Get ready to take some notes and walk away with fresh content ideas.

Content to Help In The Awareness Stage

At this stage, potential customers are becoming aware of a problem they want to solve. Your role is to attract them with content that educates and engages without a hard sell. Think of this as the “first impression” stage. First impressions matter both online and offline, and in this case, think about this as your opportunity to create a lasting first impression online.

The goals in this stage should be to build awareness, provide value, and establish credibility.

Content Examples:

1. Write articles answering common questions related to your industry. For example, “5 Common Myths About Organic Skincare Products.”
2. Create explainer videos. For example, a real estate agency could make a video on the topic: “Understanding the Basics of Mortgage Rates.”
3. Use graphics to simplify complex topics, like “The Lifecycle of a Zero-Waste Product.” This could be an infographic that showcases the lifecycle of such a product.
4. Interactive content like “What’s Your Ideal Productivity Style?” engages and informs simultaneously.
5. Post shareable tips, fun facts, or short videos. For example, a fitness brand could post “3 Surprising Benefits of Stretching.”

In order to help your content have a longer shelf-life, always think about doing keyword research to find keywords and terms that your potential buyers could be searching for.

Content to Help In The Consideration Stage

Here, your audience knows what they’re looking for, but they are still researching the best solution and comparing their options. This is your time to shine with content that will help your potential buyers get one step closer to choosing you and your brand as the solution they are looking for.

The goal of this content is to educate them on your solution and position yourself as the perfect solution for their needs.

Content Examples:

1. Create side-by-side comparisons of your product versus competitors. Example: “Email Marketing Tools: How We Stack Up Against XYZ tools.” Us vs them content is always a great idea for comparison content.
2. Share real-life stories of customers who’ve solved their problems with your offerings. Graphic and video testimonials with case studies are perfect for this.
3. Dive deep into topics. For example, a SaaS company could write “The Complete Guide to Cloud-Based Team Collaboration.”
4. Host sessions that go beyond surface-level content. A career coach might offer “Top 5 Strategies to Land Your Dream Remote Job.” Notice the specific focus on remote job.
5. Build a mini email series that breaks down a complex topic over several days. Each email acts as a mini-lesson, leaving your readers excited to see what’s to come in the next email.

Content to Help In The Decision Stage

At this stage, your audience is ready to choose their product or service. Your job is to convince then with persuasive content to help them take that final step. With this type of content, it’s time to address objections and motivate purchase.

Content Examples:

1. Showcase authentic reviews from happy customers. Video testimonials are great for this.
2. Offer limited-time discounts or free trials. For example, 15% off the first month.
3. Let potential buyers see your product in action with detailed demo videos.
4. Address common questions and concerns in a straightforward way. Always remember to keep industry jargon at bay since while many of your customers may be familiar with industry jargon, not everyone is.
5. Use data to create personalized content, such as “Here’s the Perfect Coffee Subscription Plan for You.”Here’s the perfect plan for you based on XYZ.”
6. Create a “Why Choose Us?” landing page with interactive features like clickable customer stories, comparison charts, and even a chatbot to answer questions in real time.

Content Help for The Retention Stage

Your work is far from over after the sale. Loyal customers are your best advocates and repeat buyers. Create content that deepens your relationship with them. And yes, this applies to them whether or not they purchased a product or a service.

The goal is to delight your customers, make them feel seen and heard, and create a sense of community.

Content Examples:

1. Offer behind-the-scenes previews and sneak peeks or VIP-only resources.
2. Keep your community engaged with useful tips, updates, and special offers.
3. Encourage customers to join your community platforms such as Slack or even Facebook Groups.
4. Celebrate your customers by sharing their photos, reviews, or success stories; you can also collaborate with them to create UGC content (User Generated Content.)
5. Offer extra incentives to current customers to encourage them to sign up for upgrades or discover new complementary products.
6. Host virtual meetups or workshops tailored to your customers. For example, a nursery could host a monthly “Ask Our Expert Gardener” webinar to share tips and tricks.

Creating content for each stage of the buyer’s journey will help you meet your audience where they are and gently guide them to purchase, in addition to helping you create an effective retention strategy.

Remember, all of your content is a step towards developing a long-term relationship with your audience.

The post Content Tips to Help You Nurture Potential Buyers appeared first on Stencil.

To help you get started, here are three crucial email formats every brand should use. These emails will not only help with audience engagement but also consistently deliver value to them.

The Welcome Email

Subscribers should receive a welcome email the first time they sign up for your newsletter. Think of it as a virtual handshake or first impression. This email isn’t about making a hard sell; instead, it’s about providing a warm, inviting experience that explains who you are and what they can expect from your communications.

What to include in your welcome email:

• Introduce your brand and explain briefly who you are and why you’re glad they’ve joined.
• Tell subscribers what to expect, how frequently they will hear from you, and what kind of content you will deliver, such as updates, tips, or special offers.
• If possible, offer an incentive to purchase or work with you, such as a discount or a free resource.

The Value-Add Email

Once you’ve set the tone with your welcome email, it’s time to deliver your expert tips. A “value-add” email is one that provides your readers with free information, tips, or resources that they will find useful. This might be a fast how-to guide, industry insights, or anything else you believe will help your audience without feeling like they are being sold to. 

Ideas for this type of email:

• Share popular tips that provide practical methods for overcoming a common problem or reaching a specific goal in your niche.
• Share lesser-known ideas that your readers can implement right away.
• Share your signature resources, such as thought leadership content or unique frameworks that you use in your work.

Something to remember is that you likely have so much content to share or that you have shared already that fits in this category, and all you have to do is package it up in a nice email for your subscribers.

An Offer Email

This is where you can finally get your subscribers to take action. An offer or promotion email may bridge the gap between where a customer is and where a customer needs to be to make a purchase.

Tips for offer emails:

• Make sure your CTAs (call-to-actions are specific) stand out and clearly tell your readers what to do next.
• Include deadlines or limited-time offers to motivate subscribers to act sooner rather than later.
• Instead of focusing solely on features, emphasize what’s in it for them. What is life like after purchasing your products or services?
• Create a recurring automated series where you get to take your readers on a journey and share various transformation stories in the process.

Selling is a balancing act, and you should never be afraid to sell to your subscribers or community. Remember to balance these emails with lots of content in the mix to help them understand the need for what you offer.

Consistency is a must in email marketing. Even if you can only send one email every month, make sure it is valuable and relevant. As you become more comfortable, consider breaking your list down into segments based on their interests and behaviors. Targeted emails to specific interests tend to have higher open and engagement rates.

Remember that email marketing can be simple and effective. Start with these three types of emails and you’ll have a solid base to build on. Happy emailing!

The post 3 Types of Emails Your Brand Needs to Send appeared first on Stencil.

Therefore, today we will show you how to use content marketing to retain customers. Would you like to learn how to use content to make your relationship with users stronger and more trusting? Then read the article to the end. Especially for you, we have collected 4 solutions that will turn ordinary blog articles into customer retention tools.

Why is loyalty important?

1. With a 5% increase in customer retention, the company’s revenue will increase to 23%.
2. The budget for attracting new customers is 6-7 times more than the cost of retention.
3. A repeat customer’s first purchase is about one-tenth of its lifetime value.
4. The probability of conversion of a loyal customer is 60-70%. The same indicator for a new user is 5-20%.

Integration of content marketing into a customer retention strategy

Anticipate customer questions

The purchase is not the final point of interaction with the company. After receiving the product, the customer will probably want to know more about the use of the product in order to get the most out of it. Accordingly, he will have specific questions. It is likely that they will be repeated for different clients since the difficulties are often identical.

It is worth making a list of popular customer questions. This will create response scripts for managers and speed up maintenance. However, 75% of customers prefer self-service resources to a customer service representative. Therefore, it is also worth implementing.

This will require conducting research and identifying customer questions. The answers to them should be placed in the appropriate section on the website or in the application. This step will provide the company with many benefits:

• driving traffic to the site thanks to SEO;
• creating and maintaining the image of an expert;
• better user experience (especially if the questions are about using the application);
• automation of service (availability of comprehensive answers on the site optimizes the work of the support service and allows the client to solve the problem on his own);
• customer training (by explaining to a person how to use your product, you contribute to getting the maximum benefit from the product).

A simple example of a good implementation of this idea is the YouTube Help Center. Here questions are organized into understandable categories so that users can quickly find answers. Videos, tutorials, and even a dedicated community to ask a question are also available.

Demonstrate company values

Brand values matter. This is one of the things that affects the customer’s commitment to the company. 89% of Americans are loyal to brands that uphold values that are close to them. And 79% of the buzzers surveyed said they prefer to interact with companies that help change the world for the better.

Therefore, your brand values ​​are important. They don’t have to be large scale. Equally important will be fairness to clients and the donation of a portion of the income from products to conserve forests. The key is to incorporate this into your marketing strategy. Then people who share the company’s values ​​are more likely to return. To incorporate these into your marketing strategy, show what the brand is doing in a specific direction.

Imagine you have a company whose value is protecting customers from the dangers of COVID-19. You can incorporate this into your marketing strategy in the following ways:

• reduce the order amount for free shipping;
• expedite delivery terms;
• add a gift in the form of a small antiseptic to the order;
• purchase and display equipment that the company donated to a medical institution.

The challenge is to link marketing to the emotions that upholding the company’s values evokes. This will make the customers feel good. It will become clear that by supporting a particular brand, people are helping to promote the ideas that the company stands for.

Make your customers’ lives better

Putting your customer first is a great way to become the best for your target audience. Try to understand what the user values, what benefit he is looking for in the product, what unmet wants/needs he has. The definition of these parameters will ensure the continuous customer-oriented development of the company.

How do you implement this in your content strategy? There are many options for implementing the idea. Imagine there is a news blog that provides up-to-date information on a variety of topics.

You can make information even more accessible and timely by creating an application. Especially if you provide the function of subscribing to categories. However, in software, relevance is important. To make your app more enjoyable for your customers and your company, you need to update it regularly.

Personalization will also help in this matter. For example, an online shoe store can use data about the geographic location of customers by providing relevant content. This is especially true for international companies.

A user from Egypt is unlikely to need membrane boots with a temperature regime of -10 degrees Celsius. However, they will prove to be relevant for Northern Canada residents. You can filter your search results. Also, taking into account the location of the person, certain articles may be offered to him. For example, recommendations for choosing winter shoes.

Create a dedicated customer blog

A site blog is a treasure trove of valuable information. Personalizing your email newsletter can make it even more useful. Modern services allow you to track the interests and preferences of users, providing content that is most likely to interest a person. This is a valuable experience.

However, by creating a closed community for regular customers, you will take your interaction to a whole new level. You can do this on a social network. For example, Facebook or LinkedIn.

In the community, you can provide information that will be available only to regular customers. Unlike introductory content, such content can be specialized. This will allow deeper disclosure of the topic and strengthen the expert’s image.

Plus, building a community of loyal customers will make it easier to bring new products to market. You can make special offers and promotions for a limited audience. This will give people a sense of exclusivity. After all, content, promotions, and rewards are available to a limited number of people.

High quality content helps build positive trust. However, this is not easy to achieve. After all, the presence of even minor typos can spoil the impression. To avoid this, use special services and assignment help company like Grammarly, etc. So you can be sure of good quality.

Conclusions

Content is one of the ways to attract customers. It allows you to gain the user’s trust. Content marketing integrated with retention strategy allows you to develop a plan to build brand advocates. This is done through customer-oriented copywriting.

Above, we have described four ways to help you implement it. This means that they will help bring relationships with loyal customers to a qualitatively new level.

The post Why Content Marketing Should Be Included In Your Customer Retention Strategy appeared first on Stencil.

Effectively selling on social media requires you first to understand your target market and various market segments.

Times have changed. With 3.48 billion users in 2019, social media makes up for almost half the globe. To keep up with trends, a seller needs to understand that customers today are not just people who are looking for a specific product or service with full intent.

The visibility of your products and services on social media serves to actually create a need where none existed before. Social media also serves as a form of customer service, and is also what will give your audience their first impressions of you.

Bidding adieu to conventional sales strategies, social media selling, and relationship building are touted to be the future of new business.

In fact, a social media sales strategy is a part of the arsenal of more than 90% of top sales performers, according to the LinkedIn’s State of Sales survey report. A lot goes into selling on social media. Not only does your business have unlimited potential to reach audiences across the globe, but you can also convert followers into loyal brand ambassadors. To get you started, here are the three most important steps for successfully selling your products and services on social media.

Go where your customers are and make your presence known.

The most important initial step for creating and executing a successful social selling plan is to be visible on social media. Find out where your customers are most active on social media.

By using social media monitoring tools, you can track where your customers are talking about your brand, and similar products and services. This also gives you the opportunity to learn what they are looking for, their likes/dislikes, and truly engage with your customers and potential target audience.

While it is easy to start accounts across multiple social media sites, it is important to target the sites that will have maximum impact on your social selling goals. Not every social media platform is going to be the right fit for your business needs.

What is your core target audience? Are you hoping to reach more teenagers, mothers, or professionals and other businesses? Knowing your target audience will help you zero in on specific social media platforms that they frequent.

Create value by giving actionable advice to your audience.

When it comes to selling on social media, the term “Givers gain” stands true. In order to cultivate an audience and take them to your purchasing page, you have to first focus on creating value for them. Answer the customers’ question “What’s in it for me?” and you will be able to start a mutually fulfilling relationship.

If your social media selling strategy only includes sales messages, it is sorely lacking and is most likely to turn off customers instead of engaging them. Create value by understanding customer problems and giving appropriate expert advice. This will allow you to build authority all while being helpful.

Quality content and information such as video marketing, quality graphics, FAQ’s, helpful guides and more are all great forms of content. The important part is that your content needs to be actionable, and it needs to teach your audience something new.
The more engaging and original your content is, the better your chances of creating value and connecting with your customers.

Take time to look through your chosen social media platforms to find the people talking about your products/services, similar options, and the industry.

Use your account to retweet/re-post relevant information, answer pertinent questions in an approachable and friendly manner, create and share content that they would find interesting. With this type of personal networking, you can add better build relationships, and strengthen your network.

Leverage your direct messages to build relationships.

One common mistake that business owners make is thinking that the transition of online user to customer is seamless, quick, and limited to the same social media platform you engaged on.

The truth is that social media avenues offer a great way to connect with people and build a trustworthy network. But building a genuine relationship and creating recall value requires you to connect at a deeper level.

Direct messages also known as DMs are a great way to build and maintain a positive personal relationship. Once you find a potential customer or complementary brand, identify similar interests or areas where your expertise would be helpful. Be friendly and easy-going in your introductions, and then focus on demonstrating your value through consistent interaction both via DMs and re-sharing relevant content.

Craft a DM that is not pushy and over-eager. Pay a genuine compliment, and then make your pitch for collaboration, share giveaways, or send a thank-you note. The sky is the limit; just remember to be genuine and helpful.

When it comes to social selling, building relationships trumps lead generation. People love a personal touch. Help them see your brand as real and genuinely interested in them.

Once that is established, listen well because people share valuable information without even being asked. This information offers you a chance to have a meaningful conversation, and perhaps, an opportunity to showcase just the right product/service that you have, and that they need.

Approximately 71% of consumers who have enjoyed a positive social media experience with a brand recommend it to other people.

Even if the person/business with who you are direct messaging does not purchase from you, they are likely to do some of your selling for you by recommending you to friends and family. Word of mouth is powerful, and it even happens as a result of interactions on social media.

Conclusion

Selling on social media requires you to first and foremost, be present. Show customers who you are and that you genuinely care for them, whether or not they intend to buy from you today.

Consumers make hundreds and thousands of buying decisions on social media platforms daily. Whether or not customers buy from you is up to them, but putting your best foot forward and presenting your product/service as one of the best options to fulfill their needs is in your hands.

The post 3 Important Steps for Successfully Selling on Social Media appeared first on Stencil.

So, to help you make the most of Instagram’s potential, I have put together these 3 strategies you can use immediately to drive more sales on Instagram. Check them out…

Create content that draws engagement:

Before you begin selling products on Instagram, you need to ensure that your reach is high. Instagram’s algorithm decides on which posts to show its users depending on the content they have interacted with in the past. If content you have posted in the past has gotten a lot of impressions, likes and comments more people will see the next posts you publish.

It is very hard to drive engagement with content that focuses on selling. This is why before you begin publishing promotional content you should share more entertaining or helpful content. This content will increase engagement and reach of your current posts and for the future promotional posts you publish.

A company that understands the importance of publishing useful content on their Instagram page is Califa Farms. They make and sell dairy free plant based milks. If you visit their page you will find several posts promoting their products, but along with these you will also find helpful posts like this recipe on creating dairy free cookies.

They create videos like these because they know that their audience who probably don’t consume milk or others forms of dairy will be interested in dairy free recipes. This will drive a lot of engagement in the form of likes and comments. It will ensure that when they post pictures and videos promoting their products later, they will get more impressions and sales. These videos might look hard to make, but you can easily create them with a good video camera and an editor like InVideo, that helps cut unimportant bits and add overlays

Create promotional content and tag products:

After you publish creative content regularly your engagement will go up. Soon after this you can begin publishing some promotional content that will drive sales on Instagram. These are very easy to create. As you just need to publish pictures of your product in action and describe it clearly in the caption. Like this photo from Lululemon…

It is a picture of a model wearing the jacket they want to promote.

But before you publish the promotional photos you should also change the URL in your bio to the landing page of the product. And don’t forget to inform your followers with a call to action (in the caption). It should inform them to click the link to find the product. In the above photo you can see that Lululemon sell the product with a well written caption and end with the call to action ‘Link in bio’.

If you want to remove this hurdle of asking people to leave the photo, then visit your profile page and then click on the link, you should publish a shoppable post instead of a regular post. In a shoppable post you can tag the products present in the photo.

People can click on the product tags in the photo and visit the product page.

An example of a shoppable post is this one from Native Union.

When people see the photo in their feed, the bag sign in the bottom left corner appears indicating that products have been tagged in the photo.

You can see what these tagged products are by tapping the photo one single time. If you click on the products you will be taken to a page on Instagram where you see them clearly.

You simply have to click on the ‘View on Website’ button after that to checkout the product.

After implementing shoppable posts like the above one, Native Union’s traffic from Instagram increased 2,662% and their revenue from Instagram went up a 100%. This increase in traffic and revenue occurred because shoppable posts make it extremely easy for people to find the products.

Native Union were able to set up shoppable posts as it is a feature offered by BigCommerce. If you want to use it too, you will need to set up your ecommerce store with BigCommerce and then integrate Instagram into it. After that you will be able to easily tag the products in your catalogue in your Instagram posts.

If you don’t want your photos to appear too salesy, you can create content that not only educates and/or entertains, but also sells your products.

An example is this video from Ben and Jerry’s where they show you how to make Chocolate and Peanut Butter Vegan Fudge, while using their ice cream.

This way they are not only educating their followers, but also selling to them at the same time. BigCommerce lets you tag products in Instagram videos too. So, experimenting with videos like these will be a good idea. They will drive both engagement and get you sales.

Try out influencer marketing:

Another way to drive sales on Instagram is by teaming up with influencers. Many influencers already do the hard work of driving engagement and keeping their reach high. So, you can look for influencers who will be interested in promoting your products.

While searching for influencers many businesses make the mistake of only taking the number of followers into account. The number of followers will play an important role, but there are two factors you should also consider. These are relevancy and engagement.

Taking relevancy into account ensures that you reach more people who will want to buy your product. For example, let’s say you are selling cameras, it would be better to team up with photographers (on Instagram) for your influencer marketing campaign as a lot of people who follow photographers will be photographers too. It would be a mistake to team up with fashion influencers to promote your products because their followers will be interested in purchasing clothes and other accessories.

And you take engagement into consideration because Instagram has a fake follower epidemic. There are many influencers out there who buy fake followers just to drum up their presence and charge a higher fee. Engagement can be purchased too, but fewer people do it. So, use a good analytics tool to check if the account has a good level of engagement.

If you want to be even more careful before working with an influencer, you can have a quick chat with them and find out how many sales their past customers generated from their campaigns. This will help you calculate if the ROI will be worth it.

An example of a company that has had great success with influencer marketing is Benique.

They created an Instagram marketing strategy that focused on quality (sales) over quantity (followers). This helped them generate a 300% ROI.

So, plan out a good influencer marketing campaign if you are looking for some quick results. You don’t have to always pay for it as there are several accounts out there that will happily publish Instagram shoutouts for free. Some will also do shoutout exchanges. Where you promote something for them and they return the favour for you.

Paid campaigns are also worth it as businesses on average generate $6.50 for every $1 spent on influencer marketing.

Implement these 3 strategies now to drive more sales on Instagram…

These are my top 3 strategies for driving more sales on Instagram. If you are looking for something more long term and affordable, use the first two. Start by building an audience and increasing your reach. And then implement promotional techniques to drive more sales.

But if you would like instant results and have a good budget, influencer marketing would be a better option.

Influencer marketing can also sometimes indirectly help you build a following. As influencers usually tag the company they are working with in the caption. It makes it easy for their followers to find the product. Some of these people will follow your account. So, it can be beneficial for your long term strategy too as you will attract very relevant followers who will engage with your future content.

Are you using Instagram to promote your business? How do you drive more sales on Instagram? Please leave your comments below.

If you found this post useful and feel your followers will too, please share it with them by using the share buttons below.

The post 3 Powerful Strategies to Drive More Sales on Instagram appeared first on Stencil.

But despite your effort, conversions are low. Hardly anyone clicks through the email to your landing page. Instead of getting readers excited and eager to take the next step, the email falls flat. Readers click out, never to return.

The problem is that the point of the message is lost in the design and copy. Because the email isn’t clear, readers are confused about what to do.

Ideally, your email should have a logical flow that catches readers’ attention and helps them understand what you want them to do. The inverted pyramid method is a design technique meant to do exactly this—grab attention, excite readers, and then guide them to take action. It’s a framework that gives emails focus and flow to give you higher conversion rates.

Let’s take a closer look at the method and what you can do to get started.

Three layers to email marketing gold

The inverted pyramid method—the framework for an email that drives high conversions—has just three parts. But each of these parts is designed to capture and hold readers’ attention, and encourage them to take the next step. Here’s what it looks like:

[Source]

It helps create a flow, kind of like a funnel, that grabs the reader’s attention and drives them to the bottom of the email and call-to-action (CTA).

It works like this:

• The attention grabbing headline offers up your value proposition or a promise. It’s meant to make people curious so they keep reading.
• The next layer builds anticipation and gives details to back up the value proposition or promise. This is your chance to get readers excited about what you have to offer and how you’ll deliver.
• The final layer is the call-to-action. This is where you “close the deal.” If the first two layers are on point, by the time readers get to the CTA they should be more than ready to click and convert.

Approach your email campaigns like you’re telling a story. They’re structured — with an intro, body and conclusion — to get readers from beginning to end. Plus there’s usually some kind of takeaway at the end.

With the inverted pyramid method, the headline is the intro. It’s like the first few sentences of a story. This is where you set up the plot and get the reader interested in reading on. The headline sets the tone and focus of what’s to come.

Once you’ve got the reader’s attention, the meat of the story is the body. With the framework, this is where you build curiosity and get a little deeper into the story. You offer details to hook readers and leave them wanting more.

That’s where the conclusion, or CTA, comes in. It ties the story together and gives the reader something to do. By the time they get to this point, the action they need to take is clear, and they’re willing to follow-through.

It’s like reading a book about why running is good for you. If the point is to make you a better runner, by the time you get to the end of the book, you’re ready to lace up your shoes and start running. This framework helps you create a structure that helps readers flow through.

So how exactly do you create email campaigns using the method?

Start by choosing a platform that makes it easy. For example, a platform like Campaign Monitor offers drag and drop email builders. It makes inverted pyramid inspired emails quick and simple to build and they’re easy to edit. This is important because as you get to know your readers better, you’re going to want to modify your emails.

[Source]

The “Add Content” tab in Campaign Monitor gives you the flexibility to create a custom layout. You can use the tools within the tab to insert a bold image, create short, simple copy and a CTA button. You can also experiment with color and placement.

Because the email should have focus and be short, make use of options like the spacer. It uses whitespace to give your emails balance and the reader’s eyes breathing room to take in everything. More than anything it helps guide the reader through the email down to the bottom.

Now let’s take a look at how each section works and what you have to do to:

• Get readers attention
• Get them excited about the email
• Get them to click the CTA and convert

Grab attention by understanding subscriber needs

Half the battle of email campaigns is getting people to open them. When they do, you’ve got about 8 seconds before they decide whether or not to keep reading. When you start with a bold statement and image, you have a better chance of grabbing reader attention. Why? Our brains process visuals quicker than text, so use images that align with your core message.

The inverted pyramid method helps you start with a value proposition or promise with a high definition image. This gets readers’ attention and piques their interest. Knowing your audience is key to making this work. If you know what they like and offer it, you increase the chances of holding their attention longer.

To put this into action, start by creating segments for targeting. For example, have some of your subscribers told you about a specific need? Or something they wish they could do better? You can create segments based on these and tailor your headline.

Once you’ve honed in on specific needs, lead with a solution to their pain point.

[Source]

In this example, Campaign Monitor uses the headline to appeal to readers who want to create professional looking emails, but don’t know how to build one. These are readers who might not have access to a developer and don’t understand coding.

Then they use an image that is a collage of their email templates. This speaks directly to their ability to help solve the pain point — they have a library of “beautiful” templates. It’s a strong image because their email templates help users design emails that get noticed. There’s no need for them to learn HTML or CSS. They just choose a design and use the email builder to get the look and feel that they need to get noticed.

Takeaways:

• Learn about your readers. Ask questions or listen to their comments. This gives you an idea of what they need from you. Lead with this information first.
• Create different headers for different segments. As you grow your subscriber list and get to know them better, customize all your campaigns. The message can stay the same for all of them but the headline changes to be relevant to each group.
• Use an image that backs up your intro. Be bold and creative. You want to grab reader attention so start with something memorable.

Build anticipation with as few words as possible

Next comes the email body. This part of the email should support the information you offered up in the headline. It explains what readers are going to get out of doing something.

Depending on the goal and focus of the email — for example, a welcome, onboarding or promotional email — your main points have to be clear and concise.

With all the emails people get in a day, it’s no surprise that they scan them. They don’t read every single word. To compensate, lay out all the points you want to make and then pare down. Only include the most salient and exciting points. Do another round of trimming to make sure the copy’s easy to read.

Cut out distractions like fancy words and random images and buttons. This section is all about priming your readers with copy that backs up your headline and hints at what’s next. Don’t distract them with anything that will make them stop reading mid-email.

[Source]

This is an excellent example from Freshbooks because it uses three short sentences to:

• Give proof to back up the value proposition and promise.
• Explain to readers what they have to do.
• Confirm the outcome if they follow-through.

Depending on what readers have done in the past — for example, they bought something — tailor your message so that it’s more personal. New subscribers can see something different compared to current subscribers.

This way you lead customers through the email based on what’s relevant to them.

Takeaways:

• Highlight what makes you unique. You have to explain why subscribers should choose you over anyone else. To do this, differentiate your content by using dynamic content. Use content that changes depending on values from your subscriber list. A popular one is offering different content for men and women.
• Prime readers with a snapshot of what’s to come. You don’t want readers to guess at what’s in it for them or what they have to do to see the value. Explain your solution, but do drag it out.

Use a clear call to action to improve conversions

Getting readers to click on the CTA button is the point of your email campaign. It doesn’t matter what kind of emails you send, you want people to click from the email to a landing page and then convert.

The inverted pyramid method leads readers on a short journey to a destination — the CTA. The body primes readers and gets them excited about what’s to come and the CTA closes the deal.

That’s why it has to stand out. So instead of using text links that can get lost in your content, use bold CTA buttons. They have a 28% conversion rate because they stand out and get noticed.

Remember whitespace from earlier? Make sure there’s enough of it around the CTA button. When you design your CTA button, it isn’t about making the button as big as possible. It’s about using whitespace to guide readers and draw attention to it.

[Source]

But be careful with how much whitespace you use. Too much and the message starts to feel disjointed. Keep the button close enough to the body text so that readers see the connection.

Before you press send, use a tool like Campaign Monitor’s A/B test feature to confirm the best location, size, color, and wording of your CTA buttons.

In the A/B test view of a new campaign, select “Email content.” Design two versions of your email and then test them with a sample of your subscriber list. Whichever CTA has the most conversions, that’s the version to send to the rest of your email list.

[Source]

Here the A/B test uses the words “get the formulas” and “read more.” Both offer a clear action based on the build up in the body:

“Get the formulas” tells readers what they have to do to close the loop. It’s a direct answer to the headline. With it, readers know exactly what they have to do to fulfill their need.

“Read more” appeals to the reader’s curiosity. If you’ve done a good job of showing them what you have to offer, they’ll be more than willing to take the next step to read on.

An A/B test is the only way to know which one resonates the most with subscribers. It’s better to have concrete data vs. guessing and going on a hunch.

Takeaways:

• Your CTA should be clear and specific. It should tell readers what to do right now. Avoid words like “submit” or “click here” There’s no urgency to act now. Plus, what are readers submitting? What does that have to do with your lead up to the CTA?
• Give yourself time to get results. It’s tempting to want to get an answer as soon as possible. But the truth is, you have to wait. Campaign Monitor lets you set how long your test will run. It doesn’t matter what the results say before the test is done, don’t stop it halfway through. The results are misleading otherwise.

Set yourself up for success

The method works so well because it removes distractions. Anything that stops people from reading through, or leaves them confused, hurts conversion. They’ll close the email without doing anything. Start with an objective and build your focus around that.

Finally, don’t forget about mobile. 63% of opens happen on mobile so make sure your designs are responsive and carry through. With Campaign Monitor, you can test your layout across different platforms. Make sure that readers understand the story you’re telling no matter where they read them

Now it’s your turn! Let us know what’s worked for you.

The post How to Use the Inverted Pyramid Design to Boost Email Conversions appeared first on Stencil.

Startup marketing is a lot like learning to surf. You wait for the perfect wave — like your business starts doing well and people buy your product — so that you can ride it and succeed.

But just like learning to surf, you have to tackle marketing strategically. Going forward without a clear, well-formed plan almost always leads to a wipeout. Instead, you have to wait for the right opportunity to present itself. And even if you do wipe out, you have to get back up and try again.

Read on to learn how to find the right wave for your startup marketing and how to ride it like a pro.

Don’t drown in the sea of possibilities

When you look at this picture, what do you see?
[Source]

The one thing that stands out is the number of waves to surf, right? Some are bigger than others but there’s no shortage of opportunities.

Startup marketing is no different from this picture. You have an ocean of opportunities available to you to engage customers. For example, you can use social media, your blog or email as channels to get your product in front of a lot of people.

But just because you have so many choices, doesn’t mean you have to use them all. Different marketing channels work for different companies. Choose the channels that will help you reach the goals you’ve set for your marketing.

For example, depending on who you’ve identified as your target audience, your marketing might not be seen by them in certain channels. Look at social media as an example. With so many platforms to choose from, each one attracts different types of users.

If we look at age distribution across popular platforms, we see that the age of users varies across the board:
[Source]

If your core demographic is 18-24-year-olds, then you need to be on Snapchat. Facebook and Twitter are great but because 18-24-year-olds don’t spend much time on them, you’d be missing a huge opportunity to target this demographic.

Finding the right platform “takes better brand alignment, thought-out social conversations and meaningful connections with your core group of brand loyalists.” As a startup, you can’t afford to do everything, you have to find the option that gets you the most bang for your buck.

Get to know your target audience

Even with tons of possibilities in front of you, when you have a clear picture of who your target audience is, you’re in a better position to hone in on the channels that will have the biggest impact.

How do you get focused? Create buyer personas. Here’s how:

• Use a tool like Clearbit to track the kinds of people that visit your website. Then use Segment to feed the data into an analytics tool like Amplitude. Use the data on user location, contact information, social media platforms used, etc to segment customers and build personas.
• Survey current customers. Send an email to customers and ask questions about their preferences. You can also use this information to learn more about customer behaviors.
• Update contact forms. Update the fields on the contact forms on your website to include information you can use to segment and group similar customers together.
• Set up online interviews. Engage with customers on different social media platforms. Use it as an opportunity to get to know some of your customers on a one-on-one basis.

Use the data you gather to create the personas then give each persona a name to make it easy to identify each one.

With your personas you can choose the right waves to ride based on what resonates with each group. So instead of targeting everyone through social media, your blog and email, target each persona based on where they’re most likely to see your ads. For example, one persona might prefer getting emails so the majority of their marketing should be through email. When your ads are seen by the right people, you’re more likely to see higher conversions and revenue. Which is key for startups to survive.

Wait for the right wave

Remember the picture with all the waves? Surfers don’t rush to ride the first wave they see. They wait for the right one so that they don’t waste their energy and arm strength on waves that won’t give them the results they’re after. Surfers are taught to be selective.

If surfers don’t evaluate the wave properly, this is what can happen when they paddle out and try to ride it:
[Source]

They wipe out. Not only that, when a surfer comes up for air they’re hit by a second wave that takes them under again. To get the most out of your marketing, a better approach is to save your energy and get selective. This means knowing how to choose a channel you can ride for a long time.

If we look at social media again, the buyer personas you’ve created will tell you which customers prefer to hear from you on social media. But just because these customers are on social media doesn’t mean you blast them on every platform or only on one. For example, there’s a lot of hype around Facebook ads but if your target audience isn’t millennials, you’re wasting your time and marketing budget.

Choose a platform that effectively gets your message across and will be seen by the right people.
[Source]

This chart shows the breakdown of who uses social media, the kind of content that works best on each platform and why users choose each platform. What’s interesting to note are the details in the last column. Not only does it tell you who’s using each platform but it also highlights important takeaways that companies can use to choose platforms. For example, users spend 20+ minutes on Facebook a day. This is a huge opportunity to market to these users.

Evaluate channels before committing

To be selective about the channels you choose to market on, you have to set up some criteria first. Here are some questions to ask yourself to get started.

• What do you hope to achieve by using a specific channel? Do you want to boost lead generation? Increase retention?
• Will specific channels help you reach the right customers?
• What’s the potential ROI? Is this option worth the investment?
• Is there a way to track marketing attribution? Meaning, can you track if your spending has been effective?

Let’s take a look at how all of this comes together. When Appcues was launched, the goal was to grow our customer base. We reached millions in ARR from 500+ customers in just two short years. We did that by focusing on getting really good at one thing: user onboarding.

Our initial marketing channel was our User Onboarding Academy, a 16-part lesson on how to improve user onboarding. We eventually expanded to develop our blog further by taking the 16-part lesson and writing more in-depth articles about user onboarding. By doing this we were able to target specific people in our audience, to see a direct improvement to ROI grow quickly.

Learn from your wipeouts and get back up

To grow Appcues we chose channels because they seemed like popular choices and not because we’d tested them beforehand and seen results.

For example, we tried social media and events as ways to boost market qualified leads (MQLs). For us, this is anyone who signs up for our free trial or requests a demo.

I spent about 20% of my time talking to people on Twitter. I’d experiment by posting stuff I thought was interesting and wait for user engagement data to roll in.

The interesting thing is, social media never really took off for us. Compared to other channels like paid advertising and organic searches, the return was low.

It was the same thing with events. We tried to engage people but the return was even lower than it was for social media.

So rather than try to keep using channels with a low return, we cut them so that we could focus on the channels that had a better chance of seeing results.

Get back up and try something new

After these “failed” attempts at increasing MQLs, we changed tactics and explored different channels. Remember, by this point we’d been working steadily to improve our blog content to attract more people.

We eventually started to use Quora as a place to curate questions people had about onboarding. We took these questions, wrote blog posts about them and then posted the articles as answers on Quora. This turned out to be an effective way for us to draw people back to the site and get them interested enough to sign up for a free trial or request a demo.

The main takeaway here is to create a marketing strategy. Look at what didn’t work and build off of that. Here’s how it works:

• Look at how you’re handling your marketing right now. Is it working? If not, what’s the problem?
• Lay out your goals for your marketing program. As a startup, it makes sense to focus on just one thing so that you’re using your available resources effectively.
• List target audience details and your buyer personas. This lays the foundation for the direction your campaigns will go.
• List the channels that you’ve found most effective at reaching these groups. You can split them amongst your buyer personas and create a kind of chart of who (each persona) and what (channel type).
• Plan your campaign.

Once you have answers to your questions and you’ve set up the process that your marketing will follow, test it out. If you hit your goals, there’s no need to adjust. Just ride the wave to success. If your efforts don’t go as planned and you miss the wave, look at each step of your strategy to pinpoint where things went wrong.

Was your campaign not comprehensive enough? Did it leave people unclear about the value and benefits you offer? If that’s the issue, make changes to your email copy or social media posts to be more clear.

Get ready to catch the next wave

You have to be very considerate about the amount of energy you spend on your startup marketing. Unlike enterprises with massive teams and large budgets, you have limited resources. That’s why it’s so important for you to be intentional about how you market your product. Choose the opportunities that you think will help your company meet your goals and commit to the process.

Next, when you come across strategies that don’t work, get rid of them. Often times we want to push even harder to make something work when the truth is, it’s not the right opportunity. When something doesn’t work, make a change right away and find something better.

And finally, get buy-in from your team about what your marketing focus should be. My main goal was to improve MQLs so marketing focused on getting more trial users and demo signups. This meant that other metrics and enhancements weren’t pursued as heavily. Luckily, I got buy-in from the CEO and COO to focus on MQLs as the main way to drive growth in our business and we’ve benefited from this approach.

When it comes to marketing for your startup, think about what it’s like to learn to surf. You want to wait for the right wave and ride it to shore — a.k.a your goal.

The post How Startup Marketing is Like Learning to Surf appeared first on Stencil.

In 2019, retail e-commerce sales worldwide amounted to $3.53 trillion. But the competition is immense as there are over 12 million ecommerce sites and only 650,000 of them make more than $1000 a year. Hence, if you want to beat these sites and make more, you need to implement a powerful strategy.  

This strategy should include the application of visuals as they can increase conversions on landing pages. They can also drive traffic.

You might already be adding visuals, but are they optimized to drive more traffic and sales?

To find the answer, read all the tips I have shared.

I have covered my top tips on how to use visuals to drive more traffic and sales on your ecommerce site…

#1 Add social media optimized images:

Driving both organic and paid social media traffic is vital to driving sales on your ecommerce site. But before you drive any of this traffic, you need visually optimize your site for the social networks you plan to drive traffic from because it will encourage visitors to share your pages as well.

The social networks you optimize your site for should be the social networks your target audience frequents. One social network you must definitely optimize for is Facebook as it has the most users and also ads are cheap here.

To optimize your post for Facebook, the basic rule you need to follow is the 1.91:1 aspect ratio rule i.e. the width of the image should be 1.91 times the height. This will ensure that when the image is shared on Facebook, the large thumbnail will appear which will drive more clicks and traffic. You can use this image in your ads too.

Facebook recommends the size 1200 X 627 pixels. But a size of 560 X 292 pixels should do. I use an image with these dimensions every time I optimize a page or a blog post for Facebook sharing. It ensures that the large thumbnail appears whether the page is shared on a desktop or mobile device. Once you add the image you need, adjust page settings to make sure this image is selected every time someone shares.

To get best results from this image make sure the product is clearly represented and there is a message that persuades people to click on the image and visit your site.

A perfect example is the above screenshot of the image Facebook pulls when I share from the Retrosupply website, a website where designers can purchase digital design assets like templates, background images, fonts, etc. As you can see the above image contains text that describes the product and is placed on an image made created using the product. You can easily make sure that Facebook pulls the right image if you build your ecommerce store with a builder such as Shopify (https://www.shopify.com/website/builder). In fact, the above site was built with this platform.

Pinterest is another site you should optimize your ecommerce site for as it is a powerful source of traffic and 72% of its users use it to make buying decisions. They also spend an average of $140 to $180 per order.

To enhance your site for Pinterest, the main rule you need to follow is to add a portrait shaped image. Pinterest recommends you use an image that is 600 X 900 pixels. If you get this right you will be rewarded with a lot of traffic when someone shares this image on Pinterest.

Most fashion sites like Mango.com place tall images of their products that can be pinned as you can see in the above screenshot.

Optimizing your ecommerce site and all the products for these two sites will be worthwhile as they drive ample traffic. But if you want to get better results, you should create extra images for other visual centric sites like Instagram and Tumblr especially if they are already driving traffic to your site.

#2 Use a lot of pics:

Adding the above images will optimize your posts for social media and get your site some traffic, but they won’t automatically drive sales. For that you need pictures that sell your product.

You can do this by adding several images on your product pages that show the product in various angles and in action. For example, if it is a dress, you should show pictures of it in various angles and pictures of people wearing it. If it is a cooking appliance you can show people using it to prepare a meal along with plain images of the product.

An example is this kid’s toy on Ikea, where along with the picture of the toy you have a couple of pictures of a kid playing with it.

#3 Display user generated content:

People share 1.8 billion images on social media daily. Some of these are photos of themselves along with their new purchases. When their friends glance at these pictures it instantly boosts your products’ social proof and more people will want to purchase it.

These pictures can be more effective than your marketing campaigns where you use models as these images appear more natural and generate a lot of word of mouth both online and offline. If you want these images to help you drive sales through your site too and not just on social media, you can collect and display them on your website or you can directly ask customers to submit them.

A company that does this is Burberry with the Art of the Trench campaign. Here, they display latest pictures of their customers in trench coats. This can drive up social proof and provide customers with ideas on how to dress up better. Anyone can submit their photos on the Burberry website itself.

#4 Share images through conversational commerce:

One of the hottest forms of marketing right now is conversational commerce. This where you use closed social media/messengers like Facebook messenger, WhatsApp, Snapchat, etc. to market your products.

As Corey Bloom perfectly summed up in his helpful guide on conversational commerce, ‘one in every seven people in the world interact with either Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp.’ As there are over 1 billion users on each.

Through conversational commerce apps your website visitors can have a quick chat with your sales team if any lingering questions are thwarting them from making a purchase. This process can also be automated with bots.

When people ask certain questions about a type of product, your bots can automatically set to suggest relevant items.

Image Credit: Yotpo Conversational Commerce

An example is the Adoro chatbot which automatically displays products one can purchase based on the messages sent as you can see in the above image.

As images help increase conversions you should take complete advantage of these situations and share many product images. You can use the aforementioned technique and show the product being used and at different angels.

You can even allow in app purchases so that people can view pictures and directly buy them without leaving.

When running an ecommerce site, visuals will always play a vital role as visitors will want to picture themselves using your products before purchasing. But sharing any image won’t do. To gain maximum traffic and sales you need to have a strong ecommerce visual marketing strategy in place. Therefore, follow the above tips and only choose the right images that meet all the requirements.

How do you use visuals to drive more traffic and sales on your ecommerce site? Please leave your comments below.

The post How to Drive More Traffic and Sales on Your Ecommerce site with Visuals appeared first on Stencil.