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Email Marketing: Tips for Writing Compelling Email Copy

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Whether for business or personal use, email is an incredibly important channel for communication. A study in 2015 concluded that office employees can receive 121 emails per day. Imagine how much that number has grown in five short years. Regardless of the volume of email communication, a surprisingly small amount of emails are actually opened and clicked through.

So how can you, as a business owner, guarantee success for your email marketing? To succeed, you have to create amazing email copy. Grab your readers’ attention and make your product seem absolutely essential. Engage them with a personal approach while also staying short and sweet and to the point. If you can create a trusting, playful, and fun email marketing campaign, your readers will start looking forward to your name showing up in their inbox. Follow along for some more tips and tricks for creating fun and effective email copy.

Grab the reader’s attention.

We’ve already mentioned the sheer volume of emails in everybody’s inbox. To spark the reader’s interest, you have to grab their attention right off the bat with your subject line. Try to include dazzling facts or a direct appeal. Use dynamic words to stand out and numbers to draw the eye. Plus, you want to tell your audience they need what you’re selling. For example, are you more likely to invest in an article titled “Tips to Look Your Best for a Date” or “12 Must-Try Tips to Guarantee an Amazing First Date?” Even with your subject line, you have a responsibility to convince your audience what you’re promoting will dramatically improve their life. If you can grab them at the start, they’re more likely to click through to your full article to learn more.

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Stay clear and concise.

While you want to use dynamic words and a flashy presentation, you also want to stay clear and concise with your message. Let’s be honest, no one wants to read a five-paragraph email in their inbox. Can you consolidate your thoughts into bullet points or better yet, fun graphics? The real test of a good email is to get the reader‘s attention and to keep it. Answer the questions you’ve posed and make a personal appeal. Provide access to further information to get them interested in your product’s website and follow that interest up with a purchase.

Utilize buttons and links.

To aid with clarity, you can always employ the use of buttons and highlighted links. By including a brightly colored call-to-action (CTA) button that says “Sign Up Now!” or “Start Saving Today!” you are likely to engage with the reader. Plus, you take away any work they may have to do to find the link. Forget about searching through paragraphs of info for the exact answer you need — make the link stand out so they’ll have to click to read more. Opening an email is a great start, but if you can encourage your audience to click for more, you’ll really have them hooked.

Your website traffic is crucial. Companies who invest in search engine optimization end up having more success in finding new clients and getting the word out about their business. By including links in your email, you’re helping increase the clicks on your site. A company like LinkLaboratory can help you with link building and innovative approaches to content creation. Their packages can increase your link volume and productivity. So while appealing to your customers directly through email, you can also lead them directly to your page.

Relate to the reader.

Perhaps one of the most important ways to engage with your audience is to make it personal and authentic. Something as simple as writing in second person makes the reader feel like you’re talking directly to them. You want to call them to action. Instead of writing, ”everyone should try this new restaurant,” try “you deserve a night out, treat yourself to fine dining today.” With the latter phrasing, your reader is more likely to think “hey, you’re right, I’ve been working hard, I do deserve a night out.” Also, read your audience. If you’re selling a fun, quirky product to a teenage crowd, feel free to use emojis or hip new slang. At the end of the day, people want to feel seen and heard. If you can write email copy that makes this happen, you’ll have a dedicated base of loyal customers in no time.

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Protecting Your Retail Stores Finances

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You have worked hard to build your retail store into a profitable business. Providing your customers with safe and secure credit is what keeps them coming back, but how can you protect your finances? Here are a few steps your retail store can take to protect itself from financial loss.

Make sure your data is well protected

The world of retail is changing. It’s gone from floor to web, and now it’s in the air. Technology is advancing faster than anyone can keep up with. How we buy and sell goods has changed, but the basic rules have stayed the same: you need security. 

Investing in cybersecurity for your business is a big part of protecting your retail store finances. Data breaches are reported in the news every day. Be prepared to defend your assets by ensuring your data is well protected from threats, viruses and hackers. 

By safeguarding your finances with Internet security systems that aren’t easily hacked into, you’ll be able to focus on the rest of your business.

Invest in the proper type of insurance 

Business insurance helps protect your business finances by providing you with protection when you need it. Public liability insurance can protect your business finances against a variety of risks from property damage to customer injuries and legal claims. This will also stop you from going bankrupt if someone makes a claim against your business.

Protecting your retail store finances can provide peace of mind for you and your business. Whether you’re a new or existing business owner, learn about how the right retail business insurance can help protect your business finances and assets.

Control your expenses

Understanding how to control your expenses is crucial for any retail business, big or small.

Reducing the amount of expense in your retail business is a good first step to protecting your money. Know what you are paying for, how much, and if you’re getting value for it.

Make it a point to keep an eye on your budgets, but you also want surety that you’re aware of every penny that flows in or out of your business. With timely, easy-to-read reports and data-driven insights from book-keeping apps, you can be certain that every transaction counts toward your bottom line.

Separate personal finance from business finance

Business owners are highly motivated to grow their business. From hiring additional staff to purchasing expensive equipment, you’d like to have funds available when you need them. However, a lot of companies do not separate their personal finances from the finance of their business. Everyone knows that mixing your personal and business finances in a single bank account is not a good idea, so always separate them.

If you are like many small business owners, your personal finances and business finances are mixed. If the two are intertwined, then business decisions can have a direct impact on your personal financial situation and vice versa. 

Explore additional sources of funding

Protecting your retail store finances is one of the biggest challenges faced by small businesses. Growing insurance costs, cash flow shortages and general overheads often get in the way of long-term financial planning. For many, a bank overdraft is used to balance books and stave off insolvency, but you could be risking much more than just your overdraft interest rates. 

Furthermore, as a business owner, you are personally liable for all company debts – which could leave your personal credit rating negatively impacted if the unexpected happens, and your retail store can face financial challenges that could threaten the success of your business over time. It’s important to explore funding options and solutions to help protect your profits in the long-term. 

No matter how much you invest in your retail store, your ability to protect yourself and your store’s finances should be the most valuable investment you make. Protecting your retail investment is important, and hopefully, this short article has provided somewhere to start from.

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A Great Start: How to Plan a Successful Business

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While there is no denying that starting a business in any industry is considered a milestone and an achievement to be proud of, the prospect of trying to keep the business afloat during the first one or two years is another story entirely. It can be challenging enough trying to keep your business afloat by gathering clients and clout within the community, but preventing a new company from being overshadowed by industry giants requires passion and careful planning.

When you consider that the slightest mistake could lead to potentially devastating consequences for a new business, it is almost ironic that one of the most challenging phases of business management is typically helmed by inexperienced business owners.

Fortunately, you do not have to go in blind. Here are a few ways you can plan ahead for a successful business.

Knowledge is power

While it is common knowledge to gather as much information as you can about your industry, many startup owners end up focusing on the immediate needs of their business. Keeping in touch with the latest trends in your industry ensures that you have a wealth of knowledge to consider when you start making big decisions for your business.

It also helps to keep in touch with industry trends, as it allows you a glimpse at what your competitors might be into. For contracting businesses, it might be techniques such as using a precast retaining wall, and for restaurants, it might be a new superfood making waves as an ingredient in common recipes.

Focus on the loyalty of employees

For any business out there that makes use of employees, they are the lifeblood of a company. For startups, how your employees perform dictates whether or not your business falls flat. Fortunately, one of the tried and tested ways to bring out the potential of your staff would be through the use of employee incentives. It is all right to start small if you do not have the budget to go for an all-out incentive plan – the crucial part is your staff understands that you are looking out for them.

The moment your employees start thinking that you have no intention of providing an incentive, they will likely only give the bare minimum to keep your business going.

Look into reasonable coverage options

While it might not seem like an immediate issue, coverage is undoubtedly one of the most crucial aspects of building a business. The right type of coverage means you can focus on building your company without having to worry about legal issues potentially making your goals impossible to achieve. It would be a good idea to look into a business owner’s policy (BOP), as it typically combines coverage types your business needs while simultaneously being cheaper than the sum of its parts.

There is no denying that running a business and keeping it afloat amid a competitive industry is a substantial challenge. That said, the tips above can help you maintain a foothold and forge ahead in your chosen industry.

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4 Ways To Encourage Health And Well Being In The Office

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Your workforce is your most important commodity. It, therefore, pays to take good care of them.

Yet the latest statistics show that poor health and wellbeing measures in the workplace is the prime cause of absenteeism. As a result, enterprises suffer diminished productivity and turnover, and high medical, legal and insurance costs.

The World Economic Forum says work-related stress is a pandemic and costs the global economy £255 billion a year. Moreover, stress is the largest single predictor of absenteeism and poor workplace performance.

Promoting health and well-being in the workplace essentially revolves around four pillars; eating healthy food and drinking more water, managing stress levels, promoting mental health and getting sufficient sleep.

Offer Nutritional Snacks and Meals

Chocolate and sugary snacks may be more appealing but they are not good for the health of your staff or the productivity of your business. Sugary foods may provide an initial spike in energy, but quickly crash. This leads to fatigue and a deterioration in cognitive function.

The best healthy snacks contain protein, fibre and carbs such as nuts, banana cake and popcorn. Homemade energy bites and smoothies go down a treat as well!

Encourage Movement

According to the American Heart Association, sitting is the new smoking. Sedentary jobs increase the risk of heart disease and other cardiovascular-related illnesses.

Encoring employees to move around the office has been identified as a potential solution. Today’s agile office designs encourage employees to work in specified zones and take the stairs instead of using the lift.

Agile office designs also incorporate break out areas which encourage people to take the regulated 20-minute break every hour and refresh their brainpower.

Promote Exercise

It’s likely that all your employees know that exercise is good for them but few of them actually engage in physical activity. Motivation is the key issue – so why not poke your workforce with an exercise stick.

For example, you could organise weekly sports events, or encourage a work team to enter in local sports events such as 5-a-side soccer. Perhaps you can strike an arrangement with a local gym or yoga class, or install bike racks to encourage people to cycle to work.

You could also encourage your staff to download the Sweatcoin app which rewards people for walking. The app counts your number of steps and converts them into a digital currency directly on to your smartphone. You can then exchange the sweatcoins for merchandise and earn massive discounts.

Invest in Mental Health Strategies 

Now it has come to light that mental health issues impact work performance, more companies are investing in strategies that place health and wellbeing of their staff at the centre of their workplace strategy.

Human-centric approaches include offering childcare benefits and e-coaching services that help staff manage stress. Virtual support systems for employees working from home also help people feel less isolated and part of a team.

Experts also advise employers to remove the pressure of targets. Stress can drive people towards drugs and alcohol as a coping mechanism. In doing so, their workplace performance suffers.

If you notice signs of workplace stress in your employees, you should seriously consider installing strategies that foster health and wellbeing. Companies that neglect their workforce will notice a drop in performance and a rise in absentee-related costs.

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