Tweet

Engage Readers To Increase Open Rates

Written by: Karen Scharf

Article Overview: Email remains one of the most cost-effective marketing media we have at our disposal. But getting your messages into your readers' in-boxes and getting your subscribers to actually read those messages continues to be a struggle.

Engage Readers To Increase Open Rates

If you're anything like me, you're tired of hearing about the weak economy and other misery matters. But the truth is, most small businesses are currently looking for ways to reduce costs and spending - and I'll bet that includes you and your business!

Email remains one of the most cost-effective marketing media we have at our disposal. But getting your messages into your readers' in-boxes and getting your subscribers to actually read those messages continues to be a struggle.

Immediately Engage Your New Readers

If you can get your new readers immediately involved in your email messages and provide them with a positive brand experience, they will look forward to receiving your messages on an on-going basis, and you'll see your open rates improve. Some easy ways to engage your readers quickly include:

- inviting them to participate in a survey - there's psychological power in asking for someone's opinion offering immediate access to a forum where your new readers can interact with your current subscribers
- creating a sense of community decreases opt outs and spam complaints give new subscribers a freebie as soon as they confirm their subscriptions
- reciprocity has been a long standing offline marketing tactic that works equally well on-line If you don't have a freebie you can use as a subscriber bonus or lead generation device, I highly suggest you make this your New Year's resolution.

On second thought, don't even wait for New Year's, get your freemium created NOW! As marketers continue looking for cost-effective ways to generate leads, I suspect web competition will get much more fierce. The stand-by "subscribe to my newsletter" just won't cut it anymore.

Time to implement: the amount of time it takes to put these techniques to work will vary based on your experience. Implementing a user's forum will be the most difficult and time consuming. You can easily create a no-cost survey using Survey Monkey or some of the other web based services. Your freebie can be something as simple as an article you've written, a top ten list or a checklist. This technique is particularly effective if the freebie is only available to new subscribers.

Related Articles
  Legal Marketing: Law firm email marketing and improving your click rates
  How To Plan Your E-Mail Resend
  How are Car Insurance Premiums Increased?
  How to Make Money Online By Posting Free Classified Sites
  Ten Tips for Ezine Success

Article Tags: email marketing, target market



Related Forum Posts
Connecting with Influential People - Thanks Martin! In "The Little Black Book of Connections", Jeffrey Gitomer suggests the following ways to connect with influential people (page 106): -Third-party introductions (best method). -Writing and publishing content. -Giving seminars/speeches so you can be perceived as an expert in your field and leader. -Attend social and business events. -Say or ask something powerful by doing research ahead of time. -Engage them by offering something of value first. Gitomer also stresses the importance of making more friends as well.
2007 Goals - My yearly goals for December 2007: 1. Add 10-15 new "ideal" clients to our client roster 2. Increase revenues by $500,000 3. Average at least 1 paid speaking engagement per month.
Still Exploring for loan - Rates got were 6.125% about a month ago for 30 yr fixed (the was FHA though - prefer FHA over doctor loans because most of them have hidden fees and/or are locked for only 3 years... maybe 5 years. But I'm still looking into the doctors loans). Haven't checked rates since but will be checking this week. I had a friend do a "professional loan" with a broker that advertised with my husband's med school, got about 5.8%. Granted its not fixed for 30 years. We might reconsider but since we know we won't be in the house less than 5 years and arm rates are NOT competitive.
Re: High price of entertainment - [quote="TheAnonymousMan":dadh8m1p]Kevin, I went to a Justin Timberlake concert recently where the bottled water was selling for $4 a bottle! I'm talking about the average 600ml bottle that sells for about $1.20 in the supermarket, now that's a rip off but people were buying it because they needed water.[/quote:dadh8m1p] Hi TheAnonymousMan, Can I ask how much you paid for the concert tickets? And more importantly, was the show worth the price? At the Tennis US Open, I had to pay $3.25 for a 500ml bottled water, $8.00 for a "travel size" Hawaiian Tropic bottle of sunscreen, and $13.00 for a Carnegie Deli pastrami sandwich, $4.25 for fries and $2.77 for a Sharpie pen (for autographs), etc... And to make things worse, they don't allow you to carry a backpack for security reasons, so it's very inconvenient to bring your own things to the event (keep in mind I was at the US Open for 7 hours). I mean who wants to carry around 10 lbs worth of stuff (if I were to bring my own necessities like food/water/sunscreen/etc. and have to carry a bunch of souvenirs) in a plastic transparent bag for the whole day?! It's an obvious scam for more profit.
Increase Productivity and Profits on the Web - A Web site is a great way to better service and market to current customers, but often a difficult way to attract new ones." Increase Productivity and Profits on the Web New! Don’t let the savings and productivity enhancements described in the following pages make you rush out and spend thousands of dollars overnight to have someone set you up with your own Web server, hosted Web site, or intranet.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Effective Leadership

E Mail Marketing Campaigns

Think Time

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.