questions. They talk in complete sentences and use more words than they would for a typed search. That means you should be focusing on topics and long-tail keywords to match up with voice search queries. Long-tail keywords are a lot more specific than head terms or short-tail keywords, so they don't get as much search traffic. But they provide a lot more detail to search engines and are more likely to get a click from someone who searches for them. 

2. Optimize for local search

People doing a voice search are three times more likely to be making location-targeted searches (like restaurants, the weather, and nearby businesses) than people typing in their search. So you can't ignore the local element of your SEO. This is especially true if you’re a brick-and-mortar business. Add the names of the locations and regions you serve into your content, create location pages on your website, and optimize your Google My Business account.

3. Utilize structured data

Also known as schema markup, structured data is one of the factors search engines look at when figuring out your website's ranking. It helps Google figure out what the elements are on your page and what's relevant to a search query. Some people may think it's too much work to use and wouldn't affect voice search SEO much. 

But here's the thing: Google is developing speakable structured data as we speak. It's still in beta right now, but it's a sign that structured data is going to play a bigger role in voice search in the near future. So using structured data now will put you miles ahead of other search results in the future.

4. Add an FAQ to your website

Right now you're probably thinking, "an FAQ? What is this, the 90s?" I know, right? But hear me out. People doing a voice search are making interrogatory searches. In other words, their searches are in the form of questions. An FAQ on your website directly answers common questions relevant to your business or service. It makes it easier for search engines to find answers to queries made by voice search. It also raises your chances of getting ranked on featured snippets.

5. Make your website mobile-friendly

Did you know that more than half of all internet traffic is generated by mobile devices? Did you know that more than 27% of those mobile searches are done by voice? Search engines factor your website's mobile experience into their rankings. So if you want to show up in SERPs for both voice and text search, you need a mobile-friendly website. 

While we're talking about mobile-friendly, keep in mind that mobile users are on the go - both physically and mentally. If your website is slow to load, they won't stay on it. Keep your page load time fast. Google factors load time into their ranking, so a fast-loading website will be more likely to get found in a search, and users will be more likely to stick around.

[Related article: How Bounce Rate Impacts Your Website SEO]

Here are my final thoughts

Voice search isn't exactly new. Google first announced it was going to roll out voice search back in 2011. But it's come so much further and become so much more common that you just can't ignore it any longer. 

Voice search has changed how people ask for information and how search engines find answers to their questions. If you optimize your content for voice search, you'll provide a better user experience and rank higher in SERPs.

Tell Me a Story: The Art & Science of Storytelling in Content Marketing

Ah, stories. Don't we just love them? We love telling them, and we love hearing them. 

We tell stories to our children, we follow stories in our favorite shows, and we read them in books and in the news. Stories are everywhere, and storytelling is happening all the time.

In marketing, storytelling means using a narrative, character, and plot to communicate a message that indirectly markets your product or service. It's what builds the relationship between a business and its target audience. It puts a human face on the brand, builds trust in the organization, and sells solutions to a problem the audience has in a more appealing way.

In fact, storytelling is one of our 10 tips for effective content marketing. It adds authenticity to your content. You can use it to find out what your audience values, what they're interested in, and what their pain points are. That information helps you create more content that connects with your audience effectively.

But to really understand why storytelling is important in content marketing, let's talk about what stories do to our brains.

This is Your Brain on Stories

Three things happen when in your brain when you hear or read a story:

1. Your Brain Releases Cortisol. It's usually released in response to stress. But in storytelling, cortisol gets released in response to the action of the story - when characters face danger, risk, or potential reward. Think about the moment in the last book you read where you couldn't stop turning pages, or the point in a movie where you just had to see what happens next. That's your brain on cortisol. It's the hormone that tells us to pay attention because something important is happening.

2. Your Brain Releases Oxytocin. This is often called the "love hormone," or the "bonding hormone." Oxytocin boosts our feelings of empathy, compassion, and trust. It usually gets released when mothers nurse their baby, when loved ones share a hug, and when we hear a compelling story we can relate to.

3. Your Brain Releases Dopamine. This potent little neurotransmitter is the reward/motivation chemical. It tells our brain, "This is good. I want more of this." It normally gets released as a “reward” when we make progress on something, we succeed at a task we put effort into, or when we reach the “a-ha!” moment of a good story. Dopamine is responsible for increasing our focus and motivating us to act.

Brain Chemistry Meets Psychology

So a bunch of neurons start firing and your brain is swimming in a bath of pay-attention, get-together, and get-motivated chemicals. What does that mean? According to a group of neuroscientists from Princeton University, it means a connection is being made between the listener and the storyteller. These neuroscientists conducted an experiment where they put two people in an fMRI and scanned their brains while one person told a story and the other person listened. They discovered that when listening to a well-told story, the exact same areas of the brain activate in both the storyteller and listener:

"...the story evoked highly reliable activity in many brain areas across all listeners."

"Communication is a shared activity resulting in a transfer of information across brains. The findings shown here indicate that during successful communication, speakers’ and listeners’ brains exhibit joint, temporally coupled, response patterns."

In other words, your brain, as the listener, mirrors the brain of the storyteller. The listener puts themselves into the story. 

The Oldest (and Newest) Story Ever Told

Back in 1949, an American author and professor Joseph Campbell wrote a landmark book comparing the structures of stories and myths from around the world. He theorized that there was a similar fundamental structure for the journey of the archetypal hero in most stories. He called this story structure the Hero's Journey. This is a classic plot progression found in many of the stories you know and love, and involves a hero or main character who goes on an adventure, faces trials and tribulations, is victorious over a major crisis, and returns home changed by the experience. There’s some debate on what the stages are and how many of them there are. But generally the hero’s journey follows these 7 stages:

1. The Call to Adventure. The hero starts out living a normal life, when a problem arises or something happens to upset the status quo. The hero sets off into the unknown.

2. Meeting with the Mentor. Once the hero is on their quest, a mentor appears to guide them. Often, the mentor provides a gift or a piece of knowledge that aids the hero later in their journey.

3. Trials, Allies, and Enemies. The hero faces a series of tests on their journey. They meet allies who help them and enemies who challenge them along the way. As the hero goes through these tests, they learn and grow.

4. The Final Ordeal. The hero reaches the place where the final goal of the quest is within reach. But to get to it, they must face their greatest challenge.

5. The Reward. After facing their final ordeal, the hero emerges victorious and achieves the final goal of their quest. The problem that triggered the call to adventure has been solved.

6. The Return. The triumphant hero returns home, having changed their life in a meaningful way. They’ve become a stronger, wiser person for having gone through the journey.

If this sounds familiar, the hero’s journey is the structure of many of the stories you're familiar with. Everything from the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Odyssey to the Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, the Hunger Games, and pretty much every superhero movie you've seen.

The Hero’s Journey Mirrors The Buyer’s Journey

Right now you’re probably thinking to yourself, “that’s all fine and dandy. But what does it have to do with content marketing?” To answer that question, let's take a look at the buyer's journey and how it matches up to the hero’s journey. If you’re not familiar with the buyer’s journey, you can read about it more in-depth here. But for simplicity’s sake, I’ve listed them here.

Awareness

The buyer has discovered a problem or need. They begin searching for information to better identify it and understand it. In the hero's journey, this is the Call to Adventure and the start of Meeting with the Mentor. 

Consideration

The buyer has identified and understands their problem or need, and now they're searching for information to solve it. In the hero's journey, this is where we see the continuation of the Meeting with the Mentor and the Trials, Allies and Enemies stages.

Decision

The buyer has researched solutions to their problem or need. They're narrowing down the different solutions and making a final purchase decision. This is the Final Ordeal, where the buyer/hero makes their final buying decision. Following the Final Ordeal, the buyer gets the Reward of their solution.

The Return

The buyer, solution in-hand, returns to their life having solved the problem or fulfilled their need.

The Buyer Is the Hero.

This is the intersection of content marketing and storytelling. The buyer's journey mirrors the hero's journey too closely to ignore. So when you think about your content marketing strategy and when you create your content, just remember: You're not the main character. The buyer is. The story you’re telling in your content is their story - their pain points, their quest for information, their final ordeal, and their return with the solution.

You Are the Mentor.

In storytelling, every hero needs a mentor. That's no different in content marketing. With the buyer's journey, every customer needs someone who helps them - someone who offers assistance, guidance, and the information they need to continue along the journey. So when you think about your content creation, approach it as the mentor to the buyer-hero.

At the end of the day, understanding how storytelling affects your audience on a deeper level reveals just how important it is to use storytelling in your content marketing. And drawing the parallels between the hero's journey and your audience's path along the buyer's journey can make a big difference in how you create content.

Beginners Guide to Writing Killer Conversion Copy

They used to say that a picture was worth a thousand words. But today, in the world of inbound marketing, copy is king. Compelling copy is a marketer's bread and butter. Imagine these two scenarios:

• Someone is clicking through Amazon, reads a great review for a product, and adds it to their online shopping cart.

• A person sees an interesting blog title in a Google search and clicks the link to read more.

What do those two scenarios have in common? The reader was persuaded by words to take action. In both cases, it was the copy that led to the conversion. It's important to remember that a conversion doesn't just mean someone is buying your product. It can also mean something like:

• Subscribing to your email list.

• Sharing your content on social media.

• Clicking on a call-to-action.

• Signing up for a product demo.

• Adding something to an online shopping cart.

In other words, conversion copy is written for a specific goal and aims to convince a person to take some kind of action right now. The more interesting and persuasive your copywriting is, the more likely you are to get those conversions. If you’re tired of low conversion rates, use these tips to write copy that sells.

1. Know Your Audience

You can't have good writing without good research. And the more you know about your target audience, the better you'll be able to speak directly to them. You'll want to know their pain points, how you can solve their pain points, and what it takes to motivate them to take action. You can do this by creating or using a buyer persona.

1. Understand the Buyer's Journey

One of the most important components of good conversion copywriting is knowing how far along the buyer's journey your target audience is. Here are the three stages of the buyer's journey:

• Awareness: The buyer knows they have a problem or a need. They're searching for information to better understand it and identify it.

• Consideration: The buyer has identified their problem or need and is searching for information to solve it.

• Decision: The buyer has narrowed down the solution to their problem or need and is ready to make a final purchase decision.

Since your audience will have different needs at different stages of the buyer’s journey, you need to tailor your message to fit. Buyers don't want a product demo when they're still in the awareness stage, for example. That wouldn't lead to a conversion. Once you know which stage of the buyer’s journey your target audience is at, you can present them with the right persuasive content. Click here for a content guide for each stage of the buyer's journey.

1. Figure Out the "Why?"

Now you understand your target audience and where they are in the buyer's journey. You have everything you need to craft your message in a way that inspires conversion. But you have to focus on what your conversion goal is. What do you want the copy to achieve? Is it to get new email subscribers? Is it to convince buyers to sign up for a demo? Is it to get them to buy your product?

Whatever your goal is, keep it forefront in your mind when you write your copy. That way, your message will be laser-targeted to resonate with the reader and maximize your conversion rates.

1. Write With Authority

Now, we’re getting into the meat and potatoes of conversion copywriting. The first rule is to write with confidence and treat sentences as if they were calls to action. After all, this is persuasive writing, not suggestive writing. Avoid softening your language with words like possibly, probably, maybe, think, and consider. Be direct with your words to get your point across without unnecessary details.

1. Write How You Speak, Speak What You Write

Avoid being overly formal with your writing unless the situation calls for it. The best thing you can do to write conversion copy is to keep it simple. The words should flow naturally as if you were speaking them. Here are some guidelines for making your copy easy to read and understand:

• Use shorter words.

• Keep sentences to one idea each.

• Avoid filler words.

• Write in the active voice.

• Break up your paragraphs to make it easy on the eyes.

• Don’t be afraid to break the rules of grammar if it makes a better-sounding sentence.

The best way to check if your writing flows naturally is to read it back out loud. You’ll quickly discover which sentences run too long and where the writing is too clunky.

1. Write the Headline Last

You might be tempted to write the headline first, but this is a mistake. It’s natural for your conversion copy to stray from your original title as you write it. So save the headline for last, and put in the time to write a stellar one. Your headline is one of the most important pieces of your conversion copy for one reason:

People won’t read your copy.

That’s right, they won’t read most of what you write. They’ll skim, and they won’t pay attention to everything.

That is, except for a few key pieces:

• The headline

• The subheadline

• Call-to-action buttons

• Images

• Image captions

• Short, simple paragraphs

• Bulleted lists

Those pieces are the most important parts of your conversion copy. So spend plenty of time getting them done well.

1. Use Words That Work

There are certain words that resonate more than others. First and foremost are your brand’s keywords. They’re worth their weight in gold when it comes to your SEO. Learn what your keywords are and use them throughout your conversion copywriting piece. But don’t pack them in too much or force them in where they don’t belong, or else search engines will penalize you for keyword stuffing. Think of other ways to rephrase your keywords and use them to break things up a bit in your writing.

Now we’re onto the lightning round. Some words have more impact on your readers than others. Here are 14 words or short phrases that work:

• Exclusive offer

• Only available to subscribers

• Supplies running out

• Today only

• Hassle-free

• Accountability

• Results

• Efficient

• Peace-of-mind

• Balanced approach

• Secret

• Inspire

• Innovative

• Revolutionary

See a list of more high-impact words here.

Conversion copywriting is definitely a skill that develops over time. But with these tips, your next marketing piece will have stronger, more persuasive copy that converts prospects no matter where they are along the buyer’s journey.

Email Design: Think Mobile First

It used to be that people looked at emails primarily through desktop and laptop computers with wide screens. So for years, the expectation was that emails should be designed horizontally, and as wide as possible to fit into modern, wide-screen monitors.
 
But nowadays, more and more people are viewing emails on their smartphones. As of 2015, 50% of emails were read on mobile. That number has likely gone up since then. So design your emails with mobile viewing in mind. What does that mean? 
 
Firstly, it means vertical is king. Design your emails in a single column. It'll look flawless on mobile, and it'll still work well on desktop clients like Outlook and Thunderbird.
 
Avoid clutter whenever possible. Too many design elements will distract the reader. Keep your email design clean and concise, and use plenty of white-space.
 
Most importantly, remember that your marketing is meant to serve a specific purpose (increasing brand awareness, driving traffic to the website, getting people into the store, etc.). Which purpose is your email supposed to serve? What do you want your reader to do? Your email should make it easy for your reader to do that.

Are You Ignoring These Three Critical Subject Line Elements?

A lot of people treat email subject lines and headlines as an afterthought - something you toss in last minute just for the sake of having. But this is a huge mistake. Advertising Guru David Ogilvy said that 80% of your audience will read your headline and nothing else. If he were still alive today, he'd probably say the same thing about email subject lines. You can spend hours crafting the perfect body copy, but nobody will ever read it if your subject line isn't compelling enough to get them to open. So don't treat your subject line and headline like an afterthought. They're probably the two most important parts of your email.

Keep it short.
Most email inboxes reveal about 40-60 characters of an email's subject line. But mobile devices typically show only 25-30 characters. And according to Business Insider, about 50% of emails are being read on mobile phones. So shorter is definitely better. Try to keep your subject lines around 30-40 characters long.

Write it last.
Of course, you can write the subject line and headline first if you know what you're marketing so well that your copy flows naturally no matter where you begin. But for most people, moments like those are few and far in-between. We recommend you start by writing a draft of the body copy. This will help organize your thoughts and give you the raw material you need to find your creative hook - that key selling-point that you can base your headline and subject line on. After you've found it, take some time to craft your headline and subject line based on that hook. Finally, rewrite your body copy to fit with your final headline.

Appeal to emotion.
You may think that if you give someone a logical reason for buying your product, they’ll be more likely to buy. But consumer behavior research shows that people make buying decisions based on emotion, and then use facts and logic to justify their decision after they’ve made it. Here are a few ways to appeal to your readers’ emotions in your headlines and subject lines:
Self Interest (what’s in it for the buyer?)
Curiosity (a compelling question that makes them click to find out more)
Urgency/Scarcity (Limited quantity and limited time offer)

Remember: Your headline is a single sentence that should make your readers say, “I want that,” or at least, “What the heck is that?”

Need some inspiration? Here's a link to Digital Marketer's 101 best email subject lines of 2016

Don’t click Send until you do these four things

We’ve all felt it - that little tinge of fear in the back of our minds right after we click Send on an email blast. Your mind fills with all sorts of worries. “Did I make any typos?”

“Did I put the right image in?”

“Do all the links work?”

"Are they going to hate it?"

Here are four things you should do before you send another email. Trust me - you’ll feel a lot better about it:

1. Check all your written copy for typos. That includes your subject line, headline and body copy. Check all of it. Every word, every sentence. And then check it again just in case.

2. Make sure all your links work. You'd be surprised how easy it is to forget to update a link, especially if you're using an email template. Click every link in your email and make sure they send the reader where you want them to go.

3. Check your list. It's not uncommon to have more than one email list. Check to make sure you’re sending to the right audience.

4. Don’t sweat it. Even with multiple pairs of eyes and several rechecks on each email, mistakes still happen from time to time. So give yourself permission to experiment. Not every email can be a smash hit. Don't forget that learning what doesn’t work is just as useful as learning what does.

Click here for a complete email preflight checklist.

The Importance Of Click Rate

We’ve covered ways to improve your open rate. But one of the most important numbers is your click rate. Your click rate basically tells you how much of your audience clicked at least one link on your emails.

A good open rate means your subject lines are compelling enough to make your subscribers want to read more. But a good click rate means your email content was relevant and useful. That leads to more conversions and more sales.

There are two things your emails need to have a strong click rate: A clear call-to-action, and at least one relevant click-through link.

A call-to-action is an image or line of text that prompts your subscribers to take some kind of action. That action could be anything from stopping by your location, to clicking on a link to view your latest ad. Every email should have a clear call-to-action of some kind.

You can’t measure your click rate if you don’t have a link for your readers to click on. So have at least one relevant link in every email you send. Your best option is a link to a landing page for what you’re promoting in the email. But you can also have a link to your latest promotion or your website's contact page.

Never Stop Growing Your Email List

Even with the best email campaigns and the most loyal customers, you’re still likely to see people unsubscribe from your email list. So email acquisition is something you should always be doing. 

Your best strategy for convincing customers to give you their email address is to run acquisitions in a variety of locations and to use customized messaging to keep them motivated to participate.

On Social Media
If you’re running an email acquisition campaign, make sure to put it up on your social media pages. Link to your email sign-up page in a social post.

Give Them A Reason To Sign Up
People aren’t going to hand over their precious email address without a good reason. Sometimes offering them direct access to your coupons and and latest ads is enough. Offering them a special discount is even better. Sometimes offering a free item or service for signing up is the most effective. You can even do a special prize giveaway or contest sign-up to motivate people.
 

A/B Testing, Part 3: Testing Promos for Click-Throughs

Getting your audience to open your email is one thing. But how do you know if it lead to increased sales? Click-throughs are an important element of conversions. And they’re often one of the best ways to know if your email campaign was successful.

We’ve covered A/B testing for better email open rates. Now let’s talk about testing your click-through rate. There are many ways to A/B test your click-through rates. This month, we’ll cover promos.

If you’re running two or more similar promotions at the same time, you can swap them out in an A/B test to see which promo or brand generates more interest for your audience.

For example, Cabot, Valspar and Rust-Oleum Restore are all running a $10-off-per-gallon promo during May. Try switching out the product brands for an A/B test and see which brand lead to more click-throughs. Will Valspar be a bigger hit with your customers, or Cabot?

Of course, you can’t measure your click-through rate if you don’t have a link in your email for them to click. Make sure it links to something relevant. In the case of A/B testing promos, set up a landing page for the two brand promos you’re A/B testing and link to it in the email.

As always, make sure you track your results. By better knowing your audience, you'll get more engagement and more sales.

A/B Test Your Emails (Part 2)

Last time we covered A/B testing your subject lines to improve your email open rates. Today we’ll talk about another necessary key to open rates: Timing. What time of day and which day of the week that you send out your eblast can have a big impact on whether it gets opened or discarded by your customers.

Mail Chimp’s email metrics show that emails sent during the week get better open rates than emails sent during the weekend. Thursday and Friday had the highest open rates of the week. The metrics also show that emails sent late morning through early afternoon were more successful than emails sent first thing in the morning or in the evening. Between 9am and 2pm had the highest open rates of the week. You can read the full report here. 

Of course every audience is different. And what works for one brand’s audience might not work for another. You can use the above information as a good starting point for A/B testing different days and times to eblast. 

Try A/B testing the same email on different days of the week. Half your audience gets the email on one day, and the other half gets it on a different day. Use this information to pin down the best days of the week to eblast to your audience. You can do the same with time-of-say.

As always, make sure you track your results. By better knowing your audience, you'll get more engagement and more sales.

A/B Test Your Emails (Part 1)

Good subject lines are hard enough to create. Coming up with subject lines that sell is even harder. It all depends on what appeals to your audience. By A/B testing your subject lines, you'll learn what works for your audience. You can use that knowledge to write subject lines that'll lead to higher open rates and more sales.

If you're not familiar with the term, A/B Testing simply means writing two different subject lines for an email, and then sending the email with one subject line to half your recipients and the other subject line to the other half. A week later, check your results and see which subject line got more opens. It's that simple.

There are other ways to A/B test your emails, but we'll focus on subject lines here.

Know What You're Testing

If you're just sending two different subject lines at random for each email, you're not going to learn as much as you could. First you need to decide what you want to learn about your audience. Here are some examples:

- Short vs long subject lines.
- Subject lines with numbers vs ones without numbers.
- Subject lines phrased as a question vs a statement.
- Adding a personalization or not.

Pick one of these to A/B test in your next email and track your results. By better knowing your audience, you'll get more engagement and more sales.