Conversion Hacks : Increasing the Open Rate

Last week, we touched on open rate as one of several tools that can be used to measure the effectivity of an electronic advertising campaign. This week we’ll take a look at how we can take a good email campaign, increase your open rate stats and eventually convert them into actual subscribers for the long haul.

According to the July 2012 Email Marketing Metrics Report issued by Mailer Mailer,

An open rate represents the number of people who opened an email. It is calculated by dividing the number of email messages opened by the number of messages delivered. The result is expressed as a percentage.

( % Open Rate = # of messages opened / # of messages delivered )

An open can be inferred if images are enabled or a link within the email is clicked. Images may be automatically enabled when an email is opened, especially if the recipient has chosen to display them for all emails from that sender.

However, more often than not, the recipient is prompted to enable images for each email. Since recipients may open the email but fail to enable images, this metric is somewhat inaccurate.

Nevertheless, open rate remains a useful gauge of email campaign performance.

A Standard or Normal Open Rate varies from industry to industry or by list size. According to the same report mentioned above, the industries that were among that scored the highest open rates in 2011 include:

Banking (16.8%), Non-Profit (16.1%), and Consulting and Small business (15.9%)

(source: mailermailer.com)

In another more extensive report, the 2013 Email Marketing Metrics Benchmark Study conducted by Silverpop, statistics show that consumer product emails scored the highest for open rates with a median of 25.4 percent unique open rate. You can find out more about this report on Silverpop.com.

What about the other industries? What can be done to increase their email open rates? If you are looking to improve your open rate, here are a few tips to follow:

It’s All About the Subject Line

FACT: Nothing happens until the email gets opened.

That’s why it is important to create compelling, effective, and actionable subject lines that make users want to open their emails. Good rules of thumb include asking a question, keeping subject lines under six words and using lowercase in all but the first word and proper nouns.

Test your subject lines. Here are some examples of proven subject lines:

  • Odd Numbers : Why He Paid Google 524,838.71.
  • Question Marks: ex. Google Made Me Slap Proof?
  • Percentages: ex. 99% of People Dieting Need to do This.
  • New Video, PDF, Pics, Video Blog Post
  • Free Report: ex. 7 Deadly S.E.O. Mistakes (free report)
  • Personal Pronouns: (you, your, et cetera)
  • Scarcity: ex. Third and Final Notice
  • Pique Curiosity / Confuse / Shock: ex. Kinda Weird But Very Profitable
  • Negative Subject Lines: ex. I Hate Technology
  • Borrowed Credibility: ex. Steve Jobs was Wrong!
  • Fill-in-the blank Subject Lines: ex. 7 Secrets of _____

Subject Line Sources to glean from

  • Reddit.com
  • Google suggest
  • Popurls.com

Knowing that your open rate exceeds the industry average doesn’t necessarily mean you are meeting your company’s most important business goals. The open rate metric is a useful tool but must be used in conjunction with other metrics in order to give you a realistic picture of your company’s performance. Used correctly, the data can help you calibrate your marketing efforts in order to strengthen areas that need to strengthened. Testing is constant in order to cement customer/prospect relationship, and eventually maximize conversions and revenue.

What Features Do YOU Look For In Premium WordPress Themes?

Your Opinion Matters!

Calling all WordPress users – How would you like to get $50 just for sharing with us what features you want your dream WordPress theme to have?

Simply let us know what features you look for in premium WordPress themes by leaving a comment in this post. We’ll pick THE BEST (most thorough and most detailed) comment and send the winner $50 via PayPal. You have through the end of May to contribute your thoughts. Leave your comments in the comments section and remember to use a valid email address when leaving your comment (your email will not be publicly displayed) for us to contact you in case YOU win.

Join the conversation today!

Save the Date! May 27, 2013 – A WorldWide WordPress Party

WordPress fans rejoice! WordPress is throwing a party this May 27, 2013 in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the first WordPress release AND you are all invited. This 24-hr worldwide celebration is powered by Meetup Everywhere and currently lists participants from over 200+ WordPress communities all around the globe.

Interested groups can register with Meetup, pick a place to meet (any place is the perfect place as long as there’s food, drinks, and cake!), invite other interested parties (tech guys, newbies, oldies, and WordPress fanatics) to join the event, and simply hangout with the rest of the world wide WordPress web. If your group reaches 50 or more, you might even get to receive cool WordPress freebies like stickers, buttons, and collectible swag packages. Commemorative 10th anniversary t-shirts are also available for purchase in the swag store. Grab yours today.

Photos, tweets, shoutouts, videos, and posts from all the parties will also be collected and posted on a website specifically for this event. For those waxing nostalgic, maybe you can share old WordPress memorabilia or interesting trivia and experiences you’ve had using WordPress, or even start a blogging marathon till the big day. Will your group be the biggest? the most creative? the most fun? There’s still time to get it together before the party gets started on May 27.

Don’t forget the hashtag! #wp10

Note from WordPress: If you already run a group on meetup.com, making your party an event in your group is great, but you still need to post it and have people RSVP at the special party page, because regular groups and Meetup Everywhere groups aren’t connected yet.

Traffic Analysis – The Open Rate

How many of you open your mailbox regularly and find it stuffed with all sorts of unsolicited mail? – flyers, brochures, leaflets, pre-approved credit cards, and all sorts of marketing materials from local or big companies offering you to buy, join, subscribe, or try. How many of these do you actually read? And how many go straight to the trash can or shredder even before you open it? Real time analysis is difficult to do when measuring the effectiveness of these physical marketing collaterals. There are two types of “open rates”- one for physical mail (aka snail mail via the USPS or other physical mail carrier) and one for electronic mail. In the case of email marketing, traffic analysis is more readily measurable. This means conclusions can be reached at a faster rate and corresponding actions to correct, arrest, or enhance results can be put in place as close to real time as possible.

What is Open Rate?

In email marketing, the open rate is the number of list subscribers who opened the email message. The open rate is a percentage of the total number of emails sent. (webopedia.com)

According to Wikipedia,

The email open rate is a measure primarily used by marketers as an indication of how many people “view” or “open” the commercial electronic mail they send out. It is most commonly expressed as a percentage and calculated by dividing the number of email messages opened by the total number of email messages sent excluding those that bounced (Open Rate=Email messages opened/Total no. email msgs sent).

The open rate of any given email can vary based on a number of variables. For example, the type of industry the email is being sent to. In addition, the day and time an email is scheduled or sent to recipients can have an effect on email open rate. The length of an email’s subject line can also affect whether or not it is opened.

The open rate for an email sent to multiple recipients is then most often calculated as the total number of “opened” emails, expressed as a percentage of the total number of emails sent or—more usually—delivered. The number delivered is itself measured as the number of emails sent out minus the number of bounces generated by those emails.

Many marketing experts question the sole use of the results generated from Open Rates tracking as an absolute measure of the effectiveness of a company’s email marketing campaign. A number of marketers use open rates as a relative measure in comparing the performances of emails sent to similar recipient groups, but at different times or with different subject headers. Perhaps it is safe to say that Open Rate is just one of the many marketing metrics that, when used in conjunction with other traffic analysis tools (Click Rate, Opt In Rate, Conversion Rate, Cart Abandon Rate, Upsell Take Rate, and Renewal/Reorder rate), can paint a clearer picture of how well your website is actually performing.

More on this next week.

WordPress Theme Clubs: 2013 Edition

If you’ve been around the WordPress community for quite some time, you surely are familiar with WordPress theme clubs, popular or otherwise, and how they work. For those just getting their feet wet regarding everything WordPress, check out our previous article, What is a WordPress Theme Club for a quick run through on theme club basics.

For the WordPress newbie, here are some of the more popular and still active WordPress Theme Clubs to explore.

Elegant Themes

Elegant Themes is one of the most popular WordPress theme clubs, with over 170,000 customers. They currently have more than 81 themes, releasing new themes regularly. Elegant Themes offers its members access to a variety of themes that range from portfolio themes, to business themes, to blogging/news themes, to eCommerce themes, to personal themes. Their themes have a distinct style that combines aesthetic and function seamlessly. Elegant Themes offers 3 different membership packages: Personal, Developer and Lifetime options with access to more than 81 themes, shortcodes, and other benefits.

StudioPress

The Genesis Framework and child themes by StudioPress have been around for quite some time as well. Founded by Brian Gardner (Copyblogger), StudioPress has been churning high quality coded WordPress themes for years. StudioPress is different from Elegant Themes in that they sell themes individually in addition to the club membership. With over 86,000 members and 43 themes for a one-time fee of $349.95 which includes lifetime access to all of the current StudioPress themes, all future themes, and updates to all themes as they become available.

ThemesKingdom

Themes Kingdom offers all of their themes (currently 47 themes), plus 1 plugin (Scebo, for a customer support system) for $50 per year. Members can use the themes on an unlimited number of domains, including on client websites. Themes Kingdom members get access to attractive themes in a wide variety of categories, including portfolio themes, business themes, blog themes, news themes, and more.

Organic Themes

Organic Themes was founded in 2009 by David Morgan and Jeff Milone and was developed as an expression of their personal lifestyles. Their design approach lean towards the more professional look sans the excessive flashy effects, gradients, drop shadows and other bells and whistles commonly seen in the web design world. They are committed to clean code, with just the right amount of theme options which translate into faster load times, setup and customization. Organic Themes offers a variety of premium WordPress themes for artists, businesses and bloggers.

ThemesTown

ThemesTown is one of the new kids on the block that’s worth watching. If their impressive and creative website design is a gauge of what can be expected from them, then there is much to look forward to. Right now, they are building up their depository of homegrown exclusive premium themes but while you are waiting, you can also check out their huge list of the best free WordPress themes that have been culled from what’s out there. Membership rate is pegged at $55 one-time fee, with no monthly dues and no future charges.

Commissioned Work or Commissioned Creative Vision?

Creative ownership has always been a controversial issue. Demarcation lines have been difficult to draw with the coming of the information or digital age. As far as WordPress themes go, a piece of work that emanates from the WordPress author, known as the creator or artist, and transferred to the recipient often identified as client, becomes an arduous task because the artist is oftentimes unable to remove or distance himself from the work of “art” even if it has long left his hands.

For example, a WordPress developer or professional, commissioned to work on a project and whose work has been accepted by the client has intrinsically turned over all rights to his design and has received remuneration for it. In essence, the client now owns the work. However, the designer is still credited to the public eye and both are at the mercy of the terms and stipulations of the legal contract between them.

The coming of the internet/digital age has birthed governing rules such as Creative Commons or GPL where artists openly share the rights to their work to the public under specific licenses or terms of use thus complicating further the very delineations that are supposed to protect the interest of the artist. But where do you draw the line? In the eyes of the WordPress author, the output can be treated as artistic and creative output while to the client, the full rights to the use of the output, specifically, the WordPress theme created, belong to the latter once money is exchanged.

Discussions continue to be controversial. Schools train and teach multi media students how to treat their work and how to avoid exploitation or unjust use of their artistic output. But this is not so in the “real world” marketplace where copying is a “generally accepted” practice. It is not uncommon for a best-selling WordPress theme to birth clones and spin-offs of some sort in a matter of days. How do we address the idealism of upcoming authors and developers who are scared that their designs might get ripped off? The exposure and professional experience of seasoned web developers have given them the wisdom and resilience to cope with these real world ripoff concerns. But this should not discourage those who are can add to the pool of creativity because of fear.

Thankfully, there are many mentors within the WordPress community who are willing to give back to the community and pay it forward to those who are just starting. The dialog is also always ongoing. This is perhaps what makes the whole WordPress community strong and what makes its members continue to thrive.

Photography WordPress Themes Roundup for April 2013

Here are a few of our current picks for awesome photography themes for 2013:

Modelish

Modelish is a unique modern HTML5+LESS fully responsive WordPress theme for presenting artwork or photography. This full-width photography/portfolio styled theme is also versatile enough to be used for any type of business as well. The stylish, yet clean and professional design is optimized with mobile first techniques and retina display support. Add some style and modern flair to your website with its customizable system that makes it easy to adapt to your favorite colors, fonts and style preferences.

Keres Full Screen Photography Theme

Keres is a cool fullscreen responsive WordPress theme built for a photography or portfolio website. It comes with many cool features like multiple slideshows (fullscreen Slideshow, Ken Burns Slideshow), a unique Image Flow Gallery, Skin manager, fullscreen Contact Map, fullscreen Youtube and Vimeo Video. This theme includes customizable elements (color, font, background image) with 50+ advanced shortcodes and a Shortcode Generator support to create the portfolio style you really want.

Photojax Minimalist Ajax Photography Portfolio

Photojax is a clean and minimal, grid styled WordPress photography theme. This sleek and modern theme features two color skins, beautiful galleries using the premium Royal Slider plugin ($20 value), an audio player, and a minimal blog (all you’ll need for a great photography portfolio). Although designed for photographers it can be a great theme for graphic designers, architects, and anyone else with an image based portfolio.

Sniper Premium Photography

Sniper is a sleek and powerful premium responsive + liquid WordPress theme built for photographers, creative agencies or portfolio website. All elements of this theme are liquid which makes it ideal for smartphone and mobile devices. This modern WordPress theme’s dynamic navigation system makes it fun and interesting to explore your website – from dropdown menus to toggled pages, everything is full of surprises.

Smarald

Smarald is an incredibly unique, highly interactive, retina ready, responsive WordPress Portfolio theme, suitable for all sorts of creatives, agencies and even blogs. Whether you want to showcase your work in a beautiful way, share your articles with your readers, or just to have a great interactive website for your agency, this premium theme is the perfect solution for you.

More Traffic And Conversion Tips

Nobody wants to get stuck in traffic. People hate traffic unless it’s the kind of traffic that you get on your website. The fundamental objective of every business online is to grow and maintain their business. That’s why directing traffic to their website and building a large subscriber list of people who will eventually become loyal paying customers should be the main focus point in order to earn money online successfully.

Here are some more tips to help you achieve that:

Solo Ad Traffic:

  • There are 2 types of paid traffic: fixed cost and performance based. If you are doing fixed cost, make sure you get as much out the ad spend as possible.
  • If you have a landing page, create a curiosity headline to generate interest.
  • Buy other people’s exit pop traffic.
  • Put Solo Ad in other people’s follow up series.
  • When sending email, change the “From” line from the name the subscriber list normally expects to a new name. Be creative.

Viral Traffic:

  • Best traffic is endorsed traffic
  • Incentivized viral promotion – give something away for free, then offer them incentives (cash or kind) to give it away to their friends.
  • Viral poster

Guerilla Traffic

  • Use Facebook promoted posts
  • Test ads to find the best headlines
  • Before/after posts are great marketing tools. They should have the same offer or social proof for people to see.
  • Landing pages that are funny work.
  • Add “Report spam” / “Unsubscribe” link to the top of your emails. This gets complainers off your email listing fast.
  • If you are sending daily emails, give your subscribers the option to send them a weekly digest.

We hope you find these tips useful and that you would put them to use on your websites. If you do, let us know. We’d love to hear your success stories.

40 Impressive Selective Color Photography Examples

Selective color helps photographers to produce beautiful and interesting images. Using photo editing software we can change some of the areas to black and white, while other areas remain colorful making photos more vibrant. Using selective color, we can make ordinary quality images to extraordinary high-quality images. Desaturating and masking color photos is mainly used in this process.

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