Build Your List: 7 Irresistible Lead Magnet Ideas

Email marketing requires huge amounts of time to do right. Time spent writing emails, coming up with strategy, and testing, testing, testing.

However, none of the above is possible without a list of folks who are ready to receive your marketing messages. So, before you spend an afternoon crafting the perfect subject line, let’s talk about your list. Or, more specifically, how you can build your list using lead magnets.

What’s a Lead Magnet?

Lead magnets are possibly the single easiest way to begin adding interested, qualified leads to your email list. They’re typically bitesized, snackable pieces of content that your readers can access (for free) in exchange for their email address.

Most web users won’t think twice about handing over their email if it means they get free content as a result— especially if that content is interesting, useful, and relevant to their interests. This makes them extremely powerful when done correctly. Keep reading, and we’ll talk about 7 of the best lead magnets you can begin putting together today!

• Free Checklist

If you have a blog, creating a one-page checklist or worksheet is a great way to turn any of your blog posts into a list-building machine! For example, let’s say you run a men’s fashion blog and have just finished a post about choosing a good pair of shoes. At the bottom of the article, you could create an opt-in box that gives away a free gift, “The Gentleman’s Shoe-Buying Checklist”.

This is a piece of content that will help your readers choose a sharp pair of shoes in exchange for their emails. And, because you’ve included it within the context of the footwear article, you know they’ll be interested in shoe-related marketing emails later on.

Make sense? Here’s a few real-world examples to help you wrap your head around the concept.
On The Social Butterfly Gal, author Christina Jochoa has put together a good article about creating opt-in content for your readers. At the end of the article, she’s added this short form:

This offer fits in neatly with her target audience (entrepreneurs who are new to blogging/social media marketing). It also compliments the content of the article and makes sense within its context.
In another example, an article about creating a resume by The Interview Guys offers, “The Perfect Resume Checklist” to anyone willing to enter their email address:

Again, this is a perfect marriage of lead magnet and content. When creating your own lead magnets, make sure the offer is relevant to your readers and the kind of content they expect from you.

• White papers, Reports, eBooks, or Case Studies

Offering new information to your readers is another great way to get them to hand over their email address and join your list. Try compiling reports, white papers, or case studies that are relevant to your audience.

For example, if you’re a driving school trying to drum up business using the web, you could add leads by giving away, “FREE Report: Driver’s Training Can Add Up To Five Years to Your Life”.

Again, just like with the checklists we mentioned above, this kind of lead magnet is sure to draw attention from folks who are interested in what you have to offer (driver’s training). Otherwise, why would they waste their time reading about its benefits? In your own business, think about what kind of data, facts, and statistics are important to your audience. Then, either collect the data yourself or compile it from other sources.

Want to see a great example of an email marketing lead magnet?

Click here to receive our free eBook, Inbox Better and learn how to maximize email open rates, engagement, and CTR.

In this example, Clear Story Data offers a whitepaper that promises to teach readers why Data Intelligence is, “the new way”. If you were a business intelligence professional, this might be right up your alley.

In another example, Kindle publisher Steve Scott offers a free eBook aimed towards anyone looking to dip their toes in the Kindle publishing industry (Steve’s target market). This is a fantastic example of marketing done right— notice how Steve is offering this lead magnet on his 404 page! So instead of losing leads when they arrive at a dead end, he’s turned his 404 page into yet another lead-generating page.

And, once you click that big, tempting, please-just-click-me button, you’re hit with this pop up:

Now, Steve can collect email addresses from anyone interested in Kindle publishing. In one-click, they’ll be added to his list.

• Toolkits

The last two lead magnet ideas require you to create your own content. This can take a lot of time, especially if you’re putting together entire eBooks or white papers. If you’d like to put something together quickly, try giving away a toolkit.

A toolkit is a collection of resources software and other tools that you feel will be useful to your readers. For example, if you owned an authority site about women’s fitness, you could put together a list of helpful apps to help folks track their exercise and workouts. This takes very little original content creation, as it is simply a curated list of great tools.

What would look like? Here’s a few examples to inspire you.

Here, Hero Health Room is offering a similar lead magnet to the hypothetical toolkit we discussed above. By entering your email, you’ll get immediate access to tools, checklists, and resources to help you get in shape. In return, they’ll add you to their list and begin marketing to you:

In the marketing world, WPBeginner offers its visitors “The Ultimate WordPress Toolkit”. Again, this is simply a collection of tools, plugins, and resources that first-time WordPress users might find helpful.

• Quizzes and Surveys

Us humans, we love a good quiz (just check out Buzzfeed if you need proof). Your readers are no different. By putting together a quick, easy quiz (and sending the results via email), you can both collect data about your audience and build your list.

For example, check out Jean Paul Zogby’s quiz that promises to tell you how fast time runs in your mind— once you’ve given him your email of course.

After you’ve taken the quiz, Zogby follows up with your results and a subtle CTA promoting his book (also related to time perception). It’s an easy way for him to build his list while still providing value to his audience.

• Webinars and Video Training

Video lead magnets can be particularly great for building your list. Why? Video feels valuable. It requires more effort, more commitment, and (hopefully) will provide more value to your audience than a 10-point checklist. If you’ve noticed that your competitors are all beginning to offer eBooks and text-based content to attract new leads, try mixing it up by creating video lead magnets.

Script Magazine offers a free webinar to readers who are interested in learning to write screenplays (their target audience). This gives them an opportunity to connect with their audience, position themselves as an authority in the space, and—their ultimate goal—build their list with qualified, interested leads.

In an entirely different industry, travel blogger and digital nomad, Stephanie Holland, offers free travel advice for anyone willing to enter their email. This is a particularly good example as she’s created a dedicated landing page for this lead magnet. It’s really well-designed page, and worth using as inspiration if you’re looking to do something similar.

Oh, and if you’re wondering where she’s collecting emails, it’s all hidden behind that purple, “Watch Now »” button. Once clicked, you’ll see the following pop up:

• Free Quote

Ah, the free quote. This is perhaps the oldest lead magnet ever thought up. Car salesmen, insurance agents, real estate tycoons, marketing agencies— in just about every industry, the free quote has been a reliable way to gather information from interested prospects.

This kind of lead magnet may take a little more “backend” work than the rest. You’ll need some sort of tool that takes your users’ information and outputs a personalized quote. However, the benefit of this lead magnet is that it specifically talks about money. It’s a lot easier to move prospects from a quote to a sale than it would be to take them from a free report to a final purchase. If you do decide to build a free quote lead magnet, use the following examples to inspire you:

The website, lowestrates.ca uses a very powerful quote building system that allows visitors to easily get a ballpark price for insurance. However, the system also allows them to follow up through email once someone completes their forms.

At Plato Web Design, visitors can quickly get an automatic quote built for them using the web form. This is a much simpler version than the insurance quote above, but is still a fantastic way for Plato to collect emails.

• Coupons/Discounts

If you’re an ecommerce guy or gal, this lead magnet is for you. Offer your readers a small discount in exchange for their email address. You’ll then be able to continue sending them marketing messages related to their interests.

In this example, big box retailer, H&M is offering 20% off any item when visitors join their email list. This will allow them to continue marketing to their customers long after they’ve used their discount code:

We would have preferred to see H&M advertise this offer with a pop up. As it is, users can only access this deal by clicking the small text, “SIGN UP FOR EMAILS” in the site’s header. Notice how in the example below, Austin Kayak uses a pop up to get their lead magnet in front of visitors and drive sign ups:

The Real Secret of High-Conversion Lead Magnets

So you’ve decided on a lead magnet, you’ve built it, and you’re ready to start building your list by exchanging it for email addresses. Great! Now what? As we’ve said again and again on this blog— you should always be testing. Keep designing and deploying new lead magnets for your audience and measure which kinds of content generate the most emails. Your first idea will likely not be your best idea.
So once you’ve finished creating your first lead magnet, start thinking (immediately) about the next. And, if you want more ideas, inspiration, and top email marketing tips, click here to join our newsletter.

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Do You Publish Your Email Subject Line to Twitter & Facebook? Consider Changing It…

 Here’s a quickie! I’ve been looking at a bunch of people who are doing a great job publishing their email marketing campaigns out to the web with a hosted version of the email, then using the subject line as their content for Twitter and Facebook.

For the most part your subject line is a great thing to publish, but here is something to think about when you do this. Think about all of the people who see your Tweet but don’t know who you are, what it’s about and don’t want to click on your link.

I’ve seen some of the following Tweets come through recently:

• March Newsletter
• Check Out Our Sale
• Best Buys for March
• Let’s See Your Collection

These are all fine subject lines for an email campaign, especially if your email From Label is recognizable to the list you’re mailing and they are expecting your message.

However it’s a bit different when you put your message out to Twitter and Facebook. There are people that might not be a customer, or be on your list. Heck, they may not know who you are. It’s a perfect opportunity to introduce yourself! You might try this on for those that don’t know you:

• March News from the Hingley Foundation to Cure Ailments
• Check Out Our Jewelry Sale
• Best buys on dog food for March
• Let’s see your collection of antique cocktail shakers

So your subject line is a great START, but make sure when you use your email marketing subject line in your social media campaigns you include your company name or the message you’re trying to get across.

Do you have any good experiences changing your subject line for social media?

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3 Surprising Stages of Successful Landing Pages

 Landing pages support content marketing.
The tricky thing is … landing pages are not home pages. They’re not blog posts, cornerstone content, white papers, case studies, product description pages, or even sales pages.
And you can’t treat them like they are.

High-converting landing pages consist of three action-driving stages: before, during, and after.

Tragically, when many content marketers build landing pages, they focus on just one stage: during.
But if you don’t invest effort into what happens before and after you present your landing page, it doesn’t stand a chance of achieving the results you want.

1. The “before” of landing pages

While landing pages are not about you — your company, your product, or your service — the “before” stage is because you first have to establish your goal.
As Demian Farnworth said:

“[Landing pages] force readers to focus on one thing — and one thing only.”

Determining that one thing is the only time you get to be self-centered in this process. The best way to set your goal is to complete this sentence:

I want my visitor to …

• Like my Facebook page
• Subscribe to my email newsletter
• Watch my demo video
• Register for my content library
• Make an appointment

Naturally, there are plenty of other actions that might be the goal of your landing page. Whatever you select, your goal should be singular: the one desired action will guide everything else.
For example, let’s look at InvestorCarrot’s landing page for their SEO Keyword Bible.
The crucial thing to notice isn’t what’s on the page, but what’s left off the page.

There’s no header navigation, no footer, no social media icons, and even their logo in the top left corner isn’t clickable.

Essentially, there are two roads out from this landing page: “Get My Free Report Now” or “No thanks, I’ll pass on this opportunity.”

InvestorCarrot knows exactly what they want their visitor to do and they eliminate every other navigation option.
The result of this singularity — along with other factors I’ll address in the next two stages — is a whopping 45.89 percent conversion rate.
Take heed: when it comes to planning your landing page — the before stage — select one goal. Remove anything that doesn’t support that goal.

2. The “during” of landing pages

The “during” stage of your landing page consists of five on-page elements.

1. Headline

The headline of your landing page is arguably the most crucial on-page element. Why?
Because while 8 out of 10 people read the headline, only 2 out of 10 will read the content that follows.
So, how do you create a headline that grabs, compels, and drives action?
Easy. You don’t.
Instead of trying to create the perfect headline, steal it.
First, steal the heart of your headline by building it around your audience’s own keywords.
Whether you drive visitors to your landing page with paid advertising (PPC) or organic search, your headline must include the words your audience uses.
This is precisely what makes our previous example so compelling. Instead of including vague keywords about SEO, the headline targets a specific audience: Simple SEO ‘Hacks’ To Help Real Estate Investors Get More Traffic & Leads.
Next, steal successful headline templates.
Copyblogger’s How to Write Magnetic Headlines ebook is a great place to start.
You can also steal from my own 25 heaven-and-hell-themed headline formulas or go even more in depth by diagnosing your audience’s “state of awareness” and then systematically crafting breakthrough headlines from inside your market’s mind.
For instance, Yoobly’s webinar landing page — “The $100K Case Study: How to Generate New Rockstar Prospects & Explode Your Downline Without Selling Friends & Family” — leverages a host of proven headline ingredients:

The landing page:

• States the big benefit (“$100k Case Study”)
• Appeals to those who want to learn (“How to”)
• Offers useful information enlivened by verbs (“Generate” and “Explode”)
• Uses direct language (“Your”)
• Makes contrasting statements against common approaches (“Without Selling Friends & Family”)

2. Subheads

With all the information that bombards us on a daily basis, most of us scan content.
Enter the subhead.

The subheads on your landing page should not only structurally guide your reader through your major points, they should stand alone and relentlessly focus on the benefits of your call to action.

Remember that what the headline does for the page itself, subheads do for each section.
This means making your subheads enticing, bite-sized nuggets of “I just gotta keep reading” copy.
A fantastic strategy for building compelling subheads is to make a list of all your product or service’s features … and then transform those features into audience-centered benefits.
Henneke’s A Simple Trick to Turn Features Into Benefits (and Seduce Readers to Buy!) makes this transformation process easy by asking one question, “So what?”

“The oven preheats quickly.
So what?
It’s quickly ready to start cooking your lasagna.
So what?
Your food is on the table sooner.
So what?
Life is less stressful. There’s less hanging around the kitchen waiting for the oven to get ready. And you don’t have to worry you might forget to preheat your oven.”

3. Body copy

Just like every other on-page element of your landing page, effective body copy does not come from you … it comes from your visitor.
Your aim should be to unearth the very words your audience already uses when they talk about your product or service.
How? By digging into user-generated content from:

• Amazon reviews
• Comments on blog posts
• Customer FAQs
• Email responses
• Social media posts
• Forum sites
• Question and answer sites
• Qualitative surveys

4. Proof

I’m sure you’ve heard the old saying “People buy with their hearts, then justify it with their heads.”

So while you must speak to the heart of your visitor, you also need to provide proof for their heads.

Testimonials are the primary way you provide that proof. Unfortunately, testimonials are often too general and fail at providing proof in one of two ways:

1. They aren’t framed in a problem-then-solution format.
2. They don’t highlight measurable results.

A shining example of the problem-then-solution format is Chris Brogan’s testimonial for the Rainmaker Platform:

Brogan’s testimonial nails exactly what’s wrong with most content management systems — the problem — and then explains exactly how the Rainmaker Platform addresses those deficiencies for him — the solution.
How do you generate your own proof-producing testimonials?
Ask for details.
Instead of just soliciting bland reviews (or waiting for them to roll in), reach out to your customers and clients and ask them to tell you about:

• The problem they were facing
• How you helped them find a solution
• The results (real data) that back up that win

5. Call to action

The call to action (CTA) is copy that asks your visitor to take your desired action. CTAs will commonly appear throughout your landing pages and at the very end.
To write your CTA buttons, you can follow Joanna Wiebe’s masterful advice.
Put yourself in your visitor’s shoes, and your call to action button should state how they’d finish the following sentence:

I want to _____.

That little trick is how we design buttons that say unique phrases like “Find Out How to Ride a Bike” and “Make Sense of My Finances Fast.”

3. The “after” of landing pages

So far, we’ve covered quite a bit of ground. However, we’re not done yet.
Why?
Because even if you create a high-converting landing page with all the right on-page elements relentlessly driven by your own all-consuming and singular goal … and even if people are actually taking the action you want them to take, the job of your landing page isn’t finished.
In fact, if you stop there, all your work could be for nothing.

The most neglected element of every landing page ironically isn’t even on your landing page itself.

It’s what comes next — the “after.”
When standard “Thanks for signing up” pages and “Click here to confirm” emails are off-putting, they squander the momentum you’ve worked so hard to create.
What should your follow-up look like? Here are two examples.
Let’s look at InvestorCarrot’s landing page again. After signing up for the SEO Keyword Bible, the new lead is redirected to the page featured below, which offers immediate access to the report itself. 

Immediate access is vital to keep the landing page’s momentum rolling.
In addition to offering immediate access, the page also presents the user with two videos about the report as well as the opportunity to deepen her relationship with InvestorCarrot by signing up for a live webinar.
Your own follow-up doesn’t need to have as many options.
Whenever someone signs up for my Content Creation Checklist, I send him this conversational follow-up that includes tons of white space, one link to click, and ends with a question.

Whichever method you adopt for your own follow-up:

1. Give your visitors immediate access to whatever they’ve just asked for.
2. Write to them like one human communicating to another.

Don’t ignore these two landing-page stages

When you build landing pages with these three stages, they are hinges that transform visitors into actual leads: real people with real problems in search of real solutions.
Don’t make the mistake of just focusing on what’s on the page: the during.
Start by selecting one goal and one goal alone: the before.
Then, don’t drop the ball after all your hard work. Customize your follow-up and keep it rolling: the after.
Oh, and be sure to share in the comments if you’ve got a tip or landing page of your own you’d love for me to check out. However, be careful … I just might actually take a look.


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How to Be a Copywriting Genius: The Brilliantly Sneaky Trick You Must Learn

Are your readers doing what you want them to do? Are they registering for your free membership site, downloading your ebook, or signing up for your email newsletter?
If not, you need to learn a master craftsman’s copywriting secret.
This technique acts like a remote control to get your readers to take action. Press this “magic button” and you’ll see your results improve dramatically.
The secret, masters-only technique to compelling your readers to act is to …
Ask them.
Annoyed? Think I’m pulling your leg? There’s nothing magical or tricky to getting someone to do something just by asking them, right? That’s completely obvious.
And most copy doesn’t do it.
Which is why most copy gets weak results.

Persuasive writing needs a strong call to action

The advice to “always ask them” has been turned into a heroic-sounding marketing term called the call to action, as if trumpets were sounding and prospects were marching off to war just because you inserted a couple of words at the end of your copy.
The term might sound a little bombastic. But the simple fact is, once you’ve gained your reader’s attention (with a great headline and a strong hook) and presented all the benefits she’ll get by taking the action you want, you still have one more hoop to jump through.

"You need to tell your reader exactly what to do, how to do it, and that you want her to do it right now."

Make it specific

Copywriting master Gary Halbert liked to include seemingly insane levels of detail in his calls to action.
His copy would end with something like, “Call (specific 800 number). You’ll talk with a woman named Robin in a blue sweater who will ask you, ‘Would you like the large size or the jumbo?’ Tell her you want the jumbo. She’ll ask you for your mailing address where you can receive packages, and you’ll give it to her.”
He goes on and on like that for quite some time.
For the beginning copywriter, it feels like a strange, awkward technique that’s going to “look weird.” But for the reader, in the context of taking action that might cost some money, time, or inconvenience, this level of detail creates a solid, comfortable understanding of what to do next and what to expect.

"If you want your reader to take action, use highly specific language with clear, concrete details. Don’t leave any question about what you want to see happen. And don’t be afraid to be a little “too obvious.”

Your readers are not dumb; they’re distracted

As you’re writing, you’ll think you have made yourself stupidly clear. You spent 14 hours on that lengthy article describing your fascinating new product. You followed up with a 12-part series on your blog and an autoresponder sequence of 20 emails.
To you, anyone can see what to do next — your reader should click through to that PayPal button and order your new work of genius.
But the reality isn’t very appealing.
For example, Ron Reader may have found one of your posts (maybe #3 out of that carefully planned series of 12) from a link on Twitter and spent 30 seconds skimming the subheads. He read the first sentence twice because he thought it was funny; then he skipped down and read part of the last paragraph.
Then you got lucky — instead of exiting your post and going back to his Twitter timeline, Ron’s boss came up behind his cube and Ron had to think fast. He brought up a spreadsheet to look like he was working.
An hour later, Ron’s cousin sent him a link to a cute cat video on YouTube, and Ron spent the next 20 minutes surfing videos of dogs drinking beer. Then he wrapped up that really overdue report while eating a bag of Fritos and catching up on email.
Four minutes before he shut down for the day, Ron noticed your post again, so he read your first paragraph and one of the sections that looked kind of interesting.

How to compete for attention … and win

Your readers are not dumb. But they do have a lot of other things competing for their attention.
So no, Ron Reader is not going to know what to do next unless you spell it out with painful clarity — and probably tie a giant red ribbon on it while you’re at it.

"It might be hard to believe, but many hurried and distracted users don’t instantly get that they are supposed to click here. You have to tell them."

Being clear isn’t the same as talking down to your reader

Granddaddy copywriter John Caples wrote about this very point way back in 1932. When you see the word “ad,” substitute “cornerstone content page,” “landing page,” or “online copy.” All persuasive writing is built on the same foundation.

“Don’t make ads simple because you think people are low in intelligence. Some are smart and some are not smart. The point is that people are thinking about other things when they see your ad. Your ad does not get their full attention or intelligence. Your ad gets only a fraction of their intelligence … People won’t study your ad carefully. They can’t be bothered. And so you have to make your ads simple.”

Decide what action you want readers to take. Ask them to take that action. Ask them clearly, succinctly, and unmistakably.
Put at least one unambiguous call to action into every piece of persuasive writing you create. You’ll see results.


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4 ways to leverage email marketing with PPC

When it comes to the fast-moving world of internet marketing, everyone is looking for that competitive edge. If SEO and email marketing are already a developed part of your marketing campaign, PPC (pay-per-click) can be another useful tool to help grow both your conversions and your leads.

Use PPC to test email marketing elements

While we can use email marketing to increase leads in a variety of ways, PPC advertising offers a great way to test out the elements of your marketing emails, like landing pages or possible subject lines, before using them in a mass email. PPC gives you ample space to safely test out that edited copy, those new keywords or a new landing page and get an early peek at conversion rates. Using these tools can help optimize your message and increase its rate of success before sending it out to your entire list. That said, PPC ads are not only a great environment to test out elements of email marketing, but are versatile enough to try out nearly any element of your marketing campaign.

Build email lists with PPC

A great way for anyone to start introducing PPC into their campaign is by using it to grow your email list. While email can be used to increase both conversions and leads, PPC is a terrific way to boost both of those numbers even further. In this case, you can measure every email gained from a PPC ad as a conversion and a success toward this goal. Someone clicking on a PPC ad should arrive at a page that shows off the service or product one is offering, but with two possible ways of gathering potential customer information:

First, the primary focus of this page should always be the conversion itself. Part of this process will gather the customer’s email along with other information for things like receipts and contact or shipping information. Simple enough.

Then, you should always include a secondary call to action (CTA) that can still obtain an email conversion even if the person decides not to purchase. This shouldn’t distract from your main objective and should encourage potential customers to give you their email address and offer them something in return. An example of this might be “Sign up to be notified of future discounts” or “Sign up for news and tips” — anything that could appeal to someone interested in the ad but not quite ready to commit to what you’re offering.

Use your email marketing data to optimize your PPC ads 

The information you have gathered via sending conversion emails and looking at click-through rates isn’t just useful for your email marketing. While emails commit to a higher percentage of overall conversions for many businesses, PPC ads can be a powerful tool in gaining conversions themselves. The keywords, subjects, headlines and offers that have been successful in the past can likely be integrated into your PPC ads as well. At the least they are powerful starting benchmarks to help augment your marketing strategy. This can be great information in reaching out to a brand-new audience or wider market, and increasing your numbers across the board.

Plan PPC campaigns to boost email click-through rates 

A large part of successful advertising at its core isn’t just about the message itself and how strong it is, but about the amount of exposure to your message that your potential customers receive. Time and time again research shows us the power of the Exposure Effect, and how customers who are exposed to a product or service multiple times are simply more likely to commit to a purchase. PPC ads can provide more exposure to your message outside of your emails. You can do this by starting a PPC ad campaign that begins a day or a two before your email campaign goes out, and ends a few days afterward. The awareness and exposure of these PPC, ads coupled with your hard-hitting emails, can work well together to increase conversions.


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“Open This Email Right Now!” What Makes a Good Subject Line?

 You’re drowning in emails, right? Every day the inbox piles up with ever more sales, ads, offers, news, and even the occasional personal note. Some email providers like Gmail segregate your incoming mail in an effort to keep the important items front and center. Even so, your inbox and mail filters still stack up with messages. If you can’t get to every email you receive, how do you make sure your own email campaigns cut through the clutter in your readers’ inboxes?

Your subject line is the first and maybe most crucial tool in your email marketing kit. Often an afterthought, the subject line is actually quite powerful. Take advantage of that power by using “S.P.A.M.” Not the bad spam that gets you banned from mailboxes. An all-caps S.P.A.M. that reminds you that the best subject lines are Short, Personable, Attention-getting, and Meaningful to the reader. Here’s why these intertwining characteristics are important:

Short

Brevity may be the soul of wit, but it’s the flesh and blood of email subject lines. Studies show that the best-performing subject lines — the ones attracting the most opens and the most clicks — are a maximum of 49 characters. That’s roughly one-third of your average 140-character Tweet. Subject lines with 49 or fewer characters attract 12 percent more opens than their lengthier counterparts, and their click-through rates are a whopping 75 percent higher. Start cutting characters stat!

To help keep your subject lines short and sweet, plug them into this free character counter. Remember, 49 is the magic number. Once you hit 50, open and click rates begin to drop. Yes, that includes spaces. Yes, people’s attention spans really are that short.

Personable

No one wants to hear from a bot. Subject lines that sound like they rolled off the assembly line can be sniffed out (and ignored) immediately. Even within the confines of 49 characters, it’s possible to be personable. If you’re a small business owner, chances are you know many of your clients pretty well. Imagine what they’d want to hear from you in an email, and use that knowledge to craft your subject lines so they sound like they could only come from you or your business.

Emotion

Emotion is a strong, personable way to appeal to readers. People often make decisions based on emotion instead of reason, so write subject lines that invoke feelings. Surprise them, make them smile, offer solutions to their pain points, even create fear of missing out — elicit an emotion and elicit an open.

Emojis

Emoticons, also known as emojis, are another personality-driven way to entice readers to open your emails. Not only do they make your emails stand out in inboxes, but they easily convey emotion, and studies show that they can increase open rates by 56 percent. That said, use emojis with caution. Some older email programs can’t read them, and not all emojis look the same across all devices and operating systems. If using emojis in your subject lines, be sure to test them well on different computers, tablets, and phones before deploying them in actual campaigns.

Attention-getting

At heart, grabbing your readers’ attention is the most important role of a subject line. Here are a few ways to do that:

Humor

Humor is a wonderful way to attract attention to your emails. If you can craft pun-tastic or funny subject lines in fewer than 49 characters, go for it, as long as they’re relevant and suitable to your audience.

Urgency

Comedy can be difficult, however, and often isn’t possible to pull off with every email. You know what else draws attention? Urgency. Flash sales, limited-time promotions, low quantities of popular inventory — all of these say, “Going fast, so open this email fast.” (That’s only 35 characters, by the way.) Urgency equals eyeballs.

Current events

Or consider adding some cultural relevance or timeliness to your subject lines. If you can skillfully play off a popular film or television title that’s in the public consciousness, or springboard off an event happening in the news, that can snag some opens. Of course, use caution when spinning current events into subject line gold — what you see as a promotional opportunity may not be greeted the same way by all your readers.

First names

Putting your readers’ first names in the subject line can also make them take notice. After all, people innately perk up at their own name, and a recent Experian studyindicated that names in subject lines can increase open rates by nearly thirty percent.

Pose a question

Another way to grab attention is to pique readers’ curiosity with a question. A question demands an answer, and it can prompt your recipients to open the email either to learn that answer or to confirm their own responses.

Meaningful to the reader

What value does your email bring to the reader? (That question is 47 characters, in case anyone’s counting.) All the humor, personality, and attention-getting tactics in the world can’t save an email campaign that doesn’t mean something to your readers. Whether you’re communicating about a special they won’t want to miss out on, a pesky problem that your business has solved for them, or a benefit they never knew they needed, your subject line is the first place to convey that this email will be useful to them.

Exclusivity

One way to make an email meaningful is to imply exclusivity. Subject lines about private sales, VIP invitations, and special promotions for only your best customers can make your readers feel like privileged recipients, and more likely to open your email.

Specificity

The more specific your emails are, the more likely your readers are to click on them. “Big Sale!” is too vague and open-ended to mean much. Instead, try something like, “Save 40% on our most popular model today only!” It gets right to the point, creates urgency, entices the reader, and invites curiosity: Which model is the most popular one, why is it so popular, how awesome is it that it’s 40% off, and what time am I going to get one?

Believability

That all said, don’t promise something with your subject line that you don’t deliver on in the body of the message. All it takes is one misleading or misdirecting subject line to lose a reader forever.

S.P.A.M., not spammy

Start examining the subject lines that stack up in your inbox. Which ones catch your eye, and which ones make you reach for the delete button? Which create a desire to open the email, and which are vague or nondescript?

LinkedIn is a master at effective subject lines. If you use LinkedIn, you’ve probably received an email that says something along the lines of, “Joe Schmo and 4 others viewed your profile.” This subject line hits all four intertwining aspects of S.P.A.M.:

• It’s short, coming in under the 49-character threshold.
• It’s personable; regardless of whether you know Joe Schmo, the use of his name adds personality and makes the email seem less automated.
• It’s attention-getting and invites curiosity — who were the other four people?
• And it has meaning: this email promises to aid your professional networking efforts.

Of course, you never can reach every single person with every single email you send. But to keep your audience opening and clicking on your campaigns, remember S.P.A.M. Make those subject lines short, personable, attention-getting, and meaningful to the reader.

Read more on crafting excellent subject lines here and here.

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Adding Art to Words: How emojis can brighten up your emails

 We’ve all felt proud of email campaigns we’ve sent, whether because they’ve had phenomenal open rates, spurred strong sales, or simply looked great. What we’ve never considered, though, is that some of those campaigns may have actually contained works of art. 

But now that New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) has acquired the original 176 emojis developed in 1999 as part of its permanent collection, it might be time to start framing those campaigns.

Emojis, as you are surely aware, are the ubiquitous faces, icons, and other colorful pictures that adorn every phone and email, text, and social media app in existence.

Now that one of the world’s leading museums has officially recognized their cultural significance, and given them a gloss of high-culture cache in the process, how can you put emojis to work for you?

Use emojis in subject lines

Emojis convey thoughts and feelings in a flash, so they can be great hooks for subject lines. Why spell out that you have happy news to share when a smiley face or other sunny emoji says it instantly? Emojis also save space, helping keep your subject lines below the magical 49-character threshold that boosts open rates. They can also add a little life to an otherwise standard marketing message, like here:

Emojis in subject lines also help your emails “pop” when your reader scans his or her inbox and sees line after line of text.

Use emojis in body copy

“When words fail, emojis speak” is an oft-quoted truism of the internet. Don’t hesitate to use emojis to greet your readers, sign off at the end of a message, or create a break in your text. And while emojis in subject lines are fairly common these days, they’re still rare in the bodies of emails — meaning you will get extra attention if they’re done well.

Don’t forget to test

Text will always show up as text; even if the font displays incorrectly, it’s still readable. Not so with emojis. Because different operating systems, browsers, email clients, and devices all display emojis in different ways, be sure to test your emoji-laden email campaigns before you send them. What looks perfect on an iPhone may look even better on a desktop, and may not even appear on an Android. Of course, you’ll want to use emojis that look the best across the most devices. Testing helps you avoid the dreaded blank box:

Assuming your business and brand lend themselves to emojis (not all do, of course), emojis can be a creative way to brighten up your email marketing. And who knows, with a little luck, they might also end up hanging in a museum some day.

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8 Ways to “Fine-Tune” Your Email Engagement

AS the CEO of SendLane, having helped our customers deliver over 3.2 BILLION emails, I’ve learned a lot about email engagement and the best ways to keep customer interaction high with your list.

I want to share with you today, the 8 ways to help fine tune your email engagement with your email list.

1. Clarity over Creativity.

Yes, mysterious or “blind” emails will create bigger engagement. But at the same time, they lose trust.  And as an email list owner, you need to “keep trust”. Keep it relevant and obvious. This will keep your list more engaged with you for a longer time.

2. Find the perfect time and stay consistent.

Experts say 8 – 9am EST and 3 – 4pm EST are the best times to email. If your list is fresh, it would be wise to send a message at these times, using your autoresponder.

But here are facts: the BEST time to email them is based on the BEST time they listen to you. That means it’s also the best time that YOU like to email for your business.

3. Avoid the Spam Filter.

• Prominent calls to actions – saying “CLICK HERE FOR SAVINGS” will get you in trouble.
• Bad HTML code – Most autoresponder and email service platforms won’t allow this. But if you are self emailing, or self coding your HTML form, make sure it has GOOD form.
• AVOID using Microsoft Word. This is a big no no. Do not copy and paste from Word. It carries over bad HTML that will encourage spam.
• Using “Re:” and “FWD” in your subject lines. Not only is this ILLEGAL but it’s also very misleading AND will cause a higher rate of spam.
• Avoid single image emails. Yes, they look fancy, but using 1 image as the entire email including all text, will get you in trouble. Try creating a template and fill it with raw text.
• Never purchase an email list, use a purchased or found email list, or trust anyone that “GIVES YOU” subscribers.  First (and again), it’s ILLEGAL to buy an email list and email someone without their permission.  Remember, you are running a business, nothing is ever truly done for you. Each subscriber should cost $1-2, if not more. If it’s less than that, it’s probably junk.

4. Personalize your sender name.

I’m much more likely to open an email from “Jimmy” than if I saw “IMPORTANT MESSAGE” or “MEMBERS ONLY”. If you want, you can have it come from a company or brand, but don’t list it as the raw email either.

5. Avoid “Free, Help, Percent off, Reminder, Urgent”.

These are major spam trigger words…avoid them! These 5 are the worst offenders. Let’s stop using them and diluting the value of these words.

6. Beware of the same subject line blinds.

This is simple. Stop sending the same email subject line over and over. I get that it’s powerful. It worked in the past. But let’s face it: we all become blind to repetition.

7. Get to the point.

STOP with the super long emails. I know you are trying to pre-sell, share a story, get a message across, etc. but let’s look at Twitter: 140 characters…there’s a reason for that.

People have short attention spans. Take the first 50 characters or less and get your point across FAST. People spend less than 51 seconds in their inbox when on a mobile phone. 50% of email users use mobile phones. Hurry, get your message across ASAP!

8. HARD stop emails.

You’ve seen it before…

“Hey you there

Yes this is me.

You are about to learn

about taking better pictures”

The reason it was done in the past was to keep it “mobile friendly” but that was the past. With most email marketing tools, it automatically now adjusts your email messages to fit the mobile screen perfectly.

Now, when you do that, it looks like this:

“Hey you there

Yes this is me.

You are about to

learn

about taking better

pictures.”

This looks terrible.  STOP IT!

That’s all for today. I hope you can take these 8 tips and expand your email marketing!

Let me know what you think below and don’t forget to share with your friends!

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