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After spending hours planning, designing, writing copy, programming, and segmenting your target audiences, you’ll want to make sure they get your email. Sadly, we’ve all had delivery issues. Most are due to bounces, unsubscribes, and spam filters.

Email bounces are common in email marketing. Unavoidable, but you can maintain a healthy email bounce rate. You can control some things, but not others, so you’ll need to adjust your strategy. Learn why emails bounce and how to reduce your bounce rate.

An Email Bounce

Email bounces occur when your email provider is unable to deliver your email for various reasons. According to Better Bounces, over 31 billion emails bounce every day, affecting almost every business. In most cases, a subscriber error prevented your email from reaching the inbox.

Why Email Bounce

• Mailbox is full. Most email providers limit storage. Your subscriber can no longer receive emails from you or anyone else.
• Bad IP address. A bad email service provider can prevent delivery. The reputation of an IP address is harmed if another marketer sends spam from it.
• You were blocked. Instead of unsubscribing, the recipient may have blocked your email address.
• Invalid email address. They may have given a false or incorrect email address when signing up.

Types of Email Bounce

Here are the different types of bounces and how to avoid damage.

1. Soft Bounce

A few soft bounces are harmless. They’re normal and part of the email bounce rate. A soft bounce usually indicates a problem with the subscriber’s email server. Plus, soft bounces are fleeting.

This means your email server will try to resend the email several times over hours or days until it is delivered. Most email providers have a standard time for retrying soft bounces. If your email is still undeliverable, your email provider may convert the failed soft bounce to a hard bounce.

If you’re getting soft bounces, tweak your campaigns and retest.

2. Hard Bounce

Hard bounces are serious and must be removed immediately to protect your service provider’s reputation. You can’t reach the subscriber and shouldn’t try. Hard bounces last.

Hard bounces indicate a bad email. The subscriber may have entered incorrect information or changed their address. In either case, remove the subscriber and keep sending to the rest.

Don’t enter your email address. New privacy laws in Europe and California require subscribers to opt-in for marketing emails.

How You can Reduce Email Bounce Rates

Depending on your list size, a healthy bounce rate is 2 to 3%. Remove hard bounces as soon as possible. With soft bounces, you should take steps to optimize your email delivery.

• Verify Domain

With your email provider, this is simple and can reduce bounce rates. It allows a specific server to send emails from your domain.

• Use of Consent form and Double Opt-in

Use double opt-in features to avoid hard bounces. Each new subscriber will receive an email asking them to verify their email address. Subscribers must physically click “yes” or follow a link to sign up. Assertion: Plus, only interested parties receive your emails.

• Prevent Spam Filters

Their algorithms are always changing. It’s critical to know what constitutes spam to avoid getting flagged and harming your ESP’s brand.

Don’t use trigger words like “money” or “FREE”, and don’t write in all caps. Sending emails with attachments or exclamation points may appear spammy to readers and reduce engagement. And low engagement can lead to spam filters.

• Check Email Bounces

Most ESPs and marketing automation platforms, as well as Better Bounces, provide email bounce diagnostics to help you understand error codes and how to improve deliverability. Your email service provider should also provide tools and information on email bounce rates.

• Disengaged Subscribers

Remove email addresses that haven’t been clicked or opened in 6 months. You may decide to send them a re-engagement campaign in the future, but not on a regular basis.

• Sort Your List

Sending emails to invalid or hard bounced addresses can harm your IP’s reputation and cause more bounces. Remove hard bounces from your list as soon as possible. Email hygiene is critical for long-term email marketing success.

Have your list cleaned to remove known bounces and spam traps. In order to avoid being blacklisted, you should remove spam traps from your website.

• Removal of Unsubscribes

Put your reputation on the line by continuing to email a prospect who has asked to be removed. To comply with CAN-SPAM, you must delete these emails immediately.

• Block Specific Domains and IPs

Consider blocking domains that have caused delivery issues in the past. It is possible to have multiple domains with the same IP address (eg. Never mail to ‘Postmaster’, ‘Info’, etc.

Keeping customer data clean and current can be difficult. It’s never been more important for email deliverability. ISPs do their best to protect customers from unwanted emails and spam. These ISPs decide if your email gets to the intended inbox. Email hygiene is critical for long-term email marketing success.

• Choose a Reputable Email Provider (ESP)

M3AAWG members have a compliance and deliverability team that monitors IP health and works with clients on reputation. Having a strong permission-only sending policy and adhering to industry standards reduces the risk for all customers.

Globally, 3.6 billion people use social media, with each person spending an average of 2 hours and 22 minutes per day. And that’s how long your prospects are willing to listen, learn, and buy from you. Moreover, engagement and movement are natural. Users are used to seeing ads and brand content in the social media marketing landscape. It seems to be part of the experience now. Other forms of advertising can still be intrusive.

Whether you work with a social media agency in London or do it yourself, the end goal is to be found by your audience. Social media gives you complete control over both aspects and drives profitable brand recalls.

Here are five reasons why SMM is more important than ever.

• It is Affordable
• Targeted Traffic
• Brand Recognition and Awareness
• Audience Understanding and Engagement
• Improved SEO

It is Affordable

Social media is completely free to use. If you stick to an organic marketing model, relying solely on your content quality and consistency, you will build a loyal audience.

Facebook and Google Ads are the world’s highest ROI paid channels. Using social media, you can compete with the big sharks at a fraction of the cost. With a wide range of ad strategies, you can start small and gradually increase your conversion rate.

Targeted Traffic

Not everyone will want or need to know about your product. Social media allows you to target your ideal customer and only market to them. Because you virtually reach your model prospects, this website traffic is highly targeted and ready to convert.

In short, every piece of content you post is a call to action. Also, social media ads allow you to target specific demographics such as age, gender, and location.

Brand Recognition and Awareness

A well-planned content strategy not only attracts but also identifies your audience with your brand. A well-executed brand conversation often generates widespread attention and appreciation. It also helps in bringing out the brand’s core message through content.

This promotes brand loyalty and recall. For example, a televised commercial can go viral when shared on social media. Like, share, and comment on your posts to gain more exposure and benefits for your brand.

Audience Understanding and Engagement

Social media is a powerful research tool. You can grab, analyze, and implement all of your customers’ interests, actions, opinions, and choices. This is similar to setting up a focus group for your products, but without the hassle.

Once you’ve found your tribe, social media allows you to listen and respond in real time. With two-way communication, you can improve your production and marketing efforts. Building a network of satisfied customers increases your reach through positive feedback and word-of-mouth.

Improved SEO

SEO is the accumulation of all signals received by a search engine from various platforms. This includes your website, blog and social media. Due to redirected and concentrated traffic, a brand with strong authority on the internet and an audience that values its opinions is certain to rank higher.

Simply re-sharing your website’s content on social media can help you generate organic leads and, as a result, effortless SEO. Social media buttons enable your audience to share your content, further boosting your SERP. Additionally, Google and Bing now include tweets in their search results, providing you with another opportunity to be featured.

In Conclusion

Time, tide, and social media change. The digital landscape is like a ticking clock. The sooner you learn to run with it, the better.

Social media marketing is a broad concept that can be broken down. Instead of overloading budgets with platform-specific strategies. Pick a site to start with. Then grow. Engage with your customers at their level.

From there, you can develop comprehensive strategies and expand to other networks. Incorporate a synergistic plan that relies on offline marketing. This can help establish a social media presence and increase conversion rates.

Finally, your social media marketing should lead to either your website or your local business. Prime them both to effectively use your platform’s ripples.

Did you know that Instagram has approximately one billion monthly active users? 81 percent of those one billion users use the platform to conduct brand research. Additionally, 58% report being more interested in a brand as a result of seeing it on Instagram Stories. Continue reading if you want to optimize your Instagram marketing strategy.

Instagram marketing is critical for businesses. The platform enables brands to increase their visibility and engagement with their followers.

Instagram Marketing Tips:

It’s time to revamp your Instagram strategy.

• Keep up with New Trends
• Run Instagram contests
• Create an Eye-Catching Brand
• Make use of Instagram Stories
• Partnering with Influencers
• Switch to a Business Profile
• Use Instagram content

1. Keep up with New Trends

New trends emerge, and it’s critical to keep up to keep your content relevant. Read up on industry news and prepare to pivot.

2. Run Instagram contests

Instagram contests are a great Instagram marketing strategy. Contests allow you to engage followers beyond a simple like.

Instagram contests can also increase your company’s followers by 70%. A 64x comment and 3.5x like increase. Contests help you gain exposure and audience followers.

3. Create an Eye-Catching Brand

This photo-based app requires a visually appealing profile. Creating a visually appealing brand can include:

• Finding a theme
• Palette selection
• Similar image sizes
• Consistently filter

4. Make use of Instagram Stories

Although these posts are only valid for 24 hours, you can save and reuse them. Instagram stories are less time-sensitive than standard posts. The alleviated pressure comes from the fact that stories are not required to conform to your aesthetic.

Additionally, Instagram stories can humanize your brand. Humanizing your brand encourages users to follow and interact with you.

5. Partnering with Influencers

According to CivicScience, 81% of users buy products because of Influencers. Find influencers who support your business.

Influencers benefit your brand by increasing engagement and introducing you to new audiences.

6. Switch to a Business Profile

This is the first step if your account is not a business profile. Instagram for Business allows followers to message you directly. This ability reduces drop-offs.

Instagram’s free marketing tools are available to business profiles.

Instagram business profiles provide insights like engagement, impressions, and follower demographics.

7. Use Instagram repurposing content

Repurposing content for Instagram is also effective.

It allows you to grow your Instagram account. Repurposing a tweet into an Instagram caption is one example. Repurposing also allows for increased website traffic, ROI, and search rankings.

It’s essential to schedule a reminder once a month, or at the very least once a quarter, to quickly run your email templates through another test. Here are some things to keep an eye out for:

• Broken links
• Outdated code
• Dark mode support
• Missing images
• Accessibility changes

1. Broken links

A broken link in an email is the worst. It not only frustrates your subscribers, but it often defeats the entire purpose of the email.

Check your templates as you create new web pages, update old blog posts, or switch CMSs. You never know when a redirect will fail.

What else to watch for? Double-checking your link tracking on your templates (and making sure they’re there!) It does you no good to have six different emails with the same UTM because you forgot to change the tracking when you copied the template.

2. Outdated code

Examine the emails’ code first. Is it the same way you code new ones? Are you using outdated workarounds? Examine the code and clean it up if you can. It will save you time later.

With old code, you need to consider the minor elements that get passed down. Check the copyright date and your footers every year. Some ESPs, like MailChimp, have auto-update shortcodes, but you’ll have to do this manually every January.

Check and test any personalized tokens you receive via email. The user’s first name may be displayed in error due to a data structure change.

3. Dark mode support

If your templates support dark mode, you know you last tested them. It’s still a new feature, but it’s become so popular that it’s worth checking that email clients aren’t inverting colors, removing contrast, or otherwise looking odd. Here’s a full dark mode checklist.

Ascend2 and Pathwire found that 59% of marketers are testing dark emails in 2021. Another 20% planned to start dark mode email testing soon. Now is a great time to test your templates in dark mode.

4. Missing images

Changes in email client support can cause missing images, but so can image file degradation or accidental deletion within your ESP or content delivery network (CDN). Check that your GIFs are still optimized and that your sizes work.

5. Accessibility changes

Always check your templates for accessibility. This is about making sure everyone in your audience can read and act on your emails with the best possible subscriber experience.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to get organic engagement on Facebook posts. You’ve noticed that despite your 1000+ Facebook fans, you struggle to get 100 likes and comments. Your conversion rate is so low that you sometimes don’t get a single link click.

You don’t have to delete your current Facebook page or create a new one. Instead, think about how to make your posts more engaging. Here are 5 tried-and-true methods to help you get there.

• Examine your top posts
• Go Live
• Post when your fans or followers are online
• Sort and Prioritize Comments
• . Use a CTA in your posts

1. Examine your top posts

Looking inward can help boost Facebook engagement. Let’s say you have a fantastic post. Lots of likes, shares, and love in the comments. Rather than dismissing it as an outlier, you should try to recreate the same social magic. Those few posts may be the keys to your organic engagements, so pay attention and try to emulate them occasionally.

2. Go Live

Facebook has also been promoting Live videos heavily.

They changed their algorithm to rank live videos higher than non-live videos. Facebook claims that “people watch Facebook Live videos three times longer than non-live videos” and “comment on Facebook Live videos ten times more than regular videos”.

This is a great way to interact with your followers and introduce new products or services. Holding a live Q&A will increase engagement and familiarity with your page and brand.

Plus, your followers may be more inclined to read your posts.

3. Post when your fans or followers are online

Get more organic Facebook engagements with this strategy. Even if not all of your followers are online at the same time, you must know when the majority are. Posting within this time frame will increase the likelihood of them liking, commenting, and sharing your post.

Examining your own data can help you find the best time to post.

On the Post tab of your Facebook Page Insights, you can see when your fans are online each day of the week.

You can target your posts to your followers based on their interests and availability.

4. Sort and Prioritize Comments

You can’t just “fix” your Facebook page engagement. If someone comments on your content, you should reciprocate. People want to interact with brands, which is why businesses that respond to comments get more interactions. Also, in today’s social space, replies are expected. People respect a social response within a few hours of commenting.

Taking the time to respond to fans shows that you care. This is good for branding and encourages future fan interaction.

If you don’t have time to respond to every comment/message, hire a social media manager. Their social media expertise can help grow online presence and customer base.

5. Use a CTA in your posts

Aside from the obvious “TAG YOUR FRIENDS!” posts, Facebook is trying to steer brands away from over-sharing. Adding a call to action to your posts is perfectly acceptable. Your fans will appreciate having a say and being reminded of their desires. To do so, simply add a question to your posts. Consider creating a series of posts where you regularly poll your followers. Encouragement of debate and discussion is fine, but not begging.

These strategies work well for small businesses and can be used in your next Facebook post to increase engagement. The best combination for your brand/business depends on your niche and target market. Examine all of these tactics to see which one works best for you.

Subject lines have long been proven to influence whether emails are opened, deleted, or sent to the spam folder. Here are 6 free tools to help you create email marketing subject lines that work.

Tools for Improving Email Subject Lines

• Headline Analyzer
• TestSubject
• Subject Line
• Email Subject Line Tester
• Capitalize My Title
• IsNotSpam

1. Headline Analyzer

This CoSchedule tool assesses the strength of your subject lines (and blog post titles). Common, uncommon, emotional, and powerful words are considered. Not to mention headline sentiment, keyword usage, length, and key idea placement.

The Headline Analyzer is great for comparing the strength of multiple subject lines in one session. Changing options does not delete previous ones. Rather, the Headline History section lets you see all scores at a glance and zoom in for more detail.

2. TestSubject

This ZURB tool is only for mobile. It also shows your sender name and pre-header text on the most popular devices. Before you send your emails, you can use this information to improve their effectiveness.

Because TestSubject only looks at the subject line and not the email content, it’s best used in conjunction with another tool that looks at the content.

3. Subject Line

This tool is as simple as it gets. You enter your subject line and get a list of its good and bad points. Each quality element of your subject line is assigned a point value, and you receive a score out of 100. Lose 15 points for a lack of urgency, gain three for using the second person POV.

Subject Line is so valuable because it is based on over 3 billion email messages (and counting). They’ve been tested on over 800 different rules and factors, so you can bet the creators of this tool know what works.

4. Email Subject Line Tester

Email Subject Line Tester, also by CoSchedule, is for email subject lines. It, too, has Headline History and shows previews of your subject line on various devices.

But the rest of the analysis isn’t. It reports on words that increase or decrease email opens, case, number of words, and length. Each section contains brief but valuable research-backed suggestions for improvement.

5. Capitalize My Title

This is useful if you use a particular style of capitalization in your subject lines (e.g. AP, Chicago, etc.). The tool is quick and simple to use. But Capitalize My Title also provides capitalization guidelines so you can avoid using the capitalization checker.

6. IsNotSpam

IsNotSpam alerts senders if their emails trigger spam filters. Simply send an email to the designated address to view your report. Checks It will highlight words or phrases that may cause your message to be spammed.

You’ll get insights into your entire email message as well as your subject line.

In Conclusion

As you can see, your subject line’s appearance, content, format, and more can all be tested. By doing your homework before sending a message to your subscribers, you increase your chances of success. Try out the above tools and see how you can combine them to write more compelling subject lines.

Social media strategists lead an organisation’s social media strategy in order to boost visibility and customer and client engagement

As a social media strategist, you’ll manage an organisation’s online presence by developing a strategy, producing good content, analysing usage data, facilitating customer service and managing projects and campaigns.

Social media management can be a distinct role in larger organisations and is sometimes known as social media coordination. In small and medium-sized companies, the role may be combined with other marketing and communications responsibilities. In agencies the term social media account manager is often used.

Social Media Strategist Responsibilities

• Design social media strategies to achieve marketing targets
• Manage, create and publish original, high-quality content
• Administer all company social media accounts ensuring up-to-date content
• Liaise with writers and designers to ensure content is informative and appealing
• Collaborate with Marketing and Product development teams to create social ‘buzz’ regarding new product launches
• Facilitate client-company communication (respond to queries, get reviews and organize chats and Q&A sessions)
• Prepare weekly and monthly reports on web traffic and ROI
• Monitor SEO and user engagement and suggest content optimization
• Communicate with industry professionals via social media to create a strong network
• Train internal teams to integrate and maintain a cohesive social media strategy
• Stay up-to-date with new digital technologies and social media best practices

Skills You’ll need to have:

• a solid understanding of the use of a range of social media platforms, particularly in relation to advertising/branding and customers
• strong copywriting and editing skills suitable for each platform, from knowing how to write a successful tweet to using effective storytelling techniques
• knowledge and understanding of algorithms and search engine optimisation
• creative skills for contributing new and innovative ideas
• strong communication and people skills for articulating ideas to colleagues and clients
• leadership qualities to lead and motivate a team
• excellent team working, collaboration and networking skills
• organisational skills, with the capacity to prioritise and work across multiple projects
• project and campaign management skills
• the ability to work well under pressure in order to meet deadlines
• skills in data analysis and interpreting statistics
• online community management and customer service skills to strike the balance between publicity and stimulating direct discussion with potential and actual customers
• an eye for detail and the ability to work accurately
• motivation and commitment.

How to become a social media strategist

To kickstart a career as a social media strategist, you first need to acquaint yourself with various social media platforms.

With a good understanding of how each platform works, the user demographics, and the kind of content published on the site, you’re one step closer to being a social media strategist.

This is, however, the starting point, to land good jobs in the field, you can try out the following strategies:

• attend conferences organized by influencers and digital marketers and create a rich network
• join twitter chats and participate actively to get a gist of what it’s like to manage a brand on a personal level
• join social media groups and observe what people post, how other users respond and the things that attract the most attention. You may also market small businesses in such groups as you work your way up the career ladder.
• read and subscribe to blogs that analyse digital marketing trends
• be an early adopter of social media trends and tools. This will boost your confidence and help you establish yourself as a trendsetter
• network with influencers. Such people will help you establish your personal brand as well as give you information on where to be and how to land gigs or jobs
• enjoy being on social media and develop a passion for the job. If you can’t enjoy responding to audiences and crunching data, then you’ll definitely not enjoy working as a social media strategist.

The toolkit of a social media strategist

Here’s a list of tools you can use in your day-to-day activity as a social media strategist:

Schedule content and collaborate with other teams:

• Planable
• Buffer
• Hootsuite
• Tweetdeck
• Meetedgar
• Sked Social
• AgoraPulse

Measure your campaigns’ performance and analyse your competitors’ social media actions:

• Socialinsider
• Buzzsumo

Track the SEO results

• SemRush
• Ahrefs

Monitor the brand’s mentions:

• BrandMentions
• Brand24
• Mention

What’s the difference between a social media strategist and a social media manager?

Even though the two terms may be used interchangeably, there are remarkable differences.

A social media strategist has a broader scope of responsibilities. They focus on the day-to-day social media activities, but they also think long term.

Their strategies are meant to cut across several departments in an organization, including marketing, customer service, PR, sales, advertising, and legal.

In a nutshell, social media strategists work on bridging the gap between offline and online activities in an organization.

Social media managers, on the other hand, may strategize campaigns, but their focus is on execution.

They monitor engagements on a daily basis and oversee the success of individual campaigns. Social media managers are likely to be found in digital marketing firms while social media strategists are likely to work in organizations as in-house experts or as account managers in marketing agencies.

In reality, the two professions may overlap depending on an organization’s size, resources, and structure.

No matter what kind of business you run or what space you work in, cold emailing is almost always an integral part of the modern outbound sales prospecting and lead generation process.

But with so many different types of software promising to improve your cold email campaigns, it can be challenging to figure out which ones are worth your time.

At the same time, email marketing has a 4400% return on investment, so it pays to use the right software for your needs.

1. QuickMail

Powerful & reliable cold email software with advanced automation and deliverability features.

QuickMail will let your team easily upload prospects, create outreach campaigns, follow-up at custom intervals, use personalization attributes, and set tasks. The best part is, you can automate the entire process.

But if your emails aren’t being delivered, nothing else matters.

QuickMail was built with deliverability in mind. Our free Auto-Warmer plan and built-in deliverability tools (inbox rotation, variable sending delays, enable/disable tracking per email, etc.) will make sure your emails land in the primary inbox.

You’ll land into more people’s inboxes, and more people will reply as a result.

2. Salesmate

Ideal for teams wanting a platform to manage their sales pipeline and automate their sales process

Salesmate is a platform for teams to manage and automate their sales outreach, cold calling, and sales productivity.

It offers more than just cold emailing, but for the sake of this post, we’ll just focus on those features. You can use their Sequences feature to build email campaigns that send on a predefined schedule. Also, you can even integrate automated SMS messages into those sequences, useful for ABM campaigns.

You can set up a variety of personalized settings on how to handle things like what to do if you get an out-of-office reply, campaign exit criteria, and assigning tags to prospects.

It’s a powerful tool and great for teams who want to collaborate on both sending emails and seeing their CRM activity in one place.

3. Mailshake

With Mailshake, you can send personalized emails in bulk with powerful mail merge features, schedule follow-up emails that are paused or triggered based on whether a recipient opens an email, clicks a link, or replies, and reply to leads straight from your Mailshake dashboard with Lead Catcher.

You can also set the amount of time between follow-ups (5 days between the first and second email, seven days between the second and third, etc.) and the days and times you want them to send (for instance, between 8 am and 6 pm on weekdays).

Mailshake allows you to AB test different subject lines, body copy, or even whole sequences to optimize your campaigns’ performance based on metrics like open rate, click-through rate, reply rate, and conversion rate.

Overall, Mailshake is a robust, easy-to-use cold email platform that deserves to be in every sales department’s toolbox.

4. HubSpot

Hubspot is one of the best-known names in email marketing and sales, and for good reason: they offer several highly robust software suites, or “hubs,” that meet various operational needs.

When it comes to sales, the Hubspot Sales Hub is undoubtedly one of the most popular and most polished software tools available for sales outreach. This sales CRM offers a wide swath of useful features, like email templates, call recording, email tracking, and document management and tracking.

Hubspot Sales Hub also takes some of the grunt work off your hands with email automation and an appointment and meeting scheduler. You can also use it to add live chat to your website.

However, Hubspot’s biggest strength doesn’t lie in any one piece of software. Rather, it has become one of the industry’s go-to tools precisely because its breadth of offerings allows businesses to create a sort of Hubspot ecosystem that facilitates communication between different departments, including sales, marketing, and customer service.

Overall, it is a particularly good choice for sales teams that want to make the most of cross-department communication.

5. Reply.io

Automate LinkedIn and email outreach in one place

Reply.io is a platform that bundles together email search, LinkedIn outreach, and cold email automation. You can find emails and build a prospect list within Reply, then upload prospects to your personalized campaigns.

As you would expect, you can track and monitor the performance of your campaigns, and reply also includes features to help you write a clear, compelling cold email template.

It’s a bigger platform than most of the other recommendations here because it integrates a prospect database and LinkedIn outreach with an email sending platform.

According to a McKinsey analysis, the average professional spends 28% of their workday reading and responding to email. This equates to an astounding 2.6 hours per day spent and 120 messages received by the average full-time worker in America.

Here are five ways we waste time unnecessarily and how to reclaim it:

1. Checking email excessively wastes 21 minutes per day
2. Daily time loss of 27 minutes due to clogged inboxes
3. 14 minutes per day are wasted by using folders to organize and find emails.
4. Using a mouse to archive emails into multiple folders wastes 11 minutes per day.
5. Each day, we spend eight minutes reading and processing irrelevant emails.

Email has become the bane of the twenty-first-century worker’s existence, but by implementing just these five practices, email can be restored to its former glory:

• Disable notifications and check your email hourly instead
• When you read an email for the first time, move it out of your inbox.
• Retrieve emails using the search functionality and search operators.
• Create two email folders and use shortcuts to archive emails in those folders.
• Avoid manually processing irrelevant or less important emails.

Here are three simple steps to maximize your sales team’s potential:

• Help them discover themselves
• Help them find their place in the organization
• Give them the tools to thrive

1. Help them discover themselves

Sales is one of the few fields where entry is relatively easy; no formal degrees or certifications are required.

So a smart sales manager can do a lot to develop their sales team’s raw talent. One of the simplest steps is to help each member of your sales team discover their unique skill set. You can go as deep as you want, but you can mix their strength and personality assessments.

Examine the results together after receiving the assessments. Ask your team member if the results matched their expectations or if they were a surprise. You’ll be surprised at how much you learn about each other in just 30 minutes.

This is a great sales leader exercise. Identifying your team’s strengths helps you decide who to deploy when. It adds enormous value to your sales professional and fosters feelings of belonging and loyalty.

2. Help them find their place in the organization

According to Gallup, roughly 70% of workers are disengaged from their jobs. One reason is that many employees don’t feel personally connected to the company – they don’t see how their efforts help the company or make the world a better place. Motivate and inspire your sales team by connecting their efforts to the bigger picture.

Savvy sales leaders will use the information gathered about their sales team members to foster collaboration and then assign them to areas where they can naturally excel.

Your sales team has energizers and depleters. Knowing this allows you to place team members in situations where they will thrive, succeed, and enjoy their jobs more.

3. Give them the tools to thrive

When asked, most sales leaders said they provide extensive internal training for their salespeople. When asked to rate these training programs, sales professionals said they were largely irrelevant.

So-called “sales training” often focuses on teaching salespeople about the company, culture, and products rather than teaching them how to influence potential customers.

Any sales training program should aim to provide salespeople with a mix of hard and soft skills to help them reach their full potential. Body language, objection handling, role-playing, empathetic listening, and persuasive storytelling are just a few examples.

Follow-up and accountability are often the keys to developing sales professionals. 90 percent of all sales training is lost due to sales leaders failing to reinforce key principles. Accountability and repetition are key to adopting desired behaviors.

Developing your salespeople doesn’t have to be difficult or costly. Getting the most from sales representatives is changing as a new generation enters the workforce. Moving away from one-size-fits-all sales training systems to a more individualized coaching journey pays dividends in terms of sales production and retention.