How to Leverage Behavioral Analytics In Your Growth Strategy

If you’re obsessed with growth, you know how important it is to have a super detailed growth strategy. You and data are BFFs, right? Great, but you also need to understand the context that surrounds that data.

I know that sounds a little dense, but bear with me. What I mean is that information alone isn’t enough. Yes, in data we trust. Sure, lots of metrics are all well and good, but if you can’t leverage that data, there’s no point to it. Think about it. Who makes the growth happen? You might think it’s you, but in the end, it’s actually your audience.

How your users respond to your tactics will decide how successful your growth strategy is. So take a step back and look at your audience. Do you really understand them? Be honest with yourself. Most growth hackers think they understand their customer base, but they only know raw data. Knowing demographics doesn’t mean you understand your audience.

This is where I drop my bomb of a topic. Behavioral analytics, folks.

Understanding and applying behavioral analytics can be incredibly useful for growth strategies. In fact, it could be the energy and edge that your brand has been missing.

Want viral growth? Say hello to behavioral analytics. These analytics give you a look into the minds of your users so you can put yourself in their shoes. You’ll be able to build targeted campaigns that better suit your audience, create messages that reach the right users at the right time, and attract entirely new user bases.

I realize that “behavioral analytics” doesn’t sound all that sexy, but you’re going to discover just how powerful it is. Let’s take a look at some fundamental concepts of behavioral analytics that you absolutely need to know and then explore some actionable strategies you can use.

If you’ve been sleeping on behavioral analytics, it’s not too late. Read this article. Do what it says, and your brand will grow.

What Psychographics Are (and how you get them)

When it comes to behavioral analytics, psychographics are vital.

Psychographics provide a foundational understanding of why your customers behave the way they do.

Demographics are the who. Psychographics are the why.

Each psychographic is a data point that tells you something about your users’ behavior.

Here’s a more comprehensive list of psychographics:

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These go way above and beyond demographics to give you a fuller picture of your audience.

Psychographics clue you in to your users’ behaviors. For example, if you know that most of your audience is composed of parents of 5-11 year olds, you’ll understand why those kid-sized T-shirts are flying off the shelves.

Although you can’t get any super specific data like number of clicks, you still need psychographics to get a general idea of how your audience acts and why they do what they do.

Psychographics will often reveal what’s important to your users.

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Do you understand now why psychographics are so important? They help you see your customers as people and not just information from your analytics software.

Speaking of analytics software, you can find some basic psychographic information in GA by heading over to Audience > Interests > Overview.

You’ll see three categories: Affinity Category, In-Market Segment, and Other Category.

The Affinity Category shows you different lifestyle categories. Google compares these groups to TV audiences.

This category points to specific interests that your users have. Even if you just look at this section of GA, you can get a pretty good understanding of what your audience likes.

The In-Market Segment shows you what types of products your users have shown interest in.

Basically, your customers are looking to buy products or services within these categories.

The Other Category offers a narrower view of your audience.

If you want to go even deeper, Google has a handy guide on using this psychographic info in conjunction with other analytics.

There are many other ways to grab psychographics, from surveys to focus groups. Use as many of these methods as you want. Too much psychographic data is never a bad thing.

Still, psychographics are just that––data. You need to use them in a creative way.

With that in mind, let’s look at some growth techniques that depend on psychographics and other behavioral data.

Data-Driven Customer Personas

Creating an imaginary friend might sound a little childish to you, but that’s essentially what you need to do with psychographics.

Right, I know, it’s not exactly an “imaginary friend.”

I’m talking about creating a fictional person who is a representative of your audience base and not just some creature you made up. These representatives are otherwise known as customer personas.

You’re probably familiar with the idea of the customer persona, but if you’re not, don’t worry. Here’s a brief rundown.

A customer persona (also called user or buyer persona) takes aggregate data and uses it to create a fake person. This person is your average customer.

His or her demographic and psychographic information is representative or your audience (or a segment of your audience).

Here’s what an example customer persona might look like:

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As you can see, you can get really detailed with personas. The more detailed they are, the better you’ll understand your users.

By definition, a customer persona is chock full of behavioral analytics. They help you describe the persona in detail.

Once you have all of your behavioral analytics together, you can take a couple of different approaches to creating a persona.

The approach you take will depend on what you want to accomplish with your personas.

Do you want to create better email sequences? Do you want to improve your Facebook ads? Think about your objectives as you create your personas.

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Specifically, you can use certain analytics based on the results you’re after. Let’s look at some examples of this idea in action.

Let’s say you want to redesign your CRM software to attract more leads. In terms of analytics, you’d want to look for business-related psychographics.

These might include the user’s role at work, how much time they spend at their job, or even the search terms they use to get to your site.

So an example persona for that would look like this one (the one on the right side):

This persona is great for SaaS because it uses analytics that relate to work. There’s little personal information here, but there’s enough to give you an idea of who the persona is.

But that type of persona isn’t ideal for every sort of situation.

Another example: Say you’re the head of growth at an ecommerce apparel startup.

You’d be more concerned with personal behavioral analytics and not so many work-related data. So a persona for you might look something like this:

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The types of analytics you use should all depend on your goals and the kind of product or service you’re selling.

It doesn’t hurt to get as many data points as possible, but you’ll want to refine them to zoom in on your average customer.

Creating a persona doesn’t take much time, but it can change how you see growth. That said, you have to make sure your personas are as accurate as possible.

If you get the wrong analytics, well, your entire customer journey might just go down the drain.

But if you get it right, your customers will feel like you really know them.

This is a perfect example of how behavioral analytics can make all the difference in your growth strategy.

Remember, you’re not simply looking at a bunch of random numbers. This information has real uses that you can take advantage of starting today.

Let’s take a look at another one of those advantages.

Customer Segmentation

You’re segmenting your users…right?

Okay, maybe you’re not. That’s okay. But you totally need to be.

Some marketers and growth hackers see their audience as one big mass, so every campaign gets sent out to everyone.

But not everyone has the same needs and wants. Your customers are all different.

So if you group people into similar segments, you can deliver more accurate, targeted messages and have better results.

That’s why segmentation is part of every good marketer’s (and growth hacker’s) playbook.

And––you guessed it––behavioral analytics can help you segment better.

The basic idea is to create segments using one or more behavioral attributes.

If you group generally according to behavior, you’ll get an inside look into what different types of customers are looking for.

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Just this basic behavioral segmentation already gives you a much better understanding of the different kinds of users you have.

All you need to do is a little behavioral research to get started with this. In GA, you can go to Behavior > Behavior Flow to see an overview of the average user path on your site.

While this isn’t incredibly comprehensive, it can prep you for actual segmentation later on. Odds are the trends you see on Behavior Flow will reflect your audience as a whole.

This type of segmentation is flexible and can be used in a variety of ways.

Take email marketing. You can see what emails people open, which people almost never open your emails, and maybe even how long a user spends reading your email.

You probably look at data like this all the time:

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But have you considered that you can use this information to tap into your subscribers’ brains?

All of those are behavioral analytics in their own right, and they’re great for segmentation.

There’s a lot you can do with these analytics. You can send a special discount email to the loyal subscribers who regularly open your emails, or you can send more targeted emails to people who tend to open one type of email.

And your results are almost guaranteed to improve.

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The possibilities are endless.

And if you’re using Kissmetrics, you don’t have to worry about any of this because the behavior-based delivery feature does it for you.

 

Still in doubt? I know it sounds like a lot of work, but it really isn’t, and it can pay off big time.

MailChimp found that segmenting subscribers by interest made every metric soar:

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If you’re willing to get even more crazy with segmentation, get ready.

You can also use behavioral analytics to group your customers by their place in the customer journey.

This concept is a little more advanced than the techniques we’ve gone over, but it packs a serious punch.

The typical customer journey is more or less like this:

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By using behavioral analytics, you can find out what stage of the customer journey a user is going through.

Behavior Flow can often show this. If someone has checked out lots of your product pages but hasn’t made it to the checkout, he or she is in the consideration stage.

Once you’ve found out where someone is in the customer journey, you can place them into an appropriate segment.

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This approach is a growth hacker’s dream. Not only can you segment your customers, but you can also get a better grip on the customer lifecycle.

It’s awesome, isn’t it?

If you’re serious about converting and growth, you should strongly consider this advanced tactic. It’s one of the best ways to hyper-focus your messages, and you’ll reach the right users at the right time.

Conclusion

Growth is all about people.

And by people, I mean your users.

A good growth strategy has to be centered around your customers. Otherwise, your strategy will fall flat on its face.

If you’re focused on sheer volume and ignore your customers in the process, you’re going to get nowhere fast.

Analyzing and leveraging your users’ behavior is one way to enhance your current strategy.

If you understand your users’ behavior, you can more easily determine what kind of content they want and what kind of messages are best to send to them.

Like I said, it’s all about people. We want to be understood, and we want our needs to be taken care of.

As a growth nut, it’s your job to make sure that happens.

So if you need to step up your game, behavioral analytics can give you a fresh perspective and boost your results.

About the Author: Daniel Threlfall is an Internet entrepreneur and content marketing strategist. As a writer and marketing strategist, Daniel has helped brands including Merck, Fiji Water, Little Tikes, and MGA Entertainment. Daniel is co-founding Your Success Rocket, a resource for Internet entrepreneurs. He and his wife Keren have four children, and occasionally enjoy adventures in remote corners of the globe (kids included). You can follow Daniel on Twitter or see pictures of his adventures on Instagram.

from The Kissmetrics Marketing Blog https://blog.kissmetrics.com/behavioral-analytics-in-growth/

What Innovative Marketers Can Learn From Taylor Swift

For most marketers, the idea of strategically “going dark” on social media screams marketing faux pas. From irregular posting to unorganized content, a mismanaged marketing calendar is nothing but blatant disregard for best practices. And in today’s marketing industry, companies live and die based on the organizational quality of their content calendars. Yet, when it comes to creating a marketing strategy for a major music mogul like Taylor Swift, you’re able to create whatever social strategy is in your ‘wildest dreams.’

In this blog, I’ll cover how Taylor Swift used social media in a disruptive and innovative way and what marketers can learn from this approach.

 Swift’s Strategy

In anticipation of her upcoming album, Swift began to quietly pull the shades on her social media activity, until finally committing to discontinuing altogether. This act left many to question her lack of engagement as perhaps a temporary retreat from the spotlight. Even in the midst of a new boyfriend and a sexual assault lawsuit, Swift maintained her minimalist online presence. Until August 21^st.

On that day, Swift graced her fans with the announcement of her new album, “Reputation,” via a string of coordinated posts across her Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook pages. While major announcements are commonly released via social media, Swift adds her own twist to the popular promotional channel to garner a significant amount of unobstructed attention.

A Blank Space

In an unconventional move, she deleted all former posts, allowing her page to solely focus on her upcoming release. By deliberately deleting her social past, she was able to capture the attention of her fans and shift the focus toward her future. It is a blank canvas and a fresh new start, to reinvent the way her fans, and the media alike, view her brand. With this move, she guided us away from past projects and outside gossip while commanding our concentration.

Her social media strategy directly aligns with the theme of her first release “Look What You Made Me Do.” In this song, half way through we can hear Taylor answer a phone and proclaim that the old Taylor can’t be reached because “she’s dead.” This line validates her social absence and erasure of memories.

Now, it has been almost 11 years since Taylor debuted her first song “Our Song,” winning over the hearts of teenagers across the country. Teenagers who instantly related to her catchy first-love heartbreak ballads and girl next door familiarity. But as her fans aged in order to stay relevant, Swift’s brand had to continue to grow and evolve as well. She no longer caters to a fan base who is day dreaming about Prince Charming, but a more mature, more rebellious base who create their own fairy tales. Her fans no longer want to see her as a sweet, curly haired country crossover who tells them ‘shake it off’ when critics’ chatter becomes deafening. They demand a role model who boldly stands up to her critics and sets a brave precedent for future engagement. And with one of the most popular songs on the radio, when Taylor stands up to her detractors, she ends up being the one getting the last laugh—all the way to the bank.

Today’s consumers are being marketed to at an ever-increasing rate. While Taylor has a very large and loyal fan base, her constant reinvention and ability to stay current with her supporters will continue to boost her brand and secure her legacy for years to come. Even if that means incorporating a little self-deprecation and mockery of former selves, and even those former selves that have won her 10 Grammys to date. Taylor’s strategy includes throwing shade at past celebrity feuds, fueling the story of her new music video, and serving as the ultimate ‘clap back.’

While most brands will be unwilling to adopt this same type of marketing strategy, Taylor’s unique approach to social media reinvention gives her the ability to take control of her brand’s narrative and re-establish her relevancy to her loyal fan base. Even as one of the most successful and popular music artists of our generation, she doesn’t rest on her past success to continuously propel her future endeavors. She puts herself in the driver seat of her brand and lets us know that we are along for the ride.

Driving Your Brand’s Narrative

As marketers, we can embrace her strategy by continuously pushing social media norms and always keep a finger on the pulse of our customers. Today’s customers demand a marketing strategy that cuts through the traditional babble and creates an experience that rises above the noise and speaks to them on an individual level. Even industry leaders can embrace a marketing plan that goes beyond content calendars and organized social strategy and delivers an exceptional and fresh customer experience. As marketers, we cannot continue to play it safe, or our efforts will always fall short, being buried under past publicity. We must take the wheel and drive our brands narrative, guide our customer’s attention, and create an experience unmatched by our competitors.

Whether you love her, hate her, or don’t even know who she is, Taylor Swift’s marketing savvy is something of note. What can you take from her strategy to apply to your brand? What wouldn’t work for your company? We’d love to hear about how this applies to you and your company! Or share any lessons that you’ve gleaned from pop culture and incorporated into your marketing in the comments below.

The post What Innovative Marketers Can Learn From Taylor Swift appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

from Marketo Marketing Blog http://blog.marketo.com/2017/08/innovative-marketers-can-learn-taylor-swift.html

What Makes Good Copywriting? 6 Characteristics of Top-Notch Copy

Mad Men fans everywhere remember the pivotal first scene where we learn just how talented Don Draper is at his job.

Faced with an almost-impossible copywriting task, he rose to the occasion to solve a huge problem for his client, Lucky Strike. In spite of research warning customers of the dangers of cigarettes, Draper delivered the iconic slogan -- "It's toasted" -- to differentiate the brand from its competitors.

Now, we definitely aren't advocating for smoking cigarettes (or many of Draper's health choices). But fictional or not, you can't deny the memorability and catchiness of that tagline.

It's easy to recognize good copywriting when you see it, but there are actually several characteristics that really separate outstanding writing from the rest of the pack. Want to know them? Read on below to find out.

6 Good Copywriting Examples From Real Brands

1) It tilts your perspective.

Sometimes, all a message needs to break through is a slight shift in angle. We've grown so accustomed to blocking out marketing messages, we don't even see them anymore. One of the most powerful things a copywriter can do is break down a reader's guard with an unexpected approach. Every story has a myriad of angles -- your job as a copywriter is to find the one that resonates.

 

Source: Silence Sucks

The above ad from Sage Therapeutics pressing the importance of talking about postpartum depression works because instead of asking readers to care about something they don't know, it puts them in the position of experiencing the struggle that mothers suffering do. Did they miss some readers who quickly passed by the ad thinking it was for adult pacifiers? Most definitely. But the ad resonated that much more thoroughly with those who read it.

The next time you sit down to write, try out this approach. Don't take the topic head on. Instead, ask yourself why it matters. Each time you write down an answer, challenge yourself to push it further. Find the larger story happening behind your message.

2) It finds connections.

In 1996, Steve Jobs let the cat out of the bag. He was speaking with a journalist from Wired on the topic of creativity and explained:

"Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after awhile."

Let's say you have to write an ad for a new pair of sneakers. You could take the assignment head on. You could write about the elasticity of the shoe's sole or the lightweight design. Indeed, many have. Or you could put all of that aside and instead draw the connection between the product and the experience it evokes.

Source: Pinterest

Two things are happening in this ad. First, the copy recognizes that for many, running isn't about running at all -- it's about solitude, peace, and restoring sanity to an otherwise hectic life. Second, not only does Nike connect the ad to the experience of running, it actually connects to the sound that those shoes make as they hit the pavement.

This ad is about the complexity of one's life fading away and being replaced by simplicity and clarity. As the copy progresses, the sentences simplify and the copy's complexity is slowly replaced by the simple and rhythmic pounding of words: run, run, run, run. The same rhythm one hears when all but their footsteps have faded away. That's connection.

3) It has a stunning lead.

The following are all headlines or leading sentences from Urban Daddy, an email-based magazine drawing attention to new products, experiences, and eateries.

• "Six days. That’s how long you have until 65% of your body is turkey."
• "There are 8,760 hours in a year. And just one hour in which a stand will be dispensing gratis latkes with homemade applesauce and sour cream in Harvard Square. Yeah, it’s not fair. But 60 minutes is 60 minutes."
• "Ewoks. Talk about living."

What's common among each of these leads? They make us want to read the next line. I mean, seriously, how much do you want to know where that Ewok thing is headed?

There's an adage in copywriting that's loosely credited to copywriter and business owner Joe Sugarman, which roughly states that the purpose of the headline is to get you to read the first line. The purpose of the first line is to get you to read the second line, and so on. In short, if your first line doesn't enthrall your readers, all is lost.

4) It is born out of listening.

Seeing its plans to launch yet another gym in the greater Boston region, an outsider might have called the Harrington family a wee bit crazy. The market was already flush with gyms, including a new breed of luxury ones that seemed to be in an arms war for the flashiest perks. Gyms across the region were offering massage services, smoothie bars, and fleets of personal trainers. And GymIt wouldn't have any of that.

What did GymIt have? An understanding of its core audience. Before launching its new gym, the brand did a ton of listening to its primary market of gym-goers. For many in GymIt's target market, the added benefits associated with luxury gyms were nice to have, but came with a lot of baggage -- namely expensive rates and overly complex contracts.

GymIt decided to simplify the gym-going experience for people who predominately cared about getting in and working out. The copy in its launch campaign and across its marketing materials reflects that understanding.

In an older blog post, Copyblogger's Robert Bruce put this nicely. "Humble yourself and truly serve your audience, listen to their needs and desires, listen to the language they use," he said. "If you listen carefully, your audience can eventually give you everything you need, including much of your copy. Get out of their way."

5) It avoids jargon and hyperbole.

Groundbreaking. Revolutionary. Business Solutions. Targetable Scale. Ideation. Evidence-based approaches. Industry wide best practices.

Have I lost you yet?

When writers struggle to convey what is truly special about their company, product, or service, they sometimes fall back on jargon or hyperbole to underscore their point. The truth is, good copywriting doesn't need dressing up. Good copywriting should speak to the reader in human terms.

This isn't to say you should never celebrate awards or achievements. Just be direct in the way you explain that achievement. This homepage from Basecamp does a nice job of highlighting its popularity in concrete terms.

6) It cuts out excess.

Good writing gets to the point -- and that means cutting out excessive phrases, and rewording your sentences to be more direct. In an ad celebrating its "academic" readership, The Economist playfully demonstrates this below.

How do you rid excess words from your writing? It's half practice, half knowing where to cut. This article from Daily Writing Tips is one of the most effective summaries I've found on precise writing. Included in its tips:

• Reduce verb phrases: For instance, turn "The results are suggestive of the fact that" to "The results suggest."
• Reduce wordy phrases to single words: You can change "in order to" into "to." Another example: Turn "Due to the fact that" into "because."
• Avoid vague nouns: Phrases formed around general nouns like "in the area of" or "on the topic of" clutter sentences.
• Read the full list of brevity tips here.

In general, if you can afford to cut without losing the meaning of a sentence, do so. Push yourself to strip down your word count. Turn 50-word homepage copy into 25, then push yourself again to make that 25-word sentence into 15 words. It's not about brevity so much as it is about making sure every word counts in your writing.

Since my last point was about getting to the point, I'll keep this brief: Words matter. Every time you sit down to write an ad, web page, video script, or other content for your company, you have the opportunity to break through to people. Find those opportunities in your marketing and make sure that you've made the most of them.

from Marketing https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/good-copywriting-practices-list

10 of the Best Ads from August: The Eclipse, Sugar, and the Worst Voice Assistant Ever

Advertisers got creative in August, experimenting with the increasingly popular six-second ad format, contributing to the buzz surrounding the solar eclipse, and building a mountain of sugar in Times Square.

Let's take a look at some of the last great ads of summer 2017:

10 of the Best Ads from August

1) SafeAuto

Say hello to the world's worst voice assistant: a stylish wooden box named Fârnhäan. In a brutally funny take down of our growing fascination with artificial intelligence, insurance company SafeAuto developed a vaguely German-accented AI device who always gets it wrong -- very wrong.

In a series of 30-second spots, Fârnhäan flubs question after question, with hilarious results. "Fârnhäan, what's in baklava?" one man asks. Fârnhäan responds: "Sugar, cabbage, pickles, and just a touch of toothpaste for color." Who knew?

 

2) KIND

On August 22, healthy food manufacturer KIND dumped 45,000 pounds of sugar on Times Square to demonstrate how much sugar the average child consumes annually.

Accompanied by several child-shaped statues (made of a sugar look-alike material to avoid attracting swarms of bugs), the art installation was orchestrated by Magnetic Collaborative, a London-based marketing shop.

Photo credit: KIND 

3) Canon

If you follow virtually any media site in 2017, you've probably heard the news that millennials are collectively killing everything from diamonds, to fabric softener, to lunch. But if Canon has any say in the matter, this ruthless, avocado-hungry generation won't do away with point-and-shoot cameras.

To convince twenty and thirty-somethings to put down their beloved iPhones and opt for a real camera instead, Grey NY set up a wacky Rube Goldberg Machine, manufacturing some perfect photo-ops that could only be captured on a Canon -- naturally.

 

4) Volvo

To showcase the unique design of Volvo's new fastback Arteon, German agency Grabarz & Partner enlisted the help of Pete Eckert -- a blind photographer famous for his otherworldly "light-paintings."

Eckert brought his signature long-exposure techniques to the project, producing a series of mirage-like images of the new Volvo model. "The new Arteon represents expressive, avant-garde design. Pete Eckert has presented this design in a unique way," said Xavier Chardon, Volkswagen's head of marketing, to Adweek. "The images he has created are genuine works of art and have a very special atmosphere that only he can create."

 

5) JetBlue

There are now souvenirs for workaholics who never take a vacation, celebrating the very place they never, ever leave.

JetBlue worked with MullenLowe to produce a line of delightfully kitschy keepsakes to remind you of the vacation you need to take. The line of mugs, decorative plates, candles, and other trinkets usually reserved for tourist trap gift shops feature phrases like: "Paper jams are my jam," and "Remember the free bagels?"

"If your last good memory is that time free bagels were left in the break room, we feel for you," said Heather Berko, manager of advertising and content at JetBlue. "These Office Souvenirs are just our way of reminding everyone there are blue skies and fresh air waiting to provide much happier memories."

Photo via: Adweek

6) Carlsberg

This Danish brewery's founder died in 1887, but that didn't stop him from hosting a TED Talk in Copenhagen in August -- courtesy of FCB agency Happiness in Brussels.

J.C. Jacobsen, who founded Carlsberg back in 1847, showed up (via actor) to give a talk entitled, "Why You Should Answer Every Question With Probably." The topic plays into Carlsberg's longtime slogan: "Probably the best beer in the world," but it ended up being a surprisingly insightful meditation on the value of uncertainty.

 

7) Hitotoki

This just might be the most beautiful clock ever created -- and it only took 30,000 objects to make.

To celebrate the do-it-yourself spirit their brand embodies, Japanese stationary company Hitotoki teamed up with agency Dentsu to assemble a 24-hour clock with a hand-crafted set of hands for each minute of the day -- 1,440 total. Against a backdrop of lovely Hitotoki paper (of course), the team mesmerizingly assembles each arrangement using every object imaginable -- cupcakes, confetti, even a miniature spaceship.

You can watch a real-time version of the Hitotoki clock on their website.

 

8) Chiquita

Is there anything bolder than slapping a logo on the solar eclipse?

Chiquita saw an opportunity that wouldn't come along for another seven years, and they jumped on it (with help from Wieden + Kennedy). Who can blame them really? It really does look like a banana.

"It took an intense knowledge of celestial bodies and an unrelenting love for bananas, but we did it," Chiquita wrote on their YouTube channel. "On August 21, Chiquita will move the moon in between the sun and the earth. For a fleeting moment before and after the totally overrated total solar eclipse, the sun will appear to be an enormous fiery banana. This phenomenon shall henceforth be known as the Chiquita banana sun. Please enjoy it."

 

9) Air New Zealand

A flightless bird might not seem like the most natural spokesperson for an airline, but you'll change your mind after meeting Air New Zealand's latest pitchman -- a tiny, adorable kiwi.

After getting some devastating news from a doctor ("You'll never fly ... because kiwis don't have wings"), our fluffy little hero discovers that the convenient flight options from Air New Zealand still allow him to get around in the sky.

 

10) Zappos

In this series of quick, clever spots for online retailer Zappos, the creative team at barrettSF had a little fun with the phrase, "Save the drama for your mama."

Each ad plays off an alternative version of the saying, e.g.: "Save the drama for your daughter's diorama."

What were you favorite ads this month? Talk to us on Twitter.

 

from Marketing https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/best-ads-from-august

How to Create 30 Days Worth of Instagram Posts in One Day

Did you know that 50% of Instagram users follow a business, and 60% actually use Instagram to learn about a product or service?

In fact, there are currently over 700 million Instagram users, and that number is expected to reach the one billion user milestone by the end of 2017. How's that for a potential audience for your business?

Instagram is one of the fastest growing social networks out there -- and with good reason! Businesses and individuals alike love connecting with each other through the image-dedicated platform by sharing inspiring images and videos with their communities.

For the marketers behind those brand Instagram feeds, it's important to keep your audience engaged and loyal to your brand to really take advantage of the expanding network.  

Unfortunately, keeping your audience engaged is no easy feat. It requires constantly coming up with new ideas and creating a variety of content pieces to post every single day. 

At HubSpot, our social media team works on our Instagram content schedule well in advace, making sure to keep a stock of posts handy to schedule out everyday. If you're a marketer wearing lots of different hats at your company, though, you may find it difficult to work far as far in advance.

But wouldn't be great if you had your whole month of Instagram posts ready so you can have one less thing to worry about?

Not sure how? Don't worry. We have a few tips to share.

How to Create 30 Instagram Posts in One Day

Creating a bulk of content for any channel requires a few hours of focused energy, some inspiration, and the right tools. 

Before we dig in, be sure set aside time to focus energy on your Instagram content. Start by blocking off time on your calendar to create all of your posts. Start with two hours. We promise: creating 30 posts at once will be easier than you think. 

Once you've found your focus, it's time to look for inspiration.

1) Look to your favorite brands for inspiration. 

The best way to create variety is to get outside of your own bubble. Don't just look around your office or at your past Instagram posts to draw inspiration for new posts.

Instead, start your creative process by looking at the brands you personally follow. Look at brands you admire (or even your friends) and look at what types of posts people tend to engage with. 

Getting inspiration from other people is one of the quickest ways to come up with new unique ideas. Or, if you want to even get out of the Instagram feed, check out Designspiration. It's a great collection of designs to get your creative juices flowing. 

2) Start jotting down your ideas in one place.

As you look around Instagram and elsewhere for new content ideas, make a list of things you like and dislike. It can be anything -- colors, quotes, images, types of posts, etc. 

Even if you don't use some of your ideas right away, it's important to keep a running list of the thoughts that flit through your mind when you're getting inspiration. After all, you never know where that idea might eventually lead.

3) Use a mixture of phone pictures and created pictures using a tool like Spark Post.

While many Instagrammers spend tons of time each day taking new pictures on their phones, you aren't limited to just posting photos that you actually go out and take. Instead, mix it up by having a stock of images you design alongisde those you take. 

Pro Tip: Not a great designer? No problem. Use a free design tool like Adobe Spark Post. With their free templates and easy-to-use interface, you can make beautifully designed images in no time. To get you started, we have 30 free exclusive Spark Post templates to offer you in our 30 day Instagram guide.

To get you started, we have 30 free exclusive Spark Post templates to offer you in our 30 day Instagram guide.

4) Use our 30 Day Instagram Guide and Free Instagram Templates to easily create 30 unique posts.

One easy way to come up with 30 unique Instagram posts is to focus on a new idea or aspect of Instagram each day. That's why HubSpot teamed up with Adobe Spark and Iconosquare to create this full 30 Days of Instagram guide.

Each day is focused on a different aspect of Instagram marketing. From different content creation ideas to promotional tactics to reporting and analysis, the guide is jam packed with ideas and examples from the best of the best. 

The guide also includes 30 exclusive Adobe Spark templates for you to use to help you create your 30 days worth of Instagram posts. Check it out and get cranking!

5) Use a scheduling software like Iconosquare to schedule your content for the next 30 days. 

Once you've successfully created 30 (or more) Instagram posts for the month, don't forget to get scheduling! Use a software like Iconosquare to schedule out a whole month's worth of Instagram posts, then let yourself relax!

from Marketing https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/how-to-create-30-days-worth-of-instagram-posts-in-one-day

Setting Your Customer Engagement Emails on Automation Using Kissmetrics

Human attention spans are embarrassingly bad.

I’d have to be lucky to get just 5% of people to read this entire post. Most probably won’t get past the intro, so I’ll get to the point:

In this age of infinite distraction, brands that can keep their customers engaged with the product are bound to be the winners.

Fads come and go (by definition) and companies have short lifespans. Here one day, closed (or acquired) the next.

Brands that will succeed are the ones that keep customers engaged and re-purchasing.

Brands like Netflix, Facebook, and Amazon are the masters at keeping users engaged. Netflix keeps producing great content, which keeps people coming back. Facebook has a great, addictive product that billions of people use everyday, and Amazon has made billions off keeping customers to come back and make more (and more) purchases.

To keep customers engaged, they’ll need to be informed on what they’re missing without you. To do that, you can send behaviorally-targeted emails towards the relevant group of users.

Here’s how to spot your unengaged users, and get them re-engaged. And this is all done with Kissmetrics.

Just What the Heck is an Unengaged User?

Before we dive into the hows, we’ll first need to know what an unengaged user looks like.

There are active users and there are engaged users.

Active means they have logged in. Even if they login, stare the screen for a few minutes, and leave they can be considered active.

An engaged user is one who uses the product in a meaningful way. They use features, comment on statuses, send messages, and share photos.

Each product will have different conditions of what makes an engaged user, but one thing is for sure – they need to be using the product and interacting with it, not just logging in.

We’ll use a SaaS company as an example in this post. And we’ll set our definitions of unengaged and engaged customers:

• Engaged – Has used at least 3 features 4 different times in the last 7 days.
• Unengaged – Has not used any feature the past 14 days.

Now that we have our definitions, we’ll monitor our unengaged users using Kissmetrics Populations and then target them using Kissmetrics Campaigns.

Monitoring With Populations

Populations was created for growth/marketing and product teams to help them keep track of their growth cycle. With just a few clicks you’ll be able to monitor the KPIs that matter to your company.

For this post, we have to goal of shrinking our unengaged user base. So we’ll create Population that tracks the users that have not used any feature in the last 14 days.

Let’s see how many users are in this Population:

So we have our Population in place. Since these are our unengaged users, we’ll want to reduce the number of people in this Population. Let’s take our first step by creating a Campaign.

Send Behavior-Based Email Messages Using Campaigns

Campaigns is one of my favorite features in Kissmetrics. Once you find a segment of users that need to be nudged – whether it’s toward conversion, using features, logging in, etc. – you pull up Campaigns and create the perfect email to nudge them.

There are a number of things you can use Campaigns for. In this case, we’re using it to get our unengaged users in the product and using the features.

In Campaigns, we’ll create a new email message:

And we’ll target the people in the Population we previously created:

We’ll then set our conversion goal. This means that we determine if the Campaign is successful if the users do a specified event. For us, that event will be Used Feature.

We’ll then track the results in Campaigns, where it’ll say how effective the Campaign has been. Here are the results from a different Campaign:

And we can’t forget about Populations. Once we have our Campaign running, we’ll check the Population to see if it’s growing (bad) or shrinking (good).

Minor Interruption

Prefer to just watch our promo videos for Campaigns and Populations? Just hit play below – let’s start with Populations:

 

And Campaigns:

 

Conclusion

No matter how sticky your product, there will always be a group of unengaged users.

Even the ultra-addicting Facebook gets unengaged users.

And how do they bring them back?

Through emails.

Don’t believe me? Just get off Facebook for a few days (if you can) and you’ll eventually receive the barrage of emails that come like clockwork.

New friend suggestions, did you see person’s comment person’s status, person added a new photo, and you have 99 notifications, 5 pokes, and 3 new friend requests.

All designed to get you sucked into back and using Facebook once again.

Facebook (and countless other companies) send these emails because they work. Everyone has email, no one ignores their inbox, and well-written emails convert.

About the Author: Zach Bulygo (Twitter) is the Blog Manager for Kissmetrics.

from The Kissmetrics Marketing Blog https://blog.kissmetrics.com/engagement-emails-on-automation/

How Chance the Rapper Made Millions By Giving Away Things for Free [Video]

from Marketing https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/chance-the-rapper-millions-free-video

Should You Incorporate Chat Into Your Marketing Plan?

Marketers are constantly on the lookout for new and exciting ways to engage their existing users and acquire new ones. And with new marketing solutions being offered to brands every other day, choosing the right one that will best suit their needs and help them promote their business to a vast number of users is crucial.

For many socially-focused marketers and service providers, Viber and Messenger’s chat extensions offer a great solution to help them stay involved in their users’ experience while promoting their brand. Not only can chat extensions help marketers turn their brand loyalists into brand activists, but they are also able to promote higher engagement levels among users who will prefer a specific app and its chat extensions to all others.

From a marketing standpoint, both Viber and Messenger chose to implement chat extensions into their messaging apps in order to enhance the ways in which a user can interact in a chat with friends. By providing users with seamless access to social features, including music players, YouTube videos, and travel booking apps, chat extensions are able to address the majority of today’s marketing trends, exposing users to specific brands or promotions.

Viber’s Chat Extensions, introduced in December 2016, offer a variety of features for users, from GIFs, Spotify, Vice, Booking, and even YouTube. Nearly a year later, Messenger introduced their version of the feature, focusing more on creating chat extensions such as Kayak and Swelly that will help users reach desired chatbots. The possibilities chat extensions offer marketers and brands that are looking to reach a wider audience are endless. Here are examples of brands that have already realized Viber and Messenger’s chat extensions’ marketing potential.

In this blog, you’ll find examples of brands that have already realized Viber and Messenger’s chat extensions’ marketing potential as well as some key tips on how to best implement chat with your company.

Kayak

Messenger’s Kayak Travel Planner allows you to create a poll of possible destinations and travel dates and share them on your group chat so your friends can cast their vote. It also enables users to look for flights, hotels, and car rentals as well as visit the Kayak Messenger bot for more direct and personal traveling information. This chat extension, as well as the others on this list, enable the brand or business to insert itself into users’ conversations without extra effort on the part of the user. In essence, Kayak is going to where their users are planning and therefore able to be involved in the process from start to finish.

Booking

With a whopping 1,413,232 properties to choose from and 118,478 destinations in 226 countries and territories worldwide, there’s no wonder that more than 1,200,000 room nights are reserved every day on the Booking platform. Viber’s Chat Extensions enable users to choose a specific location and date, pick out their preferred hotel, and book it immediately. Tourism brands can benefit from the possibilities of enabling users to gain access to their service in a brand-new way through chat extensions. The more brands are using chat extensions, the more users will neglect regular online searches for hotels and flights and simply opt for trusted brand offerings that are right in front of them. Building this level of trust with customers is invaluable in the Engagement Economy. 

Swelly

Both Viber and Messenger have already introduced Swelly, a social voting bot, to their users. Messenger has also included Swelly as one of its chat extension features. The Swell pad lets users vote for one of two images in the same category and then allows them to share their answers with friends in order to compare results. The bot, on the other hand, not only lets users vote for their preferred image but then instructs them on how they too can create their own “Swells.” In a “Swell,” a user can upload two images in a specific category and receive data regarding the votes the images received and which one was more popular. There’s no doubt that brands like Swelly are onto something. Users often need advice on what to wear and buy and will tend to trust like-minded or experienced consumers over people they know.

Marketers Can’t Afford to Pass up the Opportunity

If there’s one thing marketers should take from these examples, it’s the importance of investing in messaging apps. As social activity becomes more private, and one-to-one messaging begins to dominate the social media world, marketers are faced with an unbelievable opportunity. With everything they need at their fingertips, users trust in the platforms they are using will rise as well as their trust in the brands those platforms choose to work with.

Marketers, and in particular those who run social-based businesses, should consider turning to the likes of Viber and Messenger in order to have their service and brand added as a chat extension feature. By doing so they’ll be able to not only reach hundreds of millions of monthly active users (MAU) but will also keep users engaged on a platform that they’re already using. If marketers are looking for further reassurance as to why they should invest in messaging apps, data from 2016 has already shown that messaging apps have surpassed social networks in terms of monthly active user numbers, and that is something marketers can’t afford to ignore.

How have you incorporated chat into your marketing plan? What can you take from this blog to implement in your own strategy? I’d love to hear about your plans in the comments!

The post Should You Incorporate Chat Into Your Marketing Plan? appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

from Marketo Marketing Blog http://blog.marketo.com/2017/08/incorporate-chat-marketing-plan.html

16 Email Subject Lines You'll Probably Want to Click

I'd venture to guess you get tons of emails in your inbox every day.

From coupons, to daily deal sites, to newsletters, to password resets, to your mother wanting to know when you plan to visit -- it's a lot to sift through, never mind actually open.

So what makes you want to take that extra step to actually open an email? Often, it's the subject line. After all, it's your very first impression of the email -- and from it, you'll do your best to judge the content on the inside.

If you're an email marketer, or just someone who happens to send emails on behalf of your company, you don't want to be one of those ignored (or -- gasp -- deleted) emails in your subscribers' inboxes. You've got to make sure your email subject lines are top-notch -- and what better way to learn how to do that than by examining some great examples of subject lines? Let's take a look at what makes a great subject line, followed by a few examples that, old or new, we're crazy about.

What Makes the Best Email Subject Lines?

Before we dive into these fabulous examples, let’s look at what common elements you might find in a subject line. There were eight different components we found again and again in our top performing email subject lines:

1) Urgency

There's a phrase that, for many of us, is reminiscent of classic infomercials: "Act now!" And while we wouldn't encourage using that exact language in your content, we do agree that communicating urgency and scarcity in an email subject line can help compel readers to click (or act) -- when phrased creatively and strategically. But because you don't want to be known as "the brand that cried wolf," use these subject lines sparingly, and try to limit them to when the occasion genuinely calls for immediate action.

2) Curiosity

Sometimes, subject lines work because of their ability to send the message, "You will benefit from opening this email." But other times, it's good to maintain some sense of mystery -- especially if it pique's the recipient's natural curiosity and interest. Because they require opening the email to get more information, they can result in, well, a higher open rate. But make sure the subject line, while enigmatic, still aligns with your brand. Too obscure, and it could end up being seen as spam.

3) Offers

Here's where that benefit of opening a given email comes in. At the end of the day, people love new things and experiences -- especially when they come free, or at least discounted. Open with that by including it in your subject line. Personally, I'm much more inclined to open my daily newsletters when there's an offer of or allusion "free stuff" directly mentioned in my inbox.

4) Personalization

No two email subscribers are exactly the same -- and, sometimes, that means the emails you send them shouldn't be, either. At this point in time, marketers have never had more ways to learn about their subscribers' preferences, jobs, or general (dis)likes. So when you send them content, on occasion, make it catered toward the individual.

5) Relevance and Timeliness

When we subscribe to an email list, much of the time, it's because we want to be kept informed, or at least learn more about a given topic (more on that later). Similar to piquing your audience's curiosity, crafting email subject lines that incorporate trending topics or timely headlines can help you establish your brand as an authority within your industry -- and can compel people to click to read.

6) Name Recognition

Let's face it: We all have famous people who, at some point, we presently or previously have admired. And when you understand your audience's preferences and interests, you can pique their interest by including the names of this admired, recognizable individuals by including them in your content -- and mentioning them in your email subject lines. But take heed: This tactic really only works when it aligns with your brand, product, or service, so keep it relevant, rather than just throwing out a recognizable name for the sake of recognition.

7) Cool Stories

At risk of sounding like a broken record, here's another place where curiosity comes into play. By front-loading your email subject line with a compelling allusion to a story that the message tells -- but can only be read if opened or clicked -- your audience is like to become intrigued, and want to learn more. Again, make sure the story is relevant to your brand. Otherwise, it might just confuse your readers and prevent them from opening the email.

16 Email Subject Lines to Inspire Your Own

1) Warby Parker: "Uh-oh, your prescription is expiring"

Not too long ago, a HubSpot alum received this email two weeks before he needed to renew his prescription -- talk about great timing. And when you're eye prescription is expiring, it happens to be an excellent time to upgrade your glasses. By sending an email at the right time, Warby Parker increased its chances of this email getting opened.

But timing isn't the sole reason we included this example. This subject is brilliant because it appeared at the right time and with the right tone. Using conversational words like "uh-oh," keeping the subject line sentence case, and leaving out the period at the end, the subject line comes across as helpful and friendly -- not as a company trying to upsell you.

2) Groupon: "Best of Groupon: The Deals That Make Us Proud (Unlike Our Nephew, Steve)"

It's hard to be funny in your marketing, but Groupon's one of those brands that seems to nail it again and again. After all, who can for get this classic unsubscribe video?

This subject line is no exception. The quip, "(Unlike Our Nephew Steve)," actually had us laughing out loud. Why? It's completely unexpected. The first part of the subject line looks like a typical subject line you'd get from Groupon, highlighting a new deal. The parenthetical content? Not so much -- making this one a delightful gem to find in your inbox.

3) Clover: "👗 Free (Cool!) Clothes Alert 👖"

First of all, we have a not-so-secret love for emojis in email subject lines. Personally, I'm partial to turquoise -- so when I see an email implying that I might somehow be able to obtain a free turquoise dress, chances are, I'm clicking.

That's part of what makes this subject line work. It draws the recipients eye by using visual content (emojis), and it hints at an offer of something free. That hints at an incentive to open the email: There's a something to gain inside.

4) King Arthur Flour: "The timer’s going off on your cart!"

Similar to Warby Parker, this subject line makes use of urgency. If I don't take action on my King Arthur Flour shopping cart -- like actually buying them -- it will be cleared, and I'll have to start all over again.

Okay, so maybe this is a low-risk scenario. But when it comes to my baking goods, personally, I don't like to take any chances, or risk forgetting what I was going to buy. That's where the personalization aspect of this subject line comes in: King Arthur Flour -- especially its online shop -- tends to attract both professional and home bakers who take all things culinary a bit more seriously than, say, someone who only buys flour on occasion from the supermarket. And wouldn't you know? Those are the same bakers who probably don't want to spend time building their shopping carts from scratch.

The moral of the story: Know your audience when you're writing email subject lines. Is there something that they take seriously more than others? If so, incorporate that into your copy.

5) Manicube: "*Don't Open This Email*"

Ever been told to not do something? Being asked to refrain from something can actually have the opposite effect -- you now want to do that thing even more.

That's the strategy behind Manicube's subject line. It's a simple but effective way to make people curious enough to open your email. (Just be sure that the contents of your email actually have something worthy of that subject line.)

6) Refinery29: "I got Botox—& THIS is what it looked like"

Okay, so maybe your business doesn't involve Botox. But still -- are you intrigued? I am, and despite my better judgment, I clicked.

That's the power of leading your emails with a story: It sparks curiosity, which works in two ways. There are times when our natural curiosity can pique our interest without context, such as in the example above. But in this case, the subject line implies that there's an intriguing story ahead. Why the heck did this person get Botox? And what did it look like? As the saying goes, "Inquiring minds want to know."

Think of the stories behind your industry, and then, find ways to include them in email newsletters and frame them within the subject line in a way that piques your recipients' collective curiosity.

7) Zillow: "What Can You Afford?"

Imagine getting this subject line in your inbox from a website showing apartments for rent. It's both exciting and encouraging ("Here are a bunch of apartments right in your budget. Yay!"), but also kind of competitive -- pitting your cash against what the market offers. Would you click it? I certainly would.

Personalizing emails to cater to your audience's emotions -- for which there's a broad spectrum, when it comes to real estate -- is key to getting people to open your emails. You don't have to be a psychologist to know how to take advantage of them, either. In addition to principles like urgency, crafting an email subject line that implies scarcity is another great way to increase your conversion rates.

8) UncommonGoods: "As You Wish"

When writing emails, you should also think about the recognizable names and reference that make people tick. For example, take this subject line from UncommonGoods forwarded to us from HubSpot's Content Director, Corey Wainwright, who happens to be a die-hard fan of The Princess Bride. Apparently, "As You Wish" is a pretty big reference to that movie (I know, I know -- I need to watch it again), so when she saw this subject line in her inbox, she just HAD to click.

Even though she knew logically that the email was part of a larger-scale send, it almost seemed like it was tailored to be sent personally to her -- after all, why else would it include a reference to Princess Bride in the title?

UncommonGoods knows its buyer persona like the back of its metaphorical hand. While it may not send emails to individual subscribers with references to their favorite movies in the title, it does have a general understanding of its subscribers and their interests.

9) TechCrunch: "Google sees smartphone heroics in Oreo. It's The Daily Crunch."

If you're subscribed to a newsletter from a publication like TechCrunch, chances are, you signed up because you're either interested in or want to learn more about technology. To reflect that, the media outlet crafts its daily email roundups ("The Daily Crunch") with a subject line that reflects one of the latest, most compelling news items in the industry.

Here's the thing: Staying on the cutting edge is hard, especially with something that evolves as quickly as technology. So by writing email subject lines that reflect something that's recent and relevant, TechCrunch is signaling to email recipients that opening the message will help them stay informed and up-to-date on the latest industry news.

Think about the things that your audience struggles to keep up with -- then, craft an email roundup and matching subject line that reflects the latest news in that category.

10) Eater Boston: "Where to Drink Beer Right Now"

Okay, you caught me: I'm a beer lover. (One of the many reasons I like working at HubSpot.) But that's not what hooked me here. The subject line arrived in my inbox just at the time I needed it: at 6:45 on a Wednesday evening. Absolutely. Genius.

Think about it: You're just over hump day and want to decompress with a few coworkers after work. Right as you're about to head out, you get a notification on your phone that says, "Where to Drink Beer Right Now." Perfect timing makes this subject line something you can't help but click on.

For your own emails, think about how timing will affect how people perceive your emails. Even if you send an email in an off-peak hour, you could get higher engagement on your email -- if you have the right subject line.

11) BuzzFeed: "Not Cool, Guys"

Okay, we admit it: We love BuzzFeed. If nothing else, its staff knows how to write great copy -- and that sentiment includes an exceptional email marketing team. Many of my colleagues have signed up for BuzzFeed's daily emails, and pretty much any day of the week, they win for best subject line in their inboxes.

While there are a few of BuzzFeed's subject lines here and there that aren't anything to write home about, it's the combination of subject lines and the preview text that is golden. They're friendly, conversational, and, above all, snarky.

Here's the text that followed the subject line above: "Okay, WHO left the passive-aggressive sticky note on my fridge. Honestly, who acts like this?" That conversational tone and snark pull us in over and over again -- and it's the preview text that completes the experience for me.

We're not all equipped to be snarky writers, but most email platforms have the preview text easily available to edit. How can you use that little extra space to delight your customers (oh, and probably improve your email stats)? Maybe you could use the subject line as a question, and the preview text area as the answer. Or maybe it's a dialogue: The subject line is one person, and the preview text is another.

You get the idea. By using that space, you have more opportunities to attract new subscribers.

12) Thrillist: "DO NOT Commit These Instagram Atrocities"

No matter how humble people are, most don't like to do things wrong ... so why not play on that natural human tendency in an email subject line, especially if you're in the business of helping clients (or prospective clients) succeed? Thrillist certainly does in the subject line above, and it makes the language even more vibrant by using DO NOT -- a great takeaway for B2B marketers.

Instead of using the typical contraction "don't," Thrillist spells it out and adds the all-caps for effect. That way, you'll notice the subject line in your inbox, and then not, finder it harder to resist clicking on it.

Think about how going negative in your marketing might be a good thing. For example, many of us have anxiety about looking silly and stupid, so figure out how you can play to those emotions in subject lines. Of course, it's important to back up that subject line with encouraging, helpful content, so that you're not just ranting at people all day.

Getting negative can get your subscribers' attention -- this subject line certainly caught mine.

13) Buffer: "Buffer has been hacked - here is what's going on"

Next is a subject line from Buffer. Back in 2013, Buffer got hacked -- every tech company's worst nightmare. But Buffer handled it exceptionally well, especially on the email front.

What I admire about the subject line is that it's concise and direct. In a crisis, it's better to steer clear of puns. People want to see that you're not only taking the situation seriously, but also be reassured that the world isn't ending.

Because of the way the subject line is worded and formatted, you feel like Buffer is calm and collected about the issue, and is taking your personal safety into consideration. That's pretty hard to do in just a few words.

14) Copy Hackers: "Everything you wanted to know about email copy but were too afraid to ask"

Here's another great example of leveraging your audience's full plate to your email marketing advantage. Who hasn't refrained from asking a question out of fear of looking silly or out of the loop? Excuse me, while I sheepishly raise my hand.

" ... but were too afraid to ask" is one of those phrases that, to us, probably won't go out of style for a long time. People seek insights from Copy Hackers -- an organization dedicated to helping marketers and other professionals write better copy, as the name suggests -- because, well, they have questions. They want to improve. And when that audience is too afraid to ask those questions, here's Copy Hackers, ready to come to the rescue with answers.

What does your audience want to know, but might be too embarrassed to ask? Use that information to craft your content -- including your email subject lines.

15) Wag!: "🐶 Want a Custom Emoji of Tullamore & 6 Months FREE Walks? Book a Walk Today for Your Chance to Win!"

First of all: For reference, Tullamore is my dog.

Second: Another emoji for the win -- especially when it's a cute dog.

Here's a great example of how personalization goes beyond the email recipient's name. Wag!, an on-demand dog-walking app, includes the names of its customers' pets in a portion of its email subject lines. But this type of personalization is more than just a first-name basis. If there's anything I love more than free stuff and baking goods, it's my pup. Wag! knows that, and by mentioning Tullamore by name in the subject line -- in tandem with an offer, no less -- it catches my attention and piques my interest.

16) Quirky: "Abra-cord-abra! Yeah, we said it."

Last, but certainly not least, is this punny email subject line from Quirky. Yes -- we're suckers for puns, in the right situation.

What we like most about it is the second part: "Yeah, we said it." The pun in the beginning is great and all -- it refers to a new invention featured on Quirky's site to help everyday consumers detangle their numerous plugs and cords -- but the second sentence is conversational and self-referential. That's exactly what many of us would say after making a really cheesy joke in real life.

Many brands could stand to be more conversational and goofy in their emails. While it may not be appropriate to go as far as Quirky's subject line, being goofy might just be the way to delight your email recipients.

These are just some of our favorite subject lines -- and since we receive plenty of them, we'll continue adding the best ones as we discover them.

 

from Marketing https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/best-email-subject-lines-list