Five Tips to Increase Email Click-Through Rates

Here are five things you can do with your message to generate more clicks in your emails.

 

 1. Restate your key benefits
 

Hopefully, you've made your point in the body of your email and provided the key reasons recipients should take action. Usually, those reasons are the key benefits of responding to the call to action. For example:

• No Reservation Fees
• Park 7 Days and get One Day Free
• Complimentary Shuttle, Water, Coffee, etc

2. Make another promise or introduce a surprise benefit

If you're following basic copywriting guidelines, your message is focused on a single powerful idea (called, appropriately, the "Big Idea").  Let's say you've made a promise and talked about the key benefits, but, unfortunately, email recipients have read all the way to your signature and haven't clicked the link. Try offering another promise or a surprise benefit in your post script to jolt them from their stupor and move them into action.

• LIKE US on Facebook to receive special offer

3. Provide more credibility

Perhaps your email recipients aren't clicking because they don't believe you or what you're saying. Maybe you're pitching too soon in the sales cycle; maybe your offer doesn't offset their doubts at this point; or maybe your email address is not believable (i.e. joepark@aol.com). You must demonstrate a credible image to offer more proof or credibility ... hopefully pushing readers over the edge.

4. Communicate urgency

You can communicate urgency in many ways, and most of them aren't believable. I'm sure you've been to a landing page that shows the number 500 crossed out with the phrase "only 19 remaining!" next to it. Return to that site a year later, and you'll see the same numbers. Some sense of urgency! Urgency works only when it's real. You can't say you've got a limited supply of e-books, for example. Even the most naive shopper would see through that ploy. You can, however, use urgency when a timeline or limitation exists.

5. Restate or expand on your guarantee

If you've got a good guarantee, by all means, flaunt it in your message.  For example:

• Book Online on our Website for the lowest rate....Guaranteed!
• Best Price Guarantee found at www.takecareofmycar.com!
• No Reservation Fees!

 

Key Components to your Long Term Internet Strategy

If you are reading this post for the first time, I highly recommend reading it over and over again until you do something about it.  Or what?  Well, for starters, you will lose market share and watch your profits shrink.

If you want to make your business fly, there’s no good excuse for not having a small business internet marketing strategy.   A common bad excuse is, I don’t know how to grow our organization with more customers, clients, or sales using the internet.  Working with SMC, this excuse is no longer valid. 

Please review these bullets and then review the four points below to support these key components:

Don't Be Penny Wise & Pound Foolish

• MODERN, STRUCTURED WEBSITE with Mobile Application and Flexibile for Landing Pages
• SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)
• PAY PER CLICK (PPC)
• VIDEO SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (VSEO)
• EMAIL MARKETING
• SOCIAL NETWORKING
• REAL TIME CENTRALIZED RESERVATIONS SYSTEM (CRS)
• CHANNEL MARKETING PROGRAM 

1. To save time and money

A well-planned internet marketing strategy will assure that you’re allocating your time and your small business’ resources optimally by eliminating excessive trial and error, misuses of marketing budgets, and sporadic efforts. Sadly, most small business entrepreneurs aren’t aware of the tremendous impact that an online marketing strategy can have on their business’ bottom line.

2. To gain a competitive advantage

The online marketing your competition isn’t doing is your competitive advantage – but only if you seize the opportunity. If you’re following a solid small business internet marketing strategy, you’re putting yourself in a position to gain a competitive advantage over your competition. Why? Because you’ll be making consistent improvements to your tactics in the areas in which your competition is most likely lacking.  NOTE: Spend plenty of time planning and outlining your small business’ internet marketing strategy prior to investing in pay-per-click PPC campaigns and other online advertising; following a plan will assure that you have the foundation necessary to fully capitalize on online advertising.

3. To yield consistent results

A systematic approach to internet marketing yields systematic results. Consistency is key to unlocking online marketing success; a solid strategy will lay the foundation to make it happen. Religiously following a strategy (while making adjustments as necessary) assures that you’ll keep up with your online marketing efforts; that, in turn, will yield long-term results.

4. To build a foundation for long-term internet marketing success

Online marketing is evolving at a rapid pace; staying on top of the latest and greatest trends can feel daunting. The need for online basics, however, aren’t changing: a website, search engine optimization (SEO), social media presence, email marketing, and great content are all must-haves. A solid internet marketing strategy will provide you with the basic core elements that your business needs for long-term online marketing success – a foundation to build upon.

Implementing a successful online marketing strategy is a learning process; the sooner you get started, the sooner you’ll be on your way to seeing the results in your business.  And the sooner you get started, the faster you will find your company branded in the market place.

SMC is ready to help you with your online strategy.  It starts with a plan!  To begin, go to www.smcsoftware.com and click on internet marketing.

Email Marketing Advice and Sample

Make sure your marketing emails practice the K.I.S.S. method: Keep It Simple and Smart!

Whatever the offer is in your email campaign, it is good practice to keep your message direct, short and action-driven.  It is a known fact that people are more visual than they are readers in today's society.  Don’t blast your list offers everyday or every week because they’ll drop off your list faster than you can blink an eye. Treat them like you would a friend, by sending relevant information mixed in with soft pitches to buy your service on a monthly basis.

Marketing emails must have a familiar preview and subject line!

Most people decide if an email is interesting by previewing the subject line without opening the email.  Use the subject line to summarize the email content. The subject line should tell the email content, not sell the email content. Keep your subject line to 50 characters or less. Avoid writing your subject text with capital letters. Avoid using flashy promotional texts or exclamation marks.

To increase the success rate of your marketing emails, make sure your sender name is visible, trustworthy and easily recognized.  This is important:   Do not send marketing emails from generic-looking email addresses, like joesparking@aol.com or gotparking@gmail.com.  Send your marketing emails from an email address that triggers the feeling "I know who sent this email".   Knowing and trusting the sender is the primary reason for opening an email.