The money’s in the list, right?
Whether you’re an e-commerce seller, a software vendor, an info-product peddler or anything in between, you need an email list.
Beyond that, you need to send really stellar emails if you expect people to buy. While you may have become a better blogger, and have been brushing up on your landing page resources, these are further up the marketing funnel.
Email digs a little deeper, because it is your chance to get personal.
Email is the gateway to sales.
Master the email, and the sales process becomes so much easier.
Do it wrong, and risk annoying your prospects and customers and possibly turn them off from buying from you altogether.
In the vein of our new Friday tradition, here are 29 resources on email marketing.
These deal with high-level subjects like etiquette, to the nitty gritty details like list segmentation (which is so important there are 8 articles on it).
You’ll also learn how to earn more clicks, write stronger subject lines, and determine the frequency at which you should click “send” to your list. As always, I’d like to invite you to bookmark this page for easy reference.
5 Cardinal Rules Of Email Etiquette
When you send an email to your list, remember: it’s going to one person.
Even if your list contains 10,000 people, the person receiving it does not care about the 9,999 others. Keeping that in mind, here are the 5 cardinal rules of email marketing.
Develop a Better Email Marketing Strategy
Anyone can start a newsletter or create an auto-responder series, but it takes a real strategy. A real strategy doesn’t just define outcomes, it also accounts for the steps taken to get there.
This article from emailmonday.com gives you 5 things to help get your thinking straight when it comes to strategically planning your email marketing. It’s a simple and perfect place to start.
5 Best Practices for Email Marketing in 2012
Yes, “social media” might get all of the buzz.
But let me ask you this… Which is busier? Twitter, or your Inbox?
Surveys say more than 93% of online consumers are “subscribers.”
Social Media doesn’t have nearly the same adoption rate. If you want to stand out, you need to do it in the inbox. Here’s 5 guidelines to follow in 2012.
How SEO, Social Media, And Email Marketing Work Together
This is one from our very own Nick Tart on his blog 14clicks.com.
His post does an excellent job at getting you to think critically about the calls to action on your content.
He does a very good job at explaining the different traffic cycles of Search, Social Media, and how you can get email to play into it.
I certainly learned a few new things from this article, and will be considering many of these concepts as I redesign my website.
Email Plus Facebook Marketing: Fresh ideas from FreshPair
This interview between Daniel Burstein of Marketing Sherpa and Lindsay Masse of Freshpair.com is nothing short of insightful.
In this interview, they discuss how Freshpair.com uses their Facebook presence to learn more about their customers and improve their email campaigns.
What I found particularly interesting is their hint at how followers who are engaged on Facebook are also much much more likely to read their emails and take advantage of the offers. Click Here to Read the Interview
How to Get More Subscribers For Your Email List
Ok, so now that we’ve talked about best practices, and how email ties into your over all strategy…
Let’s get some people on your list.
This article courtesy of Copyblogger is a primer to getting inside your prospective subscribers’ heads in order to think around what may be preventing them from handing over their email address.
Things like social proof, clear calls to action, and overcoming objections are covered.
To get into their in-box, you first have to get into their head
21 Awesome Ideas to Grow Your Email List
This is what it says it is. Every single one of these ideas are fantastic. Read them here.
How I Gained 1,054 Emails in 28 Days
You’ve probably seen this tactic used, but didn’t even realize it.This post from Derek Halpern on Diythemes gives one of the sneakiest tactics for list building ever.
That’s why it’s awesome. That’s why you should read it here.
How to Find Your Most Valuable Pages (and What to Do With Them)
A big part of building your email list, is all about where you put your opt-in forms. Where better to put those forms than the places that are already getting the most traffic? This Post Shares how to do that.
Email Signup Forms: The 7 Key Places to Add Them for List Building
Even without looking at your site, I can tell you there are probably some pretty major leaks in it where subscribers are getting away. For example, do you have an opt-in on your about page? No? Neither did I. Until I read this article.
10 Effective Ways To Get More Email List Subscribers
This is a surprisingly fresh list of ideas from kissmetrics that goes beyond the standard “write an ebook” advice.
Instead, they say things like “Make Your Subscribe Button Interact With The User” then give an image of what they’re talking about.
It’s pretty easy to see how this could work, huh? (obviously it wouldn’t be looped like this on your website 
20 Tips for Developing a Successful Email Campaign
This is a quick, but effective list of tips that are easy to ignore.
But if implemented, they will leave you smacking your head wondering “Why didn’t I do that sooner?”
Don’t smack yourself, just read here then execute and thank me later.
Best Practices in Email Subject Lines
Now that you understand the concepts, and getting people to sign up to your list, you need to get them to open your emails.
If that subject line doesn’t work, it ain’t going to happen.
Mailchimp did a study where they checked the open rates of over 200 million emails.
The open rates were anywhere between an astonishing 97% to a measly 0.5%.
Then compiled that data to create some best practices. This is a fascinating read with a nice chart showing the best and worst, and what makes them work (or not)
How do I know If I’m writing A Good Subject Line
This article talks about Mailchimp’s Subject Line Research Tool that gives you a predictive rating of the “openability” of your subject line, based on the open rates of other emails in their system.
While the research tool is exclusive to Mail Chimp, in the article they share another best/worst chart which has some very telling data.
For example, in the emails with open rates between 60-87% their subject lines we’re pretty straightforward (and kind of boring) but the more “creative” subject lines were the ones with the worst open rates (between 1-14%)
Crazy right?
How To Write Better Email Subject Lines
Now some of the advice in this article might seem contrary to the advice in the last article. I included it, because it’s important to follow the advice.
Just remember: In an email subject line, there’s a fine line between creativity and spam.
The Four Words That Will Get Your Email Opened
Ever wonder if there were magic words that will get your email opened by nearly everyone who sees it?
Turns out, there are.
This article on Copyblogger gives you the four magic words that speak to one of the most primitive human needs, and it won’t get sent to the spam folder.
Curious? Click here to read more.
Segment Your Email List To Increase Open Rates
Once you’ve got people opening your emails, it’s time to start segmenting your list.
You’ll notice below there are quite a few articles on segmenting, and the reason for that is very simple.
It works.
When you start segmenting your list, you’ll be able to send more targeted messages to people, and maximize your efforts in all directions. For example… did you know that 38% of marketers who segmented their lists experienced higher open rates?
For more info on why this is important, click here.
Really Simple Email Segmentation: A Frame Work
Think you don’t have the information necessary to segment your email list?
Even if all you have is an email address, you have more than enough information to get started.
This article gives you a really easy to follow framework to get more out of your existing lists.
If you’re not doing this stuff already, you’re really missing out.
How to Segment Your Email List to Get More Juice (Customer Story)
Ok, so maybe you think segmentation isn’t for you.
Or perhaps all of the traditional ways people say to segment your list don’t leave you with a lot of juice.
This is a case study of how Bob Phibbs “The Retail Doctor” re-analyzed his segmentation and got 3 times as many clicks with lists that were 1/3 the size of the original.
Email Marketing Segmentation: 4 Ways To Divide Your List
Very simple read.
Groups you should be segmenting your list into. Great starting point, but depending on your service, it also wouldn’t hurt to start segmenting deeper.
Email Segmentation: 5 Groups You Can Easily Target, Part 1
Similar to the above, but this the first of three Aweber-specific tutorials on how to segment your list by non-responsive subscribers, and the people who open your messages, but don’t click your links.
I recently started doing this, and it’s amazing how naturally your communication changes when you are more in tune with the actions (or inaction) of the people on your list.
Click here to start segmenting.
Email Segmentation: More Groups to Target
This aweber tutorial shows you how to segment out your new subscribers and your link clickers.
When you set specific messaging to each group, and sending people to more targeted landing pages, you increase your likelihood for conversion.
For example, new subscribers might need more information, so product guides or reviews may be good for them. But someone who’s been clicking on your links for a while likely knows what’s up, so they need a more direct call to action to make the purchase.
Email Segmentation: Easily Target Customers
Finally, the most valuable group on your list, customers.
With an individual customer segment you can
- Create loyalty programs
- Encourage repeat purchases
- Ask for referrals
This post teaches you how to separate the most valuable portion of your list from the rest.
How Uncoordinated Emails Can Kill Off B2B Prospects
If you’re in a bigger company, it’s possible that multiple departments have access to mailing the same exact email list.
The events team sends out an email about a party, a corporate newsletter goes out hours later, and subscribers are hit a third time with a project launch notification. Naturally, this is incredibly annoying.
Without communication between departments, your company could unknowingly flood your customer’s inbox and make them very, very mad.
This article walks you through why it’s important to dot your i’s and cross your t’s.
6 Tactics to Determine B2b Email Frequency
“How often should I send?”
I know it’s a question I’ve asked myself. But the truth is, there is no one right answer.
Some companies can get away with multiple sends a day (Looking at you, Thrillist and Fab.com)
Others can only get away with once a week.
This Article will help you determine what’s right for you.
note: This info works best with properly segmented lists. DO NOT try to skip ahead without putting the work into your segmentation.
10 Ways to Get More Clicks in Your Email Campaigns
Getting people to open your email is one thing, getting them to click through is a different game all together.
This post is short and sweet, and when you put some thought into the tactics, is phenomenally effective.
note: Don’t over do it on tip number 1.
Common Html Email Design Mistakes
There’s nothing worse than trying to open an email that doesn’t display properly, or having an important email caught up in a spam folder because you added something you thought was cool, but the email provider thought was a virus.
Something simple, a stupid mistake or a technical glitch means you’ve wasted your time and lowered your subscribers’ opinion of you, all at once.
Don’t make these simple mistakes.
Infographic: Mobile Email Marketing
Simply put… it’s 2012.
More people are checking their email on their phones.
Adapt to the mobile culture. Watch them love you more.
Check out the infographic here.
10 Email Design Best Practices for a Mobile World
Mobile email open rates increased by 34% in the second half of 2011, and desktop visits saw a decline.
The data is telling. The world is changing.
These 10 design tips will help you optimize your emails for the mobile screen and stay current with the times.
In conclusion…
To be perfectly honest with you, I’ve learned A TON from doing the research for this article, and spent several hours this week diving into segmenting and re-targeting my lists.
On the first day of creating new segments, I re-engaged with people who haven’t been responsive on my list for some time and got a pretty decent boost in my feedback rates, as well.
It was fascinating to me to observe how some of the things I’ve been putting off have become valuable assets to my business. I sincerely hope they can help with yours, too.
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