How to Generate Sales With Welcome Emails

Email marketing is alive and thriving more than ever. 80% of marketing professionals name email as the top driving factor of customer acquisition and customer retention. And it’s got a great ROI: For every $1 spent on email, you can expect an average of $38 in return.

It doesn’t matter if you’re growing your first email list from scratch or adding new subscribers to your existing list, you need be sending out welcome emails.  

At their simplest, welcome emails confirm that a new subscriber was added to your list.

If you’re only using this message for that purpose, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to make money. Compared to other promotional emails, welcome messages generate an average of 320% more revenue.

Furthermore, customers who buy products from email campaigns spend 138% more than customers who haven’t subscribed to your list.

Stop missing out on your opportunity to make money with welcome emails. This article will tell what you need to do to drive sales directly with these campaigns.

Use a double opt-in strategy

Lots of businesses use a single opt-in strategy. With this method, a new subscriber submits their email address and automatically gets added to your list. That’s it.

But there are a few problems with this method.

If you’re not using a double opt-in, it’s possible that customers think they signed up for your emails but actually didn’t. Maybe they misspelled their email address — they’ll never know.

On the flip side, a new subscriber could also sign up by mistake, thinking that they’re submitting the email address for another reason.

In this case, you’re going to be emailing people who don’t want to receive your promotional content, and not emailing the people who do want to receive it.

The double opt-in strategy eliminates these problems. That’s why the majority of welcome emails are double opt-in.

Without a double opt-in strategy, you’ll also end up with fake email addresses and spam accounts on your list. This will throw off your metrics. A huge list of email subscribers won’t do you any good if they aren’t qualified leads who are ready to buy.

When you force new subscribers to confirm their subscription to your email list, it increases their lead score.

Sure, it’s an extra step, and you may lose some subscribers as a result. However, the people who follow through with the double opt-in genuinely want to receive your promotional content. As a result, it’s much more likely that they’re willing to spend money.

It’s also worth noting that double opt-in messages have higher unique open rates than single opt-in campaigns.

We already talked about the fact that welcome emails have higher open rates than other types of emails. By using a double opt-in strategy, you can increase those open rates even more.

Opening the email is the first step in subscribers completing the end-goal action: making a purchase.

Send welcome emails immediately

The timing of your welcome message is crucial. As soon as someone signs up, the welcome email needs to be sent.

Some companies wait and batch out all of their welcome emails for the week at the same time, but that’s not as effective. Here’s why: Your new subscriber was just on your website and signed up to receive your email content because of some benefit that you’re offering, so your brand is fresh on their mind.

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to make a sale. This new subscriber is definitely more likely to buy something if the message is sent in real-time.

Just look at transaction rates for real-time welcomes compared to batched emails.

Furthermore, real-time welcome emails have an 88% open rate compared to just 53% of bulk welcome emails.

Though 29% of people click on the CTA of welcome emails that are sent immediately, only 12% of subscribers click on CTAs that are sent in bulk welcomes.

If you’re not sending a welcome email within seconds of the person subscribing, you’re lowering the chances of that customer making a purchase.

Thank your new subscribers

By thanking your customers for signing up to receive promotional content from your company, it shows that you appreciate them. Here’s an example of this strategy used by Kate Spade.

Saying thank you is just good manners. Even though they haven’t bought something yet, you can still thank them for having enough interest in your brand to subscribe to your email list.

Saying thank you can be more beneficial than you think. That’s why you need to nurture your leads with thank you pages. Take this same strategy and apply it to your welcome email.

Set a precedent for relevant content

Your welcome emails should be a good indication of what consumers can expect from you moving forward.

Tell your customers how often they’ll get emails from you, and what kind of messages they’ll be receiving. Make sure you follow through with that promise.

For example, if someone signs up for a monthly newsletter, don’t send them an email every day. That’s not what they asked for.

In fact, too many irrelevant emails from brands is the top reason why people unsubscribe from email lists.

The last thing you want to do is bother a new subscriber with too many messages. You just went through all of the trouble and effort to get them to sign up in the first place. All of that hard work goes out the window if they unsubscribe.

To learn more, here’s how to get more email subscribers without annoying your customers.

Start a drip campaign

Welcome emails should be the first message of a drip campaign, which is a series of emails that entice an action. Ultimately, you want your subscribers to buy.

Drip campaigns nurture your leads by sending them timely information. As soon as someone signs up, you can have them automatically entered into a drip cycle.

After the welcome email, they’ll receive subsequent emails spaced out over the coming weeks, or however you set it up.

Here’s an example path of what a drip campaign will look like:

The great part about a drip campaign is that the customer doesn’t need to buy something right away in order for the message to be effective.

While you definitely want to create an actionable drip campaign, it’s not the end of the world if that first message doesn’t result in a conversion. You can still plant the seed for a future purchase.

After all, this new subscriber just signed up to receive your emails. Depending on the circumstances, they may not be familiar with your brand, products, and services just yet. But as these subscribers continue to receive subsequent messages throughout the drip campaign, it will increase the chances that they’ll buy something down the road.

Provide valuable information

To get the most out of your email campaigns, you need to understand why people are signing up in the first place.

It’s a common misconception that people only join email lists to get a discount. While that’s definitely a motivating factor, there are other reasons why people sign up for promotional content from your brand. Your welcome letter needs to provide all of this to be most effective.

As you can see, receiving a special offer or a gift ranked third on this list. The majority of people say they subscribe to newsletters to learn more about topics and stay up to date on new content. It’s still worth giving a discount to new subscribers, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be your top priority.

You can also keep them engaged by giving a new subscriber an added benefit that they wouldn’t have received if they didn’t sign up for emails. Talk about new or exclusive product releases. Give them an opportunity to create an account to benefit from a more personalized customer experience.

Offer an incentive to buy

Even though it isn’t first on the list of reasons, getting a gift or something in return is still one of the top three reasons why people sign up for emails. And, offering a discount is a great way to get people to sign up for emails in the first place.

Let’s look at an example from Freemans:

By signing up for emails, this welcome message gives the new subscriber 10% off of their purchase. In addition to providing a discount, this message thanks the new subscriber for signing up. It’s personalized with her name. It also gives a sense of inside information with phrases like, “Be the first to hear” and “Here’s all you need to know.” All of these tactics used in one message will definitely increase the chances that a customer will make a purchase.

Send personalized content

People don’t want to feel like they are just a number on your list, when in reality, that may actually be the case. If you’re sending out generic welcome emails with opening lines like “Dear Sir or Madam,” it’s not going to convey the personalized touch that you want to offer.

Start simple by personalizing the subject line.

Getting your new subscribers to open your message is half of the battle. Obviously, nobody is going to buy anything if the message goes unopened. Good news: personalized subject lines have higher open rates.

However, opening the message alone won’t automatically translate to a sale. You need people to engage with your messages as well. The best way to do this is by providing interactive content. For example, adding a video to your welcome email can increase clicks by 300%.

It’s also worth noting that 64% of people are more likely to buy something online after watching a video about a product. By combining engaging content with a personalized message, your welcome emails will have a greater chance of driving sales.

Encourage customer referrals

Welcome emails can be used to get even more people to subscribe to your list. In order to do this effectively, you need to implement a customer referral program that drives sales.

Give your new subscribers a reason to invite their friends and family to sign up as well. Take a look at how Blinq does this in their welcome email:

This refer-a-friend program offers an incentive to the current subscriber as well as any new people who sign up. Both receive a $10 credit. The more people who join as a result of the referral, the more rewards the new subscriber gets. This will also increase their chances of buying.

Here’s something else to consider, if someone who gets referred by a new customer ends up signing up for emails as well, they’ll also receive the same welcome message. As a result, it will increase the chances that they’ll refer new customers too. This strategy encourages business growth without much work on your end.

Plus, consumers are four times more likely to buy something if they are referred by a friend.

Conclusion

Your company needs to prioritize its email marketing strategy. But you don’t need to wait months to encourage new subscribers to make a purchase. You should be trying to drive sales right away with your welcome emails.

• Send welcome messages immediately.
• Use a double opt-in strategy to increase opens and qualify your leads.
• Let your welcome email serve as the first message of your drip campaigns.
• Don’t forget to thank your new subscribers for signing up.
• Give them what they’re looking for by providing valuable information, and tell them what to expect from you in the future.
• Personalize your content and add other incentives to increase the chances that people will buy.
• Use your welcome email as an opportunity to promote your customer referral program.

By applying these strategies to your welcome emails, you’ll be able to generate more sales from new subscribers.

How is your brand leveraging welcome messages to drive sales?

from Quick Sprout http://bit.ly/2Rofkcw

How To Make Money On Fiverr Update

I am going to show you how to make money on Fiverr step by step. If you didn’t know, Fiverr is a marketplace where anyone can sign up and sell services for $5 and

That can be anything from logo design, transcript, video creation, backlinks, social signals and so on. You can even get a video of your name in shells on the beach or hold your sign while skydiving.

If you have a browse through the available Fiverr gigs you will see how varied they are – there really is a gig for everyone!

The best bit is anyone can learn how to make money online by signuping to Fiverr as a seller and starting selling their service.

This is exactly what Eze John did earning $1,644 in 30 days and you are about to learn the exact process he used to make money on Fiverr.

What You Will Learn

• How to make money on Fiverr today
• The exact steps used to generate $1,644 in 30 days
• What to sell on Fiverr
• How to promote your Fiverr gigs
• The secret sauce to ranking Fiverr gigs

If you are looking for a way to get started online – it really doesn’t get any easier than this. Even I’m admiring its simplicity.

Credit to Eze John for revealing all of this, he could have easily packaged up what your about to learn as an eBook and sold it.

Instead he chose to teach you how to make money on Fiverr free of charge, so hat’s off to him for doing that.

Introducing Eze John

Eze John is 20 years old from Nigeria. He is always looking for new ways to make money online and struck success with Fiverr.

He is going to share precisely how he made $1,644 in 30 days with his gig so you can do the same!

What Is Fiverr?

Fiverr is the leading marketplace for services starting at just $5. Lots of people buy and sell services (and also products) everyday through Fiverr.

The available services range from business promotion, social networking and advertisement to funny videos, graphic design and translations to mention just a few.

These offered services are called “GIGS” on Fiverr. You can find almost anything you need. People from all over the world visit the site to offer their services and expertise.

My Fiverr Earnings

Before I get into things let me show you proof of my earnings from my Fiverr account which is less than 40 days old.

As you can see it shows a total of $1,644 earned but has since gone on to earn nearly $2,000. I did all of this using a piece of software I bought for just $67.

How To Make Money On Fiverr

So how did I manage to make that much money with Fiverr? Well first of all I spent time looking at what other people are having success with.

At the same time I spotted an awesome product that helped me create animated videos really quickly.

So the idea for my gig was born – I’m going to create a video animation service offering things like whiteboard videos, 3D animation videos, hand drawn videos etc.

There is no big secret here – I just looked at what other people sold and what I could make quickly and created some relevant gigs.

You could say that preparation met opportunity perfectly!

Sample Videos

Here are some samples of the videos I was selling to give you a better idea-

Whiteboard Video

Animated Character Video

Pretty cool videos right?

What a lot of people don’t realise is just how high the demand is for videos like this and they are super easy to make!

You can just create a gig for these kind of videos today on Fiverr and start getting orders the same day – they are hugely popular!

As you can see the orders come flooding in!

How To Make Money With Fiverr Videos

You might be wondering how exactly I’m creating the videos and you’ll be glad to know it is really simple.

Not long ago a WSO appeared for Video Maker FX which is a simple piece of software to create animated videos. I paid $67 for it at the time.

The software makes it really easy and quick to make all kinds of different videos for all kinds of business in no time at all.

But there are tons of different types of gigs you can offer.

Take a look at these 36x methods to make money on Fiverr for example.

How To Earn Money On Fiverr – The Step By Step Process

So now I’ve shown you what I do and what I use to do it, now all you need to is how to make money on Fiverr yourself.

Just follow the steps below and you will learn how to make money on Fiverr easily-

Step 1 – Practice

First of all I bought Video Maker FX and spent time practising making videos of all different types with it.

It took me a couple of weeks of playing but I soon got the hang of being able to make videos quickly.

Step 2 – Create Fiverr Gig

Once I knew I could produce awesome videos I created my Fiverr Gig.

I kept the title short and simple – “I will Create a Professional Whiteboard Animation Video In 24hours for $5.”

Here are some other titles I have used that did well-

• I will create an AMAZING Whiteboard Animation Video For $5
• I will create a PROFESSIONAL Whiteboard Doodle Video For $5
• I will create an Eye CATCHY Animation Video For $5

Feel free to play around – you get the idea!

Step 3 – Creating Your Gig Image

If you do a search for similar gigs you will notice some of them have better images than others that really stand out.

Do some searches and take some inspiration from the gig images that really stand out to you.

Once you have done that you can use PicFont.com to create your Fiverr gig image, if you really want to stand out you can also hire someone on Fiverr to do it!

Step 4 – Writing Your Gigs Description

Your description is also a very important part to your gig that you need to get right.

Just like with the images I also search around Fiverr and look at what the other top sellers are doing and use their descriptions as inspiration.

Whatever you do, don’t copy their descriptions or your will get banned. Just use them as inspiration and come up with your own unique description.

Step 5 – Tags/Keywords

One of the most important parts of your gig is setting up the tags and keywords.

A lot of people don’t realise this but having your gig tagged correctly is very important to the ranking of your gig in Fiverrs search results.

Take a look at the picture above and you will see the tags I used and also set your gig delivery duration to “1 DAY”.

Step 6 – Video-fying Your Gig

You also have the option of adding a video to your gig to make it stand out. Again this helps to boost rankings and sales so pay attention.

I just used Video Maker FX to make a catchy video for my gig, it doesn’t need to be anything special but shows off the service as well.

The Secret Sauce – Ranking Your Fiverr Gigs

Once you have everything setup and your Fiverr gig is live you need to apply the secret sauce to get the gig ranking and sales flowing in.

This has been my secret for about 6 months that I have only shared with a few of my friends. I can rank any gig #1 for any keyword on Fiverr in less than 48 hours for any search term like “video animation”, “usa traffic” and so on.

Here is how I do it-

NOTE: You must have completed the previous steps for this to work.

Step 1 – Dummy Account

Create a dummy Fiverr Account and buy your gig twice. Then give your gig a nice positive review (You will only loose $2 when you do this).

Step 2 – Fake Visitors

Now just sends at least 250 fake hits/visitors to your Fiverr gig. This will boost your gigs impressions and make it more visible to cash at hand buyers.

If you don’t know how to get fake visitors, well you can just buy them from Fiverr but don’t go overboard with them.

Step 3 – Accurate Tags

Make sure you use accurate tags for your gigs and also include the keywords you want to rank for in the title and description.

If you are going to do a gig like the one I’ve shown you above you would use tags like-

1. Video animation
2. Whiteboard
3. Whiteboard animation
4. 3D animation

Promoting Your Fiverr Gig

Well truth be told I do not do anything to promote my gigs outside of Fiverr. All I do is what I have shared with you in this tutorial.

There are over 1 million buyers on Fiverr so once I have ranked my gigs I do not need to promote them because I already have massive exposure to cash at hand buyers.

So now you understand how to make money on Fiverr – what are you waiting for?

Go and make your first dollar online right now!

If you have any questions about how to make money with Fiverr then please feel free to ask them in the comments below and I will answer them for you.

How To Make Money On Fiverr Update was originally published on Matthew Woodward

from Matthew Woodward http://bit.ly/2GJJRxq

How to Increase Average Order Values With Product Bundling

Every business needs to strive for growth.

This isn’t a secret. However, many business owners hear growth and they jump to customer acquisition strategies, new product launches, and ways to increase their conversion rates.

All of these tactics are great for your company growth. But, they’re not the only way to boost revenue and grow your business.

You can also grow when you make more money with your existing products, services, and conversion rates simply by increasing your average order value.

Are you currently tracking this metric? It’s easy to calculate with this formula.

How to calculate your Average Order Value (AOV)

In order to increase your AOV, you need to encourage your customers to spend more in each transaction. Sounds great in theory. We’ll walk you through how to actually accomplish it.

There are tons of ways to get your current customers to spend more each time they shop. One of the best methods for increasing AOV is with product bundling. This marketing tactic employs a combination of upsells, cross-sells, and discounts. It also helps you generate more profit by focusing on your pricing strategy.

Basically, the psychology behind product bundling entices people to spend more with every transaction simply by buying more things at once. As a result, your average order value will rise.

Whether you sell products or services, your company can benefit from a product bundling strategy. But it’s not as simple as lumping any two or three random items together. In fact, that can do more harm than good.

If you’ve never done this before it can be a bit of a challenge to determine which products should be bundled together and how to showcase those options to your customers. So use this guide as a blueprint for increasing your average order value. Here’s what you need to know.

Don’t pair inexpensive items with premium products or services

This is the most common mistake we see when businesses attempt a product bundling strategy for the first time. It makes sense: they’re trying to maximize their profits and someone is buying something cheap, why not try to get them to buy something that’s expensive too.

Product bundling doesn’t mean you should just throw any two or three items together and assume your customers will pay more for them.

Put yourself into the mind of the consumer for a minute here.

For example, let’s say you’re shopping for a new car and your price range is roughly $20,000. If the dealer throws in a free t-shirt and a baseball cap with the purchase of a vehicle, is it going to entice you to buy the car?

Or, on the flip side, let’s say you’re shopping for a t-shirt and a baseball cap with your favorite car company logo on them. Together the two cost about $40. But then, at checkout it’s suggested you buy a car, too. This brings your total to $20,040. Do you do it?

Two items that don’t belong together are not a product bundle. This is especially true if one item is significantly cheaper than the other. But so many brands think two items = a bundle, and it ends up hurting them.

Instead of encouraging your customer to buy more things, a grouping like this actually confuses their initial purchase. Let’s take a closer look.

There’s a study from the Journal of Consumer Research on consumer perception and product bundling called The Presenter’s Paradox.

Here’s what happened. They gave people two options of how to bundle products for prospective customers. The first option was an iPod Touch bundled with a cover. The second option was an iPod Touch bundled with a cover and a free song download. Nearly everyone (92%) chose the second option, which included the free download. However, the study concluded that consumers were willing to pay more money for the first bundle, without the song download.

Why? The benefit and cost of that download aren’t enough to enhance the perceived value of the bundle.

In fact, the cheaper item — One song? What am I going to do with one song? — lowers the perceived value of the total package. That’s not what we want to do. Rather than diminish the perceived value of a bundle, we want to increase it. You can charge more for your products by enhancing the perceived value.

A cheap add-on paired with a premium product makes the whole bundle feel less appealing to the consumer.

This Harvard Business Review article discusses a set of similar studies that had the same results. The study showed that consumers were more likely to pay $2,299 for a home gym than they were to pay that very same amount for the same gym was bundled with a workout DVD. Again, that’s because a DVD doesn’t enhance the perceived value. It actually has the opposite effect and lowers that value.

So if you’re currently using a strategy like this, it could be hurting your average order value as opposed to helping you out. You can fix this quickly and easily.

This guide will also you examples of the right types of products and services to bundle.

Emphasize savings

Offering a discount is a great way to make your product bundles more appealing. It’s a very simple strategy.

If a customer buys two or more items together, their total purchase will be cheaper than if they bought each one individually. However, you need to make it obvious that they are saving money. So tell them exactly how much money they can save by buying the bundle.

Here’s a great example of this from Lowe’s.

The product bundle here is a washing machine and a dryer. If customers buy the pair together, they can save $340. The customer might think, That’s getting close to the price as of either the washer or dryer alone! However, people won’t know how good of a deal they’re getting if you don’t tell them.

You shouldn’t be making your customers do the math manually or hunt through your prices. Make it obvious and plaster the savings on your website, just like the example above. In this instance, by bundling the savings together, it’s much more entcicing. The customer isn’t simply saving $170 on each, which doesn’t seem like that much. They’re saving $340, which has a lot more wow factor.

As a result, they will be more likely to buy these together to get the savings.

Bundle items commonly purchased together

Remember the hypothetical scenario earlier: the car bundled with a t-shirt and hat? Those items are not commonly purchased at the same time, and that’s another reason why that bundling strategy won’t work.

You need to figure out what items people will also need when they buy something specific. Refer back to our last example from Lowe’s. If a customer is in the market for a washing machine, there’s a good chance they also need a dryer. Bundling those two items together is a winning strategy. This makes much more sense than bundling a dryer with a dishwasher. Sure, they are both home appliances, but they are completely unrelated to each other.

If your company sells shampoo, you can bundle it with conditioner. If you’re selling a mattress, you can bundle it with a box spring and frame. These are all products that go hand in hand.

Check out this example from AT&T.

It’s extremely common for people to purchase TV, Internet, and phone services from the same provider. The price bundling strategy here is a well-oiled machine. Just look at the three options above to see what I’m referring to.

It’s $60 per month for just TV. But when you bundle TV and internet together, it’s only $15 more.

This type of product bundle increases the perceived value: Customers are getting something that would normally cost $110, if purchased separately, for $75. That’s a great deal.

This is much better than offering a TV package with free remote batteries, or something cheap that doesn’t add value or entice people to buy. By doing this, AT&T can increase their order value by 25%. Think about that for a second here.

If your company does $1 million in sales annually, you can make an extra $250,000 per year just by increasing the AOV from $60 to $75.

AT&T takes this one step further by adding another bundle option, which includes home phone services. By getting customers to buy this bundle instead of TV alone, the order value is 58% higher.

Use anchor pricing

Anchor pricing is another way to show value in your product bundles.

The idea behind this methodology is that you have different prices on your website that establish a perceived value in the mind of your customers.

It’s an age-old strategy.

How do you sell a $500 watch? Put it next to watch that costs $1,300. The $1,300 item will serve as the anchor, which makes the $500 product seem like a much better deal.

Let’s take a closer look at AT&T’s third option — adding a home phone for an additional $19.99 a month. How many people do you imagine want a phone line? This option may be less about increasing the order value and giving another point of comparison to make the middle option more interesting. Because the $75 package isn’t the most expensive package, the price point seems more reasonable.

The $60 TV package also serves as an anchor. It sets the value of TV alone, so all of the product bundles after it seem like a great deal based on the customer perception of the one product.

You can use this same strategy with your product bundles by adding more expensive bundles, or selling the solo products at a higher price than when they’re bundled. It doesn’t matter if your customers don’t purchase the higher priced packages. They can serve as anchors to make the rest of the options more appealing.

Recommend products to your customers

Show your customers products that will enhance the item that they’ve already added to their cart. Depending on the circumstances, the customer may not even realize that you sell those additional products or remember that they need to buy them until you do this.

Amazon uses this strategy better than anyone else.

If you’re browsing for razors on their platform, Amazon will show you which products are frequently bought with those razors: shaving cream and blade refills. The customer will realize that they need these items to complement what they were initially shopping for.

Instead of having to go back and browse for these products, Amazon has a button that makes it easy to add all three items to the shopping cart. You can get more conversions by optimizing your checkout process. Click to add and Amazon has increased the order value with product recommendations.

Here’s the kicker: none of the products are even discounted.

You don’t necessarily need to offer sales or drastically slash your prices to have an effective bundling strategy. Just by showcasing and recommending similar items that add value to the consumer, you can increase your AOV.

Offer volume discounts

But, you can also offer discounts. In addition to bundling products with other items, you can bundle the same product or service with itself. Amazon does this with Subscribe & Save. It gives your customers a reason to buy more, order-value wise, than what they were going to buy — and to make that next repeat purchase from you, instead of wherever else they would be in the future.

Just like the 5% subscription discount on Amazon, as the volume increases, the price per item decreases. But your average order value will still rise. Here’s a perfect example from Todo Bien Tours.

This company provides a service: bus tours. The price per ticket for their tours varies by the number of tickets sold at once. If you buy two tickets, they will cost $84.15 each, so the total transaction will be $168.30. But, groups of ten pay $69.30 per ticket. While the price per item is less, the total transaction ends up being $630. That’s more than a 400% increase in order value.

Notice how their pricing structure is set up on the website.The chart displays the percent discount based on the number of tickets purchased as well as the monetary value saved per ticket. This is an example of one of our previous points: emphasizing savings. By combining this strategy with volume discounts, Todo Bien Tours can benefit from higher average order values.

Allow customers to create custom bundles

Studies show that 80% of customers are more likely to buy something if they are offered a personalized experience.

Furthermore, 68% of customers will pay more for this type of experience. That’s why customization can highly benefit your bundling strategy. It’s a great way to increase your average order value. Rather than telling your customers which products you’re bundling, let them decide for themselves.

Look at how Texas Beard Company accomplishes this.

By purchasing the bag, their customers can benefit from discounted prices on other products. The customized bundle makes it more enticing for people to buy. Here’s why. Let’s say that the bundle was preset with a bag, beard balm, mustache scissors, and beard brush, but the customer already owns a pair of mustache scissors. For that person, the bundle isn’t enticing. They don’t need one of the products offered, so it’s not a good value for them.

This goes back to perceived value. Though the mustache scissors have a literal value, the value to that customer is $0, so the entire perceived value of the package is lowered. Customized options make the bundle so much more enticing.

Find a way to implement this strategy for your business as well. It can work regardless of if you’re offering products or services.

Conclusion

One of the easiest ways to grow your company is to increase your average order value.

That’s because you don’t need new products, new customers, or higher conversion rates to accomplish this.

All you need to do is find ways to get your customers to spend more money each time they shop:

• Make sure you’re not bundling something inexpensive and irrelevant with one of your premium products.
• Bundle similar items. You can even recommend products to your customers to create a bundle.
• The savings should be obvious, which enhances the perceived value of what you’re selling.
• Focus on your pricing strategy. Offer volume discounts and use anchor prices.
• You can charge more for your products by letting your customers customize their own bundle.

If you follow these strategies, you’ll be able to increase your AOV.

What types of product bundles is your business offering to increase the average order values on your website?

from Quick Sprout http://bit.ly/2Q79EPi

10 Tips and Tricks to Improve Your YouTube Content in 2019

Traditional marketing is slowly becoming obsolete. Brands need to prioritize digital marketing strategies to stay relevant and successful in 2019. To approach this properly, you’ll need to start producing more video content.

When it comes to video, YouTube is king. The platform has more than 1.9 billion monthly active users, and 180 million hours of video content is consumed there every day.

Furthermore, 48% of people named YouTube as their favorite online video provider.

It’s ranked first over Netflix, Facebook, and Hulu, which got 29%, 10%, and 7% of votes, respectively. YouTube isn’t just the favorite; it’s more popular than the other three networks combined.

If you think that’s impressive, wait until you hear this: YouTube is the number two ranked website in the world, second only to Google, according to Alexa rankings.

The reason why YouTube is great for marketers is because its content is easy to repurpose across multiple platforms. Once you add a video to your YouTube channel, it’s easy to share it on other social media sites, send it to your email subscribers, and add it to your website.

I’ve identified the top ten tips to enhance your YouTube videos in 2019. Use this list as a reference to help you produce better content.

1. Share links that start playback at a specific time

Once videos are uploaded to YouTube, you can share them on other platforms. But there are instances when you’ll want to share only a portion of your video.

For example, maybe you’re discussing a specific topic in a social media post. You realize that you’ve already covered this in a YouTube video. 

However, the video is five minutes long. The content that’s relevant to your post doesn’t get addressed until the three-minute mark.

No problem. Just click on the share link to get started. (This is how you would normally share any video on YouTube.) By default, the video will play from the beginning, as expected. You have the option to change this by using the options that pop up after you click on the share button. Here’s what it looks like:

At the bottom of this menu, check the “Start at” box, and type the time mark at which you want the video to start playing. (Alternatively, you can pause the video before you click on the share button. The timer will automatically be set at that point. You still need to check the box for it to work.)

Once this feature is enabled, the URL’s share link changes. As you can see, the link in the image above ends with “t=158.” This link will start playing the video 158 seconds in, which is the 2:38 mark.

2. Add a transcript

Adding a transcript will make it easier for users to find your videos and your channel through YouTube as well as Google searches.

By default, YouTube will automatically generate a transcript for all your videos once they are uploaded. You just need to make sure you haven’t hidden this option from your audience. (You have the ability to edit your transcripts as well, so review them to catch any errors.)

YouTube also provides a feature for you to manually type your own transcripts as you play the video. Here’s an example of what a final transcript looks like once a video is uploaded:

In some instances, you may want a video or audio file transcribed for other purposes. For example, maybe you have a recording of a seminar you recently spoke at or of an important conference call. Now, you want to refer to the video to help you write a blog post. It’s much easier to use a transcript instead of constantly having to pause, fast forward, and rewind a video to catch your speech.

Upload that content to YouTube, and get a free transcript of it. You don’t have to share or publish the video on your channel if you want to keep it private. You’ll still be able to get the content transcribed free.

3. Create a GIF with any YouTube URL

GIFs are one of the top visual elements you can use to improve your marketing strategy.

Rather than using GIFs from a library everyone has access to, you can create a GIF from a YouTube video. You have the option to use either your own videos or videos from other channels.

This is very easy to do.

First, find the YouTube video with the clip you want to use. Next, insert the word “gif” after the www. The URL will go from www.youtube.com/watch to http://www.gifyoutube.com/watch. After you change the URL, you’ll automatically get redirected to gifs.com.

The video will be ready to edit and turn into a GIF. Here’s what the screen will look like:

You’ve got lots of options here to make your GIF unique. Start by determining what portion of the video you want to turn into a GIF. Next, you can determine the length of your GIF. Add captions. Crop the video. Play around with effects.

Once you create your GIF, download it, and share it on your other marketing channels.

4. Organize your videos with playlists

If you have lots of videos uploaded to your YouTube channel, playlists are the best way to keep them organized. When a user navigates to your channel, they will have the option to watch different playlists that have similar videos grouped together.

Here’s an example from the Food Wishes page:

As you can see, the videos are organized by different types of recipes based on holidays and other events, e.g.:

• Super Bowl
• Christmas
• New Year
• July 4th
• Memorial Day

It will be much easier for viewers to find what they’re looking for here.

YouTube also allows you to collaborate on your playlists with a friend. From your playlist settings, navigate to the “Collaborate” tab. Here’s what it looks like:

Once you add a collaborator, this user will be able to add videos to the playlist. This can be a useful way to manage your relationships with social influencers—simply have an influencer upload content directly to your channel through a playlist.

5. Create a custom URL

You want to make sure your business has a custom URL on YouTube. You won’t get this by default.

If you have a new YouTube channel, you won’t be able to create a custom URL right away. These are the requirements:

• account is 30 days old
• photo set as channel icon
• channel art uploaded
• at least 100 subscribers

Once you hit these marks, you’ll be eligible to get a custom URL.

You can find this option within your account settings. Just navigate to the Advanced menu:

Before you claim your custom URL, make sure you think it through clearly: you won’t have the option to change it once it gets approved.

6. Add an actionable end screen

What do you want a viewer to do when they finish watching one of your videos? If you want the user to keep watching more videos or visit your website, you can add these CTAs to an end screen.

From your video manager page, click the “Edit” button for the video you want to change. Then find the “End screen & Annotations” link from the drop-down menu:

A pop up will appear. Depending on your marketing goals, you can add one or more of these elements to your end page:

7. Use enhancements to edit videos

You might already be using some third-party software to edit videos before you upload them to your channel. (Editing is a great way to create killer video promotions to increase engagement.) But if you don’t need to do anything elaborate, you can take advantage of the YouTube enhancements feature. This allows you to edit directly on the platform.

The enhancements feature lets you add or change music and audio, apply filters, trim sections out of your video, and blur portions of it.

You can even edit content after a video has already been uploaded to your channel. However, unless you are part of the YouTube partner program, you might not be able to make all the changes to videos with more than 100,000 views. 

You’ll always have the option to blur faces, even if your video has more than 100,000 views and you’re not part of the partner program. YouTube allows this to help protect the identity of people in your video.

8. Broadcast live streams

Has your business jumped on the live video bandwagon?

If not, it’s time for you to hop on board. That’s because 82% of people say they prefer live videos over social media posts from business profiles. Furthermore, 80% of people say they would rather watch live video content than read blog posts about a topic. 

Believe it or not, consumers actually prefer YouTube live streams over Facebook Live. 

YouTube allows you to go live from your desktop computer or mobile device. You can keep an archive of your live streams that were added to your YouTube channel so people can watch the content even after the stream is over. But you can disable this feature if you want.

Want to grow your audience even more? Consider this: 87% of people said they would watch more live videos if they contained behind the scenes content.

8. Upload 360-degree videos

We now know that 360-degree videos increase engagement rates. These videos have a 14% higher ROI than regular videos. They also have a 46% higher completion rate than traditional videos.

This is the type of content people want to see with 360-degree videos.

When it comes to a 360-degree video, 98% of consumers living in the United States say they think it is more exciting than any other type of video.

And 90% of people believe content will be improved if it can be viewed as a 360-degree video instead of a traditional format.

Having a 360-degree video increases the chances that viewers will interact with it by 66%.

What’s even more impressive is that 70% of marketers believe that adding 360-degree video content has helped improve their businesses.

9. Use Google Trends to find popular search terms

How do you know what type of content you should upload to YouTube? Try searching for keywords related to your company on Google Trends. This will show you the popularity of a search term over time and tell you whether you should be creating content on that subject.

Here’s what “content marketing” looks like on Google Trends:

As you can see, this is the interest in the term over time in web searches. You can’t assume it’s the same on YouTube. Click on the menu, and select “YouTube Search.”

As you can see, the trends are different. 

This free Google tool will enhance your marketing strategy. You can also use it to help you create titles and descriptions that are search-friendly on YouTube.

10. Run ads on YouTube

YouTube is owned by Google. This means you can set up YouTube ads through your Google Ads account.

You’ll have the option to do the following:

• select your audience
• choose locations you want to target
• set your budget

This is very easy to do, especially if you’re already using Google Ads for other purposes.

Here are the different formats you can choose from to advertise on YouTube:

The type of ad you select will impact the price you pay.

It’s worth noting that 51% of marketers in the United States advertise on YouTube and 52% of brands plan to increase their advertising budgets on the platform. (There is a good chance that at least half of your competitors are already advertising on YouTube. Get on it!)

Conclusion

By the year 2020, 80% of Internet traffic will come from videos. That means you need to keep up with the times and produce video content in 2019.

YouTube is the best place to upload your videos. From there, you’ll be able to distribute the content on other channels as well. 

But you have to be doing more than simply uploading videos and leaving them there with no further action. You need your videos to have an edge to be successful. 

These tips and tricks will definitely bring your content to the next level. 

What type of video content is your brand adding to your YouTube channel?

from Quick Sprout http://bit.ly/2LEQ2Sl