7 Steps to Turning Brand Mentions Into Links (And Turning PR into SEO)

7 Steps to Turning Brand Mentions Into Links (And Turning PR into SEO)


I mentioned FastCompany in a post I published last month.

That’s all. I never linked to the homepage or any of its pages. I’m not expecting an email from the editor because it’s a multimillion-dollar company. The team has got more important things to do to make more money. Huh!

But what about small businesses and online marketers who rely on Relevance and Authority to grow a successful website?

What steps do you take when a trusted website mentioned your brand name without linking to it?

For most businesses, they’ll accept defeat and go hunting for another link. But savvy online marketers know better. If they found 1 unlinked brand mentions, there’s probably 10 more. They take action to at least get a link added in.

People are talking about your brand on their websites, blogs, guest posts, and social media. You need to monitor these conversations and make sure they’re linking to your website.

Mention
Mention

A survey conducted by Search Engine People shows that only 3 in 10 marketers are making attempts to reclaim unlinked brand mentions on other sites. 24% of those surveyed on LinkedIn do not consider it.

Turning unlinked brand name mentions into links is one of the quickest and proven link building strategies you can place a bet on. 

It’s like meeting a potential client whom your satisfied client introduced to you and said a lot of goodies’ about you. You can expect to close the deal! But you need to show up first — otherwise, you’ll miss the opportunity!

What is Link Reclamation?

Link reclamation is the practice and decision to find brand mentions and turn them into links. This practice should be an integral part of your digital PR campaign. You’ll always be at alert for mentions of your brand name or anything related to your brand — then if there’s no link, you’ll reach out to the editor or site owner for a link.

The fact that your brand name or product was mentioned in a post or podcast is an indication that the author knows your business in some way. Isn’t it an opportunity to reach out and grab a link?

Link Reclamation
Link Reclamation

This is different from a cold outreach whereby you’re sending an email to a stranger. The author has already mentioned your brand, so you’re contacting them to see the reasons why they should convert that mention into a link.

Sometimes, you’ll get a ‘YES,” other times, you’ll be rejected. This is completely normal!

That being said, here are the 7 steps to turning unlinked brand mentions into links:

Step #1: Use Social and PR Listening Tools

To start claiming those unlinked brand URLs, you need to automate some aspects of your campaign. 

You’ll still do some manual tasks, but social and PR listening tools can notify you whenever another website or online publication mentions your brand. 

PR tools like AgilityPR are essential for turning brand mentions into links. AgilityPR helps to monitor and measure your outreach performances. But it can also give you insights about news stories.

Social and PR Listening Tools
Social and PR Listening Tools

On the other hand, social listening tools are what you need to measure your social media brand impact. In other words, this tool will find mentions in social streams and notify you via email. 

An example of a social listening tool is HootSuite — the search streams allows you to monitor conversations relevant to your brand, your product, and the entire industry. 

You can easily track what people are saying about your product or website based on hashtags, locations, keywords, and more.

Hootsuite
Hootsuite

PR tools give insights that will impact your search visibility directly. Because it’s to do with media sites that are mentioning your brand without linking to it. 

Getting a link added in can boost your search rankings and organic traffic. 

But social mentions don’t affect SEO directly — they might affect the user experience and increase social signals — we can say there’s a correlation between social footprints (shares, retweets, likes, comments) and organic search.

Step #2: Set up Advanced Searches

A good way to start getting notifications about your brand when they’re mentioned on the web is by setting up advanced searches.

Advanced Searches
Advanced Searches

According to Craig from SEJ, you should create advanced searches for a specific type of brand mentions. Once it’s properly set up then, you’ll have sufficient data to make your outreach efforts more effective.

Here are some of the advanced searches you can set up:

  • Testimonials, About Us, Testimonials: “client name” -site:client.com -site:shopify.com testimonial. You can replace ‘testimonial’ at the end of the advanced search with ‘partnership’ or ‘about.’
  • Generate Search Query: “client name” -site:client.com
  • Blog mentions: “client name” -site:client.com -site:cnn.com

Note: You should replace the website address with your website. So in place of Shopify & CNN, add your URL.

Sometimes, the challenge you’ll face when setting up advanced searches is with your profession. 

If you’re an Optician, for example, you have to set up your search so that only your brand name pops out during the search, and not other people with the same name. So what you should do is include niche related terms in the query. See examples:

“client name” +optician -site:client.com

“client name” +Surgeon -site:client.com

Pro tip: To search for synonyms of the chosen keyword, you should use the “~” operator. With this, you’ll not be doing so much work, yet you’ll include more synonyms that will give you better results.

Step #3: Checking for Unlinked Mentions

There are so many ways to find unlinked mentions of your brand online. Using PR and social listening tools will get you more results than you can follow up. But if you want to access quicker results, using Google search is another option.

Let’s search for “ydraw” using an advanced search query on Google. Here’s the search:

intext:ydraw -ydraw.com -twitter.com -facebook.com -pinterest.com

Unlinked Mentions
Unlinked Mentions

That’s approx. 88,000 mentions across Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest. If I added LinkedIn and YouTube, I’m sure this number will increase.

This is huge and there’s no way you can exhaust this list in a year if you want to extract all of these mentions. I don’t think there’s a tool for that.

But there’s good news. I learned this from Joshua Hardwick, simply use the inbuilt filter to restrict results to the past 30 days or last 6 months.  

Follow this path: Tools > Any Time > Past hour, Past week, Past month.

Google Search
Google Search

To speed up the process, you can use the Rank Tank Unlimited Mention Finder. 

This will scour through Google search results for your brand mentions and also uses Google Docs to lay out the results in a spreadsheet. You’ll be able to see a specific query and see whether a specific site is linking to you or not. 

I have also used the SEMrush brand monitoring tool. It comes handy and shows you the SEO value of the potential link.

There’s more. You also see the estimated reach of the page (i.e., how many views it’ll get) and allows you to track the domain if it’s relevant to your brand or block it if it’s low-quality, spammy, or completely irrelevant.

Brand Monitoring
Brand Monitoring

So far, we’ve seen several ways to find brand mentions on social media, blogs, and online publications. Don’t just stop at that, you need to do the manual work of checking the pages.

If you found the mentions via Google search, simply click the link and visit the website. If it’s via email notification, you can click the link to land on the web page. Check if the mention is a link. 

If it is, then there’s nothing you do can (even if it’s a nofollow link). But if it’s not a clickable link, you can reach out to the author or editor and try to get a link added in.

Step #4: Prepare for Outreach 

In this important step, you’ll want to collect all the information about the website that mentioned your brand or anything related to your business without a link. 

You need to find their email addresses, social media handles, and every contact information you can ever find.

I like to use Google docs to create a spreadsheet where I lay out these contact information, website URL, in separate columns.

You also need to focus on websites with good authority. That way, when you eventually get a link added in, it’ll impact your search performance.

Simply install the MozBar Chrome Extension so you can see the authority of the websites you’ll be reaching out to. 

Link Analysis
Link Analysis

Don’t just spend your outreach resources of every site that mentioned your brand, simply go after brands with DA 30 or higher. A lower DA would either signify that the website is new or lacks a strong link profile.

Use Voila Norbert or Hunter.io to find names and email addresses. Don’t use unsolicited “Dear Editor” emails as they’d often fail. 

Norbert
Norbert

Once you’ve gathered all of this information, it’s time to do your outreach. We’ll discuss that in the next sections.

Step #5: Find and Connect With the Site Owner or Author

We’re assuming the site you visited mentioned your brand name but didn’t link to it. In this step, we’ll cover the steps you need to take to find and connect with the site owner.

In the previous step, you’ve already gathered their email address and social media handles, this might be the right time to start building relationships. The first email or shout out you send to them is to build a rapport.

Connect With the Site Owner or Author
Connect With the Site Owner or Author

Don’t ask for a link or anything, just make contact. Since most of the mentions will appear on blog posts and online publications, you’ll likely find a byline of an author. This is the time to connect and appreciate them for mentioning your brand.

We like to begin with LinkedIn since it’s a professional network. Send a connect request and add a personal note to get the momentum going.

It could be as simple as:

LinkedIn
LinkedIn

As you can see from this message, Kim isn’t asking for a link or for Brian to promote his website or product. He’s simply making a connection.

Always start a conversation first before asking for a favor. When sending connection requests on LinkedIn, recognize that the person is a professional and as such, they know you’re in business to connect with like minds. 

Hardly will a LinkedIn professional reject your friend request if you sounded genuine.

Step #6: Send Your Outreach Emails

On a Whiteboard Friday, Rand Fishkin, founder of Moz explained the value of seeking and earning links. 

Outreach Emails
Outreach Emails

Link earning is exciting because you get it on a platter of gold — a site owner or blogger simply links to your website or page. 

But when it comes to building links, it’s tough because you’re doing both automated and manual tasks.

You can tweak this outreach template for your campaign:

Hello [name],

Thank you for including us in your list of brands in [article link here].

We truly appreciate you for the mentioned and we’ll make sure to share it with our followers. 

Would you mind adding a link to “Our Brand Name” to your site? It’ll truly help our search performance and more people will find us.

I’d be very grateful if you can do this. And again, if not, no worries.

If there’s any way I can be of help, just say it!

Thanks for your time.

Your name

When it comes to sending outreach emails, your pitch is important. It’s particularly important when you’re reaching out to a top media publication in your industry. You’ll need to bypass the editors and impress them.

Therefore, how you present your pitch matters.

Essentially, you have to be honest up front. Be honest with your intentions. You know the link will help your search visibility — so tell the author about it. Remember you’re not doing them a favor, they’re the one lending a helping hand.

To get better results with your outreach emails, personalize the experience by using the person’s name in your email and use lower case letters to add a conversational tone to the email. Write your subject lines in lower case letters.

Step #7: Send a ‘Thank you’ Message to Appreciate the Author

You should show gratitude if your link got added in. It’s a lot of work because the author had to log into their site backend, edited the post, and added your link. 

Not everyone can do that. 

So while you’re celebrating the link, you need to show how grateful you are. If it’s a strong link, you can even send a handwritten thank you note. 

It’ll go a long way towards cementing the relationship for future collaborations. Grammarly shows you some effective ways to say thank you.

Message to Appreciate the Author
Message to Appreciate the Author

Ideally, you can endorse the author or professional on LinkedIn. Since their content was helpful and relevant for you to get a link from, you should endorse them for blogging, content creation, or writing.

Try and boost their skills. If they’re doing everything possible to get eyeballs and win new businesses, you should support them. 

In your live events, mention the author if possible, link to them in your new post, share the post that links to you (ignore if you’ve done so already).

Conclusion

Link reclamation is an effective way to get some juicy links from authoritative websites that mentioned your brand name. But recognize that not all mentions are worth pursuing links.

For example, contacting press release sites is often useless. Because press releases are often distributed from large publications such as PRWeb. 

These press releases are syndicated on websites that can’t be edited — so there’s no need to send out outreach emails to try and get a link.

Your prime targets are industry blogs, online publication sites (e.g., Entrepreneur, Inc.), online forums, and social media posts (especially on LinkedIn). 

Getting your brand name linked from these targets will impact your SEO positively. Be consistent, be creative, and always promote your business to increase its chances of getting mentioned across the web.


Great Advice On Creating A Facebook Ad Campaign

Great Advice On Creating A Facebook Ad Campaign

$81,700 in sales value on a $2,700 spend

How we managed a 29.9x ROAS and $3.55 CPA in December

(and an Avg ROAS of 15.8x with CPA $6.80 throughout 2019!)

Buckle in, baby. This is sure to become a long post. (It did. TL:DR I share 10 tips on why these *actual* results worked via team effort, simplifying things and knowing our team strategy across the board). – this post is laden with actual advice and insights, not boring ego-stroking. Housekeeping before we start:

  • Women’s sportswear niche
  • CPA = Cost per Acquisition
  • ROAS – Return on Ad Spend (total value of sales. Not profit)
  • The KPI from client is $5-8 CPA
  • Average Order Value (AOV) $74

We had a whopping month with this particular client and as we were discussing the factors that contributed to such a success, I decided I would share a post about it. If you are looking for the magic wand to insane ROAS and low, low CPA, you won’t find it here.
Prove your product. It doesn’t matter if you are new to Facebook ads or have been doing it for years. If you have a product people want or need, people will buy it. If you have a product no one wants, no one asked for, doesn’t make sense, is poorly manufactured, rips another premium product or anything else that indicates you haven’t put thought into your product or offer, you will fail. This particular client spent a long time in the development of their product and constantly takes on feedback and reviews when reordering stock and developing new stock. They watch what sells quickly and what doesn’t and adjust accordingly. They also release limited-edition versions of the product from time to time so that loyal customers always have a reason to come back and purchase. There were new items released during December, which is why I have also shared out 2019 stats overall.

Ask:

  • Does it satisfy a desire?
  • Does it solve a problem?
  • Have I crowdsourced feedback prior to putting it on the market?
  • How is it different to other products?
  • If you’re a new business ask this: Do I just really like this or is there actually room on the market for this right now?

Tend to your customers lovingly, caringly and patiently. People buy from people they like. Are you likable online? Are you seen answering questions, providing relevant links, offering support (such as returns, exchanges) or keeping them up to date transparently with business changes and movements? Make sure you:

  • Reply to comments – good and bad (obviously some things go without dignifying with a response: it’s social media. Hide and move on)
  • Have a group (If appropriate) for customers to interact with each other, ask about sizing/material/fit/storage/shelf life/specific product questions
  • Be transparent with apologies if they are needed, as you are humble and grateful with praise. BE LIKEABLE.
  • Speak to them kindly. Even if someone says “can you link me to this item please” don’t just drop a link, say hello, thank them and tell them something they may not already know

Stop relying on Facebook Ads alone. Yes, they are effective. No, they are not the only way to advertise. The results shared above and below are the Facebook Ads stats alone. BUT we also have Google Ads running alongside these campaigns. We are targeting a variety of keywords as well as implementing YouTube Video campaigns for Brand Awareness. Facebook Ads should be but an element of the overall machine that is your brand’s advertising and marketing strategy. For those interested, our Google Ad stats are (Dec 2019):

  • · 3290 visitors
  • · 28 cents per click
  • · $933 spend
  • · $23, 580 sales
  • · 271 Purchases
  • · 25.27 ROAS
  • · $3.44 per purchase
  • · 62 new subscriptions

Further, this client has spent a couple of years cultivating a fantastic online presence through organic marketing. It is not necessarily the most beautiful (no themed grids on IG, no blush pink wine stain backgrounds or overdone cursive writing. UGC, Canva, some professional pics, some ambassador pics, a few simple quotes to get a giggle and a heart react from the audience. That isn’t to simplify the work they do, but to demonstrate how some businesses can tend to overthink organic strategy – myself included for Enriches Business!). Ok, now you are probably thinking: Get to the actual strategy, Jess. Enough soapboxing, yeah?Fair play. But those things are what can make or break even the most thought out, technically advanced and expensive campaign. Get that wrong, FB ads can possibly do nothing for you at all.


Use existing posts isn’t fancy but it’s ridiculously effective. If a post gets a few comments or inquiries and a good banter on it relating back to your products, use it in your ads. Usually, existing posts are most suited to your Middle Of Funnel. Why? Because a page owner is more likely to write updates as if they are speaking to someone they have spoken to before. Any advertiser worth their salt will tell you each stage of your funnel deserves a different tone.

  • Existing posts are also effective in top of funnel too, just watch the copy and make sure the creative is putting your best foot forward (bright, lovely, unique, engaging, accurate). This is your first impression, after all.
  • Top of funnel: Never heard from you. “hi, we are XYZ and specialist ABC. You might be interested in our best-seller, product123. Why not take a look?”
  • Middle of Funnel: Some contact with you, perhaps not too significant. “hey, remember how we [do thing]? We thought you’d like to see our newest [thing] which now comes in pink”. Or “ we thought you’d like to know that those pants you liked are made out of [stuff]”.
  • Bottom of Funnel: Lots of contacts. Ready to buy/strike. “Ok, you’ve looked at product s123, d123 and c123. We think you should buy them now, as Karen did. And she never looked back. Be like Karen.

Get out of your head with the creative. These campaigns we often used (often, not always) a UGC image in the top of the funnel. Didn’t I say put your best foot forward in TOF? Yes. How can UGC be best at TOF? Think of it this way: It’s all well and good for you to be telling people (read: speaking at them) about your product and how wonderful it is, showing it on models paid to wear it, in studios you’ve possibly photoshopped so you look glossy and fancy, but what if you had real people wearing your items? What this then says is: It’s not just us that love it, other People actually love our shit. Look at Karen, doesn’t she look great? Follow up in MOF with beautiful, professional shots that add weight to your credibility as a business. BOF should be as hyper-relevant and dynamic as you can in most cases. Also, pay attention to what items are generating the most clicks in your Google Analytics and allow this to direct you to what the cold audiences want to see more of.

Switch up creative often, but don’t get all caught up in frequency. As I tell my members and anyone who will listen, frequency only matters if it goes up but nothing else follows. Frequency of 7 and a shit click-through? New creative (if the audience has been verified) Frequency of 14 and a high return/sales value? Leave.It.Alone. If it starts to decrease, switch up creative ever so slightly (or dramatically, whatever is your strategy) to refresh the audience’s interest. Usually, we stick with copy that works and switch up visuals.

Tim Burds Bully Method. Especially for new campaigns, you are breaking out to cold audiences. Bid high, higher than you actually want (in the trials we used Target Cost) and literally butt your competition out of the way. We bid 4x the desired CPA and left this for a week. I was nervous the first time because the CPA was coming in higher than I wanted. About halfway through the learning phase, it dropped significantly. Although using this method it rarely (if ever, from memory) dropped to the actual desired CPA, We simply switched the campaign back to Lowest Cost (same campaign, no other changes) and it dropped to the CPA we wanted after a few more days. So Bully method àlet it go for 5-7 days àif unhappy switch to the lowest cost and you have “trained” the algorithm to favor you in the auction. Note: I can’t guarantee those results will carry stability but this worked for us several times and across a few accounts. Sometimes it did not work as well.
Use CBO and learn to use it well. Next month it is most likely going to be mandatory anyway. If you haven’t used it yet, START! Stubbornness when it comes to using the platform is an easy way to pick yourself off the crowd of successful advertisers and agencies and be left behind for dead. Use new features. Here’s how I use CBO: TOF CBO campaign with 3-7 audiences (client budget permitting). No, spend control. Go for upper-funnel signals and see who clicks/engages/responds. Don’t expect too much $$$ at this stage. You are testing audience viability (we are fancy and call this AVR – Audience Viability Research which is ‘Agency’ for “seeing who does stuff”). Move the ones that respond to conversion campaign (or new traffic campaign, hell, who cares if you were getting sales at a good rate stick with what objective works) and apply 50-70% of the campaign budget to the adsets you have moved forward with as a minimum spend. Let the CBO machine ebb and flow the remainder of the campaign budget between those adsets as it sees fit. This way you ensure your adsets are delivered with a min spend rather than one or two not getting a start or spend at all while taking up the advantage of CBO.So a $100/day campaign might have 5 adsets with min spend of $15 each, leaving $25 to move between targeting as needed as identified by the algo.

Don’t miss a targeting opportunity. Here are some of the audiences we have targeted:

  • Opened lead form, did not submit
  • Visited site, did not VC or ATC
  • Watched 3 seconds of video
  • Watched 10 seconds of video
  • Top 25% time spent on site
  • Birthday in next 7 days
  • Engaged with page last 7,14,30 days
  • Mail list
  • Mail list who have purchased 6 months ago but not in the last 4,5 mths

Hire your weakness. If you are crap at Facebook Ads and therefore think Facebook ads “don’t work”, hire someone who knows what they’re doing. I’m not asking for it to be me, hire anyone who can prove they know what they are doing. You might find that when someone experienced is at the helm, you stop thinking they don’t work and wonder why you didn’t do it sooner.

And lastly, advertisers, this one is for you: be f*cking honest with your clients. If you are having a shit week or missing your KPI, or something broke or you tried something new, tell them.

Before we did the bully method (and many other times, but this one springs to mind specifically) and warned the client they may see an increase in CPA. They said…wait for it… “Ok, thanks for warning us and thanks for trying new strategies, excited to see what happens”. I’m a great advertiser, but not a Facebook God. They know this, There is no need to act otherwise.
FINALLY: why did I write this? Not for Guru Status. Not for attention (although I won’t say no to a cold beer and a slap on the back, because this is flipping awesome work) and not to release a course. I wrote this because I see this shit everywhere and no one seems to talk about the OTHER ELEMENTS that accelerate the success of campaigns, right down to the hard work the clients put in to support my work.

This serves to be honest, useful and a reminder to anyone overthinking or over-claiming – it’s Ok to acknowledge your client does some of the work, ok to say that the google advertiser supported your results, ok to say that the brand’s reliability and reputation support your work. What works, works and profit-generating revenue is good for everyone. To the wheels in the machine (that’s us, advertisers), best of luck.

9 Ways to Find Key Influencers in Your Niche Using Social Media

9 Ways to Find Key Influencers in Your Niche Using Social Media

In recent years, influencer marketing has emerged as one of the most powerful marketing strategies for driving a high Return On Investment (ROI). 

According to Linqia, about 63% of marketers work with at least 10 influencers on every campaign.

Did you know the reason for this exponential growth in influencer marketing? The reason is simple!

Influencers are trusted by a large target audience. Yes! The opinions, knowledge, and authenticity of influencers can convert the target people – mostly trusted peers and fans – into loyal customers.

More so, influencer marketing has grown to become one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies. That is why business owners who understand the potency of effective influencer marketing are getting impressive returns. 

Recent research by the Influencer Marketing hub revealed that business owners who rely on influencers received a return of about $7 on every $1 spent on influencer marketing. The top 13% of the studied businesses received a return of close to $20 on every dollar spent.

Unlike the influencer campaigns of days past where major stars are used (though they can be used), modern marketing landscape enables businesses to also focus on influencers with smaller but more engaged audiences – audiences that are more precisely aligned to your business niche. 

Aside from attracting more niche-aligned audiences and more effective, niche influencers charge far less than major stars.

However, the only major challenge is how to find the key niche influencers to work with. 

A survey by Mediakix revealed that about 61% of marketers are faced with this challenge. This challenge has also led most businesses to turn to social media as a tool to find key influencers.

Luckily, unlike the TV and magazines, social platforms have no limits, there are as many influencers as the world requires on social media. These influencers can be of any social status and age and can work with any business.

To help you find key influencers in your niche using social media, I have created this comprehensive guide for you to help you identify and choose influencers who best suit your business.

Before I discuss the nine best ways to find key influencers in your niche using social media, let’s learn “what influencer marketing is,” “who influencers are,” “why your business needs influencers,” and “what makes influencers a good fit for your marketing strategy.”

What’s Influencer Marketing? 

Influencer marketing is the practice of leveraging key persons who have built the right audiences you want to reach in your business.

The essence of influencer marketing is to connect and collaborate with the influencer to leverage their audience so that you can generate leads, sales, and build massive brand awareness.

Who is an Influencer? 

An influencer is a person who’s known and trusted by your target audiences. For example, Seth Godin is an influencer in the business environment while Kim Kardashian is an influencer in the showbiz and entertainment space.

Not all influencers are created equal. Funny enough, not all of them have the same level of influence on social media and the world.

According to Mark Schaefer, there are five types of influencers as shown below.

Type of Influencers
Type of Influencers

The point is that key influencers in your niche are farther down the spectrum and that’s where you should pay your attention. 

If you are a social media pro, you would have realized that people who are highly relevant within smaller groups are more powerful advocates in word-of-mouth marketing.

So, what should you look for in your influencer? Consider these three criteria:

  • Engaging: The person must generate conversation, trigger shares, and create compelling content. There must be signs that the influencer is well-known and trusted by their followers.
  • Relevant: The person should be known by your audience. They must be willing to promote or share your content with their followers.
  • Collaborative: The person must be likely to accept your invitation to collaborate.

Now that you know who an influencer is and what influence marketing is, let’s dive deeper into how to find your key influencers.

How to Find Key Influencers in Your Niche On Social Media

You can decide to keep all the criteria I listed above in mind when choosing an influencer. But, how do you find the key influencers in your niche who merits those criteria? Here are the best ways:

#1: Relevant Hashtag Searches

Relevant hashtag searches are one of the best ways to find key influencers in your niche on social media platforms.

About 71% of marketers use social media searches to find key influencers and that’s because social media contain lots of contacts and information. 

Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and Blogs are the key channels that influencers have built huge and loyal followings on.

Social Media Channels
Social Media Channels

Using relevant hashtags enables you to tap into conversations in your niche and identify influencers who are talking about businesses, products, or services that are similar to yours.

Note that relevant hashtag searches are most effective on Twitter and Instagram. Instagram has a dedicated hashtag feed, which you can embed on your website.

Hashtags
Hashtags

To perform relevant hashtag searches on social media, you first need to identify hashtags that are very relevant for your industry. 

For instance, if your business is within the hospitality industry, search for hashtags like #travelblogger, #vacationing, #holiday, #leisuretrip, #travellover, and #travel.

In this case, I will be using the hashtag #travel and the search returned about 422 million posts.

Travel
Travel

The next step involves going through all the posts manually to identify appropriate influencers whose posts/content you like and who would be able to promote your products, services, and brand.

Hint: Use more specific hashtags where appropriate. So, if you run a luxury hotel chain, use the hashtag “#luxurytravel” and not “#travel.” More so, if you wish to promote your brand in a specific region, use city-specific hashtags for your search.

For instance, if you run a restaurant chain you wish to promote in New York City, use hashtags like #nycrestaurants, #nycfoodgram, #nycfoodies, #nycblogger, or #streetsofnyc.

In this case, I used the hashtag #nycfoodies for the social search, which led me to the post by @brooklynbitess, an influential account managed by influencers Giuseppe Falanga and Sabrina Argiro.

Hashtags Searches
Hashtags Searches

Giuseppe Falanga and Sabrina Argiro are New York-based influencers with about 103K followers on Instagram. 

#2: Ad-Specific Hashtag Searches

Ad-specific hashtags searches are another way to find key influencers in your niche on social media.

FTC’s Endorsement Guidelines necessitate influencers to disclose brand collaborations. Hence, influencers usually use hashtags like #paidpartnership, #promotion, #sponsored, or #ad in their post captions.

You can search for these hashtags to find influencers who promote products, services, or brands similar to yours.

In this case, I searched using the ad-specific hashtag “#sponsored,” which led me to this post

Endorsements
Endorsements

In this post, Annie Tran endorsed the wedding dress by Blush Bridal Couture. Annie Tran is an influencer with 80.3K followers on Instagram. She specializes in endorsing beauty products and clothing lines.

If you are into fashion, wedding business, or beauty brand, you may consider Annie Tran as your influencer.

#3: Social Media Monitoring or Listening

Sometimes finding influencers who are already mentioning your brand is an effective way to find key influencers in your niche.

So, try to find influencers in your follower list too. You are likely to find a few micro-influencers in your social media followers list waiting to be discovered.

Since these influencers have already shown interest in your brand, they can be great to work with These influencers are likely to endorse your brand more effectively.

Identifying these influencers is pretty easy. All you need to do is browse through your followers’ list and find any follower with large followings of their own. Any follower with decent and large followings may be a good choice for your brand collaboration.

An example of a brand that adopted this way is Airbnb. Airbnb has several travel influencers in its followers’ list on social profiles. Airbnb simply partnered with these influencers to promote its property listings.

Social Media Monitoring
Social Media Monitoring

An example of such influencers is Harry and Nikita, couple travel bloggers with the account name “@thevagabondstories.”

Sometimes, some people aren’t following you but are talking about your product, services, or brand and can be your key influencers. 

So, tracking your brand or products’ social media mentions can be very useful when finding your niche influencers.

To make this process easier, there are some social media monitoring and listening tools you can use. These include Hootsuite, Mention, Statusbrew, or Google Alerts.

#4: Advanced Search Tools

Some social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook all have advanced search tools, which help users to dig faster and deeper. 

In this case, I will use LinkedIn for my example.

Advanced Search Tools
Advanced Search Tools

Simply search for your specific keyword – niche or topic – I used “analytics” in my example. The search results page allows you to filter for influencers. 

Check every box necessary (location, industry, etc.) and click “Apply” to start narrowing down the search.

The search results will possibly contain influencers you are not connected with yet. Send them a connection request with a personal note to start up a warm conversation.

#5: Free Social Media Search Tools

This method is great for Twitter and luckily, Twitter provides a platform to find influencers easily. The Twitter Advanced Search Tool is good, but not without a hitch. 

The search results can’t be sorted. 

Nevertheless, you can join the clique of other business brands to use other Twitter search tools like FollowerWonk. I will be using FollowerWonk.

Followerwonk
Followerwonk

Click on the “Search Bios” tab, enter your topic (in this case “analytics”). Click on “more options.” Enter your industry or niche into the advanced search field. Be specific with your search term to dig deeper into your niche. 

For instance, instead of searching for “cars” or “travel,” you can use “family cars” or “island travel.” To avoid overloading, input minimum followers of about 11,000 or 1,500 for specific niches. Click “Do it” to generate search results.

The results are likely influencers within the niche sorted according to the size of their followers.

Hint: More followers doesn’t translate into more influence. Getting a lot of followers is possible on twitter without influencing anyone. So, check the “Social Authority” column. 

Influencers with low authority should be avoided because they are less likely to drive or engage traffic.

Analytics
Analytics

The five methods explained above do not require the use of any third-party app. However, the next four methods rely on the use of paid influencer marketing tools.

#6: Find Influencers With BuzzSumo

This tool is specifically built to search for influencers on Twitter. To use this tool, click on the “influencers” tab on the top of the page. Enter your search term and click on “search.” Check the filters only for “bloggers,” “influencers,” and “active influencers” and click “filter.”

Buzzsumo
Buzzsumo

The result will return a list of influencers in your niche with data about their followings, reply ratios, and retweet ratios. With this result, you can easily see who is likely to interact on social media at a glance.

Just like followerwonk, BuzzSumo also has domain authority data. A higher number indicates a bigger benefit to your search rankings if the blogger mentions your brand and links to your website from their blog.

You can also get quick access to the content they’re sharing from the report. Choose the influences you like best, contact them and collaborate with them.

#7: Use Awario to Find Influencers

This is a social media listening tool and capable of monitoring major social media platforms, such as Reddit, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. 

Awario can also monitor forums, blogs, news, and the web in general for mentions of your products, services, brand or any other keyword.

Awario
Awario

Awario is a great tool for finding key influencers in your niche as well as brand advocates. Influencers are ranked based on the daily visits to their blogs, the number of followers they have, or their reach. 

#8: Find Influencers with Klear

Klear is specially made for influencer marketing. This tool analyses influencers in 60,000 topic categories, their psychographics, and demographics. 

Searching with Klear doesn’t take much time since the tool is essentially a database of influencers. 

Influencers can also be filtered by social media platform, their demographics, the keywords they mention, their location, their skills, and the size of their audience.

More so, this tool measures the results of your influencer marketing campaigns to decide which ones work best. 

Influencers
Influencers

#9: Find Key Influencers Using Traackr

Just like Klear, Traackr is solely an influencer marketing tool that conducts the influencer marketing process from start to finish. 

TRaackr
TRaackr

For instance, the tool finds the key social media influencers in your niche and measures the results of their influence.

You can filter the social search on Traackr by brand affinities, gender, age, location, language, topic, and social media network. You can apply the same filters to the influencer’s followers.

#10: Use Upfluence to Find Micro-Influencers

Upfluence contains a database of about three million influencers. It analyses each influencer according to demographics, location, engagement, reaches, and niche. 

Upfluence also reveals the type of content influencers post most as well as their habitual post times.

Upfluence
Upfluence

Conclusion

By now, you would have understood that working with key influencers in your niche can help your brand to effectively reach and engage its target audience. 

But remember that influencer marketing doesn’t produce overnight results. It could happen if you have a fantastic product and the likes of Kim Kardashian or Justin Bieber gives you a shoutout. 

But if you’re in this to connect and build relationships with people for your business, you’ll need to be consistent.

You’ll see dramatic results if you embrace influencer marketing as another ‘strategy’ for connecting and helping your target audience. Don’t see it as a money-making avenue.

If you need a helping hand to launch your influencer marketing campaign, you can contact us today.

Google Analytics Checklist: How to Analyze Data to Drive More Traffic

Google Analytics Checklist: How to Analyze Data to Drive More Traffic

Google Analytics is a comprehensive tracking tool on the market. 

This tool gives you robust information about visitors to your website and the actions they take on your web pages. After clicking on the email that you sent, you can see what people are doing on your site.

Nearly 61% of the first 1 million websites (Alexa ranking) use Google Analytics, according to SimilarTech.

If you use Google Analytics effectively, you can stop making blind assumptions and make data-based marketing decisions to increase profits.

Google Analytics
Google Analytics

One of the best things you can do with your website is to be in control. Even though content marketing is powerful enough to grow your traffic, you need to be updated on what’s currently happening on your website.

That’s the best way to do better research and come up with topics that will make for the most in-depth and useful content. 

This will result in Personalization, whereby your content isn’t just a string of texts but there’s personality attached to it. 

That’s exactly how Build.com increased conversions by 6% just by utilizing the audience insights in its content marketing processes.

Build.com
Build.com

What is Google Analytics (GA)?

Google Analytics is a web analytics tool that allows site owners to get a general picture of how users find and use their website or app.

What is Google Analytics
What is Google Analytics

Google Analytics is more than just counting clicks and simple page views.

It provides an excellent way to track visitor behavior, demographics, sales figures, traffic from other websites, and more.

All data you need is captured in real-time and divided into different areas (such as traffic sources, user behavior, etc.). 

You will be shown on a dashboard with diagrams and pie charts to visualize the progress of your website.

Here’s an example of the Google Analytics dashboard:

Active Visitors
Active Visitors

If you want to improve your website, we will guide you through data-driven decisions with Google Analytics to increase traffic.

Add Google Analytics to Your Website

Before you can access data, you must ensure that Google Analytics is set up correctly on your website. Misused tracking distorts your tracking data and leads to the wrong decision.

To start using Google Analytics, all you need to do is create an account, link your website to Google Analytics, and add the tracking code snippet to the <head> section of your website.

Boost Keyword
Boost Keyword

If your website or blog is hosted on WordPress, you can use this simple guide to set up Google Analytics.

After setup, it might take several hours to collect data on your website. Let’s look at a few different aspects of using Google Analytics to improve your website.

1). Focus on Your Goals

To make the right decision, you need to stay focused on what you want your website to accomplish for your business and understand how to achieve them by setting Goals.

There are different types of goals you can set in Google Analytics. Some webmasters may prefer to set a goal to understand what happens on their “Thank-you” page. 

That’s the page the visitors land on after filling out a form or subscribing to your email list.

Goals

Once a clear goal has been defined, it’s time to dig into your top pages. One way to view your content is to visit the Google Analytics Pages report. 

From there, you can determine which blog posts and pages generate the most conversions.

Once you find the type of content that will give positive results, you can bring more content ideas to your blog and include them in your editorial calendar.

2). Bounce rates

One of the most critical indicators you must remember is the bounce rate. The bounce rate is the number of visitors to each page on your website. It’s a range of 1-100.

Bounce Rates
Bounce Rates

Find out if your visitors keep using your website or bounce off after reading your post or reaching your homepage.

Essentially, the lower your bounce rate the better. But this isn’t always the right way to accurately measure the bounce rate. Because a visitor may land on your page, finds exactly what they’re looking for, and leaves.

This doesn’t mean your page is low-quality or poorly-written. On the contrary, it means that your page is useful and provides trusted answers to users’ questions. 

Overall, you should work on your website to lower  the bounce rate. The lower the bounce rate, the more attractive your website is, the better it is for your business.

Looking at it from another angle, if you notice that a lot of visitors leave your web page after viewing just one page, it could be an indication that your content isn’t useful and you need to optimize your content or use a better call-to-action to engage users.

How to Improve Your Bounce Rate

You should always aim to improve your bounce rate. Although several plugins and tools promises to magically fix it, adhering to simple tweaks can help a lot. 

  • The first step is to create compelling content that’s easy to consume and implement by users. 
  • Reduce page load time on your website and make your landing page visually appealing.
  • Use an exit popup form to capture visitors’ email addresses and give them useful resources before they leave your website. Tools like OptiMonk and OptinMonster can be useful for building an email list and reducing bounce rates. 

User behavior

Apart from tracking valuable website metrics with Google Analytics, you can also do a user flow analysis to understand how visitors explore your website and its pages. 

You’ll see the behavior flow across your website — and this can be a goldmine for understanding how users interact and navigate your pages.

Behavior Flow
Behavior Flow

By examining your users’ behaviors, you can understand why visitors are leaving your website and how to retain them. You’ll also be able to create a better sales funnel that will drive sales and revenue for your business.

After you identify this area, you can take steps to reduce your bounce rate and improve every aspect of your business.

First, set up Google Analytics goals for conversion tracking. To track Revenue and Conversion, you must enable Google Analytics eCommerce tracking.

How to Improve Organic Traffic With Targeted Queries and Landing Page Reports 

One of the main objectives of tracking your website analysis is to identify gaps and find ways to generate more traffic. In Google Analytics, you can monitor the SEO report on your landing pages.

But first, you must integrate your Google Analytics account into your Google Search Console account. 

Once the two tools are synced, you can display the best SEO search queries for your website that provide the best search engine experience.

Organic Traffic
Organic Traffic

Use the Google Analytics SEO report to see the ranking of keywords, Clicks, and Impressions for your website.

Adjust your keyword list by the number of impressions and find the most relevant keywords.

These are the keywords that are most valuable to your business. Besides, you can improve the click-through rate (CTR) for these keywords to drive even more traffic.

Here’s how to Boost Keyword CTR

Make sure that your page titles don’t exceed 55 characters and your meta description should be about 156 characters max. 

These are important elements because Google is going to display them to users in the search engines. So write persuasive and keyword-rich metadata.

Boost Keyword
Boost Keyword

Understand the context in which people are searching for your important keywords, and then create content that is relevant to those people. Research and create content with user intents and focus on solving users’ questions.

Increase Traffic with Keyword Reports

As a website owner, you can use insights from the Google Analytics Keyword Report to increase traffic to your website. You can achieve this by effectively optimizing your page with the right keywords. 

Simply navigate to the Traffic Sources tab to access this report.

Keyword Reports
Keyword Reports

While analyzing your traffic sources, don’t forget to consider the keywords that are bringing people to your website.

But you don’t have to use all the keywords, just concentrate on the top 10 keywords that get the most traffic to your website.

Here are some of the key areas you can use the top 10 keywords to drive more traffic to your web page.

  • Use the keyword in your Image title  
  • Use the same keywords in the title tag and meta description of your page.
  • Use the keyword as your anchor text. 

Note: To avoid over-optimizing your anchor text (which Google frowns at), make sure that your keyword-based anchors also contain other natural words. 

If you’re a web developer, for example, use “here are the best web design trends” as anchor text instead of using the web design trends as your primary anchor text. 

You want to appear as natural as possible with your keywords, links, and anchor texts. 

Create a Variety of Content Targeting Your Top Keywords 

At the end of the day, traffic is what drives traffic to websites. You may want to utilize paid traffic initially, but as time goes by, you’ll want to drive organic traffic from search engines, social media, and other websites.

That’s why you need content.

To get started with content creation, you’ll need to know how your existing content pages are doing. 

Is your content driving a decent amount of traffic? Are you satisfied with your unique visitors and page views? 

Conduct a Content Audit 

Content Audit can produce dramatic results in terms of organic traffic and revenue. 1800DoorBell increased year-over-year transactions from Google organic traffic by 83% and revenue grew by over 96%.

Content Audit
Content Audit

When you invest in content marketing, you need to focus on several other metrics to determine your ROI from your marketing content. By calculating your ROI on content marketing, you can see whether your investment is paying off or not. 

Not many webmasters like to conduct a content audit because it can be daunting and boring to work with Spreadsheets and numbers. 

To simplify the process, you can use SEMrush’s Content Analyzer tool. Just enter your website URL and analyze it.

Content Analyzer
Content Analyzer

For most websites, the primary purpose of content marketing is to the right leads and turn them into customers. 

However, you cannot expect every website visitor who lands on your website to become a customer. 

This means that in addition to conversion, you also need to focus on other key metrics such as lead quality, traffic, and on-site engagement.

Lead Quality
Lead Quality

How often should you audit and review your website content?

Well, you can do so every 6 months or yearly. It all depends on what data you want to collect.

Here are some things you should consider:

  • Find the keywords that generate the most traffic to your website. Understand your organic visitor’s intents and find out if you’re truly helping them on your website. 
  • Identify the articles you’ve published initially that are generating a decent amount of traffic and engagement. When creating a new editorial calendar, make sure you use the same ideas in your best-performing articles to improve your new content.
  • Above all, you need to be creating a variety of content. Different content formats can help you reach new audiences in real-time. 

For example, you can turn your best blog posts into Podcasts and share on iTunes and other podcast directories. 

This will provide an additional way to reach a new audience who prefers to consume audio content. Don’t forget to create videos, Slideshare presentations, infographics, and other types of content.

Remove content that no longer reflects your business.

Your business is going to change approach, focus, or products. As a result, you also need to reflect this with your new content.

To begin, you should get rid of content that no longer reflects the objectives and goals of your business, in its entirety.

In Google Search Console, you can even remove outdated content from Google’s index. That way, Google will no longer count them as your site asset. It helps to save time so that crawlers can focus on fresh, relevant, and useful pages on your site.

Webmaster Tools
Webmaster Tools

As you conduct a content audit, you may discover articles that are no longer useful or have become outdated.

There’s no need for allowing them to take up dust and cost you hosting fees, remove them or better yet, replace them with better content.

Conclusion

Google Analytics is a sophisticated web analytics tool that allows you to extract valuable data from your website traffic. 

By using the various reports and statistics available in Google Analytics, you can identify any gaps in the design, content, and structure of your website and make adjustments as needed. 

Knowing how to use this web analytics tool correctly can play a crucial role in generating targeted traffic to your website and landing pages, consumers to your product pages, and boost your overall income. 

Yes, that’s how powerful Google Analytics can be if only you’d spend some time to master it.

5 Examples of Follow Up Emails That Increase Conversions By 74%

5 Examples of Follow Up Emails That Increase Conversions By 74%

Email is the hallmark of online communication.

There are many ways to reach your target audience online — including new technologies such as mobile messaging, chatbot, AI, push notification, and so on — but the most effective is email. 

Email marketing helps you drive both traffic and leads. It also results in significant conversions than other marketing channels, including search marketing and social media. 

So if you want to grow revenue, you need to invest in email communication. This is good news for marketers — since 72% of people prefer to get promotional messages through email.

Email Marketing
Email Marketing

Let’s consider a few more compelling statistics:

  • Email is 40X more effective for attracting new customers. 
  • Email subscribers sharing your content are 3X more likely to use social media than visitors from other sources.
  • 4.24% of email marketing visitors are more likely to buy a product compared to 2.49% of search engine visitors and 0.59% of social media visitors. 

But as with anything worth doing, effective email marketing requires a level of perseverance and attention to detail.

You need to know when and what you need to send. It all boils down to understanding your audience and giving them what they want. 

What is Follow-Up Email?

A follow-up email is a single or series of emails sent to the subscribers to re-engage them. This type of email is necessary because it acts as a reminder to the recipients that action needs to be taken. 

You could send a follow-up email to get feedback, recommend a paid product if the recipient previously signed up for a free trial, and so on.

Why You Need to Send Follow-Up Emails

The art of “checking in” has become a part of our culture. During a family reunion, we all want our voices to be heard. 

We want to follow up on our siblings, relatives, and even close friends who have been a part of the family.

Follow up is important because it builds trust between you and the recipient. If someone subscribed to your email list, got the first email and never heard from you again, they’ll be disappointed and even move on.

Let’s summarize the reasons why you should send follow-up emails to your contact list and how this approach can boost conversions by as much as 74%.

1). Repetition Leads to Lasting Impression 

Why do brands spend millions of dollars on billboard advertising? Trust me, they don’t have excess money to throw away, they’re only obeying the law of repetition. They want to get your attention.

Billboard Advertisement
Billboard Advertisement

But how is that?

Well, the more often you see the same brand or that sexy lady dancing on a commercial, the more likely you’re going to take action. If you see the same ads over and over again, you’ll want to do what it says.

In the same vein, people are more likely to react to a second email when you send a follow-up. 

There are times when one email will not suffice — you’ll need to send multiple emails to finally get subscribers to sign-up for your webinar, test the demo, or purchase a product. 

The first emails may not build confidence in subscribers. That’s why the third, fourth, and even fifth emails are required. 

According to research, email campaigns with 4-7 emails per sequence generated 3X the responses of campaigns that had only 1-3 emails. 

This applies to any type of email, no matter the recipient. Even emails to your Uncle or business partner, there are times when consistency wins. 

To save time, though, you can schedule follow-up email sequences automatically using tools such as Ninja Outreach, MailShake, etc. 

With any of this email automation software, you can schedule follow-up emails to be triggered after 24 hours or whenever you want it.

2). A Customer Might Not Be Satisfied 

Sometimes, a customer might be unhappy but there’s no way you can tell. Even after a successful meeting or phone call, you still need to follow up. Have you recently made a sale and you’re all excited? 

It’s not enough to be all-excited because the customer might be regretting her purchase. That’s why you need to follow-up to know her experiences with your brand. 

Unhappy customers will spread negative experiences on Yelp and social media. Before you know it, your ideal customers will lose trust in your brand. Worse, 91% of them may not likely buy from you again.

Customer Experience
Customer Experience

Following up after the sale or successful meeting can reveal valuable insights into your customer’s sentiment. 

They’ll be able to tell you exactly why they’re unhappy and even guide you on how to rectify it before it becomes a hurdle.

As a business, don’t just keep to yourself. You need to send follow-up emails and even go the extra length of giving more value. 

Build relationships beyond that initial sale, and work towards turning the customer into a brand ambassador.

3). Easily Close the Sale

One of the best ways of closing the sale is by following up on your leads. If a lead was live at your webinar or downloaded your eBook, you need to follow up via email to close the sale.

Easily Close the Sale
Easily Close the Sale

In the online marketing world, consistency is what counts. This means that if two competitors attract the same lead, the brand that will get the sale eventually will be the one that’s communicating with the lead.

Did you see why follow-up emails are powerful?

If you respond quickly to a potential lead, you’ll likely close the sale via email. If you respond within 5 minutes, your conversions will be even higher.

4). Sending Initial Emails to the Wrong Person

Have you ever sent the right email to the wrong person? It happens to me all the time. If your contact list is segmented, there’s a chance that you may send the wrong email to the right segment.

Initial Emails
Initial Emails

This would warrant a second email. If your contact list is outdated, you might want to clean it up. Sending emails to inactive subscribers is a waste of time. 

And if that’s the case, you don’t give up. You send follow-up emails — to the right segment this time.

Follow-Up Email Templates and Examples For Your Inspiration

In this section, we’ll discuss what you can say to get your subscribers, prospects, and customers to write back.

These follow-up email templates are for inspiration only. Maybe by the time you’re reading this post, hundreds of marketers must have used them.

To stand out, learn the concept and follow the pattern. 

These follow-up emails work. They’re from our archives and other businesses that have succeeded with email marketing.  

Remember to improve the email template you have chosen before sending your first follow-up email. 

Follow-up Email #1: Keep it short and sweet

Businesses and marketers usually send follow-up emails to boost sales. If that’s the case, you need to keep it short and sweet. Make it polite, brief, and conversational.

Here are some examples: 

Hi {{first_name}},

Do you need proven ideas on how you can reach more customers and grow revenue every month?

Is it right to contact you next week to share these ideas with you?

Thank you.

{name}

Note: The email above is short and asks for permission. It’s a follow-up email but it respects the recipient.

Here’s an example:

Hi {{first_name}},

I recently saw your post on Twitter. It seems you’re looking for ways to increase conversions. You’re not alone.

These two helpful posts might help. Let me kindly share them with you:

{{Link 1}}

{{Link 2}}

Would you like to know how this strategy is increasing our conversion rates? Let me know when you’re ready.

Cheers!

Note: This second follow-up email is with respect to a post on Twitter. So the marketer is trying to establish a rapport with the person who posted on Twitter. 

Fortunately, the sender has two resources that will help the person out. It adds value while appreciating the person 

In both emails, you can see the approach: The sender isn’t pushy or manipulative. In the first example, it’s all about asking for permission to reach out again (which is the essence of email marketing).

In the second example, the sender appreciates the effort of the recipient and offers tremendous value.

Follow-Up Email #2: Create added value

If you want subscribers to respond to your emails, you must create added value. It can be in the form of sharing social proof, statistics, or giving away your best secrets on a platter — these elements can add increased value to your follow-up emails.

Create Value
Create Value

After the first email, the subsequent follow-up emails must be aimed at establishing you as an authority in your field. You don’t want subscribers to see you as a salesperson or marketer.

Here are some follow-up email examples that are short and clean:

Here’s an example: 

Hello {{name}}

If you’re struggling with [business problems], you might be open to this quick tip that many of my clients find useful: {{briefly share the tip}}.

I know how to increase X. Tell me if you’re interested in hearing about it.

Thank you.

{{first_name}}

Follow-Up Email #3: Recognize their interests

Your emails should be aligned to your subscribers’ and prospects’ interests. There’s no need to pretend — just let them know you’re following up after the initial contact. 

Let people know why they’re getting the emails, who you are, and why they need to open your subsequent emails. 

Here’s an example email:

Hi {{first_name}},

Thank you for opening the email I sent on Monday. You indicated an interest but never showed up to the webinar.

Does this action mean you want a replay or would be more inclined to attend the next webinar {{coming up next weekend?}}

In the meantime, do you have questions about {{your business name}} or our products. Don’t hesitate to contact me.

Do you have 50 minutes for a short call within the week?

Kindly let me know.

Follow-Up Email #4: Stand behind your product

I’m sure your product is valuable and easy to implement. If you’re in doubt, then you don’t have to promote it in the first place.

But if you’re proud of your product and service, then nothing should stop you from having full confidence that it’ll help people. 

In his book,I want to be confident,” the author Harriet Griffey re-emphasized the need to build confidence from within, especially from who you’re as opposed to what you have.

Product
Product

So when reaching out via follow-up emails to your prospects, you need to hone confidence in your tone.

Here’s an example:

Hi {{first_name}},

I understand you’re having challenges with lead generation for your new startup. The good news is that I’m confident in what our {{product name with link}} can help you accomplish.

If I am not sure that [your company] will benefit from it, I wouldn’t spend time writing this short email. Lol

Let me know if you have any questions or challenges along the way. 

Cheers!

{{my_name}}

As you can see, this follow-up email is borne out of previous knowledge about the recipient. Perhaps, they have indicated interest in your video course on how to generate B2B leads or participated in a webinar.

With such rich insights, you can craft irresistible emails that will re-engage your subscribers.

Follow-Up Email: #5: Catch up on sales calls

When it comes to sales, effective tracking is important. Otherwise, you’ll be making the wrong decisions. You can send follow-up emails based on the sales data you’ve gathered over a period. 

After a successful sales call, “don’t forget to follow up via email,” says Wendy Casey of Harvard Business School Online.

Sales Calls
Sales Calls

The email below appreciates the customer for the meeting and delivers the promise. It doesn’t matter how small or big the sale was, make it count by connecting with the customer again.

Here’s an example:

Hi {{first_name}},

Thanks for the purchase you made via phone call. We’re thrilled that you responded the way you did. We hope you’ll enjoy our product and consider us again.

In case you missed the products, get it through this link:

{{link to the product download page or login page}}

Thank you so much.

{{my_name}}

How to Write a Follow-Up Email That Gets Opened 

If you can get subscribers and prospects to open your follow-up email, there’s a chance that you’ll increase conversions. If someone hasn’t replied to your first email, you may think they’re not interested and wants to move on.

70% of marketers quit if they don’t receive feedback on their first email, according to Yesware.

Often times, that’s never the case. Our instincts can go wrong sometimes. 

We’ve been doing email marketing for a while and we know that very few prospects say “Yes” to our first email. Even the second, third, fourth, and even fifth may not be opened. 

Do we give up and go hunting for new prospects?

Not so fast…

Side Trade conducted a study and saw an 18% response rate to the first email they sent, and 13% to the fourth. But it gets better — because the 6th email in the follow-up sequence yielded a massive 27% response rate.

There are two proven ways to get your follow-up emails opened and read:

  • State the reason why you’re sending the email
  • Add a call-to-action (CTA)

The first approach is important because it adds context to your emails. For example, you can refer to the email you sent previously. This will serve as a reminder to your recipient. 

Adding a CTA is ultimately the most essential part of any follow-up email. You might place your CTA link earlier in the email or right below if it’s a short email. 

Conclusion

Overall, sending follow-up emails to your new and existing subscribers will establish you as an authority in your industry. 

If you want to increase conversions, then you’ve got to be consistent with email marketing. 

Although a lot of businesses don’t send follow-up emails. That’s a huge opportunity to gain a competitive advantage. 

All in all, keeping in touch with your potential customers via email channel is the easiest way to deliver good customer service and enhance their experiences.

How To Get Reviews From Customers With A Simple DIY System

Are you tired of paying money for your get reviews? You should use that money on your customers who are leaving the reviews. Not software that just gives you a nice link.

In this video, I will show you how to set up a webpage to get reviews from your customers. You are going to need this link. Your Gooogle Business ID will replace “Your ID.”

https://search.google.com/local/writereview?placeid=Your ID

Here is what the page will look like.

https://reddmg.com/review/

The Video Transcript

Hey everyone, this is Jason. We’re here at Red Digital and I am going to show you guys how to generate a page with a link for your customers to be able to leave reviews.

There’s a lot of software out there, so you have Podium Charges 400 a month and up. I think they might charge more than that. You’ve got a lot that charge $40, charge 90, 100, it’s that gap where you have some that are charging 500 a month all the way down to $40 a month.

Well, I’m going to show you a way that you can just set up a review system on your own that doesn’t cost you anything. It just costs you whatever you’re paying for your website. So let’s jump in.

Here’s what it looks like. So if I want to send out an email to customers and ask them for a review, I’m just going to send them this link.

The link is reddmg.com/review. Now what you can do here, let me show you what happens. I just put “Thank you for taking the time to leave us a review.” Had a great experience, you click here. We need to chat, you click here. Great reviews are rewarded. Then I give them some swag if they leave a good review.

So if you click on this link right here, you will see that it takes you right to a spot where you can leave a review. Very simple to do, and that’s what a lot of these software companies that you guys are paying $90 a month to do. This is all they’re doing.

They just do it on their own platform. Then if we need a chat and they have a bad review, it kicks them over to our contact page where they can fill in a form, let us know what’s happening.

Ideally, what I want to do is create a separate page that says, “Hey, have you had a bad experience? I want you to call me or text me at this number.” And give them away to contact us. But what this does is just allows you to bypass. You don’t need to go out there and get some amazing software.

So the very first thing you do is click create your webpage. Just a review page, a separate page, and then the link to here looks like this.

https://search.google.com/local/writereview?placeid=Your ID

You Local ID write a review question place ID here.

Now I’m going to put a link to this down in the description. This number right at the end is known as my Google ID number, so you can identify that very easily. So Google my business ID number.

Okay, this will pop up. You can just go here to can’t find my ID number for support. Click on here, go to a place ID, and it’ll tell you to put in your location. So I’m just going to go Red… Red Digital Marketing Group right there.

There’s my ID. Okay? So it gives it to me. I’m going to take that ID, I’m going to plug it into the URL, which I showed you earlier.

And once that is plugged in, that’s it. You just create the page. When they click on that, that’s the URL they go to. Let me show it to you one more time. Search.google local review. You’re just going to replace this end place with your ID and then they can leave a review. So there’s a simple way. Save your money and you have a nice review system.

And then what I like to do is put the review down into the footer of the website. Leave a review right here. And like I said, you can offer them swag, but reviews are important. Google reviews matter. Facebook. If you want them to leave a Facebook review or a Yelp review, you can send them to a page that has the three options and they just click on those options and leave the review.

Okay. Hope that helps. See you.