Was one of the last DMs you received on Instagram a video of ducklings wearing flowers for hats, or floating in a sink full of water? An overly zealous cockapoo dancing on the couch with his human? A husky throwing a temper tantrum because he couldn’t come indoors? If sharing cute animal content is your love language, you’re not alone — you are part of a bigger cultural phenomenon called the cute economy. The cute economy is not only a network of cute content that people participate in making, sharing and circulating but also a multibillion-dollar business due to creators’…
Because it helps in driving organic traffic to your blog.
With the help of SEO, your blogs can easily rank for relevant search topics (also called queries) and appear in the search results.
In this way, users can discover your blog and visit it. In simpler terms, SEO is the connecting dot.
When you do it right, it brings justice to your content and :
Helps you reach more people
Provides quality leads
Creates brand awareness and builds brand authority
Improves user engagement rates
Delivers a cost-effective practice
Now let's see what you can do to attract massive traffic to your blogs?
5 ways to increase your blog traffic and engagement
In this article, I will walk you through the details of mastering the art of optimizing blogs for your target audience.
But how will you reach your potential users if they won't be able to find you? Because Google's search algorithm uses more than 200 factors to rank websites, but Google doesn’t share what those factors are.
Therefore, I have listed the best practices that can help you draw more traffic to your website.
Let's get started with keyword research first!
1. Include relevant keywords
Keywords are very important to optimize your blog's content for search engines.
But simply using any and every keyword you find fascinating will not help.
You need to find relevant keywords for every blog post you create and use them in your content.
The using part might sound easy to you. So let me help you with the research part.
Hunting for relevant keywords to rank your blog is not a hard task. Here are the steps to help you ace keyword research:
Step 1. Make a list of relevant keywords based on your blog topic.
For example, you are writing about chatbots. The instinct-based keywords for this topic would include chatbots, uses of chatbots, etc.
Step 2: Look at Google Autocomplete and Related Searches to find more ideas.
Step 3: Work with a keyword research tool and sort keywords based on their search volume and difficulty.
With that, you'll have a list of relevant keywords to add to your content.
If you master incorporating keywords in content, you will get more traffic and engagement easily.
But, if you wish to get even better results, you need to keep in mind the search intent when writing.
2. Satisfy the search intent
Search intent is the reason behind an online search. It defines why the user is performing a search; what is the objective.
With the help of search intent, the search engine (for example Google) understands what the user wants to see in the results.
You will come across 4 types of search intent:
Informational: How to start a microwave?
Navigational: Amazon prime login page.
Commercial: Best Christmas Movies on Netflix.
Transactional: Cheap flights to Michigan.
But why is it important at all?
Understanding the search intent allows you to know the content your audience wishes to see on their Search Engine Results Page (SERPs).
If they are looking for chocolate pudding recipes, they want to see a step-by-step cooking recipe in their search results, not a restaurant ordering page.
So, if you are targeting this keyword, you need to create a step-by-step process content to rank for it.
Here's what you need to do to satisfy the search intent:
Understand the user's intent before optimizing content
Look for top-ranking pages for reference, examine their tone, approach and formatting
Align your on-page elements such as blog's URL, headings, etc. with the search intent
Create content that users wish to see in the SERPs
Provide high-quality, well-researched information and data
Implementing all these tips while writing a blog will easily satisfy the search intent and help search engines rank your content better.
And when it ranks for relevant search intent, it can attract more traffic and engagement for your blog.
Furthermore, using internal linking and incorporating it into your content strategy can also be helpful to increase blog traffic.
3. Add sufficient internal links
Internal linking is the practice of linking relevant content to a blog post on the same domain.
Meaning if you have a blog post that talks about growing your email list and you reference “email marketing best practices” in that post, you can link to a previous post on best practices (see what I did there).
You guide your visitors and search engines to your most important resources with internal links.
Some other reasons why you should practice internal linking in your blogs are:
Helping the search bots crawl and index your blogs
Increasing user retention and reducing the bounce rate
Improving PageRank and page views
Indicating which keywords you want to rank for
If you are wondering how to go about it, here are some tips to help you get started with internal linking:
Add an optimum number of links in a single blog (5-10 is good)
Use optimized anchor texts (ideally should be relevant and short)
Include relevant links only (other blogs must relate to the blog’s topic)
Incorporate new internal links into older blog posts
That looks easier, right?
You can now add hundreds and thousands of links to your content.
But overdoing it will only confuse the crawler about your content and hurt your user experience.
The standard practice is to limit the number of links for a given blog post to 150.
If you keep the number of links less, it will not look spammy and benefit you to the maximum.
With that said, you can further boost your blog by improving its user experience.
4.Improve user experience
Search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo use data to learn how people interact with websites.
They notice how much time users spend on your blog posts and what other pages they visit on your site.
And based on these metrics, they rank your blog posts in the search results.
So, improving your blog's user experience becomes essential.
Here are a few tips to ensure that users have a good experience when they visit your blogs:
Marketing has changed — you don’t need to be a professional designer, copywriting expert, or strategist to be a marketer. In fact, most smaller business owners are playing the role of marketer due to budget constraints.
Whether you’re a marketer, business owner, or just looking to learn some new skills, there are tons of free marketing tools that can make you seem like a pro. Check out the following list to give your business a boost, create more engaging content and emails, and — above all — sell more stuff!
You can use AWeber to send emails to all your subscribers, set up automated email campaigns, build landing pages, create ecommerce pages, and even send web push notifications — for free.
Any business owner, creator, or side hustler looking to get started selling or trying to ramp up their sales should try AWeber. You can use it to create a basic website, set up a free Link Tree-style page, turn social followers into subscribers, and even create a newsletter you can charge for.
For example, here’s a landing page template that looks just like a Link Tree page — but it’s completely free (you could even sell products directly from this page).
Sign up for free, start collecting email subscribers with a landing page (you can also import your current subscribers), and use AWeber to connect and make sales.
Really Good Emails
Speaking of emails, have you ever sat down to write one and needed inspiration on what to write? Look no further than reallygoodemails.com.
The geniuses at Really Good Emails must be subscribed to every newsletter and sign up list they can find — and they’ve curated and compiled a list for the rest of us.
You can search for holidays, industries, sale types, or even just keywords related to the email you wish to send. You’ll be served on a silver platter hundreds or thousands of emails written on that topic — by expert email marketers who work for big companies making the best emails.
For example, after doing a search for “course” I found this great, simple email promoting a street photography class (you could easily swap out your course content here, but take inspiration from the style and messaging).
Free design tools
Canva
Canva has changed the way we think about design. You can use a free Canva account to create beautiful logos, email headers, social media images, presentations, print projects, and even videos.
Start by choosing where this design will go — Canva knows which dimensions you need — and then find one of their thousands of pre-built designs. Then, make can make adjustments to color, words, pictures, icons, and more, using a library of free resources.
Design alone or collaboratively — but whatever you do, go check out Canva.
Pixabay, Pexels, and Unsplash
Whether you’re email marketing, writing blog posts, creating a new website or page, or posting on social media, you will likely need stock photos. And if you’re anything like me, you’d prefer to keep your marketing budget for tools rather than one-off stock images.
So try Pixabay, Pexels, and Unsplash. They are free stock photo sites with millions of photos to choose from — and most photos don’t require attribution.
Find your perfect image by searching for keywords and scrolling through hundreds or thousands of options.
Looking for stock videos? (It is 2022 after all.) Pixabay and Pexels also both have free video stock footage for your website backgrounds and social media posts.
Pablo by Buffer
Pablo by Buffer is a really simple way to overlay text onto an image — and have it still look good. No design skills necessary here. The next time you create a social media post or email header, use one of Pablo by Buffer’s images or upload your own, and simply add text.
Here’s what it will look like:
SmartMockups
Have you ever seen a picture of someone looking at a smart phone or tablet and there was a website on the screen? It’s very unlikely that picture was taken with the person actually looking at the website.
You can use SmartMockups to add your own website to a laptop, tablet, or phone. And you can do even more — add graphics to the front of a tshirt, mug, book, packaging, and dozens of other places. Try it out — it’s free.
Image Online.co
Do you want to create rounded corners on an image, crop out a section, resize it, make it square, or edit it in other ways — but you don’t want to pay for or learn Photoshop?
Good news! Image Online.co is a free browser-based editor that you can use without needing to take a course first. Just upload your image and start making the adjustments you need.
Google Fonts
The right font can make your website stand out, feel professional or casual, and even result in more sales. And there are so many more fonts that just Helvetica, Arial, and Times New Roman.
Browse Google Fonts’ thousands of free fonts and type in your own text to see how this particular font will look.
ColorHexa
Did you know that creating eye-pleasing color combinations is actually a science more than an art. If you’re looking for two compatible colors for your business’s marketing materials, use ColorHexa to find ones that work together.
Plug in your color’s hex code, and get information, shades, alternatives, tones, and even a color blindness simulator.
But, most importantly, you’ll get color schemes that you can use to choose a second compatible color or even a full palate.
Free security tool
LastPass
Marketing takes time — so it’s important to save time anywhere you can. And with all the tools you use, there are a couple of options for signing in:
Spend up to 5 minutes trying to remember your password (terrible time management)
Have a piece of paper on your desk with all your passwords (not secure)
Use the same password — or a variation — for every login (not secure)
Use a password manager (cha ching!!!)
Logging into tools can be the most frustrating thing in the world. LastPass is a free password management tool that creates secure passwords for you and then has them ready the next time you sign in.
Try it out and see how easy it is to use. Plus, you don’t even have to upload your passwords or log them all, LastPass will just ask you each time you log in whether you want it to remember the password.
Note: LastPass is best used with a browser plugin.
Free social media tools
TweetDeck
Manage your Twitter accounts and trends unbelievably easy with TweetDeck. Do you want to keep up on a hashtag? Check who’s talking about news in your area? Simply have a running list of your messages? You can do it all in one dashboard with TweetDeck — and it’s completely free.
I wish all social media platforms had this tool.
Google My Business
If you’re a small business owner with an address (not a P.O. Box) you absolutely MUST have a Google My Business account.
Google My Business is the way you can manage the way your business appears in Google search results. With it, you can show your address, respond to reviews, add images, and even post updates and sales — all of which are likely to be published in searches for your name.
Free writing tools
Grammarly, Hemingway App, and LanguageTool
These editing tools don’t write for you — but they do make what you’ve written better. Much more than simply spelling and punctuation checkers, Grammarly, Hemingway App, and LanguageTool will:
Offer word alternatives
Point out run-on sentences
Highlight unnecessary words
Fine tune your tone and style
And much more!
These tools allow you to brain-dump your thoughts as you are writing and edit later using an assistant — and they’re all free.
Headline Analyzer
Great subject lines lead to better open rates and sales. And great blog post titles lead to ranking in Google, more website traffic, and — again — more sales.
So work on your headlines! Run them through Coschedule’s headline analyzer to find the most compelling words and phrases.
Free GIF tools
Giphy and Tenor
If you want to find fun GIFs to use in your emails, blog posts, or anywhere else, Giphy or Tenor is the way to go. Their libraries include millions of free GIFs, all searchable and listed based on popularity.
Make your marketing fun and funny with a GIF — it only takes a few minutes.
CloudApp
Do you have an app or screen that you want to show in motion? Creating your own GIF can grab someone’s attention in just a few seconds, showing an action but not requiring them to watch a full video.
Plus, with social media platforms offering short, replayed videos, GIFs are a comfortable way for people to consume information these days. Use CloudApp to create a free GIF of your screen, and add it to make your blog post, web page, email, or social media post more engaging.
Free automation tools
…other than AWeber
Zapier and Integromat
If you’re posting on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn after every blog post or podcast — STOP! You can automate this task and free up tons of your time using Zapier or Integromat (side benefit is you feel like a coder without ever having to learn any code).
Automatic social posting is just one of infinite possibilities for automation. And it’s free! Get started saving yourself time — as we all know, time is money.
Free SEO/website tools
Down For Everyone Or Just Me?
Websites — what a powerful marketing tool. People all over the world can access your information, completely free.
But everyone’s experience is different. With internet outages and server issues (or other even more techy stuff we don’t understand) sometimes your website can seem down to one person, but not be down for everyone.
So before you start troubleshooting a website issue, pop your URL into downforeveryoneorjustme.com to see… well… if it’s down for everyone or just you.
TinyPNG
One of the biggest culprits of slow-loading websites and emails is the size of the image. Two digital images can look the same size, but actually be significantly different.
So, to start, head to ImageOnline.co and change your image size — most of the time a width smaller than 1000px is fine for any website or email.
Then upload your image into tinypng.com. This magical tool will reduce the size of the image without any noticeable changes in quality (I’ve literally never noticed a difference at all). Hello fast-loading sites and emails!
The best part? A cute panda waves at you the entire time.
What free marketing tools do you like?
Let us know in the comments below which tools were your favorite, and whether you found a few free tools that aren’t on this list. We are always excited to learn something new, too!
Want to start using AWeber for free? Sign up now — remember, it includes emails, automated campaigns, web push notifications, landing pages, sales pages, and more!
You know how dogs sweat by salivating? Well, It turns out they actually don’t. They regulate their temperature by salivating. They sweat through their paw pads.
Myths and misconceptions like these exist everywhere, but they’re incredibly common in topics that people feel familiar with. Take social media, for example. The more people use social, the more they think they understand the inner workings of social media marketing.
This has resulted in a lot of social media myths that have gone unchecked. Some are harmless, but some can greatly impact how social media professionals work with their marketing peers. That’s why SMMs need to equip themselves with the right information needed to get their teams up to speed.
Myth #1: Memorable content makes brands best in class on social
“Let’s make this go viral!”
You’ve probably heard this or something like it from a well-meaning colleague or two. In a crowded social media landscape, everyone wants their turn in the spotlight. This desire for mass awareness is likely why many marketers believe creating memorable content is the most important aspect of becoming best in class on social. Consumers, on the other hand, think otherwise.
In reality, consumers believe what really makes a brand best in class is offering strong customer service, followed by audience engagement and transparency. While this may be surprising to your greater organization, it can also be a helpful way to reset some internal expectations. After all, virality is more luck than strategy. Solid customer care practices can be achieved with proper planning and resource allocation.
Next time someone asks you to add “going viral” to your to-do list, here are some more impactful action items you can offer instead:
Speed up your social media response time. The majority of consumers expect same-day responses on social. Improving your social media response time can assist in customer retention while giving your brand a competitive edge.
Create anescalation management strategy. Outlining a process for responding to timely issues (whether good or bad) alongside example scenarios can your organization understand the concerns people surface on social. Remember: you can never be too prepared.
Integrate your social media management platform across your martech stack. To provide the most effective service on social, marketers need visibility into the end-to-end customer experience. Drafting a social media management integration plan can help remove the digital silos that prevent your team from offering superior service.
Myth #2: Follower count is a vanity metric
People have called follower count a vanity metric ever since buying followers in bulk rose to popularity in the early 2010s. On the surface, this argument makes sense. After all, what does a high follower count matter if your engagement rate is low?
As it turns out, it can count for quite a bit. Our Index data shows that nine out of 10 consumers will buy from brands they follow on social, while 86% will choose that brand over a competitor.
Writing follower count off as a fluff metric lacks some critical nuance. Mainly, it doesn’t account for the “90-9-1 rule”. According to this rule, only 1% of social media users create content, 9% share, Like and comment on that original content, and 90% of users simply lurk.
Lurkers may not contribute to your overall engagement rate, but that doesn’t make them any less valuable. Around one in three consumers use social media to learn about or discover new products, services or brands. Just because they’re not liking or commenting doesn’t mean they’re not gathering information that can eventually drive buying decisions.
Myth #3: Gen Z consumers are heavily swayed by influencer marketing
The near constant exposure to paid advertising seems to be making Zoomers a tad skeptical. Thirty-seven percent are unlikely to buy from a brand after seeing content from a brand ambassador or influencer, compared to 18% of Millennials.
To make an impact with Gen Z, marketers should prioritize the everyday influencer. Eighty-four percent of Gen Zers are likely to purchase if someone they trust recommends the product or service and 82% read reviews from other customers on social. Incorporating positive customer reviews and user-generated content into your social mix can play to these preferences and create more meaningful connections.
Take Amazon, for example. They frequently incorporate positive, funny product reviews to promote products on social. Embracing the natural silliness that can be found in certain reviews helps them create entertaining content that motivates others to join the fun.
Incorporating reviews into your social media strategy starts with creating a process to identify them. If you’re using Sprout Social, you can do this by creating a custom tag for positive reviews that are a good fit for social promotion. The Review management tool can consolidate and track Facebook, Google My Business, Yelp and TripAdvisor reviews in a single location, simplifying ongoing management.
Myth #4: Social data is strictly a marketing resource
Social data is invaluable when it comes to informing team decisions, but savvy brands know it can be used for much more. Forty-seven percent of organizations view social data as a multi-team strategy resource, expanding its impact well beyond the assumed marketing silo.
This signals a new era in social media management where analytics are used for proactive decision making. From product development to customer support, social data can answer the most important questions about how to manage and expand a business across every department.
Grammarly, for example, uses social listening insights to surface valuable user stories for their product and user experience teams. With Sprout’s Social Listening tool, they’re able to turn feedback from priority platforms like Twitter and Reddit into actionable recommendations for the business.
If companies want to follow their lead and dispel this social media myth once and for all, they’ll need to rethink how they see social. Start by identifying areas of your business that could benefit from social insights, and build your organization-wide social listening strategy from there.
Myth #5: Social marketers have gone all-in on video
The value of video on social cannot be understated. In fact, 54% of marketers say it’s the most valuable content format for achieving social media goals. Despite this, video is consistently underused in favor of photos and posts containing links, accounting for less than 15% of content published by brands across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
This adoption gap could indicate that video production still feels out of reach for many social marketers. While there have been quite a few advancements in remote video production tools over the past few years, for some it can still feel like too much to take on.
I'd say knowing that the list of skills, duties, and expectations that SMM needs, and understanding this list will grow each year. https://t.co/vuZ38atVAB
If your team isn’t able to fully embrace the role of video in your social content strategy, it may be time to build a case for expansion. Platforms are rolling out more and more video-focused features, meaning demands for video content creation will only rise. Getting ahead of these requests by preemptively growing your team can help brands maintain an engaging social presence while mitigating the risk of burnout.
Social media myths, busted
It’s easy for people to get caught up in what they think to be true, especially when they’re not keeping tabs on the constant evolution in social media. To get the channel the respect it deserves, marketers will have to advocate for themselves by debunking these common social media misconceptions. Remember: tapping into the power of social doesn’t just benefit your team’s efforts—it can benefit your entire organization.
For more insights on how brands’ applications of social media are changing, download the Sprout Social Index™, Edition XVII: Accelerate. Inside, you’ll find more research on how businesses are using social to set themselves apart from their competitors and meet tomorrow’s customer expectations today.
One of the most effective emails you can send to your audience is the abandoned cart email. When sent at the right time, it is a helpful reminder to encourage your customers to complete their purchase. Many people put together a cart but get distracted before checking out.
That is a lot of lost sales. But you can capture a lot of them back with an abandoned cart email — an automated marketing campaign designed to increase conversion rates. When they get a reminder of a shopping cart they left behind, many buyers come back to make the purchase. The best part? You can automate these reminders!
Shopify found that retargeting a customer with an abandoned cart email increases sales by more than 20% and reduces abandoned cart rates by 6.5%.
What is an abandoned cart email?
A visitor adding items to their shopping cart may get side-tracked or lose interest. If they navigate away, you can automatically send a reminder email to prompt the visitor to finish the purchase. This reminder is called an abandoned cart email.
The best reminder emails are creative and timely. The abandoned cart email's sole purpose is to encourage completion of the sale.
Supportive calls to actions (CTAs) included in this email can also help guide the potential buyer to spend more on upgrades or other products/services. These CTAs might include opportunities to learn more or see related items.
Some abandoned cart emails include special deals or free shipping for increased appeal.
However, most simply serve as a timely reminder to spark action.
Why do people abandon online shopping carts?
You can create a more effective sales funnel when you know what makes your visitors fall to complete their order. According to Statista, the most common reasons for cart abandonment in the US for 2021 included:
Unexpected costs (shipping, fees, taxes)
Account setup required
Delivery time was too slow
Complicated checkout process
Inability to see the total cost upfront
In many cases, being clear about costs in the process and reducing the number of hoops your visitor has to jump through will help conversion rates.
How to calculate your abandoned cart rate
You will want to know if your rates improve when you implement an abandoned cart email strategy. This calculation will serve as your baseline.
To calculate your cart abandonment rate, divide the number of purchases by the number of shopping carts created during a determined amount of time. Subtract this value from 1 and multiply by 100.
This is the percentage of interest that didn't end in a sale. Regardless of your current rate, send out reminders to reduce it as much as possible.
What happens after cart abandonment?
Since there are many different reasons a shopper may leave the website without completing the purchase, there are also several things likely to happen after the abandonment. According to Statista, UK shoppers who abandoned their carts were most likely to:
Purchase the item from the site at a later date (31%)
Purchase the item from an online competitor (26%)
Changed their mind or weren't looking to buy (23%)
Went to a physical store to make their purchase (8%)
Abandoned cart emails can potentially prompt a purchase from 80% of those shoppers.
9 Tips for sending the most effective abandoned cart email
Writing a powerful reminder means following best practices for abandoned cart emails. Here are crucial steps you should follow to get the most out of your reminder emails.
You want to catch your leads while they are still warm without being obnoxious.
Conversion rates for neglected carts are highest when the email is sent out 30-60 minutes after inactivity. However, those rates plummeted after 24 hours—when the lead had grown cold.
2 - Use an attention-grabbing subject line
Getting your email opened is a huge step with a cart abandonment email since many shoppers are used to seeing them.
The best email subject lines stand out from the rest of the inbox, but still make it clear what the email is about.
”You forgot something” or “Oops, Did Something Go Wrong?” are examples of subject lines that would perform well for an abandoned cart email.
3 - Copy should be short & direct
You should remind people what they left behind with copy that inspires them to take action. Get to the point very quickly with creative and succinct copy by trimming out all the excess.
Customers need a friendly reminder, they don’t need to be completely resold on the products or services. But highlighting a key benefit or two could help them finalize their purchase.
Speaking of being direct, check out this example from Nike:
The best emails think about flow and don't just throw a bunch of images on the page in a way that seems cluttered or disorganized.
Always include pictures or GIFs of the items they've left behind to help provoke a response.
Here's a great example from hydrow:
5 - Reinforce the product or service benefits
Retargeting with a reminder email is the perfect time to highlight the product they are considering. Don't assume your lead has made it through the funnel and understands your brand or knows your products.
Instead, offer your most influential reasons for why they should finish the checkout process on the items in their cart.
6 - Consider a discount or value
If you plan to offer a great deal, the cart abandonment email is a good time to offer it. Even a small discount, like $5 or 10%, can make it more appealing to finish the purchase. People love to find deals, which could be the perfect way to help them make a purchase decision.
Saatchi Art does just that, plus they add a FOMO headline:
7 - Offer social proof with reviews
What do other customers say about those products? Providing reviews or testimonials can help motivate your leads to take the leap and make a purchase decision.
Word-of-mouth marketing is the most influential marketing tool, and a genuine customer review has a similar appeal.
8 - Include a call to action (CTA) that fits your goals
The primary goal of an abandoned cart email is to prompt a return and complete the sale. Your CTA should be positioned to drive that action. Don’t be afraid to use FOMO (fear of missing out).
For example: Get it before it’s gone or Limited availability.
9 - Set up an automated feature
You shouldn’t have to manually send out your reminder emails. Set automated emails for cart abandonment to go out after a certain lapse of inactivity.
Abandoned cart email examples
There are all kinds of abandoned cart emails you can consider when creating your own. Here are some of our favorite examples from real brands. Check out the variations of value promise, humor, imagery and more.
LEGO
Image from ReallyGoodEmails
What I love about this example:
LEGO is having some fun with their graphics
Making the purchase process easy with “Make it yours in a smap”
Strong positioning of CTA’s
The email is enticing, supportive and amusing for someone previously browsing LEGO sets
NOMAD
Image from ReallyGoodEmails
What I love about this example:
They add a touch of humor - "What Happened? Did your Wi-Fi Crash?")
They don’t take itself too seriously but still get the reminder across
Relevant CTA - "Seal the Deal."
They reinforce their 30-day return policy in a clever way
Dote
Image from ReallyGoodEmails
What I love about this example:
Another joke reminder — "Your shopping bag has abandonment issues”. That’s funny.
They keep with the light-hearty theme with “Save these items hours of therapy and give them a loving home."
The email is clean, simplistic, and clutter-free.
DOLLAR SHAVE CLUB
Image from ReallyGoodEmails
What I love about this example:
Reinforces brand positioning
Offers a bold promise
Highlight several bulleted benefits for signing up at the beginning of the email
Nice, large product shot
The natural flow takes the reader to the bottom of the email, where a slightly wordier promise is made with another button to "Learn more" for those still feeling unsure.
Pepper
Image from ReallyGoodEmails
What I love about this example:
This cart abandonment email offers a small discount to spark a purchase
The customer’s most recent cart additions are featured within the email to appeal to the potential buyer
Peel
Image from ReallyGoodEmails
What I love about this example:
Simplicity
Create a sense of urgency with “We’re holding the items in your cart for you, but don’t wait too long!”
Clear call to action in a color that stands out from the rest of the email.
Gilt
Image from ReallyGoodEmails
What I love about this example:
The expiring cart threat is used to spark immediate action
Alternative colors of the items in their cart are show, just in case another option could motivate them to purchase
Google Express
Image from ReallyGoodEmails
What I love about this example:
Another really simple example, Google Express doesn’t get too fancy or cute with their email.
They clearly list the items and pricing from the abandoned cart
I like how they position the CTA right below the headline, in a prime position
Win back more lost sales with the perfect cart abandonment email
Don't miss out on the opportunity to target a warm lead and recover lost sales. Set up your abandoned cart email in AWeber for an easy solution with powerful results. If you need help getting started, we have a pre-built campaign.
Ultimately, the success (or failure) of your business can depend on how well you’ve applied customer feedback to your brand, products and services, work processes, and everything in between.
"Customer service shouldn't just be a department, it should be the entire company"
Tony Hsieh, entrepreneur and former CEO of Zappos
Why is
Tony right? Why is feedback so enormously important? Because any feedback, especially the critical kind, helps us create our approach and product offering to be exactly what our customers actually want.
Here's the good news: Feedback is easy to collect. 85% of customers are likely to give positive feedback and 81% of
Knowing your audience’s likes and dislikes (and the reasons for them) allows you to make key improvements you didn’t know you needed to make.
When done right, those improvements lead to increased customer satisfaction, advocacy, and loyalty to your company.
In this article we’ll show you effective ways to create a healthy customer feedback loop. We’ll then cover examples of how to use feedback to develop a customer-driven marketing strategy that fuels your growth.
How to collect customer feedback to guide a successful marketing strategy
Start your customer-focused marketing strategy with a simple playbook. This playbook will help you collect feedback at every stage of the customer lifecycle — throughout their experience working with you.
You can then use the information you collect to make product updates, alter how you deliver services, or even refine your communication style.
When to ask for feedback: A 4-stage playbook
When a customer has just begun to engage with you - initial collection touchpoints
After purchase/using your services - cadence for in-depth knowledge
Issue handling - all hands customer service
If (hopefully not when) they move on from your business - lesson learning
Stage 1: On initial engagement
Collection method: Newsletter signup
One of the first interaction points is when new leads sign up to receive your newsletter. This is the perfect opportunity to ask about content or news preferences — right in the sign up form (i.e., are you interested in events, brand updates, or product news only?).
As your customer or email list grows, you’ll see which topics are most popular to your customers. That will help you understand the interest areas that are important for your business.
In AWeber, you can add custom fields to a sign up form or landing page to collect this information. These custom fields will add tags to your subscribers.
Use segmentation to personalize your marketing outreach by sending news unique to each customer group. The result is higher customer engagement and increased sales.
Collection method: Online survey
Post-purchase, or at the conclusion of a free trial period (24–48 hours after purchase or the trial period ends) is a great time to survey your customer.
You’ll learn why they bought and what they liked, or conversely, what might be preventing them from moving forward.
When it comes to how many questions to include in a survey, the ones that tend to see high response rates don’t take longer than 10 minutes, which equates to about 5-10 questions.
The feedback you get here will go a long way toward helping you create a good initial impression — which is crucial to keep and resell to your new customers.
Stage 2: After purchase - monthly or quarterly
Collection method: Customer interviews
Whether you’re a solo entrepreneur or a large company, you should reach out to your customers on an ongoing basis. This is particularly helpful for getting in-depth opinions on new features or ideas you have for future developments.
Talk to your customers (via phone or videoconference). You'll get invaluable, direct feedback that will either reinforce your ideas or help you pivot.
A great way to collect and create a database of what matters to customers is with services like Lookback, which will help you discover and keep track of what your customers said.
Collection method: Online or mobile surveys
Send a survey to your customers after they have used your product or service for at least 3 months, and then check in monthly or quarterly.
Think of surveys as the foot soldiers collecting customer feedback: They’re easily assembled and deployed, and they’re flexible enough to cover many interaction points.
Plus, by using surveys to gather feedback, it’s simple to categorize, report on, and share that feedback with your team so that you can take action later on.
Jotform, a full featured and free no-code survey tool, integrates with AWeber and offers a number of helpful, post-purchase survey templates, user experience surveys, and more.
It’s easy to send new subscriber info from your survey, customer feedback form, or contact form straight to your AWeber lists. (Plus, Jotform offers beautiful templates like the one below to make giving feedback engaging.)
Pro tip: Contact forms are a sneaky good way to solicit feedback. Simply add a text field at the bottom of your form with a heading like “Anything you’d like us to know?” or a similar phrase.
Stage 3: If there’s an issue
Collection method: Customer service
When customers have product, service/communication, or other issues, it’s a great time to learn what needs to be fixed to increase customer engagement. Fielding these requests helps you discover which issues demand immediate attention.
Categorize your customers’ issues to summarize areas that need attention so they can be integrated with your marketing plans later on.
Address any issues head-on and directly, but afterwards get additional feedback. What went wrong? How was it resolved? How could you do better to avoid issues the next time. Trigger an automated email in AWeber using a tag to collect this information without extra manual work.
For small businesses in need of customer service software solutions, companies like EngageBay and Zendesk offer live chat and knowledge bases that allow you to get your solution off the ground (note that setting up a knowledge base takes time).
Collection method: Social media monitoring
If you or your business have a solid social media following, it’s a good idea to track hashtags and mentions so you can stay on top of what’s being said about your brand. It’s quite common, and frankly easier, for customers to voice their issues (or positive reactions) on social media.
By monitoring this info, you’ll collect valuable metrics and qualitative info — inspiration for your marketing strategy. Social monitoring tools such as Reputology let you easily analyze the conversations your audience is having.
Stage 4: If/when customers move on from your business
Collection method: Churned customer surveys
It’s no fun losing customers. But when a customer leaves, it’s a best practice to send them a feedback survey. That’s because when they leave, they tend to speak more candidly than usual (if they speak at all).
Pay attention to customers that take the time to give feedback. Chances are you’ll learn very valuable information that will help you build customer loyalty — or even win lost customers back.
Share feedback with all staff so it becomes second nature
It’s important to make sure the feedback you collect is shared so that everyone is aware of it.
This could mean setting up automated email notifications whenever you receive feedback. Or it could be more informal, like a themed meeting or day dedicated to review positive and constructive feedback.
The point is, you want customer feedback to become a habit in all your processes.
Pro tip: Remember that some of the feedback you get will come organically and unsolicited — offline. Try to remember and record this info as efficiently as you can so it can be fed into your feedback engine, table, or spreadsheet for sharing later on.
How to use this feedback to build a customer-focused marketing strategy
Now let’s dive into how you can apply customer feedback when building your marketing strategy. It’s easier than you think.
For example, use the feedback you’re getting on social media to assemble a marketing to-do list that improves your brand and reinforces authenticity.
Your social media marketing to-do list could look something like this:
When branding (social/email), highlight the things your customers like about your business and how it fits with your mission.
Create hashtags of cute or creative customer descriptions of your brand and share them on all channels.
Use positive social mentions when demonstrating how you help customers solve problems, and thank/tag contributors directly.
Use creative feedback to brainstorm new ways to market your business like creating a TikTok video or partnering on a webinar.
Establish which social media channels your customers respond to best and align your brand’s tone to that channel’s personality.
Another action list, inspired by feedback from existing customers, can strengthen your overall customer experience. That list could include
Increasing the type or number of your most popular products or services based on product feedback
Using communication-based feedback to increase/decrease email sends and give customers alternative ways of reaching you (chat, text, etc.)
Note: Use positive customer feedback as words of encouragement for your staff. Doing so has the wonderful effect of creating a happier workplace and encouraging higher productivity.
Now let’s look at a couple real life cases of feedback fueling a marketing strategy.
Example: How Mike’s Bikes does it
Let’s suppose the majority of the feedback you’re getting is service-related and/or dealing with issues that need attention. That’s the case for entrepreneur Tom Casson, vice president of Mike’s Bikes.
“The majority of our customer feedback relates to our customer service. Whether we knocked it out of the park or have gotten feedback letting us know where we fell short and needed improvement…. Recently, our feedback has come from customers loving the convenience of our Mike’s Bikes Mobile Service solution.”
Right off the bat, the service-related feedback Mike’s Bikes gets reinforces what the company is doing well and suggests what needs to improve.
Casson has also set up customer communications to capture a variety of feedback. It starts with post-purchase emails and social media monitoring (including Yelp/Google), all of which funnels into a customer service solution (Zendesk).
By tackling the first two steps, Casson understands how to use customer feedback to improve the company’s process and properly inform his marketing decisions, rounding out the playbook.
“We have definitely used customer feedback to make internal and external decisions,” Casson says. “Whether it’s speeding up the delivery of a bike, taking the extra time and care to help the customer get set up on their new bike, or noticing trends among products that we’re receiving great feedback on. All of these improvements have come from direct feedback from our customers.”
Take it past review forms: Conduct customer interviews
Closely related to service issues are first-person customer interviews and product or service requests. Often, these can apply to your marketing strategy by helping you identify new growth areas and potential audiences for your business.
For example, at Jotform we noticed a 179 percent increase in mobile form views over three years combined with customer requests for the ability to “bundle” forms in one place. That led to the creation of a beta mobile product that a select group of customers were able to try out.
By interviewing that group of customers about their usage, we learned what worked, what didn’t, and what was missing from the product. Eventually, the product we introduced was Jotform Apps, which has turned out to be wildly popular with customers.
Conclusion: Research, review, and repeat
A customer-focused marketing strategy isn’t a one and done; it’s a continual process. Your strategy will boost growth and differentiate your offering, if you consistently integrate customer feedback into what you do.
Tom Casson put it best: “Customers are the core of our business. Any opportunity we have to receive criticism or positive reinforcement, we jump at the chance to find out more and how to be better next time!”
