Category Archives: E-mail Marketing

If you’ve ever been surprised by a bad review of your business, you’re not alone. 

Whether you run a local business, Etsy shop, YouTube channel, or other type of service that receives online reviews, we all have to face the dreaded bad review at some point.

Naturally, you want to ignore negative feedback, especially if it seems unfair or exceptionally harsh.

However, data shows consumers are 41% more likely to do business with companies that respond to all of their reviews, positive and negative.

I reached out to businesses with first-hand experience responding to bad reviews, and nearly every one of the 50+ people that shared their stories volunteered a common message: Bad reviews present valuable insights and opportunity for growth.

In this guide, you’ll find tips on the most pressing issues surrounding negative reviews, such as:

How to write a productive response to nearly any type of bad review.

Why it’s so tough not to take negative reviews personally.

Why you should never delete or ignore bad reviews.

You’ll also enjoy stories and insights from businesses that have been where you are, and cheer for the CEO who used a surprise tactic to turn an irate reviewer into a customer evangelist.

How to respond to bad reviews

Are bad reviews good for business?

The psychology behind bad reviews
Why are people so harsh, and why does it get to me?

7 Steps to crafting successful responses to negative reviews
Tips, templates, and examples to help your team respond productively

3 Impressive review response stories with examples 
Find out how three businesses turned things around after negative reviews

Are bad reviews good for business?

You wake up to discover that your 5-star status dropped thanks to a harsh negative review. It feels like personal criticism, and your natural reaction is to defend yourself by pointing out their inaccuracies.

But you can take heart in the fact that bad reviews, when handled professionally, can be very good for business. 

For example, Laviet Joaquin, Head of Marketing at TP-Link, applies emotional intelligence when responding to poor reviews.

The 3 Surprising Upsides of Negative Reviews

Negative reviews can humanize your business, legitimize your positive reviews, and boost your profits — provided you respond in a productive way.

1 – Responding to all reviews can result in a 41% boost in business. 

via GIPHY

Be warned, though, that ignoring reviews may have the opposite effect. 

A significant portion (41%) of consumers favor business that respond to all their reviews (positive and negative), however;

Nearly half (47%) of consumers won’t take a chance on businesses that don’t respond to reviews.

2 – Negative reviews reveal opportunities for improvement. 

Negative reviews provide you with valuable feedback that can help you identify areas for growth and improvement.

3 – Negative reviews humanize your brand. 

Admitting your mistakes and empathizing with unhappy customers shows there are real people behind your brand who care about their experience.

4 – Negative reviews lend credibility to the review system.

Have you ever felt suspicious about a company or product that has nothing but 5-star reviews? It’s a little hard to believe, especially knowing how many less-than-honorable companies pay for fake reviews. 

Negative reviews can serve as proof that your positive reviews are legitimate.

Jonathan Feniak, General Counsel at LLC Attorney, explains that, in the legal world, bad reviews are often simply part of doing business because “You can’t secure wins every time, which can make some clients very angry — even when your work went above and beyond.” 

Many of the businesses you’ll read about below have used negative feedback to increase overall customer satisfaction, improve their products or services, and generate higher long-term profits. 

However, overcoming bad reviews becomes tougher when your star rating dips below a four or five.

How bad is good? What consumers look for in starred ratings

Negative reviews can be good for business — but too many of them can put a serious dent in your profits. 

Most consumers look for businesses with four- or five-star ratings. The majority (77%) of people will not do business with companies whose ratings are below three stars.

According to the Brightlocal 2024 local consumer survey, here are the lowest ratings consumers will accept when considering a business:

The psychology behind negative reviews

Bad reviews of your business, product, or service can be disappointing — and sometimes even emotional. 

For example, small business owner and Reddit user grizzlygrizet was devastated by her first negative review, and internalized the comments as a gauge of her businesses’ quality. 

“I just feel like a failure,” she explained, “as how else would we get such a rating?”

It’s normal to feel as if you’re on the other end of a gut punch when a bad review pops up, especially if you haven’t had much experience with negative reviews.

There are legitimate psychological and scientific reasons why unhappy customers often leave harsh reviews — and why it’s natural for you to sometimes feel hurt by them.

Why are unhappy customers so harsh in their reviews?

Negative emotions hit harder and last longer than positive ones. As a result, they need to be processed more thoroughly. 

So when a customer has a bad experience with a business, writing a harsh review helps them overcome their uncomfortably strong emotional reaction. 

On the opposite end of the spectrum, customers who’ve had a great experience tend to forget it more quickly. This is why it’s a great practice to encourage and ask for reviews on social media and in your email newsletters.

If negative reviews are good for business, why do they feel so hurtful?

Hurt feelings are a natural human response to negative feedback, which is why it’s easy to feel hurt over a bad review — even when it’s not personal.

via GIPHY

Psychologically, this emotional human response is 100% normal. Psychologists and researchers say there are a couple of reasons we struggle when receiving negative feedback:

By nature, negative feedback tends to cause feelings of shame. This is a natural human response to criticism because the brain often interprets negative feedback as a deviation from society’s standards. 

We humans often internalize negative feedback as a statement of our personal identity.

Additionally, our brains often react to negative feedback as if it’s a threat that must be staved off.

The desire to react defensively is a normal human response that likely traces back to the beginning of time. 

To overcome this natural reaction and respond productively, frame the feedback in a way that benefits you. Keep in mind that bad reviews can provide you with a type of insight, reflection, and clarity that you may never otherwise receive.

7 Steps to crafting successful responses to negative reviews

How you respond to reviews will determine whether you win over new customers or send them running in the opposite direction. 

Below is a 7-step process that will help you craft the perfect response to nearly any negative review.

#1 – Keep the end goal in mind

Maintain a calm and professional manner when writing your reply, even if the review is harsh or seems unfair. 

Avoid any temptation to defend yourself or argue with reviewers.

If you feel attacked or angry, take a pause and remind yourself that bad reviews can ultimately boost your profits. 

#2 – Respond quickly

Show that you take customer feedback seriously by responding quickly to negative reviews.  

Reviewers want to see quick responses to negative feedback. 

33% of consumers expect a response in 3 days or less

53% of consumers expect a response within one week.

Rex Huxford, Director of Demand Generation at MD Clarity, says that timely responses and resolutions make a strong statement about brand integrity.

#3- Thank the reviewer and acknowledge their complaints

Start by thanking the reviewer for their feedback and acknowledging their poor experience.

Here are some examples:

[Reviewer’s Name], thank you for sharing your feedback. We appreciate you taking the time to bring this to our attention.

Hi [Reviewer’s Name], thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. We value your feedback and are grateful for the opportunity to improve.

Thank you for bringing this to our attention [Reviewer’s Name]. Your insights are valuable as we strive to enhance our services.

#4 –  Understand, empathize, and apologize

Next, show that you understand and empathize with their experience and apologize.

For example:

We understand how [specific issue] can be frustrating. We’re here to help resolve this matter for you.

Hi [Reviewer’s Name], we’re truly sorry to hear about your experience. Your feedback is invaluable to us, and we’re dedicated to making things right.

We’re sorry you had a bad experience and assure you that we’re taking steps to prevent similar issues in the future.

Gauri Manglik, CEO and cofounder of Instrumentl, advises that acknowledging and apologizing shows you appreciate their input. 

#5 Offer a resolution, possibly off-platform

To resolve their issue, you might need to take communication off the platform so that you can gather details, investigate, and offer a solution.

Here are some examples of how you can take the conversation off the platform: 

[Reviewer’s Name], we apologize for your experience and are committed to resolving this issue. Please reach out to [email/phone] so we can address your concerns personally.

Hi [Reviewer’s Name], we understand your frustration and want to make things right. Please contact [Team Member’s Name] at [email/phone] so we can address your concerns promptly.

Can you please provide more details with our (title) about your experience so we can address your concerns more effectively? Please reach out to [Team Member’s Name] at [email/phone] for further assistance with this matter.

In many cases, writing an apology email is the best way to address a problem. Other times, you may need to demonstrate your sincerity with compensation or proof that their feedback helped make changes to the way you do things.

#6 Close with appreciation and accountability

End your response on a positive note by showing appreciation and taking accountability for the customer’s poor experience.

Here are some examples of how to demonstrate appreciation and accountability:

Providing excellent service is a top priority for our team. We appreciate your patience as we investigate this issue.

We’re committed to providing a 5-star customer experience and appreciate your feedback in helping us achieve that goal.

Thank you for your continued support and feedback. We’re committed to earning back your trust and confidence.

#7 Recognize the positive reviews, too!

Responding to positive reviews shows consumers that you appreciate their feedback and value their support. 

Take the time to craft unique, personalized responses to all of your reviews — including the positive ones!

Examples of how businesses successfully respond to bad reviews

Three-quarters of businesses don’t respond to negative reviews, but many of the businesses that do respond swear by its results.

Zero Bounce, Capsule, and Thankbox share their experiences with bad reviews below.

Zero Bounce turns customer around with a whole-team effort

When a customer left a 2-star review and accused their company of “bait and switch,” due to an unclear pricing structure, the team at Zero Bounce didn’t take it lightly. 

Instead, a team effort resulted in changes that prompted the reviewer to update to a 5-star rating.

ZeroBounce PR Manager Corina Leslie explains, “We all thought the pricing structure was clear on our platform, but this customer pinpointed that the copy was causing confusion.

Our whole team got to work right away to fix the copy, then I reached out to the customer via email and shared the updates.“

As a result, the customer updated her review to 5 stars and “is still a customer today,” according to Leslie.

Leslie praises the customer’s original review for allowing them to see things from the customer’s perspective.

Capsule wins over unhappy reviewer with surprise tactic

Shortly after Capsule launched its public beta, a video creator wrote a negative review of the company in his newsletter. 

Capsule’s response took the reviewer off-guard and turned him into a customer evangelist.

His surprise tactic: Agreeing with them!

“Hi! CEO of Capsule here. I read your review and while it wasn’t fun to read, I found myself agreeing with all your points.

It’s a tough call as a startup knowing when to push the “go” button. We chose to push it knowing that the product was far from perfect, but perhaps good enough that we could get some feedback.. Even if that meant some of it would be negative.

Thanks for writing, hope you’ll give us another shot soon!! We’ll be pushing fixes and features like mad 😉 “  – response written by Capsule CEO Eric Kinariwala

The reviewer, Video creator Tiger Joseph, was so impressed with CEO Eric Kinariwala’s response that he shared it on LinkedIn under the title “Quick story on humility for any CEO…”

“…Talk about a winning attitude.

If you can take harsh feedback & transform it into positive change, you have a RARE superpower.

I already have high hopes for Capsule’s future from this short response.”

Thankbox CEO uncovers the benefits of consistent professional responses

Valentin Hinov, CEO and founder of Thankbox, says that the true benefit of responding to negative reviews is showing potential customers that you care about their experience.

“During the first year or two of my business,” he explains, “when I got bad reviews, I took them personally and did everything I could to appease the reviewer to get them to update their review.”

But Valentin says that one of his most important lessons was learning not to expect reviewers to update their public feedback, even after you help them.

Writing productive responses to bad reviews

Regardless of your industry or company size, responding professionally to all your reviews (negative and positive) can improve your product, customer experience, and overall profits.

Here’s a bonus tip to help improve your review ratings:

Nurture relationships with customers in-between purchases by sending out a personalized weekly newsletter. Well-written, non-promotional newsletters can humanize your brand and encourage positive sentiment when people are writing reviews.
To get started with personalized email nurture campaigns, visit AWeber and sign up for a free account today.

The post How to respond to negative reviews online: Examples & 7-step template appeared first on AWeber.

You invest a lot of time and effort into building a successful social media community for your brand. Long nights. Tough decisions. Mornings spent racing to your page to discover how your last post performed. You’ve done it all.

Likes and comments don’t generate profits, though. For many brands, the key to generating traffic, conversions, and sales from social media is all about their link in bio.

When you’re ready to turn your social media followers into paying customers, a link in bio landing page can help you get there. Using your link in bio (on any social media platform) to provide a menu of options lets you serve people at every stage of your marketing funnel. 

Linktree is a popular link in bio service, but you might need more capabilities, customizations, features, or pricing options than what Linktree provides.

Discover the best Linktree alternatives for any social media audience in the guide below.

You’ll find examples, ideas, and unique features designed to help you turn social media followers into website traffic, email subscribers, and paying customers with a simple link in bio landing page.

Top Linktree alternatives

What are link in bio tools?
Best Linktree alternatives

#1 – AWeber

#2 – Campsite.bio

#3 – LNK.Bio

#4 – Contact In Bio

#5 – Bitly Link in Bio

#6 – Tap Bio

#7 – Many

#8 – Link in Bio

Top Linktree alternatives by feature
Top Linktree alternatives by social media platform
Tactics for driving traffic, conversions, and sales with link in bio

What are link in bio tools?

On most social platforms, brands can add a link to their bio (or “profile”) page. But between link limitations and ugly-looking links (with no anchor text), the standard link in bio isn’t always enough to prompt viewers to take action. 

Poor link options often result in lower conversions, sales, and profits for brands that invest their time and money into social media marketing.

A link in bio landing page solves that problem by allowing you to provide a selection of links aimed at meeting your marketing goals.

Instead of publishing a single-destination link, you can use your profile link to send viewers to a landing page with several options.

When set up to align with your marketing goals, link in bio landing pages help convert your profile viewers and social followers into email subscribers, web traffic, or paying clients and customers.

For example, you can include a link to your blog, special promotions, product pages, and other social media channels. 

Some Linktree alternatives even let you put an email subscription form directly into your link in bio landing page.

Best Linktree alternatives

We’ve included some of the top Linktree alternatives in the list below. 

Whether you’re looking for advanced customization, unique features and tools, more pricing options, or integrated marketing tools, this list will help you choose the best Linktree alternative for your marketing goals.

#1 – AWeber

AWeber’s Link in bio tool provides an all-in-one marketing solution to help you drive traffic, conversions, and sales. 

AWeber’s fully customizable link in bio landing page includes:

Built-in Canva Designer

YouTube embeds

Email newsletter signup form

Ecommerce capabilities

Social media icons

Smart content capabilities

Tired of working with multiple apps to market your business?

AWeber’s integrated marketing tools let you manage it all from one platform:

Build a fully customized link in bio landing page that includes everything you need:  links, email subscribe forms, embeds, e-commerce, and more.

Create automated email campaigns that nurture your social media leads. Segment your audience and personalize content based on user behavior. Create email automated campaigns that sell your products for you.

Build and host product landing pages and lead magnet landing pages to drive more conversions and sales.

With AWeber, you get all the history, knowledge, and support that comes with a platform that has been in business for 20+ years. Unlike many other Linktree alternatives, AWeber delivers  outstanding customer support, a comprehensive training library, and constantly updated software that works exactly as it should 

Here’s why you’ll love AWeber’s link in bio tool:

Add practically anything to your link in bio landing page: unlimited links, email signup form, YouTube embeds, ecommerce, and more.

Built-in Canva Designer lets you customize your page for consistent branding across multiple platforms.

Its prebuilt templates and drag-and-drop interface make your link in bio landing page super easy to create.

Includes custom domain names, landing page insights, and embedded email subscribe forms.

Free plan available.

“AWeber is quite intuitive to use, and there is hardly a learning curve. The software is robust without the bloat of bells and whistles. It’s truly not lacking anything.”

– Cheniece P, G2 review

#2 – Campsite.bio

Campsite.bio link in bio tool gives you in-depth analytics, a personalized domain name, and premium integrations such as forms and tracking pixels.

The app provides several key features that brands look for in a link in bio landing page, including:

Unlimited links

Titles and dividers

Social icons

Analytics

Custom domain names

Premium integrations

Campsite is a good option for brands looking for a free Linktree alternative or a paid plan with more customization and analytics tools.

Why we like Campsite.bio:

Generous free plan available.

Pro plan allows for advanced customization and branding.

Pro plan provides access to in-depth analytics.

“I can easily direct my readers from Instagram to my recent blog posts, have them sign up for my email list, and schedule links when I want them to go live. It’s a game-changer. And I love being able to customize everything to my own branding.”

– Becca, Campsite.bio review, Trustpilot

#3 – LNK.Bio

Lnk.Bio landing page examples

Linktree alternative Lnk.Bio is the second biggest link-in-bio service worldwide. Its service is similar to Linktree but with more affordable pricing.

Lnk.Bio lets you post unlimited links on your landing page, including sponsored, social media, and website links.

Some of Lnk.Bio’s notable features include:

Link scheduling lets you create a variety of campaigns.

2,500+ icons so you can link to social media, music, contacts, and other services.

Monetization options that help you generate income include a donation box, a thanks box, and affiliate programs.

Some analytics are provided, including clicks, views, and CTR.

Its focus on social media profiles and icons makes it a good option for social-first brands that want to cross-link their other social profiles.

Why we like Lnk.Bio:

Super-easy, 1-minute setup.

One-time payment option or choice of subscription plans.

Personalized URLs available.

“I like how easy and intuitive the platform is. I never have any issues working on this software because everything is straightforward and easy for me to understand.”

– G2 reviewer

#4 – Contact In Bio

Contact in Bio gives users slightly more control over customizing their landing page. Its options include colors, themes, button styles, and background choices. 

The service also provides key features such as built-in contact forms, payment collection tools, and Messenger links for direct social messaging.

Contact In Bio notable features include:

Tracking options include Google Analytics tracking and Facebook pixel retargeting.

Design options that let you control the look and feel of your landing page.

An online store that allows viewers to purchase your products inside the Instagram app.

Contact in Bio may be a good choice if you’re looking for a Linktree alternative that offers more design options and a greater selection of features.

Why we like Contact In Bio:

Offers the ability to collect payments via Stripe and Paypal.

Provides messenger links that let users connect directly via social messaging.

Features in-depth analytics.

“Ideal for my Instagram page! Allows me to connect all my social media and webstore in one place!”

– Lufc Fanzone, Contact In Bio customer

#5 – Bitly

Bitly Link in Bio landing page examples

Bitly link in bio tool lets you create a simple landing page where you can add multiple links. These could be links to your website, other social media profiles, product pages, or other essential content.

As part of Bitly’s URL shortening service, you’ll also enjoy helpful click tracking analytics. 

Its main features include:

Basic personalization options that let you upload your logo or image and choose from preset color palettes.

Social link icons that connect users to your other social media channels.

Tracking features let you easily track views and clicks.

Link scheduling feature allows you to create link campaigns in advance by scheduling link stop and start dates.

If you already shorten links with Bitly, its link in bio tool is a natural extension and may be a good option for you.

Why we like Bitly:

Simple solution for businesses wanting an all-in-one URL shortener, QR code app, and link in bio landing page.

Advanced plan allows you to manage and analyze all links from a single dashboard.

Custom domains available.

“The platform has a very easy and reliable user interface even for first time users. The tool also helps you track engagement rates like clicks which is very helpful.”

– Saurav S., Bitly G2 review

#6 – Tap Bio

Tap.bio  can host multiple links and pages, called “cards.”

Its layout differs from most link in bio tools because it looks more like an Instagram Story than a landing page. 

Its customizable “cards” allow you to stack several pages of content and links.

Tap.bio features include:

The ability to embed YouTube videos

Click link analytics

Multiple swipeable cards with every link in bio

Tap.bio may be a good option for creative-minded users. 

However, users might consider directing this type of engagement toward their Instagram or web content, rather than their link in bio.

Why we like Tap.bio:

Offers a fun and interactive way to present comprehensive information.

Provides you with extensive customization options.

#7 – Many.bio

Many.bio link in bio examples

Many.bio is a link in bio tool designed for Instagram and TikTok. Like Linktree, it lets you create a small landing page that can share multiple links from several sources.

Many.bio highlights include:

Unlimited links on your landing page

Customization options that include colors, fonts, and background images

Social media icons for linking to your other social pages

Messenger links so people can message you directly

Basic analytics so you know how many people visit your links

Many.bio may be a good option for people looking for a more simple and direct approach to a link in bio landing page. 

Why we like Many.bio:

Simple, straightforward link in bio solution.

50 ready-design themes

Custom URL options

Generous free plan

#8 – Link in Bio

Link in Bio sample landing page

Looking for a more complex link in bio program with a wide selection of tools and features? 

Link in Bio is a platform that lets you add links, music, video, shops, and email/SMS subscriptions to your landing page.

Some of its features include:

Automatically-generated link previews

One-click subscriptions

Unlimited links

Blue check verification

Branded pages

Insights allow you to track how many people click your links

Embedded YouTube videos

Link in Bio may be a good choice for users wanting multiple admins, dedicated support reps, and unique features such as link previews and instant verification.

Why we like Link in Bio:

Paid plans provide unique features such as instant verification and multiple admin users.

Pro plan offers collaboration tools and advanced insights.

Free plan allows you to get started with unlimited links and link previews.

The Linktree alternatives we’ve covered in this guide allow you to cater to any stage of your marketing funnel with customizable link menus for your social media audiences. Many of the services provide free trials or free versions, so you can give them a try to find out which one is best for you!

If you’re looking for specific features or the best fit for your favorite social media platform, the guide below will help.

Top Linktree alternatives by feature

Looking for specific features in a Linktree alternative? The lists below will help you find the best service for your needs.

Several of the above-mentioned services provide a generous free plans, including:

AWeber

Campsite

ContactInBio

Lnk.bio

Many

Link in Bio

Linktree alternatives with unique features

If you’re looking for a service with features that go above and beyond, consider:

AWeber: YouTube embeds, analytics, embedded email subscribe forms, built-in Canva designer, ecommerce features

Link in Bio: Blue check verification, auto-generated previews

Contact in Bio: Collect payments with Stripe & Paypal

Linktree alternatives with more customization options

If you’re searching for a Linktree alternative with more creative freedom, you might like:

AWeber; built in Canva Designer, fully customizable landing pages

Tap Bio; customizable cards let you create slider landing pages (think Instagram Stories layout)

Linktree alternatives with video embeds

Ever considered embedding videos in your link in bio landing pages? Some Linktree alternatives that let you embed videos include:

Link in Bio

Tap bio

AWeber

Top Linktree alternatives by social media platform

If you mostly use one social media platform, why not choose a link in bio tool that caters to it?

Linktree alternatives for Instagram

Instagram started the “Link in bio landing page” revolution. Its old policy of allowing only one link in your bio PLUS not allowing links in captions forced users to find a better solution. As a result, most link in bio tools work great with Instagram.

Any of the tools above make an excellent Linktree alternative for Instagram users. Our favorites are:

AWeber

Lnk.Bio

Many.bio

Linktree alternatives for TikTok

TikTok users looking for a small landing page should check out Many.bio, which was designed with TikTok in mind.

Linktree alternatives for LinkedIn

Like Instagram, LinkedIn only allows one link per bio. Plus, its algorithm favors posts that do not include links. This makes it an ideal social channel for the right link in bio landing page.

However, LinkedIn users are a discriminating crowd. Building a landing page that fits LinkedIn’s professional aesthetic is critical to building trust with your followers.

To fit in on LinkedIn, look for a highly-customizable, yet simple, Linktree alternative such as:

AWeber allows you to design professional, branded landing pages, perfect for LinkedIn.

Contact In Bio provides a sleek, simple design that you can customize for a professional aesthetic.

Tap.Bio’s creative approach is a good fit for designers who understand the LinkedIn aesthetic.

Tactics for driving traffic, conversions, and sales with link in bio

Link in bio tools provide a clear path to boosting your marketing goals. Here are some tips for using your landing page to drive results for your objectives.

Boost your website traffic

To boost your web traffic from social media, use a link in bio landing page to highlight your most engaging web pages.

For example, you might link to content such as:

Highest-performing blog posts

How-to guides

Landing pages

Free ebooks or educational resources

Checklists, templates, and infographics

To optimize the results of your traffic, include a link option for every stage of the marketing funnel: Awareness, interest, and decision-stage content.

Drive conversions

To boost email conversions, feature an email subscribe form at the top of your landing page. 

For example, Dork Tales Storytime Podcast focuses on driving conversions by putting its email subscribe form at the top of the landing page. Below it, the page includes links to highly engaging content such as a listener survey and printables shop.

Increase sales

Drive more sales from social media by featuring your best products and services on the link in bio landing page. 

Include compelling CTAs to encourage clicks. For an extra boost, add your best promotion, deal, or promo code at the top.

For example, HR Art focuses its attention on enrolling people in its classes and training. 

With selections such as “Book your first appointment,” “Join a virtual Qigong class,” and “Sign up for the in-person vision fest event,” the page acts as a catalyst for its #1 marketing objective: increasing sales.

Increase traffic, conversions, AND sales

If your current marketing goals are a balance of objectives, include a balance of links that cater to your goals.

To increase traffic, conversions, AND sales with your landing page, consider including the following:

A link to your current promotion, product launch, or best-selling item

An email subscription sign-up form with a free offer (lead gen) incentive

A link to your best-performing blog article

A link to your customer testimonials or case studies

A link to your booking schedule

Send traffic to your primary social media channel

If you’ve already built a strong audience on one social media channel, then it makes sense to send users from other platforms to your main audience.

For example, if your strongest community is YouTube, embed your most compelling YouTube videos in your link in bio landing page. 

To find a link in bio tool that lets you embed videos, check the “Linktree alternatives with video embeds” section above.

How to build effective link in bio landing pages

To achieve the best results from your landing page, ensure that every link you share aligns with your marketing objectives.

For example, many landing pages encourage you to add social media icons to your landing page. But before you do, ask yourself “How will this achieve the results I’m pursuing?”  In most cases, including additional social media icons won’t increase your conversions or sales.

Your landing page is a hub that can send massive traffic to the places where it will do the most good. To ensure that it’s effective, remain focused on your marketing goals as you create it.

Keep your landing page productive by including (only links) that will lead to the results you’re looking for!

Conclusion 

Linktree is a solid starting point as a bio link tool, but the best Linktree alternatives provide more enhanced features and tools to help you boost traffic, conversions, and sales.

Bio link tools are an excellent way to increase your social media ROI, but they’re only the beginning. Email marketing, product landing pages, and lead generation pages are critical tools for guiding visitors along their journey to becoming customers.

AWeber’s streamlined approach to marketing provides you with everything you need to nurture and convert leads from your social media channels. From email marketing to landing pages and link in bio pages, you can do it all from one platform.

No experience with landing pages or email marketing? No problem! Choose from hundreds of templates that let you create emails or landing pages in minutes. Sign up for a free AWeber account today and start building your link in bio landing page in minutes!

The post Best Linktree alternatives for driving traffic, conversions, and sales appeared first on AWeber.

Email marketing for realtors. You’ve heard about it, but you’re not sure how it can help you connect with home buyers and sellers.

Imagine this scenario for a moment: You’re hosting another open house for a charming two-story Cape Cod home. A flood of people enter in and out, browsing around on their own without saying much to you. 

You leave out some business cards on a side table by the door and hope interested home buyers take one. But even if they do, there’s no guarantee that your card won’t end up lost in a purse or thrown out later on in the day.

If you had an email list you could ask potential homebuyers to sign up and guarantee future interactions. 

But email marketing isn’t just helpful for when you host an open house – it’s a great way to connect with potential home sellers and buyers in any scenario. And it allows you to reach a much more targeted audience. 

Email marketing for realtors allows you to stay connected with those who are interested in working with you, ultimately making it more effective than many other types of marketing.

Benefits of real estate email marketing

1 – Measurable 

Unlike other types of marketing that are difficult to measure, you can determine the ways in which your email efforts are impacting business by reviewing information such as open rates, click rates, traffic to your website, and more.

2 – Proven ROI 

Email marketing delivers a return of 3600%, according to Litmus.

3 – Preferred by clients

74% of consumers prefer to receive commercial communication through email. Think about that for a minute. In order for you to send emails to someone, they have to come up to you or go to your website and sign up, already knowing they’re interested in something you have to offer.

Posting an ad for your business can be good for raising awareness of your services. But you’re promoting yourself to a wide audience of people who will most likely look at your ad and move on. 

That means there will be no future opportunities for you to engage with that person. When someone gives you their email address, however, you get the chance to start up a conversation and build a relationship with that person by sending them content that is relevant to their lives (such as information about new house listings or tips for homeowners).

4 – It frees up your time 

As a realtor, your life is a busy one, and you need a way to manage your relationships with your clients while also having time to go on house tours, attend settlements, and so on. If you set up automated email messages, staying in touch with your clients becomes hassle-free.

Step 1: Find an email marketing provider

The first step to getting started with email marketing is to research and choose a reputable email marketing provider. A few characteristics to look for in a good provider include high-quality customer service and excellent deliverability.

By having a top-notch team of email experts to help you throughout your email marketing journey, as well as the highest possible chance to get your messages delivered to your subscribers’ inboxes, you’ll be better prepared for success.

Once you’ve found your match, you can begin collecting email subscribers to grow your client base.

Step 2: Grow your subscriber base

In order to sell a house, you need interested buyers and actual sellers, right? Email marketing can help you gain the respect and trust of potential clients. But first, you need a list of people to email.

Fortunately, there are many easy ways you can collect email subscribers once you’ve selected your email marketing provider. Here are the tactics that we find work best for real estate agents:

Your website

If you have a website, chances are you get tons of visitors but not nearly as many inquiries as you’d like. Fortunately, you can tap into some of those visitors by adding an email sign-up form on highly trafficked pages of your website (such as your homepage). 

Your sign-up form should inform your visitors what they’ll get out of signing up to your emails, such as updates on new listings, home improvement tips, and anything else you plan on informing them about.

In addition to including the value of your email list, be sure to add fields to your form that ask them to submit their name and email address. While you can also ask for additional information, such as whether they’re a home seller or buyer or what town they live in, remember that less is more. You don’t want to lose potential email subscribers by making them jump through too many hoops to hear from you.

If you want to attract home sellers, create a page that explains how you can help them sell their homes quickly and for the best possible price. Then use your sign-up form to offer exclusive email updates or a newsletter with tips for people selling their homes.

To attract home buyers, create a landing page with a different sign-up form that offers another type of email newsletter that provides information on homes that are for sale and other tips to help with the home buying process.

Open houses

At open house events, place a sign-up sheet at the entrance to collect email addresses of interested buyers. Even if they’re not interested in buying that particular house, they may be interested in working with you in the future.

On the sign-up form, be sure to explain what it’s for (e.g., weekly newsletter, updates on new listings) so subscribers know what to expect when they receive your emails. You also might want to offer more details about the specific house they’re touring, which they can get by signing up to your email list.

At the end of the open house, add your new subscribers to your email list and let the communication begin!

You can also collect email addresses by having a sheet with a QR code which sends them to a landing page to sign up.

Promotional materials

If you create print materials with property details to promote each listing, be sure to include a link to your email sign-up form so prospects can easily sign up for emails. You can even add the link to your business cards!

Email signature

Your daily email correspondence can also be a great opportunity to raise awareness of your email list, so include a link to your sign-up form in your email signature as well. You might want to include a little bit of information about the benefits of signing up to your email list, too.

Facebook business page

If you have a Facebook business page, chances are you have followers who have never interacted with you or your website. Set up your call-to-action feature to connect to your sign-up form, or a landing page that’s specifically designed to attract new email subscribers.

X (formerly Twitter)

Encourage your Twitter followers to sign up to your email list and share the link to your sign-up form in a tweet. Be sure to tell them about the benefits of signing up to your list!

Real estate email content ideas

Real estate email marketing offers a unique opportunity for relationship-building, because a lot of time can pass from when someone expresses interest to when they actually make a purchase.

The idea of sending regular emails to any number of people can seem daunting. But there are a number of ideas you can use for your email content, such as the ones listed below.

Regular email newsletter

Whether you send a weekly or a monthly email newsletter, these emails are perfect for keeping your subscribers up to date on industry news and policy changes as well as tips to help home buyers and sellers make more informed decisions.

You can also create two different email lists, so you can send tailored information to those who identify as home buyers or home sellers.

Whatever you decide to write about, keep in mind that your email newsletters should not be self-promotional. Rather, the goal is to create and share content that is valuable to them and where they are in their lives. 

As you begin on the first versions of your newsletter, consider what your readers should get out of the content.

New listings

Send targeted emails that feature new listings, foreclosures, and up-and-coming areas to clients in nearby areas. So if a new house goes up for sale in a specific neighborhood, send a geo-based email to your subscribers in that area (if you collect that information in your sign-up form).

You can continue to connect with interested buyers by sending another targeted email to those who opened your email and clicked on the link to view the listing online. This allows you to continue the conversation with someone who may have been interested, but for one reason or another did not reach out to you.

Home improvement tips

From painting tips to gardening advice, there’s a lot of helpful information you can share with homebuyers (both new and experienced). Other topics might include:

Remodeling

Kitchen renovations

Carpeting vs. hardwood flooring

Designing children’s rooms

Updating looks so they’re more modern

Exterior decorating

Interior decorating

Reviews of household appliances

Energy-saving advice

… and more!

Ask your readers what they’d like to learn more about! This can help you create content that is relevant to your subscribers.

Industry updates

Policies within the real estate industry are known to change every now and then. Email is a great way to keep your clients up to date on the latest news that can impact them.

When informing your subscribers of a new policy or a change in an existing one, be sure to offer your own explanation of what this means for them. Remember, your clients probably aren’t well-versed in real estate industry jargon, so break it down to them in layman’s terms.

Automated email series

Buying or selling a house is no easy feat. To educate your clients who want to learn more about each topic, you can also create an automated series of educational emails that clients can specifically sign up for.

If you want to educate a variety of clients, such as first-time home buyers, home sellers, or apartment hunters, an email series is perfect for providing subscribers with important evergreen content (i.e., content that will rarely change).

An email series can consist of one or 10 emails (up to you!) – whatever is necessary to teach your clients what they need to know.

Email series topics you can offer:

Everything first-time homebuyers should know. Give subscribers an overview of the journey and advice that’ll help them be more informed buyers.

Tips on maximizing the value of your current home. Within each email, focus on a different way readers can increase their home value.

Ideas for quick renovations you can do to sell your house faster. Share a new renovation idea in each email, or pick one idea and build an email series around that concept.

Tips for home buyers and sellers

On your sign-up form, consider asking your subscribers if they’re planning on selling or buying a home. With that information, you can send emails specific to each group to further educate them in their buyer or seller journey. 

When you have a clear understanding of what their needs are, it’ll help you identify content topics that will help them make the many decisions involved in buying and selling a home.

This makes for great content for your blog and social media posts, too!

User-generated content

Ask your clients to share their home buying and home selling experiences working with you. If you like them, consider including them in emails to your subscribers. This is a great way to encourage current clients that you’re the right realtor for them, as well as prospects who are still deciding whether they’re buying a house or moving.

Or increase the level of interaction you have with your clients by creating a contest that asks your clients to submit a photo of a redesign they’ve done. Share it on social media and ask for email addresses in order to enter. Leave it up to your audience to choose the winner!

Incentives

People love free stuff, so why not give your email subscribers free things to keep them interested in your emails?

Incentives you might want to offer in your emails or on your sign-up form include whitepapers, eBooks, or even a downloadable how-to guide.

Use this real estate email marketing guide

Educating your clients is essential to creating a great home buying or home selling experience. And email is a great way to maintain that relationship and gain the trust of your subscribers.

Email marketing for realtors is simple, but don’t get discouraged if it seems like a lot of work. As with any good habit, it’s important to stay motivated and stick with it. Consider devoting at least 30 minutes a day to nurturing your email list until it becomes routine. 

And if you do have any questions along the way, feel free to contact our email marketing experts at any time – we’re happy to help!

Looking for an email marketing provider for realtors – try AWeber. We’re a trusted, user-friendly platform that makes email marketing and lead generation simple and efficient. Why not sign up for a free AWeber account now and create your first landing page and newsletter today!

The post Real estate email marketing: Turning potential buyers and sellers into clients appeared first on AWeber.

Social media brand awareness can deliver huge advantages to businesses. 

A successful brand awareness strategy can expand your reach, improve your credibility, and dramatically increase your conversions, web traffic, and sales.

With the right approach, all those benefits can translate to big profits and a healthy ROI for your business.

But in a world where nearly 5 billion people upload 2 billion photographs and videos to social media daily, finding a way to stand out can be challenging.

Fortunately, you don’t have to wonder how to get noticed on social media because we’ve got answers for you in the guide below.

I reached out to several industry experts who shared first-hand experience and creative tips for building brand awareness on social media.

You’ll find their tips and success stories below, along with 23 ways to increase your brand awareness on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

What is social media brand awareness?

Brand awareness refers to how familiar and likable your business is on social media. It reflects your reach and visibility but doesn’t stop there. Brand awareness also encompasses your reputation and credibility.

Increasing brand awareness on any social media channel is the first step toward building an audience. It’s also an ongoing process of building, engaging, and converting your target audience so they become happy customers.

Why does brand awareness matter?

Brand awareness is the first step to getting people interested in your business. On social media, it translates into more followers and larger audiences.

Brand awareness also builds your business’s trust and credibility, which makes people much more likely to purchase your products or services.

Finally, a strong brand awareness can make your business stand out in your industry and on social media.

Keep your target audience in mind as you browse the tips below, and you’ll be on your way to creating successful brand awareness campaigns in no time!

25 Super-effective ways to increase brand awareness on social media

The following tips will help you grow your audience, reach, and brand awareness on nearly any social media channel. We’ve included some priceless expert tips, so take notes, bookmark this page, share it on social media — do whatever it takes so you can return any time for inspiration and ideas!

#1 – Understand Your Audience

You probably already have a target audience in mind, but how well do you know them? Check out your competitors, industry influencers, Reddit forums, and other online groups. Find out what your audience wants and needs, and support them with content that engages them.

#2 – Encourage user-generated content (UGC) campaigns

Contests and giveaways that encourage UGC can quickly expose your business to hundreds of new audiences.

#3 – Live video broadcasts

Use live video broadcasts to interact with audiences and gain new followers.

#4 – Publish highly-shareable, non-promotional content

Every time someone shares your content, it exposes your brand to a new audience. Shareable content helps boost your brand’s reach and credibility. 

For example, digital marketing agency NP Digital shares marketing tips that appeal to its target audience.

Images, videos, illustrations, memes, and GIFs that are heartwarming, funny, informative, or entertaining are good examples of shareable content.

According to Museum Hacks CEO Tasia Duske, memes are responsible for helping her company’s Instagram page grow to nearly 35,000 followers.

Duske shared a few tips about how her brand developed the viral memes.

“Rather than chase the meme of the moment, we centered our strategy around our own, personalized meme format. Since it wasn’t directly brand-related, it was instantly relatable and attention-grabbing and encouraged sharing — yet, it was still on brand enough that people also learned about our product at the same time.”

#5 Interactive social media content

Publish interactive social media content that engages followers and encourages them to share with friends. For example, quizzes, polls, and surveys are excellent interactive content on any platform.

#6 Partner with influencers

Partner with influencers whose audiences are similar to yours. Experiment with different types of influencers and partner content to learn what drives the most engagement and awareness for your business.

For example, Dunkin’ Donuts partnered with e.l.f. Makeup for a “Wake up and make up” campaign that resulted in 2.3 billion impressions in one day.

You don’t have to be a giant company to create successful partnerships that boost your brand awareness. Micro-influencers and niche influencers often generate higher engagement rates from smaller audiences.

#7 – Post consistently at ideal times

You can learn the best times for audience engagement by monitoring your social media insights. If you don’t have enough analytics history to determine your best posting times, you can start with general posting guidelines and improve as you go. 

#8 – Share behind-the-scenes videos with your audience

Behind-the-scenes clips are  popular because users love seeing the real people behind their favorite brands. Brands love them because it helps to build a personal connection with their audience.

For example, Spread Great Ideas shares a fun video of its “Global rockstar team” on its YouTube channel.

#9 – Experiment with formats

Experiment with a variety of formats to find out what resonates best with your audience.

#10 – Use analytics to guide your content

Increase your content’s reach and engagement by monitoring your insights to learn what sparks engagement and sharing from your target audience.

#11 – Use location tags whenever possible

If you have a physical location, you can significantly Increase visibility by adding location tags to your posts on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.

#12 – Optimize your captions

Include keywords and hashtags in your captions to expand your reach on search and other feeds. 

#13 – Email marketing

Use email marketing to promote your events, contests, and collaborations: Send an email invite to your subscribers and encourage them to share it with friends. 

#14 -Share brand awareness content

At the brand awareness stage, the ideal content is non-promotional and designed to entertain, educate, teach something new, solve a problem, or share a life hack.

For example, the Stallion Express Instagram post below provides helpful information and tips for shipping within the U.S. — without trying to sell or promote its services.

These 14 tips can help you boost brand awareness on nearly any social media platform. 

Keep reading to discover platform-specific tips for Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.

Instagram brand awareness tips

#15 – Run contests as often as possible

On Instagram, contests get about 64 times more comments than any other post type.

#16 – Understand and apply Instagram SEO

Don’t rely on hashtags for SEO – they’re only a small part of the puzzle. Implementing Instagram SEO techniques provides greater visibility in the Explore and Search feeds. 

#17 – Use eye-catching visuals

Use high-quality images and videos in all your content, to match the Instagram aesthetic. 

#18 – Reels, Reels, Reels!

Short-form videos are popular on every social channel, especially Instagram. Whether you post filmed videos or create videos with an app like Canva, Reels can go a long way toward expanding your reach.

For example, NP Digital consistently posts Reels related to digital marketing.

Kimberly Deese, marketing and PR leader at NP Digital, recommends using short form videos to entertain and inform your audience.

#19 – Respond to all comments and DMs in a timely manner

On Instagram, engagement is your key to getting in the good graces of its algorithms. Responding to comments on your page and in messages (in a timely manner) helps boost your visibility in its feeds.

Facebook brand awareness tips

#20 – Long videos

Yes, you read that right. Videos over one minute long receive the most median interactions and reach on Facebook.

#21 – Join Facebook groups

Join Facebook groups in your niche and participate: Look for ways to encourage, advise, and support group members. 

#22 – Run Facebook ad campaigns

Use its sophisticated ad targeting features to deliver engaging content to your target audience.

Will Yang, Head of Growth and Marketing at Instrumentl, uses storytelling to create an emotional connection in Facebook ads.

Yang tells the story of a video campaign he once ran for a nonprofit organization that helps underprivileged youth.

“The video followed a student’s journey from a challenging background to graduating college thanks to the nonprofit’s programs. It highlighted the organization’s inspirational work while tugging at viewers’ heartstrings. 

We received tons of positive feedback from people who felt connected to the cause after seeing the student’s story. This just goes to show how powerful video storytelling can be on Facebook.”

YouTube brand awareness tips

#23 – Optimize YouTube videos

Optimize video titles and descriptions: to improve your visibility in YouTube feeds and encourage people to subscribe to your channel.

#24 – Invest in high-quality sound equipment

Invest in high-quality sound equipment to ensure that the sound quality of your videos is professional. 

Creating a high-quality sound doesn’t have to be expensive. The video below provides excellent tips for achieving high quality sound on a budget.

#25 – Collaborate with other YouTube creators

Collaborate with other YouTube creators to instantly expose your content to new audiences.

Vaibhav Kakkar, CEO of Digital Web Solutions, highly recommends YouTube collaborations for building brand awareness.

As you build social media brand awareness for your business, remember it’s a process. 

Keep publishing unique, engaging content on a consistent basis. 

Regularly monitor your industry influencers and competitors to discover new trends and learn what’s working in your niche. 

Network and collaborate with others in your industry as often as you can. 

Along the way, allow your target audience, marketing goals, and analytics to steer you in the right direction.

How to measure social media brand awareness

Determine how well your brand awareness campaigns are performing by monitoring the native social media insights on each platform. 

The following metrics help measure brand awareness:

Reach & Impressions: How many people see your content and how many times is it viewed?

Engagement: Are people liking, commenting, and sharing your posts?

Mentions: How often do people tag your brand or use your hashtags?

Follower growth: How does your follower count increase over time?

Competitor growth and engagement: Compare your engagement and growth rates to competitors on the same social media platform.

Off-platform accomplishments: How many people click on your external links, and how does that affect traffic, conversions, and sales for your business?

Consistently tracking the progress of the above measurements will give you a crystal-clear understanding of how well your brand awareness campaigns are performing on social media.

Turn social media brand awareness into profits

Building brand awareness on social media is an ongoing process that requires creativity, consistency, and a deep understanding of your audience. But building awareness is just one part of a successful marketing strategy. 

Turning brand awareness into conversions and profits is equally important.

At AWeber, we provide the marketing funnel you need to turn social media followers into customers. You can guide followers along the entire customer journey from one platform that includes:

Email marketing software with behavior-based segmentation and personalization, and automation that does most of the work for you.

Landing pages to feature your products, lead gen content, and link in bio hubs.

All inside an easy-breezy drag-and-drop interface with a massive selection of templates plus a built-in Canva Designer.

PS: You’ll love our help resources and blog, packed with tips and tutorials to help your business succeed with digital marketing!

Ready to turn your social media success into profits? Try AWeber for free today and start driving traffic, conversions, and sales right away.

The post How to increase brand awareness on social media: 25 tips with expert insights and stories appeared first on AWeber.

Have you ever dreamed about waking up to discover that your brand’s social media page went viral overnight?

Or that, within a few months, you were able to build a highly engaged audience that feels like a real community?

Social media success happens on different timelines, but there’s one thing you can count on: Interactive content is one of the most reliable ways to get there.

Whether you’re looking to expand reach and awareness, grow your audience, or drive traffic and conversions, engagement is the key to making it happen on social media. 

Keep reading for creative and popular ideas on how to create interactive content for your brand. You’ll find ideas and suggestions, plus insights, stories, and tips from people with first-hand experience.

What is interactive social media content?

Interactive social media posts are any type of content that encourages users to actively engage with your content. Interactive posts may take the form of videos, Stories, image posts, ads, or any other form of content.

Some interactive content uses text to inspire engagement, while others feature tools or technology such as stickers, polls, and augmented reality.

For example, NP Digital uses polls, especially on Instagram and LinkedIn, to encourage engagement from its viewers.

“Our favorite type of interactive social media is polls – both on LinkedIn and Instagram – because they allow our audience to offer their input on industry trends, where they can comment on these posts to add further context.”

– Kayla Bautista, Social Media Manager, NP Digital

On any social media channel, interactive content can help boost your engagement rates, reach, and visibility in the feeds.

Why interactive posts matter

Interactive social media posts help boost engagement rates for your brand. Those higher engagement rates deliver several benefits:

Lets the platform’s algorithm know that your content is valuable, often resulting in better visibility in social media feeds for all your brand posts.

Builds community by creating a two-way conversation that makes your audience feel seen, heard, and appreciated.

Encourages sharing, which exposes your content to new audiences and boosts your brand awareness. 

Provides your brand with valuable insights into your audience’s opinions, preferences, pain points, and favorite types of content.

More than five billion social media users spend an average of 12 billion hours using social media platforms daily. Most of them (those aged 16 – 64) log on to keep in touch with friends and family, fill their spare time, and read news stories. 

A significant portion of social media users also log on to view and interact with brand content like yours. 

Here are a few of the main reasons people use social media:

35% are looking for content

27% are searching for inspiration on what to do and buy

26% are looking for products to purchase

22% want to see content from their favorite brands

One of the best ways to engage social media users is through interactive content. This opens the door to conversions, sales, and traffic that can generate real profits.

Interactive post ideas for social media content

Fundraising campaigns, UCG campaigns, and live videos are some of the most successful types of interactive social media content (across all channels).

Fundraising campaigns

Fundraisers are a great opportunity to share compelling stories related to a cause your audience cares about. They inspire empathy and build an emotional connection between you and your audience. 

Interactive posts inspire people to get involved and help make your fundraiser a success. 

Try the following interactive post ideas to support your fundraiser:

Quizzes about the cause

Contests and giveaways that inspire people to share photos or stories related to the cause

Challenges like the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge and the Betty White Challenge

UGC Campaigns

UGC (user-generated content) campaigns encourage interaction by asking followers and customers to create, share, or interact with content on your behalf. 

For example, the Natura Marketa UGC post below shows a typical UGC Giveaway contest. To enter its giveaway drawing, users must tag two friends. 

UGC campaigns give your brand reach and engagement a massive boost because they expose your brand to new people and build trust and credibility.

Other user-generated content ideas include:

Photo/video contests with prize incentives

“Caption this” challenges

Fill-in-the blank prompts

Testimonials and reviews

Priyanka Swamy, CEO & Founder of Perfect Locks, says interactive content, especially UGC, helps her brand build community and better understand its audience.

Swamy shared the following tips for businesses looking to boost their results with interactive content:

Create branded hashtags.

Host photo challenges or contests.

Invite participants to repost their content.

Share their stories.

Offer incentives, like discounts or features, on our social channels.

Interactive video 

Interactive video creates a two-way conversation that makes viewers feel like active participants instead of passive observers. 

Build trust with followers by answering questions about your product. Generate more leads by encouraging viewers to subscribe to your email list. Gain valuable insights by asking questions and encouraging live feedback.

Other interactive video ideas include:

Live polls and quizzes

Q&As

Live contests and giveaways

Product tutorials and demonstrations (encourage questions and answer them on the spot)

Virtual events

Live stream shopping

For example, watercolor artist and product designer Kristy Rice uses text overlays to turn Instagram Reels videos into interactive content. “Comment ‘empty’ and I’ll DM you a link to shop!”

Interactive Facebook content

Twenty percent of shoppers begin their search on Facebook, the world’s most-used social media platform. To engage users on Facebook, consider interactive videos, Stories, and image posts.

Interactive Facebook post ideas

On Facebook, a lot of users like to watch and observe without participating. That’s why inspiring people to engage with interactive posts can go a long way toward building a stronger connection with your audience.

This or That post example

Here are some ideas for interactive posts on Facebook:

Fill-in-the-Blanks: Present two options and ask people to choose their favorite.

“This or That” Scenarios: Present two options and let people choose their favorite.

Caption Contests: Post a funny photo, and let your audience compete for the best caption.

Share Your Story: Encourage your audience to share experiences related to a brand-relevant topic.

Polls and surveys: Let your audience vote or test their knowledge in a playful way.

Carousels: Inspire swipe-throughs with compelling carousel posts and ads.

360 photos: Share 360 images that users can pan and explore. Try it here.

Interactive Facebook Live video ideas

Live streaming video is an excellent way to engage followers on Facebook and Instagram.

Here are some popular Facebook Live video ideas:

AMAs (Ask Me Anything): Host live Q&A sessions and let viewers steer the conversation with questions and comments.

Coffee Clutch: Create casual, conversational sessions focused on a specific (brand-related) topic. Hold coffee clutch sessions at a scheduled time each week for the best results.

Live Tutorials/Demonstrations: Share DIY tips, host a live cooking class, share helpful tips that solicit questions and comments, or ask for input on your next product.

Announce contest/giveaway winners: Build excitement with UGC content, then announce your contest winners in a live video broadcast.

Interactive Facebook ad ideas

Facebook ads provide you the chance to use augmented reality and 360 videos to prompt engagement from viewers. 

Here are some engaging ideas for interactive Facebook ads:

Instant Experience: A full-screen mobile experience opens up when someone taps on your ad.

Poll Ads: Include interactive polls directly in your ad.

Lead Ads: Ads that include a lead generation form users can easily fill out.

Collection Ads: Showcase a range of products and let users tap to learn more. 

360-degree Videos and Images: Let users explore products or environments from all angles for a more hands-on feel.

Quizzes & Trivia: Use a quiz format to educate users about your product or brand in a fun way.

Interactive Instagram content

Half of weekly Instagram users want to see more funny content, and more than 45% of them would like to see more creativity, according to a recent Statista survey.

As you’re considering interactive Instagram content, look for formats that allow you to get creative or funny!

Interactive Instagram post ideas

If you’re looking to boost engagement on Instagram, run more contests. Contest posts receive 64 times more comment engagement than any other type of post.

Here are some interactive post ideas for Instagram:

Contests or giveaways that require tagging or images with your brand hashtag

Photo contests, in-store contests, drawing, and giveaways

Before & after image posts relevant to your brand or product

“Would you rather” scenarios that let people pick a side

You can turn any Instagram image post into interactive content by asking the right questions or posing fun challenges!

Senior fitness coach Benedict Ang says that challenges and contests perform consistently well for his company, TotalShape.

Ang explains, “Whether it’s a fitness challenge like a 30-day workout program or a healthy recipe contest, these kinds of initiatives really get our followers excited and involved.” 

He adds that engagement isn’t the only benefit they enjoy, “When they see others participating and sharing their progress, it creates a sense of camaraderie and motivation. Plus, it’s a fantastic way for us to showcase the effectiveness of our programs and engage with our audience in a fun and interactive way.”

Interactive Instagram and Facebook Story ideas

Instagram and Facebook Stories are a must-publish for any brand looking to boost engagement on the platform. Its Story stickers let you turn every page into an interactive experience.

Best interactive Instagram Story stickers:

Poll Stickers

Quiz Stickers

Questions Sticker

Emoji Slider

Countdown Sticker

Mention Tag

Instagram Story stickers are a great way to engage your audience, and users love engaging in Stories. 

For example, Mercedes Benz and Chef Carla Hall use questions, poll stickers, and tagging in Instagram and Facebook content.

Steve Pogson, founder of First Pier e-commerce growth agency, says that interactive Stories make a big impact for his brands. 

“We focus on creating polls, quizzes, and ‘ask me anything’ sessions that are directly relevant to the brand’s products or services.” 

For example, Pogson used this interactive approach for a skincare brand, running daily polls about people’s skincare routines and preferences. “This not only increased story engagement rates,” he explained, “but also provided valuable insights into the customer’s needs and preferences, which further informed the brand’s marketing and product development strategies.”

Interactive content for engagement, awareness, and conversion

Interactive social media content can drive massive engagement and awareness for your brand.

It can also fuel the numbers that matter most: conversion and sales.

Next time you’re creating interactive content for your social media pages, consider ways you might encourage viewers to subscribe to your mailing list. For example, you might use a link in bio tool to embed an email subscribe form. Or mention that email subscribers get exclusive discounts.

Encourage your social media audience to subscribe to your email list accomplishes two things:

Gives you a way to nurture leads through your marketing funnel, eventually leading to more sales.

Grants you “ownership” of your social media followers, adding them to a platform where you own all the data. If the social platform ever gets shut down, or if you can’t access it, your email data will allow you to stay in touch with your audience — forever.

At AWeber, we specialize in helping you turn leads into sales with email marketing, landing pages, and link in bio pages. You’ll love our huge selection of templates that let you create professional landing pages, email series, and ink in bio hubs in minutes.

We’ve got a free account with your name on it. Try AWeber today!

The post Interactive Posts: Steal these ideas and say goodbye to boring social media appeared first on AWeber.

Are you frustrated with crafting what you think is the perfect email, only to see it fall short when it comes to getting clicks? You’re not alone. 

Picture this: You’ve nailed the subject line, you’ve hooked your readers with enticing content, and you’ve hit send with high hopes. But then, crickets. Your open rate looks good, but where are the clicks?

If you’ve ever found yourself scratching your head over this conundrum, you’re in the right place. We’re going to dive deep into the world of email marketing to uncover the secrets to boosting your click-through rate. 

Get ready to learn how to turn those opened emails into action-packed click-throughs that drive results.

How to improve email click through rates

1. Stick to one main call to action per email

When you’re creating an email, it may be tempting to include multiple calls to action (CTA) buttons in the hopes that your subscribers will respond to at least one of the offers in an email. After all, the more options you provide, the more likely they’ll engage with one of them, right?

Well, not exactly. In fact, this can hurt your click rates rather than help them.

Too many CTA buttons can distract and overwhelm your subscribers, decreasing click-through rates in your emails. To get optimal click through rates, include one call to action button in your emails to focus your subscribers on taking a single action.

In the email below from EOFire, there is one clear call to action and no question of what the subscriber is supposed to do – join the class.

2. Segment your emails

Different people have different interests. So do your email subscribers.

If you send the wrong people on your list an offer they’re not interested in, your click through rates will most likely plummet.

For higher click-through rates, segment your subscribers and send tailored emails based on their interests. You’ll see better click through rates when you send the right offer to the right person.

3. Create a sense of urgency

The fear of missing out (FOMO) is real, and eliciting this feeling in your subscribers can influence them to click on your calls to action right away.

If you have an offer that ends soon or a limited number of spots at a webinar, for example, you can create a sense of urgency by adding words like “now” or “today” to your emails.

4. Personalize your emails

Have you ever received an email that didn’t apply to you at all? This kind of email may leave you feeling like a nobody on a huge list of email subscribers. And this feeling of alienation doesn’t encourage you to click.

Instead, when your subscribers receive an email for you, they should feel like you are addressing them alone. Truly personalized emails will feel like something written just for you. That kind of connection leads to higher click through rates.

Here are a few simple ways you can personalize your emails:

Include your subscriber’s name in your email. While this technique isn’t fresh, it can be effective. Instead of adding subscribers’ names at the beginning of an email, try adding them in the middle or at the end.

On your email sign up form, ask for information about your subscribers’ interests. Then, send segmented emails based on their responses.

Collect your subscribers’ birth dates on your sign up form and send them a celebratory email on their birthday.

Send emails tailored to what you know about your subscribers. What did they buy from you recently? Do you have something similar they may like? Send an email with a suggestion.

5. Create mobile-optimized emails

85% of people access email from their phones.

And that means if your emails are difficult to read on a phone, there’s probably a huge percentage of your subscribers who aren’t getting the best experience and are most likely not clicking on your emails.

To make sure your emails are easy to read from any device, use email templates that are mobile responsive instead of mobile-friendly.

Mobile responsive emails are easier to read on both desktops and mobile devices, because text, images and buttons automatically adjust to fit the screen size. Additionally, multi-column email layouts adjust to single columns on mobile devices, and content is easy to access with both a mouse and a touchscreen.

Mobile friendly emails, on the other hand, scale down to fit the size of the screen, but don’t adjust layouts or fonts.

See how this mobile-friendly email below is difficult to read because the double-column layout makes the images, fonts and headlines too small?

Compare that to this mobile-responsive email below, where fonts and images are resized for the small screen and double columns turned to single columns:

If you’re not an email designer and have no idea how to make an email responsive, fear not! Most email service providers (like AWeber) automatically have the emails you create  mobile-responsive. But send yourself a test email to verify. 

6. Include colorful, clickable buttons

One of the simplest ways to improve click-through rates is to ensure your subscribers know where to click. While plain text calls to action work for some people, a big button with a contrasting color immediately draws attention and can significantly improve click-through rates.

7. Don’t over complicate your email design

Complex isn’t always better, and this is often the case with email design. Avoid overwhelming your subscribers with an overabundance of images, icons or different fonts. Not only does this make for a disharmonious email, it’ll also take attention away from the content of your email and your call to action.

This beautiful, yet simple email from You Need a Budget incorporates a clean font, one image that works with the content of the email and a clear call-to-action button:

8. Use action-oriented CTA copy

Your email call to action copy should encourage people to take a specific action. Instead of using a generic call to action like “click here,” use verbs that describe the action you want subscribers to take, such as:

Shop

Learn

Get

Grab

Submit

Send

Start

Try

Reserve

Take

View

See

Watch

Read

By doing so, you’ll frame the subscriber experience in a way that influences them to want to take action.

9. Pique their curiosity

“The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind is curiosity.”

– Edmund Burke

Everyone has been curious about something at one point in their lives. And when a person is curious about something, they are inclined to resolve their curiosity.

Fortunately, you can also leverage curiosity in your email copy to encourage people to click-through on your emails.

Birchbox, for example, does this in the email below by offering a free mystery prize with a purchase. To find out what they would get, they need to click on the call-to-action button.

Hopefully the prize is a good one, but at least it gets the click!

10. Include social proof

Believe it or not, people like to do what other people do. When they notice multiple people or a famous person doing something, they’re more likely to want to do it themselves. 

This is called social proof, which is a phenomenon where people are persuaded to take an action by seeing that other people have taken that action before them—and have seen success as a result of that action.

You can use social proof in your email content to encourage people to click through your calls to action. 

Bite does just that in the email below. By showing off how customers use their product and sharing their success stories, they tap into the power of social proof.

11. Write engaging headlines

If you use a headline in your email content, it will be the first thing your subscriber sees when they open your message.

A good headline quickly grabs your subscriber’s attention, engages them and gets them to read the rest of your email. And when subscribers read your email content, they become more likely to take action – which makes headlines pretty darn important.

For the email below, MailCharts used the subject line “Are your subscribers annoyed??” and then followed it up with the headline “You don’t know, do you?”

By linking the headline to the subject line, it guides the subscriber to continue reading through the rest of the content. You’ll also notice MailCharts does a good job of raising curiosity, which gives readers even more of a reason to continue reading and click the call-to-action button.

12. Use video

People love videos. They’re engaging, easy to follow, and often fun to watch. 

While video doesn’t play in all inboxes, the inclusion of a thumbnail image of your video and a play button can boost click through rates tremendously. In fact, Wistia increased their email click through rates by 300 percent by incorporating videos in their emails.

Bonus tip: You can also try using GIFs in your emails to add motion to your emails and boost click-through rates.

13. Cater to what your audience likes

If one of your emails had an insanely high click through rate, it’s apparent that your subscribers liked what you did in that email. So, do it again.

Your audience should be your main barometer for what is working in your email strategy and influence the content and design elements you include.

Do you see high click through rates when you send short emails or long emails? Does your audience click more when there’s an image or video? Does a certain kind of content lead to higher clicks?

Take a look at your past emails and see which ones got the highest click through rates.

Then, repeat, repeat, repeat.

Have two (or three) ideas for one email? Split test them. See which version of the email wins and do it again. 

14. Feature the right images

Images in your emails can be a powerful way to grab the attention of your subscribers and convince them to click. However, you need to use the right images.

Email images should add meaning, support the content of your email or help make a relevant point. Additionally, you should use alt text in case your images don’t display.

Check out the header image in the email below, which serves multiple purposes:

There are a few things that work well here.

It summarizes the content of the email briefly and immediately, giving the reader everything they need to know in the space of a few seconds.

The image supports the content of the email and provides additional meaning.

Finally, it includes a call-to-action button, which encourages people to click on the email.

For the subscriber who skims or doesn’t read the email content, this image does it all. It catches their attention, tells them about the offer and gives them a place to click.

15. Set expectations early 

To set a good foundation for your emails (and help your engagement rates start off on the right foot), you’ll want to make sure subscribers know what they’re signing up for before they give you their email address.

Whether it’s a monthly newsletter, weekly do-it-yourself tips or seasonal exclusive offers, being upfront about the kind of emails readers will receive helps attract the right people to your list. Plus, it sets expectations as to what you’ll be sending them – as a result, there shouldn’t be any unwanted surprises.

16. Experiment with the frequency and timing

Depending on your target audience and the content they prefer, the frequency and timing of your messages could vary greatly.

You may find a weekly email newsletter is a great place to start. Eventually, you can increase the frequency of your emails to promote your product, share content or break your newsletter into smaller chunks. Or, ask your subscribers what cadence they prefer.

Try experimenting with time frames to figure out when your audience is most likely to read your email. 

You can use analytics to determine when people are most likely to open your emails and plan your campaign accordingly.

17. Craft a strong subject line

Strong subject lines impact click through rates just as much as open rates. Your email could contain the best content ever, but no one will read it if your subject line is weak.

Most people skim through their inbox, so make sure your subject line is short and punchy. 

Adding a special offer, asking a question, or emphasizing a sense of urgency, for example, can all be effective ways to create a compelling subject line.

Of course click through rates are important, but open rates and other forms of email engagement can contribute to your email marketing success. Make sure you track your email engagement metrics to learn what works for your unique audience.

Commonly ask questions for email clicks

What is an email click-through rate?

Click-through rates reveal how many subscribers clicked a link in an email, as well as how many times they clicked it. Your click-through tells you if people are engaging with your emails.

What is a good click-through rate for email?

A good email click-through rate will vary by industry and type of email, but on average a good click-through rate is about 2.5%.

Overall, an email marketing benchmark will vary widely among industries, business size, audiences, and more. 

What is the average click-through rate of an email?

To better understand small business email marketing benchmarks, we conducted research asking survey respondents to self-report their click-through rates. Overall we found that 77% of small businesses have an average email click-through rate between 0% – 10%.

While it’s nice to get an idea of how your metrics stack up against others’, I would encourage you to change the way you view email marketing benchmarks. 

Rather than comparing your email click-through rates to other businesses’ rates, keep an eye on how your rates improve over time. You’ll learn a lot more about your particular audience by focusing on your own data. 

After all, it’s true that ‘comparison is the thief of joy.’

But, you should know that low click-through rates can tank a product launch, hurt your website traffic, and make your email strategy ineffective.

Want to make sure this doesn’t happen? Try these 14 ways to optimize your emails and get more clicks. 

How to calculate email click through rate?

Email click-through rate is calculated by dividing the number of people who clicked a link in the email by the total number of emails sent.

Go get yourself a sick amount of clicks.

Try these tactics with your subscribers and see what increases click-through rates. Tell us what worked in the comments below!

(You’ll need an email marketing platform to apply what you learn in this post. Try AWeber’s easy-to-use email platform for free.)

The post 17 Powerful strategies to increase click-through rate in email marketing appeared first on AWeber.

We’ve all messed up with email marketing at some point. You hit send, and then that sinking feeling hits you. You’ve goofed up, and now it’s out there for everyone to see. It’s like sending a message in a bottle into the vast sea of the internet, and you can’t reel it back in.

Some email marketing mistakes are obvious and can undo all the hard work you’ve poured into your campaign. But there are other blunders that are equally damaging, yet you might not have even realized you were making them. You might be oblivious to some of the mistakes you’ve made until it’s too late.

And when those mistakes get sent out to thousands of people in an instant, the fallout can be huge.

Knowing what email marketing mistakes to watch out for, can help you avoid them altogether. 

So here’s our list of the most common email marketing boo-boos:

Your subject lines are boring

Look at the subject line below. What does it tell us about what lies within the email?

Absolutely nothing. It’s not creative or relevant to the content inside, so there’s nothing about it that would make someone feel compelled to open it. And see that email preheader after the subject line? (“If you’re having trouble…”) That space could’ve been used to tease the email too.

You have about 35 characters to work with in your subject line, so make them count! Your subject line needs to grab attention and tell the reader something about the email itself, because that is what will sell them on opening your email.

You’re not using personalization

What’s the best way to get someone’s attention? You address them by their name! It works the same way with email. If you’re not using personalization on your most important messages, you’re missing a real opportunity.

Just like adjusting your From address to your real name, using personalization in your emails is another way to make your business more human. 

You’re sending to the wrong people

Sending an email to the wrong audience is a big email marketing mistake.

If you own a burger joint in Philadelphia, you wouldn’t send newsletters to vegetarians in San Francisco, right? This is why segmenting and list management is key, especially for those with growing email lists.

Tell your audience exactly what they’re signing up for on your sign up form and stick to it. 

You can also use your form to segment people based on location, interests, or any other preference. If you only want to send emails to those who opened a particular message, you can segment based on open rates too. 

Once you’ve hit your sweet spot of segmentation, ask your readers for feedback so you can continue sending them content they want.

Emails not optimized for mobile

These days, most people are using their phones to check their emails. That’s why it’s crucial to ensure your emails look good on mobile screens.

If your emails are hard to read, then your subscribers are less likely to read them. Mobile-friendly emails help readers scan, identify key points, and make quick decisions.

It’s surprising how many companies still don’t avoid this common email marketing mistake.

Here’s an example of an email that is difficult to read on a mobile device. If you have to zoom in on the content or image, then the email is not optimized.

Buying email lists

Avoid this email marketing mistake at all costs.

Effective email marketing campaigns cater to specific demographics, tastes and interests. Using confirmed opt-in to obtain the proper permission from people who are truly interested in your targeted emails ensures that they really want to hear from you.

When you buy an email list, there’s no way to guarantee that those people are really interested in your messages, so you must avoid purchased lists at all costs. You can never assume anything about the addresses of random people that are not given to you directly by their owners.

Hard to recognize “from” names

Once subscribers are on your list, you want to make sure that they open your messages regularly. Your subject line and from name/address are your only chance to grab subscribers attention in their jam-packed inboxes.

To help jog their memory, always use the same email address and contact name so that there is no confusion when your messages arrive. Your subject lines must clearly present the value of the emails while staying consistent with your past subject lines to evoke recognition and familiarity.

Avoiding CAN-SPAM compliance

The Can-Spam Act requires that all messages contain the sender’s valid physical postal address, but some home-based and international businesses are hesitant to include this information in their campaigns.

Related: How to Include a Physical Address in Your Emails Without Revealing Where You Live

Aside from the legal obligation, putting your contact address in your emails is the best way to show subscribers that you have a legitimate identity and that you won’t run for the hills as soon as they make a purchase from you.

See how Grammarly includes their physical address at the bottom of every email.

Irrelevant and infrequent emails

Sending emails that don’t relate back to their original request for info irritates readers and is a guaranteed way to rack up a high number of unsubscribes. Add an infrequent schedule to the previous scenario and you have a recipe for email disaster.

As a rule of thumb, if you haven’t contacted subscribers in 6 months, delete them from your list. Revisit your landing page from time to time to assess your email content and make sure it matches up with your original offer. Set expectations so that subscribers know what to expect from you, and when to expect it.

No call to action

With all of the emphasis placed on quality content and sharp design, it’s understandable that marketers sometimes miss the obvious. When a reader opens a message and they’re interested in learning more, don’t forget they will be thinking, “What do I do next?”

Give them a way to move forward easily. Include multiple calls to action and links back to your site so you don’t lose them. Set up your products favorably, and remember when creating your messages that there must be a logical sequence of events – you want readers to open, read, click-through and ultimately buy.

Your call to action isn’t very… actionable

Take a look at this email from Studio Fitness.

There is no link to the nutritionist or personal trainer they introduce us to, and while they encourage us to sign up for a plan, there is no link to help us do that either. Oh, and we can’t access the Studio Fitness website from this email. Since there could be any number of gyms named Studio Fitness, leaving subscribers to find their website on their own is probably not a great idea.

Not testing before sending

Another avoidable email marketing mistake. With all of the time spent prepping marketing emails, typos can easily go unnoticed. Testing your messages before sending them only takes a minute or two and can help you pinpoint problems before they materialize.

Send test copies to test accounts at several different email services to ensure that the message is readable, the images are viewable and the links are functional.

No replies allowed

Nothing says “you’re just a number to us, buddy” than an email campaign that tells you not to bother replying.

One of the advantages of email marketing over other mediums is that it lends itself to having a two-way conversation with your customers and prospects — why would you shut out subscriber interaction and feedback like that?

Including too many images

Images look great in an email, but use them sparingly. There are several reasons why:

1 – Not all email clients automatically load images so If a recipient has image loading turned off, they might see a blank email or just alt text, missing the entire content. 

Here’s an example of what that would look like:

2 – Images that look good on a desktop are often not easily readable when they’re scaled down on a phone or tablet.

3 – It increases load time: High-resolution images can be large in size, leading to longer email load times. This can be especially problematic for recipients with slower internet connections or limited data plans.

Adding images that are way too big

Don’t include images with HUGE file sizes in your email. This is an accessibility issue because it can make your emails more difficult to read for people on slow connections, and it unnecessarily uses your readers data when they may be on plans with limited data.

 A good rule of thumb is to keep your images under 200KB.

Your content is too self-promotional

If you send an email announcing your new software update, who cares? But if you send an email announcing that it’s possible to cut video upload time in half because of your software update, people will pay attention. It’s all about showing the value of your services while promoting your business.

So, how can you do both?

Identify your audience’s biggest problems. Brainstorm content ideas based on real problems your customers are having, then show how your services can fix them. 

Let’s say you work with a recruiting agency. Your subscribers need resume help, so why not give them a checklist to help them fix common resume faux pas? 

You’re inconsistent

How would you feel if you received a weekly newsletter and then, without warning, weekly emails turned into 10 emails a day? You wouldn’t be very happy, would you? It sounds a little ridiculous, but it happens more often than you think. Readers tune out and unsubscribe when they don’t receive what they signed up for.

So deliver the emails you promised in your sign up form and stick to an editorial calendar if possible.

Your follow up series is nonexistent

Let’s say you have a customer who starts a free trial of your software service, but they never follow through and make a purchase. Sad story, right? It certainly will be if you don’t have a triggered-based follow up series in place.

While you can’t control a customer’s behavior, you can control how you react to it. If you set up a follow up email that will automatically send to that customer at the end of their free trial, you have a better shot at keeping them engaged. 

If they had a question about your service, the email could prompt them to contact you, giving you another opportunity to make the sale.

Are you making these email marketing mistakes?

We know email marketing isn’t always easy. Everyone makes mistakes, but some of the most common email marketing mistakes can easily be avoided.

If any of the situations on the list above hit close to home, try changing your approach; you’ll be amazed at the impact a few simple changes can have on your campaign.

Once you put the changes into practice, come back and leave a comment to let us know how they have worked for you!

The post 17 of the most common email marketing mistakes to avoid appeared first on AWeber.

Did you know the average affiliate marketer makes just over $8,000 a month?

Not bad for a job that lets you work anywhere, set your own hours, and earn passive income.

But, as always, there’s a catch:

That figure is massively skewed by affiliate marketers with 10+ years of experience, who bring in an average monthly income of $44,000+.

Meanwhile, if you’re in your first year of affiliate marketing, you can expect a slightly more humble return of $636 a month. Which probably won’t even cover your bills, let alone fast-track you toward a life of luxury.

Still, if you can get through those tricky first two years, the rewards are there for the taking.

And we can help you get there by sharing our top tips on how to be a successful affiliate marketer…

Where to post affiliate marketing links

Let’s start with the basics of how to promote an affiliate link. There are four main channels you can use, each with its own strengths and weaknesses:

SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) involves building a search-friendly website that targets the types of keywords your audience is looking for. It’s the #1 source of traffic for affiliate marketers.

But SEO is tough. If you’re targeting a keyword with decent search volume, you’ll likely be competing with huge, generalist publishers like Forbes and Business Insider, so you’ve got your work cut out getting anywhere near the top #10 search results.

Organic search is also extremely volatile, with a 13-month study of 28,000+ domains finding that <5% of websites maintain their top #10 rankings for a whole year.

👍 SEO pros:

Free traffic source

Targets qualified shoppers searching for specific information

Once you’ve built a well-optimized site, it can keep generating traffic for years

👎 SEO cons:

Building an SEO-friendly site takes a lot of time

However much work you put in, it’s extremely difficult to outrank massive publishers

Search engine algorithms change regularly, so your rankings could tank overnight

Email

Email marketing has the highest return on investment of any marketing channel, yet it’s something of an untapped resource — especially among new affiliates. In fact, experienced affiliate marketers use email marketing 47.8% more than beginners.

Not only are the expenses minimal (just the cost of your email marketing platform), but investing in email also reduces your reliance on search and social algorithms by letting you share affiliate links straight to your audience’s inbox.

👍 Email pros:

Low costs

Superb return on investment

Reduces reliance on search and social algorithms

👎 Email cons:

You’ll need some sort of external mechanism to grow your email list (like a landing page or website)

It could take time to grow your email list

Paid media

Paid ads on search engines and social media mostly work on a pay-per-click (PPC) basis, which is exactly what it sounds like: you create an ad, set a budget, and only pay when someone clicks through to your landing page.

It’s a quick and convenient way to drive traffic to your affiliate site — you can build an ad campaign in a few minutes, then start generating clicks the moment you set it live. However, it’s not cheap, with an average cross-industry cost-per-click of $4.22 (and no guarantee that the clicker is going to buy anything).

Given that you might only be making a few bucks in commission per sale, PPC just isn’t cost-effective in a lot of affiliate niches.

👍 PPC pros:

Building ad campaigns is quick and easy

Once a campaign goes live, you can start generating traffic instantly

👎 PPC cons:

Costs-per-click are prohibitively high in some niches

Once you stop paying, your traffic stops too

Organic social

Organic social media involves posting on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok without any PPC ad budget. So it’s kind of like SEO: you’re relying on the quality of your content and your optimization efforts to reach your desired audience.

Unfortunately, organic reach on most social platforms has plummeted in recent years. To make matters worse, the likes of Facebook and TikTok want to keep you on their platform, not click through to an affiliate website (or your affiliate partner’s store) — so it’s becoming increasingly unreliable as a traffic source.

Which explains why affiliate marketing experts use organic social media 26.7% less than beginners.

👍 Organic social pros:

Free source of traffic

👎 Organic social cons:

Organic reach is declining on most social platforms

Hard to turn social views into website traffic

The most effective strategy for affiliate marketing success

Most successful affiliate marketers use a combination of channels to reach their audience and drive traffic toward their affiliate partners’ websites.

It always pays to diversify. That way, your whole business model won’t be ruined by a single algorithm update. Also, the more your audience sees your content, the more likely they are to click through. Which, in turn, means they’ll see more of your affiliate links too.

So leveraging multiple channels is nothing new.

However, there’s one specific multichannel affiliate marketing strategy that’s surprisingly underused.

It works like this:

Identify a specific pain point your audience wants to solve

Build an online course to help answer that pain point

Promote the online course (typically, the course is free, but some affiliates charge a small fee for their course content)

Use the course to recommend specific online tools or products that will help resolve your audience’s pain point

Whenever you promote a tool or product, add an affiliate link so you get paid when people click through and buy

This tactic is so effective because the people who sign up for your online course are looking for answers — and they trust you to provide them. 

So when you recommend a product, they’ll sit up and take notice.

Let’s take a look at a real affiliate site that’s making bank through this technique…

CASE STUDY: Legendary Marketer

Legendary Marketer is a marketing education company that offers (paid) online courses on topics like selling digital products and building a coaching business.

But that’s not the only way Legendary Marketer makes money. It also employs the strategy we described in the previous section to generate a ton of affiliate commissions.

Despite the variety of courses it sells, Legendary Marketer’s homepage is geared toward promoting one specific product: its 15-Day Online Business Builder Challenge. 

Just look at these two prominent CTAs:

When you click through, you’re greeted with messaging that speaks to arguably the biggest pain point for anyone trying to build an online business: figuring out how to get started.

Legendary Marketer promises to help you overcome that challenge — and all for the low, low one-off price of $7.

In fact, the price tag is practically irrelevant. If you try to quit the page, you’ll be hit with an exit intent popup offering exactly the same course for just $1:

Why so cheap?

Because they don’t particularly care how much money they make from actually selling the course. Their real earner involves peppering their course content with product recommendations (and affiliate links) to generate clicks and commissions.

As an added bonus, enrolling in the course requires handing over your email address to Legendary Marketer — which means they can keep sharing recommendations straight to your inbox.

To be clear, none of this means the 15-Day Online Business Builder Challenge isn’t legit.

There’s nothing wrong with earning money from recommending high-quality products, just so long as you’re upfront and honest about it.

Other affiliate marketing course ideas

I think we can all agree that Legendary Marketer has hit on a highly effective affiliate marketing strategy.

But we’re not necessarily suggesting you do exactly the same thing. After all, there are plenty of other niches to target and pain points to solve. For instance:

Pain point: Get your first 500 email subscribers

This is a classic concern for new affiliate marketers (and, indeed, for any business owner or content creator who wants to leverage the benefits of email marketing), which makes it a fantastic fit for an online course.

Before you start creating the course content, you’d seek out a bunch of affiliate programs for tools to help people build their email list. We’re thinking:

A graphic design tool like Canva for designing and creating a lead magnet

A landing page builder like AWeber to create a lead capture landing page

An email marketing platform to set up automated campaigns (again, they can do this through AWeber)

Pain point: Earn six figures on Etsy

Another common pain point — because every Etsy merchant wants to make more money.

You’d follow the same process when building this online course: consider all the tools Etsy sellers might need to grow their revenue, then sign up for the relevant affiliate programs and add their links to your course content. Tools like:

PickFu for optimizing product images, descriptions, videos, ads, and product pricing

Vela for managing Etsy product listings

Outfy for automated social media management for online stores

LeadDyno for promoting an Etsy store through affiliate marketing

And, of course, AWeber for building an email list and running newsletter campaigns to drive traffic to an Etsy store.

Pain point: Make your first dropshipping sale

Like affiliate marketing, dropshipping is a popular side hustle, helping people build a revenue stream without dealing with many of the biggest challenges of running a “proper” e-commerce business, like:

Spending a ton of cash upfront on products

Managing store inventory

Dealing with product shipping

So it’s not hard to see the appeal of launching a dropshipping store. But, just like with any online business, most wannabe dropshippers don’t know where to begin — making this a perfect online course niche.

Again, there’s no shortage of products (with affiliate programs) you can promote, including:

E-commerce platforms like Shopify

SEO tools like Semrush

Product-sourcing tools like Dropship

E-commerce social media management tools like Outfy

Shopify theme vendors like ThemeForest 

Plus they’ll need an email marketing tool, which is where AWeber comes in.

4 affiliate marketing best practices to drive more clicks and sales

Building a successful affiliate marketing business isn’t just about having the right strategy. You also need to execute it effectively. Make it happen by following these best practices:

Choose a diverse range of affiliate partners

Your affiliate partners — also known as advertisers — are the people who pay you for promoting their products. So it’s fair to say they’ll play an integral role on your journey to affiliate marketing success.

Naturally, affiliate advertisers want to build robust, mutually beneficial relationships with their best affiliates. 

But it’s important to remember that they’re businesses, not charities, so they might be compelled to change their terms and conditions at a moment’s notice. For instance, Amazon  — one of the world’s biggest affiliate advertisers — famously slashed commissions across multiple categories back in 2020, putting a major dent in many affiliate marketers’ earnings.

If you put all your eggs in the metaphorical basket of a single affiliate program, a similar decision from your affiliate partner could decimate your business. 

So it definitely pays to spread the risk around by promoting multiple affiliate programs (e.g. other markets like eBay and Etsy are a good substitute for Amazon).

Promote quality affiliate products

When you’re looking for affiliate partners, it’s easy to be blinded by attractive commission rates.

But the reality is that the highest-paying products aren’t necessarily the best for your audience. Sadly, the exact opposite is often true: they’re only paying big commissions because otherwise no one would recommend them.

While it’s tempting to focus on making as much money as possible in the short term, your affiliate business will be a whole lot more sustainable if you exclusively promote high-quality products. So take the time to check out customer reviews before signing up — and, ideally, recommend products that you actually use.

Build an asset, not a social channel

Sure, there are real affiliate marketers making big money from their followings on platforms like TikTok and YouTube.

But there’s a problem: those folks don’t actually own their audience. TikTok and YouTube do.

You might be thinking: “So what? I don’t care if TikTok holds all the cards as long as I’m still making money.” However, there are some major downsides to this approach.

For starters, tastes in social media change fast. If people suddenly lose interest in your chosen social platform, BAM, there goes your audience — and there’s no guarantee they’ll follow you to a different platform.

It also leaves you overly reliant on social algorithms. If TikTok or YouTube decide they don’t want people to see your content anymore, you’re dead in the water.

That’s why we believe the best route to becoming a successful affiliate marketer is to build your own website. Or, at the very least, a landing page you can use to capture email addresses.

Target high-intent keywords

Earlier in this article, we pointed out that SEO is the top traffic source for affiliate websites.

But not all search traffic is equally valuable.

It’s fine to have one or two pieces of content dedicated to top-of-the-funnel topics (like how to start an online business). But the bulk of your SEO-focused articles or videos should target commercially focused keywords.

Typically, commercial keywords look like this:

Commercial keyword typeExampleBest {product type}Best dog foodBest {product type} for {pain point}Best dog food for sensitive stomachs{Product X} vs {Product Y}Harringtons vs Wainwrights puppy food

People searching for these sorts of terms are close to making a buying decision. So if they find (and enjoy) your content, there’s a good chance they’ll click through to your affiliate partner’s site and make a purchase.

Supercharge your affiliate marketing success with AWeber

Building a successful affiliate marketing business is hard work. And there are no guarantees — otherwise, every affiliate marketer would be a millionaire.

But we can guarantee that you’ll stand a much better chance if you build an email list, then target your subscribers with regular newsletters recommending all your favorite products.

That’s why you need AWeber.

Our drag-and-drop builder and AI writing assistant make it quick and easy to create beautiful, engaging, high-converting marketing emails, while our landing page builder and signup forms give you all the tools to grow your list.

Sign up for your free AWeber account today.

And, once you’ve done it, why not join our affiliate program and spread the love?

The post How to be a successful affiliate marketer: Growth strategies & tips appeared first on AWeber.

The number one most important factor in all of email marketing is deliverability. 

Why? Because when you send an email to your audience the goal is to get seen, opened, and clicked. But if your emails never make it to your audience’s inbox, then there is no reason to send an email.

Learn what may be impacting your email deliverability and how to improve the likelihood of your email making it into your audience’s inbox.

What is email deliverability?
Difference between email deliverability and email delivery
Why don’t all emails make it to the inbox?
Tips to improve email deliverability

What is email deliverability?

Simply put, email deliverability is the placement of an email in either an inbox, spam folder, or other folder when the email is delivered to an email address.

What is the difference between email deliverability and email delivery?

Email delivery means that the receiving mail server accepted the email and delivered it to the mailbox, regardless of which folder it lands in.

So, email delivery happens when the email you send by your email service provider (ESP) is accepted by the incoming mail server of the person you’re sending it to. In other words, it did not was not rejected or bounced.

Email deliverability = email makes it to recipient’s primary inbox

Email delivery = inbox provider has accepted the email and it will now be sorted into folder (inbox, spam, promotions, or updates)

So if an email provider ever claims they have 99% email delivery rate, your newsletters could still end up in spam, promotions, updates, or some other folder that never gets checked.

Why don’t all emails make it to the inbox?

What’s the secret to better email deliverability? Beyond any technical tips and tricks is a fundamental truth: People are more likely to see your email if you create emails that people actually want to see.

However, there are technical reasons behind this. If an email provider’s algorithm (such as Gmail) thinks a marketing email won’t be engaging enough to a user it won’t deliver that email to the user’s inbox tab.

Gmail – and all email providers – have a strong incentive to give users a good experience. If you opened up your inbox and saw nothing but spam, you might switch to another service. Since it’s in Gmail’s best interest to deliver engaging emails to the inbox, it’s in marketers’ best interest to be engaging.

Gmail measures engagement based on a variety of factors. Positive factors include opens, clicks, and replies. Negatives include ignoring the email or reporting it as spam.

6 Tips to improve email deliverability

1 – Ask new subscribers to confirm their email address

The first step to great email deliverability is asking your new subscribers to confirm their intention of joining your email list. 

This process is called confirmed opt-in, or verified opt-in, in which you send a unique link to a new subscriber when they join your list. 

Before adding the person to your list they must click that unique link verifying that they are indeed the same person that owns the email address and requested to subscribe. 

2 – Use a custom domain

Want your emails to land in subscribers’ inboxes instead of their spam folders? 

Then don’t send your messages from a Yahoo!, Gmail, AOL, Hotmail, MSN, Outlook, rocketmail.com, ymail.com, Zendesk or any other free Internet service provider (ISP).

Signing up for a custom domain name to send your messages not only improves long-term deliverability, but it also looks professional, builds authority and creates brand awareness. 

Plus, many ISPs use Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (or more commonly referred to as DMARC) to stop email abuse.

DMARC is the current policy for email authentication. Basically, it’s an ISP’s way to protect itself from spammers pretending to send emails from their network. Any unauthenticated email — no matter how legitimate the content — could end up in a subscriber’s spam folder.

Say you’re sending a bulk message to your subscribers from your Yahoo! address through AWeber (which has its own servers). If Yahoo! can’t verify one of their own servers sent your email, then the message is rejected.

Note: This is not an AWeber-specific issue — it will happen from any reputable Email Service Provider.

3 – Make your “unsubscribe” link easy to find

This may shock you, but unsubscribes are a good thing.

Yes, really. They’re doing you (and your email deliverability) and favor. 

Maybe someone accidentally signed up to your list or realized they no longer want to receive your emails. While these people should unsubscribe from your email list, many often flag emails as spam to prevent them from going to their main inbox. After all, the average email subscriber doesn’t know the impact that can have on a sender’s email reputation.

If that’s the case, make sure your unsubscribe button is easy to find in your email. You might also want to include a line of copy that tells people that if they no longer wish to receive your emails, they should unsubscribe from your list instead of marking you as spam.  

You can even have a little fun with it. Get inspiration from bakery service Goldbelly and how they phrased the text around their unsubscribe button.

4 – Ask your subscribers to add you to their contact list

Ask your subscribers to add your “From Address” to their contact list when they first join. Commonly called “safelisting,” this ensures that they never miss a message from you. 

It also helps improve your email reputation score, which ultimately means more of your emails will get routed to the inbox instead of the spam folder.

Even the best email marketers in the game ask subscribers to take steps to ensure their messages make it to them. Here’s how speaker, author, and Chief Content Officer at Marketing Profs, Ann Handley, handles this conversation with her list. 

5 – Maintain a healthy email list

The best way to improve and maintain your email deliverability is by keeping a clean and healthy email list. 

There are a number of factors that can impact your list hygiene:

Typos in the email address

Illegitimate email addresses

Inactive email addresses

The easiest way to prevent email addresses with typos from showing up on your list is to use confirmed opt-in (aka double opt-in), which requires people to confirm their subscription before getting added to your list. If someone enters the wrong email address, there’s no way they’ll ever receive that confirmation email. This helps keep your list clean of undeliverable messages because no email addresses with typos will pass through to your list.

You can also use an email validation service like Kickbox to verify which email addresses are legitimate and which ones aren’t. Simply import your email list, start the validation process, and remove the email addresses that aren’t valid.

Finally, if you notice that someone hasn’t opened your email in several months, then it might mean they’ve changed email addresses. In that case, you can either attempt to re-engage them or remove them from your list entirely.

6 – Send engaging emails people love

Even beyond deliverability, making your emails engaging is just a good idea. After all, it’s not enough to deliver a message into a user’s inbox. The final, crucial step is to engage your reader so they remember your message. In other words, the recipient ultimately needs to open and read it.

Sending too many unengaging emails may hasten the dreaded “email fatigue.” Which is when users ignore you or unsubscribe when they think you’re sending them too many emails.

The key point is that emails earn their place in a user’s inbox by being engaging. Marketers must re-earn that right with every email they send.

Improving engagement and deliverability

Email deliverability can be a confusing and intimidating topic for many. But at its core, making it to the inbox is really simple: just follow the tips above and aim to delight your subscribers through valuable email content.

The post Improve email deliverability with 6 best practices appeared first on AWeber.