You’ve been creating good email campaigns for a while, but you aren’t getting as many opens and conversions as you’d like to. It’s time to get to the root of the problem.

Here’re five reasons which may be responsible for poor performance of your email campaigns.

1. Lack of focused call to action (CTA)

Every email you send to your subscribers should have a clear and focused call to action. You can’t leave it for your readers to figure out what you want them to do and then expect them to act on it.

One of the biggest mistakes most e-commerce marketers make in their marketing emails is putting too many CTAs. If you’re asking people to take too many actions, you will confuse them, which in turn will reduce the effectiveness of your email campaigns. Emails with a Single CTA Increased Clicks 371% and Sales 1617%. (WordStream)

Remember, if you’re not clear about what you are trying to achieve through your email campaigns, you’ll not achieve it. But, even if you’re clear about what you’re trying to achieve you’ll not get the desired results if you’re not making it clear to the reader.

When you add too many calls to actions in your email, you put your reader into paralysis. They have no idea what to do.

2. Lack of real personalization

Personalization is not a new concept in the world of email marketing. It is, however, moved from basic first name personalization to behavior-based approach now.

A few years back, the only companies that were personalizing their emails based on the behavior of the recipients were big ones like Amazon. But, now, personalization has become a requirement for every email marketer that wants to get their emails opened. Still, many marketers have been incredibly slow to take up personalization. If you’re also one of them, I suggest you change your approach immediately. 

Inbox is personal space, so your email messages must be personalized to the users receiving them.

 3. Your email list is outdated

One mistake most email marketers make is not updating their email lists regularly. No matter how good your marketing messages are if they’re not landing in the right inbox you’ll not get any return on them. Instead of waiting for people to unsubscribe from your list, you can take active measures and clean your list regularly.

Cleaning your list regularly, say every six months, is an excellent way to drop non-responsive subscribers from your list as according to MarketingSherpa, the average email list depreciates by 25% every year. 

4. Your email list isn’t well-segmented

People love personalized messages, and well-personalized messages require sophisticated segmentation. If you are sending the same message to your entire email list every time, the chances are high that you will not get good results from your email marketing. But even if you’re doing basic segmentation you won’t get excellent results. Why? Because you can’t send laser-targetted messages without diving deeper into segmentation. For example, if you are sending cart recovery mailers you can segment your abandoners into different categories like first-time abandoners, repeat offenders, and loyal customers to send highly targeted messages.

According to DMA, marketers have found a 760% increase in email revenue from segmented campaigns.

Image Source: Bigcommerce

 5. Not having a proper strategy

I’ve seen marketers make some big mistakes with their email marketing campaigns, but this is the biggest of them all. If you don’t have a proper email marketing strategy, you can derive good results from your email campaigns twice or thrice. But, there is very little chance that you’ll keep getting favorable results for long. Still, most of the email marketers rely on tactics and tips when running their email campaigns rather than strategy. 

Before you start creating email campaigns, form a clear strategy that can guide you in the big and competitive world of email marketing and can help all your email campaigns in performing well.

Remember, the road to success is a process and not serendipity.

The post Ditch These 5 Mistakes To Be Successful With Email Marketing appeared first on Betaout Blog.

Chatbots, dialogue-based searches, digital mirror; the wave of advances in AI has reinvented the way we shop online. Even though there are so many ways to leverage AI; it’s spoken of far more than it’s practiced. And if you too have been guilty of not implementing AI to give your e-commerce business a competitive edge this is the right time to start. By harnessing the power of artificial intelligence, you can deliver personalized and faster service to your shoppers to take their shopping experience to whole new level.

Here are four most effective ways to implement AI successfully to boost your revenue and improve your customer experience in the coming months:

 1. Invest in chatbots

Quickly responding to customer queries is the key to convert them. Being quick will become even more critical in the coming months. Whether you’re a small online store or a big brand, chatbots can help you in delivering rapid customer service with a highly personalized experience. Top retail brands are using chatbots to provide personal assistance to customers. One such brand is Estee Lauder; it is using augmented reality to entice customers to try their makeup on virtually via chatbots.

Chatbots bring a humanized element to boost the shopping experience and can be used in a number of ways from offering recommendations to automate the purchase process, which in turn will lead to more sales. According to IBM, 65 percent of millennials prefer interacting with bots to talking to live agents.

2. Power up your product recommendations with AI

Relevant product recommendations can enhance the buying experience, and almost all online retailers are already using it. 35% of Amazon’s revenue is generated by its recommendation engine.

However, you need to think beyond generic product recommendations and personalize your recommendations by using AI to improve your shoppers’ satisfaction and boost your conversions. As per a Forrester study, 77 percent of customers will pay more when brands accurately make personalized purchasing recommendations.

The product recommendation method was limited to item-to-item filtering, showing same products to everyone looking at a particular product. But the truth is different people like different things and showing them the same recommendations will only ruin their shopping experience.

By using AI, you can show your shoppers tailored product recommendations that are highly personalized for each shopper (based on the data gathered about both the products and the customers) in real-time.

3. Use semantic search technology

Poor product discovery is a huge problem with online retailers. As per stats, 15-40% of revenue is lost each year due to a poor product discovery experience. Also, it ruins your shoppers’ experience – this is where AI can be used to great advantage. How? You can use semantic search technology to power your search bar. This technology uses AI to improve search accuracy to save customers time. For example, if you enter a term in the search box – semantic engines can predict the products you might be looking for and can suggest related products to you not just for that search term but by analyzing your previous search terms and based on top queries.

A good In-site search will not only improve your shoppers’ experience, but it will reduce their path to purchase too.

4. Add Visual search to your arsenal

More and more people are pressed for time these days, and your shoppers are no exception. Providing a quick and easy shopping experience can delight these time-strapped shoppers; the better you can serve them, the more you will sell. By adding visual search, you can make it easier for your shoppers to find what they’re looking for leading to a positive shopping experience.

Artificial intelligence is a buzzword in the business world right now, and for a good reason. It is a major step forward in how online retailers can improve their customer experience. And if you haven’t implemented these AI driven technologies in your business, it’s the best time to create an AI strategy for your business and stand out amongst your competition.

The post How to Use AI to Rev Up The Shopping Experience appeared first on Betaout Blog.

Image source: Unsplash

Are your emails as good as you want them to be?

Perhaps you don’t seem to get many clicks or opens. Or maybe few of your emails receive a good response, but most of them get ignored and deleted.

Well, you don’t need to rewrite your email marketing strategy to improve your response rate. Often, a few small tweaks can make a dramatic difference.

Here are three tips that can increase your chances of success in the inbox – try them out today:

1. Ace the subject lines

Subject lines are one of the most critical elements of an email, and they’re the toughest part to get right. When it comes to writing them, most marketers’ focus on grabbing readers’ attention. But, capturing attention isn’t enough. Are your subject lines encouraging readers to open your email? Here’re four tips to make them truly effective.

Be useful: Give people what they’re looking for to get more opens. Given below are two examples from my inbox:

I received this email from Gilt when I added a product to their “Waitlist.”

Hotwire Deals sent me this after I searched hotels in Paris on their site.

Inspire curiosity: It is a powerful motivator, and when used strategically it can induce more opens. Here’s an example from women’s apparel retailer, Ann Taylor:

Make it exclusive: Use data to add exclusivity to your subject lines, as people tend to open emails that look like they were created just for them. Given below is an example:

Be specific: Use your subject line to tell people what the email is about and make them excited to open the email.

These four strategies are only a couple of ways that you can use to improve your subject line results. Start trying them out and see if you notice a positive change in your opens.

Spend as much time on subject line as you do writing the email.

2. Adopt the policy “Shorter is Better”

When you start crafting an email, you might be compelled to include everything your brand has to offer in one email to make it super valuable for the recipients. But, remember human attention spans are shrinking so, it pays dividends to value your readers time. Make your copy crisp and to the point.

You tend to look at the email messages from your perspective, but imagine for a moment what it’s like as a buyer. All day long you keep receiving marketing emails. It can quickly become overwhelming to go through so many emails so, make your messages count.

3. Make it visual

The quickest way to make your email more enticing is to use GIFs. They can turn a simple email into an eye-catching one, and they’re quite effective in capturing readers attention. Use them to tell a story about your product; how to use your product or how it can change or affect your customers’ life. Given below is an example from Food52:

Subject line: Resolution: use less oil. Solution: nonstick pans.

Try to show your product in action because that catches people’s attention.

The post 3 Simple but Effective Ways to Improve Your Marketing Emails in Minutes appeared first on Betaout Blog.

Image credit: Unsplash

Does your app have a high uninstall rate? Are lots of people downloading your app, but very few are using and keeping it? If the answers to these questions are in affirmative, then don’t worry you’re not alone: more than 75% of users never return to the app the day after its initial install. Which means the best time to win over your new app user is the moment they download your app. With that in mind here are three things you can do at the time of your app installs to prevent users from dumping your app:

1. Encourage new app users to create an account

The moment people install your app is the right time to nudge them to sign up. Why? The average attention span of humans is getting shorter. And the most magical moments happen as soon as the user downloads your app. The key to success is to touch base with them at this very moment and ask them to create an account.

Once the users sign in your app, you can collect more data about them, and then use this data to send them highly targeted push notifications. Sending targeted push messages leads to more engaged users. But, only asking users to create an account is not the best approach; you’ll only be able to get a better response if you give them a reason to do so. 

For example, Urban Outfitters is asking users for data in exchange for an exclusive discount. Everyone loves getting a good deal, and your users too won’t mind sharing their data to access the offer.

2. Collect data with a purpose

When a user signs up on your app, ideally, you should start collecting data from that moment onwards. The idea is to use this customer data to deliver value to your users and improve your app conversions in the process. But, when collecting data always remember that it should be done sparingly.

Sign up on mobile is not much different from an email sign up. Too many form fields decrease the chances that users will complete the sign-up process. 

Instead of collecting every piece of information about your customer, try to collect few most important details. 

In the example below, other than collecting personal data, UO is also encouraging users to sign-up for its email list. The sign up for email form is not pre-ticked which is a nice touch; it increases the chances that only people who’re interested in receiving emails will tick it. It’s important to win their trust first to build a long-term relationship, and this shows you value their permission.

If you want to collect more data without annoying your users, be creative like Urban Outfitters. 

3. Engage users early

The key to retaining your app users is to engage them early.

Andrewchen reported: Users try out a lot of apps but decide which ones they want to ‘stop using’ within the first 3-7 days. For ‘decent’ apps, the majority of users retained for 7 days stick around much longer. The key to success is to get the users hooked during that critical first 3-7 day period. Given below are push notifications I received from various brands within the first 7 day period.

By sending push notifications, you can increase the chances of them opening your app. But, push notifications only works if you’re personalizing them right, so personalize based on location, behavior, preferences, and device.

Now the question is how to engage your new app users early? If you’re looking for answers: Here’s an excellent primer on How to Engage Your New App Users In 3 Easy Steps.

With more apps than ever in the app store, app marketers are finding new ways to increase their app downloads, but when it comes to retention, they still need to find innovative ways to turn potential customers into returning customers. At the end of the day, the number of app downloads isn’t all that matters, ultimately, that traffic is not going to serve any purpose if you are not able to retain them. You need to set the foundation of your relationship by doing all these three things right from the start; though they may seem pretty small at first, once you start doing them, you would be surprised at how big an impact these things can have on your app retention. 

The post 3 Things You’re Missing at the Time of Mobile App Installs That Are Costing You Users appeared first on Betaout Blog.

We all know that no matter what kind of business we are in, some mistakes are unavoidable. However, learning from our past mistakes and avoiding them in the future is the key to success. So, with that in mind, here are some of the biggest mistakes online retailers routinely make – and how you can avoid them.

1. Collecting data without knowing what to do with it

Data hold power you must have heard this number of times and that’s the reason so many online retailers are collecting it rampantly. But, when you collect more data with no clear point of view, you put your data analyst team into paralysis. They have no idea how to dig through it and what to do with it.

To use your data efficiently, it is essential to create a straightforward plan for what to do with it. “Consumer data will be the biggest differentiator in the next two to three years. Whoever unlocks the reams of data and uses it strategically will win,” says Angela Ahrendts, Senior VP of Retail at Apple

Capturing everything is not bad as long as you are clear about what matters the most.

2. Jumping on new marketing channels and ignoring the older ones

As marketing continues to evolve, new channels emerge all the time. For marketers, one of the toughest parts of the job is to move fast and use these channels to engage their audience before the competitor does. Using new channels quickly is a good way to gain first mover advantage, and that’s why so many B2C marketers are focusing a lot on new channels. But you’re ruining your chances of getting a good ROI from your marketing spend if you’re only focusing on new channels. For example, SMS marketing is one channel, which a lot of e-commerce marketers are ignoring these days but they shouldn’t. Why? SMS marketing has a very high return on investment and still “80% of consumers say they have not been marketed to via SMS by their favorite brands” and “64% of consumers believe that businesses should use SMS messages to interact with customers more often than they currently do”.

Related: 7 Things You Need To Do In SMS Marketing To Be Successful

Focusing on new channels is essential, but don’t ignore tried-and-tested channels that have been proven to work over and over again.

3. Chasing after AI-driven technologies

Before you adopt AI-enhanced tools, think what you want to achieve using them, will they be beneficial for you to use, and whether you’ve everything you need to implement these tools? For example, if you want to use AI to improve your marketing efforts you must have a large volume of trackable data to train your AI systems.

Where most businesses go wrong is adopting AI without analyzing whether it will be profitable to leverage AI or not. Do you know given the current state of technology implementing AI won’t be profitable for most businesses until the next two years? If you’re an SMB can you afford that? The chances are that you can’t.

Don’t adopt AI because it’s available for your business; adopt it if you know that it will be profitable for your business.

4. Focusing on personalization instead of improving customer experience

Most e-commerce businesses think that personalizing user experience is the key to better conversions’ that’s why they’re blatantly copying Amazon. However, showing recommendations based simply on history will not increase your sales, it is important to understand how that is going to improve your customer experience. For example, a customer purchased a product from your site during the holiday season, and you started showing him recommendations based on that product – will it enhance his experience? Probably not. Maybe he had bought it for gifting purpose. It was the holiday season. If you’re not focusing on all these critical questions personalization will not enhance your customer experience.

Remember, the aim of personalization is to make shopping more convenient and rewarding for shoppers, not just to show them that you know them. 

The post 4 Cringe-Worthy Business Mistakes To Avoid In 2018 appeared first on Betaout Blog.

Subject lines can make or break your email marketing success. Often it is not the design or offers itself that decides whether your email campaigns receive the success you are looking for. Since most subscribers at first only see the subject line and preheader, most of the time it is the subject line that decides if people are

• Going to open your email
• Going to ignore your email
• Going to delete your email

Despite being so crucial to the email campaign success, do you wonder why email marketers don’t pay much attention to the subject lines? Well, the answer is simple – creating good email campaigns is a difficult task, there are too many things to consider from design, to offer, to copy, there’s a lot to pay attention to. That’s why subject lines sometimes don’t get the attention they deserve.

But no matter how good your email is it’s the subject line that will determine whether your emails will get opened or rot in your recipients’ inboxes. So with that in mind, here are few ways to create enticing subject lines:

1. Use power words

There’s a saying that goes “Words have power use them wisely,” and it’s directly applicable to your subject lines. Given below are some words backed up by research that can influence the open rates of your email campaigns:

• special
• now in
• on orders over
• sale starts
• latest
• wonderful
• back in stock
• get your

These words are worth trying out but don’t forget to A/B test as each audience is different.

2. Opt for data-driven segmentation

People like clicking on subject lines that are tailor-made just for them. Given below is an example from my inbox:

I received this one from Hotwire Deals after I searched hotels in Paris on their site. The moment I received this email I opened it as the subject line was targeted directly at me.

So how do you create these? Well, segmentation is the key! The more you segment your email list, the more you can send tailored subject lines.

If you don’t know where to start here’re few common ways to segment your email list:

• Location
• Gender
• Age
• Preferences
• Behavioral data
• Buying habits

3. Embrace personalization

You must have heard this number of times that personalizing the email subject lines is an excellent strategy for improving opens. And yes no matter how old this tactic is – it still works.

At Betaout, we conducted a study: We sent over 1000 emails, half with the personalized subject line and another half with a non-personalized one. The personalized one had a 24% higher open rate.

A common way to personalize subject lines is by using your subscribers’ first names in it.  But, if you don’t want to use your contacts names in the subject lines, you can use conversational words like “you” and “your” instead to make your subscribers feel special. Given below are some examples from my inbox to show you how:

Also, you can use your subscribers’ location to personalize your subject lines. For example, if it’s raining in a particular location you can send a subject line like: Pouring outside? Get 20% off on all rain gear today!

4. Crop your subject lines

If you want to capture the attention of your recipients, make your subject lines short and crisp. Why? Because, 67% of emails are opened on mobiles, and most mobile devices only display 4-7 words of the subject line. So no matter how good your subject lines are if they are long they will get truncated.

There has been a study on the optimal length of subject lines, and according to it when subject lines are 61-70 characters long, they tend to get read.

5. Use headline analyzer tools to test your subject lines

Like great titles, great subject lines need work too. Writing four to five subject lines and choosing from them can be the key to subject line success. To pick one you can use tools like:

• Touchstone
• CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer
• Advanced Marketing Institute’s Headline Analyzer

If you need help with creating your subject lines you can try this process:

1. Start with a basic one (The one which clearly explains what’s in it for the recipient)
2. Make it succinct
3. Add exclusivity to it
4. Use emojis and symbols
5. Use data; it’s often overlooked
6. Make it personal

And finally, check it in a headline analyzer to analyze your performance.

6. Delve into your inbox, check competitors emails, and use Google

To get more opens, you need to give a creative twist to your subject lines but what if your creative well has run dry? Well, to help get the wheels turning you can go to your inbox and scan it for some inspiration – see what catches your eye and try to find out why it did? Once you understand the reason behind it, you can use the same tricks when creating your subject lines.

Check your competitors’ email campaigns see what type of subject lines they’re using; test them, if the score is good you can take inspiration from them too.

If after checking your inbox and competitors email campaigns you find yourself scrambling to come up with some good subject line ideas you can turn to search engines for some more inspiration. Just type “best subject lines for e-commerce” and check the results that come up. You can use these subject lines for your emails but don’t forget to tweak them a little to add novelty.

7. Target the right audience

Even the most carefully calibrated subject lines will not increase your opens if they’re landing in the wrong inboxes. In email marketing, the list is everything. So, make sure your email list is clean and updated; as an email list expires at a rate of 25% per year. Also, try to know your audience their interests and preferences as no matter how catchy your subject line is, but if it doesn’t resonate with your audience, it won’t get opened.

These seven strategies are just a couple of ways that you can use to improve your subject lines results. Start trying them out today, and I guarantee you will notice a positive change in your opens.

The post How to Create the Perfect Subject Line That Will Boost Your Open Rates appeared first on Betaout Blog.

A welcome email is one of the most powerful tools in your email marketing toolbox.

According to the Demac Media, welcome emails have 320% more revenue per email than other promotional emails. 

And 75% of your new subscribers expect a welcome email. 

After reading this, you must be convinced that welcome emails are a critical component of your lifecycle email marketing. And, when used correctly, they can add serious momentum to your email marketing. But when you sit down to write your welcome emails, you may feel confused what to include or what to exclude.

To clear up any bewilderment here’s a clear 3-step process to get you started.

Step #1 – Give your new subscribers what you have promised them:

Encouraging people to join your email list is tough. Today’s shoppers are cautious in sharing their email ids, as their inboxes are already overloaded with emails. You need to bribe them to share their email ids, after all, no one can turn down the free stuff. But, that doesn’t mean giving anything, and everything will work.

Building a successful email list requires you to give people something they find worth sharing their email addresses. In general, the more valuable your offer is, the more likely they are to opt in.

If you’ve promised your new subscribers something at the time of sign-up, honor your promise the moment they complete the sign-up.

Here is an example from James Allen:

Subject line: $100 Off Your First Order | JamesAllen.com 

This straightforward subject line succinctly explains what is in for me. Clean in design they have included an offer at the top of the email to give subscribers what they’ve promised before they navigate away from the email. 

TIP: Give them what you’ve promised them but at the same time don’t forget to welcome them in the same email as this is their first interaction with your brand as a subscriber. 

Step #2 – Introduce new subscribers to your brand:

People sign-up for an email list when they want to know about that brand. It’s essential to introduce new subscribers to your brand in your welcome email or at least in your welcome series as this is the time when they’re quite interested in knowing more about your brand. Sometimes subscribers become inactive after signing up because they don’t see the benefits of being on your email list. Reminding them of everything they can get, as well as introducing them to your brand is a great way to move them forward in the buying journey.

Take a look at this email from 6pm:

TIP: Welcome emails are the first email which gives you the opportunity to introduce subscribers to your brand, so don’t miss the chance.

Step #3 – Include a clear CTA to inspire action:

Whichever email you’re sending, whether it’s a welcome email, a promotional email, or a cart recovery email, you should encourage your subscribers to take action.

Well, how can you do that?

Focus on a specific goal and make it clear what you want them to do.

Given below is an example from Charles&Keith:

TIP: There should be a single CTA in your welcome message as emails with a single CTA have better click rates.

It’s not necessary to include the first step if you haven’t promised them anything at the time of sign-up. But, your welcome email can consist of the rest two steps, or a few more, depending on your goals and needs. The most important thing is to send a timely and engaging welcome email to your new subscribers.

The post How to Create a Lasting First Impression with Your Welcome Email appeared first on Betaout Blog.