6 Social Media Content Ideas [infographic]

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Denese EakinsDenese is a lover of knowledge and puts her research skills and creative eye to good use with her infographics. When she’s not researching and designing visuals to present data, she spends time volunteering in her other passion–health education.

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Email Marketing Best Practices

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Denese EakinsDenese is a lover of knowledge and puts her research skills and creative eye to good use with her infographics. When she’s not researching and designing visuals to present data, she spends time volunteering in her other passion–health education.

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Don’t Overlook the Importance Of Email Marketing In 2018!

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As a small or medium-sized business, having effective and affordable marketing campaigns is your secret weapon for increasing sales and profits.

One of the most potent marketing mechanisms that business owners can use to tap into their customer base is Email.

While you might think that Email marketing isn’t useful, the truth is quite the opposite. Currently, there are over 1 Billion Gmail users worldwide, with predictions that this could catapult to over 3 billion users by the year 2020

Looking forward to 2018, here are some Email marketing tips to help you improve your metrics, conversions, and sales.

Refine Your Mailing List

If you have been collecting Email addresses from a variety of sources such as newsletter opt-ins, website signups, recent customers, or offline signups, it’s worth taking the time to segment these lists. By doing so, you can incorporate very targeted Email messages (campaigns) to increase engagement with ‘stale’ clients and active customers

Have a Defined “Call To Action” In Every Message

Sending out an Email message without giving recipients a clear “Call To Action,” also know as a CTA, is ineffectual for you and the person who gets the message. After all, if you don’t know what action you want the recipient to take when they open the mail, how would they?

Depending on the objective of your message, there are several goals you can consider. These goals might include responding to a digital offer, requesting more information on a product or service, or downloading marketing assets. If you are making a sales offer, you might consider giving recipients a promo code and a link to your ecommerce website or direct checkout to take advantage of the deal.

Other objectives include sending visitors to blog posts or encouraging them to interact with you on major social media platforms.

Regardless of what CTA you choose, just be sure that you offer something for your Email readers to take your desired action.

Don’t Forget to Personalize!

Email personalization is something that doesn’t cost extra and can significantly improve the metrics and results you get from your campaign

By merely adding a recipient’s name in the subject field or the Email opening, you can increase the engagement – and ideally – the results you get from the communication

Send From a Legitimate Email Address

Think about the Email messages you get when you check your Inbox. How interested are you when you get a message that originates from a “no reply” Email address? The answer is probably ‘not very.’ The same idea applies when you send to your Email list.

As a best practice, don’t send emails from a “no-reply” email account. By offering a legitimate reply-to Email address, if potential customers have a question, all they need to do is reply to the message to contact a representative immediately.

Try Sending On Different Days and Times

Have you ever felt like there is a pattern to your Email sending schedule? Perhaps you send every Tuesday at 12:30 PM? It’s no secret that the middle of the week is when most businesses send their Email, so you – along with everyone else – is trying to capture the attention of readers. Instead, try posting on a Monday, a Friday, or even a Saturday.

Before mailing to your entire list, always be sure to send a test message to yourself first. Double check that all of your links are formatted correctly to avoid missed opportunities from bad links.

You might find you get exceptional results just by trying a different approach.

Undeliverables Are Unavoidable

When evaluating the results from your Email marketing campaigns, there is always going to be some amount of natural churn and shrinkage on your list. People’s tastes, needs, and interests are constantly changing. It’s natural for some people to unsubscribe. They could have moved away from the area or no longer want to get offers from you. Perhaps they aren’t interested in the services or products any longer.

Other types of undeliverable Emails include sending to inboxes that are full or getting sent to a suspended or non-existent Email address.

While none of these situations are ideal, they are part of the Email marketing game. To keep your sender reputation in high regards, follow best practices to suppress and manage undeliverable and unsubscribed Email.

Choose A Compelling Subject Line

There is an art to writing compelling Email subject lines. You want to use this part of your Email copy to capture the attention of readers and compel them to open the Email to find out more.

You want these topic lines to be honest and straightforward, without sounding – or being – clickbait. While clickbait titles might be excellent for getting people to open, if they find a discrepancy between the subject line and the body of the message, this negatively affects your click-through rates and probably your business reputation.

To get the best result, craft a message that is personalized and to the point. Always be sure to read subject lines out loud before you send it. Does it read OK? Would it make you want to click and open it?

When you vary the times and days that you Email, you’re opening up the chance that you’ll connect with someone who is interested in what you have to offer and takes advantage of it.

Consistency Matters

The most critical thing to keep in mind is that Email is a dynamic way to build trust and rapport with new, existing, and potential clients.

By maintaining your Email list and contacting them with relevant offers, your clients know that you are still out there providing products and services if they need them.

Additionally, by Emailing regularly, you keep your company or brand fresh in the mind of the people who are interested the most.

The best part is that you don’t even need to wait until 2018 to start implementing these best practices to fine-tune and extract more value from your engaged Email lists.

Killer Customer Service Phrases…and Their Alternative Solutions

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Denese EakinsDenese is a lover of knowledge and puts her research skills and creative eye to good use with her infographics. When she’s not researching and designing visuals to present data, she spends time volunteering in her other passion–health education.

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5 CSR Phrases That Every Customer Service Agent Needs To Use

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Customer service representatives (CSR) need to be trained to handle a variety of situations when dealing with client inquiries or complaints. Words are a powerful thing and when used correctly, expressions and phrases can help resolve disputes and misunderstandings amicably.

The way that things are worded is everything!

For example, in 2016 Facebook made a very not so subtle change to help users improve their experience. Posts previously features a “Hide or Mark as Spam” link. This link was re-worded to say “I don’t want to see this.” This resulted in a significant increase in the number of people who responded and gave feedback on the posts that appeared on their Newsfeed.

All just because of a simple linguistic change.

Coaching and training your CSR’s on similar changes in their response phrases, can help improve your customer experience with your representatives.

In this article, let’s explore a few new phrases you can implement into your CSR program to improve communications and deliver outstanding customer service. By doing so, you’re laying the foundation to build stronger, ongoing, customer relationships.

  1. “Let me look into that or find out for you.”

One of the most reassuring things that a CSR can do for a customer is being polite and respectful while patiently answering any questions the customer has. In highly competitive or saturated markets, prompt and professional customer service keeps your customer happy, so they don’t have to seek out alternative vendors to patronize.

Providing stellar customer service means that you’re willing to go the extra mile to assure that the customer is satisfied with their interaction and transaction.

The more seamless you can make your sales and service processes, the better!

  1. “I apologize for any inconvenience.”

When someone is having an unsatisfactory experience with your company, an apology can go a long way. A sincere apology that exhibits understanding and empathy, can help to form a positive outcome from the interaction.

Chances are good that the reason the person is upset, is (hopefully) by something other than the CSR they are speaking with. Being genuinely sorry for their inconvenience/confusion/insert reason here, lets the customer know that you care.

  1. “It is my pleasure to help!”

Just with many other things in life, your attitude can determine your altitude. Keeping a positive and upbeat attitude helps shape your reality.

When speaking or corresponding with customers, positive words go a long way. The use of positive words supports positive reactions and lets the customer know that you’re excited to help them with whatever they need.

Let’s say that you sent a company you do business with an Email. You can get two different responses. A bland one with a simple answer like ‘I’ll check it out for you” or one that says “It would be my pleasure to help.” Which reaction would you prefer to get back?

I’m guessing you – like many others – would prefer the latter.

  1. “I will update you as soon as possible.”

The primary goal of customer service is to help the customer solve their issues, regardless of their concern or reason for inquiry. When a client has to “follow-up” to get a status report on their open issue, this could indicate that there’s been a failure somewhere in your business processes.

To avoid the frustration and miscommunication, review your CSR process and ensure that all customers with open tickets get proactive status updates. Also be sure to communicate with your customer an expected ETA on their inquiry. If you are unable to deliver the solution within this estimated timeframe, alert the customer to the delay and be understanding of the situation.

  1. “Thanks for letting us know!”

If a customer has an unpleasant experience, finding out about the problem helps your company preemptively curtail the problem right away.

Recent studies found that for every single customer who takes the time to make a complaint, there is an average of 26 others who don’t say a word. What this means for you is one customer complaint could represent dozens of other people having the same problem but aren’t taking steps to let you know.

Having gratitude and appreciation for clients is key to building a stronger relationship. A simple ‘thank you’ always goes a long way.

If your customer buys from you, thank them for their purchase. Should they report a bug, let them know you appreciate their input and feedback. If they leave a positive review on your social media page(s), thank them on your profile or via a direct message.

Always be sure to add, something like “please let me know if there is anything else I can help you with” so your client knows that they can reach out to you anytime.

One thing to keep in mind at all times is that every customer service engagement is an opportunity to build a stronger relationship with your existing – or a potential new client. By offering an exceptional CSR experience, you can learn more about your customers and possibly come up with additional products and services to solve their problems, whatever they may be

Thanks for taking the time to read this article, we appreciate your time and your interest! We hope this article is helpful with achieving all of your customer service goals and objectives.