If you walked up to a stranger on the street and asked them for $20, odds are they’re going to look at you like you're crazy and walk away. I cannot blame them; I’d do the same. Now… what if, instead, you engaged them in conversation, swapped contact information, developed a friendship over the course of many weeks, and THEN asked for $20? You might have a better shot.

Well, in some ways, email marketing is a lot similar. People are much more likely to support a cause that they are familiar with and trust. So, with that in mind, it might be time to consider how we can be building trust with our subscribers so that we see the most possible success with our emails.

This means that we need to provide content that makes the recipient feel valued as opposed to just another donor. Before we ask for money and support, we need to show the subscriber how much they matter to us; that we do not just care about their wallets.

So what kind of content can we send out that would align with this goal of building trust? I have a few ideas…

Newsletters and informational content

• These emails can be used to inform your recipients on your mission and the news you find most important. Subscribers will be able to see how their values align with your own and, in turn, may acquire more support for your cause.

Feedback

• Do not be afraid to ask your subscribers about their opinions. Whether you need advice on how to go about things or you’d like to know what you can do better in the future, your recipients should be the first people you ask. Their opinions matter most!

Prospecting

• Sometimes the easiest way we can appeal to our subscribers is to ask them what they care to hear about. Our Nucleus CRM allows us to quickly tag our recipients so we can be ensuring we are reaching out to them with their interests in mind.

These are just a few types of emails we can be sending to our subscribers to ensure that we are building trust before forcing asks down their throat. I think you’ll all find that embedding a little love and care into all of our emails will always pay off in the long run.

For more information regarding how to send less aggressive copy while yielding higher return, contact our team for training or insight and visit your Nucleus Resource Library!

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By Julia, Deliverability Expert

For those of you familiar with MySpace, you probably weren’t aware at the time but you were actually preparing for a future in email marketing.

HTML coding is one of the most commonly used methods to design and develop promotional email content. And, while we make it super easy to avoid here at Campaign Nucleus, it can’t hurt to learn the basics…

HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language and it is a type of coding that defines the structure of your content.

Rarely in this day and age do we have to start our HTML coding from scratch, but the basic commands can always come in handy for fundamental understanding even when we are just altering a previously-coded document.

First and foremost, it must be known that the entirety of the code is defined by opening and closing tabs:

Open tab: < >

Closed tab: < />

Our open tab begins a command and our closing tab completes a command.

Below are some commonly used commands to get you started:

Now, let’s put it all together…

HMTL coding = Formatted Content

Hey there!

As you know, we at Nucleus are tirelessly innovating to create a command center platform for ALL your operations needs. Here's a quick snapshot of our biggest features that debuted in April!

 1. Email Builder

Our drag-and-drop email builder has been upgraded! Now, more than ever, you can create customized email campaigns. Add videos, menus, HTML, banners, mobile formatting, and so much more! These new functions and details will certainly boost your subscriber engagement.

2. Sign-up Alerts for events

Events are pinnacle moments for many campaigns and organizations, so we wanted to ensure your staff is always in the know. We have added alerts to our events settings to notify specified personnel about event sign-ups. Add alerts for general, VIP, or media sign-ups, and never miss a sign-alert again!

3. Spam Score

We know email marketing can be tricky, and we want you to have all the tools at your disposal. That's why we have created a new 'Spam Score' feature in email. After creating your email, go to the review page to see how your email scores and better help monitor your copy and subject lines.

 4. Domain set up

Domains are vital to your Nucleus account's functionality and can be challenging to understand. We have added set-up steps under domains for step-by-step instructions on setting up your domain in Nucleus. Fast and Simple!

Stay tuned for next month's exciting updates!

A tale of how hard work (eventually) pays off

By Julia, Deliverability Expert

When we are in a court of law, we are hopefully paying regards to the phrase “innocent until proven guilty.”

Well… when it comes to servers responding to your sending domains and IPs, it is quite the opposite. You must prove your domain to be worthy of delivering to your recipients without an existing precedent… sometimes before you can effectively deliver at all.

Now that the campaigning cycle is coming to another end, this is a great opportunity to work toward preparing your domains and IPs for the most success when the cycle begins picking up again. I think the most important take-away here is: PREPARE your sending domain BEFORE YOU NEED to send with it.

I want to take a few minutes to review how pre-emptively preparing your sending domains can be beneficial to you in months to come.

It takes TIME to scale your domain up to your full sending volume. By getting an early start you are able to avoid rushing the warming process, which could cause you to have blocks and trouble with deliverability.

Even after you’ve scaled to full sending volume, it takes TIME for a server to trust you. Servers are constantly watching how their recipients are engaging with your emails & designated a reputation to your domain/IP based off that response. The only way to continuously improve your reputation, especially on Google and similar servers, is for your audience to be consistently positively engaging with your emails. This means the same users repeatedly engaging with your emails, so sending to only new recipients constantly is actually very poor practice.

And it takes TIME for your audience to recognize and engage with your content. This is a great opportunity to focus less on ads and asks, and more on branding and informational content. It can be extremely valuable to produce very non-controversial content that includes little to no ‘call to actions.’ This type of content generally performs much better in the eyes of the server so it can help you to build your reputation up a bit so you have a buffer when you do want to send more hard-hitting content.

Many of the questions I regularly receive are concerning how quickly we can fully scale a domain & the truth is… there are so many things at play when you are preparing a new domain/IP for sending that the best thing you can do is get a head start. There are very few issues I’ve seen not be able to solved with a little time and persistence.

For more information be sure to contact our team for training or insight and visit your Nucleus Resource Library!

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