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unixcommerce · 4 years

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Patrick Knight of Adobe: 57% of Parents Feel Closer to Coworkers Now Despite Working from Home

This week Adobe released a US-based study of one thousand currently employed people who usually work in an office setting to see how they are working during the COVID-19 pandemic. Among some of the findings include:

Zoom fatigue is real – Only 33% of workers surveyed feel video conferencing is as productive as in-person meetings and another 34% say they’re starting to experience video conference fatigue. Instead, 78% of workers are using email to connect with colleagues, while 56% prefer making phone calls.

Distance makes relationships grow stronger – 42% of workers feel they know their colleagues better now vs. when they were in the office. Of this group, a whopping 60% of parents admitted to feeling closer to fellow parent-colleagues as they bond over homeschooling their kids and adjusting to working life as stay-at-home-working-parent.

Work/life balance is more critical than ever as workers decrease the number of minutes a day they check email by 10% (352 in 2019 down to 315 in 2020.) To keep the work/life separation, 53% of workers are waiting until they officially start the workday to check email (compared to 48% in 2019)

Interview with Patrick Knight of Adobe on Changing Work Behaviors

To dig in more to the study I had an opportunity to speak with Patrick Knight, Sr. Deliverability Consultant at Adobe, to get more takeaways and insights from the study. Click on the embedded SoundCloud player below to hear the full discussion.

smallbiztrends · Patrick Knight of Adobe: 57% of parents feel closer to coworkers now despite working from home

Below is an edited transcript of a portion of our conversation.

Small Business Trends: Interesting to see that so many people feel they are more productive working from home than they were going into the office.

Patrick Knight: You’re right, 73% of parents feel that they are equally, if not more productive working from home. And the reason for that is flexible schedules, right? It’s the primary reason. They feel that they can balance their life a little bit better. So for example, you can put the younger children down and maybe it’s nap time and then you can schedule your workload there. Or maybe after dinner, or maybe a little bit earlier before the kids wake up.

It forces you to have more control over things there. And when you’re in the office, you don’t have too much of that because of other things like commuting and so on and so forth. So yeah, having that flexibility is great. And then in turn, you can then have that time with your family and children and so on and so forth. So it’s really about that work-life balance that you can really take more advantage of versus being in an actual location.

Small Business Trends: And even though we’re Zooming all the time now and using instant messaging apps, email and phone are by far the most popular communication channels for work.

Patrick Knight: Why is email so high? The first thing is that email is a communication channel that’s not an on-demand type of video conferencing. And just as a sidebar, there was a time where marketers felt that email was not going to be the communication channel anymore. But in the deliverability world, we knew that email would always stand strong. So they felt that SMS may take over instant messaging and other media.

However, we see that email is on top. And the reason why is because instant messaging and other forms of communication tend to be more interrupting, more intrusive. So if you think about that Slack conversation, that conversation may never end and you cannot be productive with that. It’s like the same for on-demand video conferencing.

With email, it gives you more control over your schedule, your time checking your email and when you respond. So this also allows you to get more done versus being on these calls. You ever had a video conference call or even an in-person conference that could have been handled with email? But because it’s so easy to push that button and say, “Well, I can get this person on my screen. They use it.”

So additionally or secondary, the phone communication also has that same effect. So this is the reason why you’re seeing email so high and you’re seeing the correlating information here between the video conferencing and email and why it’s a communication method that’s more preferred and you’re seeing it more.

Small Business Trends: Do you think if you did this survey a couple of months from now, that number for “Zoom Fatigue” would be significantly higher at this point?

Patrick Knight: Absolutely, because I think again, we’re going back to these… I think we already abuse meetings in general. Now we’re just going to take it to a whole other level. And then on top of that, we’re still stuck inside. So we’re going to have more of these meetings. And I would think that number would shoot up if not even maybe another 40% in the next few months because of where we are today.

Small Business Trends: One of the more interesting findings was that doing web conferencing meetings seems to be making coworkers feel like they know each other even better than they did when they were doing face-to-face meetings.

Patrick Knight: Yeah, absolutely. I thought this was interesting as well. And this made perfect sense to me. So nearly half of American workers say they know their coworkers better than when they were in the office. Then nearly 60% of parents reported feeling closer to their colleagues as they bond over things such as homeschooling children, adjusting work schedules due to lack of childcare, even occasional guest appearances of those pets or children or someone’s running across the screen. Sometimes a cat may… I’ve seen it where, it was on a call with a client the other day, and their cat just came right on in and just started touching the screen and everything else.

And then you also see the background of your office because it gives you more of a understanding of who that person is. You see people every day at work. You hear about the children, you hear about pets, you hear about what their interests are, but seeing it, which is another means of sensory that is pretty powerful, sight, that brings that bond together. And that’s the reason why it’s actually not surprising to me to see the numbers and results that we have so far.

Small Business Trends: And maybe this helps to explain this a stat that says 93% of folks surveyed say they feel brands were striking the right tone with their email communications during the pandemic, because, quite honestly, when I was looking at this the first time around, I was like, “Are you kidding me? 93% feel like brands are hitting it out of the park on the messaging?” But you have a theory for why this is the case.

Patrick Knight: Absolutely. So, yeah, we can see clearly that 93% of consumers feel that most brands were striking the right tone with emails, especially when we talk about COVID and despite the increase of focus on COVID from brands related to safety. That was a large percentage of it, just COVID-related emails in general.

Brands understand that connection means everything when it comes to their consumers, especially through email. Because email is a… It’s a conversation. I always say that email is a two-way conversation. So if you’re just sending out information and you’re not really relating or targeting or creating really relevant content, email is pointless. So I think with COVID it was very relevant for everyone. So hence the reason why I think they are really sending out the right communication, we care, we understand and we’re here for you.

Now, what’s interesting is that 66% of those consumers, they still want the email offers. Thank you for telling me about COVID, thank you for understanding and now I want to engage more because of the fact that you care and we’re trapped at home. Everyone’s buying online. So they want to receive those offers from those brands and they want to understand exactly what those discounts look like. Because I can tell you right now, most of the companies that have an online presence, they’re doing amazing because of the fact everyone’s ordering something. I have to tell my wife, “Stop ordering from Amazon. Stop it!”

You just want to hit that button and literally every day somebody comes here. My doorbell rings and there’s a package and it’s just not my household. I’ve spoken to many. And because the brick and mortar is going away for right now, the email really is what drives traffic to a website. So if you get an email about an offer that is relevant and it’s engaging, then that’s going to just drive that customer to your website, where they’re going to purchase and purchase and purchase.

I can tell you, I have had countless conversations during even freelance, I did freelance Livability for a while, and every client that I would talk to, even now, engagement is important. Engagement drives something called email reputation. And so if your reputation is actually really good, your chances of you reaching the subscriber, it’s their inbox, not their spam folder, it’s a heightened situation there. So I absolutely agree that they should continue with the same enthusiasm, the same strategy, the same energy that they have now. And that, in itself, will drive the traffic and the revenue that they want.

Now, them going back to the old ways, I think that because they’re seeing such great responses, I think more and more people are going to understand why engagement matters, why reputation matters, why they need to keep sending those very well thought out emails versus the batch-and-blast method, which previously was the thing to do before COVID. So once we start seeing the results of things, this is the direction I think, or hope, people will take.

But that will be up to everyone else to see. I can tell you that there’s great learnings here, but it’s really going to depend on the individual. And just as a thought again with that, I recommend always engage. Whatever you’re doing now, continue because this is what’s going to keep your brand alive. This is what’s going to build the trust with a subscriber and your customers. This is what’s going to drive conversions and open rates. And that’s where the meat is. That’s exactly where you want to be.

CHECK OUT MORE:

One-on-one Interviews

This article, “Patrick Knight of Adobe: 57% of Parents Feel Closer to Coworkers Now Despite Working from Home” was first published on Small Business Trends

https://smallbiztrends.com/

The post Patrick Knight of Adobe: 57% of Parents Feel Closer to Coworkers Now Despite Working from Home appeared first on Unix Commerce.

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stripedigital · 4 years

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Ecommerce Email Marketing Tips and Tricks to Increase Your ROI

Does your inbox ever look like this?

You probably get tons of ecommerce emails every day. They flood your inbox and sometimes overcrowd it until you go on a rampage of deleting hundreds of them at a time. You may open some of them or all of them or none of them. If you are on the ecommerce email marketing side of the road, you will need to create emails that captivate consumers and convince them to make a purchase.

With so many emails coming and going from potential customers’ inboxes how do you stand out from the crowd? We are going to let you in on some secret ecommerce email marketing strategies and tips that will increase your ROI and grow your business!

Why use ecommerce email marketing for your business?

Email marketing is the second most effective marketing channel after search engine marketing. It’s a way of directly marketing to your potential customers that is much easier and more effective than the traditional marketing alternative – aka sending mailers.

What comes to mind when you think about ecommerce email marketing? Gaining leads, closing sales and retaining customers are probably a few goals you have in mind. All of this can be accomplished with email!

Here are our top strategies that will bring in customers and keep them coming back for more. You may have heard of some or all of these, but we are going to tell you how to best apply them to your ecommerce business.

Subject lines

You only have one chance to get subscribers to open your emails and that begins and ends with your subject line. You want subscribers to click so they can enjoy your amazing content! Strike a balance between catchy and salesy. Would you open an email with the subject line that says “20% off”? What about this email from Pottery Barn?

Not only have they made their discount seem exclusive they have also included relative content.

Another way to increase your open rates is to create a sense of urgency with your subject lines, Make your offers time sensitive. Subscribers will feel pressured to get the deal before it’s gone! Use phrases like “hours left” “hurry up” or “last chance” in your sale subject lines so that customers will feel like they have to act quickly. This subject line from 1800PetMeds gives a sense of urgency as well as some added mystery. The user doesn’t know exactly what the email is going to be about or what offer they will receive.

Subject lines should grab a subscribers attention and stand out from other emails in their inbox. If you are not excited about your subject line, change it. It should make you curious about what’s inside. If you’re not sure how to write one check out our email subject line best practices and hacks to boost open rates.

Welcome automations

When a customer lands on your website for the first time you need to have a popup or some way to get them to voluntarily give you their email address. Blue Bottle Coffee puts theirs at the top of their webpage before their content. This way users aren’t bothered by a popup when they are mid scroll and it’s the first thing a users sees when they land on their homepage!

Once you have their email, funnel them in to a welcome automation. There are three main components. Say hi, offer a coupon and provide value. Tell your new subscribers why they should continue to want to receive emails from your company.

Below is Blue Bottle’s first email in their welcome series. This email is simple and adds value by telling the subscriber a little bit about the company and what they believe in. They also let you know that you can sign up for a free trial to make sure you like it before you commit. Their call to action is big, bold and visible. It’s clear what they want you to do next, buy a coffee subscription.

Segmentation

Dividing your audience into groups can help increase your email open rates, build better relationships with your customers and put the right products in front of the right people. List segmentation allows you to control who sees what. You will be able to send emails to people who have already made a purchase and people who haven’t. Or even people who have purchased a specific product on your site. You can also segment by which landing page subscribers use to give you their information. Breaking up your audience into groups allows you to easily target the right people.

For example, let’s say you have two products – rollerblades and skateboards. Your email list is segmented by each category. You can easily send other products and quality content to people who are interested in skateboarding. This is an example of segmentation on a very basic level. It can be as complex as you want it to be. But the more segmented your audience is the higher your open and click through rates could be. This also means more sales if you correctly market your products.

Wording

With ecommerce email marketing you need to be writing copy that converts and engages your subscribers. After all you are trying to sell your products. Use power words in your emails like “Best-selling” “Sensational” or “New and Improved”. Substitute these words for boring copy and watch your click through rates soar. By using these words you are making your products more appealing.

When people read a subject line that says “10 ecommerce email marketing statistics” vs “10 jaw dropping ecommerce email marketing statistics” which one do you think they will click? By adding one adjective it changes the vibe of the subject dramatically. You can always run an A/B split test to see how power words can influence your open and click through rates.

Don’t just tell subscribers about your product. Tell them how they will feel when they use or wear your product. How will it benefit them and make their lives easier? Wording your copy like this can have a huge impact on people.

Instead of saying “Buy this new pair of sunglasses” sell subscribers on the feeling they will get when wearing your sunglasses like this – “You will look cool, smart and feel empowered when wearing our new and improved shades.” See the difference it makes?

Something else to be aware of with wording is what you call your email subscribers. If you call them something other than subscribers like VIPs this can make them feel like you are talking to them individually and adds the element of exclusivity.

Priceline has great wording in their welcome email. They offer a coupon and tell you that by just getting one of their emails you can save money. They also call subscribers “email insiders” and make them feel like they are a part of an exclusive club.

Appeal to your audience

Who is your audience? Are they younger, older or somewhere in between? What words resonate with them? It is so important in ecommerce email marketing to appeal to your audience and use lingo that makes sense to them. If you as a business owner are using words that they understand, your audience will feel closer to you and be more inclined to buy.

Macy’s sent an email with the subject line “No FOMO here.” Imagine if they had sent this to people who didn’t know what FOMO is (in case you are one of them FOMO=Fear of missing out). Clearly their target audience is the younger generation who are constantly abbreviating and coming up with new words and phrases.

When you use a subject line that resonates with your audience, then your subscribers will be more inclined to open it. After all you’re speaking their language!

Personalization

When you personalize your emails you make customers feel special. And it can be a great way to grab their attention. What can you personalize in ecommerce email marketing?

Personalization doesn’t have to be all about using customer’s names. It can start with your subject line and copy. And go well beyond that to making product recommendations or showing customers their nearest store location.

Williams Sonoma is a company that sells kitchenware. Their email starts off with the subject line “10 Things You Didn’t Know Your KitchenAid Could Do”. The customer is already hooked wanting to know what else their new KitchenAid mixer can do. The email involves coupons, a video about things your KitchenAid can do along with some special offer discounts!

One of the best components of this email is that they personalize it by including a section of products the customer might like as well as their nearest brick and mortar store location. This is convenient for the customer in case they want to go to the store to check out the products in person. It’s also nice to see products that you are interested in. It feels like the company knows you on a personal level.

There’s a fine line between too much personalization and too little. If you’re concerned you aren’t striking that balance let our email marketing experts know!

Retargeting with abandoned cart emails

In ecommerce email marketing abandoned cart emails are a must because the average cart abandonment rate is an alarming 74%! This can be a huge loss for your business. But don’t worry. If someone is shopping on your site and navigates away or gets distracted and does not make a purchase, you can still convince them to buy your products.

If you are not sold on using abandoned cart emails think about it like this. A customer is shopping on your website and decided that they are interested enough in an item to add it to their cart. The hard part is over. They’re already so close to converting! Using retargeting will remind them that at one point they really liked that item. It’s a sign that they should go back and make a purchase.

When structuring your abandoned cart emails make sure you don’t come off as demanding. Abandoned cart emails are a friendly nudge to get the customer to come back. Include photos of the products that are in the customer’s cart as well as a strong call to action. You can even offer a discount to get them to make a purchase.

This abandoned cart email from Casper checks all the boxes. There’s a strong intro that reads “Come back to bed” as well as a photo of the product that has been abandoned. And they included a call to action button to continue shopping. They have also included a review to further convince the customer that they should make a purchase.

Order Confirmation and Delivery Automations

If you are shipping a product to your customers then confirmation and delivery automations are essential to your ecommerce email marketing strategy. These emails keep customers updated on the status of their order and provide details of what they purchased. Sending these types of automations can help build trust with your customers and keep them worry free about their orders. These two emails give the customer a receipt for their order as well as let them know that their package has shipped!

You can also use these emails to promote other products the customer might like. When sending the final email in your delivery sequence, offer additional products that are similar to the product your customer has just purchased. Don’t pass up the opportunity to get a sale!

Remember, transparency builds trust so make sure that you are transparent every step of the way. If there is an issue with their order, let customers know and they will be more likely to shop with you in the future.

Offer Discounts

Of course you want people to buy your product so you will probably want to offer discounts to your loyal subscribers. 63% of subscribers open emails that contain discounts. While this is a large percentage you will need to be careful here. Not every email should include a discount.

Coupons are like a special occasion for customers. You must give them enough to keep coming back but not too many or they will come to expect a coupon every single time they receive an email. They may even stop opening your emails if they know each one contains a discount.

Even if you have the funds to give every subscriber a weekly discount code, you shouldn’t. Imagine getting a coupon every day from the same company. Do you need to buy something every day? Probably not. It gets old quick.

Instead of sending a coupon every day, create a “special discount just for you” email. This will keep your customers engaged and excited when they receive a coupon from your business! In between quality content Backcountry lets their subscribers know about sales and discounts that they are eligible for.

Pro Tip: Focus on creating good content in between sending out coupons to your customers. Not only does this keep your subscribers engaged but it can also increase your rankings in Google search. You want your subscribers to choose your business over and over again so produce content that they actually want to read. This email from the Kitchen gives readers a snippet of what this article is about and encourages them to continue onto their site to read more. By clicking through to their website you help them with their SEO. The more time you spend reading this article the higher search engines will rank it.

Use a double opt in

Maybe you received subscribers emails through a purchase they made, an app (if you have one) or for whatever reason they didn’t explicitly subscribe to sign up to receive newsletter or promotion emails from you. Make sure your subscribers actually want to subscribe. This can be done with what’s called a double opt in. It gives users two chances to agree to receiving emails from you so that you can make sure they actually want to be on your email list.

Why should you care so much?

If you email people who don’t want to be emailed, they could mark you as spam. Not only does this cause you to lose subscribers it can also hurt your deliverability. When someone marks you as spam it sends a signal to your email server. The next time you send an email you could have issues with it being delivered.

Want to make sure you avoid this? Make it easy to unsubscribe from your emails. Don’t hide your unsubscribe button. If users can easily unsubscribe they will be less likely to mark you as spam.

You should also be growing your email list organically. This means absolutely no list buying. You want your emails to be sent to interested subscribers who will actually open and click through.

Vivino is an app that emailed its users to double check and ask them if they would like to subscribe to their emails. They give a short synopsis of what their company will do for subscribers and what kind of emails they can expect. They can easily confirm their subscription with one click! If you use a double opt in method make sure that it is easy for people to subscribe. You could even offer a yes or no option.

Photos

If you are selling a product, high quality photos are key in driving subscribers to make a purchase! Visual content marketing can say things that words might not be able to. It’s a way to show your customers instead of telling them.

You want to highlight your products with visually appealing and scenic photos. Pottery Barn has beautiful lifestyle photos of their products that help subscribers to imagine what their home could look like if they shop there. In this email they tell customers to design their dream bedroom.

Now, imagine if you just had the text that is over the photo and no photo. You wouldn’t be able to imagine your new bedroom. Instead they have included a photo of a bedroom complete with paintings, lamps, plants and more to show customers their products.

Ask for reviews

Feedback is one of the most valuable components in ecommerce email marketing. Since 92% of consumers read online reviews and make judgements from them, it’s crucial that your business has online reviews. Receiving product reviews can also help you update or redesign your product or process if needed. Learn how to ask for reviews. Tell subscribers that their opinion is valued and it’s important for your business to grow.

Make it easy for people to give you a review. Either put the review directly in your email or link to an online review site. If it’s too difficult to figure out, your subscribers won’t do it! This email from Pet Ninja has the review directly in the email. The review is quick and simple complete with a star rating. They give the subscriber space to write something if they wish but it’s not required.

Ecommerce email marketing should not be all about selling your product. It’s about building trust and relationships with your customers. Leverage emails to get reviews, improve your SEO and show your customers what your brand is all about. Crafting the perfect email for your business, segmenting your lists, and making sure your copy resonates with your audience can take time off of your hands. Spend time focusing on building your business while our professionals at LYFE Marketing handle all of your ecommerce email marketing. We are skilled in building automations, newsletters, and campaigns that build trust and convert! Contact us now to get started.

Do you have more ecommerce email marketing ideas that we didn’t cover? We’d love to hear them! Share them with us in the comments below.

The post Ecommerce Email Marketing Tips and Tricks to Increase Your ROI appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog.

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unixcommerce · 4 years

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Patrick Knight of Adobe: 57% of Parents Feel Closer to Coworkers Now Despite Working from Home

Interview with Patrick Knight of Adobe on Changing Work Behaviors

smallbiztrends · Patrick Knight of Adobe: 57% of parents feel closer to coworkers now despite working from home

Below is an edited transcript of a portion of our conversation.

Small Business Trends: Interesting to see that so many people feel they are more productive working from home than they were going into the office.

Small Business Trends: And even though we’re Zooming all the time now and using instant messaging apps, email and phone are by far the most popular communication channels for work.

Small Business Trends: Do you think if you did this survey a couple of months from now, that number for “Zoom Fatigue” would be significantly higher at this point?

CHECK OUT MORE:

One-on-one Interviews

This article, “Patrick Knight of Adobe: 57% of Parents Feel Closer to Coworkers Now Despite Working from Home” was first published on Small Business Trends

https://smallbiztrends.com/

The post Patrick Knight of Adobe: 57% of Parents Feel Closer to Coworkers Now Despite Working from Home appeared first on Unix Commerce.

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#IFTTT #WordPress

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