Liz Willits says, “Tis’ the season for pumpkin spice coffee, college football, and overuse of the 🎃 emoji. But did you know that it’s also a time for some of the biggest business holidays of the year? Cyber Monday, Black Friday, even the majority of Christmas shopping. (That’s right, fall doesn’t end until December 20th!) So while it might be tempting to start planning for Black Friday now, consider this: Consumers spent nearly seven billion dollars on Halloween alone in 2015. Now that’s a lot of candy corn. The most frightening holiday of the year is more than just... [...]

Sonia Simone says, “(Tap tap … Is this thing on?) Oh, hi! Welcome to the new Copyblogger Weekly … also known (to me) as our Firehose Management Protocol. The Weekly came from a message we heard from our subscribers: I love you guys but … holy guacamole that’s a lot of emails. And, as a person with Way Too Many Emails in my own overstuffed inbox, I feel your pain. On Thursdays, we’ll be publishing this roundup of the week’s Copyblogger and Rainmaker FM content for you. You can use it to zero in on the content you most want to read or hear, so you don’t miss that one blog post... [...]

Brian Clark says, “Are you a freelancer, consultant, or other provider of professional services to clients? If so, smarter email marketing strategies will get you more clients, and more importantly, better clients. You know, the ones who value your expertise and effort and happily pay your fees. Before I began Copyblogger in 2006, I started and ran three successful service businesses. And I used online marketing exclusively to attract clients, with email at the center of my strategy. Things have certainly changed since those days. The fundamentals remain the same — but the sophistication... [...]

Carl Sednaoui says, “You’ve done it. You provided valuable content to your readers and they’ve converted into leads. Now, it’s time to nurture these leads into opportunities for your sales team. Trouble is, cutting through the inbox clutter isn’t an easy feat. And many of these folks just aren’t ready to buy yet. That’s where lead nurturing comes in: It’s a way to stay connected to the leads you collect that aren’t ready to buy from you yet, and build up trust until they are ready. If you want to learn more about lead nurturing in general, you... [...]

Pete Caputa says, “Yes, you read the title right — I guarantee that these templates will get responses from prospects. No, this isn’t an infomercial. And you’re right that they won’t work every time. But, compared to the overly salesy prospecting email templates most salespeople are sending, I am confident that these will work better — or your money back. Start sending customized sales prospecting emails with HubSpot’s free CRM now. To be eligible, just pay me one easy payment of $99.99 before reading the rest of this article. Any takers? No? Moving on... [...]

Kimanzi Constable says, “Social media has changed the way we communicate; it’s opened doors for many business owners. There are millions of users on social media and we have an exciting opportunity to convert some of those users into customers. Yet, while this has been good, it’s also created a problem: In the same way that too many business owners depended on SEO a few years ago, they’re now relying on social media the same way. Certainly social media platforms are great, but you have to realize that your friends and followers on those media are not leads and not your... [...]

Rebecca Pollard says, “Growing an email list isn’t just for those with visually captivating, multi-page websites. It’s for anyone who wants to use email to engage their audience and grow their business. And considering that email is 40 times more effective at acquiring new customers than Facebook or Twitter, you definitely don’t want to put your list growth efforts on hold until your website is ready (or, if you don’t plan on building a website at all). Thankfully, there are a number of simple approaches you can take in the next hour to help you get moving – and they don’t require... [...]

Sophia Bernazzani says, “If you’re new to the world of email marketing, you might be unfamiliar with the importance ofsegmenting your email lists. But it’s a big deal: According to DMA, 77% of email marketing ROI came from segmented, targeted, and triggered campaigns in 2015. The best part about email segmentation? There are a ton of creative ways you can segment your email list to run innovative and effective campaigns that leads and customers will enjoy, from geography and industry to content format and topic. The more information you collect about your email recipients, the... [...]

Chad White says, “Gmail started rolling out support for CSS media queries across its email clients around midnight last night, following through on the September 14 announcement that it would support responsive design later in the month. With these media queries, email designers will be able to specify different display styles based on things like width, screen resolution and rotation. We’ll talk about the ramifications of this move in a second, but we should take a moment to recognize how wonderfully strange that initial announcement was. It wasn’t just that they’d be supporting... [...]

Carl Sednaoui says, “How successful are your ‘welcome’ emails? On average, ‘welcome’ emails receive an unusually high open rate of 50% — making them86% more effective than newsletters. These emails are responsible for setting the tone and creating expectations with your newest subscribers and customers. This is where you educate your prospective customers about the products or services you sell, as well as how frequently you’ll be sending email. However, just like in person, it takes conscious work to create a great first impression. If you stop for a second... [...]