5 Steps to Building Your Personal Brand Successfully

The notion of branding has been getting a lot of play over the past few years. There are great reasons to brand: Scotch tape does not refer to all clear tape, although often all clear tape is called Scotch tape. Kleenex is a brand of tissues, not all tissues are Kleenex. Band-Aid is a brand, not all bandages are Band-Aids, but often, no matter who made them, all bandages are called Band-Aids. What does this have to do to building an individual brand? If you’re an attorney, a plumber, or an architect, you want to be the “brand” people think of for those professions. To be that “go to” person or company, you must build your brand.

How can you build Your Personal Brand?

#1 Decide What Makes You Special:

• What makes you the architect people remember? What makes you the plumber people want to call when they’re building a new hotel or apartment? Why should a business call you when they need an air-tight contract drawn up? These are questions that are important not only as an outside contractor. Branding is not simply for outside contractors or businesses wanting to get noticed in a competitive industry, branding can be a way for a cog in a big machine to be noticed in a positive way, so that cog can keep moving up and can become more important to an organization. And yes, if necessary, letting other people know what makes you special can help you get a better job.
• An important part of letting others know that you’re special and what makes you special is actually do something worth noticing. If there is a special kind of architecture that you’re an expert at, something that makes you stand out, then let people know that. But don’t just sell yourself with empty words. People know if you’re a fraud.
• Have a vision to show how that thing that you do special can help. If you are an expert in design let people know that; show them on your own website or blog.

#2 Get the Word Out

• Imagine there is a contract to install plumbing in a new apartment building. The bids that are turned in are similar, so the general contractor decides to do a web search to ensure all bidders are capable. What will search results reveal? A blog about how to do plumbing or how to choose the right bathroom fixtures to match the architecture of a building? Pictures of big jobs you have already completed with quotes from general contractors and business owners? Or will the general contractor find negative, hateful—and honest, posts about you?
• Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook are also social media options that are inexpensive and often free. They need to be full of positive and business related ideas and projects. Is your Twitter feed full of dirty jokes and double entendres? Are Instagram and Facebook full of pictures of you drinking? If so, make yourself comfortable working in the mail room, because you aren’t leaving there. Almost all prospective employers will do a web search. Pictures of you passed out in your front lawn will kill your chance of being hired or promoted, even if every other part of your reputation is pristine and perfect.

#3 Make Personal Contact and Get Noticed

• If you want to advance your career, either within a large organization, or by moving to a different company, you need to be noticed. Go places where you can meet contacts and introduce yourself and make a good impression. If there is a professional organization that meets in your city or state, go. If there is not an organization, go to alumni meetings for your university. You want to meet people and make a good professional impression. Perhaps the next time that person you meet needs an attorney with solid contract writing skills, he or she will call you.
• Another way to get noticed is to get published in a trade journal. If you have a trade journal, read it and see what kind of writing style they like and then find something interesting to write about and get published. People like to hire someone they can view as an expert.

#4 Get a Mentor

• A mentor is someone who wants to help a younger person as they begin their career. The secret about being a mentor is that most people want to help. We want to feel smart and valued, and helping someone else is a way to do that. A mentor can be a boss, or it can be a social contact who works elsewhere. The two biggest things a person can gain from a mentor are lessons about what to do and what not to do; and a mentor might recommend you for a job or promotion.

#5 Keep Information Updated

• What would you think if your neighbor’s grass was two feet tall and he or she was 25 years old? You would probably think your neighbor is lazy. When you use social media, you have an obligation (to yourself and your career) to update it if you want to continue to build your brand. There are actually two reasons to do this; 1. You don’t want to appear lazy; even if you’re so busy you don’t know how to find the time. This is your obligation and potential clients, or that potential new boss doesn’t care how busy you are. 2. The more new content you post, the higher you will be on web searches. You don’t want to be the 10th John Smith attorney in Ft. Lauderdale. You want to be the first, and that happens in part by updating social media. Rebrandly blog has some suggestions about how to improve your brand’s presence online.

Building a brand isn’t just something that businesses do anymore. It is something that almost everyone who is successful does in some way. To be successful at building your brand, you should have a plan, and then follow through. You will increase your chances for success by doing these five things to build your own brand.

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25 Ideas to Transform Ho-Hum Infographics into Something Extraordinary

A few weeks ago here on Copyblogger, Demian Farnworth presented the infographic as the Salvador Dalí of content marketing — the most interesting person at the cocktail party.
More than just a superficial presence, an infographic is a significant asset pillar with diverse possibilities that help you grow your media empire.
Today, let’s equate the Internet to the world of pop music. In this case, infographics are The Beatles.
They’re irresistible. They create massive hits. At their best, they balance style and substance.
They can be relentlessly imaginative. And like John, Paul, George, and Ringo, they can communicate sophisticated ideas to a mass audience.
Yep, they’re lovable. How lovable?
The factoid below comes from a 2012 infographic by NeoMam Studios.



Even stories about infographics sizzle. I wrote “The Most Important Thing You Need to Know About Infographics” and it climbed to the number one spot on my chart last year.
Before we brainstorm infographic ideas, let’s discuss why infographics work.

Why do we love infographics?

Here are 15 reasons I’ve assessed:

1. They’re so webable. First, I must offer my theory and ask you to live with my funny new word. Although data visualizations exist in traditional media, they’ve exploded in the digital age because they perfectly suit new media and the devices we use to consume information.
2. We’re visual creatures. The fun, interactive infographic, “13 Reasons Why Your Brain Craves Infographics,” makes this case with powerful data points.

3. They simplify complex ideas. Infographics aid comprehension by pairing text with straightforward pictures.
4. They’re easy to share. We love to share information we find valuable. It feeds our appetites for being conduits of wisdom. Creators and publishers of infographics encourage you to share their content and often simplify the process by providing code you can embed on your website.
5. They’re familiar. The general recipe for infographics features ingredients we’re comfortable with: illustrations, icons, charts, diagrams, and captions. The familiarity speaks to us and obliterates any objections.
6. They travel well. Infographics are multi-screen portable. They translate nicely to slides and also tend to work on paper.
7. They’re fast. Up above, in Number Two, you see an interesting data point about how fast we’re able to process visual information. The process of reading takes time. Given our short attention spans, the speed with which we can absorb visual information makes infographics attractive.
8. They’re less taxing. A related, but slightly different idea than the one above about speed is we give ourselves a little break when we digest information aided by visuals. We encounter a lot of information daily. We can only read so much. The data below comes from:
   • Welcome to the information age — 174 newspapers a day, The Telegraph.
   • Measuring Consumer Information, International Journal of Communication, Vol 6.
   • How Little Do Users Read?


9. People thrive on data. We’re drawn to data and proof points. I like this presentation from Juice, Inc. that explains how data drives exploration, understanding, presentation, discovery, motivation, learning, and above all, “doing.”
10. They tell stories. A lot of infographics use storytelling tactics including characters, conflicts, problems, and resolutions. Stories hold our attention as we relate to characters and go on journeys with them.
11. They promote branding. When infographics are republished, a brand travels with the image, which usually includes a logo and URL.
12. People search for them. Because they’re so useful (and often entertaining), people search for infographics, as evidenced in the statistic presented above. Since search engines can’t index the content within an image, headlines often appear with the explicit label “Infographic”.
13. People collect them. Do you do this? I sure do. I stash infographics for safekeeping on Pinterest and in my swipe files if I suspect I’ll want to reference them (or use them) again in the future.
14. They dominate the page. I believe one of the many factors that make infographics appealing is they tend to dominate a webpage.
15. They’re generally large and colorful. Unlike plain text, infographics defeat distractions and help us focus on the content.

Ready to create your own infographic?

Here are 25 infographic types, themes, and concepts:

1. Process. Create an infographic to explain a process. They’re ideal for breaking down and simplifying a multi-step process that may otherwise appear intimidating.
2. Comparison. These images may include sections such as: before and after, this vs. that, old way vs. new way, us and them, etc.
3. Timeline. Infographics help illustrate the evolution of a subject matter.
4. Roundup. Various types of roundups, such as quotes, reviews, favorites, etc. can be presented as a collection.
5. Components. Just as it’s useful to break down a process into steps, you can decouple the components of just about anything to aid understanding, i.e., an engine, recipe, or team.
6. Instructions. Use an infographic to simplify complex tutorials or communicate how to complete a task.
7. Charts and tables. Simple charts or tables featuring icons or images representing a topic create visual interest.
8. Categories. Take any category of interest to your audience and tell a story with an infographic. Check out one of my favorites, “The Genealogy of Pop/Rock Music”. Amazing.
9. Study of a “universe.” Produce massive visual collections on: beers, bands, books, bikes, beaches, etc. Here’s The Ultimate Infographic on Infographics from Curata.
10. Warnings. This popular article style tends to be irresistible. A list of dangers, myths, or mistakes is a powerhouse for infographics, too.
11. Metaphor. I love it when an interesting metaphor presents a concept. I bet you do too.
12. Résumé. Job hunting? The résumé as an infographic is such an engaging idea, services such as vizualize.me and kinzaa.com have sprung forth.
13. Report. Research and survey results offer great value in traditional report formats, but the same information, or highlights from it, make compelling infographics.
14. Product or service. You may not score a viral hit with an infographic that showcases what you sell, but you’re likely to have an engaging tool that presents your goods to potential buyers.
15. Trend. Showcasing a trend in an infographic makes a newsworthy story even more fun.
16. Past to present. This is another timeline idea that displays the history of a topic.
17. Place or event. Any place (from a nation to a campground) or any event (from a war to a conference) can be summarized in an infographic.
18. Guide. A rather obvious theme, I know, but any “how to” begs to be transformed into an infographic.
19. Family tree. These can be downright intoxicating. You can use a tree, flow chart, or similar symbols to explain relationships.
20. Cause and effect. You probably see a “this caused that” form of presentation more than you realize. It’s simple and smart.
21. Biography. Perform a search for “biography of Steve Jobs infographic” and you’ll discover some amazingly creative graphics. Study them for inspiration.
22. Story. Simple one here. Tell a story, like a picture book.
23. Manifesto. This approach can be a stellar branding tool. Write a manifesto that defines what you stand for and have a great designer create an infographic that makes you proud.
24. List. Don’t ignore this age-old, can’t-miss tactic for communicating fascinating, useful content.
25. Acronym. Spell out an acronym or abbreviation, with pictures, of course, and you’ll have a double-whammy simplification of a robust idea.

Grow your audience with infographics

Which type of infographic will you make to reach and educate a larger audience?


Flickr Creative Commons Image via Saad Faruque.
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SEO vs. PPC: Pros, cons & an integrated approach

A question we are often asked is, “Which is better: SEO or PPC?” This is not a question with a general answer, as it really, truly depends on your current situation, objectives and marketplace.

Certainly, we are big on SEO at Bowler Hat. My experience in this industry over nearly 17 years shows me that when done well, organic search delivers more volume at a better cost per lead than paid search.

However, this is not the marketing Wild West it once was. New businesses can have a hard time getting started with SEO, and paid search can offer a fast track to search marketing when done correctly.

For me, this all comes back to your digital marketing strategy. Understanding your prospective customers and how they use the web is key to determining whether paid search, organic search or a combination of both is the best approach for your unique and ever-changing situation.

In this post, I am going to look at the pros and cons of both SEO and PPC as a marketing strategy and provide some tips in choosing the right channel for your business. Where both organic and paid are suitable, we will take a look at how to integrate SEO and PPC for improved results from your search marketing efforts.
SEO: Improve your organic traffic

What are the pros and cons of organic traffic from search engines? Let’s begin with the pros:

Awareness. Visibility in search engines for your targeted keywords puts your business in front of potential customers in much the same way as if you were to advertise, and it drives brand awareness.

Branding. Visibility around commercial search terms and informational queries related to your business area can have a positive branding benefit. Your brand can become associated with and trusted by searchers who are asking questions as they conduct the research that will lead to a purchase. You can become an authoritative voice around a given topic.

Credibility and trust. Having your site return in the organic results can influence your perceived credibility with an audience looking for your services. Many users skip ads and trust organic results more highly. Being visible gives your business that all-important stamp of approval. Also having strong review and reputation signals in place will deliver further benefit.

Website traffic. Increasing website traffic provides you with more opportunities to drive awareness of your business and educate a prospect as to why they would buy from you.

Cost per click. Traffic from organic search is free… sort of. Developing that visibility will take time and effort (money), but there is not a direct charge for each impression or click.

Return on investment (ROI). Organic search engine traffic can provide an improved ROI over traditional forms of paid media and certainly improve upon PPC.

Cost. While SEO is neither cheap nor easy, it will generally be more cost-effective than all other marketing tactics for delivering brand awareness and relevant traffic to your website.

Sustainability. Unlike paid search marketing, organic traffic does not dry up the moment you stop paying. As such, efforts to develop organic traffic can sustain a business when marketing spend is cut back.

Improved click-through rate (CTR). A higher percentage of users click on the organic results. While there are exceptions to this rule, you will generate more clicks from a highly placed organic listing than from a highly placed paid ad.

More clicks overall. To maximize visibility and clicks, you will want to have listings in the paid and organic results. Keyword-level experimentation is needed here to see if you are paying for clicks you would get for free or increasing overall clicks and CTR in both paid and organic — but to truly maximize results, strong visibility in paid and organic is needed.

Scope. There are so many new queries every day that to maximize scope, you will need strong organic visibility. You will not want to pay for all kinds of clicks either or advertise every piece of content on your website.

Strategic advantage. Visibility in organic search is not quick or easy — which is a good and a bad thing. Once you have established yourself in the organic results, your competitors can’t simply buy their way in (assuming you have done things the right way). This can provide a strategic advantage over the competition if they are relying on paid search.

It is not all sunshine and rainbows, though, and there are certainly cons to SEO. In many cases, organic traffic can be slow to come by, and you may be wildly outgunned. If you are just starting out, and the keywords you are targeting show results dominated by titans like Amazon and eBay, then you may need to rethink your strategy.

You may also need to develop content assets to achieve strong organic visibility. Not all businesses have the in-house resources to tackle content development, and this can pose a problem. Tactics such as safe, sustainable link building can be difficult to master, and often, a strategy is needed, along with expert support.

Organic traffic may also largely come in via informational or pre-purchase research queries. This is valuable traffic, but a more staged approach may be required to nurture those users to a purchase. This is a cornerstone activity in digital marketing; however, it is not always easy, and it is not a good fit for all businesses.
PPC: Laser-targeted visibility

How does paid search differ from organic search? With click-through rates and trust heavily stacked in favor of organic search, why would a business look at paid search? Here are some of the benefits PPC offers:

Position on the page. Paid search dominates above-the-fold content. With typically four ads on desktop and three on mobile, a user will always see the paid search ads, even if they choose to scroll past them.

Improved ads. PPC ads are just that: advertisements. As such, you have far more granular control and more space for delivering your marketing messages. Calls, locations, sitelinks, pricing and bullet points (callouts) are just some of the options for creating ads that dominate the page.



Visual product ads. Where you sell a product, Google provides the option of visual shopping ads (Product Listing Ads, or PLAs) that can help a user see what they will be clicking on. This kind of ad can really improve the click-through rate by offering a feature not available in organic search.



Brand visibility. Running paid search advertisements gets you seen by the right people. Even if they back off and conduct a brand search before clicking to your site, that visibility will pay dividends to your marketing.

Budget. PPC allows for a tight control of budget. Determine how much you are willing to spend per day (ideally with some initial and ideal ideas of returns), and set that fixed limit.

Targeting. PPC provides a laser-targeted way to get in front of potential customers. Ads can be targeted by search keywords, time of day, day of the week, geography, language, device and audiences based on previous visits. Organic traffic, by comparison, is far more scattershot.

Speed. While developing good organic visibility can take time, a PPC campaign can be created in days and ramped up in weeks. There is no faster way to get in front of customers at the very moment they are primed to buy than paid search engine advertising.

Agile. Speed provides agility. Want to test a new product? A new marketing message? You can get rapid feedback on a new product launch (or minimum viable product) by running a short PPC ad campaign.

Marketing intelligence. Where organic largely hides keyword data in the name of privacy, there is no such restriction with paid search. With conversion tracking and a solid integration with analytics software (like Google Analytics), we can determine what keywords convert and at what percentage and cost. This intelligence can be fed directly into organic search (SEO) marketing and can inform all other advertising to improve results across the board.

A/B testing. Easily split-test ads, landing pages, and even call-to-action buttons to determine where the very best results lie. Again, this information can be fed back into all other digital (and traditional) marketing endeavors.

Stability. AdWords does not suffer the same turbulence that the organic results can suffer from. There are changes, but they tend to have a far lower impact and are more easily managed. Careful use of match types and analysis of the search term reports allow for the removal of junk search and an increase in ROI over time.

Cost. Despite what many advertisers believe, a PPC account that’s well set up and managed can be a low-cost way to generate leads for your business. If you are a local business targeting a small geographic area and a small set of keywords, you may find that you can generate more than enough leads without breaking the bank. Additionally, over time, accounts can be further optimized to drive down costs and increase return.

As with organic search, there are many benefits to paid search advertising or PPC. However, there are also some pitfalls for advertisers to be wary of.

PPC can be expensive. It is not always the case, but costs can quickly add up. If you are targeting entire countries or running international campaigns, those costs can spiral.

Paid search advertising is, as the name suggests, paid — so it requires constant investment. Stop paying the piper, and your ads go away and your lead generation dries up. So long as you have a solid acquisition cost, then this should not be a problem, but in contrast to SEO, it can feel like a bad deal. Of course, SEO should be ongoing to keep the opposition at bay, but organic traffic can be a little more robust.

There are various options for search advertising with PPC, and making smart choices here will influence results. If you see product listings dominating the screen for your keywords, then text ads may not perform so well. Likewise, if you run product ads, and only text ads are returned, then these ads may not deliver the goods.

It is not unusual to get into bidding wars with other advertisers, which can drive costs up. As you start to run your ads, often you are taking a bite out of some other advertisers’ digital apple. Doing so can result in some spiraling costs.

Strategically, PPC is relatively easy to copy. If a competitor notices you are running ads, they can run ads. Your messaging can be imitated. Your entire funnel can be easily evaluated by competitors. This is the digital marketing landscape, and you have to accept that to some extent.

Successful PPC needs skilled management and optimization — from monitoring bids, Quality Scores, positions and click-through rates. Some of this can be done with scripts, but if you are too busy to do this properly, ensure you have an expert on hand to take care of keeping your account in tip-top shape.
SEO or PPC?

It’s just not possible to answer this question without taking the unique situation of a given business into consideration.

A hyper-local business with little competition and a requirement for just a few leads per week could likely develop good visibility in the local and organic search results with a little spend or some DIY SEO.

A new e-commerce store that is competing with a page of results from Amazon, eBay and other major department stores and online retailers is likely going to struggle in organic search (in the short term, at least).

Do you need leads now? Are you looking at the long game? Do you have much in the way of website authority? What is the competition like in organic search? What is the cost per click in paid search?

A clear digital marketing strategy and clear short- and long-term goals are essential in making an SEO or PPC decision here.
SEO and PPC

In an ideal world, we would look at both SEO and PPC. They both have pros and cons and work best when supporting each other synergistically. Where you can get SEO and PPC working together, you will often be able to drive results that are greater than their component parts.

The benefits of running SEO and PPC together include:
Keyword and conversion data from PPC can be fed into organic search (SEO).
The total volume of traffic can be increased by targeting clicks in paid and organic for high-performing keywords.
High-cost keywords, high-volume or low-converting (yet still important) keywords can be moved from PPC to organic search.
A/B testing of ad copy and landing pages can be fed into your organic listing and landing pages.
Remarketing allows you to stay in front of visitors after an initial touch via organic search and customize messaging around their engagement with your site.
Test your keyword strategy in PPC before committing to long-term SEO strategies.
Target users at all stages of the customer journey from research to comparison to purchase with commercial keywords.
Increase confidence and awareness by having both strong organic and paid visibility.

In our experience with hundreds of businesses, an integrated search strategy that looks at both SEO and PPC is the optimal approach. Results are improved in each channel by utilizing both paid and organic. This will not be right for every business, but for high-growth, aggressive marketing, you will want to develop a holistic search engine strategy rather than look at SEO or PPC in isolation.

What are your experiences? I would love to hear your successes and lessons from using SEO, PPC or SEO and PPC.

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The 5 Step Checklist for Great Email Branding: Part 2

In our last post, The 5 Step Checklist for Great Email Branding: Part 1, we took a look at the first 2 steps that you can take to brand up your email so that it aligns with your brand.

More specifically, we took a look at timing of your emails, as well as your subject lines.

In this post, we shall continue where we left off, and take a look at 3 more ways that you can use right now to enhance your email branding.

Let’s begin!
Step 3. Content: Visuals and Copy

What is the most important element of all email branding? The content in the email, of course!

Content in your email is the only reason why people will convert on your emails.

Concurrently, the content, and the way you write can go a huge way in terms of branding your emails, and your company in general.
Include Powerful Visuals (if you need them)

It’s true that a picture speaks a thousand words, and that goes the same for emails.

In my personal experience, you should always make it a point to include one or more impactful images in your newsletter if you are dealing with products, especially.

However, most service providers that use online marketing that I know of (including myself) tend not to use images. A good rule of thumb is to use images if you are selling products or digital downloads.

If you decide to use images, make sure that you keep it to 60 to 100 kb, so that your email loads fast on your reader’s email client.

Otherwise, keep it simple with just text.
Choose the right fonts

It’s almost so basic, that I find myself cringing when I write this, but it’s important to make your content easily readable.

Whenever you write content, be it a blog post, or email, you should always aim to make your content as easily accessible as possible.

In additional, you’d want to leave a good impression on your readers, and the first step is to make it easy to digest. That means also that your readers shouldn’t have to zoom in to view your content.

According to the best email guidelines and some of my personal experiences in content writing, these are the following font settings best for your email content:

Font type: Georgia

Georgia is not just easy on the eyes, but also effective cross browser. This means that you can rest assured that your content will appear consistent across different devices.

Header Font size – 22 to 25

To separate your email content, and make it much easier to read, you’d want to use headers, very much like a blog post.

The rules on email are simpler. Keep your header font size around 22 to 25, and it’d be more than adequate.

Body font size – 14 to 16

The body is the gist of your content.

It’s what makes up the chunk of your entire email, and thus it’s important to get it right.

In my personal experience, I always recommend my clients to go for font size 15 because it’s the most optimal size for reading, in my opinion.

Font color: Black (it depends)
Although black (#000) is the industry average in email, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t spice things up at all.

In fact, if you’re in the field of entertainment, fashion, or food, it does make a lot of sense to use font colors that fit the design of your email template.

I tend to find that for service businesses, black works just fine, but you can always consider lighter black colors like #43464b or #262626.

Choosing a lighter, black color is easier on the eyes, and helps your readers to get through your email and hear what you have to say.

For reference, you can use this color checker to find out the best tinge of black that suits your email.


Use the right words

Words are at the heart of your content, and this is where applying best copywriting practices come into play.

Any good email marketing campaign should contain the following:
Attention: How can you best attract the attention of the reader?
Interest: How can you focus on the benefits of the product or service, and align them to the self-interests of the reader?
Desire: How can you frame your offer in a way that creates demand, and make your readers need the product or service right now?
Action: What call to action can you provide the reader, that makes them want to click through on your offer, and solve that problem now?


Keep your words short, and to the point

The words that you choose should be short, succinct, and to the point.

At first glance, your readers should be able to digest the key points of the email, and make sense of your message.
Step 4. Personalisation

We are in the phase of transition right now, where marketing is slowly moving from traditional blast-to-everyone campaigns, to small, niche messages, one at a time.
Personalization is the key to success in this crowded world.
Everyone wants to feel like someone cares for them.

This is where tools like Sendlane can again come into play. Using Sendlane’s prefixes, you can easily send personalized messages to your email list.
Address your reader by first name

If you’ve obtained your readers from your website or opt in form, then you should have their first name at the very least.

Use this to your advantage, and customise the message to them.

You can do this easily by using one of Sendlane’s Personalization Tags.

Personalization tags are basically prefixes that you can use to adapt an email to the specific subscriber.

For example, you can use personalization tags to integrating your subscriber’s name in an e-mail, or by presenting various written content to different target groups or various graphics influenced by interests.

By inserting these tags into the content of your email it will customize the email experience for each recipient, and chances are, increase your conversion rates while doing it.

You might also want to considering personalizing the Subject Title of your email campaign as well, to catch the attention of the reader.

To get started in adding a first name personalization tag to your Subject Line, the first thing to do is to head over to your Campaign Setup page.



There, you’ll find an option to Personalize your email’s Subject Title.

Clilck on the Personalization button, and a popup will appear.



If you wish to personalize the first name of your email campaign, then click on the first option, and your option will be recorded.

What Sendlane basically does is to capture the First Name data from the list of subscribers that you’ve uploaded, and insert them into the Subject Title where you command it to be.



Then, click on next.

Choose the list that you would like to send your personalized emails to, then click on Next.



On the email campaign editor, you can basically draft the email that you want to send out to your list, and add the right personalization tag here.



For example, suppose you want the email to start with Hello John (assuming the person receiving the email is called John),

You can simply click on the last letter of “Hello”:



Then, on the left hand corner of the dashboard, you’ll find a section that is called Personalization tags.



Once you click on the Select button, you will see a list of options popping up.

Assuming you want to add the First Name of the reader to the email, you’ll click on the option “Subscriber first name,” and it’ll be applied accordingly.

For your reference, here are some other personalization tags that you can use in Sendlane:

VAR_SITE_NAME =Site name
VAR_SITE_URL = Site URL
VAR_MAILING_ADDRESS = User mailing address
VAR_PHONE = user phone number
VAR_SITE_UNSUBSCRIBE = unsubscribe
VAR_FIRST_NAME = subscriber first name
VAR_LAST_NAME = subscriber last name
VAR_FULL_NAME = subscriber full name
VAR_EMAIL = subscriber email
VAR_COUNTRY = subscriber country
VAR_STATE = subscriber state
VAR_CITY = subscriber city
VAR_SUBSCRIBE_DATE = subscriber opt in date
VAR_SIGNUP_IP = subscriber IP address
Give them what they signed up for

If you’ve set up your content marketing campaign well, then there’s a good chance that you know exactly who opted in for what.
Use this to your advantage, and send them offers that are relevant to them.

Remember, you can’t sell meat to vegetarians. Sending the wrong offer doesn’t just hurt your email personalisation, it affects your reputation.
Step 5. Optimization for all devices

Mobile is fast becoming more and more relevant, with all of us being so connected and intimately to our devices.

According to comScore, mobile already exceeded the number of desktops in 2014, increasing more dramatically as compared to the latter.



In addition, eMarketer also found that the amount of time that people spent in 2015 consuming media on their mobile devices was 51% of the total, with desktop at a mere 42%.



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In addition, a study conducted by IBM Marketing Cloud in 2016 found that nearly half (49%) of all emails are read and opened on mobile devices.



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In short, this means that you’d better optimise your emails to load properly on mobile devices.

In addition, BlueHornet found out that a staggering 71.2% of readers will simply delete an email if it doesn’t display correctly.


What this means for you

With the continual and proven rise of the mobile phone, it’s hard to call yourself a smart marketer if you don’t adapt to the changes.

Just as marketers and business owners must optimise their sites to make it mobile responsive, you have to make sure that your email is well optimized to handle mobile responsiveness too.

In fact, in only 52% of marketers created a mobile responsive email template in 2015, a study by eConsultancy found out in the “Email Marketing Industry Census”
How you can overcome it

In order to find the best way to make your email mobile compatible, I like to use the tool EmailonAcid, which is a great tool that allows you to analyse your email, and see how it shows up on different devices and platforms – 54 different platforms, in fact.

To get started, you can simply head to EmailonAcid, and sign up for a free account.



Synchronise EmailonAcid with your email provider, and start testing your emails on various different browsers.

Use email marketing tools like Sendlane

The good thing about email marketing tools is that all the hard work already gets done for you upfront.

This means to say that you can send every email without worrying about different browser issues, load times and what not.

Sendlane, for example, sends emails that are targeted to work across different browsers, and can shortcut a lot of the unnecessary testing times that you would have to go through otherwise.
Conclusion

While we all know that email is the most important element in marketing, sadly most of us don’t pay attention to the finer details in our emails.

I hope that this post has given you some insights and actionable steps that you can take to immediately improve your conversion rates.

Email marketing will remain as one of the most important tools for reaching out to your audience, and if you’re not taking care of the finer details, then something’s going to give.

What are some other ways that you can improve your email branding? Share your comments down below! I read every single comment.

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The 5 Step Checklist for Great Email Branding: Part 1

I know what you are thinking.

Email branding? Really?

Yes, really. I’ll explain why.

Email today remains as one of the top methods of getting traffic to your site, and of course, converting that traffic into customers and subscribers.

But, conversion rates can be better.

Recently, I did a Google search for the latest Email trends happening, and this popped up from Smart Insights:



In case you are totally new to email marketing, Unique Open Rate simply means the percentage of receivers of email who are opening it for the first time. In other words, it’s the first point of contact with your email.

As you can see from the above data, the average Unique Open rate hovers around 23%, which means an average of about 1 out of 4 people will open your emails, depending on the industry that you work in.

If you’re in the Food and Beverage industry, I’m sorry to say but your open rates are the lowest out of all the industries captured.
But, not to worry. This post will help you out.

In fact, I’ve centered this post not just around email branding, but to answer a more important question:

“How can I get more emails to open?”

You can, if you follow the steps that i’ve laid out in this post.
How can branding improve my open rates?

Branding, by definition, is a collection of different features, personalities and character of a brand that makes it represent something in the eyes of its consumers.

In other words, think of your brand as a human. How would you describe your brand? Is it a he or a she? How does he/she talk? What tone of voice does he/she use? And so on. You get the point.

At the core, Email marketing is an extension of your brand communications. It is like your brand’s heart to heart session with your reader, just as you would talk to a friend.

In this article, I will outline specific steps that you can take right now to improve your email branding, and significantly improve your unique to improve your email branding, and significantly improve your Open rates.
We need to brand up our email marketing.
Why should I care?

Because when it comes down to it, email marketing consistently outperforms each of the different marketing activity out there in the market.



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In short, emails are the main form of communication that you should focus your efforts on, if you want to succeed online.

Let’s begin!
Step 1. Get your timing right

I’ve ever had a client that was in the consulting space send out emails specifically only during late nights. And we’re talking 10pm to 12am in the nights.

While that might have worked for some people, it didn’t for him. His open rates were horrendous (around 0.7%), and that client got flamed quite a few times by pretty angry subscribers.

When I asked why, he simply said: “Because I only have time to send them in the night.”

Lesson learnt: When it comes down to email marketing, be very sensitive about the time that you send an email.

With everyone being so stuck on their phones, it means that they no longer have the luxury of turning away from your messages, unless they’ve switched off completely. And we all know, we don’t ever turn off our phones.

In fact, this study from ADI Email Survey in 2016 pretty much shows where we consume our email:



Yes, almost everywhere. Since it’s safe to assume that everyone is on their phones for the majority of their day, you’ll want to be extra careful what time you send your messages.
Tuesdays and Thursdays are best time to send emails



According to an article by Coschedule, they found out through conducting 10 studies that the best day to send emails are between Tuesday and Thursday.

GetResponse also found that the peak inbox activity happens on Thursday.



Learning point: schedule your emails to be sent on either Tuesdays or Thursdays.

Furthermore, a study conducted by Email Monday in September 2016 found that late mornings are the peak time for using email apps on smartphones.

That means that the best time that you should schedule your emails might be around 9.30am – 11am, for maximum open rates.
Finding your audience’s preferred times.

Another trick that you might be able to use is to find out where your audience comes from, then trying different techniques and times that fit their habits.

This is where software like Sendlane can help, with a little feature called Optimized Timing that caught my attention.

Basically, this nifty feature helps you to find the best timings to send your emails, through tracking the different open patterns and habits of your each of the subscribers in your list.

What this means is this: If Subscriber A opens an email in the morning, then Sendlane will then send the email to them in the morning, and vice versa, if Subscriber B tends to open emails more often at night.



To start using Optimized Timing is simple.

Simply create an email campaign as per normal, and then, at the final page, click on the Optimized Timing feature, then click on Send to use the feature in your campaigns.

By using technology to understand the pattern of opening emails by your readers, it’s easy to increase your conversion rates with the touch of a button.
Step 2. Your subject line

The next step to take to brand your email the right way is to get your subject line right.

Why? Because the subject line is the first thing that your readers see when they receive your email. In other words, your subject line is the thing that stands between a converted reader, and the trash bin.

Showing bad subject lines are not just harmful to your conversion rates and open rates, but also bad for your brand image. Imagine if Louis Vuitton sent you an email with a subject titled: “Raise cats with rainbows and chocolate?”

Do you feel something weird happening inside your brain? That feeling of disbelief? That’s the effect that bad branding can have on your readers, if you get your subject lines wrong.

But how can we write really great subject lines?

Be relevant to your brand

Obviously, the first thing that you should always make sure your email campaigns get right is the relevancy that it has with your brand.

Remember the Louis Vuitton example that we talked about earlier?

At every step of crafting your email campaign, always make sure to ask yourself the following questions:
Is this email relevant to my brand image?
If I am receiving this email for the first thing, what’s my initial impression of the email, and the brand that wrote it?
In terms of email design, is the design too complicated, or is it just nice? Is my brand supposed to be sophisticated, or should it be plain? Does my email reflect that impression on others?
Keep your subject lines under 50 characters

What do you when you open up your email?

You scroll.

That makes reading really long subject lines hard, and the tendency for us to just chuck the email into the bin is that much higher.

Whenever possible, try to concise your message down, and condense what you are trying to say as best as possible.

Typically, from my own experience, keeping my subject lines below 50 characters work quite well for my email marketing campaigns.

Some questions that you should ask yourself when trying to condense your subject title:
Are there synonyms that can describe the same thing in a shorter way? Use Thesaurus.com to find words that fit the bill
Is there a way that I can best summarise the gist of the email, using as little words as I possibly can?
Spice up the emotion

Another great branding method that I like to use for my subject lines is to use powerful, emotive words to spice up the mood a little.

Adding powerful words not only captures the attention of the reader, but also serves to create curiosity in your email.

For example, instead of saying:

“Read This Now: 50% Red Hot Sale Happening Today Only!”

you can rewrite it into something like this:

“SIZZLING SALES!: 50% MINIMUM STARTING NOW!”

For a list of power words, you can use this list that I’ve found here.
Use a little alliteration

If you’re not a Literature student (like I am), then you probably have not heard of alliteration.

It’s a technique that copywriters use to capture the attention and engage the reader in text.

Basically, alliteration is applied when two words next to one another start with the same alphabet: “sizzling sales, red republic, snazzy snaptactix”.

Why is alteration so useful in subject line branding? Because there’s a hint of rhyme in it, and it naturally sparks the interest of the reader.

Having subject lines that apply alliteration can set your email apart from the other 100 emails in your reader’s inbox titled “Check this post out…”
Keep it relevant to your lead group

It’s simple. You can’t sell meat to a vegetarian (like myself).

If your subject line isn’t relevant to the lead group that you are targeting, then you can have the best subject line in the world, but it still won’t convert into sales for you.

To make sure that your subject line is relevant, make sure that you segregate your email list properly before sending them any emails. A marketing software like Sendlane is useful here, since it allows you to create and send to different lists as you allocate.

Before you send any email, make sure to ask yourself the following questions:
Is this subject line valuable to the person receiving it?
What would their reaction be when they see this subject line?
Even if they don’t convert, what would be the impression be that they have of my brand?
How does this subject line make me feel?
Would I want to open the email after reading the subject line?
Does the subject line promise any benefit from reading the email?
Am I curious about what’s inside the email after reading the subject line?
Don’t use clickbait

This should be a no-brainer. The last thing that you’d want your reader to think when they open your email is to see that you’ve made an empty promise.

Using subject lines like “this can change your life” is a big promise to make, and you’d want to be sure that you know what you are doing when you send bold statements like that.
Conclusion of Part 1

That does it for Part 1 of the 5 Step Checklist for Great Email Branding!
While it’s important that you setup your Email Marketing sequence, you should always bear in mind the different experiences that your customers and prospects go through in the overall content funnel.

After all, the customer experience journey is not just about a single email, but a collection of experiences that add up to the customer’s expectations and desire for your brand.
What other methods of great email branding tips did I miss out? Would you like to recommend some ways of great email branding, and how it has worked for you so far?

Leave your comments down below! I read every comment.

Next, be sure to click through and read Part 2 on Email Branding!

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5 Great Tips on Successful Small Business Branding

We all understand how important brands can be.  There are brands that signify all over the world.  Nike.  Harley Davidson.  Starbucks.  These are companies that are more than just the products they sell.  They’re lifestyles.  They’re statements, both about the company and the consumers who choose them.

If you think bold, memorable branding is only available to big companies with massive marketing budgets, think again!  No matter your industry, you can cultivate a unique brand that resonates with your clients.  Want to know how to do it?

Small Business Branding Tips

1. Clarify Your Company’s Purpose

For a brand to be meaningful, it must connect to your company’s reason for being (which, incidentally, assumes you have a reason for being above and beyond simply earning an income.)  Why did you start your company?  How do you think you’re making the world a better place?  Without a firm grasp of your purpose, you’ll never be able to communicate what’s unique and important about your company.

2. Enlist Your Employees

Along with clarifying your purpose, you must also ensure that every single member of your staff understands that purpose and knows how and why to communicate that purpose with every customer.  In a perfect world, your purpose isn’t something that’s pounded into your staff.  It’s something you hire for.  When you hire an employee who shares your values, then you’re on the right track.  Effective branding isn’t an afterthought.  It infuses everything you do!

3. Create a Rallying Cry

So for my company, Profit First, our purpose, our rallying cry is “We want to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty!”  We say it, and we mean it.  Every morning huddle (our quickie standing meeting) reiterates our purpose and the steps we’re going to take that day to accomplish it.  Our rallying cry lets us communicate our purpose and values quickly … to anyone and everyone.  That’s our brand.

4. Enlist Your Customers

You know your purpose.  Your staff knows your purpose.  But do your customers know your purpose?  Letting your clients know that they’re buying more than just your goods or services is key to enlisting them in your brand building efforts.  Consider the Life is Good brand.  When people don a t-shirt, they’re making a statement about a lifestyle, rather than just getting dressed.  Folding in what makes you unique and worthwhile is a big part of successful branding.

5. Hire a Pro

Sometimes we think we should be able to do it all, but no matter how talented you are, you need help in the areas that aren’t your strength.  If marketing isn’t your thing, consider hiring a consultant or agency to help you crystallise and evangelise your brand.  Professionals can help you avoid spinning your wheels and wasting money on ineffective tactics.

Your brand is more than just your company name and a slogan.  It’s the expression of your values, your quality, and your unique vision.  Branding done right cements you in the minds of your customers.  It makes it easy for people to understand who you are and what you do.  Branding differentiates you from your competitors, and it speaks to your ideal customer, resonating with the people who will most appreciate your work.

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