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Psst.

Hey, you.

You with the craving for some tasty traffic.

Wanna know a secret?

Learning more about your customers – from gathering data on their geographical whereabouts, to figuring out whether they’re more of a dog, or cat person – could help you to generate some pretty phenomenal profits. Really – we’re not kidding.

Why do you think at Traffic 4 Me, we often recommend against the annoying bore of Batch and Blast emails, and encourage you to nurture your traffic with some sweet personalized interaction? The answer is that customized content always performs better. Seriously:

•         Marketers see an increase on average of 20% in sales when using a personalized web experience.

•         Personalized CTAs lead to a 42% higher conversion rate than general CTAs

•        74% of consumers get annoyed when content seems to have nothing to do with their interests

Need we go on?

So how do you get all this important information that you need for a more personalized campaign? Well – you’ve got to use some data.

“Great!” you think, as you roll up your sleeves and start barking orders at your colleagues to get more “data-driven”. It’s time to put that information to the test and make our content shine. Except – whoops, you’ve got tons of traffic – and none of the data. That lack of information is going to hit you where it hurts the most too – your customers and leads.

So…now what?

How can you ensure that your prospects and customers, and all that fantastic traffic you’ve gotten from us isn’t going to slip through the cracks?

Don’t worry, your dreams of using data to drive your sales efforts are far from being over. There are plenty of fantastic ways that you can increase the quality and quantity of the information that you use in your campaigns – and we’re going to give you the secret formula right here – right now.

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Step 1: Customize Those Lead Capture Forms

When you’re turning traffic into leads with capture forms, you should be looking to gather as much information as possible about your target audience without accidentally scaring them off by being too intense, too quick. Think about the kind of information you currently ask for when segmenting your audience and making the most of your audience traffic. Is there room to request another point of data or two?

Sometimes, capturing basic information like a job title or a zip code can be enough to reveal some pretty important insights about your customers, and what kinds of leads you need to chase. After all, if you know that one of your biggest audience segments comes from one of the hottest places on the planet – then you’re probably not going to sell them wooly hats and scarfs.

Same thing with job titles – if you’re a software business responsible for selling solutions to individuals and businesses – knowing that someone is the CEO of a company means that you can try to sell them bigger packages of your wares.

Step two in this process is to make sure that when your prospects fill out your forms, the information you get is being passed straight onto your sales platform. While some of the sales solutions that you discover will help you to customize, manage, and create new lead capture forms, others will help you with your marketing automation techniques and email personalization.

Step 2: Integrate Your Business Systems

Okay, so data is great and everything – but do you want to know the one thing that’s worse than having no data to inform your campaigns at all? Having bad data.

“But T4M,” you say, “How’s that going to help me make the most of my customer data?” Short answer – telling you that bad data is bad isn’t going to make you get more information – but it should inform you that you need to be more careful about the data that you use.

Remember that gathering all the data you can simply isn’t enough to form a successful campaign – you need to manage what you collect too. The ability to compile data across support, sales, and marketing tools will give your team a better view of the customers and prospects you’re working with, and help you to generate more meaningful conversions.

Get your entire team working towards the same end-goal and you’re less likely to trip over each other on the way to success. Imagine if we didn’t do the same thing here at Traffic 4 Me? Lack of integration would mean that we’d be sending out irrelevant campaigns, or generating the wrong traffic for our customers. It would be chaos! The same applies to you. Get organized. Get it together!http://www.yoddler.com/Site.svc/REST/GetQuoteImage/QuoteID/592/ImageSize/3/AsAttachment/false/?FileName=Yoddler_592_LARGE.jpeg1

Step 3: Think Like a Customer

Okay, it’s time to change the way you look at the world.

No matter what kind of business you’re running, the chances are that you’re dealing with people. This means that you’re going to need to treat your leads like human beings. Consequently, you need to practice thinking like a human being too. That means putting your “conversion” hat on the stand for a moment, and focusing on what your customers want, and need.

Think of it this way:

•         Would you use PayPal if you had to do an hour-long transfer from your bank before you could start sending funds to your friend? Nope.

•         Would you use Spotify if you could only listen to certain kinds of music using certain headphones or pieces of software? Nope again.

•         Would you eat at fast-food restaurants if everything you touched made you gain ten pounds? – Well…

The point is, most consumers will fail to work with products or services that simply don’t make their lives any easier. People want to invest in stuff that has a positive impact on their lives – yet we’re often forced to deal with software that not only doesn’t make life easier – but makes it a whole lot harder.

Stop worrying about your bottom line for five minutes and start thinking about what your prospects need. At the end of the day, prospects really don’t care about how great you are – they care about how you’re going to help them solve their problems and reach their goals. Take a good hard look at your current business tools, think about how easy it is for your customers to give you information about themselves that you can use to improve their experience in the future.

If your systems for gathering data aren’t consumer-worthy, then you’re going to need to replace them.

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Step 4: Let’s Get Mobile!

Why are you still ignoring mobile in your marketing campaigns?

Can you imagine how far we’d get at Traffic 4 Me if we weren’t generating campaigns that could be used on mobile too? Heck – most people today check their emails using their smartphones when they’re sitting on the toilet!

67.2% of consumers use a smartphone to check their email. Recent surveys by Workplace Options found that 65% of American workers use mobile devices in their jobs, while another 59% use them to continue working on projects after business hours.

Think of how much interaction you’re missing out on with your customers if you fail to create an experience that’s mobile-savvy.

If you haven’t got a mobile-friendly strategy for gathering data, then you’re instantly losing piles upon piles of important information about all your crucial leads. The same applies to your sales reps who need to be able to enter data into your system from their phones – rather than having to get back to a computer before they can start recording information.

Any sales software that’s worth – well, anything – should have a native mobile experience that delivers the same insights and capabilities to reps that they receive from their desktops – optimized for smartphones and tablets. What’s more, if your customers have forms to fill out when you’re generating lead data, make sure that they can do this easily from their smartphones – using clear to read text – easy to use buttons, and simple scrolling.

Making Data Your Priority

Numbers and information might not seem like a big deal when you’re just getting started in running a new business or starting a new company. But trust us – learning as much as you can about the traffic that you build is one of the best ways to keep that same traffic coming back for more. While yes, you can always generate new traffic to replace the people you lose from bad or mis-informed campaigns, the chances are that they won’t have the same value as loyal, repeat customers.

While a new customer from new traffic has a conversion rate that’s somewhere between 1% and 3% – a repeat customer that keeps coming back has a 60-70% chance of conversion. In other words, if we send you 100 customers, and you use the right data-gathering tools to learn more about those customers, personalize their experience, and keep them coming back for more – you’ve got an instant 70 purchases.

Many companies are starting to realize that if they want to optimize and understand sales performance, they need to make data collection a priority. Companies that do this will quickly be able to replace those “educated” guesses on dealing with traffic with proven statistics!

At Traffic 4 Me, we find ourselves dealing with about a house-sized pile of emails every month. Imagine how full your inbox gets after a week at work – then imagine living in a world where you’re constantly generating traffic with new email campaigns.

While all those emails obviously make for a hell of a lot of hard work from the workers and grunts here at T4Me – they also have a silver lining. When you stare at as many emails as we do every day – you start to notice some pretty important things – like which kinds of emails are the most annoying, how much better you are at replying to Facebook then aggravating chain letters – and how certain subject lines just immediately capture your attention.

All that exposure to emails also means that you figure out what works to make clients’ money – and what sends their customers scattering.

No matter what people say – we do judge books by their covers (and emails by their subject lines). In fact, around 33% of email recipients decide whether to open an email by looking at the subject line and nothing else – that’s why you have to be compelling!

If you’re still working on a way to make your emails stand out in a crowded inbox – the following tips could help you to jazz up your correspondence, and make a real difference to your customers.

We’ve discussed subject lines here before, but trust us – these tips are just as important as the rest.

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1.    Use a Familiar Name

Are you more likely to open an email from “Joanne Webster” or “webhacker2311”?

If the name you’re emailing from doesn’t sound like a familiar friend that you want to hear from – then your subject matter doesn’t mean squat.

Thanks to the amount of spam that people get today, most will reject the idea of opening messages from unfamiliar senders, and you’ll probably find that your emails get sent straight to the black hole of internet marketing – the spam folder.

The number one rule? Don’t EVER use noreply@company.com. Not only does this make you look less like a human being, but it also means that prospects can’t add you to your email address book. Avoid using generic addresses and send the email from real people who seem like they have real value to offer. Trust us – it really does work.

2.    Get Into their Personal Space

Not in a sleazy way – though.

Batch and blast emails are worthless – nobody likes receiving information that has nothing to do with what they want or need. Instead, use personalization tokens like location or name in the subject line to add an extra sense of rapport – particularly with a name.

Those personal touches are ideal for increasing click through rate – and according to email marketing science, emails that include the first name of their recipient in subject lines had a more successful click through than emails which didn’t.

Try something like this:

•         Hey Sarah – Check out this deal we have for you!
•         Happy Birthday John! We have a surprise just for you…
•         Tom, are you looking for a new ironing board? How about 20% off?

Another way to get personal is to tailor the subject lines of your emails to where your customers are from. Location-specific emails can make your customers feel as though they’re interacting with someone closer to home – rather than a robot located miles away. For instance, you could use something like: “Hey Mike, heading down to London this weekend – have some vouchers!”

If you can’t use personalization properly in your email, you could always try adding words like “your” or “you”, so that it seems like you’re addressing them directly. At Traffic 4 Me, we’ve learned that little touches in personalization go a long way towards generating valuable traffic.

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3.    Segment! Segment! SEGMENT!

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again – segmentation is essential for email marketing campaigns.

While email blasts that cover your complete traffic list by seem relevant and helpful to around 10% of the people you target – that means that you’re sending confusing and frustrating drivel to the other 90%.

Why is a restaurant sending vegetarians a list of great steak deals? Why is this company sending me deals on great women’s shoes when I’m a guy? (No judgement on what you do with your free time!)

Remember to personalize the experience your customer is getting by segmenting each section into their own group and offering them something that’s based on the actions they’ve already taken – from the forms they’ve filled out to the industries they’re interested in – and what they’re personal preferences are.

Heck – even using a picture of a dog instead of a cat could be enough to rile some people in your email list.

Here are a few ways to slice and dice your lists for a better, more segmented approach to working with emails:

•         Gender
•         Geography
•         Age
•         Persona
•         Job
•         Education
•         Past purchases
•         Buying frequency
•         Purchase cycle

4.    Guess what’s Inside

Your subject line can be a mystery – or a promise.

If you’re going to give them a promise, then make sure it’s something that you can keep. Don’t tell your customers that you’re going to give them something in your content that you absolutely can’t offer – and don’t try to get your email opened by saying things like “Here’s a free coupon” when you’re actually just going to link them to some case studies.

The more you try to trick your audience, the more annoyed they’ll become. On the other hand, if you do have something valuable to offer, like a new e-book, or a voucher code – then feel free to advertise that in your subject line. Starting an email with: “Your 20% coupon inside” is bound to get your customers interested if they’re looking for ways to save money.

Let’s face it – who isn’t aching for some extra cash in their pockets these days?

Step 5: Be Action-Oriented

Subject lines are very similar to a standard call-to-action. In other words, you’re going to want the language you choose to inspire people to click through. Subject lines that use action verbs immediately are often far more enticing than those which don’t.

Wanna know what we’re talking about?

Actionable subject lines inspire people to click on emails by providing an essence of excitement and urgency. For instance, “Party with Bruce Springsteen” is far more exciting than “Local legend, Bruce Springsteen, hosts event.”

The “party” verb encourages your readers to imagine themselves at the event – regardless of whether they have tickets or not. This means that they’re instantly more engaged in whatever you happen to be talking about.

Step 6: Make Your Readers Feel Special

“Click here to read more about online marketing”

We bet you say that to all the girls…

The psychology of exclusivity is more powerful than you think. If people feel like they’re getting the inside scoop on something, they often feel a sense of belonging that can build loyalty and compel them to convert more on your emails.

The right phrasing makes your recipients like they mean more to you. For instance:

•         Hey Sarah, here’s an offer just for you…
•         Nicole, enjoy an exclusive offer…
•         Steve, you’re invited to a private event…

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Step 7: Use Numbers

We don’t mean filling your content with that Myspace-era chatter that involved using numbers instead of vowels. Instead, we mean making your emails more precise with numbers.

At Traffic 4 Me, we’ve noticed that a lot of businesses struggle to maintain the traffic that they want because they send vague and pointless statements in their subject line. That’s why numbers and data are great for getting you noticed. They set the right expectations and demonstrate a clear message about what you’re offering.

Using numbers works for blogs and emails alike when it comes to giving your customers a precise insight into what kind of benefits they can get from opening your email, or reading on. For instance: “Join more than 1000 others at this event”, or “Introducing ten tips for better email campaigns” are far more engaging than “Check out our latest event.”

Step 8: DON’T BE AN EXCITED TEENAGER!!!

In other words, calm the heck down!

A subject line that says “OPEN AND RECEIVE FREE COUPONS TODAY!!!!!!!” isn’t going to prompt people to trust your company and open your emails. In fact, it’s more likely that your customers will instantly write your messages off as spam.

People don’t like to be yelled at – and studies have shown that more than 85% of respondents would rather have an all-lowercase subject line than an all-caps option. Just relax and focus on getting your point across in a mature and professional way.

Instead of using disruptive tactics in an attempt to stand out in someone’s inbox, try establishing your relevance in someone else’s world, personalizing your emails, and using language that’s designed to inspire action. Trust us – you’re far more likely to get a good result.

 

Okay, so we’re not exactly doctors at Traffic 4 Me – but if anyone was going to have a PHD in traffic it would be us. Our studies were built on piles of emails, and after you spend that much time looking at different campaigns – trust us, you learn a thing or two.

Of course, we know there’s more to making traffic work for you than simply having those prospects arrive at your company front door. You’ve got to make them want what you’re selling too – and that’s where your landing page performance comes in.

If you met some guy in an alleyway tomorrow and he asked you for a few hundred bucks for a new iPhone – would you just hand over the cash – no questions asked? If the answer is yes, then you seriously need to go and reevaluate your life chances. In fact – maybe you should speak to an actual psychologist.

On the other hand, if the answer is no – then congratulations – you’re part of the vast majority of sensible people who won’t trust their cash to people they don’t know.

Even if the random guy – let’s call him Jerry – told you that the iPhone was in pristine condition and worth double what you’d be paying. You’d probably still say no. Let’s face it – Jerry might be a nice guy, but he’s also a shady character selling phones in a back alley.

However, what if your best friend tells you that Jerry is actually a distributor for Apple? What if he showed you his own phone – straight from Jerry, and raved about how happy he was with the purchase?

Maybe you’d think again.

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What Makes Us Buy Stuff?

We buy items because we want them, need them, or feel as though we have to have them. However, before you hand over cash for anything, you take part in a risk/benefit evaluation that measures the pros of getting a new product, against the cons of using your hard-earned cash.

While the pros of buying an item straight from a reputable dealer often outweigh the cons, the pros of buying from a person, or business that you’ve never done business with before are yet to be determined. In other words – you’re more focused on the risk, then what you’re going to do with your sweet new phone.

As a business, if you want your target customer to convert, then you need to convince them that the benefits of buying something far outweigh the risks. There are plenty of great ways to do this – but one of the most effective is social proof.

The Truth about Social Proof

You need a few very important things to make a sale in today’s digital world.

The first is traffic – no doubt about it, if you want to make a sale, then you need people to sell to.

The second is value – the item you’re selling needs to offer something that your customer wants.

The third is trust – you need your customers to believe that handing over their details to you isn’t the same as giving their cash to that Nigerian prince they keep hearing about.

The biggest problem that our buddy Jerry had – is that he didn’t have any trust.

Let’s think about it from another angle.

Do you trust infomercials? Probably not. I mean – just look at these people – they don’t know how to lay out a towel, stack Tupperware, or use cling film. Just by looking at a few of the most idiotic infomercials in the market today, you can see that the guy in that advert is being paid to sell you a product. He’s making cash off every sale – and there’s a good chance he’s biased about the item in question.

Just as you probably don’t trust infomercials, most customers don’t trust online marketing. Even if you have the most authentic website online, you still need to convince your traffic to trust you before they’re going to convert. Fortunately – social proof can help.

Your customers might not trust you – but they definitely trust other people. After all, your friend didn’t have to say that he loved his product from Jerry – he wasn’t getting paid to do that – so his opinion is authentic and worth more in the eyes of the consumer.

That’s why simply placing user reviews on a website will make 63% of your potential customers more comfortable with making a purchase. Those little padlock things on the search bar will also increase your sales by around 42% too.

So how can you go about adding social proof to your landing pages?

No worries, at Traffic 4 Me, we know people (we deal with them every day) – so we have a few helpful tips that might help to make you more trustworthy to the traffic that we send your way.

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1.    Throw Together Some Stories

Once upon a time, there was a business that made a ton of profit.

The end.

Nothing sells like a story.

Using case studies in your marketing efforts can turn your current customers experiences into stories that give your potential customers the chance to vicariously experience what it’s like to use your service or product.

After all, if we see that something turned out to be worthwhile for someone else, then we’re all the more likely to take the plunge ourselves. You don’t just jump into a pool of icy-cold water before your friend does it first – right?

In addition to giving your prospects an insight into what your offer is going to do for them, case studies give your customers an idea of the type of success they can expect. For instance, if your case study talks about how your product saved their client $5000 a year, then your customer can measure up the cost of the product against the potential rewards.

Case studies aren’t ideal for every business – some people won’t even bother to read them. But in the right circumstances, they can do wonders for your business credibility.

2.    Use Some Killer Testimonials

Testimonials are a fantastic way of adding a human element to your page – making your company seem more trustworthy. In fact, many companies find that testimonials are the best type of social proof out there.

After all – what better way to convince your customers that you’re awesome – than to get a bunch of other people saying it for you?

Just remember that your potential customers will be able to tell if you’ve doctored your testimonials. So don’t add extra crap that’s intended to make you look better than you are. Just let your clients talk about whether the experience you gave was good for them.

Here’s an industry secret you won’t hear often – your customers understand that businesses aren’t perfect – they just want to know that you’re more trustworthy than not.

Of course, since testimonials are pretty easy to fabricate, it can be difficult to make your testimonials truly compelling. However, if you do it right, and pick the perfect phrases from your audience members to draw more leads to your webpages, then you’re going to have amazing results.

Studies have shown that customer reviews increase sales by around 18%, so it’s well worth your time to put together testimonials that leave your customers thinking – hey that sounds great! Sign me up!

3.    Try Some Social Media Strategies

One quick and simple way to establish credibility? Include follower counts and like numbers on your landing page.

Why? Because peer pressure still works.

If 100,000 people tell you that a company is incredible – and that 100,000 people like the company so much that they actively choose to get regular updates about them through Facebook and Twitter, then you’re probably going to respect that.

I mean – thousands of people couldn’t be wrong, right?

Fortunately, there are dozens of simple plugins to use that are easier to install than a energy-efficient light bulb. Once you’ve done that, your visitors will know how much other people love you – and this will make them more inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt.

Just remember that social media proof only works if you have a large number of loyal fans.

Twelve likes from your mom and grandma aren’t going to generate a lot of interest. Because of that, it can help to combine your follower counts across various social media platforms. 1,000 total likes always looks better than 500 Facebook followers, 100 LinkedIn fans, 200 Twitter friends, 2 followers on Google+ and 188 Instagram fans.

If you’ve used us to get some pretty serious traffic – you can always show off your traffic numbers too. After all, people who see that you get 600,000 visits a month are inclined to believe that you’re selling something worth buying.

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Trust Matters

At the end of the day, while we’re all about traffic at Traffic 4 Me, we know that sales still come down to trust. Every decision starts with risk-benefit calculations – and if you can’t ensure that the benefits outweigh the risks, then you’re going to suffer.

The right mix of testimonials, case studies, and social media proof on your websites and emails can give your potential customers the comfort and peace of mind that they need to throw money in your direction, or convert with subscriptions and other valuable actions.

Trust us – trust matters.

Let’s face it – the days of boring white papers and huge sales documents are long gone. As professionals in the world of traffic generation, at Traffic 4 Me, we know better than most how much our customers strive for instant satisfaction. Hey – who doesn’t?

While your blog posts, press releases – and of course, your incredible email campaigns – can do wonderful things for engagement, the chances are that something visual is going to have a far more immediate effect. Think of it this way: would you be more excited about an article that tells you about a monkey riding a motorbike or the sight itself?

That’s what I thought.

Here’s the deal though, it’s never been more important for companies to seek out new ways to engage, attract, and draw visitors back to their website time and time again. If you want to be successful in today’s online world, then you need to find a way to stand out amongst the crowd, make yourself heard, and keep your customers entertained.

Fortunately, there’s a great solution for this that’s been growing in popularity over the recent years – website videos. (We’re not talking the videos with cats and semi-naked girls, unfortunately). Although some companies regard creating and publishing their own videos as too much hard work, or too much of a strain on their already limited budgets, the truth is that failing to invest in video content could be doing your brand more harm than good.

Video allows you to tap into a whole new market of engaged online viewers, particularly if you ensure each clip is optimized for viewing on any platform or screen. So why exactly do you need to get started with video for your company?

Video Does More Than Engage Your Customers

Instant visual gratification. It’s got a lot of great benefits, but people often underestimate it. While video is obviously a great way to get your companies engaged with your brand by giving them quick, entertaining information in a way that’s not always obtainable through text – it’s also a great way to add something special to your marketing efforts.

Studies have shown that having a video on your website could be enough to multiply your chances of a front-page Google listing by about 53 times. The same research also found that visitors will spend an average of two minutes longer on websites that have videos. In other words, using video media helps you get to the first page and maintain your customer’s attention for longer once they arrive on your website.

If that’s not enough to convince you, according to Hub.tv, 7 in every 10 people who watch a product video will be more likely to view a brand in a positive light, and over 50% of people say that they feel more confident when buying products online if they’ve already seen videos of that service or product.

What’s more, live video may also be worth considering for companies who have consumers with a lot of questions. Making questions answerable on a real-time basis can help to develop trust and credibility for your brand – which means that setting up a live streaming event every once in awhile could do incredible things for your business.

Beyond that, websites videos deliver a range of other benefits, from helping you to deliver a message quickly, to strengthening your bond with your customers.

At Traffic for Me – we often find that the best traffic is the traffic that really cares about your company. What would you rather have – a bunch of people visiting your website out of general interest – or a group of avid fans excited to purchase your next big product?

Here are just a few of the things that should be tempting you towards visual content:

1.    Videos Deliver Messages Fast
Speed really does count.

Think of all the things that you have to do in your typical day – then add in the stress of having to work through an email or article that seems to be a mile long. Your customers don’t want to slog through piles of content – they want instant entertainment, immediate information – fast fun! Trust us, we know what it’s like to work through piles of emails and content every day.

Unless your website visitors are all blessed with great skill at speed-reading, it’s safe to suggest that they’ll be able to digest the information they view through video faster than the information they read. Because of this, a video on your website is a fantastic way to get your message across to your audience in a way that they can quickly and easily digest.

That’s not to say video should replace written content entirely – but it is a great way to compliment your existing copy.

2.    Define Your Company’s Personality

Wanna know something unique about me? Of course you do – I’m awesome.

People want to get to know other people – it’s only human!

More often than not, customers prefer to do business with people that they like and respect over companies that they barely know. People don’t show loyalty to faceless organizations – they build relationships with the personalities that exist behind that organization, and videos can be a great way to show off your unique character.

If that means showing videos where you obsess over a cute kitten who plays with your product, or showing videos that share insights into your after-hours office parties, then do it!

The videos you post don’t have to be limited to offering information about products and services – they can also be exciting, entertaining, and even funny if you know how to create them properly. Just make sure that you don’t go too controversial with your jokes, and that you research your audience thoroughly before creating any content. The idea should be to establish a personality that resonates well with your ideal customer.

The more you work on building your personality through videos, social media posts, and even the occasional blog post, the more you’ll be able to strengthen the bond you build with your visitors – turning one-off customers into loyal and engaged fans. This will help to reduce your chances of losing valuable customers to your competitors, and increase your chances of having your videos and content shared through social media channels.

3.    Stand Out from the Crowd

We all want to be remembered. As people, and as companies.

Imagine going into your favorite store – the store you visit every day – and learning that the cashier, Dan, doesn’t remember your name. Super rude, right? Unfortunately, if you’re just one of the faceless crowd, poor Dan has no reason to remember you. If you come in the store dressed as a horse, one day, however, then you’re probably going to get some recognition.

One of the most important reason to include video as part of your content and website design strategy is that it will help to ensure your customers remember your company. Think of it is a creepy digital horse mask for your business. A catchy and engaging video is far more likely to stick in the mind of consumers when they’re thinking about a particular product or service than a block of boring text.

In a world that’s filled with companies that seem to come directly from the same assembly line, a great personal video is a fantastic solution for differentiating yourself from the competition. Most companies simply don’t have the guts, the creativity, or the determination to create a video for their company or service, so if you’re willing to make one for yourself then you automatically move one step ahead of them on the playing field.

The Truth About Visual Content

There’s something seductive about images. They create a draw that can be impossible to produce with any other marketing technique. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words – particularly a really good picture.

Visual content marketing makes up one of the best systems for social media marketing, as videos and images are more likely to encourage comments, shares, likes, and other forms of engagement then any text-centric update.

Of course, like any other form of content marketing, it’s important to find a method of standing out from the crowd that works for your business, and draws in your chosen audience.

Unfortunately, per an infographic published by Curalate, only 7% of marketers today feel confident about the impact of their current visual strategy. Just like with your regular blog posts, web copy, and article content, it’s important to make sure that your visual marketing strategy provides relevant value to your audience.

In other words, the images that you share don’t have to be just authentic and interesting – they also have to be fun and engaging. This is one of the major reasons why people are so inclined to share video content and pictures – because the images they see entertain or inspire them in some way. As such, your visual content should strike a careful balance between being both informative and entertaining.

After all, you want to keep all that tasty traffic we give you coming back for more, right?

Think that pestering your audience is going to get you some sweet sales? Well, think again.

Those batch and blast emails that most companies rely upon to get them engagement and customer loyalty are nothing more than inbox poison. Getting in touch too often – and for no reason – could end up damaging your following significantly. After all, that’s why we’re so cautious with our traffic generating options here at Traffic 4 Me.

However, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t think about keeping in touch a little more frequently than you do now. Email marketing is a fickle creature. How it works for you will depend on a range of frustrating factors  from what kind of audience you’re trying to appeal to, to how you’re using other methods of marketing in your brand-awareness strategy.

Let’s Look at Email Marketing

You probably know this about us already, but at Traffic 4 Me we pretty much love email marketing. Getting in touch with your prospects via email can be one of the absolute best ways to generate interest and keep your consumers coming back for me. Problem is, too many businesses are doing it wrong.

Did you know that the number of worldwide email accounts is expected to increase to around 4.9 billion by the end of 2017? To put that into perspective, this means that more than half of the world’s population will have email accounts. How about the fact that around 7% of all ecommerce user acquisitions are thanks to email? In other words, it’s the second most effective channel for customer acquisition around, just behind SEO at 15.9%.

On top of all that – the average lifetime value of customers acquired through email is around 12% higher than average. To put that into perspective, the CLV for twitter is 23% lower than average. All of this information comes together to outline one very important fact – not only is email more effective at acquiring customers than almost any other measure available, it also gets you better customers more willing to spend money with you.

Understanding Automated Post-Sales Emails

So we know that email marketing works, but how can you make it work for you? That’s a totally different ball game.

At Traffic 4 Me, we know all too well how aggravating the world of email marketing can be when you’re just getting started. Not only do you need to figure out exactly how often you should contact someone, but you also need to make sure you’re saying all the right words to generate a good response.

Sometimes email marketers find that the emails with the best open rates are the ones that are sent after a transaction. After all, your customer wants to know that everything is going ahead as planned. Most of us have automated post-sales emails, but they don’t need to be just a couple of lines outlining the purchase and thanking our customer.

Your after-sales emails can do some pretty great things for your business – and help contribute to your profits. Did we mention that the average return on email marketing investment is around $44.25 for every dollar spent?

So what makes for a good automated post-sales campaign?

The First Step is Planning

Planning is important to almost every aspect of running a business. As boring as it seems, we’re sorry to say that it’s a necessity. Think we don’t plan excessively for every client who asks us to generate traffic on their behalf? Think again.

If you want to create a seriously awesome email marketing campaign, you need to know what kind of outcome you’re hoping to achieve. Figure out your goals. Do you have measurable outcomes? Who are you targeting?

Here are some helpful goal examples to get you started:

• Nurturing trust in new leads so that they’re more likely to buy from you
• Converting free trial customers into paying clients
• Driving more traffic to your website
• Increasing levels of engagement on social sites
• Creating better engagement with customers to transform them into repeat buyers

To find out your own goals, list out your objectives, identify your prospects, and figure out what on earth you’re doing with your campaign. The better you know your customers, the better you’ll know what to do next for your business.

Planning your campaign is all about knowing your own goals, and the goals of your target market – once you’ve got those things tied down, you’re just about set.

Grabbing Their Attention

Alright – so you’ve planned your methods for automatic post-sales emails out with spreadsheets, graphs, and pie charts. Now what?

Once the planning phase is complete, then it’s time to start acting. With any email campaign- the subject line is one of the most important things you can think about. Let’s think about some of the statistics, found by the folks over at Sidekick:

• Emails that are shorter than 30 characters (i.e. short and sweet) have the best open rates
• Emails that are personal – “Hey Abby, click here!” – are 20% more likely to be opened
• Emails that contain the word “you” – get opened about 5% less often than those without
• Emails that use the word “tomorrow” are opened 10% more often – that sense of urgency really counts

Following up with a prospect post-sale leaves you a variety of different ways to start a new conversation. For instance, you could try a general follow up:

• Hey Megan – How’s that product treating you?
• Free to chat, Dave?
• Here are some more tactics to improve your business goals
• Let’s review what we did for you!

On the other hand, if you haven’t had any response from your previous follow-up emails, you could try some subject lines designed to prompt engagement:

• Let’s get started
• Any update?
• Interested in a great deal?

Whatever you do, try to make your emails personal to those who will be receiving them. Remember that the hard part is done – you’ve already made a sale – so don’t do too much to prove how great you are. Instead, look at ways you can keep your customer coming back for more.

Keeping them “In the Mood”

In the same way that the right atmosphere can get someone ready for “date night,” a good post-sales email can keep someone in the mood for buying. In a world where all your most important customers are one click away from a competitor, it’s important to keep your viewers engaged. After all, it’s always tempting to simply swipe to the next option in the hope that you’ll find a hotter deal.

When your customers have a limited attention span, you’ll need to ensure that you’re delivering the right content immediately if you want to reduce their chances of getting distracted elsewhere. The highly promotional environment of online shopping has made most consumers more promiscuous – meaning that loyalty is a bigger issue than ever.

Like any email you send to a customer, your automated post-sales emails should represent your brand, and perform well on any device. Remember that responsiveness is key. Once you’ve sent your first confirmation email, remember that there’s always a chance to send more content to your customers. For instance, further emails could include delivery notifications about a product, or customer satisfaction surveys.

Want to really get on your customer’s good side? Why not send them some post-sale offers and deals to help them make the most of their first purchase. Try emails like these to generate some quick interest:

• Free update for your software
• 10% off your next purchase of essential items
• These products could improve performance by 50%!

Telling Your Customer Where to Go

This doesn’t mean telling your more annoying clients to take a hike – as wonderful as that might feel. Trust us – at Traffic 4 Me, we know how annoying some customers can be.

One good tip for using automated post-sales emails is that you should add a little navigation into the mix. If people are going to ignore your core emails, then there’s not a lot that you can do to stop them, but if they’re interested and want to learn more, then you need to give them the opportunity to do so.

Emails with even limited navigation generally have more than double the click-through-rate of those without, and all links should go back to your website for a better chance of further sales. Aside from linking to products, you can also include navigation for delivery tracking, customer service, and newsletter subscriptions. Giving your customer plenty of options should make your brand appear more useful and your customer’s lives easier.

Remember that your customer is moving through a buying cycle that has a very distinct pathway laid out. If you want them to move from purchase to purchase, then you’re going to have to make it easier than ever to buy from you.

You could also think about adding links to your social media accounts in your emails so that your customers can share what they’ve purchased with friends. After all, this is free and effective brand promotion that could instantly increase your reach to customers.

While sharing links that allow customers to tell their friends about their recent purchases might not do much for your immediate sales, it will definitely help to generate interest and expand your circle of influence. At the end of the day. if that leads to more interest from new customers, then you’ve done something right!

Are you a social butterfly or a reclusive digital caterpillar?

If you answered the latter, then it’s time to break out of that cocoon!

Social media is more important than ever in today’s digital climate. Customer’s don’t just want to hear about the apparent benefits that a company can offer them in terms of new and exciting products or services – they also want to get to know what’s going on behind the scenes in that brand.

As of the second quarter of 2016, Facebook had around 1.71 billion active monthly users, which is why it’s emerged as one of the most popular options for companies to use in their social media strategies.

Unfortunately, simply running a social media page isn’t always enough to get the results that you want – you also need to make sure that you have what it takes to get ahead of the competition, and make your chosen platform work for you. Hey, no-one ever said that digital marketing wasn’t hard work.

At Traffic for Me we’re all about generating traffic, and we know how valuable a social following can be for that very purpose. A lot of businesses jump into social media endeavors like Facebook advertising without having any kind of real plan in place. While this might seem like the simplest method, it’s also one of the dumbest options.

While passion and excitement can take you a long way in business, in the case of marketing, many companies find that their initial enthusiasm quickly wears off, and they’re left wondering how to improve their number of likes, or how to get more people talking about their page. You don’t want to be a victim of getting too excited too fast, right?

Leads Come First

So where should your focus be in a social media campaign? On the cute pictures your friends shares of her cats, or the recent clickbait articles that are floating around your feed?

Nope.

The metric that you should be obsessing over if you want to make the most of Facebook marketing is how many leads you’re getting. There are 4.5 billion likes generated daily, but not all those likes lead to sales.

For those that are new to the lingo, a lead could be something as simple as an email address, a customer visiting your physical shop, or someone providing you with more information so that you can approach them for sales in the future. We’ll cover just some of the ways that you can convert those Facebook “likes” into leads that earn you success, and cash.

1.    They Need to Like You Before they Love You

No one’s going to fall in love with your brand – unless they like the person behind it first.

At Traffic 4 Me, we give you everything you need to start getting people to fall in love with you through email marketing and brand awareness – but with social media marketing, you’re pretty much on your own. Sure, you can take your traffic with you to social media, but you need to engage them and interact with them there in a positive way.

While Facebook likes aren’t the most important metric to consider when you’re thinking of ways to improve your social media campaign, that doesn’t mean that they don’t have a part to play. Getting your followers to “like” your posts by engaging with them on a level that they can connect to is a great way to start gathering new business.

After all, your customers need to appreciate your company and trust your brand before they’re going to be willing to give you their money. Take plenty of time out to reach out to your customers and interact with them – after all, that’s what social media is all about.

2.    Set up Some Competitions

Who doesn’t love free stuff? I do, and all my friends do too! It’s just human nature.

Competitions, sweepstakes, or any other event that gives customers the chance to win something for “free” are still the best ways to generate interest in your company and get your audience to take action. There are even competition applications that you can use that will help you to gather valuable information about your potential customers for the future.

Just remember, as much as you might want to gather data, you’re going to need to keep things simple on any entry forms, as the more questions you ask, the fewer entrants you’re likely to get. Try to create a fine balance between getting to know your audience and scaring them away. No one likes to feel stalked by their favorite brands

3.    Use Your Calls to Action

How do you get people to take action – well, by calling them to it, of course.

AdRoll found that adding calls to action to your Facebook page increases click-through rate by around 285%. For those who struggle with math, that’s what’s known in layman’s terms as “a hell of a lot.”

It’s typically a good idea to avoid drowning your Facebook audiences with sales posts, but using the right language to encourage purchases is a good idea. Rather than creating an image that’s brimming with text about your latest and greatest offer, try to use posts that show off how great you are while giving something valuable back to the customer.

For example, pair your call to action with a statistic that’s relevant to your product or service, or a link to a blog post that might be useful for engaged customers.

4.    Make the Most of Tabs

Facebook might not be the best solution for social interaction in the world, but it’s definitely one of the most popular. If you want to get the most out of your Facebook experience, then you need to be willing to use all of the resources that are available to you.

The chances are you have some form of lead generation technique built into your website, such as a contact page or a subscription form where people can sign up to receive your monthly newsletter in exchange for a one-time-only discount code. Why not add the same features into your Facebook marketing measures?

Adding tabs to your Facebook page, such as the “Contact us”, “Subscribe”, or “Book Now” tab, can make it easier for you to capture new leads without having to send them off to your website. This is usually far more convenient for Facebook customers who don’t want to have to travel away from a profile page or news feed in order to get more information.

5.    Design Brand Ambassadors from Existing Customers

Wanna know who can sell your products even better than you can? It’s your customers.

Your existing customers are likely to be your best salespeople. As with the world of offline word of mouth marketing, Facebook allows people across the web to get together and endorse whatever it is that you do or create.

Make sure that your existing customers remain active on your page, ask them questions, and thank them for their feedback by giving them extra goodies such as voucher codes alongside valuable and unique content that they can share with their friends. The more you appeal to the people who already like your brand or service, the more likely they’ll do most of the work involved with selling your product for you!

Since we’ll be doing the work getting you your traffic, and your customers will be generating sales, you’re pretty much left to do whatever you like with your business. Golf, anyone?

6.    Use “Offers”

Recently, Facebook introduced a brand new tool for making lead generation simpler than ever. It’s known as the “Offers” segment. This is a great opportunity for marketers who want to measure their return on investment and generate new leads.

When creating your offer, remember to choose the “online only” option- regardless of whether you’re an online retailer or offline store – this will give you the opportunity to collect more information about your customer when sending them a voucher.

Even if you don’t already have your own website – which let’s face it, is unlikely – you can set up a Facebook custom page to collect information, allowing you to find out who is claiming your offer and giving you everything you need to get the relevant information you want to reach out to new customers or clients.

7.    Keep Your Message Short and Sweet

Piles of information and long sales pages aren’t meant for Facebook posts. If you want to succeed on social media, then you need to know when to shut up.

Many companies assume that just because their Facebook messages aren’t restricted by a character limit – like they are on Twitter – they can make their posts as long and detailed as they like. Unfortunately, the truth is that your social media following is full of with people who have busy lives – which means that they don’t log onto their Facebook account to read paragraphs of dry information.

You’re far more likely to grab attention if you can limit your message to between 100 and 250 characters.

8.    Stand Out, but Stay Relevant

Today, Facebook is full of businesses that are constantly competing for the attention of your ideal followers. In other words, it’s a pretty crowded place to be.

If you want to get ahead of the competition, then you need to find a way to stand out from the crowd and prove that you’re different (in a good way). Look into what your competitors are doing and add your own twist to become bigger, and better. At the same time, remember to grab some relevant topics from what’s trending in your industry.

While posting random pieces of news that have nothing to do with your company is a bad idea, there’s nothing wrong with connecting your interests to popular topics on Facebook to help grab the attention of your target audience. Find a way to talk about your company while becoming a part of a popular conversation and you might find that you’re rewarded by a host of new conversions, or even just general interest.

It’s Time to Get a Social Life

As terrifying as social media might seem to be for the uninitiated, it’s here to stay. Sure, email marketing campaigns still do far more for traffic than your average post on Twitter or Facebook, but that doesn’t mean you can’t boost your efforts by getting involved from numerous different angles at once. You can always buy traffic from Traffic 4 Me while focusing hard on your email game AND run a vibrant social campaign too – in fact, most experts recommend it.

Email and social media can go hand in hand from email links that encourage your customers to share what they’ve bought with friends to batch and blast campaigns that can be eradicated and reformed with the data you learn from social media!

At Traffic for Me – we’re all about the digital revolution. I mean, without it we wouldn’t have much of a job to do, would we?

Still, there’s one big problem with the digital world today – and that’s the fact that it can leave customers and companies somewhat isolated from one another. Seems contradictory when you think about things like Facebook, email, and a million other interaction tools?

Well, look at it this way. When you visited a company in the past – before the day of digital downloads and straight-to-door drone deliveries – the chances are that you had to actually go somewhere, and interact with people. Scary thought – I know.

While that interaction might have been a pain for you as a customer, it was great for businesses because it allowed them the chance to leverage those face-to-face interactions and body-language conversations that create true, loyal relationships.

Those relationships are what kept people going back to the same butcher, baker, and candlestick maker every day, week, or month. It didn’t matter how cheap a different company was selling the same items for – what mattered was the interaction.

What Does this Have to Do With Digital Marketing?

Good question.

We’re approaching a time when we can personalize our interactions with customers all over again from the pages that they see on our website to the emails that they get from us week in, week out. Yet only a handful of companies are bothering to use this solution properly.

While around 85% of the companies in a recent Evergage study were implementing methods of personalization, most was only very basic, like customary “Hey (first name)” titles.

While you might not grade yourself often on your personalization initiatives, the chances are that you’re doing a C- job – if you’re passing at all. The reason for this is that businesses are more worried about making simple mistakes than they are about actually making the most of their email campaign.

Unfortunately, if you’re failing to personalize your email and digital marketing solutions – then you’re missing out on a bunch of different solutions that could be making you a more effective (and profitable brand). That’s why we’re going to address a few reasons why you need to customize each and every stage of your customer experience – from the moment you meet – to those after-sales emails.

Those batch and blast emails you’ve been sending out without focus or planning – ditch ’em. We mean it – get rid of them right now. We’re here to get you some traffic, and that always works better with a little personal interaction.

1.    Personalization Makes Communication More Personal

Alright we know this is an obvious one – but hear us out.

The nuance of how much “being personal” with your customer can be worth is often lost on companies that seem to be constantly pursuing higher conversion rates and bigger traffic results. Personalization is all about making sure that you’re giving a very specific form of value to your customer – it’s about more than a first-name contact.

While knowing what to call your prospect is great, something that’s way better is understanding what drives their decision-making process, figuring out where they are in the purchasing cycle, and placing your interaction in the context of the specific challenges your audience members face.

Personalization should be far more than saying “Hey Suzie” at the start of an email. It should be about addressing the different challenges of different segments – solving problems and making things work for each customer.

Remember, every interaction you have with a customer has the potential for personalization:

1.       The first visit – Figure out where your customer is coming from (it might be useful later). Who referred them to your site, did they find you through Facebook or PPC? How can you use that knowledge to your advantage?

2.       Purchasing – Knowing what your customer bought during their first purchase with you means that you know what you can suggest to them for future purchases. How about a keyboard to go with that computer monitor, or a vase to go with those flowers?

After sales – If you’re tracking customers even after they’ve purchased – you can see how their frequent, or infrequent purchases are defined by specific emails, discount codes, or offers. This could help you to tailor bigger sales opportunities to your more valuable clients.

2. Personalization Increases Conversion

If you’re one of those companies who take their email-marketing campaign semi-seriously yet hopes that a personalized greeting at the top of an email is enough to boost a conversion rate through the roof, then we have bad news.

Clichéd personalization that could be done by anyone with an email automation program isn’t going to get you great results. In fact, it’s more likely to show your audience that you don’t care much about their online experience. After all, if you’re only willing to do the bare minimum to engage them, then why should they spend their money with you?

While personalization can definitely produce higher retention and conversion rates, these results only work when you make a real effort with your personalization solutions. In other words, useful personalized solutions have a real impact.

For instance, your email might outline specific products that would go well with the items your customers have already bought, or you might send them discount codes for items they’ve shown interest in.

This deeper level of personalization makes a real difference, for instance:

• Hubspot found that personalized CTAs lead to a 42% improvement on conversion.
• Marketingsherpa found that personalized Zumba videos lead to increased click-through rates at a rise of 5.4% to 21%.
• Panaya found that content consumption increased by 113% when they targeted different content based on whether the site was from a company that used Oracle.

The cases we’ve outlined above all have something in common – and it’s that thing that ensured they worked. These cases allowed companies to target more relevant information to their customers. In other words, it allowed them to give their customers more value. We all know that in the world of digital marketing, – or any marketing for that matter – value means everything.

3. Personalization Makes you More Competitive

Finally, let’s address a very important truth. Competition is everywhere. Set up a niche business within your industry and the chances are that there are at least ten other companies doing the same thing as you, regardless of whether you’re a content marketer or a stylist knitting hats for llamas.

In other words, you’re going to need to find a way to make yourself stand out amongst the crowd – otherwise you might as well just give up. A personalized site, with personalized emails, and a personalized intimate touch is always going to have the advantage over a boring site that looks as though it fell straight off an assembly line.

Imagine you walk into your favorite local store, and the sales clerk walks up to you saying “Hey Mike, great to see you again, come and check out this set of spanners we’ve just got in – they’d be awesome for your handyman business.”

Now compare that experience with some bored teenager asking “Can I help you?” as he fiddles with his smartphone.

Chances are the first option will engage you much more than the second, and online shopping is very similar. It’s always nice to feel as though you have a connection with the business you’re planning on giving your hard-earned money to.

If you’re still not entirely sure where to get started with your personalization – don’t worry. You’re not alone. Many businesses today are struggling to find the human side of their business, and ensure that their customers can interact with them on a deeper – more emotional level. At Traffic 4 Me, we encounter businesses every day that have practically no clue when it comes to their email marketing work.

That’s okay – we’re here to help. Usually, a great campaign, full of personal touches, will start by taking the traffic we deliver to you and segmenting it. Not the scary segmentation from the history books – the segmentation that gets you awesome profits.

Why Start with Segmentation?

Simply put, you won’t have the time, or the manpower, to send a personal email to every client you ever work with, especially if you’re a successful business generating significant revenue. What you can do, however, is segment your hundreds of customers into smaller groups that can be sent content based on relevancy and personalized topics.

Segment your audience however you like – but make sure that you do it thoughtfully. Some options might include:

• Breaking up your market according to their geographic location so you can send specific deals to people close to your physical stores
• Segmenting people by gender so that you can send specific emails written in a male, or female-oriented voice.
• Segmenting by cultural orientation – different cultures do react to things differently, that’s just human nature.
• Segmenting by who purchases more in your business, and those who have already made purchases in the past.

There are almost no limits to personalization so long as you have the data available. By looking at every option for personalization, you not only increase conversion rates – but you’re enhancing customer experience too!

Everyone likes to feel special – and your customers are no different.

Your email campaigns suck. It’s a harsh truth – but let’s face it, if you were getting the results that you’ve been searching for with your email correspondence, then you probably wouldn’t be reading this article. Hey! Don’t go anywhere, though – T4Me is here to help.

Just like any other tactic for digital marketing, crafting a good campaign for email marketing requires serious time and effort. Allocating resources to your email marketing campaigns only to have them perform poorly can be both frustrating and disappointing – not to mention, a massive pain in the neck.

That said, email can hold some serious value for brands that do it right. Across various industries, email marketing offers some of the best value when it comes to attracting customers and keeping them engaged. After all, what better way to keep up with your audience then to pop up in their inbox?

Just think about it – with email marketing, you’re not just reaching customers when they visit your store or contact you for a chat – you’re there whenever they settle down to sleep at night, look for something to read on the toilet, or try to pass the time while waiting for the subway. 50% of Americans check their email in bed, so how can you make sure that your prospects are snuggling up with you at night instead of with your competitor?

Well first of all, you can get a leg up with traffic from us here at T4Me -that should give you plenty of bedmates to get started. Once that’s done, you need to focus on keeping them satisfied. Let’s start by looking at some of the things that can ruin the experience for everyone involved before we give you an idea of how to turn things around.

1. That All-Important First Impression

First impressions are important! If you meet your date wearing a clown costume, she’s probably not going to take you seriously for the rest of the night.

The subject line you give to your email recipient is literally your first (and possibly only) chance to capture their interest. A lack of compelling language and information won’t entice your users to open their email – instead, it’s likely to give your content a one-way-trip to the trash folder.

That doesn’t mean that you should mislead your prospects with outlandish subject lines, but it does mean that you need to think carefully about how you’re going to get their attention. A good place to start is to remember that 61-70 characters is the perfect length for a subject line. Neither too much, nor too little – it’s something that feels “just right.”

2. Premature Email Contact

Don’t fall victim to premature emailing. No matter which email platform you use, you should be able to examine your analytics and figure out why certain emails aren’t doing as well as others. Sometimes campaigns perform badly simply because they aren’t sent out at the right time.

Pay attention to the times of day, week, month, and year that have historically given you the best performance for your previous emails, and use that as a precedent for when you should be scheduling your content going forward. At Traffic for Me we make sure you’re getting quality traffic according to your needs – but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do some research to inform you on how your own campaigns are performing.

3. “This Has Never Happened Before”

Mobile devices are more popular than ever as the primary device for people to check their email and browse the internet. Most users obsess over their smartphones and want to be able to read information on the go. If your emails aren’t rendering properly on different devices, then you’re going to lose your customers.

No customer is going to see a poorly rendered email on their phone then go to their computer so that they can try to read it there instead. It’s time to face the truth – you need to get responsive. The last thing you want is to waste time and effort crafting good campaigns that will still get ignored because they’re not properly formatted.

Don’t Be a Faceless Business

So there you have some insights into what you shouldn’t do during your email campaigns – but that’s not going to give you the boost in revenue you’ve been looking for, now is it? Fortunately, we don’t do half a job at Traffic for Me. We’re going to give you an insight into what you can do to improve your online efforts – and it all starts with personalization.

When you’re dying to meet a sales quota, chances are you’ll find yourself sending emails that are annoying, salesy, and even irrelevant just so that you feel as though you’re “doing something” to make a sale. Problem is – this doesn’t work!

Learn about your Audience

Batch and blast email crap just doesn’t work. If you wanna make a difference to your bottom line, you need to be willing to really get to know your target audience.

Learn as much as you can about each segment of your target audience, and find ways to customize the content you produce so that it matches their needs and interests exactly. Adding a first name can be enough to have some impact, but email personalization needs to go a lot further than that.

Most online shoppers will give you some information that you can use to personalize their content – from data about what they purchase, to where they’re located geographically. Even knowing a prospect’s gender can be useful, as your male customers are (presumably) more likely to buy a pair of running shoes than a training bra. Segmenting your audience by as many factors as possible, including interests, gender, and geolocation, will all help to ensure that the content you send is relevant.

Remember, even a small amount of personalization is worth the work. Customized email messages offer a 2.5x higher click-through rate, and achieve 6x more sales than those with no intimacy. If you have nothing more than a prospect’s first name – that could at least represent a good way to get started.

What’s more, the increase in open-rate with personal email subject lines is around 22.2%. Once you’ve gotten your prospects into the mood with some good personalization, it’ll be time for the main event.

Make a Difference with Testimonials

Bear with us – it might seem as though testimonials don’t have a role to play in this conversation, but before you make up your mind, answer this question:

What’s more likely to make you buy a product? A brand’s Twitter account telling you that its product is incredible, or another actual flesh and blood person raving about the fantastic service they received? Just as you’re more likely to go on a date with someone whom your friend has raved about for months on end, you’re more likely to engage in relationships with businesses who have a good reputation.

Customer testimonials represent one of the most powerful tools that email marketers have in their arsenal for conversations – because they’re incredibly effective. Testimonials behave like a social lubricant – a powerful motivational factor in consumer acting. The only problem with all of this is that you need to make sure you make the right impression with your testimonials.

If you get all your friends to tell some girl or guy that you’re the best person they’ll ever meet, not only are you building some seriously expectations, but you’re also reducing your chances that they’re going to take you seriously. A million half-hearted testimonials are nowhere near as beneficial as one thoughtful and genuine review.

So what kind of customer testimonial should you be inserting into your email marketing efforts? The ones that tell the story of your ideal customer, and your story at the same time. A good testimonial isn’t a gushing statement about how something has changed your life – it’s something that outlines the problem that has been overcome by a service. This means that the testimonials you use should be:

• Accessible – Simply written and easy to read.
• Specific – talking about specific solutions, problems, features, and outcomes.
• Informative – the testimonial should talk about what the customer experienced before, after, and during the purchase of your product.

Remember, while all testimonials can be useful, the ones that you want to draw attention to, are the ones that can sell your product.

In other words, don’t include messages about how “okay” or “nice” you are. Use that single review that raves about how you were the most amazing business that customer has ever done business with. Use a testimonial that shows how someone has overcome a problem thanks to your help, and convince your prospects that you can change their world.

Boosting your Email Campaigns

From making the right first impression, to using testimonials as a way of building your reputation before you ever meet a sales prospect in the first place – there’s a lot to think about in email campaigns. Fortunately, they’re also one of the most effective and lucrative things you can do for your business. You can always ignore the tips that we’ve outlined here and choose to do your own thing instead – but take our word for it – good emails really do generate good responses.

From more sales to a bigger, more loyal customer following, if your email campaigns suck then you’re missing out on a lot of great benefits. Fortunately, at Traffic for Me we can help – by offering you an easier way to build up your traffic and get an awesome following.

Take an active role in your email campaign. If you make it shine, your business shines too.

Guess what? Email marketing is here to stay.

At TrafficforMe we know better than most the sheer power of the email. After all, we deal with about a metric ton of them every month. When you work with email marketing as much as we do, you’re bound to acquire a little respect for it – otherwise you’d probably go insane. We understand that email isn’t just a way to shout and advertise; it’s also a way to seduce.

Despite other potential solutions to marketing and brand awareness, like content marketing and social media, email has been around for more than two decades – and it’s showing no signs of going anywhere. Why do you think it’s a major part of our sales pitch? If we’re gonna sell you email traffic at T4Me, we better make sure it works first!

Feeling a bit uncertain? Look at these statistics:

• The average number of emails an office worker receives each day is around 121.
• That’s a lot of spam to wade through – and a lot of competition for you to deal with if you’re trying to get your voice heard among the masses.
• Despite those piles of emails, people only open around 22.07%.
• People consume around 68% of those emails on mobile devices, and 42% of those customers are reading while doing their daily “business.”

If you don’t want your content to be little more than bathroom fodder, you’re going to need to take some serious measures to make your emails more engaging, successful, and intriguing. If that wasn’t terrifying enough, you also need to think about the things that you’re currently doing to scare off potential prospects. Even if you’re convinced that your email marketing game is at a pro level, there’s always more you could be doing.

Joining the Email Game

Sorry to burst your bubble, but at least in the world of email, size does matter. If your email list isn’t growing, then your prospects will dry up and stagnate over time – leaving you searching for a way to find new customers in a world brimming with harsh competition. Hey, nobody wants a limp and shriveled email list!

Companies generally use email as a good way to promote their product, establish a relationship with customers and leads, and support productivity overall. Of course, simply adding new people to your list won’t help much if your campaign is currently scaring away all your old customers. It’s time to start making a difference in your campaign. No more excuses, no more substandard content. Grab your customers by the inbox and make them pay attention.

Let’s start by looking at some of the worst things you can do, shall we?

1. Sending a Plague of Emails

It’s tempting to assume that flooding your subscribers with constant content will increase the chances of their buying from you – but that’s not actually the case. More isn’t always merrier. In fact, according to many experts, around 43% of email subscribers would prefer businesses to get in touch less often.

The batch and blast solution to email is quick and easy – but it’s also a pain in the rear end for your customer. It shows that you’re more interested in selling than in giving them a great experience. Even if that’s true, let’s not tell your customers, okay?

Of course, you shouldn’t try so hard to avoid over-mailing that you end up under-mailing. The best way to decide the optimal number of interactions your business should get involved with is through A/B testing. Try out different strategies for ads and emails at the same time and see which one users prefer. Retire the duds and match the successes with new paired ads, then repeat the process until you’re seeing the kind of numbers you want. The information you gain by watching who engages with which ads can determine many valuable things about your customers. :

• Who is my target audience?
• What kind of person am I speaking to (Young, old, clever, “less than clever”)
• Where is my audience located – and how can I stalk them without being too overbearing?

Split testing, on the other hand, works by allowing you to send one email to one group of people, and another to a different group. You want to offer the same message to both segments, but the email itself should use different designs, copy, and styles. Once you’ve sent your experiment out, you should be able to determine why one email worked better, or worse, than the other.

At Traffic for Me, we work our collective rear ends off getting you awesome traffic – but it’s up to you not to scare them off. We can only send the dates to your door – if you open it looking like Mike Myers, or if you chase the ladies down the street with a bucket of pointless emails – then you’re pretty much done.

2. Creepy Clickbait

In the world of email marketing, your subject line plays a pretty essential role in determining your open rate. No matter how great your content is, if your subject lines are dull, then your open rates will suffer. This means that you’re going to need to be creative and catchy if you want to grab the customer’s attention.

Simple terms? Go dressed for the job you want.

Don’t hold yourself back from being creative during your email marketing campaigns because you think that’s what everyone else is doing. You don’t want to be everyone else – you want to be unique, funny, interesting. No matter what your email topic is, give your reader a chance to see your company for what it is. Let your uniqueness stand out!

Remember that loyal customers become loyal because they like the personality behind the company – as well as the specific goods and solutions it offers. If you’re just another faceless entity in a sea of corporations, then you’re not going to make an impression and your emails will sit gathering virtual dust in a neglected folder. Take the chance, make yourself stand out. Get their attention.

However, that doesn’t mean you should sensationalize your subject lines or add clickbait nonsense that’s designed to tempt people to open your material. Nobody likes feeling deceived, and we all hate clickbait.

3. Pesky Promotions

How would you feel if someone from a local bakery turned up to your house every day and hammered on your door while shouting at you to buy a loaf of bread? He doesn’t care that you already have bread in the pantry, or that you’ve got a serious gluten intolerance – he’s just going to keep pestering you with loaves day in and day out. Annoying, right? No offense to bread, of course (it’s delicious).

Then why would the situation be any different for your customers when you’re plaguing them with promotions that they don’t want, need, or care about? Here’s the thing with email marketing: one size does not fit all.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that you need to find the time to send an elaborate personalized message to each one of your subscribers, but you do need to think about things like segmentation. Batch and blast might be an easy solution for earning cash, but it can also lead to serious problems with your marketing conversions. Too many generic emails will send your customers scattering.

Instead of sending the same old email out to everyone on your list, send emails based on preferences and subscriber behavior on your website. In the same vein, while email is a great way to build on your bottom line, it’s also a medium for engaging your customers and enhancing brand loyalty. While your goal may be to promote yourself and sell a product, you also want to keep your readers coming back for more by providing a memorable and beautiful experience.

Only 2.8% of retail emails get any kind of real conversion, so if you’re looking for great results then you’re going to need to have a think about what else you can achieve. If you focus entirely on promotion and selling in your emails, you aren’t going to engage anyone. However, by entertaining the people you speak to, you can enhance the chances of your subscribers opening every email you send – including the promotional ones.

The Other Side of the Coin – Seducing your Customers

Whenever you start drafting a new email, your first question should be: “What is my audience actually going to get out of this email?” If you can’t answer that question, close your computer down and come back when you’ve got a better idea of what you’re trying to accomplish. Let’s face it – missing out on this information means missing out on the whole point of your campaign. We’re good at Traffic for Me – we can get you the traffic you need – but we can’t do everything for you. Sorry guys! You’re going to need to shake a leg too.

For most people, the answer will be simply information about a new or upcoming product, service, or even an event taking place within your company. Your aim should be to make the value you’re offering as exclusive and exciting as possible. For instance, your customers love saving money (take my word for it), so why not offer a discount code or promotional sale?

To add a touch of something sweeter to the pot, you can always offer “exclusive content,” like sharing a secret about an upcoming sale that you don’t announce anywhere else, or providing links to limited-access discounts.

Don’t Know what to Do? Ask your Customers

If you literally have no idea what your subscribers want, then there’s only one thing you can do: ask them.

Asking your current subscribers what kind of content they’re interested in receiving from you can tell you more about what you should be trying to do in your current campaigns, and how you can improve your outreach strategies. Don’t be afraid to eliminate the guessing game of email and marketing strategies and just be straightforward about finding out what your audience likes or needs. To get feedback, you can try:

• Asking subscribers to respond directly to your email
• Sending out a Google Form
• Creating a survey
• Starting a poll on social media

Catch Their Eye

Finally, if what you’ve been saying isn’t doing enough to generate interest, then it might be time to take a more visual approach. Videos used in emails can lead to an up to 300% increase in click-through rate, so it’s worth thinking carefully about how you might be able to add relevant visual content into the mix.

At the same time, remember that the look and feel of your messages are just as important as the words you’re writing. If you ignore the design and visual elements of what you’re doing – then this can be a huge turn-off for your readers. Remember to embrace your branding and be consistent with color palettes, sizes, and formats.

With email marketing, as with any other marketing effort, it’s worth making sure that your audience is always associating each message with the underlying ethos of your brand. What are you waiting for? We can send you the traffic – and now you know exactly what you need to do to seduce them!

Give me money! Now!

You probably know that a CTA like that isn’t going to get you anywhere, but here at TrafficforMe  we’ve seen some attempts at selling that are just about that subtle (and that effective).

We’re all about giving you the traffic you need to generate some awesome profits, but let’s be real for a second. Once you have all those great prospects at your door, you need to be the one that tells them what to do.

If you think of your customers like sheep (bear with us), then you’re the shepherd. You can either herd them all into your shopping basket like good company owners, or you can kick the wool out of them until they bolt and jump your fences in favor of your competitors’ greener pastures.

One of the easiest and most popular ways to boost conversion rates is to optimize your calls to action. A call to action, or CTA, is a button or piece of hyperlink text that tells your users what you want them to do next after they’ve arrived on your blog, landing page, or product description. Unfortunately, most digital marketers aren’t using CTAs effectively when it comes to trying to engage their customers – and some still aren’t using them at all.

According to research, about 70% of small business B2B websites have no call to action, and additional research suggests that:

• Adding CTAs to your Facebook page increases click-through rates by 285%
• Emails with calls to action increase sales by 1617%
• Adding personalized CTAs to content converts 42% more visitors.

So, what can you do to convert more often?

1. Use Words That Inspire Action

I know it seems like simplistic psychology, but the words that you use in your call to action do have an impact on what your customers choose to do. If your prospects think that they only have so much time to act on an incredible deal for instance, then they’re more likely to ignore that little voice in their head that tells them to put off the purchase for another day.

There’s a reason why it’s called a call to “action.” Whether you’re asking customers to “subscribe now,” “buy here,” or “sign up,” you’re asking them to do something. In other words, the copy that you offer should not only give direction, but provide a comprehensive insight into what your audience can expect to get from their action. Simply adding one word after “Submit” on a button can boost your conversion rates by up to 320%. Here’s some examples that can get you started:

• Submit now to change your life!
• Submit today and start making money!
• Submit for instant benefits!

2. Make the Button Extra Click-able

The little things do make a difference.

I’m not suggesting that your customers won’t have a clue what to do on your webpage or email if your call to action isn’t surrounded by flashing red arrows, but the truth is that if your buttons or links don’t seem clickable – then your audience isn’t going to click. At Traffic for Me we deal with a hell of a lot of emails on a regular basis, and we find that the ones that make buying easier for the customer generally work best. Call it crazy – call it laziness – your customers don’t want to work for their purchases. Go figure.

The Report for e-consultancy User Experience found that over 95% of respondents believe that “good user experience” is essential in their consumer journey. In other words, if you don’t make every step from seeing your product to purchasing it as simple and smooth as possible for your audience, you’re missing a trick.

When you’re selling, every piece of content that leads up to your Call to Action will be preparing your customers for that all-important final conversion. That’s why you need to make sure that the button you design looks clickable. Most of the buttons that have the best responses on websites, emails, and other correspondence have a range of very specific features, including:

• Contrasting colors that are easy to spot
• Distinct button text
• Plenty of white space surrounding the button
• Rectangular or rounded shape
• A complimentary border

3. Keep It Simple

Treating your customers as though they’re dense isn’t going to get you the sales that you want, but that doesn’t mean that you should be making life complicated for them either.

If your customers are just a single click away from conversion, you don’t want to confuse, or offend them just before they take the plunge. While a fun CTA can stand out from the crowd, keep in mind that you don’t need to try and be “too clever” – it’s best to stick to words and suggestions that are straightforward, simple, and easy to understand.

Relax your creativity muscles a little when inserting your CTAs into website pages and copy so that you can make simplicity a priority instead. Most effective CTA copy is no more than five words long, and it shouldn’t overwhelm your entire page, unless you want to look like you’re desperate for sales.

Pro Tip: Write in the first person. ContentVerve saw a 90% increase in click-through when they used the first-person phrasing “Let’s start my free trial”.

4. Find the Perfect Spot

Positioning matters – in more parts of life than you might imagine.

Placing your buttons where people are more likely to click means that your chances of getting conversions automatically skyrocket. Duh. So how do you figure out exactly which parts of your page are getting the most attention? Well, an Nielsen Norman Group study on eye tracking learned that people use an F-shaped pattern to read web content.

On top of that, it’s worth noting that people generally read your content in a horizontal progression, starting above the fold and scrolling down with the draw of the information. This means that placing your call to action in the first place that your customer sees is bound to boost your click rate.

Think of it this way: Your customers are lazy – they want buying your product to be easy. Indulge them!

5. Create a Sense of Urgency

Hold up for a second! Before you start simplifying your emails to the point of baby talk, let’s remember that you’re talking to adult audiences here.

Just because your call to action should be simple and straightforward doesn’t mean that it can’t be compelling enough to push your reader closer to a profitable action. In fact, one of the best things you can do to enhance the performance of your CTA is to create a sense of urgency. Remember what we said above about adding a word like “now” to your content?

Simply adding words such as “today”, “now”, or even “while stocks last” to the end of your copy could be enough to encourage some individuals to make up their mind and act. After all, you’re far more likely to take the risk associated with buying a product if you think that your chances of doing so are running out. Human beings don’t like to have the “choice” of buying taken away from them.

Even if you have no intention of ending a promotion for months after it starts, that doesn’t mean your call to action should let people know that they have plenty of time to play with. A little urgency is quite the spice for a sale or promotion. Think of all the other urgent situations we’re willing to make time to act on.

6. The Pleasure Button

While having a sense of urgency is important for your CTA, It should never come at too high of a price. In other words, if your time-based words make your customers feel uncomfortable or anxious then they’re having the wrong effect. Instead, your aim should be to invoke positive emotions in and around your button. The better you make someone feel about clicking, the more likely they are to say “yes” to whatever you’re selling.

Positive emotions are generated in a range of different ways. You might use something inspirational – like a tear-jerking story about someone who changed their life thanks to your outstanding product. On the other hand, you could opt for something simple – like some comedy, or a quick joke at your own expense.

As simplistic as it sounds – sometimes simply using copy like “Get Started” will be enough to make your prospects feel more optimistic and ready for action. The phrase removes the idea of objections and prompts the desire for making a positive change.

7. Put the Benefits First

Finally, what matters most your customer? Is it your incredible personality? Your fantastic smile? Your killer bank account? Nope – it’s what you can do for them. Your call to action must offer some kind of benefit to the customer – otherwise why would they even bother to click-through in the first place.

Unfortunately, putting the benefits of your product or service out there for the world to judge can be a complicated task. After all, walking the line between boasting and positively marketing your product could leave you with some pretty wobbly moments.The best rules of thumb to take with you in this instance are:

• Be honest and authentic. Don’t promise the moon if you can’t give it, and tell your customers exactly what you can do for them.
• Don’t blather on. As much as you love your business, no-one wants to read about your obsession with your company for sixteen paragraphs straight. A few words before your call to action should be enough.
• Let other people speak for you. If you have testimonials, use them. People are far more likely to believe the words of another customer than a faceless corporation.

Go Forth and Multiply!

… Your conversions that is.

In any strategy for successful marketing, there are two key elements to keep in mind. The first is that you need to drive traffic to your website – enough that you have a good selection of “potential” customers to choose from – and the second is that you need to convert that traffic into paying consumers. After all, you could have millions of visitors going to your website each day, but if nothing you do converts them into customers, then your business is bound to fail.

The tips above should give you a basic insight into the things you need to do to make your CTA work for you as a conversion engine. Get out there and get started!