9 Non-Newsletter Emails to Keep Your Subscribers Guessing Posted on July 27, 2018July 27, 2018 by Jonathan Herrick When it comes to effective marketing channels, email remains at the top of the list. In fact, email is 40 times more effective in acquiring new customers than social media. But what happens when you’re short on ideas? Your emails aren’t going to do much of anything for you if the content inside isn’t killer. To help get your creative juices flowing, we’ve done a little brainstorming and come up with a few non-newsletter ideas you can send to your loyal subscribers to stay at the top of their inbox and to keep them engaged. Read Jonathan’s full article on the Wordstream blog.
What is Growth Marketing? Posted on July 26, 2018September 8, 2022 by Jonathan Herrick What is growth marketing? Unlike other modern marketing buzzwords that are often thrown around in marketing land, growth marketing actually has substance – and it’s something a surprising number of companies haven’t yet caught on to. Essentially, growth marketing is a roadmap for attracting and retaining more engaged customers and delivering a positive customer experience. Most marketers put a heavy emphasis on inbound marketing, and for good reason. Inbound is a successful way to drive leads into your pipeline. But that’s just one element of a more holistic marketing strategy. Traditional marketing efforts have resulted in companies focusing on driving awareness and acquiring customers. But this strategy doesn’t take into consideration how those customers impact revenue and long-term growth for the business. For example, Adwords may be a great channel for getting new customers in the door for your business, but it’s all for not if they don’t stick around. Growth marketing is designed to avoid that. With all of the data available today, successful marketing teams are turning to a growth marketing mindset to ensure those hard-won leads are actually turning into to customers and contribute to their overall business growth. So, wait – what is growth marketing? Growth marketing is essentially retention-focused marketing at its core. Whereas traditional marketing focuses primarily on the top of the sales funnel (think of banner advertisements judged only by how many click-throughs they garner), and account-based marketing focuses on nurturing a few major accounts, growth marketing is geared toward the entire sales funnel, ensuring people find your brand and actually keep enjoying it. In short, it’s designed to help grow your entire company through marketing. The bottom line is attracting not just more customers, but more engaged customers. It pays special attention to customer service, nurturing techniques and ongoing marketing efforts such as social media and email marketing. What’s the difference between growth marketing and growth hacking? Don’t get the two confused. Growth hacking is a buzzword that’s fallen out of fashion in the last few years. That refers to a technique used to quickly reach new customers in a short period of time, sometimes using web developers, other times making a few quick aesthetic changes. Growth marketing is something entirely different – more of a strategic mindset than anything. Growth hacking is usually seen as a shortcut to drive results, like changing elements of a landing page to see if it increases KPIs. It’s helpful to be agile, but most marketers are already doing that stuff anyway. How can you be a successful growth marketer? There are a few proven techniques to be a successful growth marketer. Listen to your customers. Lean into the analytics of your customers’ behaviors. Whether you are launching a product in beta or a have a legacy offering, getting feedback from your users will help to guide your marketing path. You can find this out by sending out NPS (Net Promoter Survey) and product usage surveys to your customers in exchange for future discounts or even something as simple as an Amazon gift card. This is a critical step to seeing big results through growth marketing. Another big key is to focus on the data: it can tell you how people are engaging with your product. Once you identify a pattern, leverage that data to find more customers that are most likely to be engaged, paying customers. Remember growth marketing is primarily concerned with user retention, so seeing whether people are sticking with your brand or product is important. Annie Katrina Lee from Amazon says it best: “Good growth teams care about driving acquisition. Great growth teams care about acquiring users who will stick around.” Find a marketing platform that makes sense for you. Marketing is a chimeric beast, and you don’t need to master every platform. Think about social media, for example: Do you have a B2C brand? Can people use it in visually interesting ways, and do they look awesome doing it? Instagram and Pinterest campaigns would be for you, soliciting hashtags and creating DIY graphics to share and inspire. But that isn’t the right call for every brand. If you are trying to drive growth for your B2B, referrals, search engine marketing, display ads and email marketing may be the right marketing channels for you. Either way don’t spread yourself too thin too fast – pick a few that work for you. Then test, measure and adjust quickly. Test your marketing techniques rapidly. This is the most critical component of growth marketing: quick, agile tests. Most of your experiments will fail, maybe one of out ten will succeed. The only way to know is to try multiple tracks quickly. See what works, and be prepared to react intelligently and analytically. Some in the industry call this “high-tempo testing,” and the process is simple. You start by brainstorming a set number of marketing strategies, then lay them out over a calendar on a weekly schedule. Hit the ground running and scrutinize your own findings. Keep the good and scrap the bad, then repeat with other ideas when necessary. That last line is important – growth marketing is not a one-and-done deal. You should always be testing, analyzing and re-evaluating your own results. Trends change over time just like shifting algorithms with Facebook and Google. Your job, as growth marketer, is to stay on top of those updates and react swiftly to keep your marketing efforts on the right track. What is growth marketing good for? Growth marketing is about more than just raising awareness of your brand. It’s about converting and retaining customers. So when setting out to accomplish your goals, be sure to conceive realistic, achievable results. Some examples might include converting blog readers into email subscribers, increasing user retention by a measurable amount (or decreasing churn rates), bolstering certain social media numbers and upgrading users on a paid-subscription ladder. These are multifaceted projects that extend beyond simple marketing. They require marketing to cross over into customer service to ensure retention, product to deliver a great user experience, as well as to support knowledgeable salespeople to win more customers. At the end of the day, it’s not just about marketers drivings leads and new customers. It’s about the whole picture – finding, delighting and keeping more customers to fuel business growth.
5 Marketing Automation Hacks Every Salesperson Should Be Using Posted on July 23, 2018July 23, 2018 by Tricia O'Donnell If you’re still doing all of your sales processes manually, it’s time for a business overhaul. You don’t have to shell out for expensive software or hire a big staff to streamline your sales and marketing process. In fact, it’s a good rule of thumb to avoid delegating basic tasks before you’ve ruled out the possibility of automating them. Though it’s not a cure-all, marketing automation certainly plays an essential role in the sales processes of today’s most savvy businesses. So let’s get to it: here are five marketing automation hacks that we think every salesperson should be using in order to free up valuable “human time.” Stop doing hours of research and manually reaching out to prospects. Qualifying leads can be a complicated process, especially if you’re targeting high-profile businesses or elusive prospects. You may spend hours conducting research — from scouring websites to contacting employees and gathering data from phone calls. If this sounds like you, why not automate your qualification process so you can spend more time doing what has to be done by a human, like conducting meetings? Tools like Contact Enhance and LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator can automatically generate key sales information like company size, history, employee contact information, and more — and deliver that information right to your inbox. Integrate these tools with your CRM and keep all of the latest information about your contacts up to date. Segment your prospects for better email automations. Use your CRM or an email marketing tool to schedule and send emails when your prospects take specific actions. Just connected with a cold prospect online? Trigger a lead nurture campaign that sends valuable resources every month. Recently met several prospects at an event? Schedule a series of personable follow-up emails to get them on the phone. On that note, sending the same marketing content to all of your prospects is nowhere near as powerful as sending the right content at the right time. Use a CRM that offers tagging and filtration, so you can segment your prospects and send them the most relevant content depending on their profile or stage in the buyer’s journey. There are even email marketing tools (Hatchbuck, for example) that provide templates for email drip campaigns, so you can automate part of your writing process, too. Use automation to strengthen your content writing and editing. It’s tough to imagine what your marketing messaging looks like from the outside. What you may see as enthusiastic, a prospect might see as pushy. And if you’re a small team (or a solopreneur), there may not be anyone who can give you a second opinion. Fortunately, tools like Tone Analyzer and Email Analyzer can give you important data — from whether your email is likely to end up in someone’s spam, to more complex stuff like if you come across as aggressive or uncertain. Get your different tools working together. If you can’t (or don’t want to) use an all-in-one sales automation solution, you can set up workflows with a tool like Zapier or Tray.io across different apps. Have your Google calendar trigger the delivery of a Paypal invoice on a specific date, convert items from an RSS feed into automatically-published social posts on LinkedIn, have new social media followers automatically added to a spreadsheet, and much more. Automate your scheduling. Emailing back and forth with prospects to find a good meeting time can be a massive time-suck. Automate this process with a scheduling tool like Acuity or Calendly, which syncs with your calendars and allows prospects to schedule meeting times that work with your busy schedule. Another great aspect of these tools is that they allow you to set up custom questionnaires with “required” entries before prospects can schedule a call — so if you need particular information beforehand, you’re guaranteed to get it.
6 Bullet-Proof Tips For Email Drip Campaigns that Convert Posted on July 18, 2018July 18, 2018 by Jessica Lunk Email drip campaigns are a marketer’s dream: they’re automated, perfectly tailored to a specific audience, and tend to have far greater ROI than batch-and-blast or group emails. But a poor drip campaign can have the opposite effect – the more your customer feels like they’re being thrown onto a conveyor belt, the higher the chance they’ll unsubscribe and leave you for good. Here are some bullet-proof tips for creating email drip campaigns that convert. Identify the type of drip campaign you need. There are four general types of email drip campaigns. You can get far more granular with this, but it helps to identify what you’re hoping to achieve before you start hammering out email copy. Here are the main types to choose from: New Subscriber Existing Subscriber Nurture Existing Subscriber Upsell Existing Subscriber Retention What’s your goal with your drip campaign, and which of the four categories above best describes it? Identify this first, and then map out the details. Map it out. To brainstorm, use a flowchart or mind map maker tool like Draw.io or XMind to plan your drip campaign. It should contain different pathways for your readers to take, based on their interests and behavior. This will help you visualize your campaign and identify any holes or potential problems before you start. Here’s a good example of a very basic drip campaign structure for a new blog subscriber: Have different drip campaigns for different purposes. As is the case with all digital marketing, email drip marketing is most effective when it’s personalized (read: segmented). Rather than map out one long, complex drip campaign, create several smaller drips for different instances. For example, create separate drip campaigns for: A new prospect who downloaded something from your landing page An existing customer who used a specific coupon on a recent purchase A specific buyer persona, like the marketing manager of an SMB A lead in a specific geographic region A prospect who you met with once, but haven’t heard from since There are countless ways to segment your email lists, so do what makes sense for your business, but remember that you’ll get the best results by sending the most focused, relevant content. Experiment with frequency. One of the major pitfalls of drip campaigns is that it’s easy to inundate your readers with too many emails in too rapid of succession. The tricky thing, however, is that to determine the best frequency for you, you have to consider a ton of different factors. This includes the particular group you’re targeting, how far down your sales funnel the reader is, the nature of the email content itself, and on. The best way to find the right frequency for you is to experiment. The main metrics to study here are your click-through rates. If your click-through rates are average or high (2-5% and above), this is a good indication your email frequency is spot-on — or your content is just really awesome — either of which bodes well for your drip campaign. If click-through rates are low, this could indicate a number of things, including: You’re either sending emails too frequently (readers don’t take action because they just heard from you yesterday). Your emails are spaced too far apart (readers don’t trust you because they don’t remember who you are). Your content isn’t what the reader expected, or isn’t delivering enough value. Your call to action is unclear or missing. Add a questionnaire to your unsubscribe page. High unsubscribe rates may be another huge red flag for your drip campaigns — but it’s impossible to know how to fix it if you don’t know why your readers are leaving. Add a short questionnaire to your unsubscribe form to find out why you’re losing readers, and use that data to inform your next drip campaign. Allow them to check a reason for unsubscribing: The content wasn’t interesting to me The emails were too frequent I don’t remember signing up for this list Another reason (include a text field for an explanation) Make your drip campaign a series. Your subscribers appreciate it when they know what to expect. If you’ve launched a drip campaign with an initial email that promises to follow up with helpful tips, don’t just say “we’ll be sending you helpful tips.” Instead, introduce a five-part series that will build on itself over the next month. If your reader likes the first couple of tips, she’ll likely stay tuned for the whole drip campaign. Further, introducing a series helps your readers understand that you won’t be blasting them with emails every week for the rest of their lives.
5 Must-Read Graphic Design Tips for Non-Designers Posted on July 17, 2018July 17, 2018 by Allie Wolff Design is intimidating, especially for the non-designer. It seems like an elite club, where only those who have that delicate mix of artistic talent and technical ability are allowed entry. The sheer volume of buttons and doohickeys in professional design programs like Photoshop or Illustrator can send even the boldest of creatives running for the hills. But there’s good news for you: there are more tools than ever to help non-designers great stunning custom graphics, and they’re very easy to learn. With a handy program and just a little design know-how, you’ll be creating impressive graphics for your brand or business in no time. Use an app to help you. With the array of intuitive (and often free) design technology available at your fingertips, there’s no reason why you should be hobbling up the learning curve of an advanced program. Unless you intend to start a career in design, it’s not sensible to spend your limited time learning advanced programs with their infinite capabilities. Instead, check out tools like Canva, Typito, Fotor, or Snappa. These types of tools come with thousands of templates for different types of graphics – from eBook cover designs to social media graphics – and they’re insanely easy to use. Focus on composition. If you only get one thing right, have it be the composition. Composition is the arrangement of your design elements. Because the goal of design is to tell a story with images, the way you arrange these images is essential to the overall success of your design. Most great designs have a main focal point, and a clear line or path for the eye to follow from that focal point. You can create this focal point in several ways, but here are some of the most common ones: Use color. Warm or bright colors tend to draw the eye. High-contrast areas also pull viewers in. Use complementary colors (red/green, blue/orange, yellow/violet) or black-and-white to create interest. Use typography. Larger print catches the eye before smaller print, so use headers and titles the same you would for written text to create order and structure. Use lines and shapes. Lines with arrows beckon viewers to follow them, and different types of lines (horizontal, vertical, diagonal, wavy, etc.) can evoke different moods. In addition, shapes can create visual interest and help a viewer better process what they’re looking at. Place important content using the “rule of thirds.” Take your design area and imagine splitting it into thirds both horizontally and vertically (you’ll wind up with a grid with nine squares). Place elements along those lines or at their intersections to create visual interest. Be intentional with your alignment. Most design programs nowadays have a feature that makes it easy to “snap” to align with different horizontal or vertical areas. Aligning headers with paragraphs of text on the right, left, or center all have different effects — but it’s best not to mix them, or else your design could look cluttered or haphazard. This infographic from Unbounce follows many of the rules above AND gives you even more info about infographics. We ?an infographic about infographics. Use high-quality stock photography. One of the easiest ways to give your design a professional edge is to incorporate professional stock photography. It’s inexpensive, easy to find online, and can really help your target audience connect with your ideas. This one is sourced from Pexels. Free, high-res and colorful. What more could you ask for? If you have the budget to pay for photography, check out iStock, Shutterstock, or Adobe Stock. If you’re looking for free options, Pixabay, Stocksnap.io, Wikimedia Commons, and Pexels have a great selection – though you’ll need to make sure the license applies to your situation. For example, some stock photos can only be used for editorial purposes, so these would be off-limits in an ad campaign or for other commercial use. Do less. One of the most common faux pas that non-designers commit is trying to cram too much into a design. To avoid creating something too “busy,” try limiting your palette to about three colors. Limit typography to just one or two fonts. Though there are plenty of good designs that break these rules (and artfully, at that), as a non-designer, you’re more likely to create something stunning – while saving time – if you keep it simple. One way to check yourself against this point is to ask, “what purpose does this element serve?” If you have two icons where one will do or two photographs where one would be just as effective, get rid of something. Pay attention to why some designs are “good” – and some aren’t. One of the best ways you can get some design know-how is to pay closer attention to good design. Analyze emails, billboards, graphics you see in everyday life. What makes them “good”? Is it the color scheme? The composition of elements? Unique typography? Does the piece communicate a specific message with visuals? Intuitively, many non-designers know good design from bad, but they don’t have practice identifying the “why.” When you consider what actually makes something work (or not), you’ll get better at incorporating good design into your own projects – and communicating with any graphic designers you hire.
Want Your Own Chatbot? Don’t Move Forward Without Taking These 3 Steps Posted on July 16, 2018July 16, 2018 by Jonathan Herrick For years, tech enthusiasts, innovators and entrepreneurs have painted a bright future for chatbot technology. But the road to mass adoption hasn’t been without its speed bumps. Facebook’s massive Messenger bot rollout a few years ago left a lot to be desired, and we’ve seen myriad me-too companies flood the market with less-than-stellar technology. Still, when they’re done well, chatbots can be amazingly innovative. For instance, Amazon’s Alexa has the ability to give users personalized gift recommendations. And recently, Google unveiled a chatbot that was so lifelike it actually fooled testers into thinking they were speaking with a real human. Thankfully, entrepreneurs don’t have to get on Google or Amazon’s level to drive business results with chatbots. But implementing them the wrong way will do more harm than good. That’s why it’s absolutely crucial to understand the pros and cons of chatbots before unleashing one on your customers. Read Jonathan’s full article on Entrepreneur.
5 Strategies for Onboarding Your New Employees Like a Pro Posted on July 13, 2018November 22, 2023 by Erin Posey When it comes to bad hiring experiences, the focus tends to be on the actual hire and whether or not he or she is really a good fit for the company. What isn’t mentioned nearly as often as it should be, however, is the role poor onboarding (or complete lack thereof) plays in setting new employees up for success or failure. It is often what happens during those critical first days that determines whether a new hire will struggle or excel in his or her role. If your onboarding process leaves much to be desired, here are a few tips to help turn things around. Hit the ground running. You don’t have to wait until your new employee reports for his or her first day to start the onboarding process. In fact, getting the ball rolling prior to day one is strongly recommended. For instance, mailing out paperwork for your new hire to complete and bring with him or her on the first day can save a good deal of time and enable you to get right into the more important stuff as soon as possible. Make introductions. Starting a new job can be intimidating and overwhelming. Don’t leave it to your new hires to go out and make friends. Set them up with the right connections right away by making introductions to the appropriate parties around the office. Point out the key stakeholders and give new hires a clear picture of who reports to who and which roles are which. Help them to feel welcome and enable them to get to know some of their colleagues by arranging a lunchtime gathering or happy hour event. Set the stage. Regardless of the fact that your new hire may have decades of experience, don’t assume he or she will instantly assimilate into your company’s culture. Every organization is different, with different rules, etiquette, policies and procedures. Sure, your new employee will eventually figure these things out, but why not make it easier by articulating right from the outset exactly how business gets done in your company. Topics might include things like how meetings are held, how decisions are made and how challenging issues are handled. Sweat the small stuff. When welcoming a new member to the team, don’t underestimate the importance of bringing them up to speed on the little things. Where are the restrooms? What number needs to be dialed to get an outside line? How does the photocopier work? Where are the office supplies stored? What time are scheduled breaks? It’s often these little nuances that can be the most frustrating for a new hire in the beginning, so list them out and leave no stone unturned. Set expectations. Last, but certainly not least, spend some time going over the role of your new hire and exactly what’s expected of him or her. Tossing someone into the deep end without first teaching them how to swim is a recipe for disaster, both for the new employee as well as the company. Make sure you are providing your new team member with everything he or she needs to be successful, including a clear understanding of style and approach, and take as much guesswork out of the process as possible. As a business owner or manager, hiring the right people is important. It’s equally critical, however, to ensure that those new hires are provided with the information and tools that they need right from the start so they can be successful. By incorporating the five tips above into your onboarding process, you’ll be able to get your new team members up to speed quickly and lay the foundation for a positive, productive working relationship.
4 Psychology-Backed Strategies for Dealing with Difficult Customers Posted on July 12, 2018July 12, 2018 by Katie Culp It’s happened to the best of us: dealing with a difficult customer. And as your business grows the likelihood of having to interact with frustrated, disgruntled or high-maintenance individuals also goes up. So, what’s the best approach? Well, it can be helpful to understand that the emotions your customers are expressing may actually be tied to certain psychological stimuli. As such, learning how to effectively read each situation and apply the following psychological tips can help you manage even the most challenging customer and improve the chances of retaining their business. Have a Beginner’s Mind With the beginner’s mind approach, you assess every situation as if you were a “beginner.” This enables you to enter conversations without any bias or prejudgment. It also prevents you from falling into the “should” mindset, which can make you defensive and impact the productivity of the interaction. In other words, you’ll eliminate thoughts about what you feel the customer should have known or done. So, rather than relying on your knowledge, experience or perceived expertise, approach each conversation as if you’re starting fresh. Don’t prejudge the frustration your customer is expressing. Forget about what they could or should have done. Instead, approach each engagement as a new puzzle that needs to be solved. Employ Reflective Listening Ever have someone tell you they “understand,” and it only made you feel even angrier? That’s because blanket statements like this don’t actually accomplish anything. Even if you do feel as though you understand where your customer is coming from, practicing the art of reflective listening is more effective in diffusing the situation. Reflective listening involves listening and then reflecting the feelings and thoughts you’ve heard back to the customer. For example: Customer: “I’m frustrated because you don’t have the product I need in stock and I’m on a tight schedule.” Reflective Listening Response: “What I’m hearing is that you’re in a crunch for time and really need a product that we were unable to supply to you.” This makes the customer feel heard and valued. From there, you should attempt to resolve the issue accordingly. In this scenario, you might offer to have the product rushed in from another location. Eliminate Fear Fear over a possible negative outcome is something that drives the way we react to many situations, including interactions with difficult people. When a customer is being difficult, it’s natural to be afraid to challenge them out of fear of ruining the relationship. It’s also common to feel fear over whether or not we are capable of correcting the problem. Shift your mindset so that you recognize that an immediate solution isn’t required. At first, it should be about listening and understanding. Then the appropriate next steps can be determined. So, instead of simply apologizing and offering a less-than-ideal immediate fix, take back control by saying something like: “It’s unfortunate that this happened. I’m aware of the situation and how it has affected you. I appreciate your patience as I work to resolve it.” Always stay calm Like it or not, conflict is simply a part of doing business. It’s how you react to that conflict that will make or break your customer relationships. Remember the mantra: “The customer is always right,” and no matter how tempting it is to retaliate against a negative interaction, always take the high road. Your reputation extends far beyond a single engagement with one customer, so always keep that top of mind. And since people tend to mirror and respond in kind with certain emotions, remaining calm, friendly and understanding may be just the thing to diffuse the situation. There’s no magic formula for appeasing difficult customers and resolving all issues in a productive way, but the psychology-backed tips listed above can improve the chances of a positive outcome.
5 Tips For More-Personalized, Less Batch and Blast Emails Posted on July 11, 2018July 12, 2018 by Jessica Lunk Still using batch and blast emails? While this “spray and pray” approach may seem like a massive time-saver upfront, you’re really losing in the long term; your prospects won’t forget (or they’ll forget about your unmemorable message entirely), and you may develop the wrong reputation. You can still absolutely use mass email marketing to your advantage, but there’s a better way to go about it. Here are our 5 tips for creating emails that are more personalized and less batch-and-blast. Use unique identifiers. Give your emails a personal touch (and grab more attention) by including the user’s first name in the subject line and intro text. Think outside of the “Hi firstname” box: try, “Firstname, how has your marketing been going lately?” or “We haven’t heard from you in awhile, firstname!” Names aren’t the only way to get personal in your email copy. How would your prospect feel if you referenced something about their city or the social platform you first connected with them on? There are tons of small, personal touches you can make without getting creepy — just make sure they’re relevant to your marketing messaging. Segment in multiple ways. If you’re like a lot of other businesses, you may only have your email subscribers segmented by one quality: industry, age, or gender, for example. Your segmentation may even match up with several of your established marketing personas. But there’s plenty of other data you can capture about your email subscribers that may have way more of an impact on the effectiveness of your marketing than basic demographics. So why not try other types of segmentation, so you can craft messages that really stand out? Segment your targets by: Stage of the customer journey (cold lead? Warm lead? Current customer?) Job title, role, or critical business issues (what do they care about? What types of content would be the most inspiring or helpful, given their work responsibilities?) Psychographics, like values, dislikes, and lifestyle Send the right emails at the right time. It’s happened to you: you’ve been shopping online, and a Google banner ad will appear a few minutes later with a special offer on the exact thing you were looking at. Use that same type of personalization in your email campaigns. Send a free shipping offer to a customer who added an item to their cart, but didn’t make the purchase. Try a 10% off coupon for a first-time customer as soon as they sign up for a service. Sometimes, all your prospects need is a nudge to turn them from consideration to conversion. Cater to their day. If you have email subscribers in different time zones, your emails will come across as incredibly more personal if they’re arriving at the best time for the recipient — rather than 2:00 AM on a Saturday. Sync your campaign with your prospects’ timezone, and consider any other timeliness personalization factors. If you have an event coming up on the weekend, a Friday afternoon reminder will read as far more engaging and personal than a random Tuesday blast. Talk about them, not you. It’s an adage that applies across all of your marketing but bears repeating here. From your subject line to your body copy, your marketing emails should raise questions and share information that’s focused on the person reading it, not on the company sending it. For example, using a question in the subject line like “What have you been working on lately?” is far more likely to pull your reader in than “We have a whole new set of productivity tools on sale.” And on that note, use second-person voice to speak directly to your reader. It’s one of the easiest ways to make your content feel deeply personal. Simplify. It’s tempting to deck your email messages out with fancy graphics, rich media, bells and whistles. But there’s little that feels more intimate than a simple paragraph of text signed by a real person, written directly to the recipient. It’s the same reason why handwritten addresses (or the facade of a handwritten address) on a piece of direct mail is a popular marketing tactic: most people would rather read something sent from a real person than an entity like a brand or corporation. And here’s a final bonus tip: you’ll have a much easier time segmenting and personalizing your emails if you’re aggregating customer data in one place. Use a CRM that makes it easy to gather, sort, and analyze your prospects’ demographics and behavioral information — this will set you up to see the amazing ROI that’s possible when you customize your email marketing.