The Ultimate Guide to Reddit Marketing in 2019

If you are looking for a website where content is indeed the king, Reddit could be your go-to destination. The site calls itself the “first page of the internet” for all the right reasons.

• Impeccable content
• Ability to remain anonymous
• Interesting topics on board

The features above make Reddit what it is today. Imagine being on a website where you can talk about anything and everything, give your opinions, receive feedback without coming on the forefront. How cool does that sound?

In short, Reddit is all about the significance of the content where the user and his/her identity remains insignificant. So, you see, when the focus is solely on the content, it is bound to make heads turn.

Already in love with Reddit? Look at these statistics and figures and see how the world too, has fallen in love with the front page of the internet.

• While Reddit is the 20th most popular website globally, it stands at 6th rank in the U.S.
• It has a vast user base of 1.65 billion.
• By the share of visits in February 2019, it is the 4th leading social media website in the U.S.
• The monthly active users on Reddit accounts to a staggering figure of 274 million.
• It has active communities of around 50,000.
• Reddit accounts for 25 million votes.
• The subreddits have reached a massive figure of 853,000.
• While there are 53% of men on Reddit, 47% of women are on this website too.

These are a few of the many statistics that makes Reddit everyone’s favorite. If you are already on Reddit, you would know how and why Reddit has reached such success. However, if you are someone who has no idea about Reddit, you are missing out on something amazing.

So, are you willing to jump on the Reddit bandwagon? Do you want to extract the most out of it? We have it sorted it for you.

Here is a list of Reddit terms to familiarize you with the platform.

Glossary of Reddit Terms

Subreddits

Like any other website, the first and foremost thing you need to do is sign up at Reddit.

Find the details on the top right of the homepage and you are done. This is the time you will find a plethora of “oh-so-popular” subreddits like the one mentioned below.

These are basically like specific message boards based on a particular topic. Beginning with the lower case alphabet “r” with a slash, there are thousands of subreddits doing the rounds of the internet. From r/news to r/jokes, you can find anything and everything through these subreddits. All you need to do is search a topic of your interest and subscribe it by clicking on the green button.

Well, it is as simple as eating a piece of cake. Take a look at this quirky post submitted under the category r/funny.

Votes

It is through voting that the content becomes king on Reddit. This is the very basis of the site’s functionality. Yes, you heard that right. Reddit is all about upvotes and downvotes. While an upvote is a way of showing appreciation for a post, you can also downvote a post, if you don’t like the content posted on it. Just use the up arrow for the upvoting and down arrow for downvoting. The subreddit with the highest upvotes gets a prominent place in the news feed. The subreddits are arranged in order of the upvotes they get. It works the same way for comments too.

Posts

Posting is lots of fun on Reddit. From sharing a link to posting a video or an image, you can do it all on Reddit. You can even share your thoughts here. Just follow the guidelines which are present on the right side of the screen and enter your post on the subreddit you want it to be displayed upon.

Reading

If you are someone who is not much into posting stuff online but, loves to read online content, head straight to Reddit. It has everything to satisfy your reading cravings. Since most of the posts on Reddit are links to other websites, once you click on the post, you will be taken to that particular website. However, if you want to stay on Reddit and see what other people feel about the post, click on the comment section, and you can see it all. Further, if someone has posted his/her original thought on Reddit, you can read it on the Reddit website itself.

Unsubscribing

We, humans, get bored with everything quickly. So, if you start finding any particular topic or subreddit dull, you can unsubscribe by clicking the “My subreddit” link. Here, you will get the option of editing your subscription. Further, click on the red colored unsubscribe button and you are done. You will no longer see that subreddit in your newsfeed.

Multireddits

If you wish to group subreddits of a particular topic, Multireddits can come in very handy. It won’t only help you find all your favorite topics in one place but, also make the whole browsing process easier.

Reddiquette

We all know what etiquette is. Reddiquette is somewhat similar to this.  Yes, these are the guidelines that Reddit imposes on its users. For instance, Reddit doesn’t allow self-promotion and submission of many links. If you do so, you might be termed as a spammer along with revoked site privileges. Also, Reddit encourages posting the source of a post along with posting the content to the most relevant subreddit. To put it in other words, your journey on Reddit can be worthwhile if you use it in a dignified, intelligent and consistent manner.

Karma

Karma doesn’t only pay back in real life but, on Reddit, it does too. Yes, if you are an active Reddit user who follows all the Reddiquette, you will be instantly rewarded with good karma. It is an excellent way of pumping up your Reddit account.

Reddit Gold

By now, you must have fallen for Reddit a little too much. If that’s the case, Reddit Gold is all you need. Just sign up for the Reddit Gold membership worth $3.99 per month or $29.99 per year and enjoy exclusive benefits such as different customized themes and avatars, ability to turn off ads, posting to subreddits accessible only by other gold members, etc.

The quirky Reddit terms

Reddit is the coolest social media platform because of the quirky names it uses. Here’s a quick sneak peek at a few of these terms. Take a look.

TLDR: It stands for “too long, didn’t read”. It is used on such subreddits where the body of the text is too long. So, the next time you find a lengthy post on Reddit, you know what to do, don’t you?

IRL: This is another regularly used term on Reddit which stands for “in real life”. It is used for referring to experiences outside the online world.

NSFW: Standing for “not safe for work”, this term is used in the title of those posts which might have inappropriate or explicit content. It is a way of warning people about the content that might not be a good idea for opening in public.

FTFY: Known as “fixed that for you”, it is either used as a tongue in cheek comment or for correcting any typo and factual mistakes.

TIL: Standing for “today I learned” is a term Reddit users use when they come to know about a particular thing on the internet that they didn’t know earlier.

AMA: It stands for “ask me anything” and is an excellent way of initiating conversations with anyone and everyone on the internet. Many celebrities indulge in AMAs on Reddit. After all, it is pure fun.

Reddit Tools

So, how did you like the details above about the first page of the internet? It will surely help you in using Reddit smoothly. However, to become a pro at Reddit, you can also use specific tools mentioned below to get a good experience.

Reddit Enhancement Suite

Available as a Chrome extension, it makes the whole Reddit experience worthwhile. It gives you certain Reddit gold features for free. From easily formatting your posts to keeping a check on specific users, these are few of the many ways the Reddit enhancement suite can help you.

Reddit Insight

If you want to keep track of a post in real time, Reddit insight is all you need. From the number of comments to the amount of Karma, you can know it all about a particular post through this exciting feature.

Reddit Later

It allows you to schedule your post according to a day and time that you think is the best time to post. This can work wonders for increasing the visibility of your post in no time.

Bonus Reddit Tips

All in all, the jargon mentioned above, tips and tools can serve as an ultimate Reddit domination guide for you. It will help you contribute value to this community of social media in a variety of ways. Here are some added tips and tricks. Take a look.

Relevancy

Relevant content plays an excellent role in adding value on Reddit. So, when you post or share something here, make sure it is not only relevant to the subreddit but, also hasn’t been posted already. Similarly, when you upvote, downvote or make a comment on someone’s post, it should add value. Therefore, try being insightful, witty and intelligent with anything that you post on Reddit and see how it helps you get a plethora of upvotes in no time.

Rules

Note that every subreddit comes with its share of rules and guidelines. It is visible on the right sidebar and is a critical tool for enforcing specific rules. Reddit implements rules through three particular frameworks.

Here’s a quick look at them:

• Manual moderation. Reddit moderates any content posted on it manually through manual moderators.
• Automation. The next way of moderation comes in the form of automation where bots act as moderators and flag the content which breaks the Reddit rules in any way.
• Subreddit community. The subreddit’s community also works as a moderator where a post is flagged by reporting and downvoting.

In short, the bottom line is that each subreddit is different from another. Hence, keeping a check on the rules and posting guidelines can help you safeguard yourself from any post deletion or banning.

Submissions

Usually, Reddit allows two types of submissions, i.e. links and textual posts. While a link that you post will take a visitor to a website or page of the particular link, textual posts are text-based content that can expand. You can also format and add links to such posts for initiating a discussion or conversation. However, before you submit, make sure to search through Reddit to avoid any duplication of content. Redditors despise it completely.

In short, being specific with your content, posting at the right time and the subreddit you are submitting your post to; each of these criteria plays an important role in attracting traction on Reddit while helping you earn a lot of upvotes and comments. If you do this right, your post might have the chance of being featured not only on the top of a subreddit but, also on the front page of Reddit.

Imagine the millions of views your post will get. Sounds cool, doesn’t it?

Collecting Reddit karma

Building Karma on Reddit is a great way of building the credibility of your profile. To put it in other words, the higher your Karma points, the larger your chances of being taken seriously on Reddit. So, try earning as much karma as you can through your posts and comments. Therefore, be active, consistent and productive on your posts and comment karma to boost your Reddit profile to the next level.

Wrapping up

In conclusion, Reddit is an excellent platform for giving and receiving interesting content anywhere and anytime. All you need to do is have a thorough understanding of it, and you will be good to use and leverage it effectively.

Anonymity, fun, knowledge, karma – these ingredients of Reddit undoubtedly make it not only the king of the content but also the king of social media.

Guest author: Rajat Chauhan is a full stack marketer with a deadly focus on better writing and disciplined creativity while implementing growth hacking strategies for organizational growth. Find him on Linkedin and Twitter.

The post The Ultimate Guide to Reddit Marketing in 2019 appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.

How to Design a Perfect Webinar Invitation Email

So you’re trying to help your colleagues hit their sales objectives, and you’ve come up with an awesome strategy…

You’ll host a webinar, and invite everyone who could potentially be interested in your company’s products or services. Once the webinar’s over, your colleagues can then reach out to attendees and upsell them.

Now, the goal here is to design a highly compelling webinar invitation email – one that’ll intrigue your prospects, and get them to RSVP immediately.

 

In this article, we break down the different components that go into a webinar invitation email and teach you how to design the perfect email to promote your webinar. Let’s jump right in!

 
Editor’s note: Did you know you that can organize, host, and promote your webinars with GetResponse? It’s got all the tools you need to run a successful webinar marketing campaign.

 

6 components of a webinar invitation email

Great email campaigns come in many shapes and forms. But a webinar invitation email usually consists of 6 key components – your subject line, banner image, header text, webinar introduction, webinar details, and call to action. Read on to learn how to optimize each component.

 

1. Subject line

When crafting the subject line of your webinar invitation email, the standard rules apply: make sure your subject line isn’t too long (and that it doesn’t get cut off). Personalize your subject line (and see an 18% lift in your email open rates), and if possible, intrigue your subscribers.

 

To make it clear that you’re promoting a webinar, you might want to put the phrase “[webinar]” in your subject line – for instance: [Webinar] Learn How To 5x Your Number Of Leads In 24 Hours.

If an industry expert or influencer is speaking on your webinar, including their name in your subject line might help to increase open rates: [Webinar] Sales Guru XYZ Shares How To 5x Your Number Of Leads In 24 Hours.

 To make your subject line more intriguing, consider phrasing it as a question instead of a statement. For instance: [Webinar] How Do You 5x Your Number Of Leads In 24 Hours? XYZ Shares His Tried & Tested Strategy.

Last but not least, conveying a sense of urgency in your subject line can improve your open rate and conversion rate as well. Try: [Webinar – Last Call] Learn How To 5x Your Number Of Leads In 24 Hours.

 

2. Banner image

Here are a few webinar invitation best practices for email banners: make sure that your text stands out clearly from your background, include all the important details on the banner, and showcase pictures of your hosts/guests. You might also want to throw in a call-to-action on your banner.

 

Let’s check out a couple of negative examples, so you know what not to do. If you look at this image, for example, you’ll see that part of LaneTerralever’s logo fades away into the background, which isn’t ideal…

 

 

Then there’s this other banner from Metric Insights, which I’m not a huge fan of as well. The white text at the bottom doesn’t stand out as much as it should, and the image itself is a little too plain; there aren’t any pictures of the speakers.

 

 

In contrast, here’s a positive example:

 

 

This Live Content Marketing Webinar banner is clear-cut, features all the necessary details, and gets us excited about who’s going to be sharing their insights. The only thing we’d do here is to rework the headline of the image so that it’s benefits-driven.

 

3. Header text

With their header text, most folks simply reiterate the name of their webinar or what their webinar is about, but this doesn’t add any value to your prospect. Instead, try tapping into your prospect’s pain point, or communicating a benefit of joining your webinar.

 

Here are some negative examples:

• Live Content Marketing Webinar By Company ABC
• Join Our Live Content Marketing Webinar
• 25th February 2019 – Live Content Marketing Webinar

 

And some positive examples:

• Want To Skyrocket Your Content Marketing Conversions In 2019?
• Figure Out Why Your Content Strategy Isn’t Working, Once And For All.
• Discover Tried-And-Tested Strategies Used By Neil Patel And Brian Dean.

 

4. Webinar introduction

With your webinar introduction, you’re leading into your pitch on why your prospects should attend your webinar.

Don’t just focus on communicating the details here – instead, share what your prospects can expect to gain from your webinar.

 

Here’s a negative example:

Join us for a content marketing webinar on 25th February 2019. The webinar will kick off at 9 am PST, and it will be hosted by content expert Neil Patel. We will start off with a 20-minute sharing session, and close with 10 minutes of Q&A from the floor.

 

And a positive example:

Ever wanted to pick Neil Patel’s brain, and learn the specific strategies that he uses to generate up to 1.2M readers PER blog post? Now you can. Join us at our content marketing webinar hosted by Neil, and stay tuned for the last 10 minutes, where we open the floor for you to ask him all your burning questions.

 

5. Details of the webinar

Now, here’s where you follow up with the details of your webinar including the date, time, speakers, etc.

If you’d like, you can also add in the key takeaways that prospects can expect from the session. Here’s an example:

In this short but intensive 30-minute webinar, you’ll learn:

• How to craft the best blog titles that your readers can’t help but click on
• How to produce content that’s highly relatable, and has the potential to go viral
• How to distribute and promote your content to maximize its reach

 

6. Call To Action

Finally, end with a Call To Action button that is linked to a landing page. This is where your prospects will RSVP for your webinar.

Interesting to note: studies have shown that Call To Actions written using first-person pronouns perform better than those written in second person pronouns, so instead of saying “Reserve YOUR seat”, “Reserve MY seat” might work better.

 

Here are some other variants you can A/B test:

• Reserve my spot
• Claim my spot
• Save my seat
• Save me a seat
• I’m in!

 

(For more on the subject of CTAs, read Email Calls-To-Action: Five Guidelines For Conversions)

 

Best webinar invitation email examples to get inspired by

We’ve scoured the web, and found some of the best webinar invitation emails that you can draw inspiration from. Time to get those creative juices flowing!

 

1. This invitation email from typecast

First on our list is Typecast’s webinar invitation email, which packs in a ton of social proof:

 

 

Now, put yourself in the shoes of a subscriber. If you get this invite in your inbox, you’ll probably think: Dang, their webinar is that popular? I better register for a slot, so I don’t miss out.

 

Moral of the story? FOMO (the Fear Of Missing Out) is a powerful thing, and you can use it to motivate your prospects to act!

 

2. This webinar invitation email from Buzzsumo

Next up is this webinar invite email from Buzzsumo:

 

 

Right off the bat, this invite draws you in with a magnetic headline: Want a 50% boost in your eCommerce revenue?

 

I don’t imagine Buzzsumo has any subscribers who’d go “nope, I’m making enough on my eCommerce store”, so this is an immensely powerful hook that entices their subscribers to attend their webinar.

 

3. This invitation email by Copy Hackers

This next webinar invite is pretty interesting. It contains zero graphics, zero pictures, and just a bunch of text:

 

 

Now, I know we just discussed how you should include a nicely designed banner image on your webinar invitation email. That said, if you’ve got mad copywriting skills (like how the folks over at Copy Hackers do!), you might just be able to get away with a plain-text email.

 

If you’d like to try this approach, keep in mind that you’ll have to employ a highly conversational tone. The goal is to build a rapport with your subscribers or prospects and to craft an email that’s highly relatable.

 

Few more picks from the editors:

To help you with your webinar planning, we’ve asked our colleagues to pick some of their favorite webinar invitation emails they found in their inbox.

Here they are.

 

4. This webinar reminder by SmartBug.

 

 
Take a look at this reminder. Even though it’s most likely been sent automatically, it doesn’t feel this way.

It contains a personalized message recorded by the presenter and rather than just saying “Hey, we’re going live soon” it focuses on how the recipient can get the most value.

And what way is that? By asking the organizers a question before the event starts so that they can make sure to include it during their presentation.

The header image is worth mentioning too. The presenter’s smile and the very-contrasting play button make you want to click them!

 

5. This webinar email from Agency Scaling Secrets

 

 
There are two things that you notice right away in this email; the funny t-shirt (obviously) and the blurry hands.

They both capture your attention and shift it right down to the central part of the email – the copy.

So how’s the copy? It’s short, funny, and makes a few pretty good attempts to convince you that you’re better off registering.

It points out exactly what you’ll get if you attend, what you’ll miss out on if you don’t, and how all of this will impact your business.

In short: In our opinion, it’s awesome!

 

6. This email we decided to do a bit differently

 

 
You know how they say, “Practice what you preach”?

We decided to test one of the tactics we, for some reason, stopped for a while – personalization.

The results?

Not too shabby.

This webinar invitation email you see above generated a 42.41% open and a 3.67% click-through rate. It also got us a decent number of personal replies.

The email asked whether you’re going to join the webinar later that day. It also mentioned how many people registered already (social proof) and what they’ll take away from the event (value).

The most important thing, however, is that this webinar reminder was personal.

We’ve sent it from Irek (our presenter) using his email address and his signature.

No rocket science there, right?

The open rate and CTR weren’t the only things we noticed after this campaign. We also saw an uplift in the attendance to registration rate.

We usually get it at about 10% (our registrants mostly know we’re sharing the webinar recording after the event).

This time we scored 15%, while the overall number of registrants stayed at a similar level to what we typically observe.

We’ve tested the same approach a few times afterward (whenever the webinar’s run by one of our team members) and so far we’ve seen the same pattern.

 

BONUS: Sending a series of webinar invitation emails

A single webinar invitation email, crafted perfectly, can work wonders. But if you send a SERIES of emails, that’s even better – your take-up rates will shoot through the roof.

Don’t worry – I’m not asking you to manually follow up with each person that’s ignored your first email. It doesn’t make sense to do anything quite that tedious.

Instead, simply set up an automated email campaign to trigger emails to the folks who didn’t open your first email (or those who opened your first email, but didn’t click/RSVP).

If you want to target the former (people who didn’t open), you can use the EXACT same content for your body email, and just switch up the email title. Pretty straightforward, right?

If you want to target the latter, you’ll need to get a bit more creative. I recommend using some humor here, for instance:

 

Email title: [Webinar] Don’t keep us hanging, because someone else wants that seat…

Email copy: Hey, {Name} – are you still interested in attending our webinar, where you’ll learn how to do X, Y, and Z? Slots are filling up fast, and if you don’t want that seat, somebody else does!

 

A final word on designing the perfect webinar invitation email

Your sales colleagues need to generate enough leads, and they’re counting on you to save the day.

Which of our above-mentioned webinar invitation best practices was your favorite?

Are there any tips that we missed out on? Let us know in the comments below!

 

Additional reading

Here are some additional resources you’ll want to read if you want to run a successful webinar marketing campaign:

• How to structure your webinar content the right way
• How to promote your webinar the right way
• 10 common mistakes when using webinars as content offers

 

Author: Max Benz, Content at UpLead
Max is a SaaS enthusiast and loves actionable content that provides direct value.

 

 

Related posts

• How to Create Webinars that Inspire – From Storyboard to Post-Production
• Grow Your Business with Webinar Marketing

The post How to Design a Perfect Webinar Invitation Email appeared first on GetResponse Blog - Online Marketing Tips.

The Role of Email Marketing in Real Estate Lead Nurturing

If you thought email marketing was dead, think again.

Even though many of us complain about it, the truth is we all love email. So much in fact, that we sent and received a total of 281 billion emails per day in 2018. And by 2022, that number’s expected to reach 333 billion.

For marketing and sales pros, it’s not just about volume; it’s about ROI. Research shows email marketing is nearly 40x more effective than Facebook and Twitter combined.

But before you start firing off billions more emails, a word of warning: Even the best tools can become meaningless if poorly executed. Here’s how to successfully rock your email marketing and close more real estate leads.

 

What can email marketing do for your real estate business?

Real estate is not an impulse buy.

Helping leads travel the long road toward finding their dream home can be a lengthy process (one that can take anywhere from five to seven years). So it makes sense that the more leads you have, the greater your chances of closing those commissions.

This is where email marketing works its magic. Even with the rise of bots, AI and video, there’s still no better way to connect with hundreds or even thousands of people at the same time.

 

But how can you use email to warm up your leads without losing that personal touch?

Two words: relevant content.

More on that in a minute. First, you should know that in real estate email marketing, there is no greater sin than sending crappy content. Realtors are influential members of the community. To gain that trust and keep their personal brands intact, they need to make every touchpoint count.

And those that do, win big.

Research shows personalized emails generate up to 6x more revenue than non-personalized emails. So if you feel like you can’t be bothered, trust that generic messages will only alienate your leads. After all, no one likes to feel spammed.

 

 

3 simple rules for using email marketing to nurture real estate leads

For most agents, the temptation to set up every new lead on a year-long email drip is strong.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t do much to convert leads. And while automation can definitely help you win back your time, it only works if you do it right.

Here are three simple rules to help keep your email marketing focused and effective.

 

1. Don’t confuse email marketing with lead nurturing.

Sometimes email marketing and lead nurturing get a bit tangled, but it’s important to remember they are NOT the same.

Lead nurturing is the process of supporting a potential client (a.k.a. any person who isn’t ready to make a transaction with you yet) as they travel the buyer’s journey towards a sale.

In real estate, there are lots of ways to nurture your leads. You can set up regular phone calls, have face-to-face appointments, exchange text messages, invite them to community events, and so much more. Email marketing is just one of the tools in a vast lead-nurturing toolkit.

But as mentioned, inboxes are noisy. And without a well thought-out, eye-catching email marketing campaign, your real estate email marketing risks falling flat.

 

2. Tell them something useful, engaging and valuable.

The most important rule for sending a real estate email campaign that will knock your leads’ socks off is to simply keep it relevant.

For instance, there’s no point sending a generic listings email to warm seller leads. They’re probably more interested in deciding whether or not it’s a good time to sell. If you want to get their attention, send them an email detailing how much similar properties have recently sold for in their area, rather than just another brochure-style email.

 

3. Adjust the message to your lead’s buying timeline.

A lead who was browsing your website may have a much longer buying timeline compared to a lead who searched for a specific type of property on a listing site like Zillow or Trulia.

So why should they get the same email?

In the former scenario, a year-long autoresponder with listings in their area might do just fine. In the latter, you may want to kick off with an automated text message and then move to short, targeted emails aiming to get the lead on the phone.

 

The top 5 email campaigns every realtor should send

Okay, you’ve tried email marketing before and it didn’t go great.

Maybe you didn’t convert as many leads as you’d hoped. Maybe you felt like it was a waste of time or money. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t work.

Your approach might simply need a tweak.

Attention spans are getting shorter and with just seconds to hook your reader, you’re going to have to put in a little creative elbow grease to make every email count.

Here are some winning campaign types to try out:

1. Real estate listings: These need to be relevant and located in your prospect’s area of interest. Obviously, if someone is looking to live in Manhattan, you don’t want to send them listings in Jersey. Likewise, if you have a lead looking to downsize (let’s say the kids have flown the nest) don’t send them listings for large family homes.

2. Housing market updates: For buyer leads include house prices, mortgage rates, and property sales. For sellers, focus more on the latest intel on homes sold recently in the area. And don’t be shy, feel free to show off your recent deals and wins.

3. Resource lists: Home buyer resources, home seller resources, and homeowner resources. These can include:

• An ebook about buying or selling a home
• Newsletters with the latest market advice and tips
• Tips for sellers to entice potential buyers
• Simple hacks to present an open house
• Tips and advice for homeowners like home maintenance, how to save water, keep energy costs low, backyard maintenance, and decorating ideas

4. A blog digest: Your blog is your voice and your reputation. It’s how you show that you’re an authority in your field. So don’t make your leads work to get the latest news from you. Send it to them. And for extra value, share quotes and ideas from blog posts via tweets and other social media postings to help generate a buzz.

5. Testimonials: There’s nothing more enticing than reading about other peoples’ experiences. Case studies from happy former clients make for great email fodder.

 

Pro tip: A great way to connect with seller leads is to send a quick video with your market updates to share insider insights on what’s happening. (Source: Follow Up Boss)

 

A simple checklist for keeping it relevant

No matter which type of campaign you’re creating, remember it’s about relevance.

And relevance = revenue.

You never want to treat your leads like just another name in their database. Check to make sure you’ve covered the following bases.

• Personalize — You want to create trust immediately so use your own name, not just the name of the business.
• Smash it with an awesome subject line — This alone can determine whether or not your email is opened.
• Say something new — Sometimes this can include stating the obvious. What you consider common knowledge might be gold to your reader.
• Real benefits — Give your reader tangible benefits like resources, how-tos, advice, and free downloads.
• Keep it mobile-friendly — Most of us read emails on our mobile phones so make sure your emails will look ace on the small screen.
• Video email — Ditch the text and say it in person instead. There’s so much you can do with a video. 81% of businesses already use or plan to use video as a marketing tool. This is one trend that isn’t going away.
• Use an enticing Call to Action (CTA) — Give your reader a chance to act. For instance, sign up to a newsletter or download an ebook, or attend an open house. A well-written CTA is a great way to interact with your reader and get them to come back for more.

 

Seamlessly blend your email marketing and lead nurturing

From the minute you get a new lead, use your content as a way to find out more about them.

This will help you create an email marketing campaign with far greater impact. Set up opportunities in your CRM based on behavioral triggers such as when a lead reads your email, visits your website, downloads an ebook, comments on a tweet or Facebook post to help you understand what they’re looking for and when they need it.

Armed with some intel about your leads’ true intentions, you can engage them in a way that makes them feel like you really get them. Learn as much as you can about who they are and what they need. Then think about creative ways to make each message special until it’s time to pick up the phone.

 

And how do you use email marketing in your real estate business? Tell us in the comments below!

 

Author: Dave Lawrence is the Head of Growth at Follow Up Boss, a CRM for real estate teams. In his role he spends his time ‘under the hood’ of many of the top performing real estate sales teams in North America, helping them leverage technology and process to become more effective at delivering value and service to their clients.

 

Related posts

• Join Our Upcoming Webinar: Go PRO with GetResponse
• Tackle Inactives by Designing for Their Buyer Personalities

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9 Proven Ways to Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment

How would you feel if out of 100 people who visit your product checkout page, 69 leave without buying?

Awful.

Yet, that’s the average abandonment rate according to data compiled from 33 shopping cart abandonment studies.

If you’re selling a product, you definitely want to get more people to buy. To achieve that, you have to get fewer people to abandon their carts.

So how do you achieve that?

By the end of this post, you will learn the top 9 techniques you can implement right away on your eCommerce store to bring shopping cart abandonment rates down.

1. Assure customers of secure payment

Buying your product for $53 is understandable. But no one wants to lose $978 because they bought your product.

Online fraud is real. And it’s a worry when people are about to buy your product. If they feel your payment process is insecure, they’re going to run and you’ll lose many sales as a result.

As an eCommerce store owner, what can you do to give potential customers a sense of security with their payment details?

1. Use an SSL certificate. This is important if you run a website today. But vital if people are to release their payment details. People won’t pay when they see “Not Secure” beside your domain name on the browser.
2. Use security badges. These badges give buyers a level of assurance that you’ve been certified safe by some reputable online security firms.

You should also use badges that people already know and trust. For instance, a survey by the Baymard Institute found that consumers trusted Norton and McAfee badges more than others.

2. Be clear about all possible costs

Your customers don’t want to be caught by surprise. Especially if it means paying more money at the point of purchase. In a study by Statista, 24% of consumers abandoned their carts because of unexpected costs and 54% did so because of expensive shipping.

That’s why you should be transparent about any hidden costs that might be added to the price displayed on your product page. With this, customers are aware of the amount they’ll pay before they get to the checkout page.

One way to do this is to use a shipping costs calculator. It’ll help customers calculate their shipping costs as they go through the buying process.

To aid the buying process, you can make shipping free when a customer spends at least a particular amount in your store.

3. Use exit-intent popups

When users are about to leave your page, you can use exit-intent popups to bring them back. If you provide the right offer.

This may be your last chance to bring them back and the most popular offer here is usually a discount on the product.

To a buyer who’s leaving your page due to high costs, a discount can make them reconsider and buy your product.

In some cases, this discount could also represent a better offer than they’ve seen on your competitors’ websites. Look at this website offering a 10% discount with its exit-intent popup.

4. Activate live chat on your pages

There are many things that go through your customer’s mind when they’re about to buy your product. They may have questions about your product that are not answered on your product page.

Do you have a return policy? Is there a guarantee on your product? And for how long? These are important questions to your buyer and can affect their buying decision.

Of course, you may have all these answers and more on another page. But your buyer probably lacks the patience to search around. They may just go to a competitor’s website if they’re unable to answer these questions.

However, with live chat functionality, they can answer this question and get their answers in time to make their buying decision. There are many tools available such as Intercom, Acquire.io, FreshWorks, and so on.

Data from Forrester shows that 55% of US online adults are likely to abandon their online purchase if they fail to find a quick answer to their question. Furthermore, 77% say a company valuing their time is the most important element of good online customer service.

To make your live chat even faster, you can implement chatbots to answer potential buyers’ questions.

To encourage buyers to use the live chat option, you can give a prompt asking them if they have any questions.

With the use of proactive live chat, Intuit increased average order value by 43% on its checkout page. Added to that, it increased its conversion rate by 195% on its lead generation page and sales by 211% on its product comparison page.

5. Enable guest checkout

Creating an account prolongs the buying process and this can lead to customers opting for an eCommerce store that makes this easier.

What is more important to your business? Having an account or getting the sale? You should consider that 21% of consumers left when they felt the process took too long.

Of course, you could argue that an account helps you to make more sales. But if it stops you from making the current sale, there’s little chance of a future sale from that buyer.

Therefore, making that sale is important now. After making the sale, you can always ask the customer to open an account. They’ll be more receptive to do so at this time.

If you use the WooCommerce platform, you can enable guest checkout. Click on “Enable guest checkout” in your checkout settings to do this.

If you’re using Shopify, you can select “Accounts are optional” in your customer account settings to enable the option.

Another way to make the account easier after the sale is to enable them to open the account through Google or Facebook. This means they don’t have to fill in a long form before they register.

6. Make cart content visible

The reality today is that people shop around to find the best deal. It’s common to have people add some products to their cart to see how much these products will cost.

Then check different competitors just to find the best deal possible. If a buyer finally settles to buy from you but can’t find their cart, you could drive them away.

They should be able to find their cart and purchase the products right away. Look no further for an example than the king of eCommerce, Amazon. You can see the number of items in your cart.

This makes it easier for a purchase. Furthermore, it’s beneficial if a customer plans to make the purchase in the near future.

An eCommerce platform like WooCommerce gives you this option when you install the WooCommerce Menu Cart plugin.

It even goes a bit further by showing the price of the products in the cart.

7. Make your website’s navigation simple

Having potential buyers go through many pages before they can pay for a product can chase them off your website.

The rule of thumb is to ensure users don’t have to navigate for more than 3 pages before they can buy your product.

Likewise, the user experience should be simple enough for users to find the most important elements they need to complete their purchase.

From the Statista study, 16% of consumers abandoned their carts because the navigation was too complicated.

Look at this checkout page from Dribbble:

It also has a “remember me” option which allows customers to make payments in the future without having to enter their payment details.

8. Add convincing visuals to your product page

One of the main challenges with online shopping is that customers don’t get to check the product out physically. This can lead to situations where customers get a product that’s underwhelming compared to their expectations.

It’s therefore important that you provide the best visual representation of your products possible. You can do this in 2 major ways:

1. Images. Add high-resolution images to give people a clear picture of the product they want to buy. You can also have images of people using your product to give your customer a sense of the benefit they’ll gain.
2. Videos. In some cases, making a video to show details about a product or a mini review could do more than images. See this Zappos page for one of its shoes:

You can see images of different views of the shoe and a short video review.

Another means that could become popular in the near future is virtual reality (VR) to give customers a sense of what it means to use a product.

9. Employ social proof to encourage customers

People desire what other people desire. Sometimes, we don’t know why.

But it’s a psychological rule that has worked over the years and still continues to work. One of the best ways to market your product is to show potential buyers how others have used it in the past.

How many people have bought your product? Can you place testimonials on your page? How do people rate your product?

Check out this example by Zulily:

In a single page, the company has been able to use social proof with the number of people viewing and the number of items sold. It has also shown scarcity with the items now unavailable and the countdown.

Conclusion

Getting potential buyers to your checkout page is a lot of hard work. Therefore, losing them at this stage when they’re so close to making a purchase is an awful situation.

You can turn this awful situation into a great one when you implement these techniques to help customers have easier and better experiences during the checkout process.

Guest author: Sam Makad is an experienced writer and marketing consultant. His expertise lies on marketing and advertising. He helps small & medium enterprises to grow their business and overall ROI. Reach out to Sam Makad on Twitter or LinkedIn

The post 9 Proven Ways to Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.

Pinterest content tips to help you create the perfect pin

A 6-Step Workflow to Create Video for Multiple Platforms

Is video an important part of your social media marketing? Looking for an efficient way to create video for multiple social platforms? In this article, you’ll discover a six-step video workflow to produce more social media video content for your business. Why You Need a Social Video Workflow You’ve heard the news: Video is king […]

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Why Link Building Should Still Be An SEO Priority In 2019

The Moz update on March 5 this year was the proverbial straw that broke GoodFirms’ back.

GoodFirms’ Domain Rankings had gone down, not like spiraling down, but by a few notches – from 48 to 44, and we knew we had to pull the plug on low-quality content activities such as guest posting on lower DAs, half-baked blogs and so on.

For starters, Google, of the many factors involved, uses link quality to determine the authority and relevancy of your site. For example, if Jeffbullas.com is linking one of their articles to GoodFirms’ research papers, or blogs, it means the former is passing link juice to the latter, which is incredibly valuable in Google’s eyes. By the same token, if our blog posts are linking to other top sites articles that are also considered a good thing from Google’s point of view.

So, when things went wrong, we knew we had to re-align our link building activities in keeping with Google’s algorithm. For instance, we had shelved guest blogging on top sites for some time now because it had become a huge pain in our neck. But then, when our DA took a beating at the hands of grouchy Google, we knew, in our mind, that partly our DA crises could be related to going slow on generating high-quality content, whether it was in terms of guest blogs, research papers, in-house blogs and more.

As it turns out, all these strategies help generate quality inbound links.

So, here we go, a bunch of link building tactics we are already using to fire up your link building activities in 2019.

#1. Be game to guest blog

I am the CEO of a Guest Posting Corporation.

Wait! Scratch that!

I am the President of a Guest Posting Corporation.

Ah! Just kidding guys!

But then, on a serious note, I keep using these pseudo profiles to pep myself up and to be on my toes, simply because guest posting is so, so challenging.

Because you pitch. And you pitch. And you pitch over and over again until a few get an affirmative nod.

The point I am drawing home is, though darn difficult, Guest Posting is still a big deal.  So, if you are thinking to take your eyes off the guest posting ball this year (as we did this year) all I can say is: No. Don’t. C’mon no one digs their own grave.

GoodFirms has been milking this strategy for a couple of years now, and it has helped improve our Domain Authority like never before.

To cut to the chase: Guest Posting, which is one form of our link building strategy, is still very much relevant in 2019.

However, as I mentioned above, you need to target only good quality sites – no carpet bombing in terms of your email pitches.

According to an article How to Do Guest Blogging for Natural Looking Link Building on Search Engine Journal, you could take the guesswork out of guest posting by factoring in the following elements.

Further, you could also find those sites that are into content syndication with other top sites. For instance, JeffBullas.com syndicates content with Business2Community. So, there are chances that your content gets shared on Business2Community as well if you write for Jeff.

In summary:

• There are content syndication benefits.
• It’s a scalable form of guest posting.
• You can take advantage of high-quality content multiple times.
• It gives you an edge over the competition.

#2. Conduct a thorough post-mortem of competitors’ backlinks

Competitor’s backlinks act as an excellent sounding board. Seriously! Because dissecting those backlinks will help map out your backlinking strategy.

So, no matter what, undertake this exercise first and foremost: Conduct a link audit of competitor sites by Googling top competitors that offer the same or similar products and services as you.

Once you have identified your top competitors, add them to Moz’s Open Site Explorer, or Ahrefs or the SEMrush tool, to get a complete picture of your competitor’s backlinking profile.

Then export the competitors’ backlink details to a spreadsheet to start an extensive audit in terms of their domain authority, external followed links, internal followed links, and specifically the links that fall in the below category:

• Links from top URLs
• Dead links

Links with anchor text opens various backlink opportunities such as:

• Resource pages
• Directories
• Testimonials
• Case Studies
• Citations
• Guest posts

The new Moz feature called “Link Intersect” will help you investigate those sites that link to your competitors, but not to you. This will help you focus your efforts, particularly, on those sites that you are still to crack.

What’s more, you can even analyze a client’s content based on their shares, which will give you an idea as to what content works best in terms of audience engagement.

The tool can also be used to find competitor’s Top Pages based on their backlink profile and social engagement. This will give you a fair idea as to what they are doing right in their content marketing strategy.

The other method you could use is to place top keywords in the Ahrefs ‘Batch Analysis’ to find the backlink sources of the top 200 URLs.

For instance, if you are selling a unique product such as a Spy Camera Lighter – designed for detectives and their like, you may also want to check out other sites that talk about similar spying instruments.

You could use keywords such as security sites or gadget review sites in ‘Batch Analysis’ to fetch links from different sites that refer to this product.

Further, you could produce a backlink profile of the highest authority, trusted sites by placing an Ahrefs filter ‘one link per domain’ to filter out any spammy links.

Once you have the spreadsheet containing the highest authority websites, you could reach out to them for guest posting based on their readership.

Additionally, you could use a simple search such as “author name” inurl: author” to find industry-leading authors on Google and the sites they have got their guest posts published.

#3. Turn brand love into links

If you still haven’t worked on this strategy, it’s time to pull up your socks.

That is to keep your eyes open for online brand mentions.

Why? Because it’s an effective strategy for building links and reputation.

Benefits of turning online brand mentions into links:

• Easy link generation
• Associating with communities interested in your brand

If you think about it a little, you will know that this is the best thing that could happen to your brand as you won’t have to put in any kind of hard work, literally, in generating these links.

It could be some sponsored event posting on Instagram or a sports event posted on Facebook, you could just ask the people involved to insert a link for your brand name.

For monitoring brand mentions, you could use tools such as Google Alerts to receive daily alerts on your brand mentions.

Turn simple brand mentions into authority increasing backlinks.

#4. Deliver evergreen content on blogs

It goes without saying: News content has a shorter shelf life. So, focus on creating evergreen content that will always remain useful and relevant to the audience and might generate inbound links for you.

It could be in the form of:

• How-to posts
• Ebooks
• Lists

Don’t forget to come up with a compelling, but SEO optimized title, to attract lots of clicks.

#5. Conduct expert roundup posts

Our website has been trying to build content around expert roundups and it’s working. Recently, we spoke to 10 industry leading experts on how AI and Machine Learning are greasing the PPC campaign wheels, and the results were quite extraordinary. Shares on LinkedIn, for this post, increased significantly. This is because most of the marketers tend to share and even link back to your article.

Wrapping up

There you go! Five ways to generate quality links for your brand.

Link building is still important from an SEO perspective in 2019. In fact, high-quality backlinks are the master key to ace organic traffic.

But since every second marketer you meet is trying to do the same it’s gonna be one hell of a job for you to get quality backlinks through guest posts and more. So roll up your sleeves and be prepared to work for it.

Guest author: This is Jennifer Warren, a Content Consultant with GoodFirms, a review and research platform for eCommerce development companies, digital marketing companies among many others.  I enjoy humanizing technology through inspirational content, devouring best sellers, watching war movies, and running behind my sunshine sons.  

The post Why Link Building Should Still Be An SEO Priority In 2019 appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.