Rethinking your CTA

What is a CTA? A CTA is your Call To Action and a very important piece to an effective email marketing campaign. There are two types of CTA’s, the call to action button and the textual CTA. Today we are going to focus on the later of the two as it requires less knowledge of html and coding. Now, Imagine receiving an email with an eye catching subject line, an irresistible offer, and no explanation of how you can own this life changing product or solution. This is the affect of a poorly crafted CTA.

Your email may have all the bells and whistles to make your potential customers open the email and have the aha moment that this is exactly what they need, but if you don’t lead them through the next steps you will never convert opens to sales. If you don’t believe that tweaking your CTA will really make a difference, you should know that Google lifted gadget installations over 50% by shifting a blue background to the CTA button. That’s a 50% conversion rate increase through a color change. Below are a few quick and easy tips to get people from your email to purchasing your products and services.

Words drive Action

If you have decided to go with a click through button or just text explaining the next steps it is important that you get the wording right. A proper CTA will tell your customers the following, what they should do, where they will go or why they should go there. The best CTA’s explain all three of these in as few words as possible. In an article written by Bryan Eisenberg in 2003, he stated that “CTA links should be constructed with an imperative, an implied benefit of what visitors can expect when they click, and a clear sense of the information on the landing page.”

Keep it short and sweet

It is easy to get carried away and write paragraphs on why your customers should click through your email to your landing page, but Research has shown that the best links are between 7 and 12 words. Although it may be difficult to say everything force yourself to shorten your CTA and create landing pages with any information you could not include.

Use Active Verbs

Starting your CTA with an action rather than a noun will increase the click through rate of your email campaign. Below are some great action words to get you thinking.

Click Here

Click to Continue

Find

Follow

Learn

Read

Location, Location, Location

Many of us think that a CTA belongs at the end of the page after you have convinced your customers to make a purchase with eloquently crafted email content, but the times are changing. Many experts recommend linking images, and headlines throughout your email since research has shown that people tend to click on both.

These are just a few quick and easy steps to get your CTA to influence your customers to act. If you are still struggling to increase CTA click throughs, Click here for a free consultation from YellowBoxLLC, home of the largest email marketing list in the US.

November Trends to look for

Happy Halloween and Welcome to November! With all of the tricking and treating you have probably lost track of the latest news in email marketing. Here is a quick overview of what you missed during your sugar high.

Holiday promotions to dominate rest of calendar year

This should come as no surprise to you as Thanksgiving and holiday decorations pop up everywhere. The holidays are near and for many companies this is a key time to reach new customers and make sales. With the economy on the rise many retailers are expecting better turnouts and an increase in consumer spending. companies such as Neiman Marcus are wasting no time implementing thier holiday campaigns and if you are a company looking to capitalize on this time of year you should get on the ball quickly.

If you are feeling a bit lost on all of the holiday buzz, ClickZ has put together a great article on How to Put Social Content to Work this Holiday Season that will help you better understand consumers and craft your holiday email campaign strategy.

The End of Banner ads

Boring and unmemorable banner ads are out this holiday season as new rich media expandable adds from Spongecell take over. Spongecell expandable ads have the capacity of combining multiple levels of brand and product content into one cohesive message. With these new capabilities companies can combine coupons, social media links, and promotional offers with the capacity to create excitement and engagement with customers.

Apples new app guidelines; A game changer

If you are thinking of creating an app for your company as a part of your overall marketing campaign you should take the time to read over these new guidelines before you spend the money for the creation process. If you don't want to read through the extensive and ambiguous app store guidelines book than take a look at this simple overview from ClickZ that will save you time and money.

The Holidays are almost here. For help developing your holiday email marketing campaign contact us at YellowBox LLC, home of the largest opt-in email list. For a free consultation and pricing contact us at www.yellowboxllc.com

ROI and what it means for email marketers

In email marketing there are many ways to measure the success of a campaign; open rates, clickthroughs, and of course conversion rates. With all the data from these metrics we often lose sight of the most important metric of them all, ROI. When it comes to marketing your Return On Investment is the most important measure to keep sight of. If your ROI is where you want it to be than the other metrics have to be on track by default.

ROI evaluates the efficiency of an investment in terms of cost coverage. ROI is calculated as the benefit or return divided by the overall cost of the investment. The result is expressed as a percentage or ratio.

The return on investment formula:

(Gain from Investment- Cost of Investment) / Cost of Investment

In simple terms ROI reveals how effective a marketing campaign is in generating sales. In order to determine your ROI it is imperative to have the appropriate data trackers attached to your email and landing pages. Attaching Google analytics to email campaigns and landing pages will give you all the necessary data to determine your ROI. The industry average for conversion rates is between 2 and 4%, but by implementing a conversion optimization program you can increase your conversion to 10%.

Optimize your landing pages

Be sure that the links in your email lead your customers to a landing page that is clear and effective. Make the process of purchasing easy to understand and efficient. Test your landing page on your target market before you release your email marketing campaign.

Copy Counts

If you have a copywriter on your team use them. Copywriters have an in depth understanding of how to effectively communicate to consumers. If you don’t have a copywriter take the time to educate yourself of the do’s and don’ts. Once you or a copywriter has written the copy, test it until you get an effective response.

Test and Test Again

Once you release on email marketing campaign your job has just begun. Once you receive the data from your analytics it is time to dissect them and readjust your campaign to receive even better results. Tweak your campaign and rerelease it to your target market until you get the results you desire. Once you have created a supercharged campaign take notes of the changes you made and how they affected the results. With this knowledge you can replicate the pieces for future campaigns.

For help developing a conversion optimization program for your email marketing campaign contact us at YellowBox LLC, home of the largest opt-in email list. For a free consultation and pricing contact us at www.yellowboxllc.com