Why Entrepreneurship Is Dangerous

Let’s face it: if you’re an entrepreneur, you know that entrepreneurship can be addictive. The thrill of brainstorming, the excitement of creating and building something new and watching it grow…we love it! And what happens when you do what you love? You want to do it as much as possible, right? But we all need balance. Eat too much chocolate and you’ll gain weight. Work too many hours and the rest of your life will suffer.

The Importance of Self Care in Entrepreneurship

As the success of Business in Blue Jeans has grown over the years, I’ve increased more and more work time to my schedule to meet the increasing demands on my time, while still producing as much valuable content as I can to help entrepreneurs authentically grow their businesses. As a result, I’ve had to work hard to maintain balance across all the spheres of my life.

If you don’t pay close attention, time can get away from you and before you know it, you’re stressed out, overworked, and completely out of balance.

Why Being out of Balance Is Bad

When your life is out of balance, even if you’re achieving success in your work, you’re really only partly successful. Clients often come to me for help in getting back in balance, because they’ve spent so much time trying to grow their businesses that their health, their home, and their relationships have suffered. When you pay too much attention to any one sphere of your life, the other spheres get neglected. Neglect parts of your life and you won’t be living a whole life. Plus, because being out of balance usually comes with feeling like there are too many demands on your time and not enough “you” to go around, you’ll get even more stressed and freaked out.

If you’ve ever thrown a pot on a pottery wheel, then you know what happens when the pot gets out of balance, right?

It looks very sad. Like this.

I can tell you from experience, no matter what you do on the wheel, it just keeps getting more and more out of whack. And entrepreneurship can be like that. Get out of balance, and you feel just as schlumpy as this flopped bowl.

The Other Hidden Cost

If you’re not taking care of yourself, then you’re probably not giving everything you could give to your business. Did you know that exercising and good nutrition can actually help you think better and more clearly? And are you aware that minimizing stress can help you to be more focused so that you’re more productive and efficient with your time?

By Taking Time Off, You Can Grow Your Business

Here are a few tips to help you get back into balance:

Yeah, I went there. Can you blame me?

Got some of your own strategies for getting into balance? I’d love to hear them in the comments!

The post The Hidden Dangers of Entrepreneurship appeared first on Business in Blue Jeans.

Give a ton of bang for your customer’s buck.

I signed up for Rosetta Stone’s online course and paid $299 for a year’s worth of access. I got about $299 of value in the first week! I’m amazed at what’s available to me as a student: clear, methodical, repetitive lessons, twice-a-unit live group sessions with just two or three other students and a tutor (sessions which occasionally turn out to be private tutoring sessions when no other students show up), games, chats with native speakers, stories I can read aloud and get a score on my recording…I literally can’t imagine how someone could avoid learning a language while using Rosetta Stone.

What’s great about delivering a ton of bang for your customer’s buck is that the payback is that you have really happy customers. And really happy customers tell other people about their experiences. Delivering value is a fantastic way to grow a business through word of mouth!

Give your customers an amazing product.

Like I said, I literally can’t see how anyone could not learn a language with Rosetta Stone. I went from completely unable to communicate meaningfully with my in-laws to being able to carry on full conversations in Spanish, all within a month and a half. The quality of the instruction Rosetta Stone delivers is just that good.

Likewise, in your business, never put out a substandard product or anything that you can’t fully stand behind. Instead, give your customers an amazing product that really makes a difference to them, and you’ll reap huge rewards.

When I go into my sessions with Rosetta Stone tutors, I can’t help but feel like this guy. They’re delivering that much value.

Have support standing by.

The online Rosetta Stone course has some pretty technical components, so it makes sense that they have support standing by. Their support staff is extremely well-versed in all of the potential problems a student might have, and they’re ready to fix it all. They’re just really…well…supportive.

When you offer anything that might require support of any kind, it’s an added value to have support staff ready and able to help your customers. Again, the level and quality of support you deliver goes a long way toward creating word of mouth referrals. Make sure your support staff know your product inside out and like people. Smart hiring can make a world of difference here, that’s for sure.

Deliver unparalleled service.

When I attend a group session with one of my Spanish tutors, I’m happy. The reason? Every single tutor I’ve met with at Rosetta Stone is super-nice and takes the time to answer my questions (asked and answered en Espanol, of course!) and teach me new words. They’re all delightful and I’m a little embarrassed to tell you that I like them so much I sometimes wish I could be friends with them (no, wait, I just realized that I’m really embarrassed to tell you that.)

If you deliver unparalleled service, if you create a customer experience that is extraordinarily pleasant, then you make your customers so happy, they practically can’t not tell others about you. Say it with me now: word of mouth referrals grow businesses!

Ask for suggestions for improvement.

After each group tutoring session, Rosetta Stone asks me how I liked my group session. I provide feedback about the technology and about the tutor. After each interaction with support, Rosetta Stone asks me how things went.

Por ejemplo, ahora puedo hablar con estas personas in this awesomesauce cafe in Spain.

When you follow up with your customers and ask them how you’re doing and how your staff is doing, you get the best information possible. This research tells you precisely how and where to improve to get the most return for your business.

Also, and incidentally, in case you’re wondering, I’m writing this post from Montevideo, Uruguay, where I haven’t been precisely fluent, but I have really impressed my in-laws with the very fact that I don’t have to mime everything I want to say. It’s very exciting. And now they’re talking about signing up for Rosetta Stone, too, so that while I’m learning Spanish, they’ll be learning English. If that’s not a ringing endorsement, I don’t know what one is.

Have you discovered a great example of delivering value in business recently? Tell me about it in the comments!

The post The Rosetta Stone Guide to Delivering Value in Business appeared first on Business in Blue Jeans.

This is not my baby. I do not know whose baby this is. But she is clearly as appalled by the customer experience at BabiesRUs as I was.

Recently, my husband, Leo, and I went to BabiesRUs to buy some holiday gifts. Now, we’ve been thinking about growing our family next year, but the experience we had at BabiesRUs was so bad, I almost had second thoughts about having a baby of my own. That’s a pretty bad sign, so here are the lessons I wish BabiesRUs learned before we went to their store:

Your store should be clean.

Your promotions should be simple.

Your staff (even your temporary staff) should care.

Your staff should know how to use the equipment (better than the customers do).

I also do not know whose baby this is, but I don’t think she was happy customer experience at BabiesRUs, either.

Your staff should respect the customers.

The post The “BabiesRUs” Anti-Guide to Customer Service appeared first on Business in Blue Jeans.

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• A medical staff member who attempted to say my name like this: “Bar…Ba…whatever.”
• One appointment that canceled and rescheduled, with no call to let me know—instead, they sent me a letter that arrived AFTER my original appointment.
• A reminder call for an appointment for my hubster four days early
• A medical staff member who insisted that my husband bring any medicine with him—not a list of the medicines with the strength and instructions for each, but the actual medicines themselves in their bottles, because “people don’t usually write those things down correctly.”

The medical profession has a long way to go in terms of administrative efficiency and bedside manner.

Why You Should Want to Improve Your Medical Practice

There’s no real shortage of doctors that I know of, so it’s in every physician’s best interest to make sure that his/her staff remembers that a new medical practice is but a mere phone call away. And with review sites like HealthGrades, Angie’s List, Vitals, RateMDs, and others, you simply don’t have the luxury of ignoring a badly-behaved or inefficient staff.

But more importantly, as a physician or wellness practitioner, you’re more important than almost any other service provider in a human being’s life. You take care of your patients’ bodies, sure. But you’re also the person that patients turn to when they’re the most afraid. You’re the person who can reassure someone when their greatest fear—the fear of their own mortality—comes calling. As someone who plays such a significant role in so many people’s lives, you have a responsibility to be good to your patients. And there are many ways that you can take far better care of them than you might have been taught in medical school.

5 Ways to Improve Your Medical Practice

Here are a few tips to help you make your medical practice a better place for patients:

Go the extra mile…or just the mile you’re supposed to go.

Treat your patients (who are indeed “customers,” like it or not) with respect, dignity, courtesy, and kindness.

Make sure you’re delivering great service and every patient leaves feeling that someone is looking out for them and taking care of them. My family doctor is lovely. Every time I see him, he takes the time to talk with me. He knows what’s going on in my life and understands the toll that stress takes on my body, so that he can approach my health from a complete, mind-body perspective. Another doctor that I see is so warm and friendly that every time I see her, I leave feeling upbeat, optimistic, and excited about my health. I actually leave that office feeling more like taking care of my health. 

Plus, both of those doctors have staff members how go the extra mile to make me feel respected and looked after. They call when they say they’re going to, they do what they say they’re going to do, and they make sure I feel like I have a say in my own medical care. I am, after all, the one inhabiting this body.

Respect your patients’ schedules.

You can’t always predict when a patient will come in with extra complaints or talk longer than normal. As a consultant, I often experience verbose clients who need a little extra time, but it’s my job to make sure I address what we’re supposed to address today and then let them know what we can cover next time. Patients may not love being told you can’t help them with everything they want to talk about, but if you start respecting your patients’ schedules, they’ll start respecting yours (there are many ways that you can set this up in advance with your staff and start training your patients to better respect your time).

And, if you’re running behind in the schedule, rather than making patients wait for an hour or two in your waiting room, forced to read old magazines and watch talk shows, have your staff give them a call or send a text message to let them know when they should come in for their appointment. Nothing makes patients more annoyed than having to wait for you, while you’d charge them if they were late or didn’t show up.

Take care with cancellations

Never, ever cancel an appointment without telling a patient and calling him or her on the phone. Just like my appointment that I mentioned earlier, recently a friend of mine went to her scheduled doctor’s appointment (in the rain!) with her child, who was sick and in pain, but the appointment had been canceled without anyone letting my friend know. I can’t even begin to tell you how angry my friend was.

In fact, I object to the entire process of specialists scheduling appointments without talking to patients, and then just calling to let them know when the appointment will be. This goes back to respecting your patients’ schedules. Most of your patients are people who do have preferences about when they come to see you. But it’s just mere courtesy to consult with the patient and let him or her work with your staff to find a time that works for both of you.

Hire great staff members

Your staff is your greatest asset. You need people who like what they do and enjoy working with people and caring for them. The last thing you want is a surly staff who doesn’t treat your patients well. You can co-opt your patients to help you in this. Every once in awhile, ask a patient how they feel about the staff. Have they been treated well? Have they enjoyed their experience? Asking questions like this will also go a long way toward letting your patients know that they really matter to you.

Take care of your staff, too

Like I said above, your staff is your greatest asset. They will literally make or break your practice. If your receptionist puts patients on hold for ten minutes or your scheduler isn’t friendly, you can bet that your patients won’t have a very good opinion about you or your office. And remember, today patients have a voice. Review sites are a dime a dozen and patients are talking about their experiences everywhere.

Years ago patients didn’t have the kind of access to others’ experiences like they do now. Today, you can’t escape the wrath of an angry patient who’s been on hold for too long or been talked to in an unpleasant tone of voice. And one thing that stands between you and an angry review on Angie’s List or HealthGrades is an exceptional, happy staff that takes great care with your patients. The one thing that can make all the difference in the world (aside from you, of course) is a staff that delights in making your patients feel safe, comfortable, and well taken care of.

If you want that staff, then you have to take good care of your staff, just like you do your patients. Don’t just throw a holiday staff party once a year and think you’re done. Can you just imagine what your practice would look like if every staff member came in every day, thrilled and excited to work with patients and help them to feel better? What a warm and inviting place it would be and how much better your patients’ care would be! So take a little time, do the research, and find out what your staff wants and needs to be happier so that you can have a staff that shines.

As a medical professional, you’re not just in the business of healing bodies. You can’t just see your patients as bodies to be examined, diagnosed, and treated. No, today, you’re a member of a care team, and the operative word there is “care.” Start showing your patients that you and your staff actually do care, and your medical practice will thrive.

The post Medical Alert! 5 Ways to Improve Your Wellness or Medical Practice appeared first on Business in Blue Jeans.

The Most Important Thing to Remember About Promotions

Business promotions of any kind are fun and can be a fantastic way to get people into your store or onto your site. They’re a great way to stimulate sales and increase conversion. However, the most important thing to remember is that just because you have a promotion, it doesn’t mean that you’ll have more business automatically! You can’t wait for people to find you. You’ll still have to go out into the world and tell them that you exist and that you’re doing something cool.

The Five Easiest Business Promotions

Discounts, Sales, Free Shipping

The three easiest promotions to run are discounts, sales, and free shipping. Set a percentage off of an entire purchase, offer a huge discount on a single item, or offer a coupon code for free shipping. These are super-easy to implement whether you’ve got a brick-and-mortar business or an online store, because they don’t require that you make huge, store-wide changes. If you’re online, it’s as simple as offering a coupon code. If you’ve got a brick-and-mortar business, hang up a sign, print out coupons, run some ads. These are straightforward and simple.

Giveaways

Next on the list of easy business promotions is the giveaway. The choice of what to give away depends largely on what you’re doing with it. If your giveaway is designed to get people in the door, then offer a great discount and a fun giveaway as added incentive. For example, one year Joann Crafts stores offered a massive discount for the first hour on Black Friday, and gave away a cheap “Cookies for Santa” plate to the first 100 people through the door. If your giveaway is designed to be a purchase incentive, then make sure it’s something your target market really wants, and if they don’t want it, give them an option of dollars off instead. This year on Cyber Monday I saw an offer for a free Nook with a laptop purchase. Not a bad deal, but if you didn’t want the Nook you didn’t get a discount for not taking it.

Contests

The last item in the “easy” category is contests. In person, you need a cool prize, a fishbowl, and a sign-up form, and you’ve got a contest. It’s a fun way to get people into your store, but remember, you still have to market the contest. Online, the contest is also easy and pretty much just requires a mailing list (this also means that a contest is a great way to build your list). Set up the mailing list, add a form to your web site (or have your web guy do it), and have people sign up. When it’s time to pick a winner, randomly choose a person from the list of people who signed up (or use a random number generator) and send them the prize. Invite the winner (0r winners) to share a photo of them with the prize on your web site or social media pages.

Doorbusters

Doorbusters are a little harder to do, which is why they don’t fall into the “easy” category. A doorbuster is an amazing deal, offered in limited supply. It’s a great way to get people through the door of a brick and mortar store and it’s also a great way to get people to come to your web site. To create a virtual doorbuster, all you need to do is simulate the conditions of a live doorbuster: offer an amazing deal in limited supply, for example, offer a freebie or a discount to the first 25 people who place an order. Maybe the coupon code is only available to so many people—many shopping carts today offer the ability to limit the number of times a coupon is used—or maybe you only have so many of a particular item at an outrageous price. If it’s the latter, set up your “upsell” feature in your shopping cart so that you can offer alternatives to the customers who don’t get the original item.

Repeat buyer discounts

I’m a huge advocate of loyalty programs and repeat buyer discounts. In this economy, it makes good sense to reward your loyal customers. Also, they’re fun. Customers actually like being rewarded and thinking about what they’ll do with their points, miles, or reward certificates. When you build in a loyalty program, however, make sure it works properly. The last thing you want is customers calling in with missing points or problems with rewards.

Also, in most cases, it’s best to create levels that customers need to meet before receiving their rewards, and to automatically send out rewards when they reach the next level. Some stores let you accrue points endlessly, letting customers use them for dollars off at any point. The problem is, customers tend to forget to use their points and the points have a lower perceived value than if you sent them an actual reward. On the other hand, sometimes these things can be a nice surprise for customers—imagine my glee upon discovering that I had points at Crutchfield and managed to get a $30 off certificate for my new Blu-ray player! The point, however, is that I had no idea that I even had reward points, until I saw on the web site that they had a reward program…those points might have languished there endlessly.

Holiday business promotions can be a lot of fun and a lot of work, but they can be great business builders if you do them right. Remember to keep marketing! Your promotion is a marketing tool but still has to be marketed itself.

The post 7 Awesome Holiday Business Promotions That Work appeared first on Business in Blue Jeans.

Think this guy is fearless? No! He’s scared to death. But he’s covering it up with a yawn and forging ahead anyway. That’s courage.

The #1 Thing That Holds People Back

Did you know that the #1 thing that holds people back in life and in business, the most significant thing that gets in the way of success, is fear? Many “up and comers” think that the thing that makes other people successful is that they’re brave and fearless.

But courage, as it happens, isn’t the absence of fear, as most people think. As Mark Twain said, “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear.” It’s not that successful people never feel fear. We do. All the time.

Here’s what makes the difference: successful people know how to identify the fear and then master it. When you’re afraid, fear rules everything and guides the choices that you make. But when you master your fear, you’re taking the reins and guiding the path you take.

What Are You Afraid Of?

What’s holding you back right now? What are you afraid of, and how can you face that fear with courage?

Everybody’s afraid of something. What are you afraid of? Think about that for a minute and then when you have the answer, ask yourself how often you do that thing. More often than not, the things we fear are the things we’re not good at. If you’re not very good at something, it’s a whole lot scarier than if you know how to do that thing and can do it with confidence. Plus, if you make a decision to face your fears and forge ahead with courage, you’ll eventually make courage a habit and you’ll be able to master any fear.

For example, speaking in public is one of the biggest fears people have. It’s something that most people don’t do very often. But the more you do it, the better you get at it, and the more comfortable you feel with it. Eventually, it’s not so scary anymore. I have to admit, I’ve never had a big problem with speaking, unless I’m trying out some new material. Even if I’ve practiced and practiced, until I’ve presented that new material in front of a few crowds, I don’t feel fully comfortable.

Your Homework Assignment:

Take out a piece of paper and pen and turn the paper on its side. Make five columns on your paper. In the first column, make a list of the things that scare you the most about your business. Then in the second column, for each of those fears, write down what is the absolute worst thing that could happen if your fears came true. In the third column, write down how likely the worst thing is to happen. Then in the fourth column, write down how that fear is holding your business back. In the last column, for at least one of the fears you’ve listed, write down how you are going to face that fear.

Look, everybody is afraid of something. But truly successful people have mastered fear with courage and learned to forge ahead. Today, make a decision to forge ahead with something scary in your business. Make a decision to face at least one of your fears. Take a risk and get better at something you’re afraid of. Face a fear with courage and you’ll see payoffs emerging faster than you could ever have imagined.

The post Are You Courageous Enough for Business? appeared first on Business in Blue Jeans.

Coaching just works. But it works best when you know how to get the most out of it. So here are five ways to get more out of your coaching or mentoring sessions:

1. Choose Your Coaching Partner Wisely.

It helps if you start out right and there’s no better way to start than by choosing your coach or mentor wisely. Make a list of what you want a coach to help you with. What are the most important goals for your business? Also think about how you want someone to help you. Are you looking for someone to help you find the answers within (a coach) or are you looking for someone who can tell you what the answers are (a consultant) or both (mentor)?

When you search for your coach, consultant, or mentor, make sure you find someone who’s a good fit for your goals, how you want them to help you, and your personalities. Have a conversation with your potential partner in success (be wary of anyone who won’t have an initial conversation with you without charging you!) and pay attention to how that conversation goes. Ask questions about how they work with their clients. Do they have a system? What techniques or methods do they use to get the best out of you? Have they had success in the areas you need help with the most? While you may not need someone who has an advanced degree or certification, you shouldn’t work with someone who can’t answer these basic questions.

2. Know Your Outcomes.

Before you start working with a coach, consultant, or mentor, know what your outcomes are. Is your goal to get clarity? To become more productive? To figure out what’s holding you back? To get more clients? To learn strategies for marketing your business more effectively?

What are your goals and how will you know when you reach them? Knowing your outcomes will help you to set an agenda for every session so you make the most of your time.

3. Design the Relationship.

The relationship with your coach or mentor is a special one that you should design together to be the most effective for you. As you get to know your coach and how he or she works, don’t be afraid to speak up and say what you need. Your coach needs to know if there’s something you don’t understand or if you need something different from her.

4. Keep Your “Kitchen” Clean.

Ever hear the phrase, “too many cooks in the kitchen spoils the broth?” Well, if you’ve got too many people giving you advice, you’ll spoil the direction of your business. I’m a firm believer in keeping your “kitchen” clean—just keep one cook in your kitchen at a time and you’ll have a lot more clarity about what you’re supposed to be doing.

5. Respect the Space

When you meet with your coach or mentor, respect the coaching/mentoring environment. Give each session your full attention and energy so that you can get the most out of every minute. I ask all of my clients to make sure they’re in a quiet place where they can really focus on our work together so that we can be super-productive and make progress toward their goals.

Coaching, consulting, and mentoring can make a big difference in your business. Working with someone who can hold you accountable, help you gain clarity, improve your workflow, teach you new strategies, and help you achieve your business goals means you can get where you want to go faster and easier. But please, make the most of each session so that you and your coach can be more successful.

The post 5 Ways to Get More Out of Your Coaching or Mentoring Sessions appeared first on Business in Blue Jeans.

Why I Love Bluehost:

1. Easy Setup.

Setting up your account with Bluehost is as easy as pie. In fact, I shot a little video for you so you can see just how easy it is:

2. Amazing Customer Support.

Bluehost has exceptional customer support. They’re reliable, they’re friendly, and they’re invested in making sure you get what you need. Any time you run into a challenge, you can call their toll-free number or use their on-site chat and someone will help you solve your problem. And they won’t leave you hanging, either: most callers are on hold for less than 30 seconds (I don’t think I’ve ever been on hold). The folks at Bluehost meet my personal “buena gente” standards.

3. No Down Time.

I’ve experienced literally no outages since moving my sites to Bluehost. They’re extremely reliable, which is more than I can say for other companies that charge more.

4. They Make Things Work Faster.

Bluehost is always working on new scripts and doodads to make your site run faster and more efficiently. I like that they’re constantly striving to do what they do better.

5. Excellent and Easy WordPress Hosting.

If you’re an entrepreneur or small business owner, especially if you’re not super-tech-savvy, the smartest thing you can do is have your site built on the WordPress platform. Wordpress will make managing and updating your site so easy, it’s not even funny. And that, my friends, makes your life easier.

Bluehost is beloved by my web developer because they make hosting WordPress sites so darned easy. It’s literally one click to install. Plus, they’re uniquely designed to make WordPress sites run better and faster.

6. Multiple Domain Hosting.

If you’re an entrepreneur with multiple business interests or multiple web sites (for example, I own Business in Blue Jeans, Susan Baroncini-Moe, Break A Record With Susan, and many more sites), you will love that Bluehost lets you host everything in one account. You can host unlimited domains and web sites with unlimited space within just one account, for one price!

When I saw my client’s invoice, I looked like this, except female. And no tie. So really, not at all like this, except for the abject shock and horror.

7. Excellent Pricing.

One of my clients recently emailed me an invoice from her local tech company that’s been hosting her web site. The invoice was for $250/year. I just about swallowed my tongue.

Your domain name registration and annual renewals should never cost more than $8-15/year. Your annual hosting shouldn’t be more than $90. With Bluehost, you get the first year’s domain registration free (or you can transfer your domain to them at no charge).

My Bias:

Bear in mind that I am slightly biased about Bluehost. They were the official sponsors of my Guinness World Records® record-breaking event, Break A Record With Susan, when I broke the record for the world’s longest uninterrupted live webcast. Dan Handy, their CEO, and James Grierson, their VP of Business Development & Affiliate Management, were my guests during the event. I just think the world of Dan and James and Bluehost in general. They’re a really great company. FYI, just so you know, the links in this post are, in fact, affiliate links, which means that when you click them and sign up with Bluehost, they send me a little “thank you” check for sending business their way.

So that’s my bias. But I have to tell you that if I didn’t have that bias, I would still recommend Bluehost, for all the reasons above. I love doing business with companies that are good people (that “buena gente” thing) and who do what they do really well. You simply can’t go wrong here.

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What’s the big deal about subject lines?

Your email subject line is what gets your emails opened. If you’ve got a dud subject line, who’s going to open it? But if, instead, you’ve got a subject line that piques your subscribers’ curiosity and gets them intrigued, they’re going to open and read your email. And, if the content you create is compelling and has a strong call to action, they’re going to click and…ready for it?…buy.

But that first battle is to get your subscribers to open your emails.

Tips to help you improve your email open rates:

Use an Email Management Tool

The best thing you can do to both protect yourself and actually know what your open rates are is to use an email management tool. We’re talking Constant Contact, aWeber, Infusionsoft (these are my top three recommendations, and the choice of which one to use should be based on a number of factors, which is another blog post altogether). Using an email management tool is the only way you can follow CAN-SPAM, the FTC guidelines that govern the legalities of emails and spam, and also get useful metrics at the same time.

Avoid Being Spammy

Many email systems are set up to filter your email and toss emails with certain characteristics into the Spam or Junk folders. To avoid this happening to you, follow some simple rules:

• Don’t use all capital letters in the subject line, ala “EXCITING NEWS!”
• Generally speaking, when you can, avoid copious use of the word “free” and especially “FREE!”
• Avoid using multiple exclamation points, e.g. “!!!”
• You can use subject line personalization, like “Susan, you have new offers,” but can look spammy and may land you in the Spam folder. More importantly, if using a first name in the subject line doesn’t suit your brand, then don’t do it.
• Using “RE:” can actually land you in hot water with CAN-SPAM and also annoy your readers.

Keep It Simple and Short…Sort of.

The general consensus is that if you want to increase your open rate, keep your subject line under 50 characters. But studies have shown that longer subject lines have increased click rates, which is what you really want. My recommendation is that you stick to the shortest subject line that still conveys your message. My two highest open rates and click through rates were on messages that had subject lines numbering 62 and 34 characters. Go figure.

Have fun. Inspire curiosity. Be engaging. Make people wonder what the heck you’re thinking! What’s inside that email?! Write subject lines that make them NEED to know.

Inspire Curiosity

It’s important that your subject line inspire enough curiosity that it compels them to action. Recently I sent out an email with a subject line, “Could this story be about you?” That email had one of the highest open rates in the history of my email newsletter—well over 49% (which is absurdly high, if you’ve looked at any of the stats I linked to in this related post).

Inspire curiosity with your subject lines. Get them wondering, “What the heck could this be about?” and wanting to know more.

Be Fun and Engaging

Be Honest

When you write your subject lines, don’t be misleading. This will destroy your click through rate. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve gotten emails from marketers who write things like “Your refund,” or “I’m done!” and the emails have to do with a brand new product. That makes me so mad and I’m guessing you get mad about it, too. You might get opens, but as soon as people realize they’ve been deceived, they’ll unsubscribe and be annoyed by your brand.

I sent out an email once with a subject line, “I’m leaving for good.” In the email, I explained that I was leaving a particular email management tool for good, and if people wanted to continue receiving my email newsletter, they needed to confirm their email address with the new tool. See how that was compelling but still honest?

If you want to keep your subscribers, increase email open rates, and increase click through rates, be honest!

Improve Targeting

One of the best ways to increase both email open rates and click through rates is to improve your targeting, or said another way, improve where you’re getting your subscribers from. If you’re getting subscribers from any source that’s not capturing your true target market and people who subscriber are really only half-interested, then all of your important metrics will go down. You can track this information down by separating your lists by campaign and promotion and tracking specific list results.

Test, Test, Test.

Always test and run experiments. You can split test or you can just roll with something and see what happens. Don’t worry about unsubscribe rates too much, unless they’re leaving you in droves. If you lose one or two subscribers after one email, that’s not the worst thing that can happen.

At the end of the day, what’s most important is that you create compelling, interesting, high-quality content that your subscribers want to read. Inspire their need to know what your email is about, deliver great content that excites and helps them, and you’ll see all of your metrics improve.

RELATED: What’s a Good Email Open Rate?

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