How to Craft the Perfect Email Subject Line by Dmitri Leonov

According to some estimates, more than 144 billion emails are sent every day—and, sometimes, it seems like every one of them lands in your inbox.

Even those of us who are tasked with creating email marketing campaigns aren't immune to information overload: We all know what it's like to be bombarded with email messages—all competing for a share of our attention during a busy day.

If it's your job to come up with a subject line that is compelling enough to cut through all that clutter, it's a good idea to apply your experience as an email recipient to help you craft the perfect subject line. What gets your attention? How do you decide which emails to trash unopened and which to read?

Scores of scientific studies can tell you which words appear with the most frequency in successful email campaigns. And that is useful information. But in creating a compelling subject line, sometimes a simple strategy works best.

Here are some tips that can help you improve open rates.

Keep it brief. When prospects are scanning their inboxes, a short, snappy subject is more likely to catch their eye than a lengthier line. If possible, it's best to keep the subject line short enough to appear as one line on a smaller device screen, such as a smartphone or tablet. Keep it short and sweet to improve your open and rates.

Don't waste valuable real estate. A subject line doesn't provide much space, so make every word count. Don't waste space with words (such as "hello") that don't add much value to your message. When crafting your subject line, evaluate each word and make sure it adds value—from the standpoint of providing information or encouraging readers to open the email.

Be specific. When readers are scanning new messages in their inbox, they're generally in a hurry to respond to urgent messages or tackle the next task in their busy day. In such a state of mind, they won't have much patience for mystery. Cut to the chase by using the subject line to tell them what the message is about.

Make it searchable. There's a good chance your reader won't have time to focus on your message when they first see it, so it's wise to give them an easy way to return to the message when they have more time. If you make the subject line searchable so readers can easily find it later, there's a better chance that they'll revisit your email, even if they don't have time at first.

Include a call to action. Make sure your subject line tells the reader what he or she can do to benefit from the message—whether that's to visit a site, make a call, or just read the message. A brief line that summarizes the value can be highly effective, so think about what's in it for the reader and try to convey that in the subject line.

Don't create anxiety. Although you want your readers to take action, it's important to balance a call to action with a signal that you respect their time. Subject lines that include phrases such as "immediate response required" can come across as arrogant. Adding "FYI" or "no need to reply" can take the pressure off while still signaling that the message contains valuable information.

Include your company name. Readers will be more likely to open an email if they know who it's from and if they perceive value from the sending organization. Including a company name is especially important if you already have a positive relationship with the reader.

Knowledge workers spend about 28% of their workday managing email, a McKinsey Global Institute report has found. We all complain about email volume, and unless you manage your inbox wisely, it can seriously decrease productivity by forcing you to weed through unimportant, unwanted messages to find the emails that are worth your focus.

That said, email is how we communicate in business. The issue isn't email itself, but inbox overload and finding a way to separate the mundane and annoying from the truly important. There are proven ways to tame overflowing inboxes, and every professional needs a sound strategy. Your challenge as an email marketer is to ensure that your message makes the cut.

Since you're an email consumer as well as email campaign developer, take a step back and think about what motivates you as a reader. Chances are, you respond better to messages that are brief and to the point. You want to know why you should open that message—what's in it for you. You want to know who it's from and how it can help you.

So write a subject line that you would open... and you'll likely get a great response.

Courtesy of  http://www.marketingprofs.com

Blog Editing Pro Tip: How Do You Handle Too Many Verb Tenses? by Andy Hollandbeck

Do you know the difference between future progressive, present perfect and past perfect progressive? Though you might not know them by name, you know how to use them, and you probably use them all the time. Maybe you use them too much.

“I have rewritten — often several times — every word I have ever published. My pencils outlast their erasers.” —Vladimir Nabokov

These complex verb forms rely on the use of helping verbs, but they might not be helping your prose. A helping (or auxiliary) verb, when paired with a main verb, creates a verb phrase that gives writers whole new sets of tenses, moods and voices.

There are a number of helping verbs, but the two most common are to be and to have. For instance, I have written this. You are reading this, and you are getting the picture.
Sometimes, though, we can use helping verbs like a crutch: sure, they can keep the prose moving along, but they won’t let it run.

Editing tip: Using an active voice in simple past, present, or future tense will reduce sentence length, speed your reader along and create more variety in your verbs.

What you’re looking for as you edit are verbs that end in -ing or ­-ed that follow closely after a form of to be or to have. (Some verbs are irregular and so don’t end with either of these in their participial form.) Watch out for contracted forms of these linking verbs, too, like the one in the first sentence of this paragraph.

When you find a helping verb, decide whether having a verb phrase in that form is necessary. Simple past, present or future tense might work just as well but without the extra bulk. Sometimes an edit like this requires recasting the entire sentence.

Look at this example:
While Mitt Romney was running for President, sales of hair tonic had sky-rocketed in a way that had not been heard of since the Nixon administration.

This sentence would be more economical if it were recast using verbs without helpers:
When Mitt Romney ran for President, sales of hair tonic sky-rocketed in a way unheard of since the Nixon administration.

Whether or not this new version fits the bill for your blog post is your judgment call. Changing the verbs can lead to subtle shifts in meaning, as well as changes in the text’s rhythm, mood and voice. But by focusing on your verb tenses, you can find when and where you routinely overuse helping verbs and streamline your blog posts.

Image credit: Skepchick.org
Courtesy of http://www.business2community.com

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4 Current SEO Copywriting Tips to Help You Improve Rankings and Conversions by Lynn Terry

If you experienced a drop in rankings, traffic or earnings this past year then you're likely searching everywhere for the latest greatest "SEO tricks" to regain your rankings.

There have always been tricks, loopholes, products, programs, etc that promise you quick success in the search engines. Some of them even work - temporarily.

Many of them can ultimately tank your site in the search results though, or at the very least leave you scrambling for the next best "trick" to try when that one no longer works.

Ironically, those "fast results" options eat up much more of your time & resources than simply writing and optimizing naturally. This has always been the case, but it's especially important now with the search engines becoming more intuitive...

Karon Thackston has been teaching these very methods (that work!) for years in her Step-by-Step Copywriting Course. She takes you through all the steps of writing copy that will rank high in the major search engines, and convert better - so that you get more leads and more sales from your content marketing. 

Her SEO Copywriting course is very practical - easy to understand and apply - and is broken into 10 video modules so you don't have to set aside an entire hour or more to learn each of the steps. Ideally you will learn and implement as you go, one step at a time, and this course is set up perfectly for that!

Given the effects of Google's Panda and Penguin updates that so many online business owners experienced over the last year, Karon has been busily educating her readers on some of the current issues - and how to implement necessary changes to keep your pages ranking AND converting at their best.

I've been following Karon's updates, and so I'll share a few highlights with you as a sort of checklist to make sure you're on the right track with the current issues:

Stop Over-Optimization!

Over-optimizing your web pages is a real concern with current search algorithms. Google spokesperson, Matt Cutts says, "People can overdo it to the point that we consider it keyword stuffing and it hurts. I would just make sure you do it in natural ways where regular people aren’t going to find it stiff/artificial. That tends to be what works best."

Smart Use of Synonyms

Google started incorporating synonyms into their algorithms several years ago. Synonyms are words with the same or similar meanings, and are used naturally in conversation so that you don't sound redundant when you're speaking. The same rule should be applied to your writing. 

The goal is to target a keyword phrase and use it 1-3 times in your copy, but to otherwise simply stay relevant to your topic in a very natural way.

Quality Rules

“Never sacrifice the quality of your copy for the sake of the search engines.”
-Karon Thackston

What may have worked in the past for "quick rankings" is no longer relevant. Quality pages, quality people and quality offers will rise to the top in the new search results - and even more so with future updates. Google is getting more and more intuitive about what "quality" really is, based not just on SEO strategies alone but on votes and responses by their searchers - and by your market's peers.

Better Targeting = Higher Conversion Rate

People are more savvy (and more skeptical!) than ever. You can't just guess who your target market is and use "standard copy" in your content. You have to understand exactly who you're writing to, what they need or want, and their preferred communication style (and/or lingo) in order to create content that compels visitors to read your copy and take a specific action.

Consider these four SEO copywriting tips carefully.

While they may seem obvious, old habits die hard and you may be hurting your rankings and conversions without even realizing it.

There are many people banging their heads against the wall trying to figure out why their content won't rank or convert. It's frustrating and confusing, especially if prior methods were working just fine before. Karon's practical in-depth copywriting course not only tells you why, but shows you how to fix the problems.

 

* This post was sponsored by Karon Thackston and written by Lynn Terry. There are no affiliate links in this post, but I will say that I have been a happy customer of her tutorials for many years - and highly recommend her Copywriting Course to anyone with an online business!

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