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#43: 6 Tips for Using Canva to Create Quality Content Faster

canva
UMAI social circle cpg podcast

#43: 6 Tips for Using Canva to Create Quality Content Faster

Hey, y’all! 👋🏼 Today, we’re chatting about one of our FAVORITE tools to make content creation easier, whether you’re a marketer, social media enthusiast, founder, or even a small business owner. We’re talking about the wonderful world of Canva! If you’re not using it yet, no worries. We are here to share 6 quick-and-dirty tips on how you can use Canva to whip up high-quality content quicker than ever. So, get ready to level up your social game and create content in a flash with these awesome Canva hacks! Let’s jump right in! 🤓🎨

 

Let Us Break It Down For You…

[0:59 – 5:13] Introduction to Canva
[5:15 – 8:01] Tip 1: Create Your Brand Kit
[8:02 – 12:34] Tip 2: Pull in Gifs as Memes
[12:35 – 14:15] Tip 3: Explore Stock Imagery, Videos, and Audio Elements
[14:16 – 16:42] Tip 4: The Power of Background Remover and Magic Eraser
[16:43 – 18:45] Tip 5: Canva Assistant “Magic Write”
[18:46 – 20:45] Tip 6: Utilize Templates Whenever Possible
[20:49 – 21:21] How to Access The Consumer Goods Social Media Marketing Kit
 

Mentions from this episode: 

Learn more and Start growing with us –

UMAI Marketing socials  –

Get the Social Media Marketing Kit, here
 

Stay in touch:

Join UMAI’s Facebook Group: CORE 

#43: 6 Tips for Using Canva to Create Quality Content Faster 

 

Alison Smith: [0:17]
Howdy listeners, we’re Alison.
 
Karin Samelson: [0:19]
And I’m Karin.
 
Alison Smith: [0:20]
And we love growing CPG brands.
 
Karin Samelson: [0:23]
We’re the founders of a digital and social media marketing agency, UMI Marketing and creators of the Consumer Goods Growth course, where we’ve helped grow dozens of brands to six and seven figures.
 
Alison Smith: [0:33]
We’re a former in-house marketers, turn consumer goods marketing educators who’ve set off on a mission to provide CPG founders and marketers with actionable strategies that drive community and sales. We’re talking real results.
 
Karin Samelson: [0:46]
If you’re wanting to learn simple, actionable, step-by-step strategies needed to drive real brand growth without breaking the bank or sacrificing your social life, then this is the podcast for you. Let’s get into today’s episode.
 
Alison Smith: [0:59]
We’re all about working smarter and not harder when it comes to marketing and creating content. Luckily, there are a whole lot of resources. Today, we’ll be talking about one of them, Canva, that make your life as a marketer, a social media marketer, a founder, a small business owner, so much easier. We’re going to give you our top six tips on how you can use the awesome tool of Canva to create quality content a whole lot faster.
 
Karin Samelson: [1:37]
Woohoo.
 
Alison Smith: [1:38]
Karin and I are on today together. Karin, how’s it going?
 
Karin Samelson: [1:42]
It’s going good. It’s a Friday and Alison and I have to work on… I know. What are we doing on a Friday? We are pretty strict about not having any calls or any meetings on Friday, but we were like, “Oh gosh, we got to stay on track.” Sometimes, you just got to do what you got to do.
 
Alison Smith: [2:02]
That’s right. We got to do what we got to do. Yeah, usually Fridays, no calls. Like Karin said, we’re pretty strict on that. It’s the time that you can do all the things that you didn’t get to do on the week or even deep thinking. Also, personally, if I have any errands, I’ll do that on Friday. During the week, There’s not really a whole lot of time to do that.
 
Karin Samelson: [2:31]
Exactly. Yeah, I told my partner, I was really annoying about it, I was like, “We have a very strict no call policy on Fridays, but tomorrow, yes, we have.” He was like, “You mean you rarely do.” I was like, “No, we never do.”
 
Alison Smith: [2:49]
Yeah, this is a rarity. Yeah, my partner said the exact same thing. He was like, “I thought you didn’t really do that on Fridays,” whatever.
 
Karin Samelson: [2:59]
Jokes on us.
 
Alison Smith: [3:00]
It’s also Summer Friday, so it’s extra bad of us, we’ll into it. Sorry for all the complaints, but yes happy to do it.
 
Karin Samelson: [3:11]
Yeah. While unfortunately, this podcast isn’t sponsored, wish it was, shout out Canva, we really just love Canva because of all the time it saves us. All of us know Photoshop, a lot of us know Illustrator, but Canva, it makes it a breeze for us. It’s a graphic design platform that helps make marketing content and even things like presentations really easily. You can use Canva on a free account or you can pay for the premium version to have access to a few more features. We’re going to be covering some of those features that you’ll need the Pro access to but we’ll also be sharing some things that can be utilized on the free version as well.
 
Alison Smith: [3:56]
I will say I was a diehard Adobe gal-
 
Karin Samelson: [4:00]
Same.
 
Alison Smith: [4:02]
… For a very long time. And I think you, Karin, were popping up in Slack. Caleb’s tight in Austin, they were in billboards everywhere at the same time. I was like-
 
Karin Samelson: [4:14]
Oh, I don’t remember that.
 
Alison Smith: [4:15]
There was a billboard on 290, I think, towards the airport, and I was just like, “No, Adobe’s where it’s at.” Our entire suite is in Adobe, so I was Anti-Canva. I was like, “It’s so basic.”
 
Karin Samelson: [4:34]
It’s for noobs.
 
Alison Smith: [4:35]
Yeah, it’s for noobs. I’m actually a noob, I’m not a graphic designer, but anyways, I thought I was cool because I could use Photoshop. But they have developed so much even past this past year, they have increased all their offerings, they have so much. We’re going to talk about all of it, highly recommend anyone, especially if you’re not developed graphic designer, illustrator, Canva is for everyone. Sponsor us, Canva.
 
Karin Samelson: [5:07]
Why are we not affiliates? That’s okay. Maybe by the time this airs, we’ll get a link for y’all.
 
Alison Smith: [5:14]
But first and foremost, this is our first tip, and this is setting your foundation, this is what you should do really before really diving in. It’s uploading your brand kit into Canva. What does that mean? That’s your brand colors, your typography, your logo, all of your product photos, product images, all of that.
 
Step one is just get all of that in there. It’s just going to make it a lot easier if you create an organized folder with your brand kit. It’s going to prompt you to do that, it’s basically going to ask you to fill that all in. Just don’t skip that step, it’s just imperative to making everything streamlined and easy.
 
Some example folders that you can make within your brand kit, within these folders would be your product images of all your SKUs, you can also make a folder for your social posts. We like to segment all of our social posts by their type, so we’ll have a folder for our Carousel posts, a folder for our reels, a folder for our static graphics. That makes it really easy because exactly where everything is. Also, say, you know, need a carousel post for the week. You go into that folder, you can do the one before, edit it. It’s just going to be a lot, lot faster for you to crank out some content.
 
Pro-tip, you can also have a folder for presentations too. If you’re an agency and you have to do a lot of webinars or proposals, pitch decks, if you’re a brand and you have to create a lot of investor presentations, you can have a folder for these. You don’t have to make these ugly old school, I think of my dad’s presentations. Those are out. You can make beautiful presentations with Canva templates, PowerPoint presentations, and make them beautiful and all your brand kits there, so it’ll be super simple to pull everything in. That’s really going to help you add that branded touch and really impress any investor or retailer or whoever that you’re presenting to.
 
Going to make a strong brand aesthetic and that’s tip one, create a brand kit in Canva.
 
Karin Samelson: [7:50]
While you might be like, “Yeah, duh, guys,” there are some of you that may not have updated your brand kit in Canva. That is just like, we have to say that.
 
The next tip we have for you is pulling in GIFS for memes. You see brands having memes in their content and static posts and reels and wherever they want to use them. You’re like, “Where do they pull that GIF from? How do they do that?” They’re probably most likely doing it in Canva. We are constantly talking about how we need to be posting more video content since that is just one of the best ways to reach new cold audiences on social but we also know that it can be really time-consuming to make videos from scratch. Again, work smarter, not harder, and create some meme reels. That means just a reel that’s a short form piece of video content that has a meme on it.
 
Meme, meaning it has text on it, but then you can pull in GIFS to make it super relatable and just making it a full overarching mean. You can pull things like relatable tweets direct from Twitter or Reddit or Pinterest, and or you can pull in again, those GIFS and add some clever copy that you think will resonate with your audience. We’re going to get into the nitty-gritty on some of these just to help you help guide you on where to go in Canva. But obviously, you can Google any of the things that we’re saying and find out how to do it by reading it there.
 
But first, you’re going to want to create a new design in reels dimensions. That’s 1080 by 1920. We’re always trying to be vertical here. Simply add one of your brand colors as the background color, or you can step it up a notch and use a template that you add your brand elements to and more on that later. The next, you’re going to scroll on the left. On the left, you’re going to have a lot of different options. One of the options is going to be apps. When you click into apps, you’re going to search for Giphy, which is spelled G-I-P-H-Y. Once you’re in Giphy within Canva, then you can search for any GIF you’d like. Think of your customer avatar and your ideal demographic when searching for GIFS and think of things like popular bands or popular shows and movies or celebrities that your audience resonates with.
 
All you got to do is type that in, find one you like, click on your favorite, add some text if that relates to your audience and the GIF you chose and that’s really it. You’re adding some text, you’re adding a relatable GIF, and you’re exporting it as a video and that is a reel. That is a very, very, very easy short form video piece of content that you can make and one up that and duplicate it a couple times and make a few while you’re in there and that’s three different videos that you can post throughout the month.
 
Using GIF within Canva for meme reels is something we really, really like doing.
 
Alison Smith: [11:07]
Any video, is it going to be highlighted by social platforms for the most part? Is that a better idea to make a video than a static image for the most part?
 
Karin Samelson: [11:23]
Yeah, I would say for the most part. There’s no black and white terms, everything is gray on digital for the most part. What we try to do is try to make as much as we can into a piece of video content, but to always test other versions of it too. If you’re like, “Okay, I’ve done a whole lot of those, let me try to do it in a square version,” and it’s static, it’s not moving, it’s just an image and some text and it’s still a meme, try it out, see what happens. See if you get more shares on that. But for the most part, try and make as many videos as you can.
 
Alison Smith: [12:03]
And that’s a quick and dirty tip to make videos, so that’s awesome.
I noticed you’re JIF and you’re not GIF. You’re GIF. Team GIF.
 
Karin Samelson: [12:13]
I’m Team GIF.
 
Alison Smith: [12:17]
Oh, you’re Team GIF.
 
Karin Samelson: [12:18]
I’m Team GIF. We’ve discussed this in the past.
 
Alison Smith: [12:22]
Oh no.
 
Karin Samelson: [12:23]
I’m only Team GIF. Even though the creator of them calls them JIFS. that is peanut butter and I am not interested.
 
Alison Smith: [12:32]
Don’t get it confused.
 
Okay, moving on to our third tip, stock imagery. There is stock imagery in Canva if you didn’t know this. Gone are the days where I have three bookmarks of the stock sites that I need to search through to maybe find what I need. It’s all on Canva now, which is super easy. It’s just a one-stop shop.
 
When you’re creating a new design, there’s a tab called Elements on your left-hand sidebar, and you can search in the Elements for whatever you need. You can find all the photos, it’ll also show you different… Other than Elements, it will also show you videos, graphics, audio even, so it’s all going to be in there. Say you need a background photo or you’re creating an ad and you need some stock imagery to help fill some things, just search what you need. People at a party chatting, it’s going to be in there, it’s free to use, royalty free imagery that you can just simply pull in and no more searching the web for stock imagery or stock video or paying whatever royal imagery, whatever it’s called, 5.99 for an image. Tip number three, Canva has stock imagery as well, and video and audio in Elements.
 
Karin Samelson: [14:06] 
It’s a one stop shot, that’s what we want here. We want to make it super easy. If you’re going to pay for it with a Pro version, use it as much as humanly possible.
 
The fourth tip we have is to utilize tools like the background remover and or the Magic eraser. Again, we have always been Adobe hype women, but this is so much freaking easier. While it’s not as refined, social isn’t about being as refined anymore. Just do what you can with what you have. With the background remover, you can remove the background on most images with just the click of a button.
 
If you have a product image that you want to add onto a graphic, but it’s currently photographed on maybe a colorful or a busy background and you can’t find the PNG of it, just use the background remover. You can navigate to this by uploading an image into the design and then clicking edit photo. And if you have a Pro account, you’ll see the BG remover in that left-hand panel. You’re going to click that and then instantly watch the background disappear.
 
In the same way that the background remover works, you can also use the Magic Eraser to get rid of any unwanted objects in your images. This does work best if the background isn’t too busy. While it’s not perfect, it can be quite helpful when you’re just working quickly or you don’t know Photoshop or work with anyone who does. A tip is just keep going over the sections you’re trying to remove if it doesn’t erase completely on the first go around. But eventually, it will completely erase.
 
There’s actually another AI tool in beta right now that will allow you to completely replace an object in an image with something else that you dream of. This is a bit more advanced and definitely not a foolproof method, it can come up with some hilariously imperfect things, but it’s just something that you could also play around with.
 
Alison Smith: [16:08]
Actually, I’m an AI stan. Do you know what a stan is?
 
Karin Samelson: [16:14]
Yes. I know it. 
 
Alison Smith: [16:17]
I just learned what it is. I thought people were trying to say fan and we’re saying stan, so I googled it. For those of you who don’t know, a stan is a Gen Z turn for a super fan. I’m sure everyone knows but me, but I just learned it, so I wanted to show off my Gen Z terminology. Love me some AI and that brings us to hot tip number five, Canva Assistant Magic Write.
 
I’m just obsessed with AI. I use it for everything. It gets weird, but it’s really fun to play with. Like Karin said, sometimes things get really weird. It’s like, okay, for sure this is a robot and use a human touch but Magic Write is also in the Canva platform, and it’s a lot like ChatGPT if you guys have been using that. It’s going to write you headlines or any text or anything you need. It’s at the bottom corner, I believe of where you’re designing. You should see it, it’s like a little sparkle graphic. But when you see it, try it out, click it. It’s only available on the Pro plan though. If you don’t have the Pro plan, you can just go into ChatGPT and use that instead if you’re just not able to think of copy.
 
Yeah, use it. It can help you write headlines or short pieces of text. You’ll just want to use a human touch and go in and adjust it based on your brand, your tone, make sure it sounds like it’s not a robot. Love it. Love that Canvas… They’ve launched a lot of AI in the past few months, so really, really cool, fun tip to speed things up.
 
Karin Samelson: [18:14] 
Yeah, for sure. It’s not going to be perfect. Whatever prompt you put in there, no matter what it is, it’s never going to be perfect. It will get pretty close and maybe eventually, it will be perfect, but right now, it’s not. But you can use it as just inspiration, like Alison said. You can use it for headlines, for those Carousel posts that you’re creating, or even example texts for those meme reels that we talked about. Let it do the hard work for you to get your juices flowing, and then you can refine it and make it make sense.
 
The last tip we have for you is to utilize templates whenever possible. Literally, everything that we’ve shared today, templates would really, really, really help it. If you’re not graphically or creatively inclined, utilizing those templates is just going to up level the overall design and give you more time to focus on all of the other important stuff that you’re doing.
 
Canva has a number of free templates, but if you really are looking for proven top performing graphics, check out the social media marketing kit for designs that are super high performing. We have seen and tested them on hundreds of other consumer packaged goods brands and these are the best of the best on what we see bringing in the biggest amount of reach and brand awareness as well as engagement. You can find them at umimarketing.com/social-media-marketing-kit. It’s the social media marketing kit and we’ll link those in the show notes for you too, because it’s really hard to remember things like that. Yeah, check it out. It has a lot of templates that are going to make your life a lot easier because you don’t need to start from scratch on most things. That’s a waste of time in our opinion.
 
Alison Smith: [20:06]
And like Karin said, we’ve been doing this for a long time, working with a lot of brands, and we have to create 16 to 20 pieces of content per brand per month, so we’ve definitely seen what works and what doesn’t, and we kind of just pulled the top performers and it’s just like, “Here you go,” just start smarter instead of testing. Definitely check it out, it’s a pretty cool kit.
 
Yeah, that wraps up our six top tips for Canva.
 
Karin Samelson: [20:47]
Woohoo, well thanks for listening, everyone.
 
Karin Samelson: [20:49]
Thanks for listening to the UMI Social Circle, y’all. We’re here to support you in your CPG journey, so be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss any new podcast episodes. While you’re at it, please leave us a review on your listening platform of choice. Shoot us a DM at UMI Marketing on Instagram. If you have any topics you want us to cover on new podcast episodes.
 
Alison Smith: [21:08]
And don’t forget to access our free masterclass where we’re showing you how to create a solid marketing strategy. You can access that at umimarketing.com/masterclass, and we’ll meet you back here for the next episode.
 
 
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#42: How to Utilize User Generated Content to Drive Sales

#42
UMAI social circle cpg podcast

#42: How to Utilize User Generated Content to Drive Sales

In this episode, Karin discusses the importance of utilizing user-generated content (UGC) as a cost-effective way to drive sales for consumer goods brands. UGC refers to content that’s created by customers, content creators (or even your mother, brother, best friend, next door neighbor), and it’s known for its authentic appearance and messaging. Karin shares some effective strategies for leveraging UGC to increase sales and engagement, even on a limited budget.

Tune in to learn more about how UGC can benefit your brand and how to make the most of it. 📸

 

Let Us Break It Down For You…

[0:58 – 1:57] What is UGC and how you can utilize it to drive sales
[1:58 – 2:35] Building community first on social with UGC
[2:36 – 3:08] Using UGC for high-converting social ad creative
[3:09 – 4:27] Exploring alternative sources of UGC
[4:28 – 5:05] Closing and plug-ins
 

Mentions from this episode: 

Learn more and Start growing with us –

UMAI Marketing socials  –

Stay in touch:

Join UMAI’s Facebook Group: CORE 

#42: How to Utilize User Generated Content to Drive Sales

 

Alison Smith: [0:17]
Howdy listeners, we’re Alison.

Karin Samelson: [0:19]
And I’m Karin.

Alison Smith: [0:20]
And we love growing CPG brands.

Karin Samelson: [0:22]
We’re the founders of a digital and social media marketing agency, UMAI Marketing, and creators of the Consumer Goods Growth Course, where we’ve helped grow dozens of brands to six and seven figures.

Alison Smith: [0:33]
We’re former in-house marketers turn consumer goods marketing educators who’ve set off on a mission to provide CPG founders and marketers with actionable strategies that drive community and sales. We’re talking real results.

Karin Samelson: [0:46]
If you’re wanting to learn simple, actionable, step-by-step strategies needed to drive real brand growth without breaking the bank or sacrificing your social life, then this is the podcast for you. Let’s get into today’s episode. 

[0:58] Properly utilizing user-generated content is a great and cost-effective way to drive more sales for your brand. In today’s episode, we’re talking about how consumer goods brands can utilize user-generated content the right way to help drive sales. Hi everybody, it’s just Karin on today, and it’s a beautiful day. Well, it’s not that beautiful, it’s a little rainy and gloomy outside in Austin, Texas today, but it’s a great day because we’re going to be talking about driving sales with UGC. UGC is an acronym for user-generated content, and UGC is brand-specific content created by customers or brand advocates. It really is lo-fi, it looks like something very native on your feed while you’re scrolling. And right now, it’s some of our highest performing content and we’re going to give you a few ideas on how to utilize this content to drive sales.

[1:58] First thing you can do is start requesting permission to repost when someone tags you on social. That can help foster community and trust in your brand, which will always lead to more sales down the road. And you can also start sharing as much UGC as you can to your Instagram stories. So when someone tags you on their feed or mentions you in their stories, make sure to share that to your stories and add a link, a link sticker to your product pages on those slides so that you can try and get as many folks as you can to your website. You want to drive traffic to your product pages, you want them to look through your offerings and purchase. UGC is constantly some of our highest performing ad creatives on social as well. So you’re going to want to have a lot of UGC style ad creatives running and testing constantly.

If you want to use tagged content, so if a creator uses your product, tags you in it and you’re like, “Ooh, that would make it a really good ad,” just make sure to always get permission to repost creators’ content and you will have to specify that those are going to be used for ads. A lot of times, creators definitely want to know that. 

[3:11] And so if you’re like, “Cool, Karin, that’s great, that would be really easy if we already had creators tagging us. But what can I do if we just launched or we don’t have a lot of tagged UGC, we don’t have a lot of people using and tagging us?” The answer is ask friends and family to shoot some video testimonials for you. If you have a bit more of a budget, you can even utilize on-website apps like gogander.io to source more custom content from users. Or you can use apps like minisocial or creator.co, which pairs brands with microinfluencer creators who can produce user-generated content on demand and at more scale. So if you have a budget.

[3:55] Other ways you can source UGC is running a giveaway on social, where customers can share pictures or videos of themselves using your product. And as long as you offer a really nice, a really juicy prize to incentivize these folks to enter to win, you might get some really, really good content. Just make sure to have some fine print in there in the giveaway rules that says that you’ll be allowed to utilize those videos for marketing purposes once they enter to win. 

[4:28] So those are a few ways to source some UGC, whether you pay for it or you source it from your community or you just ask your friends and family, because we know that UGC performs and helps drive sales. So the more UGC a brand has the more social proofs and likelihood someone will follow along to learn more and eventually try the product. It’s all about that social proof and UGC really satisfies that in a lot of ways.

So that’s about it. We wanted to make it short and sweet and actionable. So if you have any questions, let us know. But thanks for listening, really appreciate you guys spending some time with me today. 

Karin Samelson: [5:05]
Thanks for listening to the UMAI Social Circle, y’all. We’re here to support you in your CPG journey, so be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss any new podcast episodes. And while you’re at it, please leave us a review on your listening platform of choice. Shoot us at DM at UMAI Marketing on Instagram. If you have any topics you want us to cover on new podcast episodes.

Alison Smith: [5:24]
And don’t forget to access our free masterclass, where we’re showing you how to create a solid marketing strategy. You can access that at umaimarketing.com/masterclass and we’ll meet you back here for the next episode.
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#41: 4 Easy Ways to Increase Email Clicks & Opens

UMAI social circle cpg podcast

#41: 4 Easy Ways to Increase Email Clicks & Opens

In today’s episode, Alison discusses the importance of email marketing as a direct and effective way to build a relationship & sales with leads. She shares four easy-to-implement tips to increase email open and click-through rates. Email marketing is a valuable marketing strategy that often gets overlooked – on this episode, learn how to make the most out of this valuable tool!

Let’s dive into these tips and start driving results for your email campaigns. 💌

 

Let Us Break It Down For You…

[0:59 – 1:48] Why you should be spending more time on email marketing for your brand
[1:49 – 2:22] Four of our top tips for boosting open and click-through rates
[2:23 – 4:05] Tip #1: Personalization is key
[4:06 – 5:34] Tip #2: Perfecting your subject line
[5:35 – 9:46] Tip #3: Creating attention-grabbing call-to-actions
[9:47 – 13:20] Tip #4: Segmenting your list for efficient marketing
[13:21 – 14:06] Closing

Mentions from this episode: 

Learn more and Start growing with us –

UMAI Marketing socials  –

Stay in touch:

Join UMAI’s Facebook Group: CORE 

#41: 4 Easy Ways to Increase Email Clicks & Opens

 

 
Alison Smith: [0:17]
Howdy, listeners. We’re Alison.
 
Karin: [0:19]
And I’m Karin.
 
Alison Smith: [0:20]
And we love growing CPG brands.
 
Karin: [0:22]
We’re the founders of a digital and social media marketing agency, UMAI Marketing, and creators of the Consumer Goods Growth Course, where we’ve helped grow dozens of brands to six and seven figures.
 
Alison Smith: [0:33]
We’re former in-house marketers turned consumer goods marketing educators who’ve set off on a mission to provide CPG founders and marketers with actionable strategies that drive community and sales. We’re talking real results.
 
Karin: [0:46]
If you’re wanting to learn simple, actionable, step-by-step strategies needed to drive real brand growth without breaking the bank or sacrificing your social life, then this is the podcast for you. Let’s get into today’s episode.
 
Alison Smith: [0:59]
Email is such an important marketing tool for any brand. It’s a way for you to have direct access to someone via their inbox, which allows you to create a meaningful relationship with your leads. In today’s episode, we’ll cover four easy things you can do to increase your opens and click-throughs right now.
 
Hey, everyone. Alison here. Hope everyone is enjoying their spring wherever you are in the world. Here in Austin, Texas, we didn’t really get a true winter. We had an ice storm for about a week. The whole city shut down, but then it jumped straight into spring/a little bit of summer. It’s pretty hot out there, so hope everyone’s having a good transition into their springtime.
 
[1:49] So today, we’re going to cover four of our top tips to help you increase your open and click-through rates for email marketing. We are huge advocates of email marketing. A lot of people find it a bit snoozy, a bit boring, but it is truly the OG of marketing. It’s been around for a long time, and it worked back in the day and it works now. It’s one of our highest drivers of ROI. So let’s hop into these four easy things that you can start implementing for your email marking right now.
 
[2:23] Number one, send from a name versus your brand. For example, instead of sending from hello@umaimarketing, we send from alison@umaimarketing or Karin from UMAI Marketing as when a brand says an email, people are ingrained to think it’s going to be salesy or promotional or spammy when it’s just a brand name. So instead, choose a front-facing person on your team and use their name as your send from. It can be the founder, the CEO, it can be the marketing director. It can be even a made up name, really, if you need to do that. But choose a name, a front-facing person to send all your emails from so that your audience can actually picture this person and they can picture that this email is written and coming from a person as they read through.
 
In fact, 42% of people surveyed said that the first thing that they look at when deciding to open or just archive an email is the sender or the from name. So using a first name of a person is going to help you grab attention, and likely it’s going to get you more opens than just sending from your brand. And it also builds that know, like and trust that we always talk about, because it’s coming from a person versus this brand entity that people can’t really put a face to. So that’s tip number one. Send from a name versus your brand’s name. It’s going to be more personal, which equals more opens which equals more clicks which then equals more sales.
 
[4:06] Tip number two is your subject lines. So start optimizing and testing your subject lines. We love to use first name merge tags in our subject lines. So instead of saying, “Open this email to get 20% off,” it could say, “Hey Alison, get 20% off now.” Calling that person out, knowing their first name and calling them out, it increases open rates significantly. We’ve tested this over and over and over again, and it is a huge driver for opens.
 
The step that you have to take, though, to get that first name is when you have a popup on your website asking for people’s email address, also add the first name field. You can make it required or you can make it not required depending on what the conversion rate, if it messes with your conversion rate by making it a required field. But overall, we actually make it required. And throughout the marketing funnel, by having that name, even if it drops conversion rates slightly by having that first name, and merging that first name into things like subject lines and then all throughout email bodies, it really personalized the email. It really makes the user feel like they’re being spoken directly to. And overall, it’s going to help opens and sales and conversion rates overall.
 
[5:35] Okay, and number three, make your CTA button stand out with contrasting colors. A CTA button is your call to action. It’s the little button that you’ll see on websites, on emails. We abbreviated it to CTA. But you want to draw the reader’s attention to where you want them to click by using bolded text in that button. You can even increase the text size of that button, and definitely use a different, contrasting color than your email body background. So if you’re using a cream-colored background, use a bright orange or a bright green color for your button.
 
One thing I will say is there is a whole psychology about colors. I am not super well versed with that. Go ahead and get into a Google hole on it. It’s pretty interesting.
But we often stay away from red as our CTA button because red, for people, mean stop. So often, we’ll use colors like a bright green or a bright orange, things like that. And of course, follow your brand guidelines. Hopefully, you have some really contrasting bright colors that you can use in your emails.
 
Also, ensure that you have that CTA button above the fold. So above the fold means that the user, when they open the email on mobile or desktop, they don’t have to scroll to see a CTA button. It is right there. As soon as they open the email, it is right there staring them in the face. They can click. They are told exactly what they need to do. And this really helps increasing your click-through rate by having that above the fold, telling someone exactly what they need to do, what you want them to do before they have to scroll.
We also recommend using action-oriented text on your buttons, like save 20% now. Telling someone what to do is really the motive here. You really need to tell someone what you want them to do.
 
So if it’s going to the site to shop a promo, it’s generally like, “Take 20% off now. Save 20% off now.” Things like that. If it’s just shopping generally, you can use shop now, get the insert product now, things like that. You also want to keep it short and sweet. A long button doesn’t look nice. You want someone to be able to glance at it and be able to… for their brain to register it. So keep it as short as possible. And again, we like to test our first-person pronouns in our CTA button. So if you’ve done that step with your pop-up to grab your lead’s first name, you can merge their first name into your CTA and make it super personalized and make it like you’re speaking directly to them. So instead of saying, “Get started now,” your buttons would say, “Get started now, Alison,” which is really, really powerful.
 
Another thing with CTA buttons is you should use them to address concerns, meaning agitate or addressing the problem or pain point. Again here, so if you have a nice hook at the top of your email that is hitting a pain point, you can sum it up inside of your CTA. So for example, if you’re selling a special ready-to-drink beverage that addresses dehydration, your CTA could highlight that pain point again by saying something like, “Stay hydrated,” as the copy on the button.
 
And then finally, about CTA buttons. I could talk all day about CTA buttons, but finally you want to create urgency as well. So again, if there’s a promo or a limited-time deal or a product that might go out of stock, use copy that is highlighting that urgency. For example, something like, “Get it before it’s gone.”
 
[9;47] Okay, our fourth and final tip for increasing your opens and click-through rates is segmenting your list and only sending weekly broadcasts to your most engaged leads. So some background here. We recommend that brands send at least one broadcast a week to their list. That does not include all of the automated flows that are running behind the scenes that are indoctrinating, selling, doing all the things on autopilot. We recommend sending a fresh broadcast as well, where you’re updating about something that happened with your product that week, just general education and maybe you got into a new retailer. Those are great for broadcast topics. But only send those to top engaged leads.
 
So what you can do if you’re inside MailChimp or Klaviyo, instead of sending to the whole list, make an audience that is people who have engaged with an email in the last 60 to 90 days or have engaged with the last five to 10 emails, is generally the range that we use. It’s going to be a shorter time if you’re a larger brand with a lot more leads. You can extend the timeline, say people who’ve engaged in the last 90 days, if you’re a smaller brand and really need to capitalize on the leads that you do have. So again, only top engaged folks should get your weekly emails, and it’s important to create and keep that cadence.
 
So if you can’t commit to a weekly broadcast, then start with once a month. Once you feel comfortable getting in that groove, that cycle of once a month broadcast, bring it up to two a month. Once you get able to make that content wheel work for you, that’s when you can get to weekly. What we don’t want you to do is condition your leads to expect a weekly email from you and then all of a sudden, things get crazy. You’re going to expo. You don’t have time to write your weekly email, so it falls off. Because those audiences are conditioned, that’s going to be a bit of a shock to them and they’re going to think something’s gone awry with your business. So just be very real with yourself on what you’re able to do and keep that cadence.
 
And then finally, tying that back, that segmentation of engaged leads only for those weekly broadcasts, the reason is you don’t want to send weekly emails to unengaged users as that’s going to drive down your deliverability for everyone else. So say you are just sending your email to everyone on your list. Once it gets delivered and it bounces or people mark it as spam or people don’t open it, then your email client is going to start marking down your deliverability because they think that your emails aren’t good, people don’t like them. So it’s going to lower your deliverability score and it’s going to shoot you in the foot for the long term. So what you want to do is focus on engaged folks only and only send to them, and that’s going to help you increase your opens and click-through rates down the line.
 
[13:21] Okay, we hope you enjoyed these four top tips to get higher open rates and click-through rates with email marketing, and are able to start implementing them ASAP. We’ll see you back here for our next episode.
 
Karin: [13:33]
Thanks for listening to the UMAI Social Circle, y’all. We’re here to support you in your CPG journey, so be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss any new podcast episodes. And while you’re at it, please leave us a review on your listening platform of choice. Shoot us a DM at umaimarketing on Instagram if you have any topics you want us to cover on new podcast episodes.
 
Alison Smith: [13:52]
And don’t forget to access our free masterclass, where we’re showing you how to create a solid marketing strategy. You can access that at umaimarketing.com/masterclass. And we’ll meet you back here for the next episode.
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