How to Plan & Execute Effective 'Welcome' Emails

How successful are your 'welcome' emails? 

On average, 'welcome' emails receive an unusually high open rate of 50% -- making them 86% more effective than newsletters. 

These emails are responsible for setting the tone and creating expectations with your newest subscribers and customers. This is where you educate your prospective customers about the products or services you sell, as well as how frequently you’ll be sending email.

However, just like in person, it takes conscious work to create a great first impression. If you stop for a second and think about your email marketing campaign, it’s possible that a significant amount of your success relies on your subscribers liking what they see in those initial emails.

To help you better understand what goes into an effective 'welcome' email sequence, we'll walk you through the motions below -- and include some helpful examples along the way.

Let's get started ...

How to Plan & Execute Effective 'Welcome' Emails

The top-of-funnel strategy for virtually every company with a digital presence includes an exchange of value: The subscriber provides their email address in exchange for something of value. And your 'welcome' emails should be designed with this idea in mind. 

To ensure that you're producing valuable 'welcome' emails, be sure to do the following:

Devise a strategy.

'Welcome' emails are vital to any email marketing program. Welcome emails also have extremely high inbox placement rates, an advantage that should be utilized by every single company.

If you currently have no 'welcome' emails in place, never fear: A new welcome strategy is not rocket science. For starters, have a look at what the companies around you are doing and mold their successful practices to suit your needs.

At MailCharts, we recommend looking at 'welcome' emails from competitors or brands who target a similar audience to yours. Once you have solid benchmarks from your initial sequence and understand the metrics (e.g., opens, clicks, conversions), you can build upon those results and optimize your strategy to further suit your exact needs.

Deliver on the promise.

Remember: The very first email sent must include the promised ebook, trial period, discount, or otherwise.

Eve Mattresses shows us a great example of this exchange, where they have provided new subscribers with a very tempting “100-day sleepover.”

Determine a timeline and frequency.

According to one email marketing company, retailers who sent more than one 'welcome' email experienced a 13% increase in revenue. Pretty impressive, right? 

Further, MailCharts email data shows that many online retailers still send 'welcome' emails two weeks after sign-up, with some brands sending 'welcome' mailers up to two months after the initial sign-up date.

Here's a rough timeline we put together to help you see how email frequency begins to slow down over the two month welcome period:

• Email 1: Immediately after receiving a subscriber's email address
• Email 2: 3 days after receiving email address
• Email 3: 8 days after receiving email address
• Email 4: 15 days after receiving email address
• Email 5: 30 days after receiving email address
• Email 6: 45 days after receiving email address
• Email 7: 60 days after receiving email address

Pro Tip: If your 'welcome' series is promotional, add segmentation criteria to cease sending emails if a subscriber becomes a customer within the 60-day welcome window.

Choose your words wisely. 

We'll dive into some more specific email inspiration in the section below, however, when it comes to planning the content for your emails, you'll want to keep these two things in mind:

Personalization

Welcoming subscribers and creating a personalized subject line is crucial. The read rates of welcome emails are highly predictive of how engaged subscribers will be with subsequent messaging and how much they’ll spend.

In exchange for just a few lines of code to personalize your email, your subscribers are more likely to open, interact, and engage in a lasting relationship with your company. Take the additional time needed to personalize your emails. And, if you can go beyond simply adding their name, that’s even better.

Expectations

Aside from personalized emails, we recommend setting clear expectations at the beginning. If you plan on email subscribers weekly, let them know. The same applies for daily, monthly, or any other interval.

Also, make sure it’s really easy to unsubscribe from your emails. The last thing you want is someone marking you as spam because they couldn’t opt-out of your communications. 

Need Inspiration? 

Let’s take a look at some examples of companies -- both B2B and B2C -- that are nailing their 'welcome' emails. (And check out this post for even more 'welcome' email inspiration.)

B2B Example: Wistia

After an initial activation email, Wistia sends out a simple, bright, and effective 'welcome' email.

From the beginning, Wistia’s 'welcome' email strategy is focused on bringing the subscriber value, rather than simply promoting their product. They ask the question, “Have you checked out the learning center?”

This is a resource where customers are able to easily access tips and tricks regarding a variety of different video education topics. The Learning Center is provided to highlight the strengths of the Wistia service and also show how it can help the subscriber personally. (Great job educating, Wistia.)

If you’re in the software business, here are some ideas for your 'welcome' series:

• Talk about the benefits of using your product.
• Provide free resources and tips on how to get the most out of your product.
• Establish credibility, focusing on ease of use, reliability, and convenience.

Click here to view the full Wistia 'welcome' journey map.

B2C Example: Coach

If you are an online retailer, your 'welcome' emails will be slightly different. For starters, subscribers are not searching for information regarding a specific topic, rather they are interested in certain products and receiving up-to-date information about new releases and discounted offers.

Coach is a great example of how to make a good first impression and doesn’t forget to welcome new subscribers with an upbeat subject line, “Welcome to Coach Emails!”

As we discussed earlier, it is important to set email expectations so the subscriber fully understands what content will be included in future emails, which is something that Coach has managed well. 

If you’re in the ecommerce industry, here are a few tips to get you started:

• Create a product narrative around your products: talk about why they’re great, high-quality, useful, affordable, etc.
• Feature your best-selling products to pique consumers' interest.
• If applicable, appeal to things that consumers value -- include mentions of fair trade, locally grown, and use of organic materials.
• Include a discount or welcome incentive.

Get Started Now

If you don’t have a 'welcome' campaign, don’t wait another minute. You can get started by subscribing to your competitors' email lists to keep a close eye on their strategy, take note of what they're doing and what you like (and don't like). From there, you can borrow the good things and improve on the not-so-good ones.

Remember: In the beginning, you don’t need to be perfect. What’s most important is that you are welcoming subscribers and building a strong and lasting relationship.

What's the best 'welcome' email you've ever received? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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List Building: How to Grow Your Email List Using Facebook Live

Do you want a bigger email list? Looking for list building techniques? To explore how to grow your email list using Facebook Live and podcasts, I interview Amy Porterfield. More About This Show The Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from Social Media Examiner. It’s designed to help busy marketers and [...]

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How to Master a Successful Marketing Campaign in Trello [Free Guide]

Efficiency, collaboration, communication, and meeting deadlines -- these all seem pretty relevant to your team's success, right? Especially when running big marketing campaigns with a lot of moving pieces.

Whether you're the solo marketer at your company or part of a 25-person team, staying organized and accountable is super important to executing marketing campaigns. That's where Trello comes in.

Trello is a free, easy-to-use organization and project management tool that just so happens to be an awesome tool for marketers. It can help you keep your company's largest and most involved marketing campaigns organized. (If you're not sold, it might be convincing to hear that 16 million other users are already taking advantage of it.)

HubSpot went ahead and teamed up with Trello to bring you a free, step-by-step guide on How to Master a Successful Marketing Campaign in Trello to streamline your efficiency and collaboration beyond belief. Say goodbye to multiple shared Google Docs and never-ending email chains once and for all.

More specifically we'll touch on:

• Establishing a productive workflow for getting from start to finish that keeps your whole team involved and on track.
• Developing key channels of communication within your team and across the organization.
• Gaining perspective on success with visual retrospectives, accessible resources and a winning framework that can be recreated for your next campaign.
• Achieving focus on the ultimate goal: more leads, sales, and buzz for your business.

Download your copy of How to Master a Successful Marketing Campaign in Trello.

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How Building Tools Can Generate New Leads for your Agency

When you think of driving leads for your agency or business online, what comes to mind?

I bet it's the usual suspects -- SEO, paid search, content marketing -- all of which are important and can be fantastically profitable. But what if you could build something new to give your clients an advantage?

Building your own tools can help bring in a serious influx of leads for your agency. When I say "tool", that doesn't mean you have to build an enterprise level piece of software -- a tool can be anything that provides value to your target audience.

Some really good examples of free tools are HubSpot's Website Grader, or CoSchedule's blog post headline analyzer. These tools offer prospects a free service, and in return, your agency identifies qualified leads. For example, HubSpot’s Website Grader has been used over 4 million times.

But Why Should You Build Your Own Tools?

Upon first thinking of building a tool, many people are put off for various reasons:

• Will it be too expensive for our agency?
• What exactly should we build?
• Will take up too much of our time?
• What if it doesn’t get traction?

These thoughts are natural, but you need to approach building tools from your target audience's perspective, and capitalize on your expertise. Think about it: if you create something that provides mouthwatering value to your clients, while also highlighting how well you know your service, you’re setting your agency up to deliver major results.

Instead of focusing only on the challenges, consider

• How can our agency give clients results and benefits as quickly as possible?
• We want to turn the people using our tool into clients, so how can we make a tool that is relevant to our agency’s core business?
• How can we make sure the people using this tool see tangible results?

If you can get these things right, you could be on your way to developing a winning tool for your client.

Collaboration is Key

In an agency environment, you have a lot of talent in one place, and a lot of opinions concerning what’s valuable to a client or prospect. Tapping into this pool of knowledge can help your team choose what to build and how to make it a success for you and your clients.

Assuming you have web development resources, you will want to make the project as engaging for the person building it as possible. This can’t be seen as just another development project -- you need to earn buy-in from everyone involved.

To ensure the success of your new tool right from the start, get everyone on your team involved and be transparent about your goals. Make sure everyone is on the same page about what you’re trying to achieve, and utilize everyone's experience.

Keeping everyone on the same page is absolutely vital when it comes to building tools, since it’s often a new kind of project that your team hasn’t worked on before. When we initially started building our free SEO performance analysis tool, we brought the SEO team together with the web development team right at the idea phase.

Collaborating across multiple teams was vital to the success of our own tool. Our SEO team was able to share what they believed would bring users value, and our web development team was able to propose how that experience would look and function. Early collaboration between these two teams helped ensure that the vision was aligned right from the outset.

Deciding What to Prioritize 

It can be daunting to invest the time and resources needed to build a tool with no real idea of how people are going to react to it -- let alone if anyone will use it. It’s important to know what to prioritize.

Here are some tips from my own agency’s experience launching a new tool:

• Launch with your minimum viable version (MVP). With so many moving parts, it’s very easy for your new tool to get caught in a cycle of development, constantly adding little features and making tweaks. The best thing you can do is build a minimum viable version of your tool and get it out there. The most valuable feedback you will receive will be from real people using the tool in the wild.
• Take any and all feedback seriously. Any feedback you receive is likely to be valid, so use it to create a dialogue. Be responsive to people that give you feedback, and make suggested changes whenever possible.
• Don’t just publish and hope for the best. You’re spending a lot of time and energy developing this tool for people to use. If people don't know it’s out there, then they won't use it. Be prepared to put the time and energy into properly promoting your tool and if you can afford to, put some paid media budget behind it.
• Put sensible limits in place. Your aim is provide value to the people using your free tool, but you have to be realistic and put sensible throttling or limits in place to make sure your tool does not get taken advantage of. Don't forget the aim of your tool is to drive leads.

Those are just a few things I would advise when building a free tool. You will learn more as you go, but keep in mind why you’re building the tool in the first place and you will be fine.

Interpreting the Data and Driving Conversions

Right from the start, you should be thinking about the end goal of generating new business leads for your agency. To get there, you need to think about the data points you are going to be able to collect and capitalize on.

Once you clearly define what an end goal or conversion looks like for your agency, you can build out other interactions and track those to get even more insight. Using our SEO tool as an example, I will run through what that process looks like for us, as well as what data we collect:

Our tool allows you to run an analysis on your site or a competitor's site for free and get an instant performance score. It also provides a PDF breakdown of problematic elements and why each component is important from an SEO perspective.

There are many actions that users can potentially take, but when a user requests a PDF version of the report, we classify it as a conversion. This action is tracked as a goal within Google Analytics, and we receive the following data:

• Website URL (URL of site that the report has been generated for)
• Email address
• Copy of the report (this has all the SEO points for the site they ran)

This gives us a significant amount of information and insight into the current SEO performance of a prospect’s site. If the email address matches the report URL we can probably safely assume that the person running the report works for the company they have generated a report for, and this is what qualifies them as a lead.

Aside from a conversion, we also use Google Analytics events to track how people are using and interacting with the tool itself. This helps us improve the tool and track any errors that can occur. The events we have set up are:

• Analysis submit: When a user inputs and runs a report, but does not request a PDF.
• Reset analysis: Resets the view and takes the user back to the home page of the tool.
• Analysis error: When a user is returned an error based on a site they are trying to analyze.
• Send PDF: When a user requests a PDF report (a conversion).
• Analysis results cache cleared: When a user resets the cache of a report to generate a fresh one.
• Send PDF fail: When a user requests a PDF but this action fails (this is a potential lost conversion).

With all the above events in place we have a really good idea of how people are using the tool and what they are responding well to. You can use this kind of data to make changes to the tool to help you increase the amount of leads you are able to generate.

Deciding How to Qualify Leads in Your Tool

If your tool offers users a variety of actions, you’ll need to chose a single action that signals that a lead is qualified. You need to define an action which gives you enough information and a clear follow up path.

Since you were able to gain valuable information about your prospect through the tool, you should be able to compose a really personalized follow up email. Knowing that a user has shown intent is a huge plus, and crafting a follow up that shows you have taken an interest in their site or brand by presenting unique information is a really good position to be in.

The lead nurturing process for our agency’s tool looks like this:

• User requests a PDF version of the report
• We receive an internal email with the user’s email and a copy of the report
• We check to see if their email address matches the URL used on the report
• We verify that the domain corresponds to a real company (usually using a tracking tool like HubSpot Sales)
• The contact is added to our HubSpot CRM.
• We send a follow up email after chosen time period.

After all the hard work of building a tool and getting people to use it, the data you get back is invaluable. The leads that come in through our tool convert at a staggeringly higher rate than other methods we use.

The key to developing a tool that drives meaningful conversions is providing something that requires action but provides instant value. By following this principle, you know the user has intent to fix a problem that your tool addresses. If a user then triggers your conversion point, you have a unique data set which qualifies that user as a lead. This process seems like a lot of work, but I promise you the returns will be much greater than cold email outreach or similar new business development methods.

Considering the Potential for Additional Revenue.

if you are able to build and execute something that people love and provides real value then you may find an opportunity to generate stand alone revenue from your tool. Additional revenue is a bonus that will likely present itself to you as an afterthought once your tool has been road-hardened.

Once you have gathered enough data and feedback to determine if your tool is a hit or not, you can make a decision to further develop it. At this point you can look at adding a paid for level to the tool, offering interested users additional value at a small cost.

If you see a good response and people are willing to upgrade to a paid version, then you have something pretty amazing on your hands. There are a number of routes you can take from here, but make sure it fits in with your agency and sticks to the original goal of bringing value to clients and prospects.

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20 Instagram Apps to Enhance Your Photos and Videos

Does your business use Instagram? Are you looking for apps to help you create unique images and video for your Instagram feed? In this article, you’ll find 20 apps that make it easy to create and edit outstanding images and videos for Instagram. Why Instagram Apps? Instagram recently passed 500 million active users. To create [...]

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30 Ways to Slice Your Email Database for Better Email List Segmentation

If you're new to the world of email marketing, you might be unfamiliar with the importance of segmenting your email lists. But it's a big deal: According to DMA, 77% of email marketing ROI came from segmented, targeted, and triggered campaigns in 2015. 

The best part about email segmentation? There are a ton of creative ways you can segment your email list to run innovative and effective campaigns that leads and customers will enjoy, from geography and industry to content format and topic. The more information you collect about your email recipients, the more opportunities you have to tailor your emails to resonate just right.

To get your brainstorm started, check out the comprehensive list of email list segmentation ideas below. (Then, download this email marketing planning template to keep all of your email efforts organized.)

30 Ways to Segment Your Email List for More Targeted Email Marketing

The whole point of segmentation is to provide more relevant content to your email recipients. To do that, you'll have to take the time to craft targeted campaigns that take into account not just list segments, but also lead data, and trigger events that help customize your email campaigns further. (Our marketing team uses the Email App and the Lists App in the HubSpot Marketing Platform in combination with HubSpot CRM to accomplish this.)

Bear in mind that while some of these recommendations will work wonderfully on their own, many of them are at their absolute best when crossed with other segments, triggers, and lead intelligence data. 

1) Geography

Knowing where your contacts live can be seriously powerful information. If you're a brick-and-mortar business, you wouldn't want to send in-store offers to out-of-towners, right? Or let's say you're a national franchise -- you better be segmenting by zip code to ensure you're not infringing on someone else's territory, or worse, marketing to a location that your organization doesn't even service yet.

Here's a geographically-segmented email I received from Vamoose, a bus service I've used frequently to travel between New York and the Washington, D.C. area. (I can't believe it's already time to start planning travel for Thanksgiving.)

2) Age

People of all ages have access to the internet these days, which means you could be emailing a college student, a retiree, or even a little kid. You may find knowing the general age range of the people on your list helpful to remove those not in your target audience, or to adjust the messaging of your email communications.

3) Gender

Just as you'd speak to a retiree and a college student differently, you might adjust your messaging and offers based on gender, too. If you have a wide product offering that extends across genders, consider segmenting your list in this manner -- and beefing up the segmentation with other demographic and psychographic details as well.

4) Persona

Speaking of demographics and psychographics, you should have buyer personas that include information of this nature, as well as more detailed explanations of what makes these folks tick and why your solution provides value for them. If you don't have buyer personas created already, use these free templates to create your own -- and then segment your list based on them. Because each persona has different needs and value propositions, they're all going to require different email content for the best clickthrough and conversion rates.

5) Organization Type

Do you sell to other businesses? Are they franchises? Non-profit organizations? Ecommerce companies? Enterprise organizations? Small businesses? They all have different needs, and as such, their email content should be different -- so segment your list accordingly.

6) Industry

If you're selling to other businesses, you may encounter leads and contacts across many different industries. Knowing your lead's industry will allow you to add another level of personalization to your email marketing.

7) Job Function

As a B2B marketer, your email list could contain a whole melee of different job functions -- office personnel, salespeople, marketers, consultants, developers, customer service, accountants ... the list goes on. Considering the breadth of job roles within any given organization, doesn't it make sense to segment your list accordingly?

8) Education Level

You could segment your list based on how many degrees they hold, or how educated a lead or contact is regarding your brand and the subject matter you discuss. If you segment your list based on the level of understanding they have on the topics you write about, you can tailor your lead nurturing content to speak at the right level.

Here's an email I received from Idealist, which they sent to me based on my previous indication that I had already earned a Bachelor's degree:

9) Seniority Level

There are different job roles, and there are different levels of seniority. Perhaps your contact said they work in marketing, but is she the VP of marketing, or a marketing coordinator? Those two contacts will differ in years of experience, salary level, pain points, decision-making potential, and a whole host of other differences that make segmentation critical for effective email marketing campaigns.

10) Past Purchases

If a segment of your list has purchased from you before, use that information to send them emails catered to that which interests them. Then make your bottom line bigger by identifying upsell opportunities with additional services or complementary products they'd enjoy based on their past purchases.

Here's Casper, the maker of my bed made of clouds, shooting me an email about the other products they offer:

11) Purchase Interests

You can infer someone's purchase proclivities from past buying behavior, or you can just ask. My colleague, Lindsay Kolowich, highlighted companies who do this in creative ways -- such as with surveys -- in a recent blog post about awesome email marketing campaigns to help them create better targeted emails.

12) Buying Frequency

Segment your email list based on how often someone purchases. Not only can you try to increase shopping frequency for some, but you can also reward frequent shoppers with an invitation to your loyalty program to make your brand even stickier. (Download this free guide to learn how to more effectively use and measure customer loyalty programs for your business.)

Here's a customer loyalty email I received from my mobile provider, AT&T, about early ticket access to a concert they're hosting. (Do you think they somehow know I attended a Panic! At the Disco concert when I was in middle school? This is embarrassing, readers.)

13) Purchase Cycle

Do certain customers come to you on a weekly, monthly, yearly, or quarterly basis? Or perhaps they only need you at a certain time of year -- a pool cleaner might see upticks in spring and fall, for example. Segment your list based on customers' purchase cycle so you can be there right at their point of need.

14) Content Topic

Here at HubSpot, we've noticed that some of our leads and contacts are far more interested in certain content topics than others. There's one segment that's extremely interested in sales and marketing alignment, while another is far more interested in Snapchat for business. So it only makes sense that we segment our list based on the topics our contacts have showed interest in. Take a look at what content gets people clicking, and segment your list based on that.

Here an example of an email I received from Twitter featuring suggestions for who to follow next (and it worked):

15) Content Format

You may find that specific content formats are more appealing to certain segments of your database -- some like blogs, others prefer ebooks, and some may only show up when you put on a webinar. For example, in a recent HubSpot Research survey, 43% of respondents wanted to see more video content in the future. If you know how certain segments of your list prefer to consume content, you can deliver the offer content in your emails via their preferred format.

16) Interest Level

Just because someone converts on a content offer, doesn't mean they actually liked it. Segment your list based on how interested leads are in your content. For example, we might email a segment of webinar attendees that stayed engaged for 45 minutes or more with a middle-of-the-funnel offer to help move them along in the sales cycle, while those that dropped off before 10 minutes might receive another top-of-the-funnel offer -- or even a feedback survey to gauge what specifically lost their interest.

17) Change in Content Engagement Level

Have you noticed an increase or decrease in the amount of time leads are spending with your content? This is an indication of their interest in your company, and should be used to either reawaken waning interest, or move leads along through the sales cycle while they're at their height of engagement with your content.

Here's an example from Udemy, who segmented their email list to try to re-engage inactive users (I still highly recommend Udemy's online classes):

18) Change in Buying Behavior

Similar to a change in content engagement, a change in buying behavior can indicate a lead is becoming more or less interested in your company. Leads that decrease purchasing frequency, for example, might need a little extra love -- and thus, a dedicated lead nurturing campaign.

I typically buy glasses and contact lenses at Lenscrafters once yearly with my vision insurance benefit, but I haven't yet this year, so they wisely sent me this nurturing email with a gentle reminder to purchase from them:

19) Stage in the Sales Cycle

I've mentioned it a little bit here and there, but the stage a lead is at in the sales cycle should determine which email segment they fall in. At the very least, set up separate lead nurturing tracks for those at the top of your sales funnel, in the middle of your sales funnel, and at the bottom of the sales funnel.

20) Email Type

There's a lot you can tell by someone's email address. You design your emails for different email clients if you're really into sophisticated email design, or if they're Gmail clients, responsive email design.

21) Satisfaction Index

Many businesses use satisfaction indexes to determine how happy their customer base is -- Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a very popular one. If you're measuring satisfaction numerically, consider sending an email segmented based on your customers' level of happiness with your organization. Those with a high NPS score, for example, might provide opportunities to gather reviews, referrals, or even upsells. Those with lower scores, however, may get emails that give them access to educational materials that will make them happier and more successful customers.

Here's Wayfair's email asking me to review how a recent purchasing and delivery experience went:

22) Customers Who Refer

Consider creating a list segment full of those customers who repeatedly refer new business your way. These are your biggest brand advocates, and should receive emails targeted towards loyalty programs, refer-a-friend discounts, even possibly trials for new products or services you're releasing to get honest feedback before widespread rollouts.

23) Customers Who Haven't Reviewed

You should always be trying to get more positive reviews of your business, so why not create a list segment that targets those customers who haven't written a review yet? You could combine this list segment with, say, those that are also social media fans and have a high NPS score. Think about it ... you know they follow you on Twitter and their NPS score indicates they love you. That's just begging for an online review email campaign. (Check out this case study guide + template to help you successfully reach out to potential participants and engage them in the process.)

Here's LinkedIn's email asking me to participate in a feedback survey:

24) In-Store vs. Webstore Visitors

If you have both a brick-and-mortar location as well as a website, segment your list based on where your customers like to shop. You can give invites to in-store events to those customers that give you foot traffic, while those that only visit your webstore might receive offers that should only be redeemed online.

25) Shopping Cart Abandonment

After analyzing 34 online studies of ecommerce shopping cart abandonment, Bamyard Institute determined that, on average, 68% of shopping carts were abandoned prior to purchase. Yikes. If you run an ecommerce webstore, you absolutely must have an abandoned shopping cart email program, and you should be segmenting your contacts based on this behavior.

26) Form Abandonment

Not an ecommerce company? You still have abandoners on your site -- form abandoners. If someone starts filling out some forms on your website and then loses interest, gets busy, has a lousy internet connection, gets eaten by a zombie ... you know, whatever ... segment out those leads for nurturing aimed at bringing them back to your website to complete the form. The offer was interesting enough at one point in time to pique their interest, so why not try to recover some of those form abandoners?

27) Usage

Whatever it is you offer, there are some customers who you could consider "power users." These are the ones that totally get how to navigate your website, use every feature in your software, and make the most of their relationships with your service providers. Then there are the rest of us. Segment out the power users and the strugglers, frequent users, and infrequent users; then send email content that teaches them how to be more successful with your product or service. The more customers use your product, the more likely they are to stick around: Bluenose found that lack of use was the number one driver of software customer churn.

Here's a use-segmented email I received from MapMyRun. I feel misleading including it because I truly can't remember the last time I went running, but it's still a good example of list segmentation:

28) Event Attendance

Does your organization host book signings, conferences, or social events? Don't miss the opportunity to reach out to leads and potential customers you've already made a positive connection with. Segment your email list depending on the type of event, the topic or theme of your events, or even to RSVPs who didn't make it out. You'll be able to keep inviting them to events while sharing relevant content offers based on what you learned about them from past events. (P.S. - Have you registered for INBOUND 2016 yet?)

29) Page Views

You can tell a lot about your contacts from their behaviors, and the web pages they're browsing are no exception. Are there certain blogs they're reading or questions they're asking when they come to your website? Experiment with lead nurturing campaigns dedicated to different topics your website covers to appeal to your site visitors' patterns.

30) Call-to-Action Clicks

A clickable call-to-action is what takes your website content to the next level because it helps you generate leads and contacts. (Download 50 customizable call-to-action templates here.) You can tell which types of language work on your contacts based on what makes them click, or not click, on your CTAs. Are they more inclined toward time sensitive offers to "act now" or "try this month," or do they prefer more explicit offers of "free" or "discounted" products? Use their clicking habits to determine how you segment your email list, and what language you use when reaching out. 

I hope this list has given you ideas for ways to segment your own lists, and most importantly, sparked some creative email campaigns you can run as a result of this new segmentation.

So what about you -- what other ways can you think of to segment your email lists? Which of these segmentation ideas could you combine with others for really epic results?

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in May 2012 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.

 

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17 Revealing Stats That Uncover Key Marketing Differences Across Regions [New Data]

Every year, HubSpot launches the State of Inbound report, detailing inbound marketing and sales trends across the globe. This year, we're so excited to announce that we've also launched the State of Inbound EMEA report, focusing exclusively on the region.

With the data from both reports at our fingertips, we couldn't help but dive in and compare the responses. Were there any key differences between U.K. & Ireland marketers versus U.S. marketers? Similarities? Did things look the same across the pond?

Check out the revealing statistics below to see how the two regions stack up when it comes to their approach to inbound.

17 Stats That Uncover Key Marketing Differences Across Regions [New Data]

Marketing Strategies

1) 76% of U.K. & Ireland marketers reported that they work in inbound companies vs. 73% in the U.S. [Tweet this]

2) Nearly half of U.K. & Ireland marketers surveyed did not believe their organisation’s marketing strategy was effective, compared to just 29% in the U.S. [Tweet this]

3) U.K. & Ireland marketers at companies that invest in inbound marketing are 2X more likely to rate their marketing strategy as effective. [Tweet this]

Marketing Priorities & Challenges

4) Marketers on both sides of the pond agreed that converting customers and growing web traffic are the top two priorities for 2017. [Tweet this]

5) Webinars are not as popular with U.K. & Ireland marketers, with 22% prioritising this content form, compared to 31% in the U.S. [Tweet this]

6) Top challenges for U.K. & Ireland marketers include: generating more traffic and leads, and proving marketing’s ROI. [Tweet this]

Least Effective Marketing Tactics

7) 28% of U.K. & Ireland marketers said traditional print, outdoor, and broadcast advertising was overrated. [Tweet this]

8) According to U.K. & Ireland and U.S. marketers, the most ineffective marketing tactic is paid advertising. [Tweet this]

9) Organic social media is reported to be less effective in the U.S. -- 12% of U.S. respondents indicated it is ineffective, compared to 7% of U.K. & Ireland marketers. [Tweet this]

10) YouTube is planned to be a key element of 36% of U.K. & I marketer's 2017 content strategy. [Tweet this]

11) 29% of U.K. & Ireland marketers are planning to invest in Facebook video in the next year. [Tweet this]

12) Podcasts are seeing a resurgence in popularity: 18% of U.K. & Ireland marketers plan on adding them to their marketing plans. [Tweet this]

Professional Communication

13) 14% more U.K. & Ireland professionals prefer face-to-face communication compared to U.S. professionals. [Tweet this]

14) 11% more U.K. & Ireland respondents use social media for business purposes compared to U.S. counterparts. [Tweet this]

15) 8% more U.K. & Ireland respondents prefer Twitter compared to U.S. marketers. [Tweet this]

16) 9% more U.S. marketers prefer Facebook compared to U.K. & Ireland marketers. [Tweet this]

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17) One in five U.K. & Ireland companies have reported tight alignment between sales and marketing, compared to one in four in the U.S. [Tweet this]

Want to see the full EMEA report detailing inbound marketing & sales trends and benchmarks? Download it here.

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How to Run a Lean, Mean, Nonprofit Marketing Machine

Some clichés are clichés for a reason. Everyone needs to do more with less. What marketing team, for-profit or nonprofit, isn't tasked with improving results for the same effort?

Your path to increasing constituent engagement with your content without exhausting your hardworking team requires approaching your marketing systematically. This doesn't mean squashing creativity. Having systems to produce and distribute your content streamlines activities like actively blogging, freeing up time to invest on the brainstorming side.

Repurpose, Repurpose, Repurpose

Every piece of content your team creates should get run through your repurposing machine. Content is always an appreciating asset that you can reuse and re-promote over and over. If you're like most nonprofit organizations, you already have a rich stream of content, from your newsletters, annual reports, constituent video testimonials just to start. Draw on this deep content collection you already have.

Now, one piece of content isn't just a single marketing asset. It spawns a range of new content that can also be consistently reused and re-promoted. Even better, repurposing content to create new marketing assets costs far less than creating entirely new content. So you can really maximize your marketing budget to get the most content out there.

To systemize your repurposing of your content, outline all the ways you want to repurpose every type of content format you produce. For example, you could create the following list for blog posts:

• Short version for use in emails or newsletters with link back to full post
• Group with related posts for report
• 2-3 visual-plus-text images based on post to share on social
• Infographic with post information
• Reaction piece to original post

With clear outlines, your team doesn't have to waste time on developing a repurposing plan for each new piece of content. You're also developing an always-full bucket of content you can go to in a pinch. Since you're not going to promote and distribute each piece of repurposed content immediately, your content pipeline is never empty. 

Set Up Your Go-To Content Sources

Something needs to feed your marketing machine. That's your content sources. Building off our repurposing system, your first stop is content you've already created. You probably have some great organizational achievements outlined in your most recent annual report. What stories can you pull from there?  Do your volunteers or members send emails sharing their positive experiences with your organization? That's another great content source you can tap into.

Select some content that aligns with your organization's current goals and start running it through your repurposing plan. Start with reports or webinars that were created to appeal to a key segment such as engineering technology members you want to target and work down the line from there.

For original content, you can run some UGC campaigns to source some new material. Put out a call for constituent stories and videos. You can set up an email series inviting constituents to send you their own view of what your organization has done for them. Have that email series triggered by some key behaviors, such as attending an event or a few months after signing up for a new service.

You can also let curation tools do some of your work for you. Using bots like Google Alerts and social monitoring tools to let you know when your organization, or topics and keywords that interest your organization and market, are mentioned. This provides opportunities to find organically created UGC, get inspiration for new topic ideas, and participate relevant conversations.

Take a Dip into Automation

Automation is turning on a genuine machine to amplify your successful marketing efforts. Pick a few key goals that are based on successful processes you're already running manually.  Let's say your membership renewal process gets a good return when used, but you have too many members for your team to keep up with kicking off a timely renewal series. This is a perfect spot for automation triggered by a countdown to each member's individual lapse date.

You might also want to run a more expansive new constituent campaign. You have a major event occurring in six months, so you want to start a process to boost your membership numbers now. You can automate a membership acquisition sequence triggered off visitor behavior that indicates a high level of interest, such as watching an online webinar or hitting some site visit and length of session benchmarks.

Focus Like a Laser Beam

When you begin systemizing your marketing, hone in on a key market segment or two. You might want to re-engage a large pool of dormant members, or perhaps you're expanding the geographical scope of your services and want to drive membership in this new area. Create or refine your personas for these market segments to ensure your content and triggers are fresh and relevant. Setting up new alerts and social listening streams will be helpful here.

Start with repurposing the content you have that already performs well for this segment. Let's say you have a report on future medical industry trends or legislation, you can pull out the geographically relevant content for your new market to create a customized report just for them. Select how you want to repurpose it by aligning with behavioral triggers that will send an automated email series or become critical information in the email series itself. Now when someone signs up for your newsletter, based on their zip code, you can send each constituent a custom report for their state or region.

You can also roll out a personalization plan for current and new content using smart content and progressive profiling capabilities to gather more intel on these segments. For instance, as you gather their industry, political party, and whether or not they own their own business, you can turn that data right around to customize your online and email offers. Ebooks, guides, white papers, videos, presentations, checklists, comparison charts, etc. that can help them achieve recognition in their industry, or educate them about specific candidates or pending legislation that affect them, or help them to create employee giving drives which benefit your organization, etc.

Rome Wasn't Built in a Day

Relax. No one builds a comprehensive marketing machine with one single effort. It takes persistence and patience. That's why narrowing your focus and implementing marketing systematically are viewed as best practices. As you learn from your initial efforts, expanding your marketing efforts will go more quickly, and easily. This approach means you can enjoy the satisfaction of a well-rested team and a growing, highly-engaged membership.

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4 Ways to Build Trust and Influence on LinkedIn

Do you want to grow your LinkedIn network? Interested in practical, scalable ways to establish your professional credibility? LinkedIn is a powerful platform for fostering strategic connections and creating a successful brand. In this article, you’ll discover four ways to build trust and grow your influence on LinkedIn. #1: Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile Your LinkedIn [...]

This post 4 Ways to Build Trust and Influence on LinkedIn first appeared on .
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15 Time-Saving Email Templates for Marketing & Sales [Free Guide]

We waste a lot of time reading and responding to emails at work. So much so that many people have become obsessed with optimizing their time spent "dealing" with email -- whether that's putting limits on the number of times they check their inbox during the day, using a productivity method such as inbox zero, or investing in tools to manage the mess of incoming communications. 

One effective way to reduce the amount of time spent writing and perfecting emails while also improving the chance of your message being opened, read, and responded to is to create a library of email templates you've found to be effective.

And you're in luck because we've got a guide to get you started building out this repository. 

In our new ebook -- 15 Email Templates for Marketing & Sales -- you'll find sample copy for commonly sent emails you can customize for your own communications. Included in the guide are templates for: 

• Pitching a co-marketing campaign to an influencer
• Requesting a customer reference
• Reaching out to speaker
• Pitching a guest post to an editor
• Following up after an in-person meeting 
• And more!

Cut down on the time you spend writing emails and improve your response rate by downloading the templates here.  

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5 Classic Debate Techniques To Help You Nail Your Next Pitch

You might be asking, "What the heck does debating have to do with pitching prospects?"

A lot, actually.

Winning new business for your agency comes down to developing a logical, watertight pitch that combines data and emotion, resists opposition, and impresses your prospects.

Winning a debate hinges on those same things.

We've compiled a list of five debate tips you can steal to turn out a stellar pitch. Check them out below to make your next pitch a winner. 

5 Debate Techniques for Better Pitches

1) Decide on a single resolution, and stick to it.

Resolved: This agency can make your business more money.

If you ever took a debate class while in school, you might be familiar with the format of the above statement. Resolutions are positive statements used to focus the main subject of the debate. One side argues for the resolution, and one side argues against.

When your team is developing a pitch, try to establish a resolution statement that directly reflects your prospective client's priorities and goals. If you're unsure where to start, interview your prospect to gain a greater understanding of what they're seeking in an agency, and tailor your resolution statement to their business needs.

One of the biggest mistakes agencies and freelancers make when pitching prospects is trying to prove too much without proper support. Using a resolution statement can help focus your ideas and evidence into a single, straightforward premise, e.g.: "Our agency can get you more leads," or "Our agency can expand your social reach."

If you channel all your energy into proving one strong statement -- rather than a series of disjointed statements -- it will be easier for your prospect to see the substantive value in your proposal. 

2) Develop structured arguments, not just claims.

The best debaters know that a sound argument is made up of three main components: the claim, the data, and the warrant.

The claim is the central idea you're asserting. It usually takes the form of a specific statement that directly supports your main resolution, e.g.: "Conversion optimizing your website will bring in more leads for your business." When presented on its own, the claim is essentially worthless to your argument. It doesn't prove anything, it's just a statement. 

The data is the evidence that supports your claim. Think of yourself like a lawyer stating your case: Without the right facts to back up your claims, your case is pretty much meaningless.

Data doesn't have to mean hard statistics. Draw from your previous client success stories, case studies, or even industry trends to beef up your case.

The warrant is the bridge that connects your data to your claim, e.g.: "Because many other companies in your industry have found success with conversion optimization, we believe that conversion optimizing your website will bring in more leads for your business." The "because" statement explains why exactly the data backs up the claim.

Before your pitch, plan out your main arguments by identifying the claim, data, and warrant for each point. This system can help you identify weak spots in your presentation. If you can't adequately support one of your claims, it's a good sign you need to dig in deeper or scrap it completely.

3) Anticipate opposition, and consider how to counter it.

Your prospects aren't exactly the opposition (you want to end up working with them, after all), but they will be looking for places in your presentation that seem weak or opposed to their goals. And the best way to prepare for the inevitable onslaught of questions is to think like your very worst critic.

There are two fundamental kinds of opposition you're likely to face. The first is a rebuttal, which is data or evidence that disagrees with one of your claims.

For example, if you presented the claim that conversion optimizing your prospect's website will get them more leads, a rebuttal to this claim would be an anecdote about a business that conversion optimized their website and didn't generate more leads. This evidence is in direct opposition to your claim.

The second kind of opposition you might face is a counterclaim. While a rebuttal refutes a claim you presented with new evidence, a counterclaim brings up a new claim that directly opposes your own.

For example, if you presented the claim that conversion optimizing your prospect's website is the smartest way to yield more leads, a counterclaim would be that SEO is in fact the better strategy. 

How can you prepare for rebuttals and counterclaims? Comb through your presentation with a ruthless eye and create your own list of opposing points. Then practice how you would address them before the pitch. This will ensure you aren't forced to think on your feet when the stakes are high.

4) Address all questions head-on.

In debate, if you fail to fully address an argument from the opposing team, it's taken as a concession. It's essentially the same thing as admitting their argument is correct. This is called a drop, as in: You completely dropped the ball.

During your pitch, it's easy to become so focused on crushing your presentation that you stumble when the prospective client expresses concerns or raises questions you hadn't considered. It's important that you give a complete, honest answer to each of their questions, even if the answer is, "I'm not sure right now, but I will find out and get back to you."

Glossing over a concern or not fully answering a question will look far worse to the prospect than attempting to answer to the best of your ability and stumbling a bit. At least it lets the prospect know that you heard them, you understand where they're coming from, and you're interested in getting them the right information.

5) Remember that your "judges" are human.

Although forming logical arguments is central to debates, logic isn't the whole picture. At the end of the day, you have to impress the judges, and that means delivering your statements with an acute awareness of your audience's emotions.  

Pitches are similar. Your prospects will be impressed by sound arguments that prove your resolution, but they also need to be wooed a little. There needs to be an emotional element that draws them in and makes them truly believe in your proposal.

This doesn't mean you need a flashy gimmick, however, it just means you need to present your pitch in a compelling, human way. If you start to sound robotic, ask yourself: How would I explain this idea to a friend? Stepping back and reevaluating your narrative is key to developing an accessible pitch.

How does your agency prep for a big pitch? Let us know in the comments. 

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How B2B Vendors Can Generate Trust and Credibility With Their Website

What do B2B buyers actually want from your website? What causes them to leave your website and not return? How many times do typical buyers return to your website before taking the next or final step in the buyer's cycle? What kind of content is important to them? 

We looked at the results of the 2015 B2B Web Usability Survey and discovered what it would take for you as a B2B vendor to create credibility and trust. Spoiler alert: it’s not rocket science.

1) Buyers won’t give you a chance until they’ve seen legitimate identification

Vendors beware: Buyers judge your company’s credibility from their first impressions of your website. Before you panic, a winning introduction simply requires making the ABC’s available, right away. This includes: Complete contact information, an updated About section or company information, and a summary of the products and services your business offers. Interesting to note: They usually don't want to see the pricing first.

Improve your credibility

• Design your website page templates with a built-in header and footer to feature your company’s physical address, contact information, quick links to your products and services page, and a summary of your About section.
• Stock images ring alarm bells for B2B buyers! Even if you and your employees can't measure up to those stock photography models in the looks department, you'll definitely trump them when it comes to trust and credibility. Hire a professional photographer for a day, but don’t stop at head shots for your about page. Employing banner images that picture your employees going about their daily tasks go a long way towards proving your company’s legitimacy. Also, this simple visual introduction can smooth over the awkwardness of that first personal consultation.

2) Buyers want to see the basics before getting in touch

Making a good first impression, however, is not enough motivation for your buyers to introduce themselves. While video tutorials, visual depictions, and audio descriptions are valuable tools for strengthening the relationship with buyers of different learning styles, respondents indicated that these wouldn’t dazzle them into submitting a contact request either.

In reality, for buyers who are leaning towards contacting you for a quote, the deciding factor is whether or not you have supplied them with the following basic content essentials: Product pricing, product reviews, lead/ship times, and details about technical support.

Improve your credibility

• Prioritise your content calendar! While not every buyer that visits your website will be ready to speak to a Sales representative right away, some inevitably will be. Make sure that you don’t miss out on these low-hanging fruit by fast-tracking content assets that buyers require before taking the step of reaching out to your sales team.
• Is your failure to display pricing information on your website losing you sales opportunities? A simple experiment can settle the issue: Add pricing information to your website for a trial period to compare the number of leads generated in both scenarios.
• Are you a software reseller or IT services company? Don’t make the mistake of assuming that your prospects and customers are as technically fluent and self-sufficient as you are! Data shows that providing your customers with direct access to technical support from your website will help you to build credibility and trust with prospects as well.

3) Blogging and Social Media alone won’t win you more than casual followers

B2B buyers have spoken, and the word is that they are seriously underwhelmed by vendors who don’t offer them educational content beyond the weekly blog and social posts. 

While both of these marketing channels are valuable for generating traffic and nurturing leads along their buyer’s journey, an effective content marketing strategy relies on a much wider range of assets.

Improve your Credibility

How are you supposed to know which content assets you need to establish yourself as a reputable vendor? Look no further than Science!

Here’s how you can apply the scientific method to your content creation process: Research, Test, Improve, Test, Repeat.

• Research your users’ content preferences. You can do this by interviewing your existing customers, sending them a survey, and evaluating your website’s user analytics to identify high and poor performing content assets.
• Test your assumptions! Create a content asset according to your research findings, put it out there and measure the results. How did you do?
• Improve. Are you getting closer or further away from your goal of engaging and educating your buyers? Unsure? Conduct an A/B test! Focus on one element at a time, (e.g. content format, title, marketing channel) and create multiple versions of the same offer to test the impact of the variable.

How do your buyers feel about your website's credibility? Book a free website assessment now to find out.

4) Buyers don’t trust websites filled with distractions 

When it comes to establishing trust and credibility, clarity trumps the bells and whistles. B2B buyers have little patience for features that waste their time and obstruct them from getting down to business.

Website elements that annoy your users enough to make them leave right away include lack of contact information, intrusive live chat features, animated ads, popups, poor design or navigation, and video or audio that plays automatically. Almost half of respondents declared that they would ditch a vendor’s website simply because it fails to clearly communicate what the company does!

Improve your Credibility

Let’s talk about Growth-driven Design (GDD)! As opposed to traditional web design that is driven by your agency or company’s fancies, the GDD process is user-focussed from start to end.

The GDD design cycle entails user research (identifying the drivers, barriers, and hooks at work on your website), implementation of research, and measurement of results to deliver continuous improvement of user experience and conversion rates.

5) Buyers will fill out a form if it passes the cost vs. value test.

Your buyers’ personal contact information is a valuable commodity, and if you want it, you will have to earn it. Excessive form fields, invasive questions, and automatic email subscription are all factors that make your buyers flee from your forms.

Improve your credibility

Fear not, getting on first name basis with buyers is not an impossible feat, as they are more than willing to complete your forms when they meet the following criteria:

• Your forms pass the credibility test. Buyers indicate that the slightest oddity in design or copy could deter them from completing a form. Make sure your forms are sleek and professional by following conversion optimisation best practices on your landing pages, then user testing to identify any red flags.
• Clear and accurate expectations. Are you offering your prospect a free demo or a quote? Buyers’ past experiences of waiting in vain for a response has made them hesitant to submit your contact forms. Here too, clarity trumps persuasion; write your landing page copy to clearly state what buyers can expect once they’ve clicked that submit button. Should they expect to be contacted by a member of your technical support team, sales, or the business owner themselves? When can they expect to hear from you?
• A worthy trade. If you are form-gating your content, the asset on offer better be a value-add for your buyers! While an in-depth eBook would pass this test, spec sheets and product descriptions that blow your own horn should always be offered un-gated!

6) Buyers leave and return to your website multiple times

A prolonged and well-considered decision-making journey is typical of the B2B buyer cycle. In fact, buyers will visit your website up to 5 times before gathering up the courage to get in touch. 

During this period, prospects will be evaluating your competitors’ products and solutions, researching your ratings, and looking into feedback from your previous customers. What they find out about your company will determine if they return to your website at all and if you are trustworthy enough to approach for a quote.

Improve your Credibility

Build out a C & C portfolio (Credibility and Comparison) to distribute to your buyers in a marketing automation workflow that gets triggered the moment a buyer transitions to lifecycle stage: Sales Qualified Lead.

Content assets to distribute in this workflow could include:

• Charts and checklists that help your buyers to compare apples with apples as their weigh you up with competitors.
• Case studies of how you have helped other B2B buyers, just like them, to overcome various obstacles to achieve success.
• Credibility by association. Have any of your customers reviewed your business on an external site? Craft an email that shares links to existing reviews with your buyers, and set up a Google Alert to pick up on any new mentions of your company online.

7) A Mobile-friendly website matters 

When it comes to devices, 41% of buyers who own a smartphone or tablet are using it to search for B2B products. While most respondents indicated that lack of a mobile-friendly website would not put them off a vendor, a vast majority stated that they do expect your website to enable dialling your number automatically at a tap.

Improve your Credibility

While the look of a mobile unfriendly website might not put off your buyers, poor mobile functionality will result in conversion opportunities slipping through your fingers as well as a poor ranking in search engine results. 

While basic mobile-responsiveness ensures accessibility of digital assets (website, blog, CTA’s, forms, landing pages, content offers, emails), optimisation of your entire conversion path for mobile users is a worthwhile investment. 

Generating credibility and trust? Elementary, my dear B2B business owner!

Nobody said B2B marketing wasn't hard work, and yet generating trust and credibility does not require you to produce ads that can compete in the Cannes Lions or video material worthy of a BAFTA.

Get to grips with the basics of inbound marketing, power it up with growth-driven design, and you can expect to see your website cranking up the traffic volumes, conversion rates, and new and recurring business.

 

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