Social Marketing Consultant and Strategist
I work with marketing consultants, coaches, and small business owners with their social media marketing, online marketing, WordPress Blogs, and Event Planning activities. I am tech savvy, so I always have a solution, a plan, and methods to streamline your business operations and online activities.
ZS5FJCPBNMB6
The content of your emails plays an immensely important role in gaining trust from your subscribers. Although the quality of the information you send out is still the most important element in building trust through your content, there are a lot of other factors to consider. Listed below are the most important ones.
1. Give more than what you’re asking for.
Every email marketer knows the importance of providing relevant and engaging content in order to gain traffic and money in return. Although subscribers recognize that email marketing is meant to be an exchange (they get useful information only if they provide their data and perform certain actions, including making a purchase), many of them still focus on the idea that you’re only helping them out because you’re after their money. To counter this perception, you need to be ready to provide value without expectations of any return from your subscribers. Offering freebies often work but there are other things you can do. Providing timely information related to your niche but without direct benefit to you may work best especially if you don’t publish any obvious call to action. Subscribers who receive such content from you on a regular basis are more likely to trust you and become loyal to your online business than if you simply sent them content produced specifically to prompt them to make a purchase.
2. Always keep your promises.
There are two types of promises you make as an online business owner. The first is a promise brought about by your brand. Your brand has a certain reputation that serves as a promise. No matter what your brand is, there are things that people expect from you. These expectations are something you must meet through your content. For example, if your brand is known to have a fun-loving and edgy personality, the content of your emails should reflect that.
The other type of promise you make is what exactly you state in your registration process as well as your welcome emails. In these materials, you need to state certain things that people can expect to receive when subscribed to your mailing list. These include the type of content you will be sending as well as how often you will be sending them. These are things that your subscribers will consider as promises, so you should always be true to what you say.
As long as you match the expectations you’ve set in your subscribers’ minds, you will be able to keep their trust and loyalty.
3. Proofread your emails.
The content of your emails should be perfect before sending them out to your mailing list as one typographical error can have serious consequences. Spelling and grammar mistakes can breed distrust as your subscribers may tend to think of you as unprofessional or an unreliable source of information while mistakes in flow or form can keep you from communicating clearly.
To make sure that your emails prove that you are worthy of your subscribers’ trust, you must proofread and edit them until you are completely satisfied with your work. It also helps to get a fresh eye to go through them for further improvement.
4. Communicate like a human being.
In email marketing, you need to communicate with your subscribers in a way that doesn’t intimidate them. To do this, compose your messages in a tone similar to how you speak in casual conversations and avoid using corporate jargon and marketing buzz words. Doing this will allow you to make your subscribers feel that they can relate with you and that they can trust what you have to say.
Another very important factor in building trust through your content is to avoid using templates that come with your email marketing tools. Compose your own welcome messages as well as auto-responses and customize them to suit the personality of your online business. Doing this will further help you in gaining trust from your subscribers.
Implementing a successful email marketing campaign does not just entail sending out information in exchange for click-throughs or money. Much of your success lies in how you gain trust through your content. Follow the tips listed above and you can be sure that you can gain the trust of your subscribers as well as keep them loyal to your online business.
If you have an online business, your opt-in page can be your most important internet marketing asset. In fact, as long as you put it together correctly and market it properly, your opt-in page can be your sole means to generate leads. Listed below are the top five tricks you need to consider to ensure that you make the most out of your opt-in page and make it as effective in generating leads as possible.
Trick #1: Compose a Compelling Headline
Keep in mind that internet users have short attention spans and will close any page within a few seconds if it doesn’t strike them as interesting. For this reason, your headline must be strong enough to catch your visitors’ attention and compel them to go through the rest of your content.
Trick #2: Publish a Video
Videos have become very popular online mostly because internet users find it more appealing to learn by watching rather than just by reading. You can create a video demonstration of your products and services to highlight how exactly your offerings can benefit your customers. Place this video above the fold so that your visitors are encouraged to view it right away.
Trick #3: Present Your Content in Bullet Points
Even if you’ve already presented all your offerings’ features and benefits in your video, it is still a good idea to lay out all that information in text. Just be careful not to make your text too long that your visitors won’t want to read through it. Try presenting your content in bullet points and lists. This area will serve as a summary of features and benefits that will reinforce important information in your visitors’ minds.
Trick #4: Include Testimonials
If you don’t have testimonials to publish, it may be a good idea for you to send out free packages to influential people in your niche for the purpose of getting reviews. When you have already received a good number of testimonials, try to choose those that reaffirm all that you presented in your bullet points. When publishing them, include quotes and the name of the reviewer. Also, try to include a short profile (i.e. business owner, work-at-home mom, etc.) that will allow your visitors to identify with your reviewers and help them realize why your offerings can benefit them as well.
Trick #5: Keep Your Subscription Form Simple
Try to keep your subscription form as simple as you can. If possible, require only your visitor’s name and email address. Also, link your subscription form to an auto-responder such that all those who register in your opt-in page will automatically receive a welcome email.
These simple tricks have proven to be very useful in putting together an effective opt-in page. Use them on yours and experience how quickly and easily you can generate leads for your online business.
The appearance of what you send out to your subscribers contributes a lot to the success you can achieve through email marketing. Through your sender’s line as well as your branding, you can gain trust through recognition. Through the design that you utilize, you can project quality and distinction.
Many email users consider commercial messages as spam partly because they look like spam. Even if marketing messages were sent out legitimately, emails that are sent out with little attention paid to branding, layout, and design details will likely be considered spam and quickly ignored or deleted by most people. To avoid portraying the image of a spammer and to gain trust from your subscribers, you need to pay attention to the appearance of what you send out. Below are some tips that will help you build trust through the appearance of your emails and, consequently, achieve success through your email marketing campaign.
1. Make sure that what appears in your sender’s line is recognizable.
Recognition is important in gaining trust from your subscribers. This is why it is crucial that you use a recognizable name in your sender’s line. You could use your real name, your online alias, or the name of your organization, product or service. Obviously, you should choose whichever name your subscribers are most likely to recognize as well as respond positively to.
2. Make good use of the preview pane.
Apart from your sender and subject line, what appears in recipients’ preview pane is what many people first encounter with your emails. Upon seeing a new email’s content through the preview pane, recipients will decide on whether or not they want to read the entire message. To keep your subscribers from ignoring or deleting your emails without even bothering to see what’s in it, make sure that what appears in their preview panes is recognizable as well as attractive. You may want to use your logo, a masthead, and an attention-grabbing headline.
3. Encourage your subscribers to communicate with you.
Many newsletters contain “Do Not Reply” instructions because email marketers don’t monitor communications sent to the address they use to send out emails. This is also often used when emails are sent out by third party suppliers or email marketing companies. However, this can actually be detrimental to the success of your email marketing campaign. You should actually encourage your subscribers to respond to your emails with comments, suggestions, or queries. By doing so, you can gain a lot of insights from your subscribers and you will be able to inspire trust through your interactions.
4. Include your company’s full contact details in your footer.
Publishing your company’s full contact details in your emails allows your subscribers to be more trusting in what you have to say. People are more open to content from credible sources and showing that you are a real company (with a registered name, a postal address, and contact numbers) will enhance your credibility. Including these details in your footer also shows your willingness to accept accountability for everything you state in your emails.
5. Match your email design to your brand image.
The design of your emails should be consistent with all other materials you use to promote your online business. While you don’t need to copy the design and layout of your website down to the last detail, it is best for you to match your emails with its theme, colors, and imagery. Doing this will help you extend the trust you’ve built through your other promotional activities to your email marketing campaign.
Once you’ve created a design that suits your image best, use it as a template for all your emails. Doing so will further help you build trust through branding and recognition. You could even show a sample email to all new subscribers so that they can become familiar with what your emails look like and know what to expect. Once they receive an email from you, they will be more likely to open it and read through it.
6. Use an email design that is unlikely to fail you.
Some email marketers get too caught up designing their emails that they forget the importance of functionality. You can make use of fancy code to make your emails look flawless but they will appear far from perfect if you can’t ensure that what you use is in good working order. Your emails need not look fancy to gain respect from your subscribers. You only need them to look professional and to render properly in the email clients that your subscribers use.
To succeed with email marketing and to gain trust from your subscribers, you need to make sure that the design you use will work for all your subscribers. Keep in mind that any design that appears to be broken can make your subscribers feel that you don’t really know what you are doing. For this reason, you need to make sure that your emails render properly in at least all the major email clients. You should also make use of proper alt attributes in case the images you use get blocked.
Appearance plays a huge part in gaining trust from your subscribers. As long as you keep all these tips in mind when planning out your email marketing campaign, you should be able to establish your reputation as a trustworthy and credible source of relevant information.
Respecting your current and potential subscribers is important in building trust through your email marketing campaign. The level of respect you give will be evident in how you collect email addresses and what you do with them. Keep in mind that, for most individuals, an email address is private and is shared with email marketers with a certain level of trust. When an email address is shared with you by an individual, what you do with it greatly affects whether you get to build on that trust or ruin it entirely. Keep in mind that individuals trust those that show the most respect for their privacy. Listed below are tips to help you give the highest level of respect to your current and potential subscriber base.
1. Set High Permission Standards
Never try to trick people into opting in for certain things. You need to get clear permission to send out everything you want to through your email marketing campaign. This means that you should never pre-check opt-in tick boxes or trick subscribers with intentionally misleading text (i.e. “Do not select this option if you do not want to receive…”). Before people sign up, you should also provide clear information on what exactly they are signing up for. Let them know what type of emails they will be receiving and how often they should expect them. Lastly, require all new subscribers to confirm their decision to opt in through a second action. This could be done by instructing them to click on a confirmation link located in your first email.
2. Be Transparent About Your Privacy Policies
Many email marketers intentionally publish privacy policies in long legal speak knowing that subscribers are unlikely to read them. Others publish them in small print to make it difficult to find. To show the level of respect you give to your subscribers, you need to make it simple for them to discover and understand what exactly you intend to use their data for. This means writing your privacy policies in simple language and making it easily accessible. If you trust and respect their privacy and if you really are trustworthy, you shouldn’t have anything to hide.
3. Respect Permission to the Highest Degree
People set certain expectations when they submit their email addresses to trustworthy email marketers. They certainly don’t expect receiving marketing messages from new senders or other things they did not explicitly sign up for. This means that you should never rent your list out to third parties even if you feel their emails won’t be traced back to you. You shouldn’t even try to use your list to promote other parts of your business. Give your subscribers exactly what you told them to expect and they will recognize you as trustworthy.
In email marketing, you need to show subscribers exactly why they should trust you; and a huge part of your trustworthiness lies in the amount of respect you give to their privacy. Never try to trick them into opting in for anything they don’t expect or fully understand and value the trust they show for you as they give you their email addresses.
photo: ablogconsulting.com/images/blogging-trust.jpg