Ron Davies runs many email marketing campaigns with AWeber and says these campaigns have been instrumental in his business growth and success. I worked with him personally on optimizing his campaigns and noticed that he has been very successful with building his lists.
I was impressed by the different strategies Ron was using, so we'll look at Ron's secrets for building a successful campaign and discuss how you can implement them to build your own engaged list.
AWeber's support offices will be closed on Monday May 30, 2011 as we observe Memorial Day.
As always, we will monitor the AWeber system and the support inbox to address any critical issues.
We'll be back at 8:00AM Eastern Time on Tuesday, May 31st to answer your questions by phone, email and live online chat.
Thanks, and have a great holiday!
Origin: Inbox Ideas
Pop-up type forms make this something you need to consider. These forms can greatly increase your subscribers for your email marketing campaign. You can set how much time elapses before the form comes up, but the question is: how much time should that be?
Split testing allows you to set up a controlled experiment within your account to test and see when you should have your form come up. We had a couple volunteers try out this experiment, and we'll be discussing their results and why it may or may not work for you.
Some of you market as your 9-5 gig, some of you spend your weekends writing messages and for some of you, email marketing is something you're constantly managing.
Which means you need our Customer Solutions Team to be available as much as possible. After all, their help has delighted thousands of customers and is a strong point of AWeber pride.
And we wish we could support you every day. We really do. But wishing does no good, with our fairy godmother on vacation and all.
So we're just going to make it happen without her.
And currently, you only get it for six days of those days.
Starting next weekend, June 4 & 5, 2011 you'll be able to get answers and advice from us on Sundays, too. You can get in touch with us during these hours (Eastern Standard Time):
After that, you'll never have to go a day without talking to us again! (Lucky you. ;) )
LiveChat
Available every day during the hours listed above. You'll instant message back and forth with an email specialist, who will be able to send you links to helpful articles or instructions. Just click the green LiveChat button on the AWeber site.
Phone
Monday through Friday, call in and we'll talk you through whatever problem needs solving. We're available toll-free in the US at +1 877-293-2371. Outside the US, you can reach us at +1 215-825-2196.
Email us at any time; we'll just respond during business hours. For email support, just fill out this contact form.
As an email service provider, we succeed when we help our customers succeed.
So if there's anything we can do to help, just ask! We'll be happy to help.
And if you know any email marketers who could use a service with weekend support, you know who to suggest!
Source: Inbox Ideas
The question is: are you creating compelling messages that make subscribers keep coming back for more?
Roller Warehouse has their aggressive skating crowd interacting with them regularly, thanks to their email campaign. Their biweekly deal approach has brought them a great return on investment, customers are interacting with their business like never before, and they were eager to share their results and strategies with fellow online marketers. Here they are...
Roller Warehouse sends out their deals on skating equipment and apparel every Tuesday and Friday.
The Tuesday email usually looks like this:
Tuesday's email requires a phone call to order the sale item:
Roller Warehouse explains that the reason the deal can't be done online is because their price is too low to publish. This is a great way to get customers on the phone and talking to you. That offer also gives a sense of urgency, since the deal has an expiration date.
The Friday deal the subscriber can order online:
This approach can appeal to subscribers that are interested in getting deals, but maybe don't want to call in to order. Another consideration is that subscribers may have more time on the weekend to think about their hobby.
There is also the advantage that online orders can come in while offices are closed for the weekend.
This deal also has a sense of urgency, since it expires once the weekend is over.
Roller Warehouse is proud of the campaign's performance so far. Since implementing this method they've had:
1. Consider the Audience
Roller Warehouse's target market consists of kids and young adults. Roller Warehouse looked at reports of when subscribers were opening the messages, and that's how they found Tuesday would be a good send day. Friday was picked as the second day because most of their audience doesn't have school on the weekends.
Are you looking at when your subscribers are reading? Use your reports to find out what day your subscribers open messages, and send your emails keeping that information in mind.
2. Utilize Social Media
Roller Warehouse promotes sharing their deals with others by including a link to share with Facebook friends:
With one click the deal can be shared with friends, allowing even more people to interact with Roller Warehouse. You can do this by uploading the Facebook logo as an image in your email, then hyperlink that image using this:
http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=Just replace the
With social media becoming an increasingly more valuable tool for marketing, you want to make sure you're using sites like Facebook and Twitter to promote your business
3. Build a relationship with subscribers
Roller Warehouse does not just go for the hard sell in their deals. They use a friendly tone and even create cool videos for the products they're promoting:
You can click to view one of their videos below:
Roller Warehouse also keeps in mind that not everyone will be attracted to the featured deal, so they include other products that are on sale as well:
Along with that, Roller Warehouse includes news from their blog so subscribers will still interact with the site even if they aren't interested in the current deals:
Take a look at your last email and make sure you're working on building a relationship. Are you having a conversation with your subscribers or is it an advertisement? Are you asking for feedback? Do you provide materials your subscribers will find interesting?
Have a friend look over your messages and let you know if your personality comes out in it, or if it sounds like a salesperson.
4. Stay ConsistentIf you don't set expectations for valuable messages, subscribers won't be reading. Roller Warehouse has set a consistent schedule for their campaign, which means subscribers know when to expect getting the deals. All their messages include either the phone deal for Tuesday or online deal for Friday, and they make sure to include product demos in all their messages.
Make sure you have set expectations for your campaign early on, and stick to the schedule and material you promised!
Roller Warehouse likes how their biweekly deals are performing, while companies like Groupon and LivingSocial have found daily email deals work great for them.
What results have you seen from email deals? What other tactics have you tried to increase sales?
Original: Inbox Ideas
That's pretty low. But you can avoid such an extreme click-through crash, if you know how.
You see, your 4 month-old subscribers probably get the same emails as your newest readers. But 4 months in, they're at a different stage in their relationship with your brand. So are readers-turned-customers. So are those who've stopped reading.
So send different versions of your emails (and maybe even entirely different emails!) to subscribers at each stage. Here are four easy ways to send stage-sensitive emails.
New subscribers are excited about your brand. They're anticipating good things. So make sure you have good things waiting: set up a few follow up messages to meet them.
Introduce them to your business and get them used to your emails. You can even set a message schedule to ease them in gently.
For example:
Yolanda wants subscribers to her yoga studio's emails to get familiar with the studio so they'll feel comfortable coming in for classes. So she sets three follow up messages. The first explains the studio's philosophies and type of practice, the second introduces each instructor and the third has photos of the studio, including changing areas and storage spaces.
For Yolanda's readers, signing up for a class is naturally the next step to take.
To send follow ups with AWeber, follow these instructions.
First, make sure you're tracking who's purchased from you and who's downloaded files you've sent. This helps you keep your offers relevant.
When it's time to send a product offer, exclude the subscribers who have already purchased it (unless it's something they'll need on a recurring basis). Then, follow up on those past purchases with offers for related products or accessories.
For example:
Wright the writer just released version 2 of his e-book on wicker working. may want to announce a new advanced-level supplement to his previously released ebook. He could offer the supplement to people who've already downloaded the original. To everyone else, he could send an offer for his the first book, with a little paragraph at the bottom inviting them to purchase the supplement if they want that, too.
To segment based on downloads in AWeber, follow these instructions, searching by "web page visited" and entering the URL of your download page.
The longer a subscriber stays on your list, the more time and interest they've invested in your brand. Show them you appreciate their loyalty and respect their opinion by asking for their feedback.
For example:
Ricky's Restaurant wants to expand its menu. Ricky sends pictures of a few potential new dishes to his long-time readers, asking them to vote on their favorites. He keeps track of the votes, and lets his readers know which dishes won. He even segments by "links clicked" to send a coupon to those who voters!
To send a survey in AWeber, follow these instructions.
Veteran subscribers are probably pretty familiar with your brand and your more basic products. Newbies won't be. So when you send out information or announcements, send two versions. make sure to choose the most appropriate audience - segment who you send to by the date they signed up.
For example:
The Midtow Middle School sends out an announcement about their Christmas pageant. They send two emails: one to long-time parents and another to new parents. The email to new parents contains parking information and directions to the auditorium, while the other parents receive a simpler announcement with a request to help out with refreshments.
To segment by sign up date in AWeber, follow these instructions, searching by "date added" to create your subscriber groups.
Adjusting your messages for the various stages of the sender-subscriber relationship is a form of lifecycle marketing, where the marketer adjusts their tactics to the recipient's position in the traditional sales cycle.
Do you consider lifecycle in your marketing? Do you think it's necessary?
Share your thoughts in the comments!
Hat Tip To: Inbox Ideas
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First off, it's important to think about what influences a subscriber's decision to read your message or not. Whether your end goal is a click or a sell, the subscriber won't be taking any action until they actually open your email.
We'll be looking at three different email newsletters that did a good job getting people to read the message, bringing in a unique open rate of over 50%, and then you can apply their strategies to your messages.
These are what our examples look like in a GMail inbox:
These three businesses have some different and some similar methods for getting subscribers to read their messages. We're going to take a look at how they approach the subject line and how they make the from line something the subscriber will recognize:
Branding In the Subject Line
You want to use your brand as much as possible so that when a subscriber looks at your message in their inbox they immediately know who you are and what to expect from you. All three businesses included their company name in the subject line. Might seem redundant, but it's working!
The best thing you can do is split test your broadcasts to find out what gets the best results. Besides what we talked about here, you many also want to consider:
Of course there are still even more factors that will determine whether or not your message gets reads. For example, setting expectations plays a big part in your ongoing subscriber response right.
So what do you do to ensure your subscribers keep coming back for more? Share your thoughts!
Hat Tip To: Inbox Ideas
The straightforward solution is simply asking each subscriber what they'd like to receive.
Asking at sign up can make your form too long and off-putting. So ask for preferences in an email survey instead.
You've seen how surveys can help you deliver more targeted email campaigns, now here's a nuts-and-bolts look at how to set it up.
That's why you can download the Getting Started Guide (pdf), and why Jay will talk you through campaign basics in the How To Get Started webinar.
But so far, you've been on your own for the next step: figuring out how to adjust those directions for your specific business.
We want to help. So we wrote up some guides to email marketing for a few different industries. And yes, they're free.
Our API is continuing to evolve, and the number of apps that are available to AWeber users is growing. This week, we'd like to take a moment to highlight several new apps designed to make using AWeber with other services even easier.
Most recently, we're thrilled to announce the AWeber Facebook app!
All of which means you probably use the urgency tactic once in awhile. You know, the "six hours only!!" sale or the announcement of "just three copies left!!"
And this can certainly work. But if anyone opens your message too late, it thuds like a drop in a hollow bucket. Worse, if they try to click through to purchase, they could be cranky when they realize they're too late.
What if you could magically make the email content adjust itself to the situation so when latecomers open it after the fact, they see a completely different message?
First of all, keeping your message current like this is just good customer service.
Secondly, it shows you're on top of things, which can only benefit your reputation.
And finally, it shows that the urgency of your offer is for real - if subscribers want your deals, they'd better open faster next time.
If you're a product shown in your email sells out, create an image that reflects this and swap it with the previous image. Like in this email from women's retailer Chadwick's.
When your sale is over, replace your sale announcement with a notice that they missed it, but you'll have others soon! And in the meantime, give them something else to do, like Home Depot did in this email.
And you don't have to be a giant chain store to do it...you can just be one guy in front of a computer, or the tiny cafe down the street. It just requi
res?You can update any information in your email, as long as it's in the form of an image.
Why? Because images don't actually live in your message. They live on the web page you uploaded them to.
Think of that page's URL as the image's address. When someone opens your email, it displays whatever image it finds at that URL. So all you need to do to update your email post-send is change the image that lives on that URL.
To make the magic happen, you'll need to be hosting your images on your own site manually, or via a content management software like WordPress. (This doesn't work on public image hosting sites.)
This is an easy fix: after the sale or other event is over, use your FTP client or other file management software to upload the new image.
The advantage to this method is that you have complete control over the file's URL; the catch is that it does require you to be familiar with using an FTP client or other file management soft
ware.If you're not familiar with FTP, here's an article and a video on using it.
Here are a couple of FTP clients that you can use for this:
If you don't want to manage the file upload yourself, have a developer handle it for you, or try using a content management system like WordPress.
Note: before you use WordPress to manage this, check to see if you're organizing your uploads into folders based on the year and month you upload them. You can do this at the "Settings" > "Media" page in your WordPress admin area. If you are doing so, it may be better to not use WordPress for this, because in some cases you won't be able to overwrite the original image properly from within WordPress.
Remember, this method is only good for images. But if you make the entire email one big image, it might trip a spam filter. So only use images for the parts you'll want to update later.
Just make sure the rest of your email looks good around both the original content and the update, and you're good to go!
Once you get this process down, you can get creative with how you use it. Announce the end of sales and sold out products. Change your price if something's not selling (or selling too much at too low a price!)
Would you ever make these updates by swapping out the images? What other changes might you make?
Hat Tip To: Inbox Ideas
Among other things, we moved into a brand new office, hired even more talented individuals, focused on giving back and worked hard to foster a sense of true community at work through various events and opportunities for recognition of jobs well done.
Yet even though AWeber is constantly evolving, one thing remains the same: our Core Values define the AWeber family. Only they've changed a little too, so we want to share them with you and give AWeber employees the chance to explain why they really sum up what makes AWeber an awesome place to work.
This is an instant turn-off, regardless of whether it's as simple as clicking one button to enable images for the message. It's a hassle; a helpful decision maker for a subscriber on the fence as to whether or not they care to remain on your email list.
If you're wondering how many subscribers stand to see your blank, poorly formatted message, you'll be surprised to learn that MarketingSherpa found only 33% of those surveyed have images turned on by default in their email client. That means 67% are likely to see the mess of text and boxes you thought only a handful might see.
Here are some tips for creating messages that perform well with or without images enabled.
