20 Holiday Subject Lines that Light Up the Inbox

A few weeks ago I did a blog post on 10 fab fall email subject lines, and now as we plunge into the holiday season, I wanted to share some eye-catching and inspiring holiday subject lines that have been delivered to my inbox. I hope this will spark your own holiday email marketing and subject line writing.

20 holiday subject lines that stand out in the inbox

1. Don’t wait till Friday; shop online Thanksgiving Day for Members-Only Savings!
2. Best of BLACK FRIDAY COUPONS & FREE SHIPPING
3. Feast on 30 Tasty Gifts under $30‏
4. Save 20% + FREE SHIPPING. 2 Days Only – Cyber Sale
5. A Wine Discount to Brighten Your Holiday Table
6. Holiday sneak peek: Benefit, Dior, Kat Von D + more
7. Tis The Season To Give Great Gifts + 20-40% Off‏
8. Santa’s worked his magic – 15% Off‏
9. Christmas Countdown: 40-50% Off Sweaters‏
10. Top 10 Holiday Gifts + 10% Off & Free Shipping‏
11. Technology gifts…Open me
12. Our most popular gift is…
13. Stocking Stuffer Sunday…Save on Gifts, Gadgets, and More‏
14. Ho ho home: Free shipping when you spend $50 on select holiday home updates.
15. Order Early For Extra Savings & a Stress-Free Holiday Season
16. Jingle Your Way to Savings! HOHOHO Coupon Enclosed.
17. Hurry! 10 Days Left to Save $10 with HOHOHO Code
18. 12 Deals of the Holidays
19. Extreme Holiday Celebration, Ornaments and Big Savings!
20. Exclusive Holiday Gift Set Preorder + Complimentary Shipping & Deluxe Sample!

What holiday subject lines stood out in your inbox? I’d love to hear them. Leave a comment!

Takeaway: Use a little Christmas imaginative magic in crafting your holiday subject lines. A good subject line should catch someone’s attention just like reindeer landing on the roof would!

Website: http://blog.verticalresponse.com/verticalresponse_blog/
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/janinepopick

VerticalResponse is always being asked for examples of great email marketing subject lines, so I thought I’d offer some really great and proven-to-work subject lines that you can test out for your email marketing campaigns.

First of all, I’m assuming at this point that your recipients will recognize you from your “From Label”. I’ve written why your From Label is very important in your email marketing campaigns. If they are familiar with who the email is coming from, you’ll have better luck getting your email opened with a catchy subject line.

As a retailer your email marketing campaigns are probably all about selling. If you sell your own products or products from other manufacturers, you’ll be trying to announce new products, new seasons or discounts and sales. You’ll want your recipients to act fast, so you may want to try expiration dates in your subject line. At VerticalResponse, we even see businesses using hours in the day in their expiration time periods.

You’ll see that some of these subject lines are a bit vague like “An Exclusive Offer for You”, however sometimes that might get more opens than if you talk about a specific product. That’s something that you need to test for yourself in your own campaigns.

Offer, Offer, Offer

Enjoy this Special Offer at Our New Location

25-40% off – Email-Only Offer – Today Only

Invitation-Only 2 Hour Event Starts 11:30 AM CT

Ends Today! 20% Off Friends & Family

Top 10 under $10

Free shipping – offer ends in 3 days

Free product with purchase of [product name]

[New Product] has arrived. Order now before we run out.

Earn double points for [insert product or action].

Last Chance: Get up to $25 now

Save 10% on your next order

Enjoy [season] with rates from $65

Service Notice: Exciting new changes at [your company]

An Exclusive Offer for You

[Your company] October Specials

Last minute deals, special offers, and new [product name]

Act Now to renew your [subscription name]

Online only: 25% off friends and family

Introducing our latest…[product/feature here]

[Product name] Promotion week. Save 25%

Extended for a day! Get Free shipping through Friday

Stock up and save 15%

Limited Supply: Limit 2 [product name] per customer

Ho-ho-ho: The [your company] holiday catalog is here!

Email subscriber exclusive: [Product name] sale is here

Ends Today: Take 20% off your entire order

Private Sale Ends Today

Your choice of amazing items $50 + under

Great gifts for [Dad, Mom, etc]

Best Sellers every [girl, boy, man, woman, dog, etc.]

Everything you need when the temperatures [rise, fall]

Free Shipping–Limited Time Offer

Catchy & Creative

Sometimes all you need is a little vase lift  (retailer selling vase’s)

We’ve got you covered from head to toe (retailer selling hats, shirts, pants and boots)

How La Perla got its name (retailer selling lingerie, telling a story inside the email)

Temperatures Fall, Style Rises (retailer selling coats)

Celebrity Favorites (selling accessories that Hollywood is wearing)

Did you remember to get a gift? It’s ok, we did. (retailer wanting to get people to register for gift reminders)

10 Gift Ideas for your little ones (retailer listing top 10 suggestions for kids)

Manhattan View for a Song in the Shower (retailer selling shower curtain with Manhattan skyline on it)

Take your pick: Our 9 Favorite Dresses (retailer suggesting by popularity)

Coolest modern desk on the job…for $149 (retailer including price in the subject line)

Score Great Savings on Game-Time Gear: HDTVs, Furniture & More (retailer selling TV’s with a sports slant)

Party Like it’s 1999 Aged Cabernet Special (wine retailer)

In our store: Last minute Mother’s Day combo ready to go (retailer getting the last minute shoppers with a catch “combo to go”.)

Adorn Your Home Now & Through the Holidays (Home decor retailer)

Mind-Blowing Grenache (wine retailer)

Bring this email to a Gap store and win! (retailer trying to get store traffic)

I hope this gets your creative juices flowing. You can also find some great holiday-specific subject lines here.

Even the best of us take for granted the simple things you need to include in your email marketing campaigns we send out on a regular basis. So here is a list of things you must have that will help you grow your list, get more opens and clicks for your emails, and have a super successful campaign.

1. Write A Compelling Subject Line

Make sure you take the time to think about what’s going to get your email opened. Look at your past campaigns, see which ones got the highest open rates and try to emulate the type of subject line you used. Try one of our 50 All Time Great Subject Lines and see if one works for your business.

2. Ask to Get Listed in Your Recipient’s Address Book

If the email address that you send your email campaigns from is listed in your recipient’s email address book, your email goes directly into the inbox and your images are automatically displayed. You’ll want to get as many of these as possible. For instance at VerticalResponse you can automatically insert it into your email campaigns and it looks like this:

If you can’t see images add “YourVRFromLabel@mail.vresp.com” to your address book.

3. Include a Forward-to-a-Friend Link

You don’t know what it’s going to take to entice your recipient to forward the email to a friend of theirs so your message gets out to a wider audience. So even if they don’t click on a “forward to a friend” link you include, it may make them remember to simply forward it using their email client.

4. Use Images to Illustrate Your Point

If you’ve got images of your product, go ahead and include them. Like they say, an image is worth a thousand words. Just remember, some email readers strip out images so make sure your copy that you write also tells the story. (editor’s note: here’s one way to avoid blocking using HTMLized images)

5. Prominently Display Your Logo

Nothing works on your recipients like a familiar logo of a company they do business with. Remember to include image “alt tags” that will show the name of your company or product in the event your images don’t display properly.

6. Include Your Postal Address

This is simply the U.S. Federal Law, so be sure to include your postal address in each of your email campaigns. Even if you’re emailing from outside the U.S. many times you don’t know where your recipients are.

7. Display an Unsubscribe Link

Even the best email marketing campaigns get unsubscribes, but bottom line is you don’t want to continue to send emails to recipients that don’t want them. Not only is this included in the federal CAN-SPAM legislation, but it will end up tarnishing your company reputation with negative word-of-mouth.

8. Use Customer Testimonials

Make sure you constantly solicit testimonials from your customers and recipients. Then feature them in your email campaigns. You’ll get two things from them; 1) They’ll likely forward it to all of their friends and 2) Nothing sells better than a customer selling your products or services for you.

9. Insert Lots of Links

If you think you’ve got too many links…add more! You never know what link your readers will be compelled to click, so make sure you’re linking words and images and you’re linking often.

10. Use Your Social Media Links

If you’ve got people following you on Twitter, or people who are Facebook fans, make sure you include these links in your email marketing campaigns. You’ll spread the word to a wider audience from within these campaigns. Check out our free download: Social Media Checklist.

Above and beyond these ten “must-haves” you’ll obviously want the articles in your newsletter or your sales copy to be compelling as well. Use this as a checklist for your next email marketing campaigns!

Takeaway: Don’t forget the basics – sometimes the simplest tricks are the most magical.

About the author:
Janine Popick is the CEO and founder of VerticalResponse http://www.verticalresponse.com, a leading provider of self-service email marketing, online surveys, and direct mail services empowering small businesses to create, manage, and analyze their own direct marketing campaigns. Janine is a columnist for Inc.’s Women in Business blog. In her spare time, Janine is VerticalResponse’s Chief Executive Blogger for the VerticalResponse Marketing Blog for Small Businesses http://verticalresponse.blogs.com. Follow her on Twitter @janinepopick http://www.twitter.com/janinepopick.

If you’ve got customers that have never left you for another competitor, good for you! But I don’t believe you. It happens to the very best of businesses. Business should always be focused on getting new customers, but winning back customers from days gone by could be very beneficial (and cheap!) for your business.

The first thing you need to do is assess your customer’s behavior. Off to the data you go! If you’ve got your customer purchases in Quickbooks, Salesforce or your ecommerce platform, see if you can run a report on all of your customers to find out the last date they’ve purchased. If it’s more than a year, you may want to get on it!

Here are a few ideas we’ve come up with at VerticalResponse that you can use to win those customers back now.

1. Call Back Campaign – Get a list of phone numbers and get to the phones! Develop a script because 8 out of 10 calls you’ll probably get their voicemail. Make sure you address any issues you may have corrected or products newly launched and tell them you want them back! Give them a coupon code, or something free with an expiration date. Carve out 30 minutes a day for you, or an intern to start calling.

2. Surveys – You might want to find out first why your customers have not come back to you. Send them a link to an online survey with a few questions you may want ask about their satisfaction with your company. Make sure you leave a box where they can include “other” information in a free-form fashion so that you can read through the comments. You might find that you now offer something they were looking for and you can follow up with them and let them know via phone or an email marketing campaign. Check out How to Create a Great Survey.

3. Email Marketing – Create a version of your regular newsletter and include an introduction telling your forgone customers that you want them back! Give them a special offer, and if you know the particular reason they may have left and you’ve corrected an action or now offer different products or services, tell them you heard their request. You can even personalize it by the last product they purchased and give them a special offer on a complementary product or service.

4. Direct Mail Postcard – Go old school and send a “We Miss You” postcard campaign. Then get them back in your store, restaurant or site with an offer they can’t refuse. A postcard campaign is also great as a lead in to a phone call as well.

5. Send a Gift – If you have samples of a product you sell, that’s a great way to get your customer’s attention. But if you don’t, or you sell services you can also go a bit zany and throw a bunch of fun things in a box to get their attention too. Include a postcard with an offer that’s sure to get your customers back.

Takeaway: Getting a customer to come back is a lot cheaper for you than getting new customers, so give this a try and make it an ongoing campaign!

If you run an online community, good for you, probably means you like to get closer to your customers! We have one here at VerticalResponse, it’s called the VR Marketing  Lounge, a Cool Spot for Hot Marketing. We have it so that we can interact with our customers and have other customers chime in on everything from email marketing, to how to market their businesses better. We use Ning to power the VR Marketing Lounge, it’s about $30 a month, but there are other solutions available too. Rsitez is another to check out.

So you build a community to get engaged with your customers and want them actively participating in conversations, right? But if you don’t market it, it won’t grow quickly. Here are a few things to do to get it going.

1. Collect email addresses for your online community and make it a separate list from your customer list. With most providers you have to be a member of the community to contribute so you can access that list to email. With some you can include a newsletter opt-in form as well.

2. Include the last 3-4 posts in your weekly or monthly newsletter to your customers asking them to join the online community and participate.

3. Send an email to the community list about what’s happening on the site every few weeks. Include your “Top Posts” based on replies or comments. WebProWorld (below) does a fantastic job at this. It gets people back into the community and active.

4. Send an email to the community if there is a really hot topic going on that you think others will be able to answer. You might even name it “Hot Topic: Whatever The Topic Is”.

Another great reason why email marketing and social media go hand in hand.

Takeaway: Cross promote your online community presence in your newsletters — tell people what they are missing if they are not members or interacting with you on these channels.

Any tips to promote your social media and online communities you would like to share with us?

There are a lot of businesses sending marketing messages for in-person events these days. Let’s face it, the more personal you can be with your customers and prospects all the better, right? So how do you pack the house for your own event? It’s all about repetition and constantly being in the face of who you want at your event.

First you want to define how many people you want at your event, then look at how many people you’re going to need to register. On a daily/weekly basis you should tally up your registrants so you can dial up or down how you need to advertise.

Here is a calendar of tactics that you can use to pack your house for your event that incorporates email marketing, PR and social media!

6 weeks prior

• Offer An Early Bird special: Give a deal if you’re charging for it or offer something free if you’re not.
• Develop 8 exciting reasons for why people should come to your event. You’ll use one each week in your advertising.
• Message for all outlets: Tell them there are only 6 short weeks until the event. Use one of the 8 exciting reasons you’ve come up with. Display the Early Bird offer.
• Find Influencers: Find people who have said nice things about your business and ask if they’ll tell their friends, Tweet and post to their Facebook pages.

Tactics:

• Send an email campaign to your customers.
• Tweet about the event.
• Send a postcard to your customers and prospects.
• Submit your event to local websites and publications.
• Tally registrants by end of week.

5 weeks prior

• Decide if you have enough people registered to keep the early bird special going.
• Message for all outlets: Tell them there are only 5 short weeks until the event. Use one of the 8 exciting reasons you’ve come up with. Display the Early Bird offer if you choose to.

Tactics:

• Send email to non responders of the prior email campaign.
• Send an email to all of those who registered with the message. Ask them to bring a friend. If you’re charging, offer them something free if their friend registers. Ask them to post to their Facebook and Twitter.
• Create event in Facebook and invite your Facebook friends.
• Tweet about the event.
• Submit your event to local websites and publications.
• Tally registrants by end of week.

4 weeks prior

• Message for all outlets: Tell them there are only 4 short weeks until the event. Use one of the 8 exciting reasons you’ve come up with. Display the Early Bird offer if you choose to.

Tactics:

• Send an email to non responders of the prior campaign.
• Send an email to all of those who registered with the message. Ask them to bring a friend. If you’re charging, offer them something free if their friend registers. Ask them to post to their Facebook and Twitter.
• Send a Facebook message to all of those who didn’t respond inviting them to the event.
• Send a Facebook message to all of those who did respond with the message.
• Tweet about the event.
• Tally registrants by end of week.

3 weeks prior

• Message for all outlets: Tell them there are only 3 Short Weeks until the event. Use one of the 8 exciting reasons you’ve come up with.
• Find Influencers that didn’t respond: Find people who have said nice things about your business and ask if they’ll tell their friends, Tweet and post to their Facebook pages.

Tactics:

• Send an email to non responders of the prior campaign.
• Send an email to all of those who registered with the message. Ask them to bring a friend. If you’re charging, offer them something free if their friend registers. Ask them to post to their Facebook and Twitter.
• Send a Facebook message to all of those who didn’t respond inviting them to the event.
• Send a Facebook message to all of those who did respond with the message.
• Tweet about the event.
• Tally registrants by end of week.

2 weeks prior

• Message for all outlets: Tell them there are only 2 Short Weeks until the event. Use one of the 8 exciting reasons you’ve come up with.

Tactics:

• Send an email to non responders of the prior campaign.
• Send an email to all of those who registered with the message. Ask them to bring a friend. If you’re charging, offer them something free if their friend registers. Ask them to post to their Facebook and Twitter.
• Send a Facebook message to all of those who didn’t respond inviting them to the event.
• Send a Facebook message to all of those who did respond with the message.
• Tweet about the event.
• Tally registrants by end of week.

1 week prior

• Message for all outlets: Tell them there is only 1 Short Week until the event. Use one of the 8 exciting reasons you’ve come up with.

Tactics:

• Send an email to non responders of the prior campaign.
• Send an email to all of those who registered with the message. Ask them to bring a friend. If you’re charging, offer them something free if their friend registers. Ask them to post to their Facebook and Twitter.
• Send a Facebook message to all of those who didn’t respond inviting them to the event.
• Send a Facebook message to all of those who did respond with the message.
• Tweet about the event.

3 days prior

• Message for all outlets: Tell them there are just 3 days until the event. Use one of the 8 exciting reasons you’ve come up with.

Tactics:

• Send an email to non responders of the prior campaign with “Last Chance” message.
• Send an email to all of those who registered with the message. Ask them to bring a friend. If you’re charging, offer them something free if their friend registers. Ask them to post to their Facebook and Twitter.
• Send a Facebook message to all of those who didn’t respond inviting them to the event.
• Send a Facebook message to all of those who did respond with the message
• Tweet about the event.

Same day

• Message for all outlets: Remind them that the event is here and you’re looking forward to seeing them! Use one of the 8 exciting reasons you’ve come up with.

Tactics:

• Send an email to non responders of the prior campaign with “Last Chance” message.
• Send an email to all of those who registered with the message. Ask them to bring a friend. If you’re charging, offer them something free if their friend registers. Ask them to post to their Facebook and Twitter.
• Send a Facebook message to all of those who did respond with the message. Ask them to post to their Facebook pages.
• Tweet about the event with message and tell them something different exciting about the event.

Day After

• Send an email to all attendees with a link to posted photos of the event thanking them for their attendance. Ask them to post the link to Facebook and twitter.
• Send an email to all non attendees who registered with a “sorry we missed you, maybe next year.” Include a link to posted photos of the event thanking them for their interest.
• Send an email to all non registrants with a “Here’s what you missed, hope to see you next year” message.
• Post the photos to Facebook and thank everyone for attending. Post the photos to the facebook event page thanking them for their attendance. Send a Facebook message to all the non attendees with the photos link with a “Here’s what you missed, hope to see you next year” message.
• Tweet about the event and include a link to the posted photos.

Takeaway: Email and social provide great channels for you to stay top of mind for people when organizing a live event and staying there is the best way to get people where you want them to be.

Other great posts from Janine:

VerticalResponse email marketing top 50 retail subject lines

Subject lines for B2B email marketing that work

5 quick email list building ideas

Email marketing best practices

Website: http://blog.verticalresponse.com/verticalresponse_blog/
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/janinepopick

To stick with the “10″ theme for VR’s 10th birthday this month, here are 10 things you can test in your email to make it better than ever.

1. From Name: The most effective From Name is what your recipients recognize you by or expect to hear from. Not sure what that is? TEST IT!
2. Subject Line: Send 10% of your mailing list one subject line, and another 10% a different subject line. Then, look at which subject line performs better and send the remaining 80% the more successful subject line. Easy as pie!
3. Pre-Header: Your pre-header should support or complement your subject line. For example, your subject line tells your recipients you’re having a sale (Get 50% Off for a Limited Time Only) and your pre-header explains to the recipient what items are on sale (Save on Designer Jeans & Jackets).
4. Headline: Your headline should clearly explain what your email is about and what’s in it for the recipient.
5. How You State Your Offer: Are you promoting a half off sale? 50% off? Buy One Get One FREE? The way you say it can affect the success – so make sure to test it before you go full throttle!
6. Button vs. Text Link: At VR we have found people like to click on buttons more than text links in our emails and newsletters. Click here to easily create and add buttons to your emails and see if it’s the same for you.
7. Color of Your Button/CTA: If you get the VR for AppExchange Newsletter, you may have noticed a change in the button color. That’s because we tested our button color to optimize click rates! Test your button color and see what color your recipient’s eye is more drawn to.
8. Placement of Call to Action: Test where you put your Call to Action in your email and/or how many you include. Your click-through rate will help you determine what worked and what didn’t.
9. Images: Test how many images you have, where you put them and what images you use. Remember to always use alt-text too!
10. Testimonials: Test to see if customer testimonials help your emails perform better. If not, use the space for something that’s more effective!

Takeaway:
Testing provides the insight and feedback you need to consistently increase your response rates. Start with these 10 items and let me know if there are any others you have tried?

When I wrote a blog post about the top 50 retail subject lines you can use for email marketing recently, one of the readers of The eMail Guide asked if I had any examples of B2B subject lines that work. With a business-to-business offering, you might be trying with your copy writing to get your customers to sign up for a free trial, get them to an event, a webinar or give them information on how to be better at something or use your products or services better.

Below, and at my VerticalResponse blog, I have blogged about 29 great B2B subject lines for email marketing, which you can test out for your business today.

Sample Subject Lines:

1. How to Leverage [your product] in Your Business
2. Save Money and Look Like a Star to Your Boss
3. How to Impress Your Cranky CFO – Save $1000
4. Increase Your ROI by [xx]%, Guaranteed
5. How to make it onto your buyer’s short list
6. Complimentary Webinar: [insert webinar name]
7. Now you can do even more with your [xxxx]
8. Should your company outsource [insert thing to outsource here]?
9. Breakfast & Secrets for How to [insert problem you solve or product you sell]
10. Success Tip: 5 Ways to a Better [xxxx]
11. Register Today: [inert name of event] Nov. 5 2009
12. Entry deadline fast approaching
13. New White Paper: Best Practices for [Insert problem and solution here]
14. Success Tip #1: [Insert Tip Headline Here]
15. A gift employees and clients will love: [Insert gift name here]
16. Extended for a Day: Get Free Shipping Through Friday
17. Your Weekly Alert: [insert topic here]
18. Hear Exclusive Research Presented on [insert what your event is about] – Register Now!
19. Inside: [hot topic in your newsletter you think will get the most opens]
20. 5 Ways to Maximize Holiday Sales
21. Save $200: [insert event here] Early Bird Registration Ends [insert date here]

Here’s some specific subject lines I like, and why I think they’re great:

22. Marketing on a Tight Budget – Part 1 –
This subject line hits a pain point and makes it seem like there is even more information to help me, on its way.

23. Countdown to the Awards Gala: Reason #5 to Attend -
This company did a series of 7 email campaigns in a row, to get people excited.

24. The Venture Capitalist Industry Isn’t Broken: VatorNewsletter –
Here they started with the hot topic in the front of the subject line and it was somewhat controversial.

25. Secure Your SaaS Application (White paper Included) –
I like that they tell you there is something tangible in it for you right in the subject line.

26. Cognos Training: 50% Discount – Year-End Budget –
I LOVE the way they use Year End Budget because in many companies if you don’t spend the budget you have this year, you won’t get it again next year. This also works well with “Quarter-End Budget”

27. Thank You From Dice –
This was just a nice thank you for your business with a huge discount to get customers coming back.

28. Get a $30 Gift Card for 30 Minutes of Your Time –
It was to take a demo of a new product.

29. Frustrated with Graphics in Microsoft Office? –
This company sells a product to make it all better and they got to a real pain point for people.

Takeaway: Subject lines are so important since it’s the reason your recipients are going to look to that to decide if they want to open your email. If you’ve got some B2B subject lines that have worked for you in the past, comment on the post, we’d love to hear about them!

Not long ago we featured a post about offering 15 innovative ways to build your email marketing list. Here’s five more quick ideas from Janine Popick of VerticalResponse!

It can be hard to come up with fresh ideas on new ways to build your email marketing list each month, so here are 5 innovative ideas you can put to work for your business.

If you’re trying to get new customers, webinars can be a very effective way to do so, especially if you market to businesses. We’ve seen some companies have a lot of success advertising their free webinars instead of their product to get a lead in the door. Then they can try to convert them at a later date. Here are 10 things you’ll need to remember when you do your first or next webinar.

1. Facebook Invite – Create an event for your fans and invite them to your webinar. Remind them a few days before as well as the day of.
2. Get a Friend – Send email marketing to your customers and ask them if they know someone who would like to attend. Ask them to forward your message to their friends.
3. Be an Expert – Don’t sell yourself or even your company, sell your knowledge and expertise. People want “how-tos” to make their jobs and their lives easier. Then they’ll think of you when they need your solution.
4. Content is King - Make sure your content is up to snuff. Don’t over pack the slides. Too much information is confusing.
5. Timing is Everything – Make sure you time your webinar for maximum attendance. If you have customers in the U.S. you might want to try a time that gets the attention of people from the west coast to the east. At VerticalResponse we’ve found that 10:00am PT works pretty well.
6. Be Prepared – Upoad your presentation well before your webinar and make sure you rehearse! Open your presentation at least 15 minutes before starting so that those who log on early will see you there. Then check in every few minutes to tell them when you’ll be starting.
7. Prominent Call-In #- Put the call in information at the footer of each slide so if someone gets disconnected the number is there.
8. Answer Questions – Be prepared to pick out questions that people type into the software that you use. Sometimes it’s good to have another person in the room with you that can do that for you. Also, sometimes people are timid to ask questions so be prepared with a list of questions you usually get asked by prospects and customers. This way the conversation keeps going.
9. Pay Off Your Promise – Give To-Dos! Action items are a great way to give people something that they can do in their business. Revisit what you told your attendees they’d get and make sure you gave it to them!
10. Follow UP FAST - Send an email with a link to the archived version after the webinar with an offer for your services. After all, you eventually want these people to be customers don’t you?

You’re also going to need somewhere to “host” your webinar. I’ve not tried all of these, but they look like interesting webinar technologies to look into.

Freebinar – Free up to 150 attendees. It’s ad supported.
Fuze is about $50/month for 45 attendees.
Dimdim is about $25/month for 50 attendees.
Webex is about $49/month for 25 attendees.
GoToMeeting is about $99/month for 100 attendees.

Each has their own list of bells and whistles of course so check them our for yourself.

Takeaway: Webinars can be very effective if you have have information which is insightful and educational and you plan your event carefully.

Want to get your webinar or event listed on our events page? Drop us a note!

Other great posts from Janine:

VerticalResponse email marketing top 50 retail subject lines

Subject lines for B2B email marketing that work

5 quick email list building ideas

Email marketing best practices

Website: http://blog.verticalresponse.com/verticalresponse_blog/
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/janinepopick

Twitter is a powerful business tool. I think that even  though you constantly hear about using Twitter for your business, you may not hear enough about why it is a great business tool.

If you are worried about using social media, read here how you can conquer your social media fear factors!

If you haven’t joined Twitter, or if you have an account and don’t know what to do with it, here are my top ten “tweetable” reasons why you should give it a try:

1. It’s free.
2. It can help grow your email marketing list when you post email-only offers.
3. It will expand the life and reach of your email campaigns (use the VR Social Sharing Feature.)
4. You can find and make connections by following people and asking them to follow you.
5. You can stay up-to-date on industry trends by following trendsetters.
6. You can monitor what your customers are saying about you so you can make necessary tweaks to your business.
7. You can host a Twitter Chat to engage with and acquire more followers.
8. You can handle customer support related issues (check out Twitter.com/Supportvr for inspiration.)
9. You can find your advocates and reward them!
10. You can promote your business to new and existing customers.

Have you had success with tweeting for your business? Tell us about it in the comments!

Takeaway: Social media is a very powerful brand building tool — use it wisely to increase engagement and open communications with customers.

Editor’s note: For a complete glossary of email marketing terms, check this out!

As an email service provider we are constantly throwing around terms that sometimes our customers may or may not know. So I decided to pick 11 email marketing terms and give you the low down on what they mean. Don’t be offended if you know some of these, I’m trying to cover a lot of bases here. Here goes!

ROI (Return on Investment) – Your ROI is the measure of the profit you make and/or costs saved at your business. For your email marketing campaigns you calculate cost of sending email plus time.

ROI = [(Payback - Investment)/Investment)]*100

So if you made $780 on your email campaign, your time was worth $50 to create it and it costs $15 to send it it would look like this:

(($780 – $65)/$65)*100 = 1100% ROI (which is really good!)

If you want to take it a step further subtract your cost of your products or services as well.

Open Rate – Your open rate is simply the number recipients who opened your HTML emails. It is typically measured as a percentage of the total number of emails sent, although calculation methods may differ. The open rate is considered a useful metric for judging response to an email campaign but it should be noted that open rates for text emails can’t be calculated AND some email clients don’t display images as a default which would under report your total number of opens.

Above the Fold – The bottom of your browser window or the bottom of your email before you have to start scrolling is commonly referred to as the “fold”. These viewable areas should be where your most important information should be located since it’s the first thing your viewer will see.

Preview Pane – Email programs like Microsoft Outlook, Entourage, and Mac Mail allow users to view email through a preview pane before your recipient clicks to open. The preview pane is important to bear in mind when composing the opening lines of an email so you can get your recipient’s attention fast.

Copy – Your copy is simply the text of the email you write.

Hosted Email – A hosted version of an email allows users to view the email message as a web page, ensuring that all formatting remains intact. VerticalResponse does this for you for free you just need to include the “hosted version” link. Hosted versions of your email are also great for you to send your Twitter and Facebook followers to when you launch your campaign.

Spoofing – Email spoofing involves forging a sender’s address on email messages. It can be used by malicious individuals to mislead email recipients into reading and responding to deceptive mail. These fake messages can jeopardize the online privacy of consumers and damage the reputation of the companies purported to have sent the messages. Spoofed email often contains phishing scams. VerticalResponse doesn’t allow for this in our systems.

Phishing – In a phishing scam, a spammer, posing as a trusted party such as a bank or reputable online vendor, sends email messages directing recipients to Web sites that appear to be official but are in reality fraudulent. Visitors to these Web sites are asked to disclose personal information, such as credit card numbers, or to purchase counterfeit or pirated products.

Targeting – Targeting gives you the ability to deliver emails to those most likely to respond to your emails, based on a variety of things like their geographic, demographic, psychographic and behavioral information.

Whitelists – Whitelists are usually created by an ISP (internet service provider) and are made up of commercial emailers (including ESPs) who have been approved to send email through their gates. The ISP requires a list of IP (internet protocol) addresses that email will be sent from, and in some cases a test period where the commercial emailer will be approved or rejected. VerticalResponse is on all available whitelists.

Web Friendly fonts – Almost all web browsers are capable of displaying four primary fonts properly: Times, Arial, Helvetica, and Verdana, as well as their variants (Arial Narrow, Times New Roman, etc.) If a web developer decides to stray from one of these fonts he or she risks browser compatibility problems and the prospect that their pages may render inaccurately when viewed through certain web browsers.

Got any other terms you were wondering about? Leave a comment and we’ll answer!

Takeaway: Learn the email marketing lingo! Use an online glossary to brush up!

Website: http://blog.verticalresponse.com/verticalresponse_blog/
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/janinepopick

We’ve talked about the 8 places to find advocates for your business, and that’s really  important. We found that a HUGE number of our customers come to us through word of mouth referrals and I’m sure you’re getting a bunch too. So once we do find these people how do we get them talking more about us? We’ve concocted a nice list of 5 things to do now to help those advocates help your business.

1. Create a fan club
Formalize an official fan club where you send your fan club “Fans Only” offers or even send them gifts. As frequent customers of Expedia, we once got a great folio  that we can keep our tickets, passports and travel information in, and it’s a big yellow format so we’ll always be able to find it in our clutter.

2. Bring them to your shop or place of business
Get to know them! Why not have a mixer where you invite them to your work to meet employees that work for you. People want to get to know who they are advocating so it’s important to put faces with names.

3. Early deals
If you know you will be having a huge sale, why not reach out to your advocates a week or two earlier and give your deals to your VIP’s? I’m told that swanky retailer Gucci puts a sticker with a number on their merchandise. If you are in the “know”, you add a zero to the number which is the discounted price (of course, Gucci right?) and tell the sales associate you’d like to buy it. They sell it to you and keep it in their shop until the real sale is announced. Then you can pick it up.

4. Give them schwag
Your advocates are going to likely use or better yet wear things with your logo that you give them. So if you got it, send it.

5. Thank them
When an advocate has said something nice about you, why not send them an email marketing campaign thanking them for what they said. You can even personalize the exact words they published right in your email so that they remember. Sometimes a simple thank you goes a long way.

Takeaway: So once you’ve collected your list of people who are you best supporters, let’s treat them with the respect they deserve for talking favorably about you. Are you doing anything with your advocates?

Website: http://blog.verticalresponse.com/verticalresponse_blog/
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/janinepopick

Most businesses have customers who love them and who love to talk about them. You’ve  probably spent a lot of time and energy building up your business, so now it’s time to locate those people who love to shout from the mountain tops how great they think you are. Why? Well eventually you’ll want to reach out to these very special people, thank them and treat them extra special.

The easiest thing to do, is create a list of them from different channels so that when you’re ready to really activate them even more than they already are, you can do it easily. So where do you start?

Your Employees – Your employees can be the very best advocates for your business. You know who your best employees are and those who love what they do. Ask them to talk about your business on Twitter and Facebook if they’d like, and to post that they work for you on LinkedIn.

Best Customers – Look to see who your best customers have been, these are probably people that have purchased from you a number of times. Then based on your criteria, create your “best customer” list.

Survey Responders – If you’re sending our customer satisfaction surveys, why not monitor who responds positively to your surveys? Then create your “Survey advocates” list.

Google Alerts – Sign up for FREE Google Alerts with your business name, your name, even you competitors name. See if there is anyone who keeps talking about your business more than a few times. Call this your “Google Advocates” list.

4Square – If you’ve got a local business, monitor who becomes the Mayor of your business. When they check in, make sure you know and you find them and give them a special discount or deal. They’ll be sure to visit often and tell their friends. Call this list your “Mayor” list.

Twitter – Search your twitter handle on twitter.com. You will see who is talking positively about you. We use TweetDeck and set up a variety of keywords to track. Then from that easy interface we can manage our conversations with them. Make sure you RT them asking them to send you an email, include your email address. “Thanks for the RT! Email me at [email address] for a special deal!” You only have 140 characters so make sure you can fit it all and you will get their email address so you can start to build your email list of “Twitter advocates.”

Facebook – Create a Facebook Fan Page and monitor who is speaking up with comments and likes. Set up a “Reviews” Tab and ask your followers what they think about you. Then message them back thanking them. Ask for their email address so you can send them something (free product, discount.) For anyone who “Likes” what you write, add them as a friend on Facebook. Then message them and ask for their email address as well. Start to build your list of “Facebook advocates”.

Blog – Check out those who’ve commented on your blog. Most blog platforms enable you to see their email address. These will be your “blog advocates.”

Are you finding your best advocates? If so, how?? Please comment!

Takeaway: Your fans love you! Recognize those fans and support their efforts to show that love to others!

Other great posts from Janine Popick!

5 quick email list building ideas

5 tips for winning back customers

Email marketing best practices

How salesy should your email newsletter be?

Website: http://blog.verticalresponse.com/verticalresponse_blog/
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/janinepopick

If you’ve got a regular email marketing newsletter that you email to your customers, chances are you might be trying to sell something. That’s OK, but placing content around your offering could be the best thing to help you sell your products or services in your newsletter.

People like to read “news” in newsletters. A newsletter implies that you’ve got something to say, more than just selling. This is where content can come into play to back up your sales promotions.

Some companies that sell to businesses give free white papers and guides in a newsletter, and it’s all content to support their message.

The Girl and The Fig Restaurant in Sonoma does a great job including content in their “Figbits” newsletter” (click to see the full version). Let’s take a look through each section of their newsletter and outline why it’s good.

SALES – They highlight their Mother’s Day Brunch. Judging from the placement at the top of their email newsletter this is what is the most important thing for them.

CONTENT – They included a story in their newsletter of two of their employees who represented them and demonstrated their cooking at an event in Tennessee. They’ve got some great photos and a menu of the event.

SALES – They’re selling passes for an upcoming event where they’ll be the featured restaurant.

SALES + CONTENT - They feature a retailer that sells their food about 3 hours away. They tell a nice story about how the retailer started and what food they sell at their retail location from the Girl and the Fig, followed by links on how to purchase direct or where to find retailers.

SALES – They introduce 2 new mustards that will be coming soon and ask their readers to suggest to their favorite stores to carry their products.

CONTENT – They wish two employees a happy anniversary at Girl and the Fig.

SALES – They highlight some of their press and link to events they’ll be participating in.

Takeaway: The next time you send out a newsletter insert some content that relates to what you sell, and see what link gets clicked on and then track your sales. Content might just be the thing your newsletter needs to boost your own sales.

Other great posts from Janine:
5 tips for winning back customers
Email marketing best practices
VerticalResponse: subject lines for B2B email marketing that work

Website: http://blog.verticalresponse.com/verticalresponse_blog/
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/janinepopick

We’ve been having some really good luck in our marketing campaigns at VerticalResponse when we feature a customer. It’s always great to have customer testimonials, since the best way to sell your product or service is to have your customers do it for you.

Here are 5 ways you can use customer testimonials to grow your business.

1. Facebook page – If you market to consumers, every week post a customer’s testimonial or if they own a business try posting a link to their website with their testimonial. If they comment or “like” you for doing this, you’ll be in front of all of their friends too.

2. Blog – Every month or so, why not feature one of your customers on your blog. Feature them saying something nice about your business. If they run a business, make sure you feature their URL as well.

3. Email marketing – We’re having some fun featuring our customers in our newsletter. We like to do that to help them grow, and in return they forward the emails to their friends. This way, we get in front of more potential customers.

4. Online community – Feature one of your community members who are actively participating in conversations in your online forums and posts. They may tell all of their friends to check out their feature and you’ll get your business in front of more people.

5. Your website – Publish a different testimonial in each page of your site. It’s a great way to show the depth of your customer base, not to mention, if you’ve got a lot of different types of customers chances are that a prospect will identify with one.

And a lot of your customers won’t mind being featured either. Are you using customer testimonials?

Takeaway: Reach out to enthusiasts! They are the real “influencers”.

Website: http://blog.verticalresponse.com/verticalresponse_blog/
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/janinepopick

Whether you are new to email marketing or a savvy veteran, working for a company that sends 500 emails a week or 500,000, there are certain policies you should follow to optimize your campaigns. You could call them the commandments of email marketing, or call them email marketing best practices; they are the things you should strive for. We came up with this list based on our 9 years of using email marketing at VerticalResponse!

Below are 12 ideas to improve your delivery, open, and response rates. Next up I’ll be blogging about 6 things you should avoid in your email marketing!

Things You Should Do

• Opt-in: Start by being granted permission to email your recipients through an online opt-in process or being provided explicit permission offline. Developing a positive relationship with your recipients is the most important step you can take to help your marketing mailings reach their inboxes, so donʼt jeopardize it – and your companyʼs reputation – with overly aggressive tactics. In addition the more dedication you have to building a quality list the stronger results you will see in the long run.
• From Label: Ensure the mailing is clearly labeled as coming from the person or company that has a relationship with the recipient. If you use a from label that a recipient doesnʼt recognize, it may prompt them to unsubscribe or worse complain to their ISP about you, even if they are actually interested in your services. Once you decide on a from label donʼt change it for every send, you want to continue to build a relationship with your customer and you canʼt do that if you keep changing their contact.
• Unsubscribe: Give your email marketing recipients an easy and obvious way to opt-out or unsubscribe from your mailings and remove them quickly from your mailings if they have already done so. Itʼs the law and it reflects favorably upon your company when you act in a responsible manner. You donʼt need the negative publicity that accompanies the “spammer” tag.
• Subject Line: Make sure your subject line reflects the content of your message. When recipients think theyʼre being tricked into opening the email they often become resentful – and unsubscribe in mass numbers. Donʼt forget subject lines should be 40-50 characters in length with the most important information at the beginning. Anything longer will get cut off by your customers email reader.
• Your Address: Provide a valid postal address in each email marketing message, as well as an easy way for recipients to contact you or the company responsible for sending your email. Itʼs the law, and it provides another avenue ofcommunication with the customer, which is another opportunity to prove your worth.
• Content: Only email your recipients content that is relevant to what theyʼve requested. If you start emailing irrelevant offers, theyʼre more likely to unsubscribe. Be creative, this is what keeps your audience coming back for more.
• Reminders of Sign Up: Remind your recipients where you obtained their contact information and why they are receiving your marketing message. Sometimes people forget that they signed up to receive your email, especially if itʼs been a while since youʼve last communicated. This will help decrease your complaints and increase your reputation as an email sender.
• Frequency: Create an ongoing relationship with your list members. Building a mutually beneficial email relationship – like all relationships – takes time and care. Mail to your list on a regular basis. Every list works responds differently. Some enjoy daily messages, weekly messages, biweekely or even monthly messages, find out what works for you.
• Address Books: Ask your recipients to add you to their address books so they recognize your messages when they arrive. In many cases, once youʼre entered in an address book, your images will display properly and your emails will be directed straight to the inbox, not into the bulk folder.
• Testing: Test, Test, Test: Segment your marketing list, try presenting different offers, using different subject lines, and mailing on different days of the week to determine when you receive the best response.
• Images: Combine both images and text in your emails. Then, if graphics are stripped from your emails due to the recipientsʼ preferences, at least they are left with text they can read. If you must use an image as the dominant form of communication (we know, some graphic designers wonʼt have it any other way!), then insert a link at the top of the email that lets people read the message without interference. Also provide a link that directs your recipients to a “hosted” version of your email as well. And donʼt forget Alt Text, the text that shows even if the images are turned off. For example if you have an offer in an image like 10% Off, then make sure to included 10% off in the alt text so people can still get that information.
• Spam Filter: Run your message through a spam filter before you launch your campaign. If words get caught in the filter, replace them with alternatives that will pass the test before proceeding with your mailing. This easy-to-perform trial may dramatically reduce the risk of your email being mislabeled as spam.

Takeaway: Follow these 12 best practices as a guide to keep your campaigns on track and your list growing.

Email marketing in B2B is tricky. Vertical Respsonse CEO, Janine Popick, takes a look at ways you can make that connection without using a hard sell.

If your business sells to other businesses you might have it rough; you could be selling something pretty expensive that has a long sales cycle, you could have a specific time of year when businesses have the approved budgets to buy,  you could be dealing with C-level people who are never around, or you could be dealing with Purchasing Agents whose livelihood depends on getting the best deal for their companies.

So what do you do? What is the best way to approach this sales process?

Some say you should make the best offer you can and bang your poor prospect over the head to buy. What you might end up with is someone who never wants to hear from you again or worse, someone you condition to “always expect a sale”.

Others say take the soft-sell approach and “help” your prospect with their day. How? With quality information that help them be better informed.

All of us need help with something in our business right? Let me think of a few ways I get help from people trying to sell me things:

1. I get a nice mailer from commercial real estate agent in my area giving me tips on future leasing plans and what rates are for which building (they might even not represent.)

2. I get an invitation to a Social Media webinar with a free white paper called 7 Ways to Increase the ROI of your Lead Generation Efforts (who doesn’t need that?) from a company that tracks social media. The webinar is full of ideas for increasing Social Media, not a webinar on how to use their product.

3. I am invited to a webinar called “Get to the top of Google: 10 Free SEO Tools”.

4. I got a white paper.

I wrestle with all of these issues, so digging in to get more information is always a good thing for me, you and your prospects.

So offer your prospects things that will help them, like advice on overcoming obstacles they encounter on a day to day basis. It especially works if you’re product is just what solves their problem. You don’t need to be “selling” until they’re ready. And the more content you have to offer, the more your prospects will come to respect you as a trusted leader in your field. Then they’ll come to you when they’re ready.

Blog – If you’re an authority in your field you should be regularly blogging about topics in your industry. When people have questions, your blog will likely show up in the natural search results when your prospects are asking Google.

White Papers – They are not meant to be salesy, they’re meant to educate customers and help them make decisions.  Here is a nice outline of how to write a white paper.

Guides – How-to Guides are a great tool to offer to your customers.

Webinars – Re-work your How-to Guides into webinars. Some people are more visual and just like to listen to you speak and get a feel for what you know.

Email Marketing – All of these things get delivered because of your e-relationship with your prospect, so it’s important to get out there and build that prospecting email marketing list. Then use it as a vehicle to announce your monthly white paper, your weekly webinar and your blog updates.

Takeaway: Moving prospects along the sales cycle with free information is a great way to cultivate your sales relationships. People will respect you as an authority and not a pesky salesperson.

Do you have any ideas on soft selling? Share your suggestions below!

Case Study: ValuePetSupplies increases revenue ten-fold with eMail marketing to customers

At VerticalResponse we asked our customers what type of information they wanted from us. The answer? More case studies! You all want to know how other VerticalResponse customers are using email marketing and what they’re getting out of it. So we’ve started to talk to our customers to find out and we start our case study series with a retailer out of Tennessee, ValuePetSupplies.com.

Background
As part of their family pet business, the Piech family started ValuePetSupplies.com. Their goal is to offer pet-related products for the pet owner’s everyday needs at the most competitive prices possible. ValuePetSupplies.com is 100 percent online–and ships from a family-owned warehouse in Livingston, TN.

Problem
ValuePetSupplies.com uses search engine marketing and social media to generate leads. Even though they were advanced in these areas, as of January 2009 ValuePetSupplies.com wasn’t running any customer retention programs. Zachary Piech, owner of ValuePetSupplies.com, could see this was a problem based on the company’s customer retention rates.

Discovery
Piech shared his problem with a friend of his, and was lucky enough to have chosen a VerticalResponse advocate! His friend sat him down at a computer and supervised while Piech signed up for VerticalResponse and sent his first campaign. After Piech launched the first email marketing campaign, he was convinced this was something he needed to do.
After sending out a few successful campaigns in January and February, Piech was so impressed with his return on investment that he hired a marketing and sales manager to manage his marketing and retention programs.

Solution
ValuePetSupplies.com now sends out an average of 30 email campaigns a month with VerticalResponse to a customer base of over 100,000. “We start our campaigns the first of every month and probably have five or six campaigns going at a time, each targeted to specific types of buyers,” said Nick Carter, Marketing and Sales Manager for ValuePetSupplies.com.
These email marketing campaigns have provided insight to ValuePetSupplies.com on which products work well in emails, and which type of customer will respond to the different offers. They use this information to segment lists and send very targeted messages.

Results
Before ValuePetSupplies.com was sending emails campaigns on a regular basis, current customers created 20% of the monthly revenue. With the help of VerticalResponse, the company has increased this to 30%. “The return on investment numbers are mind-boggling. On our monthly campaign it is not unusual to see 7595% return on investment,” said Carter.

Have you got any great case studies you would like to share? Contact: Jim@TheeMailguide.com

Takeaway: This case study shows that customer retention is just as important as marketing to new customer prospects. Email marketing is a low cost way to stay in contact with your customers on a regular basis, which can improve your retention rates. It’s also important to select an Email Service Provider that provides analytics and tracking on email marketing campaigns, so you can take a similar approach to ValuePetSupplies.com and determine which products are performing well and send out more targeted emails.

Testing something new or changing something seemingly small in your email campaigns can definitely tell you something about how your recipients will respond. You’ll either get more open & clicks or you won’t. But you won’t know until you try.

Testing something new can SEEM like a lot of work but it’s really not. If you’re going to create an email marketing campaign anyway, it’s just three more tiny steps.

One: Make a copy of the campaign you’re creating
Two: Change a little part of the campaign (see below)
Three: Test with a small portion of your list or split your list in two

These three simple steps could get you a better response to your next email campaign and it takes just minutes for you to do. Unleash the mad scientist in you with these 5 easy things to test within your next email marketing campaign.

1. Subject Line – If no one opens your email, it doesn’t matter how pretty it is on the inside, so why not test two different subject lines? Here’s an idea; look at your past campaigns and see what your recipients are clicking on, then include that offer or article in your new subject line. After you send it out compare your open and click rates to see if you got a better response than normal.

2. Offer - Test a % discount vs. a pricing discount like 20% off vs. a $10 savings. Run a test with free shipping vs. no free shipping or with an expiration date vs. no expiration date. Then roll out to the rest of your list the winning offer.

3. Format – Instead of including a sidebar in your emails, try removing it so that perhaps more of your content is “above the fold” or the part of an email or web page that is visible without scrolling. Make sure you’ve got some links above the fold so you can tell if it’s working. If you get more clicks you may want to consider changing your format for good.

4. Links – If your email has 5 links to your offer, try including 5 more and see if your response increases.

5. Images – Try removing images and see if a text version of your email works better. How 90′s of you!

You can either split your list in half and do the test or you can break off a small piece of your list and do the test a day in advance of your real email campaign date. Then roll out to your bigger list with the winner. Here is how you can do it using VerticalResponse.

One last thing, if you are going to test any of these make sure you test them one at a time so you know which change actually made the difference.

Got any other testing tips you would like to share? Post them!