Over the last two weeks, Atomic Object Co-CEOs Michael Marsiglia and Shawn Crowley have logged nearly twenty hours on a listening tour. During these sessions, they meet in small groups with every employee at the custom software consultancy about the future of flexible work at their three offices in Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids, and Chicago. One surprising theme has come up across many listening tour sessions: dogs.

“It’s been brought up more than we expected,” says Marsiglia. “After last year, more of our team members have dogs, and their dogs are used to having them at home. It’s a real concern for people. That’s what these listening tours are for: discussing what’s working, what’s not, and getting feedback for the future.”

Of course, it’s not just about the dogs — it’s much more than that. Team members have expressed their thoughts on everything from familial anxiety as Covid bubbles start to break apart, to their love-hate relationships with the daily commute. Conducted in person, the listening sessions are held with small, diverse groups of employees, which has given team members the chance to hear about their colleagues’ lived experiences through the pandemic.

“Common themes have surfaced, but people did have different experiences,” says Marsiglia. “It's been good for the team to learn more about the advantages and disadvantages their colleagues have experienced. I believe it has helped create shared empathy for each other.”

But if there’s one sentiment all leaders can relate to right now, it’s that things are constantly changing. Just a few months ago, Crowley and Marsiglia had drawn a clear line in the sand: despite the wave of tech companies shifting to a remote-first model, Atomic Object wouldn’t be one of them. Crowley and Marsiglia believe that, as the world shifts back to safely working in the ways they know to be effective, technology consultancies that have formally shifted to all-remote work will be at a competitive disadvantage.

Atomic Object focuses on the early phases of software product design and development, and they believe that collaborative design and engineering will always benefit from being done in person. The nature of product innovation is driven by collaboration, and Crowley believes that a future model of flexibility should be designed around keeping co-location intact.

“We’ve been in business for twenty years and have a goal to be a 100-year-old company,” says Crowley. “Thinking in that timescale, eighteen months of remote work due to the pandemic doesn’t change the nature of cross-disciplined, collaborative, and creative work. Digital tools have reduced friction in doing this type of work remotely, but in-person is still the ideal work modality.”

Marsiglia agrees. “Ultimately, we decided co-location is more effective and efficient. It’s also more of a differentiator than offering all-remote. Purpose is vital to our success, as is creating a sense of place and togetherness. In order to position Atomic competitively for the future, we must favor culture over short-term cost savings.”

Crowley and Marsiglia went to work on a comprehensive plan that offered the team a high level trajectory of ‘Crawl/Walk/Run’ phases, long-term milestones, details for each phase, and commonly asked questions around behaviors and compliance with state guidelines — along with the caveat of Covid-19 and the unpredictability of the virus. Atomic’s plans to return to the office are already in motion across its three offices, moving into its “walk” phase that brings more people into the office for collaboration and coworking as needed.

Although they prioritize co-location, Atomic Object has always had a historically flexible work model. Employees can work remotely when necessary, whether it’s for a doctor appointment or a more disruptive life event, like a sick relative. They certainly never called it a hybrid work model, but the pandemic has fast-tracked the need for open conversations around work modalities.

The more Crowley and Marsiglia talked to the team about their intention to slowly phase everyone back into the office full-time — with plans to discuss a more flexible, hybrid approach in 2022 — it became clear that those conversations needed to happen sooner.

“We’ve all endured enough uncertainty,” says Marsiglia. “As we reestablished our co-located model in our offices, people started to wonder about the future of flexibility at Atomic. That’s why we started conducting listening tours to understand where they’re at and gather feedback. The desire for flexibility and the challenges of remote work is something we’ve consistently heard from our team — it’s an evolutionary process.”

Slowly but surely, Atomic’s offices are returning to the vibrancy of pre-pandemic days. As they move forward with a future model for flexible work, Crowley and Marsiglia are committed to being flexible themselves. They are putting together a loose model for the team to react to, built on and formalizing Atomic’s historical flexibility. They are also adding in dials for enhanced flexibility, such as recurring remote days or even remote weeks, and a core set of working hours for teams.

“When you consider flexibility, you can think both about the time the work is done and the place,” says Marsiglia. “The dials help to create flexibility across both axes, while trying to balance the very real value of collaboration that is optimal in a synchronous, shared space.”

As they move forward with the plan and ask team members to opt in, Crowley is encouraging everyone to to consider the balance between individualism and collectivism.

“Will you give up some aspects of flexibility for the greater good?” says Crowley. “For instance, our ‘core hours’ dial can help strike a balance. One of our senior developers shared that he likes remote work because he can start dinner at 5 o’clock. I appreciate that on so many levels. I also asked him to consider the people on his team and what they can get from him when he’s physically present. We have people with varying degrees of career experience on our team — what would that mean to our more junior team members?”

As their plans continue to evolve, Crowley and Marsiglia are taking it in stride. The return to work plan they presented to the team earlier this year has changed, and their latest approach may very well change, too — all because they’ve chosen to listen to their employees before embarking on a plan.

Guided by Atomic’s core purpose, values, and most of all, their people, Crowley and Marsiglia are working together with the team to reflect on a few key questions: What’s best for the organization? What’s best for their projects and clients? What’s best for the communities they work in? And, not to be overlooked, what’s best for all of their dogs?

“Honestly, I don’t know where we’ll land,” says Marsiglia. “But we’re here to make all boats rise. We believe we do that best together. We should all be getting more than just transactional takeaways like pay from our work — we should be gaining knowledge, skills, and a sense of belonging.”

The pressures on women during the COVID-19 pandemic are coming from various directions. New research from Deloitte Global indicates that the pandemic has seen a confluence of events for many women—namely an increase in their workloads at work and at home. Many are at a breaking point, leaving the workforce in record numbers. But there is a ray of light amid the gloom: Employers that give women the culture and support to enable them to succeed have a more productive and motivated workforce and are likely to report greater retention, the research found.

Gender inequities were holding women back in the workplace well before the pandemic began in early 2020, with women globally earning 81 cents for every dollar that men earned.[i] Over a year later, the pandemic has likely served to increase this gender gap, having significantly impacted women’s mental well-being, careers and ambitions.

A Perfect Storm

According to Deloitte Global’s new report, Women @ Work: A Global Outlook, which reported the findings of a survey of 5,000 women across 10 countries, nearly 80% of women say their workloads have increased because of the pandemic, while 66% of women report having more responsibilities at home. The research also showed that the pandemic has created even greater challenges for LGBT+ women and women of color, who are more likely to report lower levels of mental well-being and work-life balance.

“Women are facing the ‘perfect storm’ with heavier workloads and greater responsibilities at home increasingly blurring boundaries between the two. They are also continuing to experience noninclusive behaviors in a work context, with many not reporting this to their employer despite the understandably negative impact it may have on the recipient” says Emma Codd, Deloitte Global Inclusion Leader.

When combined with respondents’ perception that employers have not been supportive when it comes to balancing work and personal life during the pandemic, these inequities have pushed many women to make tough decisions about whether to remain in their jobs—or leave the workforce altogether. According to Deloitte Global’s report, fewer than half of women are satisfied with their current jobs and 51% are less optimistic about their career prospects than before the pandemic. In fact, 23% are considering leaving the workforce.

The top reason women are considering leaving their current employers? A lack of work-life balance. Only one in five women surveyed believe that their employers have helped them to create clear boundaries between work time and personal time during the pandemic. This is also reflected in the top reason that women are considering dropping out of the workplace entirely: increased workload.

Even when women take action to alleviate their situation, many view the impact as negative, with nearly half of the surveyed women (and two-thirds of surveyed sole parents) who have had to adjust their working hours because of increased caregiving responsibilities saying they believe this has negatively affected their relationship with their employer.

A Stark Reality

In addition to facing added responsibilities and pressures at home due to COVID-19, women continue to face noninclusive behaviors at work. Even in the remote and hybrid workplaces of the pandemic era, a majority of women surveyed say they’ve experienced noninclusive behaviors in work situations over the past year—everything from unwanted physical contact and disparaging remarks about their gender to questions about their judgment.

In fact, for 34% of women surveyed, the reported frequency of such noninclusive behaviors has increased since the pandemic began.

“This reveals a stark reality: Noninclusive behaviors permeate beyond the traditional ‘four walls,’” says Codd. “Ultimately, these behaviors stem from cultures where noninclusive behaviors are allowed to persist unchecked and where women do not feel comfortable to safely and confidently report them, whether they occur in-person or via a computer screen.”

The situation is more stark for LGBT+ women and women of color. According to Deloitte Global’s report, women of color were three times more likely to experience comments about their communication styles during the pandemic, while LGBT+ women were nearly four times more likely than other women to experience jokes of a sexual nature.

“The pandemic has laid bare the long-standing cultures where many women within these groups not only suffer from noninclusive behaviors, but also feel unable to do anything about them without concern of career penalty,” says Codd.

Winning Back Women

The good news is that it’s still possible for employers to reverse these discouraging trends and make sustained and meaningful progress on gender equality at work. Deloitte Global’s report shows that women who work for companies that provide an inclusive work culture—where women are more confident about reporting noninclusive behaviors, feel supported by their employers on work-life balance and believe their careers are progressing as fast as they would like—report better mental well-being, motivation and productivity, and are more loyal to their employers. Notably, they are far more likely to stay with their current employers for longer than two years.

This is a critical moment for employers to understand what women need—and to start working to restore gender equity within their organizations.

The research enabled Deloitte to identify a number of actions that employers can take to make meaningful progress when it comes to gender equality. These include embedding a truly inclusive culture, enabling a better work-life balance by going beyond policies, demonstrating a visible and measurable leadership commitment and providing meaningful development opportunities.

“Meaningful and sustained change will only come when women experience ‘everyday’ inclusive workplaces—whether virtual or in-person—where statements on the importance of gender equality are backed up by meaningful actions, and where goals are set and progress is measured,” Codd says.

Action Is Key But Culture Is Critical

“This inclusive ‘everyday’ culture is critical for organizations to make meaningful progress. It will not only help enable women to feel able to raise concerns should they experience noninclusive behaviors—and to do so without fear of career penalty—but also to take advantage of flexible working options without believing that it will adversely impact them,” she says.

Now is the time to act.

“Our research has served to highlight the adverse impact of the pandemic on women at work. But it has also shown us the steps that organizations can take to address this impact – critically at a time where we are starting to rebuild the workplace of the future. Now is the time to rebuild with gender equality in mind.” Codd says.

While current marketing trends seem to be hyper-focused on social media, research shows that good old-fashioned email is still considerably more effective at capturing online leads than popular platforms like Facebook and Instagram.

Compared to other channels, email marketing has one of the highest returns on investment out there with an average of $42 for every $1 spent.

So if you’re serious about expanding your business, building a robust, healthy email list needs to be a top priority. When used wisely, it can have an immeasurable impact on your marketing campaigns, as well as your traffic and sales.

To help set your business up for long-term success, I’ve put together a few handy list-building tactics so you can grow your email list in no time.

What we’ll cover:
• Why grow your email list?

• Creating targeted email lists

• Converting important content into gated content

• Personalizing for optimal results

• Making your opt-in form prominent

• Offering an incentive

Let’s get started!

Why Grow Your Email List?

Before we delve into the specifics of how to grow your email list, let’s cover some of the basics first.

An email list consists of a group of subscribers, either site visitors or customers. This list allows an organization to share its content with people who have opted to receive information, updates, announcements, discounts and other details about the business directly through their email inbox.

Without an email list, you could miss out on reaching potential customers. In fact, it’s one of the best ways to connect with leads, as you’re 40 times more likely to acquire new customers through email than through Facebook or Twitter.

Plus, your email list is entirely in your hands. You control how much you communicate with your target audience — no social algorithms to compete with.

And last but not least, sending emails is a key way to build trust between you and your customers. When people read an email, it’s done in the privacy of their inbox. Because your message is not displayed publically on an ad or social media timeline, recipients are more comfortable engaging with you and more likely to become a paying customer.

Tip #1 — Create Targeted Email Lists

Growing your email subscriber list involves getting to know more about the subscribers you already have.

Who are they? Where do they live? What are their interests? What are their pain points?

Once you’ve gathered this information, you can start segmenting your audience into buckets. That way, your readers won’t all receive the same messages — only what’s most relevant to them.

For example, some fashion retailers offer subscribers the opportunity to choose which email lists they’re most interested in. And they have the option to choose as many or as few as they want.

Tip #2 — Convert Important Content Into Gated Content

From white papers to ebooks, chances are you have plenty of high-quality content that you’re giving away for free.

If you really want to grow your email list and skyrocket engagement, try restricting your best content so that it can’t be accessed unless a user enters their name and email address.

Gated content needs to be both well-written and informative in order to give the reader the expected payoff. Remember, you’re exchanging value for value.

A strong example of gated content is Klood's ebook “The Beginner’s Guide to WordPress." Users only get permission to view it when they sign up.

Tip #3 — Personalize For Optimal Results

It's been shown that personalized emails have transaction rates six times higher than those for non-personalized emails.

Instinctually, any hint of personalization makes us feel special, with more than 70% of consumers saying that a personalized experience is more likely to influence their decision to open and read brand emails.

And email personalization doesn’t just mean just including the recipient’s name in the subject line.

One way OpenTable encourages engagement is by sending emails with personalized subject lines asking how the customers’ most recent meal was that they booked through the platform.

Tip #4 — Make Your Opt-In Form Prominent

When it comes to how to grow your email list, opt-in forms are critical for boosting conversion rates.

Studies show that 55% of visitors spend only 15 seconds or less on your website, which means you need to capture their attention right from the get-go.

While the copy should be concise and the design should be visually appealing, the primary goal is to make your form stand out from the rest of the elements on your page.

Whether you’re using an exit-intent form, a slide-in form or a notification bar, the pop-up needs to be prominent.

Tip #5 — Offer An Incentive

If you want visitors to subscribe to your email list, you need to offer them something in exchange. In other words, give them a reason to want to hear from you.

Incentives can often be the extra push that helps persuade visitors who would otherwise leave your site to take action and sign up.

Common incentives include limited-time offers, free shipping and access to exclusive content. Discounts, in particular, encourage 67% of consumers to make a purchase they weren’t originally planning to make, according to a recent survey from RetailMeNot.

Wrapping Up

Whether you’re planning to implement all five of these hacks or even just a few, just remember growing your email subscriber list is an ongoing practice. As consumer interests and needs continue to evolve, your email list should accurately reflect those changes.

It’s critical that you make an effort to routinely analyze your contact list and leverage your findings to refine your campaigns and build a positive online reputation.

So, if you’re ready to see an increase in communication, loyalty, brand awareness, revenue and customer retention, start leveraging these tips and you’ll grow your email list like wildfire.

No matter what position you hold or what industry you work in, lagging motivation can put a serious dent in your overall productivity and negatively affect your career. Unmotivated professionals may find it difficult to focus on the task at hand, see assignments through to completion or even attend to their daily responsibilities.

From a fear of failing to a lack of clear expectations, there are many possible causes behind a decrease in motivation. Whatever the reason, getting back on track before the problem spirals out of control is essential.

Below, 16 members of Forbes Coaches Council share their best advice on how to identify the root causes when motivation starts to lag, resolve them and avoid such pitfalls in the future.

1. Clarify Your Vision And Take Action

First, start by clarifying your vision and goals. Most people lack motivation because they aren’t clear on where they are headed. Then, move to take immediate action of nearly any form. You may think you have to be motivated to act, but motivation actually comes after action. Think about the last time you did something tough or scary. Immediately afterward, you likely felt motivated to do more. - Zander Fryer, High Impact Coaching

2. Reflect On Career Accomplishments Daily

Lack of confidence is one of the biggest barriers impacting motivation. Increasing your self-confidence can greatly improve your motivation. Consider implementing a daily practice of reflecting on and writing down your career accomplishments. This single habit can dramatically bolster your career confidence and help you regain your motivation. - Kyle Elliott, MPA, CHES, CaffeinatedKyle.com

3. Remain Optimistic And Focus On Success

Motivation and success are often directly related. I find my clients’ motivation is higher as they become more successful (as defined by them and their goals). However, before you reach your goals, if you remain optimistic and focused, things will usually get better. - Donald Hatter, Donald Hatter Inc.

4. Manage Time Better And Find Ways To Add Joy

Motivation slumps are related to time management and joy. First, spending too much time is draining. Whether it’s the same project that never ends or something that takes up all of your waking hours, the result is the same. Second, if the work isn’t connected to your personal energizers, then it’s like a slow leak. Interestingly, the solution is not about subtracting scope, it’s about adding back what you love. - Marita Decker, FutureCourse Education

5. Find Meaningful, Purposeful Work

The contributing factor I notice most with clients who are struggling with motivation is a lack of passion for the work they are doing. This often is a result of a job mismatch or unclear expectations from their boss. You can typically fix this problem by finding a role that allows you to perform meaningful and purposeful work and ultimately helps you become the best version of yourself. - Kaleth Wright, Air Force Aid Society

6. Get Into The Career Role You Desire

In his best-selling success book Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill suggests that desire is the starting point for success. I would ask my client if they like their current job or position in their company. My priority for clients who are unhappy or lack motivation in their current position is to get them into the desired career role. - Mika Hunter, Female Defender

7. Consider What Is Blocking You And Go Around It

Lack of motivation to achieve something is often accompanied by distraction and an unwillingness to be present. Two actions are helpful to address this. First, face the here and now and consider what is blocking you. Second, choose to move around it. While that may sound easier said than done, take one step forward. Then another, and repeat. Seventy percent ready is good enough to go. - David Yudis, Potential Selves

8. Unblock The Subconscious By Asking Why

Lack of motivation is usually caused by a subconscious block, fear or a negative belief system. Getting to the root of the issue that is creating the block will reveal how to move forward. Asking why and really leaning in to reflect can create positive insight and renewed motivation. - Melanie Towey, Melanie Anne, LLC

9. Reframe Goals And Reassess Priorities

Burnout can be a contributing factor to a lack of motivation, causing dysfunctional habits and even a work-life imbalance. It may help to reframe the goal or take a step back in order to reassess the priorities at hand and ensure that you are still the right person for the task at hand. Management or peer support can offer a safe psychological space to rethink the next steps. - Claudine Reid, PJ’s Community Service

10. Make Sure Your Values Align With The Work

A common cause for lack of motivation is a misalignment between your work and your values. I see this often with midlife clients. It seems that as we get to a certain age, it becomes increasingly important that our work either positively impacts the world or, at the very least, does no harm. When you find yourself out of alignment in this area it can be difficult to muster up the motivation to move forward. - Cheryl Czach, Cheryl Czach Coaching and Consulting, LLC

11. Connect To A Deeper Sense Of Purpose

You have lost the connection to the deeper purpose that is driving you. When you are connected to your deeper “why,” every moment at work feels meaningful. However, sometimes you get so overwhelmed with the demands of the business, so wrapped up in fears and worries about the future, that everything becomes doom and gloom. This is when you need to reconnect with the purpose that drives you. - Rajeev Shroff, Cupela Consulting

12. Address Strained Co-Worker And Client Relationships

Sometimes, coaching clients lack motivation due to their co-workers or the client from hell. To get your mojo back, have a team meeting and have an honest conversation about what it would take to make this a dream team. Agree on the execution and check-ins to monitor progress. To solve the client-from-hell problem, it’s best to have a discussion with the leadership team so that they can talk to the client about needed changes. - Kevin Kan, Break Out Consulting Asia

13. ‘Gamify’ Challenging Tasks To Make Them More Fun

Lack of motivation usually comes about when there is boredom. To avoid boredom, you need to be clear about what it is that you need to be doing. Make the task fun; “gamify” it. It needs to be challenging enough to excite but not so challenging as to force one to give up. Ensuring variety is key. - Rakish Rana, The Clear Coach

14. Take Action To Make Progress And Enhance Your Mood

Negative emotions about the task contribute to a lack of motivation. When you have negative feelings that you want to avoid, you may procrastinate to eliminate the feelings in the short term. That’s why it’s useful to uncover what you feel about those tasks when you say, “I don’t feel like it,” and then take action to make progress on the task and enhance your mood. - Sheila Goldgrab, Goldgrab Leadership Coaching

15. Assess Underlying Internal Conflict And Apply Self-Care

When a client struggles, there is usually underlying internal conflict. The person may be working on something that doesn’t align with who they really are or what they believe in, or there may be exhaustion and burnout that reflect an imbalance in the person’s life and lifestyle. In either circumstance, resolution comes from evaluation, assessment and the application of self-care to take new action. - Lisa Marie Platske, Upside Thinking, Inc.

16. View Mistakes As Critical Learning Experiences

Fear paralyzes. Low motivation often comes from a fear of failing. To combat this roadblock, you can learn to reframe your view of mistakes. Instead of viewing them as bad, view them as critical experiences for learning and growth. I encourage clients to get in the mindset of experimentation, not perfection. “Experimenting” brings about a playful freedom to fail and iterate as you go. - Glenn Taylor, Skybound Coaching & Training

The other day, right before the Fourth of July weekend, the ice maker in our refrigerator died. The weather was hot, and the gin and tonics were ill-suited to warmth.

Later that evening, I quipped on Twitter, asking if anyone had seen that kid Red Grange delivering ice lately. Of course, football fans will know that this was how the great running back of the University of Illinois (and later the Chicago Bears) kept himself in shape nearly a century ago, delivering great blocks of ice to houses in his hometown.

Days later I called a repair service, noting lightheartedly that not having an icemaker was hardly a big deal. The service rep lowered her voice, saying that I would be surprised at how many people regard having a broken icemaker as a catastrophe. "If not having an icemaker is the worst thing to happen to me this year,” I quipped, “then it will be a good year.” The service rep laughed in agreement.

Too often, we get distracted, annoyed even when things, little things, don't go our way. It's easy to become frustrated, and in doing so, we forget just how fortunate we are. A flight delay. A missed dinner. A dying appliance. These annoy us, but in the grand scheme of life, they are trivial. In years to come, such inconveniences are not likely to be remembered.

Gain perspective

We must put life into perspective. Easy to say. Our irritation blinds us to reality.

We have endured a year and a half of disappointment and delusion—as well as exclusion and isolation. And we're still here. The pandemic persists, but we are coming back slowly to a different form of life. Not the same, but different. In some ways, it is richer because of what we have experienced.

We have been tested, and we have survived. Not everyone did. More than 600,000 Americans died. Millions lost their jobs. Three million women exited the workforce. Those are tragedies. They are benchmarks of actual loss. Annoyances come and go. Losses live as scars in our memories.

A novel lesson

The novelist J.R.R. Tolkien wrote in The Hobbit, "So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their endings." For him, this statement was true. Tolkien was a young officer in what his generation of Britons called The Great War. He fought at the Battle of the Somme. After the war, Tolkien returned taught medieval literature at Oxford. He also raised a family and told his sons stories that would become great novels of fantasy in time. Fires and dragons do die out, leaving in their wake the possibility of renewal.

So, take a deep breath.

Exhale slowly.

Remind yourself of your blessings

Take another deep breath.

Exhale slowly.

Smile in gratitude.

Post-script

The repair person finally arrived. With a quick look inside the fridge, he shook his head knowingly. The icemaker was genuinely dead. Good news, a replacement would cost only $75, plus another service fee, of course. So, again, if this is the worst thing to happen to me this year, sign me up now.

While there aren’t any major holiday sales happening at the moment, this weekend is still a great time to shop discounts all across the internet—you just have to know where to look. To simplify your shopping experience, we’ve sifted through the hundreds of available markdowns from fashion, tech, beauty, home and other retailers to narrow down the best deals to shop now through July 25.

Whether you’ve been on the hunt for a wet/dry vacuum with great reviews or you’ve been looking for some noise-cancelling headphones to help you focus while working from home, you’re almost guaranteed to find what you want at a discount this weekend. Below, find eight of the best deals online at the moment. And if you want to shop and save some more, head over to our list of the best online sales happening now.

Made from the same buttery soft material as Lululemon’s best-selling Align leggings, these bike shorts are so comfortable, you’ll forget you’re even wearing them. At six-inches-long, they’re the perfect length to prevent chafing, too.

Basically a vacuum and a mop in one, this Tineco machine will have your floors looking cleaner than ever before. The FloorOne S3 has built-in sensors that detect dirt and debris and automatically adjust its suction and water flow based on the area you’re cleaning. Plus, this wet/dry vacuum cordless, so you can maneuver it around the house with ease.

This limited-edition set contains $182-worth of some of La Mer’s most popular skincare products, but it’s on sale for $95 during the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale. In other words, now’s the perfect time to try some of the brand’s cult-favorite products without spending some serious cash. One thing to note? This deal is only available to Nordstrom cardholders until the sale opens to the general public on July 28.

If you’re partial to at-home workouts, this Echelon smart mirror is worth checking out. It allows you to stream hundreds of on-demand classes in a variety of different categories like yoga, Pilates, cardio, strength and boxing, and also lets you access live one-on-one training sessions. Right now, the device is on sale for $500 off at Best Buy.

GreenPan’s pots and pans are some of the best nonstick cookware money can buy, so we can hardly believe this set is currently on sale for more than half off (we’re not complaining, though). According to reviewers, this set is also durable, easy-to-clean and heats evenly every time.

Read a handful of the almost 6,000 five-star reviews of these headphones, and it’s clear that wearers absolutely love them. Customers say they’re comfortable to wear, have great sound quality and offer an impressively long battery life.

Nike sneakers rarely sell for under $80, so the fact that this pair is on sale for only $45 is pretty mind blowing. These sneakers are designed to be lightweight and offer stability as you move, making them great for running and working out. They do run a bit small, though, so you may want to consider sizing up.

As long as you’re ok with having the 2019 version of Casper’s Wave Mattress, you can get it for 50% off its original price. The Wave mattress features a combination of gel pods and foam to keep you feeling supported and cool all night long. The only downside to this deal? It’s final sale, so if you’re not a fan of the mattress you’ll have to resell it (or put it in the guest room).

Email marketing is still relevant in 2021, and it will likely continue to be in the years to come. Why? Because you can monetize your list of contacts.

With email marketing, in contrast to Facebook Custom Audiences or Google Ads targeting, you don’t have to build your business on rented land. Maybe Facebook will turn off the Custom Audiences feature tomorrow, or Google will restrict targeting options. If you build your business exclusively on third-party systems, you run the risk of losing revenue sources.

That’s why your email list is a treasure. The contacts are your contacts, and you can contact them whenever you want (until they unsubscribe) — for free.

Drawing on my own experience with email marketing, here's my advice on who it is for, what tools you can use and how to get started.

Who Is Email Marketing For?

Email marketing makes sense for most businesses, whether you have a Shopify store or are a local dentist. Why? Because it is an easy and cheap way to get in contact with your customers and leads.

Consider these two cases in more detail:

• A Shopify store: Let’s say you have a small range of baby products and have generated many sales in the last few years. Now you have a new collection of baby shoes in different colors and sizes. You already have a lot of customers who are happy with your products. They are exactly the right audience. Leverage your previous sales by sending out a few emails to the people who've already purchased from you. You will likely get sales without spending anything on advertising.

• A local dentist: If you collect email addresses from your customers, you can get in touch and boost your sales dramatically. Maybe you offer a new bleaching service and want to make it public. The best way to do so is to email clients who already trust you.

As you can see, email marketing can work for just about any kind of business. It can be effective for B2B marketing too.

The Connection Between Your Audience and Your Business

In my experience, no advertising method is as effective as an email in your customer's inbox. You can build trust by sharing valuable content, generate engagement by sharing insights from your company, or sell more by sending great offers.

One of the many significant benefits is that the audience already has a connection with you. Your contacts already gave you their email addresses — maybe during the purchasing process or in exchange for a white paper or another goodie.

Trust can be the key to boosting sales. If customers were happy with their previous purchases, why shouldn't they buy another product from you?

Let's jump back to the Shopify store with the baby products. Maybe a young mother purchased a bathtub for infants in January. It makes sense to show her your collection of infant rompers in February and shoes six months later.

With this logical understanding of your audience, you can turn your email list into money.

Email Marketing Software

There are a lot of email marketing tools out there. There are fantastic free tools and also complex and expensive tools.

I'll be completely honest: If you are a consulting business and have 50 clients, you likely don't need email marketing software. It may be enough to manage your contacts in Outlook or Gmail and send out messages from your personal inbox. You can use the BCC field to send emails to your crowd without letting them know who else is getting the email.

If you have a large contact list or need additional features, I recommend using tools like Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign or HubSpot.

To choose the right email marketing software for your business, make sure you have the end in sight. What's your main goal for your list? What would you like to accomplish in two to three years? Perhaps you would like to automate your lead generation and send out many emails in a special order to your contacts or automate birthday and Christmas wishes for your clients. No matter what ideas you have to boost your business, there is a tool for you.

The Best Time to Start Email Marketing

Do you already have a thousand ideas on how you can boost your sales, push your customer engagement and leverage your business with email marketing?

The best moment to start is right now. The sooner you start, the faster you will see results.

Maybe the automation stuff above sounds overwhelming to you. Do not let that distract you. Start small. Just collect email addresses, and send out your first message after collecting 100 or 500. Get familiar with the tools and your crowd.

Email marketing is a process that never ends. And the best moment to start this process is right now.

The goal of every new business is to generate revenue with a quick ROI. With today’s technological advancements, marketing communication has never been easier. The modern marketer can reach prospects through several digital channels, from search engine marketing to social media platforms.

With so many innovative ways to reach prospective customers, it can be challenging to determine the best marketing strategy for your new business.

The answer is simple: Share your message where your audience will most likely see it. As of last year, there were 3.9 billion email users around the world. Email marketing remains a successful platform for converting contacts to sales. Not sure how to develop a solid email marketing strategy? Campaign Monitor can help.

What is email marketing?
Email marketing is the distribution of promotional messages via email to a carefully defined target audience. It can be utilized to boost sales, strengthen brand recognition, and build customer loyalty. Regardless of how many digital marketing channels develop, email marketing continues to be one of the best ways to contact and engage your target audience.

For more than ten years, email marketing has been the leading channel to deliver the highest ROI for marketers. It currently brings $38 in ROI for every $1 spent, a rate of 3800%. There are several contributing factors to email marketing’s success.

Email is one of the most utilized forms of communication. Most people use email daily, often several times a day. With the advent of smartphones, users can now check their email from anywhere. Last year, 293.6 billion emails were sent and received each day. These emails aren’t just person-to-person contact. They’re also a way for people to connect with their favorite companies. In fact, more than 70% of consumers prefer email communication as their source for updates from the businesses they follow.

Email marketing is cost-effective, so it appeals to businesses of all sizes. It’s possible to reach a large audience for very little investment. You gain direct access to inboxes of quality prospects while avoiding the costs associated with print advertising. Email marketing is a smart way to connect with your target base, identify new customers, and grow your business.

What makes email marketing successful?
The beauty of email marketing is that it enables you to keep in touch with your audience regularly. From welcome messages to follow-up thank you notes, email is an effective way to engage your audience and build customer loyalty. Personal messages can go a long way, and a customer who feels valued is more likely to support your business in more tangible ways.

A recent study revealed that 68% of businesses had lost a customer due to indifference. Email marketing is an easy way to avoid this. Through email messages, a business can further enhance the customer experience and continue to boost ROI.

5 email marketing benefits for startups
As a new business, determining where to allot your marketing spend is critical to your success. It’s vital to generate new leads. However, your marketing strategy should be cost-effective and yield results. Here are five benefits that email marketing offers your new business.

1. Create individualized content with targeted messages.
Email marketing enables you to customize content. Messages can be personalized with the recipient’s name. Emails that include a customer’s first name in the subject line have a higher click-through rate than those that don’t. The more emails are opened, the more information you can learn about your audience. This allows you to discover their needs and pains and helps to develop strong relationships.

Additionally, you’re able to create customized content by segmenting your contacts. This allows you to tailor your marketing campaign to different target groups, like one-time customers versus return visitors. Identify your prospects’ needs. Consider geography, demographics, interests, and even behavior. By targeting your messages in this way, you’re increasing the relevancy of your content, which can lead to more conversions and higher ROI.

2. Drive traffic to your website.
Email marketing campaigns allow you to include links in your message that take your audience directly to your website. Whether it’s a hyperlink or a CTA button, sending readers to your site can positively impact your SEO. By promoting targeted content, you drive qualified traffic to your site. This tells search engines that you’re providing valuable content, which can boost your website’s online rankings. Higher rankings lead to more visitors, which can lead to higher ROI.

You can drive more traffic to your site by solidifying your email list. Build your database by making signup forms easy to complete. Only ask for the most basic information. Make sure your emails can scale to any device. Most people now access their emails from mobile devices. Therefore, your emails should function on a variety of platforms. Effectively reaching more people can bring even more business to your site.

3. Build brand awareness.
In addition to reaching current customers, email marketing is an effective way to reach people who are unfamiliar with your business. Email is nearly 40 times more effective than social media in gaining new customers. It’s an easy way to share information about your business. There’s also an excellent opportunity to send coupons or discount codes.

Use email to set your brand identity that people will recognize when they receive your messages. People are creatures of habit. Set standards early on for what readers can expect to find in your emails. Display your logo in the same place on each email. Ensure messaging includes corporate colors. Establish patterns in your emails that help create brand recognition. Consistent communications will increase the likelihood that people will think of your business when looking for products and services that you provide.

4. Track with ease.
Email marketing allows you the opportunity to see the effectiveness of your campaign easily. An important metric to track is your open rate. Be sure you’re using compelling subject lines to entice people to open an email. Click-through rate tells you the number of people who click on the links in your messages. Clicks per link offer you further insight into the type of content your audience prefers.
Conversion rate shows how many new users you’ve converted with your campaign. Unsubscribe and forwarding rates reveal how people perceive your messages. Are they removing you from their contacts, or sharing you with theirs? Regardless of which information you track, set a campaign goal that includes a CTA. If people aren’t getting to your site, it’s time to re-evaluate your messaging.

5. Create brand advocates.
Email is one of the simplest communications to share with others. With the click of a button, your current customers can do your promoting for you. If you build a strong relationship with your client base, they can become advocates for your products and services. Word-of-mouth advertising is taken to a new level with email marketing. Make it easy for people to share your information by including clear CTA buttons that encourage readers to do so.

Consider special discounts to people who help promote your business. Ask long-time members to share your message in return for premium access to a new product. Encourage customers to refer a friend to build your contact database. Develop strong relationships with your current customers. Brand loyalty can lead to new prospects, exponentially increasing ROI.

Email marketing best practices for small businesses
It’s easy to see that emails are an effective marketing tool, and you can develop a successful email marketing campaign by following these best practices.

Run a test.
Before you blast a message to your contact list, send a test copy to yourself. Check for errors, typos, and broken links. CTA buttons must take viewers to your website. Be sure content appears correctly on a computer as well as a mobile device. Don’t give this campaign an excuse to fail.

Schedule with intent.
Be deliberate in your email campaign schedule. Studies have shown that the best day to reach an audience with email is Tuesday. Keep this in mind when setting your campaign. Use your own data to adjust based on your customers’ needs.

Send to a healthy list.
Develop a quality contact list and only target people who sign up for your email communications. Don’t use purchased email lists or enroll people against their wishes.

Wrap up
Email marketing remains a preferred channel for today’s marketers, as it allows businesses to reach a wide target audience easily and affordably. Email marketing allows your company to:

Create individualized content with targeted messages
Drive traffic to your website
Build brand awareness
Track analytics with ease
Create brand advocates
Email marketing is an effective and beneficial way to boost business and improve your ROI. To ensure success, follow best practices like testing your messages, scheduling with intent, and sending to a healthy list.

We can help your new business develop a beneficial email marketing strategy. For more information, contact our sales team today.

That’s the most important question marketers are asking today. With social distancing, self-isolating, and remote working becoming the new normal, there's been a shift in the market from the supply and demand side, due to which there’s a shift in the marketing paradigm. For brands and marketers navigating the COVID-19 crisis, simply reaching the customer has become a challenge.

Furthermore, according to a Survey Monkey survey, 92% of Americans are worried about the impact of the corona-virus on the national economy. All these factors can influence business prospects and further cements the need of a crisis road-map.

To help marketers and their business steer through these uncertain times, 11 leading marketers share tips on how to be relevant to customers in this time, how they plan to work through this crisis, and how to keep up the momentum.

Here’s what they had to say:

1. Reassure Your Customers About How Your Company is Responding to the Pandemic
Mark Lieberman, President and CEO, Viamedia

“Stay relevant to the consumer’s needs today that means reassuring them about how your company/brand is responding to the pandemic.

“Apply a calming, reassuring tone with a positive message (as a welcome reprieve from the seemingly 24/7 negative news).

“Use video with strong, warm, embracing visuals. After all, TV is the best medium for site, sounds and e-motion.”

2. Move Your Brand Online to Stay Connected to Your Customers
Andrew Walker, CEO, Shift7 Digital

“First, an overall theme to your strategy: KEEP GOING! Moving your brand even more online will keep you connected to your customers and enable a unified customer experience. Three key areas to focus on: your story, website and data. Second, revisit your current content marketing and keyword strategy. Leverage keyword research and social listening tools for topics that provide insight into specific information they are seeking. Check your PPC, too. Keywords targeted yesterday may not be the most relevant today, as search volume and term trends could be fluctuating.”

3. Refresh Customer Experience (CX) Strategies to Relook at End-to-End Sales Processes
Richard Blatcher, Director of industry marketing & business intelligence, PROS

"COVID-19 has created unprecedented disruption and uncertainty of when things will improve, meaning marketers must pivot their strategy in three crucial ways. Marketers should refresh their customer experience and look at their end-to-end sales processes to ensure they’re able to respond with agility, engage across different sales channels and optimize processes.”

4. Focus on Strengthening Your Relationship With Your Customers
Tony Kavanagh, CMO of Insightly

“First, you must communicate regularly. Customers today want a relationship with the companies with whom they do business and to go beyond the transaction to a more engaging, human place. If you do not already have a regular cadence of communication to your customers, now is the time to build one. Second, shelve the 'hard sell.’ COVID-19 is an unprecedented pandemic. Be empathetic. Focus on strengthening your relationship with your customers but for reasons that are genuine and thoughtful, ask how they are doing, exchange life stories of caution and triumph.”

5. Infuse Empathy in Your Marketing Communications
Tara Kelly, president and CEO, SPLICE Software

“Marketers, now more than ever, need to ensure they are using empathy in their marketing communications. Without that, communication is seen as “taking advantage of the situation”, and no one wants that label. Marketing technology can still support the automated distribution of messages and provides invaluable insights to how people are engaging with new messaging.”

James JC Ramey, CEO at DeviceBits

“Empathy is likely the key part of staying or connecting with customers and prospects. Marketers should be working with the organization to understand how they are shifting in customer experience from, for example, phone support to self-service. Marketers should keep in “high touch” with their customers during this time. Keeping in contact with empathy and new innovative programs will create loyalty and a happier customer base as we exit this current challenge.”

6. Implement an Agile Strategic Pricing Model to Improve Margins
Richard Blatcher, director of industry marketing & business intelligence, PROS

“Focusing on short-term strategic planning by implementing tools to enable valuable insight gains from vast amounts of customer and market data will enable marketers to make rapid changes, protecting revenue.

“Marketers must also implement an agile strategic pricing model, which is the most effective way to quickly improve margins. Working in real-time and offering products or services at the most profitable price is imperative for short-term profitability."

Learn More: Your 2020 Crisis Marketing Strategy: Marketing Communication and the Coronavirus (COVID-19)

7. Reflect on Your Company Values During this Lockdown & Refocus Your Engagement Strategies
Tricia Binder, co-founder and president, Muros

“At Muros, staying top of mind is all about creativity. While keeping creativity and authenticity at their core, marketers should consider the following tactic to pivot their strategies. More than ever, we have time to reflect on our values and mission. For us, that’s getting more art seen and supporting the artist community. Refocusing can get you thinking about new, relevant ways, to engage your customers, employees or clients in these uncertain times.”

8. Avoid the Hard Sell and Reaffirm Your Commitment to the Long Run
Mark Lieberman, President and CEO, Viamedia

“Tailor messages to be consumer-focused top-of-mind, as most are shopping “in the moment of fear and anxiety – e.g., I don’t have enough toilet paper. Ask is your message relevant now, today, and tomorrow? Step back from the hard sell and provide messaging that reaffirms your commitment to be there over the long term and through thick and thin. Almost everyone is at home, so video advertising has never been able to be more impactful and serve as the cornerstone to connecting communities. And remember, that many people will mute the TV, especially when it is on 24/7. So, the video imagery is key.

“Today digital and now linear TV advertising decisions are based increasingly on data, we like to say, “Data is the new creative.” Transaction speeds, cost efficiency and flexibility are more crucial at a time of rapidly developing events such as COVID-19. Access to linear TV programmatically will be the next wave, combining automation and data.”

9. Use Marketing Technology to Stay Connected to Customers When Working Remotely
Andrew Walker, CEO, Shift7 Digital

“Further enable your work-from-home marketing, sales and customer service teams through cohesive customer 360-degree views and data via your customer data platform. Help sales continue pipeline growth by feeding customer behavioral insights via your marketing automation system, while also implementing a well-designed lead scoring program to help them prioritize efforts.”

James JC Ramey, CEO at DeviceBits

“Marketing technology plans a huge role during this time. Brands can roll out new programs, innovative approaches and products but without getting the message to the customers, they will have low adoption and frustrated customers. Marketers can show how their brand is here during this challenge and can best deliver the customer value to consume. Marketing technology will drive the shift that we are seeing in every business through what has traditionally been lagging. Things like self-service, chatbots and asynchronous messaging will now take a front seat in the technology roadmap.”

10. Help Your Customers Navigate the Situation and Pivot as Necessary
Tony Kavanagh, CMO of Insightly

“Lastly, be helpful. The recently announced stimulus bill in the US is incredibly important, but many businesses don't know what this means for them or how it benefits them. Do the research on their behalf and help your customers understand exactly the steps to take to avail of what could be a lifeline for them and their families. All the above can be helpful and is necessary in times like these for pivoting marketing strategies.”

1. Control for visual attention

If you don’t think about how you manage attention on your site, users are going to have a rough time trying to find what they need. The elements on your pages are not of equal importance – why should they have equal visual weight?

You should drive visual attention to the elements that matter most.

Here are some things you can use:

• Size – make the important elements larger without making them so large that the web site becomes tacky
• Shape – if your template allows for irregular shapes, use irregular shapes like rounded corners on your calls-to-action (CTA). Irregular shapes attract more attention than straight lines
• Color contrast – your theme should largely be one color, and the CTAs should have a high contrast with that primary color to attract more attention

2. Have a clear call-to-action

Every page should be intended for a specific kind of user intent.

• People who are researching a product should go to your educational pages rather than your product details
• Users looking for options should be driven to your category pages
• Visitors who are near the bottom of the funnel but not ready to pull the trigger should go to your trial pages

The CTAs on those pages should match the objectives of the user. You need to think carefully about your buttons:

• CTAs should complete an “I want to” statement (e.g. “I want to … complete order/download trial”)
• CTAs should be adjusted to the stage of the customer journey (don’t immediately give people in the

3. Format copy for scannability

Humans are satisficers.

That is, on the web, we are not likely to seriously weigh options and then decide on a plan of attack. Rather, we are likely to examine one option, and if it’s good enough that we don’t see serious issues, we plow ahead without examining the other options.

What that means for web sites is that people scan a lot, read very little, and upon finding a good enough option, they’ll proceed to click without thinking if the other options you provide are a better fit for what they need. You need to have a web site that supports that behavior.

Your web site needs bullet points, bolded headlines and sub-headlines, and good grouping, so it’s easy to scan.

4. Make your content easy to read

Everyone prefers simple language on the web, even experts and specialists. That means you need to make sure your content is written the right way:

• Avoid jargon where possible
• 5th grade reading ability is the sweet spot. Use tools that implement Flesch–Kincaid readability tests. Then, refine your content until you get at least close to 5th-grade-readable-content
• If you have an international audience, limit the use of idioms

5. Limit choices

We can only use our short-term memory to remember 5-9 things. So, if you have a category list that spans 13 items, for example, you need to trim the options even at the cost of asking the users to make one more click.

Deep content where people need to make easy clicks are better for web usability than fewer, more difficult clicks.

If you make sure you don’t put a strain on the user’s memory load, your visitors will thank you.

6. Get users to trust you

If people don’t trust you, they won’t buy from you. There are proven techniques to increase visitor trust:

• Put trust symbols above the fold – a lot of companies have trust symbols, but lower on the page. Don’t make that mistake – if people can’t see your trust symbols easily, they might as well be invisible
• Borrow trust – use your media mentions, and display logos of large companies who have bought your goods and services to increase trust
• Social proof – if you have a large enough customer base, display the number of customers on your pages to take advantage of the bandwagon effect

7. If you have ads, make sure the headlines line up

For people running search ads, one of the most common mistakes is not aligning the content of the link on the ad to the headline of the page the ad goes to.

The headline needs to match the ad so you deliver on your promises. This means more work creating landing pages, but you’ll give your landing pages a higher shot at making visitors convert.

8. Make your pages focused

Outside your web site (on a Google result page, etc.), you need to be loud and compete for attention. Once people are on your web site, you need to quiet down and get people to focus on what they need:

• Limit the use of visual distractions, especially stock images
• Avoid moving elements like rotating banners

9. Earn the right to ask for information

Establish a relationship before you ask for information. When your business relies on signups as part of the conversion path, you can’t afford to be a greedy marketer. You need to stop sending people to 15-field forms before they’ve had the chance to get to know you:

• Ensure you have a ready set of loss leader PDFs or trials that you can “trade” for user information
• Users are not likely to give you information until you provide value, so don’t bombard them with signup forms immediately

10. Nudge users to convert using scarcity

If people are just about ready to convert, but they need a final nudge to act now, your pages can include the following elements:

• Limited time offers – this can make people act sooner rather than later
• Stock availability – for those items where the scarcity can make people act on that same visit

 

Improve Website Conversion Rate with Best Practices

Don’t rely on tests for everything. Your site needs to be sound before you run your tests. If your pages are terrible, your champion and challenger pages will both suck. And you’ll just find the more viable of two bad pages.

If you follow best practices, then run your tests, you’d be more likely to make your site succeed.